The Higher Fi

THE recreational art called high fidelity first began really to obsess the avant-garde of home music listeners in the late 1940s. There had been experimenters before the war —I know, since I was one of them — but they were a frustrate few: they had no fit fare to feed their amplifiers and speakers. What changed the picture after the war was the sudden availability of FM broadcasts and of widerange magnetic phonograph pickups, together with an influx of foreign high-fidelity records, notably British Decca’s “ffrr” line. Microgroove helped when it came, but it came later. The vanguard of listeners already had gone hi-fi before the acronym LB was heard in the land.

The second surge of interest is, I think, upon us now. At the various audio exhibitions in early autumn, manufacturers of records and home sound equipment could be heard on all hands, telling each other with dazed glee that August had been the biggest month in their history. Normally, of course, August sales are such as to make a dealer wonder why he didn’t shut up shop and go fishing.

The change this year had nothing to do with August as against any other month; September was to be even bigger. The change was something permanent, illustrated by a growing human flood outward from cities and apartments into countless new separate dwellings — ramblers, ranch-types, semicolonials, and Cape Cods, each with its TV set in the corner, each situated in the geographical center of a baby-sitter shortage. The living room was establishing (or perhaps re-establishing) itself as the center of American recreational life.

Sometimes a sort of prescience seems to alert the purveyors of amenities which soon are to be in great demand. As a general instance, there has been lately among home sound equipment makers a great flush of interest in quality control, a subject that most of them heretofore have rather pointedly ignored.

Sightliness and simplicity of operation are other features common to new high-fidelity custom equipment. The former quality embodies an economic attraction, too. If an amplifier can sit openly and inoffensively upon a shelf, it spares its owner the price of cabinet concealment and lets him spend money on woodwork that really works: his loudspeaker enclosure.

These are very general trends, however. Even specific new developments seem bent to the enticement of new listeners, not that they won’t appeal also to folk well seasoned in audiophilia. What I have particularly in mind are electrostatic loudspeakers, transistor preamplifiers, and stereophonic tapes. And I do not want to give the impression that any of these heralds the millennium in living-room music. None does. But they betoken interesting prospects, as will be seen.

An electrostatic speaker works on the ancient principle illustrated by the amber rod and the cat’s fur, or the gold-foil leaves of an electroscope: like charges repel, unlike charges attract. A push-pull electrostatic speaker (and this is the only high-fidelity variety) resembles nothing so much as a very small plastic storm window sandwiched between two rigid metal screens. The screens accept the signal from the amplifier in the form of voltage, and the plastic diaphragm vibrates between them as one attracts it and the other repels it, and vice versa. This generates the sound, and since the diaphragm vibrates almost

as if inertia-less, and uniformly over its whole surface, the result is sound of great cleanliness and very low distortion. Especially is this so in the treble range.

Conventional electromagnetic loudspeakers, of either paper-cone or aluminum-dome variety, have inherent treble trouble. A big paper-cone speaker renders treble vibrations accurately only from its center area, near the voice-coil that furnishes the impulse. Such of the vibrations as travel out to the cone’s edge get there late, out of phase, and contribute nothing helpful. Hence the dual distribution in many high-fidelity speaker systems: a big cone for the bass, a small one or an aluminum dome for treble. (Elaborate systems may subdivide beyond this—four-way systems are not uncommon.) An aluminum dome can reproduce treble tones accurately, but in such small voice that some kind of horn structure usually must be added to build it up. And most horns add their own coloration to the sound, though some are astoundingly good.

Usually cone and dome tweeters, for this reason, are heard best at some little distance, a dozen feet or so. An electrostatic’s sound, however, is as clear and easeful at close quarters as at a distance, which makes it peculiarly desirable in a small living room.

I refer here to tweeters only. I have heard only one electrostatic bass speaker, or woofer, and it seemed to me to offer nothing that a solidly mounted cone speaker wouldn’t. Indeed, it offered a complicating factor, in that — presumably to make its tone big — it was mounted to radiate from both front and rear. In most living rooms, this would make its placement critical, to prevent cancellation or reinforcement of some sound frequencies by the back-wave off the wall.

For the nonce, the best use of an electrostatic tweeter would seem to be in conjunction with cone-type woofers. Incidentally, push-pull electrostatic tweeters (only two were in production as this was written) are not inexpensive, and do not bring out the best in all amplifiers. Circumspection is indicated, but some lovely sound reproduction can lie beyond it.

The first, or phono-stage, tube in a preamplifier has a fantastically delicate job to do. It must take the tiny electrical impulses furnished by the phonograph cartridge and make them strong enough for the power amplifier to work on. If the tube malfunctions, if it adds any distortion or noise of its own, this too will be amplified, in the same degree as the electromusical signal, and you will get considerable grit with your Grieg.

