Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i Stereophile

The blowout happened as I climbed the stairs from the basement, where I’d just spent two hours listening to music on my hi-fi. Standing rigidly in the archway, a wet sheen of hurt trembling in her eyes, my wife shouted: “You love your audio more than you love me!” It erupted with such raw emotional force that I knew exactly what she meant, and that she was right: I spent more quality time with my audio than I did with her—or, for that matter, with either of my two homebound teenagers. It was nothing personal; my listening room is my private safe place, conceived and realized in my own image. It’s where I regularly go to escape everything—my routine away from my routine. It may not seem like much to…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website dedicated solely 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, August 19, 2–5pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting at The Source AV, in Torrance (3035 Kashiwa Street). Our hosts, Steven and Jason Lord, will demonstrate top-of-the-line equipment in spaces custom-designed to showcase the sonic and visual arts. This meeting will highlight Raidho Acoustics speakers and Chord Electronics amplifiers, both firsts for our Society and a huge hit at…

Some of my reviewer colleagues would have you believe that negative reviews are the most difficult of all to write, and that positive reviews fairly write themselves. What nonsense! As I write this, my copy deadline is three days away, yet I’ve succeeded at crafting little more than my heading (easy enough: it’s just the product’s name, followed by my name) and my Associated Equipment sidebar (also easy), leaving a great expanse of nothing in between. That’s mostly because the Kalista DreamPlay One, a two-box CD player whose $43,000 price might once have kept me from even considering it as a real-world product, has stunned me into a sort of paralysis: I feel that anything I write will be inadequate to the task. Indeed, in a field of endeavor where,…

Analog Sources Garrard 301 turntable; Audio-Creative GrooveMaster II, EMT 997 tonearms; EMT TSD 15, Ortofon SPU A Wood, Shindo Laboratory SPU pickup heads. Digital Source Sony SCD-777 SACD/CD player. Preamplification Auditorium 23 Hommage T1 & T2 stepup transformers, Shindo Laboratory Monbrison (2017) preamplifier. Power Amplifiers Luxman MQ-88uSE, Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion. Loudspeakers DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93. Cables Interconnect: Audio Note AN-Vx, Luna Red, Shindo Laboratory. Speaker: Auditorium 23, Luna Red. AC: manufacturers’ stock. Accessories Box Furniture Company D3S rack (source & amplification components), Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner Pro.…

I measured the BorderPatrol DAC SE with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” http://tinyurl.com/4ffpve4), using both the Audio Precision’s S/PDIF outputs and USB data sourced from my MacBook Pro running on battery power with Pure Music 3.0 playing WAV and AIFF test-tone files. Apple’s USB Prober utility identified the DAC SE as “USB2.0 High-Speed True HD Audio\000” from “C-MEDIA Inc.\000,” its serial number as “0 (none),” and confirmed that its USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. BorderPatrol specifies the DAC SE as operating with data sampled at up to 96kHz. Apple’s AudioMIDI utility revealed that, via USB, the BorderPatrol DAC SE accepted 16-, 24-, or 32-bit integer data sampled at all rates up to 384kHz, and that its coaxial inputs…

Description Network media server-player with integrated digital-to-analog converter. Formats supported: DSF, DSDIFF (DIFF), DoP, FLAC, Apple Lossless (ALAC), WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC (M4A container). Rooncertified. No internal storage. Resolutions supported: PCM to 32-bit/768kHz, DSD to 22.5MHz (USB port only); otherwise, PCM to 24/192, MQA, DSD to 2.8MHz via DoP. Inputs: XLR, RCA, optical, USB Type A (front, rear), USB Type B, Ethernet, BNC clock (44.1kHz–24.576MHz). Analog outputs: balanced (XLR), single-ended (RCA), left and right. Frequency response (PCM 192kHz): 5Hz–70kHz, –3dB. Signal/noise: 120dB. Distortion: 0.0007% (1kHz). Output impedances: 20 ohms (XLR), 23.5 ohms (RCA). Power consumption: 33W. Dimensions 17.5" (445mm) W by 6.4" (162mm) H by 17.25" (438mm) D. Weight: 56.7 lb (25.7kg). Finish Aluminum (silver). Serial number of unit reviewed 0020007. Price $20,000. Approximate number of dealers: 30 (US &…

