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Sunday, June 12, 2011

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Tutorial: How to improve your Mac's performance

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 01:00 AM PDT

What can you do if your Mac randomly crashes or kernel panics?

Random crashes and kernel panics (when the screen goes dark and you're told to restart) could be down to hardware going wrong. Check things aren't getting too hot - are any of the air vents filled with dust?

A utility such as iStat Menus will enable you to see how hot different parts of your Mac are running. Every model is different, but unless you're doing some really intensive work, it shouldn't be going above 80°C.

Next, check your RAM is seated properly by removing it and plugging it back in, and run the Apple Hardware Test by inserting your Applications Install DVD and restarting while holding down D.

If this finds no trouble, you could work through crash logs to pinpoint what might be causing it, but we suggest, you back up your hard drive, erase it and reinstall OS X.

"Everything's slowing down on my entire Mac!"

Dashboard

When you've experienced your Mac at its speedy best, slowdowns can be unbearable, but there are several things you can do.

Have a look in your Applications folder and see if there's anything there you no longer use Using an uninstaller app such as AppDelete, AppZapper or CleanMyMac, removes anything superfluous. This will also free up space for Mac OS X to use as virtual memory.

If your boot drive still has less than 10GB free, it's a good idea to move some files elsewhere to enable the OS to perform to its best. Why not put your media on an external drive?

Now press F3 to open Dashboard, hold down Option, hover over any widgets you don't use and click the x to get rid of them - they put strain on your Mac.

A more extreme way to get your Mac back to its best is to back it up and then reinstall OS X, but don't then use Migration Assistant, as this could bring the problem with it. You'll need to copy your files across manually.

Lastly, think about how old your Mac is. As software becomes more demanding, older machines will slow down when they run it.

"My keyboard has a faulty key. How can I fix it?"

If a key on your keyboard won't press down, it's likely there's something stuck under it. Every keyboard tends to be different, but with the recent Apple ones, you can prise the key off and give it a clean underneath, then clip it back in again.

However, if you do this, it is entirely at your own risk!

"My mouse doesn't track or scroll properly"

It probably needs a good clean! Dirt and grime can build up on the bottom of a mouse over time, so scrape it off gently. To clean the scroll ball in a Mouse (formerly Mighty Mouse), roll the ball over some sticky tape to clean it.

How to reset the SMC

Reset smc

If your Mac's been running slowly or refusing to start up, resetting the System Management Controller (SMC on Intel Macs) or Power Management Unit (PMU, on PowerPC machines) sometimes helps.

The SMC or PMU control the power given to components in your Mac, and resetting it can solve certain problems. However, it's not a universal fix and Apple has a list of specific conditions when an SMC/PMU reset may be appropriate. Even then, it's a last resort.

The way to do it differs between models. For Intel-based Macs, have a look at this page for instructions on when and how to reset your SMC. And for older ones, check out this page and this page.

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Interview: 'Proprietary software keeps users helpless'

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 05:00 AM PDT

Without Richard Matthew Stallman there would be no GNU, and without GNU there would be no Linux distributions as we know them today.

Richard Matthew Stallman started the GNU's Not Unix project in 1983 to create a totally free operating system, and later the General Public License to guarantee its freedom. By 1991 much of GNU was finished, although it was lacking a kernel - that's where Linus Torvalds and his Linux kernel come in.

Despite the success of GNU/Linux, Stallman hasn't opted for an easy life: he campaigns tirelessly to protect our software freedoms, alerting us to potential threats that new technologies bring.

Linux Format magazine met Richard at the Institute of Engineering and Technology in London, and put to him some of the questions you asked…

Richard Matthew Stallman: First, I want to tell you about free software because I want that to be in the interview. Many users of the GNU/Linux system will not have heard the ideas of free software. They will not be aware that we have ideas, that a system exists because of ethical ideals, which were omitted from ideas associated with the term 'open source'.

The idea of free software is that users of computing deserve freedom. They deserve in particular to have control over their computing. And proprietary software does not allow users to have control of their computing. Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Divided because each user is forbidden to redistribute it to others, and helpless because the users can't change it since they don't have the source code. They can't study what it really does.

