Innehållsförteckning för Jan-14 från Stereophile

The New Audio Geek It’s no secret that the high-end audio industry has done a poor job of reestablishing the mainstream respect it enjoyed through the latter half of the 20th century, but its lack of reach has never been as painfully obvious as it is today. Teens are inextricably tied to smartphones, moms and dads are infatuated with Bluetooth streaming, and most people would rather pay too much for an MP3 than anything at all for a DSD download. In a world dominated by fancy gadgets and intriguing technologies, the pursuit of true high-fidelity sound remains an obscure pastime for a relatively small group of aging males. Everyone knows Apple, Beats, and Bose, but few have heard of Vivid, Wilson, or YG. Even high-end audio’s most respected companies lack…

Sam Goes Ape John DeVore names his speakers after primates—apes, to be specific. Something to do with a family member being a zoologist. John once worked at a hi-fi retailer in lower Manhattan. Now, as president and chief designer of DeVore Fidelity, he manufactures loudspeakers across the bridge, in the former Brooklyn Navy Yard. I talked with John the other day about his new speaker, the Orangutan O/93. John makes two Orangutans, both floorstanders: the O/96, with a sensitivity specified as 96dB, over which Art Dudley went ape, in the December 2012 issue (Vol.35 No.12, www.stereophile.com/content/devore-fidelity-orangutan-o96-loudspeaker). Artie has made the O/96 his reference loudspeaker. It goes for $12,000/pair, stands included. Now there’s the new, smaller Orangutan O/93, specified at 93dB. It retails for $8400/pair with a front baffle in fiddleback…

Kickstarting High-End Audio As I discuss in this issue’s “As We See It,” a handful of audio companies have recently turned to the crowdfunding website Kickstarter to launch and promote new products. The most notable of these is Light Harmonic. The Sacramento, California–based electronics maker first caused a stir at the 2011 Axpona show with the release of its impressive Da Vinci DAC ($20,000), one of the few home audio converters capable of handling the 384kHz sampling rate. Light Harmonic again made waves at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, when it introduced the even more ambitious Da Vinci Dual DAC ($31,000), capable of handling both 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD128 files. To any spectator, it appeared that this young company was quickly carving out a niche for itself alongside high-end audio’s…

More than a decade ago, Data Conversion Systems, aka dCS, released the Elgar Plus DAC, Purcell upsampler, and Verdi SACD/CD transport, for a total price of $34,000. In 2009 came the Scarlatti—a stack of four components for $80,000, also available individually (see my August 2009 review at http://tinyurl.com/mljelle). The latest variation on the English company’s theme are the four Vivaldi components, launched at the end of 2012 for a total price of $108,496. The Scarlattis improved on the Elgar Pluses in cosmetics and, more important, technical and sonic performance that, in the opinion of many, put it at the top of the digital audio heap. It will be obvious to those familiar with the Scarlatti stack that the Vivaldis take visual appearance and fit’n’finish to new heights. These sculpted boxes…

“J-10? What’s an integrated amplifier?” It was fall 2000. I’d just begun working at Stereophile, and I clearly remember sheepishly, innocently putting this question to former senior editor Jonathan Scull. I think the question confused him—not because he didn’t know the answer, but because the answer seemed so obvious, the question itself should have been unnecessary. How could anyone not know what an integrated amplifier is? I might as well have asked, “What’s a song?” I was 22 years old, and I believe my ignorance of integrateds was in no way unique. Ask most young people what an integrated amplifier is, and, if you’re lucky, you’ll receive blank stares. But age is beside the point. Ask most older people what an integrated amp is and you’ll fare just as well.…

My review of Sophia Electric’s 91-01 300B monoblock power amplifier2 was published in the December 2013 issue of Stereophile, based on my auditioning of serial nos. 002224 and 002225. On October 8, I received from John Atkinson the pair of Sophia 91-01 300Bs he’d most recently measured: serial nos. 002248 and 002249. That evening, I installed them in my system, gave them a bit of warm-up time, and had a listen. Like Patty and Cathy Lane, Esther and Pauline Friedman, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Patty and Selma Bouvier, the two sets of Sophia amplifiers were exactly alike in almost every way: They sounded identically rich, present, tactile, and musical. And apart from the slightly different switch and socket layouts noted by JA, they looked alike. Remarkably, both pairs even…

Coffman Labs G1-A Editor: We appreciate that Stereophile requested the opportunity to evaluate our product after seeing and hearing it at T.H.E. Show Newport, and we’re pleased that Art Dudley found the G1-A preamplifier’s sound so musically involving. Natural, organic sound topped my goal list for the G1-A’s design. The review also raises perceptual questions about the internal build of the preamplifier, so I appreciate Stereophile giving me 750 words to share additional perspective and context. Some readers may have examined our open G1-A for themselves at Newport, but you can also check out our website for photos and videos about the G1-A build process. My top goals for the G1-A’s design were realistic concert sound, external beauty, and internal durability. While aesthetics were a priority, they never superseded our…