Designed in New York City, manufactured in Poland, and barely bigger than a thick paperback, the Brooklyn Amp ($2495) is Mytek’s first power amplifier. Like all of their products, it’s sleek to behold, with a powerful look that suggests the company’s pedigree: in addition to high-end consumer electronics, Mytek makes gear for the pro-audio market, where exceptional build quality and space-saving design are the norm. Consistent with that last characteristic is the Brooklyn Amp’s output architecture: it operates in class-D, a technology that remains controversial. In my first review for Stereophile, I evaluated the Spec RPA-W7EX Real-Sound class-D power amplifier ($5995).1 That hefty silver box warmed my cockles with sound that was worthy of comparison to that of tubed amplifiers: delicious spatial performance and tonality that thoroughly surprised me. The…

Analog Sources Kuzma Stabi S turntable & Stogi S tonearm, Thorens TD 124 turntable & Jelco TS-350S tonearm; Denon DL-103, Ortofon Quintet Bronze cartridges. Digital Sources Apple MacBook computer running Audirvana Plus; Halide DAC HD, PS Audio NuWave DACs; LG BD550 Blu-ray player; Western Digital T2 Mirror Drives (2). Preamplification Auditorium 23 A23 moving-coil step-up transformer, Heed Audio Quasar phono stage, Shindo Laboratory Allegro preamplifier. Power Amplifier Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion. Integrated Amplifier Heed Audio Elixir. Loudspeakers DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93, Elac Debut B6, Quad S2. Headphones Master & Dynamic MH40. Cables Interconnect: AudioQuest Water, JPS Labs Superconductor, Shindo Laboratory, TriodeWire Labs American. Speaker: AudioQuest Castle Rock, Auditorium 23, Tellurium Q Black. AC: Manufacturers’ own. Accessories Mapleshade Clearview Double Helix Mk.II power strip; Music Hall Aztec Blue & Mooo record mats;…

Jorma Salmi Editor: In case you had not heard, Jorma Salmi, the designer of Gradient Labs speakers, passed away suddenly on May 27, at the age of 70. His obituary is on the Gradient Facebook page.1 He recently helped me repair my original Gradient Revolutions. —Norm Relich Lansing, IL ncrelich@sbcglobal.net William H. (Bill) Watkins Editor: William H. (Bill) Watkins (1929–2018), developer of the famous Watkins Dual-Drive Woofer, the renowned WE-1 large floorstanding speaker system, the recently introduced compact Generation 4, and numerous other high-performance speakers, passed away on February 1, 2018, at his home in Kingsport, Tennessee. He was a veteran of the US Army in the Korean War era, and served in active duty overseas. In his youth he became an accomplished musician, especially on the mandolin, guitar, and…

As I begin writing this column, I’m on an airplane on my way back from the funeral of David A. Wilson, founder of Wilson Audio Specialties. Two days before I left for Provo, Utah, came the news that my friend and analog mentor, Wally Malewicz, had died the previous day in Minneapolis, after suffering a massive heart attack. Immutable Music’s Seiji Yoshioka, designer of the Transfiguration phono cartridges, passed away February 17, after a lengthy hospital stay. (I hadn’t written anything about this before because his family, which plans to keep the brand alive, wasn’t then ready to make an announcement.) And a few weeks ago, while in California to speak to the San Francisco Audiophile Society, I was asked to interview Siegfried Linkwitz, co-inventor of the innovative Linkwitz-Reilly crossover…

In a series of recent feature articles for Stereophile, Jim Austin examined how the controversial MQA codec works: “MQA Tested, Part 1,”1 “MQA Tested Part 2: Into the Fold,”2 “MQA Contextualized,” 3 “MQA, DRM, and Other Four-Letter Words,”4 and, most recently, “MQA: Aliasing, B-Splines, Centers of Gravity.”5 I doubt there is a Stereophile reader who is unaware of the fracas associated with MQA, and I have been repeatedly criticized on web forums for describing its underlying concept as “elegant.” But elegant it is, I feel. MQA Ltd.’s Bob Stuart has described the goal of MQA as being to reduce to “plumbing” everything between the original analog signal fed to the analog/digital (A/D) converter and the analog signal output by the digital/analog (D/A) converter, other than routing the signal from the…

