I didn't know the listening room, but I've loved Handel's Messiah since I made my debut as a boy soprano in a 1959 school performance; the DVD-Audio recording that engineer Philip Hobbs had burned from one of his SACD masters (footnote 1) was living up to my expectations.
The second refrain began. I shifted in my seat. The sound now wasn't quite as spacious as in the first refrain , not quite as silky…
We walked into Elite's dark demo room at last year's Consumer Electronics Show and Markwell stepped aside with a flourish, gesturing toward a quasi–industrial-looking, powder-coated box: the Polyhymnia universal disc player, from Halverson's Muse Electronics.
"Ta-daa!" Yes, he said it.
I must not have looked impressed. "Oh, I forgot," he said. "It's only fancy on the inside." And—as…
John Coltrane's Settin' the Pace (CD, JVCXR-020202) put a big tenor sax in the center of my room, spitting overtones at the…
Description: Universal disc player with remote control. Formats supported: CD and MP3 discs, DVD-V, DVD-A, and SACD discs in two- and multichannel formats. Analog outputs: RCA (1 pair), balanced XLR (1 pair); optional analog output module includes 4 pairs of RCA jacks for surround-sound and subwoofer outputs. Digital outputs: S/PDIF (BNC). Video outputs: composite (BNC), component (3 BNC), S-VHS. Conversion type: 24-bit. Reconstruction filter: passive, third-order. Maximum output level: 2V RMS. Frequency range: not specified. Power consumption: 23W typical, 50W…
Digital Source: Ayre C-5xe universal player.
Preamplifiers: Ayre K-1xe, Conrad-Johnson ACT2, Krell Evolution 202.
Power Amplifiers: Krell Evolution 600, Portal Paladin.
Loudspeakers: Dynaudio Confidence C-1, Wilson Audio Specialties WATT/Puppy 8.
Cables: Interconnect: Shunyata Research Aries & Antares, Krell CAST. Speaker: Shunyata Research Lyra.
Accessories: Ayre L-5xe line filter; Furutech eTP-609 distribution box; APC APCS15 AC line conditioner; Furutech RDP panels, RealTraps Mini & Mondo Traps.—Wes Phillips
After connecting the Muse Polyhymnia to a TV monitor, to make sure it was set up optimally and that such features as Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) were set to "Off," I tested it from its balanced and unbalanced output jacks. At 1.99V, the maximum output at 1kHz from DVD-Audio and CD was very close to the CD standard's 2V, although, unusually, it was identical from the balanced and unbalanced outputs. The maximum level for SACD was significantly lower, at 1.68V. This 1.5dB difference will invalidate any non–level-compensated comparisons among the three media.…
One was Sony's decision, in 2006, to limit to one day a week the production of hybrid SACD/CDs at its Terre Haute, Indiana pressing plant, which had opened with much fanfare in May 2003. That forced ABKCO Records to replace its catalog of Rolling Stones hybrids, perhaps the best-selling SACD/CDs ever released, with "Red Book" CD editions. According to ABKCO, the company had…
Pressing the FIR button on the front panel automatically upconverts the "Red Book" bitword resolution of all…
Description: Multichannel, audio-only SACD/CD/DVD-Audio/DVD-Video player with choice of 8x oversampling FIR and upsampling RDOT low-pass digital filters, PCM-to-DSD (1-bit, 64x) upsampling. Digital audio outputs: coaxial, optical/TosLink. Analog audio output: dedicated 2-channel outputs (balanced, XLR, and unbalanced, RCA), plus multichannel RCA outputs. Maximum output level at 1kHz: 2.2V RMS, unbalanced and unbalanced. Output impedance: not specified. Frequency range: 5Hz–88kHz (DVD-A). Signal/noise ratio: 130dB. Dynamic range: 107dB. THD: 0.002%.
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Analog Sources: Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn turntable & Cobra tonearm; Graham Phantom tonearm; Lyra Titan, Air Tight PC-1, Koetsu Vermillion cartridges.
Digital Sources: Musical Fidelity kW DM25 DAC & CD transport, Musical Fidelity kW SACD player, BPT-modified Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder.
Preamplification: Manley Steelhead, Einstein Turntable's Choice phono preamplifiers; darTZeel NHB-18NS preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Musical Fidelity kW and Supercharger 550K monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Specialties MAXX 2.
…