So the proprietary program is a system of unjust power. The developers or owner of the program has unjust power over the users, and the program is simply an instrument of that power. This is an injustice, and the idea of free software is to escape from that injustice and put an end to it.

So free software respects the user's freedom. So a program is free if it gives the user the four essential freedoms.

Freedom zero is the freedom to run the program as you wish. Freedom one is the freedom to study the source code and change it so the program does your computing as you wish. Freedom two is the freedom to help others - the freedom to redistribute exact copies when you wish. Freedom three is the freedom to contribute to your community, which is the freedom to distribute your modified copies. And these four freedoms mean that the social system of using and distributing the program is an ethical system.

With these four freedoms the users control the program. Without these four freedoms the program controls the users. It's always one way or the other with software: with free software the users control the program, with proprietary software the program controls the users, and the owner controls the program and through it controls the users.

So this is not a technical issue - it's an ethical issue. It's an ethical issue that arises from the use of certain technology. But because it's an ethical issue and not a technical one, it's important: it's more important than any mere technical issue.

LXF: Most of our readers are passionate about free software…

RMS: But do they think of it as free software?

LXF: Well, when they contact us, many use the term 'free software' - some use 'open source'…

RMS: Ah, that's different, you see. Open source refers to different ideas - a different philosophy. And the difference is fundamental, because it's at the level of values. It's not a disagreement over some detail; it's a disagreement over the most basic thing.

We are aiming for a free society, where the users have freedom. Open source organisations and leaders say they're aiming for better-quality code. These are about as far apart as you can get, because we're saying it's for freedom and social solidarity, and they're saying it's for quality.

LXF: Isn't that one way you can lead people from one system to another, though?

RMS: I don't understand - they're different.

LXF: But if you have a company that makes proprietary software, it might be hard to adjust its mentality towards the GPL and free software. If you can ease it into the idea of open source, through talking about the benefits of quality - once it gets used to the idea, you can expand…

RMS: Actually, you can't. What I've found is that talking to people about open source - it might get them to use some free programs; it might get them to contribute sometimes to free programs. But it reinforces their values, which are the deepest thing that we'd want to change.

So there's a big difference between convincing someone to run some free programs or run a mostly free operating system, and teaching that person to value freedom. They're not the same, and the first doesn't usually lead to the second.

In fact, when the open source philosophy spreads a lot - which it has - it tends to close people's minds to the ideas of free software. It even tends to cover up our existence. Most of the articles that talk about the GNU system, they don't call it the GNU system and they don't call it free software. They describe it as open source, and they give the impression that we - its developers - agree with the open source ideas that the readers have heard of already, and would never guess at what we're really standing for.

LXF: Then do you think in hindsight that, back in the early '80s when you originated the GNU project, the term 'free software' was best? I try to say 'libre'…

RMS: I say 'libre' also, for the same reason.

LXF: When some people hear 'free software', they think of rubbish spyware on Windows machines.

RMS: It took me time to recognise that this distinction was vital. In 1983, when I announced [GNU], I hadn't separated these concepts. It took a few years before I did. So again, in The GNU Manifesto, posted in 1985, there's still some confusion between the two meanings of 'free'.

It was after that that I became aware of the need to emphasise that it's free as in freedom, not free as in price. Think of free speech, not free beer. Sure, it would've been better if I had realised that earlier. Although exactly what I would have said - it's not clear, because the English language doesn't have a word that uniquely means what I want to say.

The only common word for free in the sense of freedom is free, so that's why we say 'free/libre', because with that word we can clarify the point.

I notice there's a statement here in your magazine [LXF143] about LibreOffice, which is an important illustration. Sun acquired StarOffice, and released it as free software under the name OpenOffice.org. But the people at Sun who did this were not supporters, politically, of the ideas of free software.

They were indeed open source supporters. So their goal was to make their program good quality and a success - not to give the users freedom. That wasn't their goal, although since their source code was free software, it did respect the user's freedom, but they weren't thinking about it in those terms.

So they made a list of extensions, and in it they put proprietary extensions. Around last May, we - the Free Software Foundation - announced a plan to make our own extensions site for OpenOffice.org, which would not have the non-free extensions. It was a serious problem that OpenOffice.org was promoting these programs, giving people the idea that non-free programs were OK.