Description Two-box CD player. Analog outputs: 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 pair balanced (XLR). Digital outputs: 1 S/PDIF (RCA), 1 AES/EBU (XLR), 1 optical (TosLink). Specifications: none published. Output voltage, single-ended or balanced: 1.4/2.5/3.0V RMS. Output impedance, single-ended or balanced: 600 ohms. Dimensions DreamPlay One: 17.72" (450mm) W by 5.31" (135mm) H by 18.11" (460mm) D. Weight: 52.9 lb (24kg). Elektra power supply: 17.72" (450mm) W by 4.13" (105mm) H by 17.13" (435mm) D. Weight: 33.1 lb (15kg). Finish See text. Serial number of unit reviewed DPO 004. Price $43,000. Approximate number of dealers: 10. Manufacturer Métronome Technologie, Kalista Audio, ZA Garrigue Longue, 81600 Montans, France. Tel: (33) (0)5-34-26-11-33, (0)7-77-22-44-03. Web: www.kalista.audio. US distributor: Wynn Audio, 20 Wertheim Court, Unit 31, Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3A8, Canada. Web: www.wynnaudio.com.…

Digital Sources Benchmark DAC3 HGC, HoloAudio Spring “Kitsuné Tuned Edition” Level 3, Mytek HiFi Brooklyn, Schiit Audio Yggdrasil (with Analog 2 & Gen 5 USB upgrades) DACs; Integra DPS-7.2 DVD-A player (as transport); iFi iGalvanic3 USB insulator; Mac mini computer running Audirvana + 3.2. Preamplifiers Pass Laboratories HPA-1. Power Amplifiers Pass Laboratories XA25. Loudspeakers Harbeth Monitor 30.2 & P3ESR. Cables Digital: AudioQuest Cinnamon (USB), iFi Mercury (USB), Kimber Kable D 60 Data Flex Studio (coaxial). Interconnect: AudioQuest Mackenzie, Clarus Aqua, TriodeWire Spirit, Wireworld Eclipse 7 & Silver Eclipse 7. Speaker: TriodeWire American Series. AC: AudioQuest Storm Tornado, TriodeWire Digital–American Series. Accessories AudioQuest Niagara 1000 power conditioner; Harmonic Resolution Systems M3X-1719, PS Audio PerfectWave PowerBase isolation platforms; Sound Anchor speaker stands.…

I measured the Esoteric N-01 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” http://tinyurl.com/4ffpve4), using both the Audio Precision’s AES/EBU digital output and USB data sourced from my MacBook Pro running on battery power with Pure Music 3.0 playing WAV and AIFF test-tone files. Apple’s USB Prober utility identified the Esoteric N-01 as both the “N-01” and “esoteric usb audio device” from “TEAC Corporation,” its serial number as “0 (none),” and confirmed that its USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. Apple’s AudioMIDI utility revealed that, via USB, the Esoteric N-01 accepted 16-, 24-, and 32-bit integer data sampled at all rates up to an extraordinary 1.4112MHz. Its optical, coaxial, and AES/EBU inputs accepted PCM datastreams with sample rates up to 192kHz.…

Description Two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1.1" (28mm) Esotar Forty soft-dome tweeter, 6.7" (170mm) MSP (magnesium-silicate-polymer) cone woofer. Crossover: first-order, at 2kHz. Frequency response: 41Hz– 23kHz, ±3dB. Sensitivity: 86dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 6 ohms. Maximum amplification: 200Wpc. Dimensions 14.2" (360mm) H by 7.8" (198mm) W by 12.1" (307mm) D. Weight: 17.9 lb (8.1kg). Finish Grey Birch High Gloss, Red Birch High Gloss. Serial numbers of units reviewed 03988517 & ’18, “Made in Denmark.” Price $2999/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 75. Warranty: 5 years, extendable to 8 by registering on Dynaudio’s website. Manufacturer Dynaudio A/S, Sverigesvej 15, 8660 Skanderborg, Denmark. Web: www.dynaudio.com. US distributor: Dynaudio North America, 1852 Elmdale Avenue, Glenview, IL 60026. Tel: (847) 730-3280. Web: www.dynaudio.com…

