Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Stereophile

THERE ARE AS MANY OPINIONS AS THERE ARE EXPERTS THIS ISSUE: Does the audiophile hobby have a future? Audiophilia is dead. Actually, it retired to an exclusive country club in the sky—but as far as the enduring, salt-of-theearth audio hobbyist is concerned, it may as well be dead. The reason is simple: The old audiophile paradigm used to be mostly about when we were going to get that top-shelf component we had our eye on; it was rarely an if proposition. That’s because, if you were an average, determined audiophile, it wasn’t prohibitively expensive to buy top-shelf equipment. That’s what made our hobby so exciting back then: the idea that you could actually own the best sound around. Damn! To 99% of us, that idea is now laughable. What can…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website dedicated solely to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophilesocieties. 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. ARIZONA Wednesday, June 28, time tba: This Arizona Audio Video Club meeting will feature David Stipes, two-time Emmy Award winner for his visualeffects work at Paramount Studios while working on Deep Space Nine. Following the success of David’s first presentation to the club, his muchrequested return will continue with the state of CGI, including detailed looks behind the scenes, past and present titans of visual effects, where the…

THERE ARE BOOKS OF THE HOUR, AND BOOKS OF ALL TIME THIS ISSUE: The legacy of James Brown, the hardest-working man in the music biz, is examined in a new biography. Comparing James McBride’s search for James Brown with the quest depicted in the classic John Ford film The Searchers reveals some dramatic changes in American racial attitudes over the years, along with some consistencies. Ford’s film begins in post–Civil War Texas; its white protagonist, a former Confederate soldier named Ethan Edwards (John Wayne), spends most of the film hunting for the Comanches who’ve kidnapped his niece. To Edwards, such captives are tainted—“they ain’t white,” he rails—and he intends to kill the girl when he finds her. McBride, who is black, is out to uncover the true nature of a…

Imeasured the Mark Levinson No.526’s electrical performance with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” tinyurl.com/4ffpve4). Looking first at the No.526’s performance as a line preamplifier, the gain with the volume control set to its maximum of “80” was 13.5dB, balanced input to balanced output; and 7.5dB, unbalanced input to unbalanced output. The unity-gain setting was “66.7” on the front-panel display. Both sets of inputs preserved absolute polarity (ie, were non-inverting). The balanced inputs offered an input impedance of 47k ohms across the audioband, while the unbalanced input impedance was 44k ohms at low and middle frequencies, dropping inconsequentially to 31.5k ohms at 20kHz. The output impedances from 20Hz to 20kHz were 150 ohms balanced and 75 ohms unbalanced. The front-panel headphone jack offered…

Description CD player with Sanyo disc transport. DAC resolution: 16-bit/44.1kHz. Analog outputs (fixed, line level): 1 unbalanced (RCA), 1 balanced (XLR). Digital outputs: 1 BNC, true 75 ohm. Maximum output level: 2.6V RMS. Output impedance: 22 ohms unbalanced, 44 ohms balanced. Frequency range: 0Hz–50kHz. Noise floor: –145dB. Distortion: 0.0015% typical. Dimensions 16.93" (430mm) W by 3.14" (80mm) H or 3.93" (100mm) H with feet by 11.42" (290mm) D. Weight: 14.3 lbs (6.5kg) net, 20 lbs (9kg) shipping. Finish Black steel Serial number of unit reviewed MOH-77A132. Price $5000. Approximate number of dealers: 75. Manufacturer Hegel Music Systems, PB26, Blindern, 0314 Oslo, Norway. Tel: (47) 22-60-56-60. US distributor: Hegel Music Systems USA, Baldwin Street, East Long Meadow, MA 01028. Tel: (413) 224-2480. Web: www.hegel.com.…

Having discontinued the MAXX3 loudspeaker ($68,000/pair in 2009, when I reviewed it1), Wilson Audio needed to plug the resulting gaping hole between the Alexia ($48,500/pair) and the Alexandria XLF ($210,000/pair). Company founder Dave Wilson was busy with the limited-edition WAMM Master Chronosonic loudspeaker ($685,000/pair2), so son Daryl Wilson set about creating a speaker with a retail price of about $100,000/pair. The result, the Alexx, finally came in at $109,000/pair. The Alexx shares with the Alexandria XLF Wilson’s Aspherical Group Delay technology, whereby the positions of its individually enclosed midrange and treble drivers can be adjusted, precisely, to recreate a time-correct waveform at the listening position.3 The Alexx is thus easily recognizable as a Wilson Audio design. Incidentally, Daryl didn’t design it alone: He managed a team that included Vern Credille,…