So, what could I do about it? Well, we asked people, let's make our own list of extensions. LibreOffice uses our list of extensions - they've taken it over.

That problem is solved, and the reason that they did this was that the people who are making this version of the program are free software activists - they care about freedom. They will take decisions for the sake of freedom. This shows that people who don't think about freedom or value freedom will sometimes do things for other reasons that help our freedom.

But you can't count on that. Sometimes people will find it suits their motives better to do things that work against our freedom. Linus Torvalds originally developed Linux as proprietary software, in 1991. In 1992 he released it under the GNU GPL, and thus, combining Linux with the GNU system became possible as a way of making a completely free operating system.

But he didn't do that because he valued freedom - he had other motives. I'm not completely sure what they were. And then in 1996, he began inserting pieces of non-free software into Linux - the binary blobs for firmware.

When we at the FSF found out about this, we started campaigning for something to be done about it - that was several years ago. We started pushing for the free distributions of GNU/Linux to get rid of the blobs. And then Alexandre Oliva started distributing Linux-libre, which is Linux with the blobs deleted.

The gnu hero

LXF: Is there any value in having an official GNU distribution? You see a lot of these purely free GNU/Linux distributions, such as Trisquel and gNewSense, and a lot of them are falling back - they're really scattered projects. Is there room for an official GNU? GNU's GNU/Linux?

RMS: I think it would be good if more of them started working together. But I don't want to start another distro that would be GNU - because that would be a slap in the face to all of those people working on those distros now, and I don't like taking a side among them, having a preference among them. It would be sort of unfortunate to do that.

LXF: Many of our readers want to know what exactly you run as an example. There are the photos on your site of you working with a ThinkPad, but you don't recommend that now.

RMS: I don't use the ThinkPad - those photos are from years ago. Now I'm using this Lemote machine - Yeeloong - you can think of that as 'remote' with a Chinese accent!

I chose this machine because it's free all the way down to the BIOS. It has a MIPS-type processor, a Chinese version of the MIPS. In any case, the point is, it solves that problem.

LXF: Did you have to modify this, or can you buy it as a purely free piece of hardware?

RMS: I wouldn't call it that - I would call it specified hardware. But yeah, you can buy it.

LXF: And what are you running on it?

RMS: I'm running gNewSense, which is the only totally free GNU/Linux distro that runs in a MIPS. The others are for PCs, so they won't run. gNewSense supports also PCs.

LXF: Going back to the bigger picture, what would you say is the biggest threat to free software in 2011?

RMS: There are several. There are legal prohibitions, such as software patents in some countries that have foolish policies. And there are laws that censor free software explicitly, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US, which censors free software that you can break digital handcuffs with.

The European Union has similar laws. Both the US and the EU try to push nasty laws like that on to other countries, through treaties that they ask them to sign. So these are malicious governments.

Then there are the obstacles created by manufacturers, working together often with Microsoft. For instance, there are many pieces of PC hardware that can only be used from Windows. And typically the specs of that hardware are not available, so that of course is an unethical practice - to sell someone a product and refuse to tell them how to run it. That shouldn't be allowed.

Another obstacle is the tendency to sell computers with bundled Windows. I would recommend prohibiting that practice, too.

Then there's the tendency of some companies to donate gratis, or nearly gratis, copies of their non-free programs to schools. Microsoft does this, Apple does this - and I've read that the Gates Foundation does this. Bill Gates's idea of charity is to get school students hooked on Windows, so that he can make more money. That's not charity, I think.

LXF: A question one of our readers wanted to ask: is a world of only free software still feasible? Should that still be the ultimate goal?

RMS: Yes, it's the goal, I think. That's my goal. Now, it may be impossible to totally eradicate the last little bits of non-free software. After all, in almost 200 years of abolitionism, we haven't eliminated slavery. There are places where people are effectively slaves. I've read claims that some foreign workers in the UK are effectively slaves, because if they were to complain, they would end up getting deported. So it's hard to totally eliminate some form of abuse, but I'm sure that a society in which proprietary software is an unusual exception is possible if we demand one together.

