search
The arrival of the Mark Levinson No.30 digital processor more than 2½ years ago marked a turning point in digital-audio reproduction. Although the No.30's $13,950 price tag put it out of reach of all but a few audiophiles, its stunning performance suggested that much more musical information was encoded on our CDs, waiting to be recovered by better digital processors. Further, it was inevitable that this level of performance would become less expensive over time. I was more excited by the No.30 than I've been over any other audio product. In fact, its musical performance was so spectacular…
Madrigal has taken a completely different approach to clock generation. The No.30.5 recovers the input signal and clock with a conventional Crystal CS8412 input receiver. But instead of sending that audio data and clock to the digital filter and the DACs, it's input to a First-In, First-Out (FIFO) RAM buffer. The buffer can accept data at a varying rate (caused by jitter or clock-frequency instability from the CD transport), but can output data with near-perfect precision. The output clock that ends up controlling when the DACs convert the digital samples to analog (the point where clock…
The extreme bottom end—always the No.30's Achilles' heel—was more extended and tighter through the No.30.5. Although the SFD-2 had more bottom-end punch, the No.30.5 was a huge improvement over the No.30.
A large part of why I liked the SFD-2 more than the No.30 was the SFD-2's cleaner treble. By comparison, the No.30 had a layer of grain over the treble, and a slightly metallic quality. There was also a certain "coldness" to the No.30's sound that was largely the result of the treble grain.
Fortunately, the No.30.5 has none of these characteristics. Its treble was much smoother…
Sidebar 1: Review System
I had the Mark Levinson No.30 and the No.30.5 at the same time, so I was able to make direct comparisons, and also to listen to each one at length. Both processors were driven by the Mark Levinson No.31 Reference CD Transport via an AES/EBU link (AudioQuest's new Diamond x3 analog cable, which works very well as a digital cable). The processors fed a Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 line-stage preamp, which in turn drove a pair of Audio Research VT150 tubed monoblock power amplifiers. The loudspeakers were Genesis II.5s, with the Genesis servo amplifier powering the woofers…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: 24-bit digital/analog converter. Inputs: five AES/EBU on XLR connectors, two Toslink (EIAJ) optical inputs, one AT&T ST-type optical input. Digital outputs: two AES/EBU on XLR jack, one optical on Toslink jack. Analog outputs: one unbalanced stereo pair on RCA jacks, two balanced stereo pairs on XLR jacks. D/A conversion: two custom 20-bit DACs. Digital filter: 8x-oversampling. Analog filter: Bessel-tuned low-pass, linear phase to 40kHz. Frequency response: 10Hz–20kHz, +0dB, –0.2dB. THD: 0.003% at 1kHz, 0dB, A-weighted. Dynamic range: 98dB or…
Someone, I forget who it was, once wrote a perceptive essay on how in any field of human endeavor, apparent perfection is attained only when that field is in the process of being superseded. The Palace at Versailles was built when the power of the French monarchy was well into decline; Wagner's "music of the future" was in fact the end of a particular line of development; the nuvistor was developed almost simultaneously with the silicon transistor which would render tubes almost obsolete; and six years after the commercial introduction of Compact Disc, with record shops increasingly filling…
"The arm also had a sliding collar on the tube. This was not to adjust the tracking force, but to adjust the inertia of the system, the same as with these two lateral masses. Not only does everything have a center of gravity, it also has an ellipsoid of inertia."
I obviously looked puzzled.
"To determine the ellipsoid of inertia, you put an axis anywhere through the center of gravity of the system, and calculate the moment of inertia around this axis. You find the two points on your chosen axis, either side of the center of gravity, where the moments are equal. You then choose…
"In terms of mathematics, to have the center of gravity very near to the point of rotation gives you a lot of advantages. In one sentence, forces acting on the system are not applied through a couple, but only as pure forces. There are no distances involved. That is to say, the system is as simple as possible."
The Audiomeca J1 is one of the more elegant turntable designs I have seen, being constructed from a black methacrylic sheet. In common with the Oracle, it dispenses with the traditional box construction for the plinth.
"Most turntable bases are like the sounding box of a…
You'd probably be surprised to learn that headphones are the most common means for listening to music. No, I didn't get that from a book, but from personal observation. I'm referring here to personal portable stereo listening—the ubiquitous Jogman with which a whole generation has retreated into its own private world, isolated from traffic noise, muggers, and, at home, housemates or parents screaming "Turn it down!"
Audiophiles discovered the benefits of headphone listening years ago. I still remember my first set of Koss Stereophones—nirvana for a college student in a tiny, shared dorm…
The bass response of the Pro Classic (and of headphones in general) was restricted to that which was fed directly to the ears. This restricted the sensation of real weight that comes from feeling the bass as well as hearing it. The ear is notoriously insensitive to bass—with loudspeakers that have the appropriate extension, there's an important tactile contribution from the skin's reaction to powerful bass wavefronts reverberating through the listening space. Even with modest loudspeakers, there can be more to this than you might expect. This can be a mixed blessing: the listening room's…