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.
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I tested the Esoteric SA-60 from its dedicated two-channel L and R output jacks using Sony's provisional Test SACD, as well as CD-Rs and DVD-Rs with the necessary test signals that I'd burned myself. The processing was set to "FIR" for the CD and DVD tests, unless stated otherwise. Tested with the Pierre Verany Test CD, the SA-60 had excellent error correction, if not quite to the standard set by the Marantz and Muse players also reviewed in this issue. It produced an audible glitch at the start of track 34, which has 2mm gaps in its data spiral, but played the…
Is it my imagination, or has the low-power tube movement of the last 15 years gone hand in hand with a renewed interest in moving-coil step-up transformers? Trannies remain misunderstood or ignored by most of the audio press—requests for review samples continue to be met with genial shock, rather like tourism in the Budapest of the 1990s—but enthusiasm for the practice seems only to grow. That leaves me to wonder: Did the unquestioning use of active pre-preamps for so many years grow out of the same bad attitude that gave us all those awful-sounding high-power amps and low-sensitivity…
So then, in alphabetical order:
Audio Note AN-S8 ($8675): The AN-S8 is built into the same paint-on-copper chassis as the other transformers in the current Audio Note UK line, which range from the AN-S1 ($700) to this demi-flagship. (Believe it or not, an AN-S9, price to be determined, is being developed.) Whereas some Audio Note step-up transformers allow the user to switch between different primaries, the AN-S8 does not, and is offered instead in three single-primary versions: 1, 16, and 64 ohms. My review sample was the middle one.
The AN-S8 is wound with Audio Note's…
The Auditorium 23 Hommage T1 sounded bigger, and the Audio Note AN-S8 sounder clearer, more present, more colorful. The Shindo Masseto's built-in trannie had a shade more texture and a more natural sense of flow, and the Auditorium 23 Standard had more character and drama. Yet the K&K never sounded deficient in any of those ways: It just sounded musical—to such a degree that, whenever I used it to play the records I love, I was able to forget about sound altogether and simply lose myself in the music.
The K&K's bass was strong enough for my tastes, and nicely detailed. It played…
Sidebar: CONTACTS
Audio Note Ltd. , 25 Montefiore Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 1RD, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)1273-220-511. Fax: (44) (0)1273-731-498. Web: www.audionote.co.uk. US distributor: Audio Federation Inc., P.O. Box 19950, Boulder, CO 80304. Tel: (303) 546-6503. Web: www.audiofederation.com.
Auditorium 23, Gabelsbergerstrass 23, D-60389 Frankfurt, Germany. Tel: (49) (0)69-4652202. Web: www.auditorium23.de. US distributor: Tone Imports LLC. Tel: (646) 425-7800. Web: www.toneimports.com.
K&K Audio, 1004 Olive Chapel Road, Apex, NC 27502. Tel./Fax: (919) 387-0911. Web…
Art Dudley auditioned Ortofon, EAR, & Koetsu transformers in September 2008 (Vol.31 No.9):
Three moving-coil step-up transformers have arrived since my last attempt at a comprehensive survey of same, in the October 2007 issue: the EAR MC4 ($1995, footnote 1), the Ortofon Verto ($849, footnote 2), and the more plainly named Koetsu ($3500, footnote 3). I've also found time to change the configuration of the hardwired, multitap K&K step-up transformer ($275 kit, $335 assembled) from high-gain to low-gain mode—so I now have a better idea how that model stacks up against such "…
Art Dudley returned to the Auditorium 23 Hommage in August 2009 (Vol.32 No.8):
This whole thing started up again when I tried to improve the phono-input section of my main system—not to enhance its performance (although you might expect that to happen), but to provide a fairer, more flexible context for evaluating new cartridges.
The technical reason: Taken in isolation, even the small collection of phono cartridges that I own—Miyabi 47, Rega Elys, Grace F9E, Denon DL-103, and EMT OFD 25—represent a pretty wide range of resistive-loading requirements. The low-impedance Miyabi 47…
Most people are familiar, at least in outline, with the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea." In the story, the Queen decides that it's time for her son to marry, and the Prince—apparently a very fussy young man—decides that he can marry only a true princess, as measured by her sensitivity to small discomforts. It's like being an audiophile, but with peas.
One night, a young woman comes to the door claiming to be just such a princess. The skeptical Queen devises a test: She puts a tiny pea in the girl's bed frame, covers it with 20 of her finest…
My recent introspection and the trouble I had detecting sonic differences among the digital front-ends I had on hand motivated me to put together a set of criteria for the evaluation of digital players—one that's consistent with my outlook on life. The list is in no particular order; all of these criteria (except for the last, which I don't mention until the end of the review) should be met by any respectable digital player. Here's the list, with my verdict on the SA8001 for each point.
1. A player should play every disc put in it, assuming it supports the format.
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