Welcome to The Abso!ute Sound online! We explore music and the reproduction of music in the home. We believe that the sound of music, unamplified, occurring in a real space is a philosophic absolute against which we may judge the performance of devices designed to reproduce music. Our goal is to provide the resources consumers need to judge how a component's sound either honors or departs from the music's truth, and to make sound purchasing decisions that maximize their experience of reproduced sound. Below is our Issue 150, October/November 2004 table of contents and editorial.

October / November 2004

Editorial

  

Viewpoints

6 - From The Editor

8 - Letters

104 - Manufacturer Comments 

 

Columns

16 - Industry News 

18 - Start Me Up: Steak and Lobster on a Spam Budget
Sue Kraft assembles a terrific budget system from North Acoustic, Tube Audio Design, and Marantz. 

23 - TAS Journal: RCA Living Stereo on SACD
Join Fred Kaplan for an exclusive visit to Sound/Mirror studios, where the legendary RCA Living Stereo catalogue is finally being mastered to SACD. Arthur Lintgen reviews the first batch of releases. 

86 - Cover Story
Gallo Nucleus Reference3 Loudspeaker and 
Subwoofer Amplifier
Anthony Gallo's radical Nucleus Reference3 has caused Chris Martens to rethink what's possible in a $2600 pair of speakers. 

30 - The Absolute Sound's Editors' Choice Awards
The biggest and most comprehensive list ever of our favorite gear in every price range — and this year's edition comes with a few new twists. 

 

Equipment Reports

43 - McCormack DNA-500 Power Amplifier
Sue Kraft takes a listen to Steve McCormack's latest—a 500W solid-state behemoth. 

94 - Rives PARC (Parametric Adaptive Room Compensation) Equalizer
Robert E. Greene reports on an unusually effective analog equalizer. 

99 - Allison Model 3 Loudspeaker: Taming the Listening 
Room by Design
Robert E. Greene explains the Allison effect, and the latest attempt to tame it by the man who named it.

 

The Cutting Edge

108 - TAS Roundtable: Room Acoustics — Audio's Final Frontier
Our special Cutting Edge section begins with Robert Harley's Room Acoustic Primer, segues into TAS Roundtable, in which TAS' RH and Robert E. Greene and Acoustic Sciences' Art Noxon and TacT's Peter Lyngdorf contemplate room acoustics, and finishes with two reviews by Anthony H. Cordesman: the TacT RCS 2.2X DSP Room Correction System and the Meridian 861 Version 4 A/V Controller with Room Correction. 

 

The Music

145 - Rock and Pop Nick Cave: Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus; Thalia Zedek: Trust Not Those in Whom…; Clinic: Winchester Cathedral; X-ecutioners: Revolutions and DJ Shadow: In Tune and On Time Live!; Moacir Santos: Ouro Negro; Dr. John: N'Awlinz; Al Green: Immortal Soul of Al Green; Mozaik: Live from the Powerhouse; Augie March: Strange Bird; Jeff Buckley: Grace (Deluxe Edition); Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo; Notorious Cherry Bombs: Notorious Cherry Bombs; Kasey Chambers: Wayward Angel; Mutual Admiration Society: Mutual Admiration Society; Tift Merritt: Tambourine; Drive-By Truckers: The Dirty South; Steve Earle: The Revolution Starts…Now; The Hives: Tyrannosaurus Hives SACD The Animals: Retrospective; R.L. Burnside: First Recordings

167 - Classical Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 5 and 9 (Gergiev) and Schnittke: Symphony No. 6; Kletzki: Symphony No. 3 and Dances of Our Time; Jose Calleja: Tenor Arias; Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins; Film Score Roundup: Van Helsing, Troy, The Day After Tomorrow, Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, and The Terminal SACD Bach: The Art of Fugue (New Century Saxophone Quartet) and Bach: The Art of Fugue (Marriner); SACD/DVD-A comparisons Grieg: Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 3

177 - Jazz Don Byron: Ivey-Divey; Patricia Barber: Live: A Fortnight in France; Herbie Hancock: The Piano; Andrew Hill Jazzpar Octet + 1: The Day the World Stood Still; Duke Ellington: Piano in the Foreground; Nels Cline/Vinny Golia: The Entire Time; Von Freeman: The Great Divide; Miles Davis: Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1963-64 SACD Thelonious Monk: Monk's Music

 

Finale

182 - Classifieds

182 - Where To Buy The Absolute Sound

183 - Ad Index

188 - TAS Contributors' Page
Pleased to meet ya — Neil Gader, Bob Gendron, and Nancy Josephson