Copper

Wait A Minute!
We interrupt our regularly scheduled Subwoofery series for a Special Announcement! In the past couple of weeks, as I voiced several systems around the country and conducted set-up classes at my RoomPlay Reference listening room here in the Atlanta area, I realized that I knew something vital to this series – in fact, I have always used it and taught it – but I had not communicated it in Copper! Sheesh!!! Brain fade? Anyway, we need to correct the omission before going further with our Subwoofery series. First, a few excerpts from the previous issue... Read more...
Amplified & Equalized
Having generated a few milli- or micro-volts by our humble little cartridge, we now have to equalize by applying the inverse of the RIAA curve that was applied when the record was mastered, and then amplify the signal enough to drive our main amplifier. Electronically (or even just electrically) , a phono stage is  very difficult  to engineer properly, which helps explain a veritable cornucopia of designs out there. Tubes or transistors,  op amps, head amps, SUTs, passive or active… it is a mind-boggling array! Take a modest MM /... Read more...
Felix Pappalardi, Nantucket Sleigh Ride
A band named Mountain, that in its most potent form lasted from 1970-1972, was the absolute and undeniable Father of Heavy Metal. I usually leave some room for argument, I like to do that. Plausible deniability. But not today. I will entertain suggestions for Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. But I will not encourage. Yer just wrong. In 1970 I turned 16 and could work a regular job besides the slave labor of picking tobacco or delivering papers. This period was a revelation, a breaching of protocol between classes. As a high school freshman you... Read more...
Vinyl, baby!
Vinyl, baby!
Being a vinyl type of guy, with CDs to fill in the gaps, I have assembled a system that I think pays tribute to that unique vinyl sound. I play... Read more...
Versa Dynamics
Every now and then a new company appears in the audio world, seemingly out of nowhere, with high aspirations and novel technology. Versa Dynamics was one such company, appearing in the late 1980’s with an outrageous and elegant state-of-the-art turntable system. The company may have been new to audio, but designer John Bicht had previously worked on phono playback systems for others, and on the mechanical and industrial designs of a bewildering array of disparate devices. Bicht jumped feet-first into the world of design at age 16, when he sought... Read more...
How to Make a Vintage Component Sing Again
Part 1: The power supply capacitors It’s not a secret that one of the more economical ways of building a HiFi system is to purchase used or vintage gear. There’s a plethora of old gear available that can be found on the second hand market from companies such as Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, Luxman, PS Audio, Dynaco, Marantz, Sansui, Quad, and many more. Unfortunately, older gear will likely sound inferior compared to the day it was purchased, as certain electronic components under the cover age over time. During my early... Read more...
Back By Popular Demand
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How Much Power Do I need?
Power amplifiers, whether standalone or built into a receiver, integrated, or even our mobile phones, drive our speakers and headphones so we hear sound. Amplifiers produce Watts and, if you’ve ever wondered why the term Watt is always capitalized, it’s named after a rather famous historical character, James Watt, famous for his invention of the Watt steam engine in 1781 (this was no small invention. It fundamentally changed the world by ushering in the Industrial Revolution, in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world). A Watt represents one Joule of energy per second (one amp... Read more...
Inside Issue 16
Twist And Shout
The rebirth of interest in LPs—vinyl records— has brought many newbies to the field, often with a rather iffy survival rate. Paul Epstein and wife Jill are no latecomers, having run Twist and Shout records for almost 30 years. The two were both English teachers when they stumbled upon the tax auction of a record store in 1988; they bought the assets and started out with a 2,000 square foot store. A strong survivor in 2016, Twist and Shout is now 11,000 square feet of retail space housing over 200,000 records and... Read more...
Sigma Delta Modulators Part II
In my last column, I wrote about how a SDM might be used to faithfully reconstruct an incoming signal, even if its output is constrained to an apparently hopelessly reduced bit depth.  We can do this if we can ensure that the Signal Transfer Function (STF) and Noise Transfer Function (NTF) have appropriate characteristics.  Today I will expand on how we can make that work.  I had originally planned to conclude with some personal remarks on the DSD-vs-PCM debate, but I will leave those for a complete post in the... Read more...
That’s Show Biz!
In Copper #7, I wrote about the passing of Richard Beers, the promoter of THE Show-Newport. In #8, I asked, “how many shows are too many?” Consider this column the confluence of those two pieces. The Newport show this year was managed by a tiny, capable, deceptively-tough young woman named Marine Presson. Given her first name, I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that she’s tough. Marine parted company with Newport after this year’s show. Recently, it came to light that Newport ain’t gonna be Newport, anymore. By that, I mean... Read more...
Two Kinds Of Hits
We have a hit. We’ve been hit. Both are true. Everybody wants a hit record; everybody. It’s money, it’s acknowledgment, and it means more work, all those things. The  Tuesday Night Music Club record sold about 12,000,000 copies worldwide. It made gobs and gobs of money. A&M, having wasted nearly $500,000 on Ms. Crow so far, were very reluctant to spend any more, and only gave up about $200,000 for the record we did. But it was justified. I say we believed our bullshit. Some of us truly felt that if... Read more...
Organizers and Decorators
Isaiah Berlin gave us foxes and hedgehogs. Classical Greece offered Apollo and Dionysius. Not to be outdone, Ned Rorem came up with his own slam-dunk binary oppositions, French/German. (Example: cats are French, dogs German. If you must know more, click here.) This summer I’ve discovered a new pair of binaries. Whereas I am (apparently) a born Decorator, my spouse is an Organizer. She’s spent the last two months tearing the house apart, throwing away tons of stuff from our previous lives while carefully sorting what’s left into uniformly sized cardboard boxes, neatly... Read more...
End Of Summer Storm
End Of Summer Storm
Life on the Eastern Plains outside of Boulder can often be as dramatic as thunderstorms that look like alien spaceships descending from the heavens. Close encounters? Read more...
Issue 16
Issue 16
Welcome to Copper #16! We’re excited by our recent additions. Many of you read Darren Myers’ first installment of Make It Yourself, on building an interconnect. Darren’s back with the first steps in reviving vintage components.... Read more...