LXF: A lot more people are using smartphones and tablets as their primary computing platforms, with their app stores…

RMS: That doesn't change anything, really. A smartphone is a computer - it's not built using a computer - the job it does is the job of being a computer. So, everything we say about computers, that the software you run should be free - you should insist on that - applies to smartphones just the same. And likewise to those tablets.

Now, what should we say about those app stores? Well, first of all, the Apple and Microsoft app stores forbid free software. They only allow non-free software. This shows how evil they are. But remember, they're on the basis of a non-free operating system.

If you want to live in freedom, you need to not just insist on apps that are free, but to insist on an operating system that's free. So the 'iMoan' and the 'iBad' are fundamentally bad. They can't get you anywhere near freedom, so you shouldn't use them.

And likewise, Windows Phoney 7 is not going to give you any freedom, so those products are obviously totally bad. They continue the mistreatment by distributing these non-free apps, and only nonfree apps - it makes the nastiness bigger, but even if they hadn't done that, it would still be unacceptable.

Now, Android is a different case. The source code of Android is free as Google releases it, but they use a non-copyleft license, except for the case of Linux - which is under GPL v2. So the result is that the licence doesn't protect the users from lock-down, or Tivoization - which is the practice of making a free program's executable effectively non-free, by stopping the user from installing and using his own version.

So many kinds of smartphone with Android in them block the user from installing his own versions of the software.

LXF: There's still a battle going on here to win the minds of a lot of people - they don't even know what source code is.

RMS: Absolutely.

LXF: My parents for instance - it's a case of trying to find the right approach…

RMS: I use the analogy of recipes. It's a good analogy, because a program is a lot like a recipe. They're both a series of steps to be carried out to get some desired result. And if you look at the way that cooks use recipes, you'll see that in practice they enjoy the same four freedoms in the way they use recipes.

Cooks cook recipes freely, they study and change them when they wish, they redistribute copies, and if they make a modified version, they might distribute copies of their version. So imagine if businesses and the state decided to impose proprietary recipes. Suppose the state said: starting tomorrow, if you copy or change your recipe we will put you in prison and call you a pirate. Imagine how angry all cooks would be.

A lot of people who don't know anything about programming will understand this. The state hasn't tried to do it with recipes - but that's exactly what it's tried to do with software.

LXF: One last thing, do you still do any hacking these days?

RMS: I occasionally do some hacking, but not programming - not with computers. I think the Guantanamero (http://stallman.org/guantanamero.html) was a hack, a song parody of Guantanamera. I've written another song parody in Spanish since then.

LXF: Is there going to be a follow up to the Free Software Song?

RMS: I don't think so!

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Review: Dali IKON 7 MkII

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 03:30 AM PDT

DALI (the name is actually an acronym for Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries) debuted its new IKON range at the May 2010 Munich High End Society show and while the overall sizes and configurations of the various MK2 models do correspond closely to those of the original IKON range (first launched in 2005), they also incorporate plenty of engineering and cosmetic changes.

The IKONs are Danish-made loudspeakers, so manufacturing isn't cheap. Furthermore, the value of the Danish Krone (linked to the Euro) has appreciated significantly compared to sterling in recent years, so a significant price rise for this MK2 range was inevitable.

Even so, an increase from £999 to £1,699 over a six-year span is pretty hefty, especially for a speaker finished in vinyl woodprint.

While the IKON 7 MK2 might, therefore, seem to be rather less of an obvious bargain as its predecessor, it's still a lot of hi-tech speaker at a decent enough price. Speakers made in China certainly appear to offer rather more for rather less and customers who shy away from vinyl woodprint might not be won over, but the combination of advanced drive units and European manufacture are arguably benefits that justify the price premium.

Top-of-the-line

The new IKON range consists of five stereo pairs, alongside three extras oriented towards multichannel duties. This IKON 7 is the largest in the line-up and is a tall, quite deep and substantially built floorstander, though fashionably slim in the modern idiom.

Our samples were dressed in black woodprint vinyl covering the back, top, sides and base, while the extra-thick front panel is plain mattblack. The net result is a rather dour and monolithic appearance. A 'light walnut' woodprint over five faces is also available, though that is the only alternative option.

