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Erik Margan has long realized that a cable is a potential source of trouble interconnecting two other potential sources of trouble. In this article, he explores various methods to exclude these sources of trouble, using single ended and balanced receivers, single ended to balanced converters, drivers and vice versa. Common-mode suppression sensitivity to component tolerances as well as fully differential amplifiers and filters are also explained.

Stuart Yaniger reviewed Oliver Masciarotte’s latest writing. The book, which is available both in printed and in eBook form, is meant as a general guide to computer-based audio with an explicit set of “how-to” instructions to get your own computer-based system up, running, and optimized. Stuart finds both strong and weaker areas, but generally concludes that it is worth its price.

Most of us agree that the aim of good hi-fi is to re-create the sounds heard in the control room of the studio when the final mix of a piece of music is laid down onto tape or disk.  You just take a stack of the best high-end equipment and connect it up with the finest and eye-wateringly expensive cables and the end result will be a sound that will be within a flea’s whisker of the original. Surely the CD is a bit-to-bit exact copy of the original recording and the rest of the equipment, as the magazine reviewers never tire of telling us, is as close to perfection as makes no difference. As it happens, Stan Curtis spent some time in the studio recently re-mastering an old album for re-release and discovered again that the sound was head and shoulders above that from all other sources.

This is just one of the paradoxes Mr. Curtis set out to explore in his column, and again he provides us with much food for thought.

When the small "bookshelf" loudspeakers became popular some 30 - 40 years ago, they established a new market niche. Stereo setups could now much more easily find their way into normal living rooms. Many of these small speakers did not impress with their sound quality, however, although there were exceptions. On the other hand, most small boxes were aimed at a consumer market where the requirements on sound quality were low, if any at all. However, many small studio monitors, for example, meet very high standards on several parameters.

Lennart Jarlevang was approached by the owner of a mid-prized high fidelity loudspeaker of small size (net volume about six liters). The owner liked the basic tone and performance of the speaker very much, but complained about an annoying chill and harshness in the high frequency area. Initially thinking that this, as often is the case, was a tweeter issue, Lennart soon found the problem to be caused by a more interesting phenomenon. He set out to unravel the riddle and to modify the design for even better performance.