It is this that makes some people —including some manufacturers — think it was unfortunate technically, if astute commercially, for preamplifier makers to change from big to miniature tubes, as they did around the turn of the decade. The miniatures and large tubes are comparable in performance when new, but the little ones age and deteriorate much the more rapidly. Among ailments they develop are hum, microphonism, gassiness (squeals and pops), and, worst, intermodulation distortion. The last is worst because subtlest. The music develops a harsh edge, very similar to that heard when the pickup cartridge’s elastic damping has worn out, or when the jewel tip of the stylus has been damaged. Diagnosis can be difficult. Most people don’t have spare cartridges for purposes of comparison. Nearly anyone can have a spare 12AX7 or 12AY7, or whatever his phono-stage tube happens to be, but he cannot have any assurance that it is not defective in the same way as the one he is replacing. A tube can distort quite seriously and still pass the test of the dealer’s tube-checking device. There are obvious ways out of this difficulty — have two spare tubes, or check the suspect one in somebody else’s amplifier— but they are elaborate ways. This kind of nonsense does not encourage people to try high fidelity.

Manufacturers certainly are not going back to big tubes. What they are trying, however, are transistors. Transistors are small — very small— devices wherein a crystalline structure with a certain calculated impurity is made to perform the same function that metallic elements and a vacuum perform in conventional tubes. Transistors are not much subject to hum or noise, and they age much more slowly than tubes. Their compensating liability is probably an aspect of newness. It is that they are hard to make uniform, partly because of the infinitesimal quantities of material that must be measured into their composition.

Despite this, there is at least one transistorized preamplifier on the market now—the Fisher TR-1 — and a very interesting item it is. It is not in any sense a complete control unit. It is simply a phono-preamplifier with one knob — a volume control, It has built-in equalization for records made according to Record Industry Association (RIAA) standards, universal for the last two years. In other words, when plugged directly into a power amplifier, it can play the best of your recent records. No old ones, none which require trimming of the treble or bass, It — the TR-1 — can also be plugged into the highlevel input (radio or TV) or a conventional control unit, permitting use of the latter’s bass and treble controls, but this brings at least one miniature tube back into the act, which may not be desirable. Why Mr. Fisher did not start with a complete transistorized control unit I do not know.

At any rate, I was able to test a sample TR-1 against two very good conventional preamplifiers. When new, I must in fairness say, I think either of them could have matched it. Neither was new, and in the comparison they audibly displayed their age, or rather their tubes’ age (not more than a year in either case). It immediately occurred to me that at its price, which is less than $30, the TR-1 would be a very good comparison-and-emergency instrument for a record reviewer, like me, to have around. It is well to keep in mind, however, the initial variability of transistors. For a while, at least, any transistorized audio unit is something to buy strictly by ear.

Recorded tape, up to now, has made less of an impact on home music listening than it was expected to, but the reasons are not hard to discern. Tape — at seven and a half inches per second or more — can be an admirable source of high-fidelity sound. Most tape-playback machines, however, have been either distinctly low in fidelity or distinctly high in price. Of low-price machines, the main faults were mechanical unreliability and unstandardized electrosonic response; not all tapes could be played satisfactorily on all machines. These troubles we still have with us.

What is going to speed the whole process of acceptance is stereophony — two-channel, 3-D reproduction, for which tape is the ideal medium. There have been stereophonic disc records for some time, and equipment to play them. But the records have been limited in repertoire, and the equipment is delicate, difficult to use. Stereophonic tape is no harder to play than standard “monaural” tape, and the stereo recorded repertoire is growing very rapidly. Nearly all record companies now make the initial tapes for their records stereophonicelly. The two stereo tracks can be fed as a blend

into the disc version, then used subsequently as masters to make the stereo tape version. RCA Victor, Westminster, and HMV already have made many of their recent recordings available in stereo tape form; most other firms are bound to do so soon. As yet these tapes are expensive. A symphony is likely to set you back more than $15. For this I can see no real (reel?) reason, and growing competition may force prices down.

The aural appeal of stereo reproduction, however, is beyond denial, though it doesn’t apply equally to all kinds of music. A singer, a piano, or even a string quartet sounds as good (to me) through a good single-speaker system as through a stereo setup. But massive orchestral works like Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra or Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique come forth from good “binaural” recording with a kind of aural perspective and realism that single-channel recording and reproduction cannot duplicate.

By the time you read this, there will be several stereo-playback machines on the market. Thus far I have only heard two of these, the Ampex system and that made by Viking of Minneapolis. The Ampex is expensive: $380 for the playback unit (which will play single-track tapes, too) with its built-in twin preamplifiers; $150 each for the amplifier-andspeaker units you can buy with it. On the other hand, the playback machine (Model 612) is built like a battleship, and will obviously give long, trouble-free service.