Analog Sources Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn turntable & Castellon stand; Kuzma 4Point, SAT tonearms; Lyra Atlas & Atlas SL & Etna & Etna SL, Ortofon Anna & A95, Miyajima Labs Zero (mono) & Madake cartridges. Digital Sources Audio Alchemy DDS•Pro CD transport; Simaudio Moon Evolution 780D, Brinkmann Nyquist DACs; Lynx Hilo A/D-D/A converter; Meridian Sooloos Digital Media System; Pure Vinyl & Vinyl Studio software. Preamplification Ypsilon MC-10L & MC-16L step-up transformers; CH Precision P1, TruLife Argo, Ypsilon VPS-100 phono preamplifiers. Power Amplifiers darTZeel NHB-458 monoblocks. Loudspeakers Wilson Audio Specialties Alexandria XLF. Cables Interconnect: Snake River Audio Boomslang S/PDIF, Stealth Sakra & Indra, TARA Labs Zero Evolution & Zero & Air Evolution, Teresonic Clarison Gold, Wireworld Platinum Eclipse. Speaker: TARA Labs Omega EvolutionSP, Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 7. AC: AudioQuest high-current (not…

I measured the Meridian Ultra DAC with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,”tinyurl.com/4ffpve4). As well as the Audio Precision’s optical and electrical digital outputs, I used Pure Music 3.0 to play WAV and AIFF test-tone files sourced via USB from my MacBook Pro running on battery power. Apple’s USB Prober utility identified the Ultra DAC as “Meridian USB input” from “Meridian” and confirmed that its USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. Apple’s Audio- MIDI utility revealed that, via USB, the Meridian accepted 16- and 24-bit integer data sampled at all rates from 44.1 to 384kHz. Its optical and AES/ EBU inputs locked to datastreams with sample rates of up to 192kHz. In Variable mode, the maximum output level at 1kHz…

Description Digital-to-analog converter. Tube complement: two CV181 (6SN7). DAC: ESS Sabre32 ES9018. Input formats: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192, 352.8, 384kHz; DoP at DSD64, DSD128. Digital inputs: S/PDIF (optical, 96kHz and below), S/PDIF (BNC & RCA, 192kHz and below), USB 2.0. Analog outputs: single-ended on RCA and XLR jacks. Maximum output voltage: 1.77V RMS. Output impedance: 1 ohm. Dimensions 15.5" (400mm) W by 8" (183mm) H by 13.5" (360mm) D. Weight: 22.22 lbs (10.1kg). Serial number of unit reviewed 1609-018-08. Price $7990. Approximate number of dealers: 6. Warranty: 2 years (tubes excluded). Manufacturer CanEver Audio, Panfilo Castaldi 6, 30020 Noventa di Piave, Venice, Italy. Tel: (39) 335-708-2-807. Web: www.canever.eu. US distributor: Fidelis Music Systems, 460 Amherst Street (Route 101A), Nashua, NH 03063. Tel: (603) 880-4434. Web: www.fidelisav.com.…

The International Submarine Band, the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and finally, just Gram Parsons. He was a Snively on his mother’s side, scion of a vast citrusgrowing fortune. A trust-fund baby who, unlike most of the struggling musicians he hung out with, could go to a bank and withdraw large amounts of cash. When he was 12, two days before Christmas, his father killed himself. Seven years later, on the day he graduated from high school, his mother finally drank herself to death. He lasted one semester at Harvard before becoming a denizen of Los Angeles, and eventually a powerful force in the Sunset Strip music scene. In 1972 he hung with Keith and Mick at Villa Nellcote, during the recording sessions that produced Exile on Main Street. And…

THERE’S ONLY TWO KINDS OF MUSIC: THE BLUES AND ZIPPETY DOO-DAH. —TOWNES VAN ZANDT Stagger Lee went to the barroom And he stood across the barroom door He said, nobody move And he pulled his forty-four “Stagger Lee”, cried Billy “Oh, please don’t take my life I’ve three little children And a very sickly wife” Sometimes, just a record’s title gives you a sense of the story behind it. Let It Be needed no further explanation. Exile on Main Street left little to the imagination about the collective psyche contained within. In a less grandiose fashion, the title of Taj Mahal’s Labor of Love is exactly that. At the center is Mahal, the guitarist and singer-songwriter best known as a blues player but who is really a versatile instrumentalist and…

