The Legend of EL PIPE-O — Kent English / 2002

Most woofers just don’t quite do the lowest octave. You read the specs that say “usable response: 20 Hz – 20 KHz” and you know that the 20 Hz part of it is wildly optimistic. Achieving very low frequencies at reasonable power levels is not an easy job; the acoustic impedance experienced by a speaker cone declines as the inverse of the square of the frequency. As a practical matter, woofers and their enclosures need to be very large to properly reproduce the lowest octave. Even when you compensate with frequency equalization and more amplifier power, the performance suffers as… More...

Pearl 2 — Wayne Colburn / 2010

Here is the long awaited sequel to the Pearl phono stage, named after my maternal Grandmother who was good with a sling shot , played piano and organ and occasionally listened to my early Hi-fi efforts if the smoke wasn't too bad. Pearl II addresses the major request received over the years - more gain for moving coil cartridges. Phono stage design is difficult to do well. Everything matters. Any low level phenomenon occurring in the parts of a phono stage shows up greatly amplified at the loudspeaker. This phono stage has about 55 dB gain at 1 Khz, and… More...