Introduction A huge sound in a small package solidly sums up the performance of the Monitor Audio Silver 4 speakers ($849 a pair) and ASW 210 subwoofer ($999). The small 15.5-inch by eight-inch main speakers, coupled with the 200-watt self-powered subwoofer, were a welcome surprise. Sat/sub speaker systems are a dime a dozen these days and that’s what a lot of them are worth. Just as in my past experiences with Monitor Audio products, I was not disappointed in the least. The patented cone material for all drivers, C-CAM (Ceramic Coated Aluminum Magnesium alloy), is light and rigid. The Silver 4’s are a two-way design, front-ported, with a 6.5-inch mid-bass driver and a gold dome tweeter. There are two sets of sturdy, gold-plated binding posts on each speaker for bi-wiring. The subwoofer is outfitted with two 10-inch drivers, one downfiring and the other forward-firing. While the Silver 4’s are small and capable of sitting comfortably on ...

Introduction Before I start describing the unit itself and my experience with it, let’s talk about power, AC power. The vast majority of our audio components use AC power and look for that power coming in at a certain frequency, usually 60Hz. Unfortunately, in a less than perfect world, there is often a lot of "dirt" that comes in with our power, making that 60Hz sine wave less than perfect and also causing variations in voltage. This "dirty" power makes your power supplies in your equipment work harder and can also effect the sound and picture quality of what you hear and see. Power pollution comes from many places before it gets into your home. Inside your home, many of your appliances generate noise, which travels into your power lines and into your equipment. You could do what I did and install ...

Introduction Gaining control of our sound systems is more critical than ever, as more devices are required to complete the home theater setup. Filling the gap between inexpensive universal remotes and state-of-the-art desktop touchscreen systems is a new breed of controller, the handheld LCD touchscreen panel. Entering the market at $399, Madrigal Labs (Mark Levinson and Proceed), in partnership with Microsoft, has released the IRIQ™ Learning Remote. Following a different scheme than other such devices, the Microsoft programmers created the unique Setup Wizard for faster, idiot-proof programming and the development of a method called "Activities" that issues commands to multiple devices from a single screen. Out-of-the-Box Programming The curvaceous and slightly bulbous chassis contains a 2x3-inch screen with a selector wheel and several buttons underneath. The selector wheel is a fast and efficient way to change TV channels or scroll through the remote’s menu items. Pressing the wheel selects items in the menu. A Home button ...

Introduction The Martin Logan Re-Quest is a hybrid electrostatic - dynamic loudspeaker system that uses a 30 degree curved electrostatic panel mounted to a dynamic subwoofer enclosure featuring a 12 inch, cast mounted driver crossed over at 280 Hz. Re-Quests are quite large, standing a little under 6 feet tall, 18 inches wide and about a foot deep. The panel's diaphragm is made of a super light proprietary vapor deposited polyester film and housed in a perforated, insulated steel frame. This diaphragm moves back and forth in small increments when fed an audio signal, thus creating Martin Logan's signature mid and high frequency sound. While the dynamic low frequency driver is not rear ported, the electrostatic panel does fire both ways making the Re-Quest quite room and placement sensitive. Re-Quests come with bass equalization, which proves to be ...

Introduction With the growing dependence on digital sound from sources like Compact Discs, DVD, DSS, Laserdisc, DAT, Mini Disc and other sources, the high end audio and home theater industry has a newly found shortage of digital inputs. You see, most A/V receivers and lower - to mid-priced A/V preamps, can not accept more than one or two digital inputs. Redesigning all of the A/V receivers on the market is going to take the better part of a year, if not longer. So what do you do if you want to have all of the best digital audio and video has to offer without investing in a big dollar high end A/V preamp? Enter the MSB Digital Director. If you have already experimented with configurations of your DAC and CD transport you probably realize that you can't just use any old audio cable or adapters to route digital data streams from one component to another. ...