Digital Processor Reviews

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Digital Processor Reviews
Bel Canto Design DAC 1 D/A processor
Robert Deutsch  |  Jan 04, 2005  |  First Published: Dec 05, 2000  | 
It's hard to know what the best strategy is for digital upgrades. Maybe you bought your first CD player when you became convinced that the format was going to succeed, and it seemed that players were about as good as they were going to get. Some time later, you tried one of the new outboard digital processors, and the sonic improvement was such that you just had to have it. Then you replaced the player itself with a CD transport, so you could benefit from improvements in servo control and digital output circuitry. At this point you were generally happy with your digital front-end—until you read about how 16-bit DACs (which is what your processor had) were old hat now that 20-bit DACs were available. But alas, your processor couldn't be upgraded, and was worth maybe 30% of what you'd paid for it. So you took a loss and bought a new-generation digital processor, and things were fine and dandy...for a while.
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Digital Processor Reviews
California Audio Labs Sigma II D/A converter
Kalman Rubinson  |  Jan 02, 2005  |  First Published: Jul 02, 2000  | 
HistoriCAL Introduction
California Audio Labs is a child of the digital age. Originally, they made a noise by offering modified CD players with tube output stages, a practice for which I found no intellectual justification. On the other hand, the results were successful, even if (probably) due to the CAL units' softening of the harshness of early digital sound.
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
Sonic Frontiers Transport 3 CD transport & Processor 3 D/A processor
Shannon Dickson  |  Oct 26, 2004  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1998  | 
Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when I first spied the prototypes for Sonic Frontiers' luscious new digital combo, the Transport 3 CD transport and Processor 3 D/A processor, at HI-FI '97 in San Francisco. After all, this is the company whose meteoric rise from an electronic parts-supply outfit run out of president Chris Johnson's basement, to a large factory pumping out an impressive array of entry-level to crème de la crème tube electronic components, has elevated Sonic Frontiers to front-line status among high-end manufacturers.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Lavry Engineering DA2002 D/A processor
John Atkinson  |  Aug 22, 2004  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2004  | 
Sony Classical's head of engineering, David Smith, is a man whose opinions on sound quality I have come to respect. So when David e-mailed me a year or so back, enthusing over a new DAC he'd heard, I paid attention. When Lavry Engineering contacted me about reviewing their DA2002, I didn't need much persuading.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Nagra DAC D/A processor
Kalman Rubinson  |  May 16, 2004  |  First Published: May 01, 2004  | 
Without having intended to, I seem to have collected several "statement" products. I've already reported on the Weiss Medea and Theta Digital Generation VIII digital-to-analog converters. I saw and expressed interest in the Nagra DAC at the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show, when prototypes of it were shown along with a forthcoming multichannel version, the Nagra Digital Audio Processor (DAP). The two units are based on the same chassis and interface, the DAP including additional modules and processing.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Theta Digital Generation VIII D/A converter
Kalman Rubinson  |  Feb 22, 2004  |  First Published: Feb 01, 2004  | 
We audiophiles are ever hopeful that, however satisfying our present equipment and setup, we can achieve even greater enjoyment with a tweak or an upgrade. And we never stop: It was only 16 years (and three turntables) ago that I bought what I declared would be my last turntable, and there's no doubt that this "dead" format has improved substantially since then. Now, even as we make another (but less paradigm-shifting) format transition, from CD to SACD and DVD-Audio, new two-channel DACs continue to appear that show us how far we still are from wresting all the music from the original "Red Book" 16-bit CD format. I reviewed the wonderful Weiss Medea DAC in February 2003, and there are still on my auditioning rack are two more Swiss DACs that might redefine the category: the Orpheus 1 and the Nagra DAP.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Mark Levinson No.390S CD Processor
John Atkinson  |  Feb 01, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2004  | 
It was 20 years ago that I appeared on one of the UK's equivalents of NBC's Today show to comment on the launch of CD. I wanted to talk about digital technology, but my host was more interested in the medium's lack of surface noise, which he demonstrated by showing that a disc smeared with butter and marmalade—this was breakfast television, remember—would play without skipping. (Actually, it wouldn't play; after the jammy CD was loaded, the program cut to a pretaped segment in which the player had a pristine disc inside it.)
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The Fifth ElementDigital Processor Reviews
The Fifth Element #18
John Marks  |  Jul 20, 2003  | 
The mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, doth never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low.—Jonathan Swift
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Hi-Rez Disc Player/Transport ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
dCS Verdi SACD transport, Purcell D/D converter, Elgar Plus D/A converter
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 13, 2003  | 
Well into dCS managing director Mike Story's attempted explanation of upsampling, there came an epic moment when the ever-expanding universe of his thoughts—which we had been following to new heights of digital enlightenment—broke free of our collective grip, snapped back on itself, and caused a conceptual implosion of nearly cataclysmic proportions. The blank, spent expressions on the faces of the journalists gathered in the small attic-like meeting room at dCS's Great Chesterford (UK) facility all seemed to say, "What the hell was that? Was it just me, or did you feel that too?"
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
47 Laboratory 4715 D/A processor & 4716 CD transport
Art Dudley  |  Mar 23, 2003  | 
Back in 1984, when I still had all my hair and began listening to digital audio (wait a minute...), I was disappointed with the compact disc. Most of that disappointment came from the format's musical performance, which was poor, but a portion of my dismay came from realizing that my days as a hands-on hobbyist were numbered: I was used to selecting and setting up my own turntable, tonearm, and cartridge, but a CD player defied such involvement. Plugging it in and playing it were all that I or most anyone else could do.
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Digital Processor Reviews
MSB Platinum Link Plus D/A processor
Kalman Rubinson  |  Mar 23, 2003  | 
I have a warm spot in my heart for MSB's approach to product development. They come from a tweaker heritage and still practice the art: MSB will happily install a 24-bit/192kHz upsampler in your CD player, a 5.1-channel input in your DPL amp or receiver, and true 24/96 outputs in your DVD player. Their standalone products, starting with the original Link DAC, are designed from the start to include space for later additions and enhancements.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Weiss Medea D/A processor
Kalman Rubinson  |  Feb 23, 2003  | 
Some people believe that high-end audio is mostly fluff whose cost, compared to standard professional studio electronics, is not justifiable. Moreover, they argue, if the music has been piped through any number of studio devices before it gets to your home, you can't expect to get more out of it than the studio devices will pass. Just as the argument is made about the final 6' of power cord, how can one Over-The-Top device make up for the foibles of those that precede it?
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Computer Audio ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
Sutherland Engineering 12dAX7 USB DAC/preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 15, 2002  | 
Computers and vacuum tubes go together like Trent Lott and flyaway hair, right? The last time filaments glowed in computers was during the 1960s, when a computer was a building. I remember laughing at the ponytailed computer-science dweebs back then, who spent their college days playing nursemaid to a football field's worth of electronics capable of little more than adding two plus two. Chained to a computer half the day, as most of us now are, guess who had the last laugh?
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Digital Processor Reviews
Chord Electronics DAC64 D/A processor
John Atkinson  |  Jul 20, 2002  | 
Such is the pace of development in digital technology these days that it is hard not to become convinced that digital playback is a solved problem. The measured performance aberrations are so low in absolute level—and, more important, so low compared with the typical threshold of human hearing—that it is difficult to see why digital components should sound different from one another.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Musical Fidelity A324 D/A processor
Sam Tellig  |  Apr 18, 2002  | 
It was 1988. What to do about digital?
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