Last year, on the hunt for high-quality espresso beans, I visited some specialty coffee websites. On one forum, I came across this description of a particular roast: “I tasted mild acidity and bitters with hazelnut, bourbon, and a hint of dark cherry. As it began to cool, there was a hint of black raspberry syrup or cordial. Then a dominant note emerged of nuts with mild distillates, walnut bitters, cacao nib and something between 82% dark chocolate and baker’s chocolate.… Further cooling offered the surprise of dark piecrust and a bitter cherry liqueur. The piecrust then rounded to a slightly sweet dark rye. There was a lingering aftertaste of single malt scotch that eventually faded to baker’s chocolate with a hint of ashiness.”
A hint of ashiness? More like 15 hints of pretentiousness, I thought. I sent the paragraph to a few friends with the request, “If I ever start jabbering like these coffee cognoscenti, I want you to punch me in the taint. Hard.” We laughed and moved on.
I had enough self-awareness to realize that in the hi-fi world we sometimes prattle on about hi-fi in ways that, to outsiders at least, must seem just as fustian and florid. With every Stereophile review I write, I feel a little belated sympathy for the coffee reviewer. It is maddeningly difficult to be precise about the intricacies and nuances our senses perceive. Just like the argot in The Wine Advocate and Artforum, audio reviewers’ prose can seem swollen, posey, and poncy.
SPECIFICATIONS
Description Rear-ported three-way transmission-line design with a 5 ¾" ribbon tweeter, one 6" midrange driver, and one 8 ¾" woofer. Crossover frequencies: 250Hz, 2.5kHz. Sensitivity 91.5dB/2.83V/m. Frequency range, 20Hz–47kHz. Nominal impedance 4 ohms.
Dimensions Height: 41"; width 8.5" at the top, 15" at the bottom; depth 14" at the top, 18" at the bottom. Weight: 96lb.
Finish Piano Black, Beechwood, Rosewood, Metallic Silver.
Serial numbers of units reviewed ADA 22005, ADA22006 (listening), ADM2015 (measuring).
Price $17,000–$18,000/pair depending on finish. Warranty: 5 years on registration.
Manufacturer Alta Audio LLC, 139 Southdown Rd., Huntington, NY 11743, USA.
Tel: (631) 424-5958.
Email: inquire@altaspeakers.com.
Web: altaspeakers.com.
In this assessment of Alta Audio’s Adam speaker, I could cut down on the high-flown lingo, because these medium-sized towers sound, in a word, right. The treble, for instance, is not dry or bright: It’s right. But I have a responsibility to go further than that, to say what it actually sounds like.
During my copious notetaking, I struggled to describe this speaker accurately. It occurred to me that the better the audio product, the harder it is to describe. Truly outstanding speakers and components are special because of what’s : sibilance, honkiness, chestiness, tizz, tubbiness, and so on. So, I wracked my brain: What else is like this? What’s another thing that reveals its character mainly by