The entire enclosure is stiffened by carefully positioned internal bracing, while the front panel is constructed from two substantial layers of MDF, bonded by a glue that provides a measure of damping. Since the enclosure is quite narrow, alloy outrigger feet are supplied and fulfil the two functions of improving the physical overall stability and ensuring proper spike-fixing.

Desirable drivers

IKON 7 mkii

Not that there's anything wrong with out-sourcing drive units from experienced OEM manufacturers, as is relatively common practice amongst the smaller brands, but one important feature that distinguishes DALI from many competitors is that it uses its own proprietary drive units.

The IKON 7's front panel has an impressive array of five drivers, topped by DALI's exclusive 'Hybrid Tweeter Module' (HTM), which is featured in all the IKONs (bar the subwoofer). It's a combination of a conventional 28mm fabric-dome tweeter that starts operating around 2.5kHz, plus a 17x45mm ribbon unit that starts coming in at around 14kHz, maintaining wide lateral dispersion well beyond audibility. Both are mounted on the same chassis/faceplate.

The bass and the midrange are handled by three apparently identical 165mm cast-frame units, with dish-shaped diaphragms made from a reddish-brown mix of wood fibres and paper pulp, 115mm in diameter. The lower two only operate through the bass region, rolling off above 700Hz, while the uppermost one handles both bass and midrange duties, right up to the main 2.5kHz crossover, where it hands over to the HTM.

The driver line-up looks just like its predecessor from the outside and only the change in baffle colour from silver to black really provides a visual clue to the new MK2s. In fact, a lot of development work has gone on under the surface, resulting in numerous detail changes to most of the 'invisible' parts of many of the components.

A design target was to 'warm up' the tonal balance in order to deliver a 'richer, warmer sound', to which end the main drivers have been significantly revised, particularly to optimise airflow – rather successfully it would seem from our measurements.

Engineering excellence

It's not possible to estimate just how much improvement DALI has wrought when taking the IKON 7 to MK2 status, but there's no denying it's a thoroughly impressive performer that remains very competitive, even at its new and significantly higher price.

The enclosure engineering seems particularly good here, in that there's very little evidence of it making unwanted contributions that add colorations and muddy up the sound. The result is superior freedom from boxiness and a very low 'noise floor', giving a wide overall dynamic range, even though dynamic expression itself is unexceptional.

The tonal balance that we mentioned earlier is also an improvement on its rather dry-sounding predecessor and that has certainly been achieved. The bass end here could, perhaps, go deeper, but it's generally full and reasonably even with it, bringing a welcome warmth to the overall character.

One might wish for a little more grip and power, of the sort one occasionally finds amongst genuine high-end speakers. But the bass end of the IKON 7 is as good or better than any of its immediate competition, bringing the requisite richness to the proceedings and acting as an appropriate foil to the sweet and open top end.

The twin tweeter arrangement seems to work very well indeed. It's certainly smooth and well extended, without ever drawing unwanted attention to itself and presumably contributes to the fine transparency and precise stereo imaging that this speaker delivers.

The midband might not be the smoothest around, but it's expressive and involving and doesn't seem to add significant coloration either.

Superior coherence

Perhaps the most important feature of the IKON 7 MK2 might well be its overall top-to-bottom coherence. While this doesn't perhaps, quite match that achieved by those speakers that use a solitary 'full-range' driver (the inverted commas are quite deliberate, as 'full-range' is invariably optimistic), it does, nevertheless, possess fine overall timing across the whole audible frequency range.

Wind the volume up high and there is a mild tendency to emphasise the extreme top and bottom frequencies at the expense of the midband. But at most normal listening levels the speaker sounds 'just right'.

This is an unavoidable consequence of the way human hearing works: at low sound levels it shows greater relative midband sensitivity than when perceiving much louder sounds. We're getting into a very complex area of psychoacoustics here, the simplified upshot being that the speaker designer has to make choices that are related to personal preferences.

While it's not exactly a game-breaker, this is a speaker that marginally favours low and medium listening levels.

The IKON 7 MK2 might not be the most attractive-looking speaker around, but it does unquestionably deliver the sound-quality goods. It's not a high-end model, but it does offer a substantial percentage of high-end performance at a far more realistic price.

