With so much ink already spilled, it seems wasteful of your time, the magazine's space, and my time and effort to rehash what has been ably covered and annotated by my colleagues, so I won't describe the history and qualifications of the speaker's deservedly well-known designer, Andrew Jones, or the principles of design and engineering applied to the SourcePoint 10 and SourcePoint 8 in common. What I will do is what high school English teachers so often request: Compare and contrast.
First, the obvious: The SourcePoint 8 was designed to be smaller, utilizing a smaller driver which, in turn, requires a smaller enclosure. It is smaller by 20% in every dimension, at 11.4" x 18" x 12.6" compared to the SourcePoint 10's 14.5" x 22.5" x 16". Consequently, it is much lighter, too, at 27.9lb vs 46.2lb.
However, creating it was not simply a matter of scaling down in a linear fashion, as Jones explained to me over Zoom. With the SourcePoint 10, Jones chose a large-diaphragm woofer not only to extend LF performance but also to minimize cone displacement, which is especially important in a concentric design because the woofer cone serves as a (moving) waveguide: Displacement can intermodulate the tweeter's output. An 8" driver mounted with a standard surround with typical half-roll termination would have a much smaller active surface, requiring even greater displacement. So, Jones designed an 8" driver (as measured by the radius of its mounting holes) with a narrowed corrugated termination, which also serves as mounting support. The result is an 8" driver whose active area is almost as large as the SourcePoint 10's 10" driver and whose displacement will be similar, especially since its range does not extend as low: 47Hz vs 42Hz.
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Esta historia es de la edición September 2023 de Stereophile.
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German kitchens, Japanese amps, and Afropop gems
BRILLIANT CORNERS - I have a day job at a museum. One of my favorite things about working there is taking the elevator from my office down to one of the floors open to the public; I walk into the galleries through a discreet panel in the wall. This makes me feel like I'm in one of those horror-movie manors with a tunnel concealed behind a bookshelf. Sometimes I startle people, which I kind of enjoy.
EDITOR'S PICK - RECORDING OF THE MONTH
The record business was awash in money and power. Vinyl LPs were still five bucks, and while the pressings could be suspect, the music-buying public still snapped them up en masse.
The Butthole Surfers wipe out
REVINYLIZATION - Music's lunatic fringe drifts further out every hour. As it should. In this century, with computers playing an ever-larger role, music continues to fragment and become infinitely more varied. This splintering is either the essence of what keeps it relevant as an art form or something profoundly disturbing, to be hated and feared.
You're only lonely
AURAL ROBERT - The least surprising story in music today is the inevitable passing of irreplaceable talent. Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson died at age 95 the day I finished this salute to another fallen star, Southern California singer/songwriter John David \"JD\" Souther.
PS Audio Aspen FR5 - LOUDSPEAKER
I remember the first PS Audio product: a simple phono stage. It was so simple - a passive RIAA eq filter flanked by a pair of primitive op-amps - that when the schematic was made public, I built one myself; I was in the midst of my DIY years. I thought it was, to use a word from that time, nifty.
TEAC UD-701N - STREAMING PREAMP, D/A CONVERTER
In Gramophone Dreams #88, I described the sound of TEAC's VRDS-701T CD transport as \"dense and precise in a way I had never previously heard from digital.\" I went on to explain, \"by dense, I mean there was a tangible corporeality effected by seemingly infinite quantities of small, tightly packed molecules of musical information.\"
Sonus faber Sonetto V G2 - LOUDSPEAKER
Here's a hard truth: A written review of a full-sized speaker any speaker, really-is, at best, semi-useful. We all listen differently, we have different musical tastes, our system electronics are different, and our listening rooms vary a lot. You will gain a general picture of a speaker's capabilities and foibles from John Atkinson's measurements, and I can tell you how the speakers sound to me, in my room. But that's it. You need to hear them for yourself before making a buying decision. The best I can do is tell you how my music brain felt when the speakers were in my house and making music.
STEREOPHILE'S 33RD ANNUAL - PRODUCT OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024
When Stereophile's Product of the Year Awards were first published, in 1992, we decided that unlike some other publications and their awards schemes, we would keep the number of categories to a minimum. That way, we would avoid what the late Art Dudley once described as the \"every child in the class gets a prize\" syndrome.
Moon 861 - POWER AMPLIFIER
It is unusual to begin a review with a detailed discussion of setup. But setup protocol for the Moon 861 power amplifier ($22,000 each), the top-level amplifier in the North Collection from Moon, which I reviewed bridged in mono, proved crucial to its sound.
Mobile Fidelity, PrimaLuna, and First Watt redux
GRAMOPHONE DREAMS - It's important for readers to remember that I've spent my adult life as an artist and mechanic. Making things. Working as a tradesperson during the day then at an easel or workbench at night.
