According to a Pali scripture called the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the Buddha's last piece of advice to his disciples was "appo dipo bhava," most commonly translated into English as "Be a light unto yourself."
This teaching was radical for a South Asian spiritual teacher living in the 5th century BCE. It is also easily misunderstood. To be a light unto yourself does not mean to dispense with teachers or received knowledge: instead the Buddha was encouraging us not to follow teachers blindly or turn knowledge into dogma. The value of every parcel of wisdom, every precept, every conviction, he told us, must be borne out in personal experience. Otherwise, it is useless. Ultimately our own experience is the only teacher. Really, how can it be otherwise?
More than many other pastimes, perfectionist audio is rife with dogma, pet theories, rival camps, and oversimplifications. Many among us swear that tube amps are "more musical" than transistor ones, others that tube amps are hopelessly colored, or that horn speakers are more dynamic than conventional ones, or that horn speakers are an incoherent mess, or that measurements are crucial to musical enjoyment, or that they are entirely irrelevant to it, and so on. Most equipment manufacturers align themselves with some of these positions and eventually double down in overinflated marketing claims.
SPECIFICATIONS
Description Single-box moving coil phono preamplifier. Inputs: one stereo pair RCA. Outputs: one stereo pair RCA. Gain: 71dB. Input impedance (switchable): 90, 120, 180 ohms, 10nF. Max nominal cartridge output level: 0.4mV at 3.54cm/s. Output impedance: 300 ohms. Power consumption: less than 5W.
Dimensions 4.1" (103mm) × 2.3" (59mm) × 7.1" (180mm). Weight: 2.1lb (970gm).
This story is from the July 2022 edition of Stereophile.
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This story is from the July 2022 edition of Stereophile.
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