The Viking assembly can cost anywhere from $110 to $150, depending on what you order. You can get it with a variety of heads, so that it will play back only, or record as well, or perform either function monaurally or stereophonically. It has its own preamplifiers, single or twin, but you furnish your own power amplifiers and loudspeakers. How well the Viking wilt stand up mechanically I cannot say; it looks compact and well designed. New, it performs very well.

I am not perfectionist enough to go along with the notion that for good stereo sound one’s two amplifier-and-speaker systems must be identical. In experiment I used one of the little Ampex $1.50 speaker-amplifier combinations along with my own rather elaborate system, of which the amplifier and speaker cost together about $400. When I had the speakers properly spaced — about eight feet apart, in this case—and the volumes adjusted one to the other, they sounded fine together. I am sure, though, that the illusion would collapse if the secondary unit were really low-fi. There cannot be a gross qualitative dissimilarity between the sounds from the two sources.

However, I think things shape up very conveniently for the person who has been thinking of replacing his 1951 speaker and ten-watt amplifier

with something more ambitious. If the older units were considered respectable high-fidelity components in their day, they should still serve admirably as half a stereophonic system. And it is worthwhile to employ them so. Most of the genius of Mozart may have been contained in the knowledge of which note to put after the one before it, but much of the genius of Carl Orff or Stravinsky lies in knowing how to distribute sound excitingly across a concert stage. There is no reason we shouldn’t enjoy both.

Record Reviews

Beethoven: Sonatas Op. 109, Op. 110, Op. III (Glenn Gould, piano; Columbia ML-5130: 12”). Young Mr. Gould, about whom Columbia is quite justified in making a fuss, thinks there has been enough speculation about the philosophical content of Beethoven’s later works. Accordingly he here plays the three last sonatas with the intent of bringing out their purely musical logic. His technique is something to marvel at, and the results are impressive, especially when anything contrapuntal is going on. He has tried something important and — however it be received — has in the process turned out three extraordinarily interesting performances. The sound is good, too.

Dvorák: Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, Op. 72 with Smetana (arr.Szell): Quartet in E Minor, “From My Life” (George Szell conducting Cleveland Orchestra; Epic SC-6015: two 12”). Only possible rival to this magnificent set of the Slavonic Dances is that on Urania by Vaclav Talich and the Czech Philharmonic, who split performance honors with Szell’s Clevelanders but are outpointed by Epic’s excellent sound. The Szell is the one to buy, especially since it includes as bonus the excellent (really) orchestralt ranscription of the Smetana quartet.

Mozart: Serennta Notturna;Divertimentos in D Major, B-flat Major, F Major (Antonio Janigro conducting Solisti di Zagreb; Vanguard VRS-482: 12”). Incredible is the word one is tempted to use in describing the finish, the polish, of the playing of this Yugoslav group — but you’ve got to believe it; it’s right there on the record, in completely convincing reproduction. And the Mozartian substance under the polish is firm, though a fondness (perhaps) for beautiful sound has induced some protraction of tempos. This lingering tendency becomes a positive asset, incidentally, in another recent Solisti release (VRS-488), whereon they play Rossini’s enticing Sonatas for Strings. Chances are that if you buy one record you will soon buy the other.

Strauss: Scenes fromSalomeandElektra;Suite fromLe Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Fritz Reiner conducting Inge Borkh, Frances Yeend, Paul Schoeffler; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor LM6047: two 12”). It’s a pity they didn’t go on and make a whole Elektra, for the three scenes they give here are pretty good (even if they did put the finale in the middle, to make disc sides come out even). The Salome scene and the Suite are good, too, but put in as fillers. Borkh, as Elektra and Salome, does most of the vocal labor (real labor, too) and does it very well. It is Reiner and the orchestra, however, who emerge as the heroes of the occasion and really make the album worth having. They are in all ways superb, and their sound has been superbly captured.

Marches for Twirling (Frederick Fennell conducting Eastman Symphonic Wind Ensemble; Mercury MG50113: 12”). Ostensibly, Mr. Fennell intended this selection to serve as practice aid to neophyte baton twirlers, an aim which if successful may wreck many a living room across the nation. Mercury Records, it can safely be assumed, had also in mind a kind of twirler—but a different kind — whose twirling is devoted to amplifier knobs. (And this kind can wreck whole homes.) Anyway, the Eastman ensemble, as in previous efforts, sounds exhilaratingly brisk and brazen and, even at thunderous volume, convincingly real. The marches are ones familiar to football fields, parade grounds, and circus arenas: The U.S. Field Artillery, On the Mall, Pride of the Illini, Stars and Stripes Forever, Semper Fidelis, The Billboard, and sundry others.