Meeting Englishman Tim de Paravicini for the first time, you start to wonder if your mind has slipped a gear, whether premature brain fade has cut in. The conversation seems not only to be racing by unexpectedly quickly, but also subjects you hadn't even realized <I>were</I> subjects are being examined in knowledgeable depth. It was at the end of the 1970s that I bumped into Tim at a trade show in the UK; having wanted to ask his opinion of tube-amp design, knowing that the gangling, wispy-bearded, Nigeria-born, one-time resident of South Africa and Japan, ex-Lux engineer (footnote 1) had cast a magic wand over the Michaelson & Austin product line, I found myself instead being treated to an exposition of color phosphor problems in TV monitors. For Tim is a true polymath, his mind seemingly capable of running at high speed along several sets of tracks simultaneously.

Meeting Englishman Tim de Paravicini for the first time, you start to wonder if your mind has slipped a gear, whether premature brain fade has cut in. The conversation seems not only to be racing by unexpectedly quickly, but also subjects you hadn't even realized <I>were</I> subjects are being examined in knowledgeable depth. It was at the end of the 1970s that I bumped into Tim at a trade show in the UK; having wanted to ask his opinion of tube-amp design, knowing that the gangling, wispy-bearded, Nigeria-born, one-time resident of South Africa and Japan, ex-Lux engineer (footnote 1) had cast a magic wand over the Michaelson & Austin product line, I found myself instead being treated to an exposition of color phosphor problems in TV monitors. For Tim is a true polymath, his mind seemingly capable of running at high speed along several sets of tracks simultaneously.

The story of New Acoustic Dimensions, aka NAD, begins in the late 1970s. The company was founded as a dealer distribution collective to design and market reasonably priced serious high-end gear to cost-constrained audiophiles. By eliminating needless features and focusing manufacturing in low-cost production facilities, NAD has successfully delivered audiophile-quality gear for 20 years at prices little more expensive than mass-market department-store schlock.

The story of New Acoustic Dimensions, aka NAD, begins in the late 1970s. The company was founded as a dealer distribution collective to design and market reasonably priced serious high-end gear to cost-constrained audiophiles. By eliminating needless features and focusing manufacturing in low-cost production facilities, NAD has successfully delivered audiophile-quality gear for 20 years at prices little more expensive than mass-market department-store schlock.

The story of New Acoustic Dimensions, aka NAD, begins in the late 1970s. The company was founded as a dealer distribution collective to design and market reasonably priced serious high-end gear to cost-constrained audiophiles. By eliminating needless features and focusing manufacturing in low-cost production facilities, NAD has successfully delivered audiophile-quality gear for 20 years at prices little more expensive than mass-market department-store schlock.

The story of New Acoustic Dimensions, aka NAD, begins in the late 1970s. The company was founded as a dealer distribution collective to design and market reasonably priced serious high-end gear to cost-constrained audiophiles. By eliminating needless features and focusing manufacturing in low-cost production facilities, NAD has successfully delivered audiophile-quality gear for 20 years at prices little more expensive than mass-market department-store schlock.

Looked at from one viewpoint, DVD-Audio and SACD appear to be exercises in sheer profligacy. In the case of DVD-A, why provide a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/282">maximum bandwidth</A> almost five times what is conventionally taken to be the audible frequency range, and couple it to a dynamic-range capability far in excess of that achievable by the microphones used to record the sound? In the case of SACD, why provide a potential bandwidth in excess of 1.4MHz, only to fill more than 95% of it with <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/374">quantization noise</A>?

Looked at from one viewpoint, DVD-Audio and SACD appear to be exercises in sheer profligacy. In the case of DVD-A, why provide a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/282">maximum bandwidth</A> almost five times what is conventionally taken to be the audible frequency range, and couple it to a dynamic-range capability far in excess of that achievable by the microphones used to record the sound? In the case of SACD, why provide a potential bandwidth in excess of 1.4MHz, only to fill more than 95% of it with <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/374">quantization noise</A>?

Looked at from one viewpoint, DVD-Audio and SACD appear to be exercises in sheer profligacy. In the case of DVD-A, why provide a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/282">maximum bandwidth</A> almost five times what is conventionally taken to be the audible frequency range, and couple it to a dynamic-range capability far in excess of that achievable by the microphones used to record the sound? In the case of SACD, why provide a potential bandwidth in excess of 1.4MHz, only to fill more than 95% of it with <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/374">quantization noise</A>?