Description Dual-mono stereo amplifier; biamped or bridged operation available, user-selectable. Inputs: XLR x2, RCA x2. Output power in dual-mono/stereo and bi-amp modes (1kHz, 1% THD+N): 250Wpc into 8 ohms (24dBW), at 300Wpc into 4 ohms (21.7dBW), and at 400Wpc into 2 ohms (20dBW). Output power in bridged mode (1kHz, 1% THD+N): 600W into 8 ohms (24.7dBW). Maximum peak output current: 35A. Frequency response: 10Hz–30kHz, +0/–3dB. Gain: 23 or 29dB, selectable. Input impedance: 10k ohms. Output impedance: 0.025 ohm. THD+N (1kHz at 1W): 0.002%. THD+N (typical): <0.04% (20Hz–20kHz, 8 ohm load, 3dB below rated power). Signal/noise: >121dB (A-weighted, 20Hz–20kHz, 8 ohm load). Power consumption: idle, 0.23W, working, same as output power + 12%. Dimensions 8.5” (216mm) W by 1.73” (44mm) H by 9.5” (241mm) D. Weight: 6.6 lb (3kg). Finish Black…

Arvo Pärt is now so popular that it’s no longer necessary to explain him. His piety is approachably beautiful and welcoming. He was not born composing his airy, contemplative, trademark “tintinnabular” (bell-like) music; up to the early 1970s, he cut his teeth on the 12-tone scale. His four symphonies, presented here on one CD for the first time, take us through that part of his career. The first two will shock fans of Pärt’s post-1975 work. The Berg-like string choirs at about 3:30 into Symphony 1 (1963) give some comfort after the opening cacophony, but the wobbly rhythms and crowded orchestration—tam-tams, xylophones, winds everywhere, pizzicato strings from nowhere—seem designed to keep the listener at a dissonant distance. It’s never ugly, but it sounds like the music of experiment, counterpoint used…

EgglestonWorks Viginti Editor: All of us at EgglestonWorks would like to thank both Michael Fremer and Stereophile for their superb review of our Viginti loudspeaker, published in the June 2018 issue. It is rare indeed when Mikey writes so effusively about any product—especially one that lacks platter or stylus—and we’re particularly proud of the many superlatives he uses to describe the Viginiti Sound; eg, “texturally and physically, this was probably the best I’d ever heard Moon’s drums.” Mikey’s description of the Viginti’s design highlights indicate a thorough understanding not only of the Viginti, but of loudspeaker technology in general. Mikey’s gift for combining technical details and listening insights, conveyed with his unfailingly entertaining literary style, makes this article, in our somewhat biased opinion, a model for high-end loudspeaker reviews. Although…

UK: WEMBLEY Paul Messenger Last May, during the High End show in Munich, news broke that Antony Michaelson had sold Musical Fidelity to Pro-Ject owner Heinz Lichtenegger.1 I first met Michaelson in the mid-1970s, years before he founded Musical Fidelity, when he and partner Kevin Austin, through their company Michaelson & Austin, headquartered on London’s Bond Street, were selling an all-valve power amplifier based on KT88 tubes and rumored to have been designed by Tim de Paravicini. I reviewed it in my “Subjective Sounds” column in Hi-Fi News & Record Review and found the sound very much to my taste, though I was a bit nervous about its stability. Michaelson founded Musical Fidelity at the beginning of the 1980s, and early products such as The Preamp and the A1 integrated…

Like Rega Research’s Apollo CD player, which Art Dudley reviewed in June 2018, the Kalista DreamPlay One has no digital inputs of any kind, which limited my measurement of its technical behavior to using 16-bit test files burned to a CD-R. I tested the Kalista with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” https://tinyurl.com/4ffpve4), using two of the six reconstruction filters the Kalista offers: AD’s preferred filter, the Super Slow Rolloff, and the default filter, Sharp Rolloff. The Kalista’s error correction was good—no interruptions were apparent in the player’s output until the single gaps in the data spiral on the Pierre Verany Digital Test CD reached 1.25mm in length, when there were occasional glitches. (The Compact Disc standard, the so-called “Red Book,” requires that…