Bach’s Music Editor: In response to Mr. Cierniak’s denigrating of J.S. Bach (“Letters,” March 2017), I can only feel sorrow. A listener who cannot experience the ecstasy in this music is a tragedy. Nearly as worse is a music lover who apparently fails to grasp the foundational role Bach plays in the entire Western canon, echoing down to the tremendous flowering of the music of the Americas and today’s latest pop. —Jerry Garman Whitehall, MI garmanjerry@gmail.com The Music of Bach Editor: To Mr. Cierniak (“Letters,” March 2017): It is not for you to judge the music of J.S. Bach. Bach’s music judges you.—Bruce Moss Santa Fe, NM brucemoss@earthlink.net Correlation & Context Editor: There is a correlation between the “Price Event Horizon” (“As We See It,” February, p.3) and the extremes…

INSIDER VIEWS ON EVERYTHING VINYL THIS ISSUE: After a gap of 70 years, the Berlin Philharmonic returns to recording straight to a cutting lathe. Last November, the Berlin Philharmonic made a stunning record-release announcement: a boxed set of all four Brahms symphonies, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, on six LPs, recorded and mastered direct to disc in September 2014. The release would be limited to 1833 sets—a quantity chosen in honor of the year of the composer’s birth—at a price of €499 per set. (As of mid-February, copies were still available.) The Berlin Philharmonic last recorded direct to disc 70 years ago—right before commercial recordings were made on magnetic tape. To get the backstory of how and why the orchestra is producing this lavish, limited-edition boxed set, I spoke with…

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Job, Symphony 9 Martin Winter, flugelhorn; Alexander Kagan, violin; Sigurd Malvær Øgaard, organ; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis Chandos CHSA 5180 (SACD). 2017. TT: 72:02. I always think of these two works by Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) together. I was introduced to them in performances conducted by Sir Adrian Boult in recording sessions attended by the composer in the final months of his life, and released on stereo Everest LPs engineered by Joe Kane. Boult was Vaughan Williams’s major exponent, and those recordings seemed to possess an explicit sense of mission and engagement. Davis and the Bergen Philharmonic come close to that in their commitment to the music, but also enjoy the advantages of modern multichannel recording. Despite the 30 years that separate the composition of these works,…

The Mark Levinson No.526 is the first preamplifier designed by a new 12-person team led by Todd Eichenbaum, director of engineering at the Harman Luxury Audio Group’s Engineering Center of Excellence (ECOE), in Shelton, Connecticut. Designed to fit the price niche between the company’s least and most expensive preamps—the No.326S ($10,000)1 and No.52 ($30,000)—the No.526 costs $20,000. The new preamp is fully balanced from input to output, direct-coupled, and in key areas employs military-spec thinfilm or tantalum-nitride resistors. While the top-of-the-line No.52’s power supply is in a separate housing, the No.526 occupies a single case; nonetheless, it has things the No.52 doesn’t: a DAC that can accept 32-bit data, a newer-design class-A phono circuit, a headphone output, a front-panel polarity switch, Harman’s Clari-Fi digital-restoration module— which scans for file type…

Analog Sources Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ittok tonearm, Spectral Reference cartridge; Day-Sequerra 25th Anniversary FM Reference tuner; Nakamichi 600 cassette player; McIntosh Laboratory MR-78 FM tuner. Digital Sources Bryston BCD-1 CD player, Bryston BDA-3 DAC, Bryston BDP-2 media player with IAD soundboard; Oppo BPD-103 universal BD player; Sony SCD-C555ES SACD/CD player; Lenovo P50 laptop computer running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, Bryston USB driver, JRiver Media Center 22. Preamplifiers Bryston B-26, Mark Levinson ML-7. Power Amplifiers Mark Levinson No.27 & No.334 (both stereo), ML-2 & No.536 (both monoblocks). Loudspeakers Quad ESL-63 & ESL-989, Revel Ultima Salon2, SVS SB-16 Ultra subwoofer. Headphones Koss Pro 4/AA. Cables Digital: Wireworld Starlight Coaxial. Interconnect: Bryston XLR, Mark Levinson Silver, Pure Silver (balanced), Red Rose Silver One, Totem Acoustic Sinew (singleended).…

