High Fidelity News -- New equipment and developments -- Super Concorde; Two-in-One Filter; Home-Grown Supervinyl
by Peter Dobbin
Super Concorde
Ortofon has added a moving-coil pickup to its line of models that plug directly into standard four-pin headshell couplings. The Concorde cartridges employ the variable-magnetic-shunt principle and thus are fixed-coil pickups; the MC-200 looks similar (though it is not called a Concorde), but is a moving-coil design with its operating elements housed in the removable "nose cone." (Ortofon says the stylus assembly is user-replaceable but recommends obtaining the assistance of a dealer.) The boron cantilever holds a multiradial Fine Line diamond tip, and the pickup tracks at 1.5 grams, unusually low for a moving-coil model.
The samarium cobalt magnet structure contributes to its miniaturization and weight control, and Ortofon's Wide Range Damping is said to improve the cantilever's dynamic behavior. The U.S. price of the Danish cartridge has not yet been announced.
A Piano, Plus
While Korg says it has paid particular attention to duplicating the attack and envelope characteristics of acoustic pianos-including their pitch-dependent decay rate-in designing the LP-10 electronic piano, the instrument also is capable of nonrealistic options. ELECTRIC PIANO and CLAV voices can be mixed with the ACOUSTIC PIANO sound or selected alone; a three-position SUSTAIN switch can produce organ effects; the sound of a variable-speed CHORUS ranges from doubling to honky-tonk piano. There also is a six-band equalizer with 12 dB of cut or boost in each band and a key transposer with a thirteen –half-tone range. The LP-10 costs $860.
Speakerlab Updates
If it's some time since you looked at the line of loudspeaker systems--factory constructed units, kits, plans, and components--offered by Speakerlab of Seattle, you're in for some surprises.
Many of the drivers incorporate the company's Polylam polymer treatment, often in conjunction with polypropylene cones; and there now are two leaf tweeters, with aluminum "voice-coil" conductors printed on polymer membranes that are mounted between samarium cobalt magnets. The two systems pictured here are the current designs from engineer Mila Nestrovic, using his two-driver woofer system. The larger S-50 costs $1,300 per pair in kit form or $980 apiece assembled; the S-40's prices were not available at publication time. Other models range down to the $69 (assembled) Model SJ.
Buy/Sell by Mail
The New England Electronics Exchange publishes monthly lists of components offered for sale by individuals at below-list prices-everything from the proverbial sealed cartons with factory warranty intact to well-used gear that a quirk of progress or a change in taste has rendered superfluous. A subscription to the newsletter costs $6 per year; if you use the service to sell your excess equipment, NEEE will also take 10 per cent of the action-substantially less, it points out, than you would have to give up on a typical trade-in.
Home-Grown Super-vinyl
The Keysor Corporation, a major supplier of vinyl resins for the manufacture of LPs, says that its new KC-600 compound will outperform any record material in the world. The compound--which, atypically, achieves its black color with out using carbon black--can replace premium imported materials costing 50 to 100 percent more, according to Keysor.
The manufacturer claims both superior sound and improved stamper longevity among the virtues of the KC-600 compound, which-it is said-can help bring down the price of pressing superdiscs.
Wireless Hookup
Nady Systems has a low-cost wireless transmitter/receiver system, the PRO-49, for use with electric guitars or other electronic instruments that normally re quire umbilical hookups to amps or mixers. The transmitter weighs only 2 1/2 ounces and can be operated up to 250 feet from the receiver, according to Nady. The system is rated for over 10 hours of operation on a 9-volt alkaline battery. The PRO-49 costs $400 with the GT-49 guitar transmitter; it also is avail able as a wireless microphone, with the LT-49 transmitter (which has a built-in ECM-1025 lavalier mike).
In-One from Ace
Ace Audio's Model 4100-X24 Super at tacks two audio hobgoblins--power-robbing infrasonics and distortion-inducing ultrasonics. This add-on filter employs rolloff slopes of 24 dB per octave below 20 Hz and 12 dB per octave above 20 kHz and is designed to be inserted be tween preamplifier and power amp, or in the pre-out/main-in jacks on receivers. The unit is said to incorporate precision internal components and costs $142.
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Also see:
1982 Speaker Designs: Closer to Perfection? by Michael Riggs and Peter Dobbin-- A look at 100 new speakers; plus, how four speaker designers view their work.
Basically Speaking by Michael Riggs--Understanding sound and sound reproduction