Description 16-bit, R-2R, non-oversampling digital-to-analog converter. Inputs: asynchronous USB, coax S/PDIF (RCA). Outputs: single-ended (RCA). Plays files of resolutions up to 24-bit/96kHz. Hybrid (tubed and solid-state) power supply with choke input filter, two transformers, high-inductance smoothing choke, tube rectifier. Tube complement: one EZ80. Dimensions 8.9" (226mm) W by 3.1" (78mm) H by 6.8" (173mm) D. Weight: 6.6 lb (3kg). Finish Black copper, aluminum faceplate. Serial number of unit reviewed 0218101. Price $1850 as reviewed; other versions are priced at $995 and upward depending on options. Approximate number of dealers: 24. Warranty: 18 months, 3 months on tubes. Manufacturer BorderPatrol Audio Electronics, c/o Kaja Music Systems, 11864 Sidd Finch Street, Waldorf, MD 20602. Tel./Fax: (301) 705-7460. Web: www.borderpatrol.net.…

Digital Sources dCS Paganini SACD/CD transport & Scarlatti clock & Rossini DAC; Linksys router with two TP-Link gigabit Ethernet media converters and multimode duplex fiber-optic cable; Intel NUC7i7BNH with 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD running Roon; Apple MacBook Pro computer with Intel i7, SSD, 8GB RAM; external hard drives, USB sticks, iPad Pro. Preamplifiers Audio Research REF 6, Lamm Industries L2.1. Power Amplifiers Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems Progression monoblocks. Loudspeakers Wilson Audio Specialties Alexia 2. Cables Digital (Ethernet): AudioQuest Diamond, Wire-world Platinum Starlight Cat8. Digital (USB): Nordost Odin 1 & Odin 2 & Valhalla 2. Interconnect, Speaker, AC: Nordost Odin 2. Accessories Audience aR2p-TSSOX, Synergistic Research Transporter & PowerCell, Tweek Geek Dark Matter Stealth (with High Fidelity & Furutech options) power conditioners; Nordost QB8, QK1, QV2, QX4 power accessories; GreenWave…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Dynaudio Special Forty’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earth-works QTC-40 for the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses. The Special Forty’s voltage sensitivity is specified as 86dB(B)/2.83V/m; my estimate was a little lower, at 84.4dB/2.83V/m. Specified as a nominal 6 ohm load, the Special Forty’s impedance drops below 6 ohms between 125 and 320Hz, with a minimum magnitude of 4.9 ohms at 178Hz (fig.1). However, the impedance remains above 8 ohms for most of the treble and bass, and though the electrical phase angle reaches an extreme –54° at 94Hz, the magnitude is high at that frequency, ameliorating any drive difficulty. fig.1 was taken with the rear-panel port open; blocking it with the…

I measured Mytek’s Brooklyn Amp using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1). Before I test a class-AB amplifier, I usually precondition it with both channels driving a 1kHz tone at one-third power into 8 ohms for an hour. As the Brooklyn Amp has class-D output modules, such preconditioning is irrelevant. However, the Mytek did get warm in use: after an hour or so, the temperature of the top panel was 107.4°F (41.9°C). As class-D amplifiers produce RF noise that could drive my analyzer’s input circuitry into slew-rate limiting, between the test load and the analyzer I inserted Audio Precision’s auxiliary AUX-0025 passive low-pass filter, which eliminates noise above 200kHz. The Brooklyn Amp is specified as having a voltage gain of 23 or 29dB,…

he dingy green-and-ochre poster on the subway-station wall, advertising events at Queens’s Forest Hills Stadium, didn’t draw attention to itself. But what else is there to do on a subway platform but look at posters? I looked at it. There, near the bottom of the left column, I read: “SEPT 12: VAN MORRISON AND WILLIE NELSON & FAMILY.” Van Morrison. In concert. In Queens. I was torn. Van Morrison has released four of the best live albums evah! He also headlined what was perhaps the worst concert I have ever experienced. And Queens? Since 2000, when we left Santa Fe, I have grown to love my adopted city of Brooklyn. It has neighborhoods. Parks. History. Atmosphere. Culture. Four landmark bridges. Herb Reichert’s Bed-Stuy bothy. But in Queens there’s nothing but…