Whether you think of "mod" as modern, modular, or even modest, the term aptly defines stereo's newest product form, also known as the three-piece music system. In these installations one cabinet (usually in walnut) houses a record changer and a control amplifier (sometimes with a tuner, making it a stereo receiver) and is known as the electronics module or, less austerely, as the control unit; two matching cabinets house a pair of stereo speakers. Such systems have also been called "compacts" - a term suggesting a place in the audio world somewhat akin to that enjoyed by compacts in the auto world: not as luxurious or as high-powered or as "last-word" as full-size, but fun to own, economical, and right handy for parking in tight spots. And most important, very competent performers.

While no one expects that mods will displace the all-out superiority of the best separates, everyone agrees that the new systems have permitted thousands of new listeners to enjoy well-reproduced sound. Which is, of course, the rationale behind the mods.
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The engineering principle behind the stereo mods is component integration: record changer, cartridge, amplifier (or receiver), and speakers are chosen for their ability to work efficiently with each other at a predetermined level of performance commensurate with the system's cost. There is, in other words, a ceiling on the ultimate sonic splendor you can expect of a mod. It is a very high ceiling, but a ceiling nonetheless. And this really is what distinguishes the mod from a system made up of separates.

Directly responsible for this development is the use of transistors. Transistors are, in fact, the star performers here. They have made possible the design of audio equipment small enough, and cool-running enough, to permit its being closely installed in a common enclosure where record player and a full array of electronics share less than two cubic feet of space.

Also playing a major part in the successful design of the modular system is the improved response now possible with small speakers. Although the audio world still pays homage to the big systems or the costliest bookshelf types, there is a new peerage of compact and inexpensive performers.

The best of them are fairly clean-sounding, and audible differences are subtle. As a class, their bass output, while not overwhelming, is nonetheless convincing: they may not be able to re-create the lowest
pedal notes with the nth degree of exactitude, but they will permit you to recognize that it is an organ you're listening to and not a muddled version of an orchestral choir. The bass they provide is the result of their use of heavy magnets, driving small but efficient cones. This design technique has made for clean reproducers that literally can fit on a shelf and that do not require more than the ten to fifteen watts of amplifier power supplied by the electronic module in order to provide clean bass down to about 60 Hz.

The mid-range and highs in these systems generally are handled by an additional speaker designed for fairly wide-angle dispersion and clean tones up to or just beyond about 14 kHz. While all the elusive highs and the sense of ultimate air and space that you might hear from a costlier, more elaborate speaker system may be missing, you will get the best part of the important overtone structure of music - which will certainly let you distinguish easily between, say, the strings and woodwinds in the upper register. Most important, these systems have a well-balanced output and do not favor one portion of the musical spectrum over any other: they will neither shriek at you nor blast your ears with overheavy thumping bass. And most of them are quite good at handling transients, those short-duration sonic pulses that lend a touch of realism to reproduced music. Over-all, these systems can fill a normal size room with very listenable sound.

Transistors, small speakers-and style. The stereo mods have an immediate easy-to-live-with quality, a quality built-in and ready-made and apparent as soon as you start unpacking the cartons. Aside from their obvious visual appeal, there is the tidy thoughtfulness with which everything is arranged and planned; the prefitted cable connectors neatly bundled and ready to be plugged in; the cartridge already fitted correctly in the arm shell; the freedom from guesswork in determining what size or length of wires to use for hookups; the little fillips in some mods, such as the option to select a colored grille cloth, or the inclusion of a stylus brush on the record changer or a unique just-right arrangement of controls and indicators. You get a feeling that someone finally has taken the trouble to make everything as easy as can be for stereo enjoyment but without, as a concomitant, seriously limiting or compromising the performance.
Condensed from High Fidelity. Copyright by the Billboard Publishing Company.
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One of the fruitful and pleasant things about shopping for the speakers with which you intend to cap a stereo sound system is that there are differences to be seen and heard among the many models typically found in an audio showroom. Differences of appearance among today's speaker systems are very obvious, while the differences in sound are more subtle but perceptible nonetheless. It is something of a challenge, of course, to eliminate the speakers with evident deficiencies from your shopping list, and then go on to pinpoint and evaluate the audible differences between good speakers. But it is an enjoyable kind of challenge, and one that can heighten your involvement with stereo.

It is worth making clear that the number of individual speakers or "drivers" employed in a particular loudspeaker system is not always a reliable guide to quality. While it is true that many designers of perfectionist speaker, systems use three, four, or even more speakers in a single system, it is equally true that the makers of mass-market radio-phonographs often use cheap speakers in multiples to mask mediocre quality and woo the unwary buyer with the appeal of sheer numbers.

The argument for the small speaker is that it can be mounted in a relatively small cabinet easily accommodated in a living room, and that the air trapped in the small cabinet can exert a very uniform control over the motion of the cone (by "air suspension"). For the proponents of the larger speaker systems the chief argument is that the speaker moving a shorter distance for bass reproduction does so with audible ease and with greater efficiency-that is to say, it requires less power from the amplifier.

There is no doubt at this time that very good speaker systems can be found in both small and large sizes. The question of size as such is hardly one of great differences in sound, but rather of other factors such as personal taste, and of amplifier power, and the amount of space available in a living room.

The new emphasis from many manufacturers on the importance of high frequencies for "big" sound has had a very interesting (and highly welcome) effect on the speaker market over the past two or three years.

It is now possible to buy speaker systems in the "budget" category ($50 to $100) whose excellent high-frequency response provides decidedly spacious and well-defined sound quality. In the past, this price category implied definite and very audible compromises. Usually, in fact, the serious listener on a budget was best advised to choose an unpretentious speaker that could later become the mid-range unit in a more ambitious system.

