In Use

For the listening tests, I used a Macintosh MCD201 SACD player, Lamm L2 Reference preamplifier, Macintosh MC1201 power amplifiers, and Carver Amazing Mark IV ribbon speakers. Cables were Legenburg and Nordost. I used two MicroVees for some listening and one MicroVee for the rest. Even just one MicroVee did a good job.
 

This is my favorite test disc of all time, and Telarc finally released it in SACD format (it was originally recorded at 50 kHz sampling, and down-converting it to 44.1 kHz caused some artifacts). The first track is "Fanfare for the Common Man", and I use it especially with big amplifiers, big speakers, and subwoofers. Even though the Carver Amazings have four 12" woofers in each speaker, they do lose some bass because they are dipoles. The MicroVee added some punch to those big bass drum thuds. It shocked me that the MicroVee did not bottom out or clip. It really held in there.

 

Dukas' La Peri (Erato) is not quite as intense as Fanfare, but it has some brass bass that I use to tell if there is any boominess. Well, the MicroVee had none of that. It sounded very natural.

 

Hiromi is an artist whose modern jazz group uses a lot of electronic music. She is also a fantastic musician. This Telarc disc, called Brain, is a challenge for any hi-fi system, but especially for a compact subwoofer. I had to remind myself to close my own mouth afterwards, so that bird didn't make a nest in there. With most small subwoofers, it can get to a point where the distortion becomes very audible, but that did not happen with the MicroVee. There was some, but I could live with it.

 

The Great Fantasy Adventure Album (Telarc) has some of the most subwoofer-demanding tracks ever recorded. In particular, one track "Jurassic Lunch" is from the movie Jurassic Park, where the T-Rex comes crashing through the bushes and roars. The low frequencies go down to about 8 Hz. The CD jacket warns you about this, so in case you blow up your subwoofer, they are not liable. Well, I could see the cone on the MicroVee moving back and forth quite a bit, but alas, it certainly did not move enough to shake my chair. Of course it didn't. That is not its purpose, but I still just wanted to see how the MicroVee handled this stress test. It didn't smoke or shoot any sparks, and it didn't say, "So, what do you expect from me?"

Go to Part III.