It’s been a long time since we reviewed a CD player that included no digital inputs of any kind, so my measurement of the Hegel Mohican’s technical behavior was limited to using 16-bit test files burned to a CD-R. The Mohican’s balanced and unbalanced analog outputs were connected to my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” http://tinyurl.com/4ffpve4). The Mohican’s error correction was excellent—no glitches were apparent in the player’s output until the gaps in the data spiral on the Pierre Verany Digital Test CD reached 1.5mm in length. (The Compact Disc standard, the so-called “Red Book,” requires only that a player cope with gaps up to 0.2mm long.) The maximum output level was the same from the balanced and unbalanced outputs, at 2.5V, or…

Description Four-way, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1” (25.4mm) silk-dome tweeter, 5.75” (146mm) paper/pulp-cone midrange, 7” (178mm) carbon-fiber/paper-cone midrange, 10.5” (267mm) & 12.5” (318mm) paper/pulpcone woofers. Crossover frequencies: not disclosed. Frequency response: 20Hz– 31kHz, ±3dB. Sensitivity: 91dB/2.83V/m. Impedance: 4 ohms nominal, 1.5 ohms minimum at 2850Hz. Minimum amplification: 50Wpc. Dimensions 62.3" (1582mm) H by 15.75" (400mm) W by 26.75" (680mm) D. Weight: 452 lbs (205kg). Finishes Multiple automotive paint colors, plus custom options. Serial numbers of units reviewed 0145, 0146. Price $109,000/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 39. Warranty: 5 years. Manufacturer Wilson Audio Specialties, 2233 Mountain Vista Lane, Provo, UT 84606. Tel: (801) 377-2233. Fax: (801) 377-2282. Web: www.wilsonaudio.com.…

Digital Sources Aurender N10 music server; Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; PS Audio Perfect- Wave DirectStream D/A converter with Bridge II network adapter; AudioQuest JitterBug, UpTone Audio ReGen USB cleaner-uppers; Mac mini running Pure Music 3, Audirvana 1.5, Tidal apps; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter. Power Amplifiers MBL Corona C15, Pass Labs XA60.5 (both monoblocks). Loudspeakers Aerial Acoustics 5T, Bowers & Wilkins 805 D3, Dynaudio Contour 20, Magico S5 Mk.II. Cables Digital: AudioQuest Coffee. USB: Canare AES/EBU. Interconnect (balanced): AudioQuest Wild Blue, Cardas Clear. Speaker: Kubala-Sosna Elation!. AC: Kubala-Sosna Elation!, manufacturers’ own. Accessories Target TT-5 equipment racks; Ayre Acoustics Myrtle Blocks; ASC Tube Traps, RPG Abffusor panels; Shunyata Research Dark Field cable elevators; Audio Power Industries 116 Mk.II & PE-1 AC line conditioners (hard drive, computers). AC power comes…

Imeasured the CanEver ZeroUno with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” tinyurl.com/4ffpve4), using both the Audio Precision’s optical and electrical digital 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 CanEver as “xCORE USB Audio 2.0” from “XMOS,” and confirmed that its USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. Apple’s Audio- MIDI utility revealed that, via USB, the ZeroUno accepted 24-bit integer data sampled at all rates from 44.1 to 384kHz. The optical and electrical S/PDIF inputs locked to datastreams with sample rates up to 192kHz. I started the measurements with the CanEver DAC set to its factory defaults: Jitter filter…

ANY CLOD CAN HAVE THE FACTS; HAVING OPINIONS IS AN ART THIS ISSUE: MQA, Mytek, Hegel, CanEver, and Dynaudio respond to our reviews of their products. Multichannel MQA Editor: Thanks for the chance to participate in this trial. One aspect of MQA is significant reduction in overall temporal smearing, a factor we know to be important to realistic 2D or 3D sound. So Kal’s comment of “consistent improvement in the impression of transparency, and the disassociation of the soundstage from the physical positions of the speakers” is what we’d expect, but is still reassuring to see. It is fun to reflect that the MQA was preferred, yet the files were one-sixth the size. Since MQA is a hierarchical system, not unexpectedly, it has multichannel provision in the architecture, including efficiencies…