But as things now stand, many will be able to find systems in the under-$100 range with which they will be able to live happily ever after. Just what can you get for your money in various price categories? To begin with, the category just mentioned contains many speakers offering surprisingly satisfactory sound. In addition to good high-frequency response, many of today's budget-priced systems offer a good semblance of the very-low-frequency reproduction - say, with listenable bass response to about 50 Hz or below - once available only for upwards of $200. Of course, the smallest systems as a rule are limited in power-handling ability, and would have difficulty in filling a 30-foot living room with sound at loud listening levels. But a few can stand up to this challenge-and all of the better budget-priced systems do provide balanced, eminently listenable sound at normal listening levels in an average size room.

How many times have you been advised in the pages of audio publications to listen for a speaker that has a "smooth uncolored sound?" Or a speaker that has a "non-peaky mid-range," a "non-boomy bass," a "good transient response," and so on? None of these terms, I'm afraid, adequately convey the particular subjective-objective phenomena that the author is seeking to describe. This has nothing to do with the much-abused subject of psychoacoustics, but simply relates to the very real question of how one can judge whether a speaker is doing a good job of reproduction when one does not have available for comparison the original sound the speaker is attempting to reproduce.

There is a popular (but fallacious) notion that it is enormously helpful, as a preliminary to speaker shopping, to attend a concert of live music. Unfortunately, the average mind's ear cannot be expected to isolate the distinguishing features of live sound under concert-hall conditions in the first place. And in the second place, the mind's ear is a notoriously leaky vessel and cannot retain the memory of what it has heard for more than a few seconds even under the best of circumstances.

Nonetheless, it is possible to make a valid judgment of the sound quality of a speaker in home or showroom once you become aware of what to listen for and how to listen for it.

An important aspect of a speaker system's bass performance is its freedom from spurious resonances. This can be tested simply by tuning in several FM stations and listening carefully to the various announcers on the speaker(s) under consideration. One or two of the announcers may have naturally deep voices, but if every one of them sounds as if he were addressing you from the bottom of an oil drum, you can be sure that the loudspeaker under test (not the announcer) has a bass resonance peaked somewhere in the 100-Hz region. This resonance provides for some a pleasant overlay of bass on classical material and enhances the beat on pop stuff, but the price paid for this is loss of upper-bass clarity and (usually) absence of genuine low bass.

Now that we have stated the various problems, what can we do about them?

If your listening room is too live (has too much high-frequency reverberation), it is possible that all you need do is reduce the high-frequency output of your system. This can be done either by turning down the amplifier's treble controls, or, better yet, by turning down the tweeter-level (and possibly even the mid-range) control on your speakers to reduce their high-frequency output.

If your problem is a little more extreme - if, for example, you hear speech sibilants bouncing back at you from a wall - you should make some changes in the acoustical character of the room. They can be as modest as rearranging the furniture, or as drastic as covering the walls and ceiling with absorptive material.

Low-frequency room resonance can usually be reduced by opening windows or doors into the listening room. An open door between two connecting rooms can profoundly alter the resonances of the combined spaces.

A small room - say, 8 x 10 x 12 feet - is unable to do full justice to the bass frequencies below about 100 Hz. This is not to say that a speaker system cannot deliver low frequencies into a small room, but simply that the room will not allow the speaker's full bass potential to be developed.

Long-established habits of thinking are never easy to change even when demonstrably obsolete. This is particularly true when it comes to the venerable debate of manual turntable vs. record changer. If we go back a few years, only one answer would have been accurate: the best performance could be obtained only with a manual turntable. For the convenience of automatic start and stop (single play or changer), some compromise in the quality of record reproduction had to be expected and accepted.

However, during the past three years, a new breed of record changer - the automatic turntable - has succeeded in closing this "quality gap."
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There are few things one can purchase that are capable of giving so much pleasure over a long period of time as a fine recording. It contains within its relatively delicate grooves the data that are brought to life as audible sound by your high fidelity system. As your collection grows it becomes the 'open sesame' to the vast and wonderful world of recorded music literature. Your records deserve, and will repay you for all the care you give them.

First, as to proper storage: All records should be stored vertically, never horizontally. Neat, vertical storage places all the weight on the record's edge, preventing warpage. In planning the storage shelves, it is best to have these of a depth of the average LP record cover (or approximately 12"). This will permit your records to overhang the front edge of the shelf, making it much easier to withdraw the desired record by grasping the top and bottom edges. (See Figure 1).
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Multiple record albums may require greater depth and it is more practical to construct the shelves deep enough to accommodate the largest albums, measuring from front to back, and then inserting the proper size cleat at the bottom rear of those shelves used for single record albums (Figure 2) so that these will still overhang the front edge by the same amount as deeper albums. The less clearance above the top of the stored records, the less opportunity there will be for dust to settle in this area.

Is this your first time out in the tape recorder market? Or maybe your first recorder was a disappointment, and you are looking for a better buy. In either case, take a few quiet moments to consider what you want from what is available. To begin with, determine how you intend to use your recorder. Do you need high fidelity capability for musical recording and playback? Do you need special equipment and/or accessories? These are important to your choice of equipment-to ensure that you don't underbuy and aren't over-sold.

The next bit of preparation involves money. Decide from the start the limits of your price range. And make it a range, so that you have some flexibility in matching need with cost. Like a good poker-player, you won't be pushed into more than your wallet can bear. And on the other hand, it's quite possible to come out of the store with exactly the piece of equipment you need, at less money than you expected.

Your final step is to acquaint yourself, in general, with the equipment you intend to buy. Here are some of the more salient features of a tape recorder. Familiarize yourself with them, before you buy.