FEEDBACK TO THE EDITOR Silence Editor: I just wanted to drop you a note to tell you that I was touched by Jason Serinus’s essay, “The Death of an Audiophile” [“As We See It,” November 2013, p.3, www.ster eophile.com/content/death-audiophile]. I see friendship, love, honor, and passion. Thanks again . . . there are many readers out there who enjoy reading Stereophile but who remain silent. —Eddie Ma Hong Kong eddiekma@me.com Strands of silk Editor: Clearly, Jason’s friend Charles (November 2013) was tweaking his woebegone system with strands of silk in the hope of turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse—an extreme example of what so many of us do, unwittingly or not. —Bruce Moss Santa Fe, NM brucemoss@earthlink.net Sam is back! Editor: Great to have Sam Tellig back! Stereophile…

Far from the Madding Bling Thales TTT-Compact turntable Though clearly built more for performance than for looks, the Thales TTT-Compact ($13,200), designed and built in Switzerland by Micha Huber, ranks among a handful of today’s most elegant new turntables. Like the Spiral Groove SG 1.1 or the AMG Viella 12, the TTC-C, true to its name, is compact and self-contained, with its belt and built-in motor hidden under the platter. That Huber was once a watchmaker is evident in every aspect of the densely packed TTT-Compact, which measures approximately 18" wide by 3.5" high by 12" deep. From the packaging and instructions to its muted, satiny finish, the TTC-Compact exudes sophistication of design and execution. These days, Huber’s concept of a self-contained, singleunit, high-end turntable is not unique, but not…

Off the Beaten Path In my November 2013 column, I looked at the NuForce AVP-18 multichannel preamplifier-processor ($1095) and the exaSound e28 multichannel DAC ($3299), each of which offers fresh options in its category that break with the predictability of mainstream products. That predictability is the result of market analysis that supposedly tells manufacturers which features users want most. However, it’s just as true that users can buy and choose among only those components and features already offered. Many of us are more peculiar in our demands—what’s generally offered doesn’t always fit our needs. This month, I look at an unusual pre-pro and a multichannel digital equalizer at opposite ends of the price spectrum. Illusonic Immersive Audio Processor Beginning with its mouthful of a name, the Illusonic Immersive Audio Processor,…

MONOBLOCK POWER AMPLIFIER A highlight of my reviewing life in the 1990s was the time I spent driving my then-reference B&W John Bowers Silver Signature loudspeakers with the Pass Labs Aleph 3 amplifier. As I wrote in an April 1997 Follow-Up (see http://tinyurl.com/ofete4w), this little single-ended MOSFET amplifier offered “wide, deep, detailed soundstages; a delicious presentation of recorded detail without the sound getting in-your-face; a purity of tone that became addictive; and an ability to go sufficiently loud (in my room with my speakers) that belied the 30Wpc specification. And when the Aleph 3 did clip, it did so relatively gracefully.” Class A in Stereophile’s “Recommended Components” listing was my verdict for the Aleph 3, but for reasons I can’t pin down, I didn’t audition another Pass Labs component until…

LOUDSPEAKER I’ve loved the neutral, detailed, involving sound of Sonus Faber loudspeakers for as long as they’ve been available in the US. Most of my listening to them, however, has been at audio shows, and during a visit to Audio Research Corporation in 2012. (Since 2008, both ARC and Sonus Faber have been owned by the Italian firm Fine Sounds SpA, and since then ARC has used speakers made by SF, as well as by Wilson Audio and Magnepan, in the design of their electronics. Fine Sounds also owns 100% of Wadia, McIntosh, and Sumiko.) But I’d never had a pair of Sonus Faber speakers in my house. I specialize in reviewing affordable speakers, and products had always been way out of my price range—in their current product brochure, the…

Given that he’s an experienced record producer, it’s not surprising that John Marks keeps an eye on the world of pro audio. In his December “The Fifth Element” column, he enthused over the performance of the Lindell AMPX power amplifier ($1599) from Sweden, which has a class-A output stage and offers 40W into 8 ohms.3 “The AMPX was unfailingly musical, sounding both powerful and revealing,” JM wrote. Some aspects of its performance reminded him of Plinius’s 8150 integrated amplifier: “a liveliness that was never undisciplined or ‘electronic,’ and its top-to-bottom coherence.” “A great amp and an amazing bargain,” he concluded. John shipped the Lindell AMPX (serial no. 54046) to me so that I could look at its performance on the test bench. I performed a full set of measurements on…