Description Solid-state, single-chassis, stereo preamplifier with MM/MC phono stage, internal DAC, headphone output, and remote control. Inputs: Analog: 3 pairs single-ended (RCA), 2 pairs balanced (XLR), 1 pair single-ended (RCA) phono with grounding post. Digital: 1 AES/EBU (XLR), 4 S/PDIF (2 RCA, 2 TosLink), 1 USB (Type B). Analog outputs: 1 pair balanced (XLR), 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 1⁄4” (6.3mm) headphone. Input Impedance: >45k ohms, single-ended (RCA); >45k ohms, balanced (XLR), 47k ohms (MM phono stage), 20, 33, 50, 66, 100, 200, 330, 500, 1000, or 47k ohms (MC phono stage). Input overload: >10V RMS (normal gain setting), 7V RMS (high gain setting) for single-ended inputs (RCA); >15V RMS (normal gain setting) or >7.5V RMS (high gain setting) for balanced (XLR) inputs. Output impedances: 80 ohms (RCA), 160 ohms…

Digital Sources Integra DPS 7.2 used as transport, Mytek HiFi Brooklyn, Schiit Audio Yggdrasil DACs. Preamplifier Pass Labs HPA-1. Power Amplifiers First Watt J2. Loudspeakers DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93. Headphones Audeze LCD-X, HiFiMan HE1000 V2, Sony MDR-Z1R. Cables Interconnect: AudioQuest Cinnamon & Big Sur & Golden Gate, Auditorium 23, Kimber Kable Silver Streak, Wireworld Silver Eclipse 7. Speaker: AudioQuest Type 4 & GO-4, Auditorium 23. AC: AudioQuest NRG-2. Accessories AudioQuest Niagara 1000 Low-Z power conditioner, PS Audio PerfectWave PowerBase…

Because this speaker’s size and 452-lb weight made shipping one of them to me for measurement impossible, I drove my test gear to Michael Fremer’s place. I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Wilson Audio Alexx’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield and in-room responses. The first dilemma was on what axis to examine the speaker’s quasianechoic behavior. Wilson’s Peter McGrath had adjusted the Alexx’s tweeter and midrange modules so that their axes converged on the positions of Michael’s ears in his listening room, which were 36” from the floor and 85” from the tweeter modules. The tweeters themselves were 54" from the floor, so after we’d wheeled one of the Wilsons (serial number 0145) into…

Description D/A processor with volume control. Digital inputs: 2 AES/EBU (XLR), 2 coaxial S/PDIF (75 ohm BNC), 2 coaxial S/PDIF (RCA), 2 S/PDIF TosLink, 1 USB 2.0 (Type B), 1 Ethernet (for connection to Meridian Sooloos system), 1 Meridian Speakerlink input. Analog outputs: 1 pair balanced XLR), 1 pair single-ended (RCA). Digital formats supported: 24-bit/44.1–192kHz data, AES/EBU & S/PDIF; 24/44.1–384 PCM, DXD, MQA, DSD64/128, USB. Power consumption: 40W maximum. No other specifications listed. Dimensions 18.9" (480mm) W by 6.9" (175mm) H by 16.2" (411mm) D. Weight: 35.2 lbs (16kg). Finish Black metal and glass; Select colors available. Serial number of unit reviewed ULT-100043. Price $23,000; Select Color options, add $1000. Approximate number of dealers: 150. Manufacturer Meridian Audio Ltd., Latham Road, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE29 6YE, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)1480-445678.…

Analog Sources Garrard 301 turntable; EMT 997 tonearm; EMT OFD 15 & TSD 15, Ortofon SPU #1S, Shindo Laboratory SPU pickup heads; Denon DL 103 cartridge. Digital Sources AudioQuest DragonFly, Halide Designs DAC HD USB DACs; Apple iMac computer (late 2015) running OS 10.12.1 & Roon v.1.2, Build 165; Sony SCD-777 SACD/CD player. Preamplification Hommage T1 & T2 step-up transformers, Shindo Laboratory Masseto preamplifier. Power Amplifiers Shindo Laboratory Corton-Charlemagne (monoblocks) & Haut-Brion (stereo). Loudspeakers Altec Flamenco, Auditorium 23 Hommage Cinema. Cables USB: AudioQuest Carbon. Interconnect: Audio Note AN-Vx, Luna Red, Shindo Laboratory. Speaker: Auditorium 23. AC: Luna Orange, manufacturers’ stock cords. Accessories Box Furniture Company D3S rack (source & amplification components), Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner Pro.…