Reviewer's Bio

A. Colin Flood
The Value Of Vintage

  A South Florida technical writer by trade, with champagne tastes on a beer budget, A. Colin Flood is disheartened at chintzy audio offerings of local retail chains. He looks for the most "bang" for his meager bucks. Colin is not associated or affiliated, in any form or fashion, with any firm of any kind, in the home theater or high fidelity industry, except Enjoy the Music.com.

The home movie and music reproduction system crowded into his small living room is a two-channel set-up with: Oppo multimedia player, Behringer digital EQ, Dynaco Series II classic PAS-3 tube pre-amplifier, on a Gingko Audio Cloud isolation platform. The PAS-3 drives two sets of amps with passive bi-amplification. A pair of custom Bottlehead Paramour monoblock 2A3 amplifiers, rated at a mere 3.5 watts, drives the mid and high-range horns of his classic loudspeakers.

Solid -State Bass

A vintage, 48-pound Pioneer, 60-watt monster (think mini-Krell, with 33,000 uF capacitors) powers the bass bins of his big ole horns. For solid-state reference, Colin alternates between a Harmon/Kardon vintage 330B receiver and Red Wine's Clari T battery-powered amplifier.

Classic Horns

Colin is one of the few reviewers to consistently use big ole horns and low-powered tube amplifiers as his reference system. His four feet high, 167-pound 1989 Klipsch corner horns are some of the largest loudspeakers available. The "Khorn" is a three-way, fully horn loaded, diamond-shaped loudspeaker, which fits snugly into room corners. A 15-inch woofer in the folded triangular bass bin below wraps bass around, rolls it off the walls and creates smooth sound down to 25 Hz.

Khorns are fantastically efficient at 104dB/W/m, making them incredibly easy-to-drive and very dynamic (see Stereos, As They Relate to Indoor Sport)! Khorn nominal impedance of 8 ranges from 4 to 30 Ohms. Despite their gargantuan size, the spousal/wife acceptance factor (WAF) of smooth Khorn response, sensitivity, out-the-way footprint and dynamics is very high. The big ole horn and tasty tube amplifier combination remains one of the best sounding and most practical combinations available today; especially when backed by solid-state muscle.

Subwoofers

Colin reviewed the ACI Titan and loved it. His bass cables are thick gray Coincident Technologies' CST-1 rattlesnakes, while generic copper serves the top-end. Interconnects are Monster Silver and Radio Shack optical. His small living room has dry walls, with wood floors on concrete; dampened with a half-dozen Realtraps panels.

Discs

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