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Tutorial: How to fix Mac file problems

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 03:00 AM PDT

What can you do when all of a sudden one of your apps no longer opens?

Have you checked it's the latest version of the app? If not, update it.

If it is, open your hard drive and go to Library/Preferences and find any .plist files related to that app. Drag them to your desktop. Do the same for the Users/youruser name/Library/Preferences folder.

If not, uninstall it. Don't just drag its icon to the Trash, but run its uninstaller or use a program such as AppDelete or CleanMyMac. Then restart your Mac and reinstall the app.

If not, it could be conflicting with something else on your Mac. So, back everything up, wipe your hard drive and reinstall OS X. Install the app again. If all's well, don't use Migration Assistant because this could reintroduce the problem - instead, reinstall your apps and copy back files manually from the backup.

"I've got a file I can't open! What can I do?"

Open with

You're probably missing the app you need to view it. Does it have .docx or .wmv on the end of its name? This will help you pinpoint what kind of file it is, and therefore, what software you'll need to open it.

Do a search on the web for the file extension followed by the word 'Mac' to find an app to open it. For media files, VLC is a good bet.

If you think one of your existing apps should be able to open the file, drag it onto the app's icon (either in your Dock or the Applications folder). This will attempt to open the document using your chosen app. If the app doesn't go dark, press Command+Option to force it to try.

"A file I've been working on is now refusing to open!"

What error message are you seeing? If it's that it doesn't know what app to open the file with, right-click the icon, hover over Open With and see if you can use one of the apps there.

If you don't think any of these will do the trick, or the app you want isn't listed there, click Other… to browse your Applications folder to find the right one. If you can't find the app, it may have been deleted, so pop in the installer disc, or download it again.

The other possible error message is that a particular app is unable to open the file. If the wrong app is loading up, follow the above instructions to open it in the right program. But say the correct program is unable to load it - then the file is probably corrupted.

If so, the best option is to delve into your Time Machine backup and restore an earlier version.

"Spotlight can't find my file - but I know it exists!"

Open System Preferences and click Spotlight. In the Privacy tab, make sure the folder containing the file isn't in this exclusion list. If it is, select it and click the '-'.

Another cause of Spotlight failing to find files is that its database needs rebuilding. Drag your hard drive icon into the exclusion list, quit System Preferences. Then open it up, go back to the pane and select your hard drive. Click the '-' and Spotlight will re-index your disk.

How to recover accidentally deleted files

Time machine

Have you got a backup, Time Machine or otherwise? If so, recover the file from there (open Time Machine, browse back to the file and click Restore). Some apps include auto-save and autorecovery features, which may be able to salvage something.

Otherwise, you may be able to get your files back using special recovery software such as Prosoft's Data Rescue 3. To give the recovery app the best chance of success, run it as soon as possible after deleting the file.

Data Rescue 3 will scan for free and allow you to recover a single file under 10MB, but for the full functionality, it will set you back $100 (just over £60). You'll need to assess how much that lost file is worth.

Quick tip

If you don't already use Time Machine to make regular backups of your Mac, go out and get yourself an external hard drive now!

Keeping backups will mean you can recover most things, should something go amiss. Set up Time Machine in System Preferences > Time Machine.

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Review: Pro-Ject RPM 10.1 turntable

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 03:00 AM PDT

Pro-Ject's founder Heinz Lichtenegger is no longer satisfied with just cornering the budget market, he's now set his sites on the turntable high end and his latest weapon, the RPM10.1, is a substantial and shiny beast.

Heinz is a classical music lover and this turntable directly addresses one of the key issues with such music on vinyl: trackability. The RPM10.1 comes with not one, but four alternative counterweights, which are supplied so that the arm/cartridge resonance can be kept totally under control in order that the system can track anything you throw at it.

Pro-Ject has also produced a test disc and by combining the two you can establish which counterweight gives the best tracking and thus the least distortion.

0 to 90

The canon in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture requires the highest stylus acceleration on record at 90μm – a rate with which most moving coils struggle to cope, yet Pro-Ject's engineers have managed to get an MC to track its test disc at 100μm.

