Stereophile December 2014

BY JASON VICTOR SERINUS THIS ISSUE: Will high-end audio always be the preserve of the economically elite? Thinking Outside the Niche With increasing frequency, many audiophiles and industry professionals have accepted that the quest for highest-quality sound quality is a luxury and esoteric pursuit that, by its very nature, can appeal to only a small niche market. According to this view, the masses—the 99%, if you will—are either satisfied with Pioneer, Bose, Samsung, Dr. Dre, and iPhone/Android/tablet sound; can’t tell the difference between quality and dreck; or will never have the money or imagination to move beyond lowest-common-denominator sound. To the extent that the vast majority knows anything about highend audio, it regards it as an absurdly overpriced indulgence and a target for their disdain. Disdain, it seems, goes both…

TAKE HEED! Unless marked otherwise, all letters to the magazine and its writers are assumed to be for possible publication. In the spirit of vigorous debate implied by the First Amendment, and unless we are requested not to, we publish correspondents’ e-mail addresses. Welcome, Mr. Reichert Editor: I’m glad to see that Herb Reichert is writing for Stereophile. I remember him from the days of Listener magazine, and it’s good to see that Herb hasn’t lost his abilities both to be interesting and to entertain. And it’s great to read a writer who asks questions in addition to providing answers. —Paul Secor joanpaul26@aol.com Caught another one Editor: How do you catch a new generation and introduce them to the wonder of music? I have an answer: something old, something cool,…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: www. stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@XLinkAudio.com. Please note that it is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless this is associated with a seminar or similar event. CALIFORNIA • Sunday, December 7, 11am–3:30pm: The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society will host its 21st Annual Society Gala and Awards Banquet in the Grand Ballroom of the Holiday Inn, Buena Park (7000 Beach Boulevard). Chad Kassem, president of Acoustic Sounds, will receive the Founder’s Award for 2014 and provide the keynote address. Other special presenters include Michael Fremer, senior contributing editor of Stereophile; Dr. David W.…

LINE PREAMPLIFIER The experience left me doubting my ears. After I’d performed all the measurements of Ayre Acoustics’ KX-R preamplifier ($18,500) to accompany Wes Phillips’s review in our November 2008 issue,1 I spent a weekend listening to it. To my astonishment, the sound of my system with a Transporter D/A processor feeding the preamplifier was better than when the DAC fed the power amplifier directly. Through the KX-R, images sounded more tangible, and the sound was better focused, despite the signal’s having been passed through not just another set of interconnects but also through the preamp’s input and output socketry, switches, a volume control, printed circuit-board traces, and active and passive parts. Logically, you’d think that having nothing in the signal path would have less of a degrading effect than…

Description Remotecontrolled line preamplifier. Analog inputs: 4 balanced (pin 2 hot), 4 unbalanced. Analog outputs: 2 pairs balanced on XLRs (pin 2 hot), 2 pairs balanced tape (pin 2 hot). Other inputs/outputs: 2 AyreLink ports. Gain range: Variable Gain Transconductance topology in 60 steps of 1dB. Frequency range: DC–250kHz. Signal/noise and channel separation: not specified. Input impedance: 2 megohms, balanced; 1 megohm, unbalanced. Output impedance: 150 ohms, single-ended (when used with an adapter); 300 ohms, balanced. Power consumption: 35W (65W maximum when volume control operated). Dimensions 17.1” (438mm) W by 3.7” (95mm) H by 11.4” (292mm) D. Weight: 40 lbs (18kg). Serial number of unit reviewed PROTO-1; firmware rev.F Price $27,500 (upgrade from KX-R costs $9000). Approximate number of dealers: 40. Manufacturer Ayre Acoustics, Inc., 2300-B Central Avenue, Boulder, CO…

Analog Sources Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B cartridge Digital Sources Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini running OS10.9.4, iTunes 11, Pure Music 2.0, Audirvana Plus 1.5.10; Auralic Vega, PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A processors; dCS Vivaldi upsampling D/A system; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter. Preamplification Channel D Seta L phono preamplifier; Pass Labs XP-30 line preamplifier. Power Amplifiers Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks, Audio Research Reference 75. Loudspeakers Triangle Signature Delta, Nola Metro Grand Reference Gold, BBC LS3/5A, KEF LS50, Revel Performa3 M106. Cables Digital: AudioQuest Coffee, Belkin Gold USB, Kubala-Sosna Elation! AES/EBU, Transparent USB (dCS Vivaldi). FireWire: AudioQuest FireWire 400 (prototype). Interconnect (balanced): AudioQuest Wild Blue (D/A processors), Ayre Acoustics (disc player), Kubala-Sosna Elation! (preamp to…