The Harry Smith B-Sides
Various Artists
Dust-to-Digital Records DTD-51 (4 CDs). 2020. John Cohen, April Ledbetter, Lance Ledbetter, Eli Smith, prods.; Michael Graves, audio mastering and restoration.

Few music anthologies have been as influential as Harry Everett Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music (Smithsonian Folkways SFW 40090), which was first released in 1952 as an 84-track, 6-LP set. Without it, it is possible that many of the musicians represented would have languished in obscurity—including such artists as Mississippi John Hurt.

At the end of Gramophone Dreams #46, I was lost in the pristine beauty of Decware's 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amplifier driving the DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93 speakers. That was an extremely enjoyable system, and I was hoping to keep it intact for another month. My plan was simply to morph into my long-postponed opus on tube rolling using the Zen Triode as well as Ampsandsound's Bigger Ben headphone and loudspeaker amp. Both are single-ended triode, no-feedback designs and therefore perfectly suited for tube-swapping comparisons.

I have reported on exaSound DACs since the introduction of the e18 in 2013, but those reports were in my Music in the Round column. This is Stereophile's first full review of an exaSound product and the first time one has spent time on JA's test bench.

A digital front end comprises several elements: data storage, library management, program control, signal distribution, signal conditioning, and digital-to-analog conversion plus all the necessary interconnections. All this can be contained in a convenient single box, or it can be distributed.