Pro-Ject rpm 10.1

Lichtenegger is quick to point out, though, that there is more to a great turntable and arm combination than theoretical tracking ability. He appreciates that setting up turntables well requires more than a test disc, but is clearly aiming to bring a little bit of science into the process.

The RPM10.1 is a revision of the RPM10, but quite a significant one. There are two key differences: one in the base, or Ground It Deluxe 3 (which is the rectangular slab that supports everything) and the other in the tonearm.

The Ground It incorporates magnetic decoupling through its four adjustable feet and provides a literal physical ground on account of its 13.4 kilogram mass. The 10cc version of the Evolution arm has had a lot of attention applied to controlling resonance and Pro-Ject has used more carbon fibre in a tighter weave than the previous incarnation. It has also incorporated Sorbothane damping in the four counterweights, each of which covers a range of cartridge weights ie: 4-6g, 5-8g etc, but there is some overlap between them.

In other respects this 10-inch arm is made of a single piece of carbon fibre with a conical shape, in order to combat standing waves. The bearing is an inverted type that uses ABEC7 ball races in a substantial ring-shaped housing for maximum rigidity.

Pro-Ject rpm 10.1

You can adjust armbase height in order to vary VTA and the armtube can be rotated so that azimuth can be changed. As with most Pro-Ject tonearms, the arm wiring is terminated in a pair of RCA phono sockets, so that alternative cables can be used to connect with the amplifier.

The rest of the RPM10.1 is hardly less substantial than the Ground It, the plinth is made of 63mm-thick MDF, with the same dark-grey gloss finish as the base. It sits on three sorbothane-damped aluminium cones and incorporates the armbase and a magnetically supporting inverted bearing for the platter.

This part is 60mm-thick and made of acrylic, but is described as 'a sandwich construction' which seems odd as it's clearly one-piece, albeit one five-kilo-plus piece that's topped off by a brass record puck.

The motor is effectively freestanding and sits atop a piece of metal of the same diameter and finish. Pro-Ject supplies a spacer device so that it can be placed the correct distance from the platter and connected by a thin square-section rubber belt.

On/off switching is atop the motor and speed-change a case of switching pulleys.

Every picture…

The pictures do not lie: this is a superbly finished turntable with plenty of attention to detail and the tonearm is particularly inspiring, thanks to the chunky bearing housing, although the thread and weight anti-skate system seems a shade old-school these days.

Pro-Ject rpm 10.1

There's no doubt that Pro-Ject offers excellent value for money in its turntables and this is just as apparent here, as it is with its budget models. Next to the Well Tempered Simplex, it looks twice the price, but as we know great record players are about more than scale and finish.

Our current favourite in this price range is the Michell Gyro SE, which is equally impressive for the level of sheer engineering it delivers. But high-mass designs are always more expensive than conventional ones.

This price sector is becoming one of the most hotly contested, with a number of established designs being available with and without a tonearm. From the Gyro SE (£1,450) including a TecnoArm to the Townshend Rock 7 sans arm and Well Tempered's relative newcomer the £1,495 Simplex with its damped golf-ball arm bearing. The latter two have a technological advantage, while the Gyro SE is a well executed suspended design at a great price.

The RPM10.1 on the other hand offers good isolation, thanks to its Ground It base and combines a truly evolved tonearm with a range of counterweights that offer a real advantage in resonance control.

Feel the quality

All that mass in the platter confers a certain stability to the sound of this turntable; we fitted a van den Hul Frog LO moving coil into its carbon-fibre arm and used the supplied interconnects to connect it with a Trichord Dino+ phono stage and got a smile-inducing result.

Tom Waits picked a very fine band for the album Swordfishtrombones and this turntable certainly brings out the quality of the recording, with plenty of acoustic around the percussion and double bass.

The tiny fingerlift is a bit tricky to drop into inner grooves, but the lift/lower device can be used for this purpose, while the arm is notably microphonic when you move and dock it in the clamp. This is not a problem while playing, however, and where resonances are higher, this is not necessarily a bad sign.

There is very little sense of the 'halo effect' that can challenge acrylic platters because of the deck's mass and clamp and while it's not the most luxurious-sounding turntable around, it's pretty damn smooth – capable of delivering weighty, tuneful bass which helps to create good image depth. In fact, the bass can be sumptuous when the record delivers the goods.

