THE BUCKS START HERE

Getting Off Cheap

What did you spend for your stereo system--$1,000? $10,000? (Our average reader's system is worth about $4,000.) Whatever its cost, sooner or later someone-probably someone near and dear to you-is going to say, "You mean you spent that much for a record player?" When that happens, tell them that your system was cheap ... compared to what you could have spent on it. If you bought the most expensive item in each category of our recent Annual Equipment Directory, you would have wound up spending a lot more than what you've spent already--probably more than you've ever dreamed of spending.

For example, the most expensive turntable system you could get would be the Goldmund Reference turntable ($10,900), the Goldmund T3 linear arm ($2,800-but save $800 if you opt for a pivoted Mod Squad Triplanar arm, instead), and the Kiseki Lapus moving-coil cartridge ($3,500). That's $17,200--and you can't even hear it yet.

To remedy that, get the Burmester 808 preamp ($8,450) and a pair of Stax Lambda Professional headphones ($800). Assuming those will work together (I haven't had the courage to look), we now have a nice-sounding, if rather private, phonograph for just $26,450. Now, don the headphones to drown your family's screams, and pick up your calculator for the next lap.

You want a full complement of sound sources, naturally. So add Sony's CDP-5000 professional CD player ($6,500), the Sequerra tuner ($5,000), the Revox B710 Mk II cassette deck ($2,000), and the Mark Levinson ML-5 open-reel deck ($14,400). Total so far, $54,350. For digital recording capability, we'll want the dbx 700 digital processor ($4,600) for its 110-dB dynamic range. But since the dbx 700 uses a unique recording system, we'll also want a Sony PCM-F1 ($1,900) to stay compatible with those friends of ours who make regular PCM tapes.

Then we'll need a video recorder to take down the digits-a VCR with Hi-Fi sound, so we can use it for good analog taping too. It should also be portable, to take advantage of the PCM-F1's portability. I don't know, offhand, of any Beta Hi-Fi portables, so, despite a possible need for plug adaptors, let's make it the VHS Hi-Fi Quasar VP5747XE, at $1,600. (So what if it's not in our Directory. Live a little!) That foray into digital added $8,100, bringing the total so far to $62,450 ... and still no one but you can hear it. So now for amplifiers and speakers: We already have that Burmester preamp, so next we need Esoteric Audio Research power amps, 500 watts per channel, a mere $10,000 per pair.

For speakers, my eye lit first on the Mavrick Audio MAM-1 system, for $50,000-but that includes its own amplifiers, which would bring us back into the budget category, relatively speaking. So I guess our choice is the Wilson Audio Modular Monitor, or WAMM, for $42,000. (The Infinity Reference Standard Ill is only $31,500 per system, hardly worth talking about.) That brings the total system cost to $114,450, with the speakers taking up a reasonable 37% of the total. But are we done? Hardly. Since a system like this will reveal every defect in the source material, we'll need gadgets to conceal those defects again. So we'll get a Packburn 323 noise suppressor ($2,450), which combines click and pop reduction with dynamic noise suppression; we'll get a dbx 4BX expander ($800), too. To equalize the program material's frequency response, we'll get a Sony Esprit SE-P900 parametric equalizer ($1,750); to equalize our room, we'll get the 31-band Klark-Teknik DN360 ($1,500). And while we're adding accessories, we'll get a dbx 224X noise reducer ($250) in case we want to make or play dbx recordings. There we are, just $121,200. Of course, that doesn't count delay systems, cables, turntable mats, tape and record storage, equipment cabinets, record cleaners, and (in most states) sales tax. Not to mention sound-conditioning for our listening room, whether it takes the form of acoustic panels or Persian rugs. But here you're on your own, for these don't appear in our Directory. And we hear four-channel might be coming back.... If you have any change left, buy a record.

Electronics Is 80--Or Is It 101?

The first electronic tube was made in 1904 by J. A. Fleming in England.

It was soon used as a detector in radio-telegraphy. So we could say that this is electronics' 80th anniversary.

But we could also say, with equal justice, that it is 101 years old. For it was in 1883 that Thomas Edison noted a puzzling effect: An electric current could be made to flow across the empty space between a lightbulb filament and a tinfoil coating on the inside of the glass, and that current would flow only in one direction. It was more than a decade later before J. J. Thompson showed that the Edison Effect was due to the passage of electrons.

Of course, there will be those who date the birth of electronics not from Edison's observation or from Thomson's diode but from Lee de Forest's triode (1906). For them, electronics will be 78 years old.

Happy birthday, anyway, whichever one it is.

Kit-builders should not assume that they've done everything correctly just because their newly built equipment runs. It can take years for some assembly errors to manifest themselves. I've had kits stop working after five years or more because of semi-cold (cool?) solder joints that took all that long to become nonconducting, and wires not even soldered which took equally long to work their way loose. If a kit-built component dies of presumed old age, double-check your workmanship before you start hunting for sick parts.

Ask for the Estimate

After 15 years, the preamp in my bedroom system went dead in one channel, so I sent it back to its maker for repair. Back it came promptly ... with a $95 C.O.D. charge.

Would I have had it fixed if I'd known the price? Maybe, maybe not.

It's still a better preamp than I could buy for $95, though probably not as good as one I could get today for $250 or so. I would have preferred some time to think about it.

I'd have had that time, if my letter to the service department had asked for an estimate. Some service shops automatically give estimates, others give estimates only when the cost of repair looks disproportionately high to them, while still others only estimate when told to. Be on the safe side--ask for an estimate before servicing.

Even the estimate should cost you something. To estimate the cost of a repair, a shop has to open the component up and diagnose it, and diagnosis often takes more time than replacing the affected parts.

However, reputable shops will tell you the cost of getting estimates before you commit yourself even that far.

Gain vs. Pain

Mostly, our volume controls just control volume, and all we have to do is adjust them till the sound level is right. But when we have two volume controls in series, the positions of both controls count.

I got a reminder of that when I hooked up an old preamp and amp to my new component video system. I hadn't realized video sound was that distorted ... till I figured out that I was overloading my preamp's input stage by feeding it too strong a signal from the video tuner. Turning down the tuner volume got rid of the distortion; turning the preamp's volume up restored normal sound level.

If the tuner's output had been too low, of course, I would have had to turn my preamp's gain up higher, giving me noise instead of distortion.

Most of us know this stuff; we just forget to apply it sometimes, at least for a minute or two.

Best in the Neighborhood

To get the finest audio system in the neighborhood, some audiophiles spend months shopping and listening. But there are shortcuts: You can always find someone to select and assemble your system for a fee.

Speaker designer Richard Shahinian has done a few such installations in the past. One was for someone who'd heard a neighbor's $8,C00 system and wanted to outdo it. He didn't specify what the system should contain--just that it should cost $11,000. When the system was completed, the customer complimented Shaninian, gave him a $100 tip, and then told him: "Remember, you don't do any more $11,000 installations in this town--$8,000, $10,000, okay, but no more $11,000 jobs!"

(adapted from Audio magazine, Jan. 1985)

= = = =