Until global warming swamps the British Isles, and icebergs and raw sewage pour into the vaults of the BBC and Abbey Road Studios, there will always be more unreleased photos and recordings of the Beatles. Ditto Hendrix, Dylan, and the Dead. Each is now an undying business with relatives on the payroll. Unsurprisingly, the holiday season is when these new collectibles hit the market, and this year’s bundle of toys has an especially alluring twinkle. Topping this year’s trove is the Beatles’ On Air—Live at the BBC Volume 2, which includes 37 tracks of music and 23 tracks of studio banter, on two CDs or three 180gm LPs. The sound quality of both music and interviews is clear and distortion free, but compromised by the mono source material, which is…

AUDIO NEWS & VIEWS THE NEWSSTAND: 2014 ULTIMATE HEADPHONE GUIDE Ariel Bitran Are you looking for a set of luxurious, wood-grain, open-back, hi-fi headphones to complement your reading room? Maybe you need a headphone amplifier with a super-low output impedance to drive those fancy new cans. Maybe you need a new pair of lightweight in-ear monitors that pack the sonic punch to keep you on your toes during your morning commute. Chances are you need something. Whatever your ears desire, you can find it in the new 2014 Ultimate Headphone Guide, a collaborative production between the teams at Stereophile and Geek magazines and InnerFidelity.com. The Ultimate Headphone Guide hosts a listing of headphones and headphone amps currently on the market as well as a cornucopia of editorial content about the…

Cargo and Speed If you travel along Route 20 in upstate New York, you might see the hitchhiker my family and I refer to as the Old Soldier—so called because this slightly built man, whose age could be anywhere from 55 to 90, is always dressed in a military uniform from some long-ago campaign. When we first saw him, his topcoat suggested a recent return from Chateau-Thierry; in more recent sightings, the old man has taken to wearing the trim khakis and sharply creased legionnaire cap of the late 1940s—chronological zigzagging that made me think, at first, that this traveler was aging in reverse. That the Old Soldier is often seen in or near the wonderfully odd village of Sharon Springs, where at least one house is painted coal black,…

Party like a rock star! Or not. Damned rock stars! Those useless black voids of overweening ego who spend their days wallowing in unfulfilling, sybaritic cycles of mass adoration, endless wealth, and meaningless sex with hard bodies—what do they add to the greater good, to the advancement of human understanding, to the furtherance of art? In most cases, the answer is: Nothing. Zip, zilch, zot. Yet on a back street in Nashville, Tennessee, in a former warehouse and auto-repair garage, Jack White, of the White Stripes, has, with his Third Man Records complex, fostered a creative oasis that includes a film studio, a performance venue, a direct-to-disc recording facility, and a mail-order fulfillment center. Painted in bright splashes of gold, black, and royal blue, and filled with stuffed African animals,…

Last summer, in an uncharacteristic fit of wanderlust, I took an American Airlines flight to London. Two days later, I rode the Eurostar train to Paris in the company of my daughter and my wife, a travel agent, who had secured first-class train accommodations on her professional discount. Our ride was brisk, but the upgrade would have been a waste at any price: The Eurostar food was vile. That would be my last bad meal for a long time: The food in Paris, from the humblest baguette to the loftiest saumon en croûte, was brilliant, the French apparently having determined long ago that life is too short for bad food. My family and I were inspired. Since that time, we have brought to bear on our day-to-day lives as much…

When I wrote about this superb-sounding CD player in the December issue,1 I noted how well it measured, especially when it came to error correction. However, I found that when playing a disc with pre-emphasized data, it didn’t apply the correct de-emphasis, resulting in a response that rose at high frequencies, reaching +9dB at 16kHz (fig.1, cyan and green traces). Given the rarity of pre-emphasized CDs, I didn’t think this was a major problem. But when Parasound’s Richard Schram received the preprint of the review, so that he could prepare a “Manufacturers’ Comments” letter, he let me know that something must have gone wrong: in their testing of the Halo CD 1, it did handle pre-emphasized CDs correctly. I couldn’t redo my measurement in order to check this matter, as…

Launched in 1917, Paramount Records initially recorded conventional pop music, such as Arthur Fields’s “Good Morning, Mr. Zip, Zip, Zip.” But with the hiring of J. Mayo Williams as a talent scout and producer in 1924, Paramount became one of the leading suppliers of “race” records, along with country and pop musicians. Now, Third Man Records and Revenant Records have joined forces to release this lavish boxed set. The 800 tracks on the USB drive—87 of them are duplicated on the six LPs—don’t come close to representing the entire catalog of Paramount and its subsidiaries during this period, but do include a few tracks made for non–Paramount-affiliated labels. Among the more prominent blues and jazz artists presented here are Blind Blake, Johnny Dodds, Ida Cox, Duke Ellington, Papa Charlie Jackson,…