Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part Eight
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 February 2022 01 February 2022
It is not my intention to wind you up, but this culmination of all that has gone before with the system’s story needs a tiny bit more explanation. (If patience is not one of your virtues, feel free to skip to the end.) It will, however, apply to most of you . . . unless you happen to live in a home with perfect conditions for setting up a sound system, including rock-solid floors, more AC outlets than mission control in Houston, pre-existing bombproof shelving, etc. In setting up what I now call the $6000 SoundStage! Special, I chose not to use my bespoke listening room, with its poured concrete floor and 18″-thick walls.
Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part Seven
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 December 2021 01 December 2021
Before we get to the sound of the system we’ve been assembling over the past six months, a momentary pause. If the suspense is killing you, I’m afraid there’s no relief yet because, as much as I wanted to write about the system’s sound al fresco and sans accessories, sticking rigidly to the $6000 budget (plus or minus a few bucks), I found the system so capable and so revealing that its response to add-ons—e.g., upgrading the cables—became a distraction. The gains were too good to dismiss.
Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part Six
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 November 2021 01 November 2021
By now, for those who have been following this project for the past five months, we have collected the four key components. For you who are new to this series, the idea was, for a number of reasons, to put together a single-source system for $6000 (please check the previous five columns for the full mission statement) with a singular proviso: that any item would survive when it came time to upgrade any other part of the chain.
Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part Five
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 October 2021 01 October 2021
With the final stretch in sight, it is time for a recap, as I am at a loss to explain my recent inability to communicate, but it seems that I have failed to convey what this project represents. Ostensibly, simplistically, it is my attempt—and nothing more—at putting together a single-source system in 2021 for the same money spent when I was 16, the current equivalent of $700 (prices in USD unless indicated otherwise).
Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part Four
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 September 2021 01 September 2021
Those who noticed a teaser a couple of columns ago that the speakers would be discussed the following month will have to wait until October 1, as I am holding them back as a surprise. Since we have so far discussed the power amplifier and phono stage (with output-level control, to serve as a preamp for the time being), I figured it was a perfect time to deal with the source, especially since some remaining hardcore flat earthers—hi-fi’s version of the Taliban—consider the front-end to be the most important element of all, the rest of the system be damned.
Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part Three
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 August 2021 01 August 2021
Who knew that something as simple as putting together a fantasy system would give me such a headache? It didn’t take long before some of you challenged me: “Why not amp X?” or “Why not amp Y?” Perhaps I should have been clearer about my intentions. This exercise in system-creating is not to establish some must-own concoction but to emphasise precisely the opposite: that there exists an infinite number of choices. Indeed, I will be surprised if, after this series concludes, anyone on the planet puts together the same package.
Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part Two
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 July 2021 01 July 2021
Some of you might object to the notion of a hi-fi system as “a work in progress,” and up to a point, I concur. With a new system or even the purchase of a single component, you shouldn’t be thinking about anything beyond getting it home, setting it up, and looking forward to many years of musical pleasure. Unfortunately, most audiophiles are infected with a disease called “upgrade-itis,” an obsessive, near-psychotic need to renew or refresh one’s system in perpetuity. It’s what keeps the hi-fi industry going, as cars once did with the planned obsolescence of annual model changes.
Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part One
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 June 2021 01 June 2021
Over the decades, readers have never ceased to remind me that hi-fi reviewers—like automotive journalists, theatre/film/restaurant critics, and others of that ilk—are spoiled thanks to the perks of the job. Become a respected car magazine contributor, and you’ll probably never need to buy a vehicle because you’ll always be testing one or another. Restaurant critic? Your main worry will be your waistline.
Reel-to-Reel for Life
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 May 2021 01 May 2021
If you were around as a sentient adult audiophile during any time between circa 1970 and circa 1990, and you bought into tube equipment, you were probably one nervous wreck. I know I was: I had started using and ultimately collecting tube gear around 1975, and every snap, crackle, or pop made me wonder if I could find new or even old-stock replacement tubes should any fail.
Remembering the Cassette and Its Inventor, Lou Ottens
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 April 2021 01 April 2021
With the way the Grim Reaper has been harvesting of late, there is nothing coincidental, ironic, or remarkable about two of audio’s most inventive individuals leaving us these past few months, so closely together. It is simply a sad sign of the times. I am starting to get the tiniest whiff of what it must have been like during the Great Plague of 1665 and have stopped counting friends and acquaintances lost this year, let alone the litany of recently deceased celebrities who made the news.