Rickie Lee Jones' Flying Cowboys does it with a chewy bass guitar beneath and a crisp high-hat up top, while another track reveals superb string tone above a beautifully timed bottom end. This is a classy turntable no doubt about it.

We investigated the benefits of the Ground It base by using the turntable both with and without a Custom Design stand. It certainly proved its worth by allowing the RPM10.1 to deliver a considerably more open sound that lifts and separates in true 'cross your heart' style. The bass gets a lot more room to breathe in and you can hear distinctly more fine detail across the range.

It's a contender

With its comprehensive approach to cartridge set-up and the efforts put into keeping resonance at bay with the Ground It base, this Pro-Ject is clearly a sophisticated beast. A state of affairs that's reflected in a resolute and engaging sound.

Whether it would better our recent Blind-listening Group Test winner, the Michell Gyro SE, is hard to tell. It doesn't have the pace of a Well Tempered or the solidity of the Rock 7, but it does have a certain finesse and calm resolution that is very enticing.

Thanks to good dynamics and timing, not to mention excellent separation of detail – it needs to be auditioned.

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Review: Acoustic Energy NeoV2 Four

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 02:30 AM PDT

The latest addition to Acoustic Energy's extensive range is a substantial three-way at a very competitive price. But while it's easy to build a big speaker for a good price with Far Eastern manufacturing, it's another thing to make the speaker communicative and dynamic.

Acoustic Energy has a strong track record for getting its designs right so what can we tell you about the new £700 NeoV2 Four?

Quality firepower

Standing 1,200mm tall this is an imposing speaker in a very smart finish (there's a black version and a Vermont walnut option – neither is real veneer, but you have to look twice to spot it).

The driver array is pretty serious, too: a pair of 160mm alloy bass units combined with a 130mm alloy mid and a ring-radiator tweeter. And you don't need a monster amp to get it jumping; the high 91dB sensitivity means that most decent amps will be up to the job and the better ones more than sufficient in level terms at least.

The NeoV2 Four comes with a separate bolt-on plinth that extends the footprint for greater stability and provides an anchor for the shiny floor spikes. It also comes with magnetic grilles, so that the front baffle is devoid of holes should you be sensible enough to run them 'naked'.

Three reflex ports pepper the back of this speaker and these partly explain the high-sensitivity. Acoustic Energy recommends you place them well away from side and rear walls.

A single pair of cable terminals keeps connections simple.

Hard act to beat

The cabinet is built with 18mm MDF for the most part, with a hefty 32mm front baffle, where stiffness is most needed. It's unusual to see a ring-radiator tweeter at this price, as these drivers are taking over from domes at higher prices because they have wider bandwidth and lower distortion. The only drawback on paper, at least, is reduced dispersion.

In terms of scale, this is a hard package to beat. The competition is devoid of anything over a metre high, but scale is not everything, of course, and we would expect the Bowers & Wilkins 684 to be a hard act to beat, this two-and-a-half way did well in its last Blind-listening Group Test and hits the same price point.

The right match

We tried a number of alternative amplifiers with the Neo Four in order to find a good match. First up was a Cyrus Streamline, which is not particularly powerful, but revealed the speaker's strength in midrange projection. The bass proved difficult for the Cyrus to get swinging, however, and only the finest of recordings sounded timely with this pairing.

A Cambridge Audio 840A brought out more body, space and low-level detail in the mix and added serious punch to dynamic tracks, but the bass seemed congested.

Our final partner, the Rega Mira 3, did the trick; its excellent sense of timing allowing the speaker to start strutting its stuff. Now the picture hung together with aplomb and we were free to listen to the music rather than the equipment.

Personal audio

With careful partnering this substantial floorstander is capable of revealing and engaging results. It's not quite as transparent as a similarly priced two-way standmount, but can muster a lot more bass extension and power. If you want to create a full-scale soundstage and immerse yourself in the music, then there is no substitute for large speakers.

Bass is not totally open and the mid will be a shade exposed for badly matched electronics, but get these bits right and you have a surprisingly open and well-balanced speaker that can deliver a shapely bottom end and a detailed midband. It gets you up close and personal with the music.

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