August 2, 2012
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XLO Reference Type 5, Part 11
Ah, August 1992. My friends were home from college. We played lots of sports, but we also went shopping, visited sites around the Bay, BBQ'd, watched porn, listened to music, played video games, ate out, rented movies, and had sleep overs. One of Margaret's friends had the Cover Girls' Here It Is, featuring "Wishing On A Star" and "Funk Boutique." If I had been back at UC Santa Cruz, I never would have heard this urban dance music.
Ah, the August 1992 edition of Stereophile. Some die-hard analog fans soaked up the review of the VPI HW-19 Mk. IV upgrade. But the review of the Sonic Frontiers SFL-1 piqued my interest. You see, since 1989, my only preamp had been the full-featured but bad-sounding Sony TAE-1000ESD. In the early-90s, I was fixated upon and lusted after the Conrad-Johnson PF-1. The Sonic Frontiers SFL-1 showed me that there were alternates to the PF-1.
In summer '92, Ultimate Sound, still located in the basement of the Sherman Clay building, had a couple CJ pieces, but were really a Sonographe (CJ's budget line) dealer. Ultimate Sound were not yet a Sonic Frontiers dealer. There were, however, Sonic Frontiers dealers in the East Bay. Now, some of my friends went to UC Berkeley. They helped me get to and around the East Bay, where I checked out several high-end audio stores.
I'll have to tell you about my preamp shopping experience later. While at an Oakland stereo store, I saw someone spray anti-static spray onto speaker cables. A few months later, I would learn that all that Teflon on the original XLO Reference Type 5 speaker cable made it a prime candidate for anti-static sprays.
Years later, I would learn that floors, especially carpeted ones, provide an electrostatic field. This is why you should not place speaker cables, including the XLO Ref Type 5, directly on the floor. Okay, it's not the Bay Bridge, but here is the Ref Type 5 resting on a ceramic cable riser. Lest you lose treble extension, swiftness, sparkle, and vigor, get the Ref Type 5 off of the floor.
Comments (1)
It's amazing, and kind of sad in a way, but even after 20 years I remember these Stereophile covers! The way we would read and then re-read the reviews, imagining what the equipment would sound like in our own listening rooms helped to ingrain these issues in our memories.
Thanks for bringing back some very good remembrances.
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