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Recordings of January 2010: <I>Carla's Christmas Carols</I>, <I>Christmas in the Heart</I>

CARLA BLEY: Carla's Christmas Carols
Carla Bley, piano, celeste; Steve Swallow, bass, chimes; Partyka Brass Quintet
WATT 35 (CD). 2009. Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, prods.; Gerard de Haro, Nicolas Baillard, engs. DDD? TT: 60:36
Performance ****
Sonics ****½

BOB DYLAN: Christmas in the Heart
Columbia (CD). 2009. Jack Frost, prod.; David Bianco, eng.; David Spreng, Bill Lane, Glen Suravech, asst. engs. AAD? TT: 42:20
Performance ****
Sonics ****

From Chuck Berry to Frank Sinatra, from the Sex Pistols, Ryan Adams, and Death Cab for Cutie, from Pops to Dex…

Happy New Year!

I'm fortunate to own some very nice hi-fi gear: Different turntables, tonearms, and pickups for different records. Two pairs of really superb full-range loudspeakers. A choice of mildly exotic amplifiers—my favorite combination of which (a stereo preamplifier and a pair of monoblock power amps) sells for a little over $21,000. The average American consumer would think that's insane.

The average American consumer would be correct, but only insofar as it applies to his or her own buying habits. After all, we're nothing if not a nation of customers, and the customer is always right. From…

Aesthetix Atlas power amplifier

In Greek mythology, Atlas was the Titan who supported the heavens—although he's more commonly shown supporting Earth itself. (Funny thing, that: the globe he was always shown supporting actually did once represent the cosmos, but at some point became the Earth.) According to Hygenus, Atlas was the son of Aether, the personification of the sky and heaven, and Gaia, the personification of the Earth. Atlas was brother to Prometheus (foresight), Epithemius (hindsight), and Menoetius (a warrior whose insolence got him smitten by a lightning bolt from Zeus, resulting in a name synonymous with "…

Aesthetix Atlas power amplifier Page 2

On Los Lobos' live cover of Cream's "Politician," from Just Another Band from East L.A. (CD, Slash 45367-2), David Hidalgo's lead guitar had all the screaming assertiveness of Clapton's original. The Atlas gave the band the appropriate heft of a heavily amplified rock band in a large venue. Through the Atlas, the track rewarded play after play, at increasing loudness. No, you can't reproduce the concert experience at home, but the Aesthetix proved you can get satisfyingly close.

Of course, that level of audio verité wasn't all the Atlas's doing—almost every rock track I played after "…

Aesthetix Atlas power amplifier Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Stereo power amplifier with tubed input stage, solid-state output stage, and separate high-pass crossover input with 6dB/octave filter slope and selectable crossover frequency. Tube complement: two 6NS7. Maximum power output: 200Wpc into 8 ohms (23dBW), 400Wpc into 4 ohms (23dBW). Full-power bandwidth: 4Hz–150kHz. THD at full power: 1%. Input sensitivity: 60mV for 1W output, 2.3V for full power. Input impedance: 470k ohms. Output impedance: 0.25 ohm at 1kHz. Signal/noise ratio: 120dB (no reference level quoted). Power consumption: 100W in standby.…

Aesthetix Atlas power amplifier Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Digital Sources: Ayre C-5xeMP universal player; Apple iBook (1.33GHz, 1GB RAM) with 250GB LaCie & Western Digital 300GB external hard drives; Ayre QB-9, Bel Canto e.One DAC3 D/A converters; Bel Canto USB Link 24/96 USB-to-S/PDIF converter.
Preamplifier: Aesthetix Calypso.
Power Amplifier: Parasound Halo JC 1 monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Klipsch Palladium P-39F, Thiel CS3.7, Vienna Acoustics Klimt The Kiss.
Cables: USB: EntreQ Discover. Interconnects: Shunyata Research Aeros IC, Stealth Metacarbon. Speaker: Shunyata Research Aurora, Stealth…

Aesthetix Atlas power amplifier Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

I examined the Aesthetix Atlas's measured behavior using mainly Stereophile's loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It" and www.ap.com); for some tests, I also used my vintage Audio Precision System One Dual Domain.

Before I test an amplifier, I run it for 60 minutes at one-third its specified power into 8 ohms. Thermally, this is the worst case for an amplifier with a class-B or -AB output stage, and this preconditioning taxes the amplifier's ability to dissipate waste heat. The Atlas's grilles…

ASUS Xonar Essence ST/STX soundcards

With all the current fuss about getting audio data from a computer to a standalone D/A processor via S/PDIF, USB, FireWire, WiFi, or Ethernet (footnote 1), it has been overlooked that the oldest way to get audio from a PC is to use a high-performance soundcard plugged into the host machine's motherboard. I remember how excited I was when I installed a Sound Blaster Pro 16 board in the 486-based Dell running Windows 3.1 that I was using in the early Clinton era, plugged its analog output into my high-end rig, and played back 16-bit/44.1kHz files.

The first truly high-end…

ASUS Xonar Essence ST/STX soundcards Page 2

ASUS recommends that, using the Windows Control Panel, you first disable any existing audio hardware before you install the Essence's supplied drivers. Installing the drivers also installs the Xonar Audio Center program, which allows you to adjust the card's settings. Here I ran into a problem: playing a 96 or 192kHz file with either Foobar 2000 (v.0.9.6.9) or Adobe Audition 3.0 and setting the appropriate sample rate with Audio Center didn't give a sound from the STX card that was noticeably better than standard CD-sourced files. I played some test tones, and it appeared that even when the…

ASUS Xonar Essence ST/STX soundcards Page 3

The Xonar Essence STX was doing sterling work for my everyday listening. How would it stack up against other computer-audio solutions?

Comparisons
My first comparisons were with a slightly more expensive product, the $300 Logitech Squeezebox, which accepts audio data over a WiFi or Ethernet link, but is limited to 16 bits resolution and a sample rate of 44.1 or 48kHz. Source was the Squeezebox Server program (originally called Squeezecenter) playing files from the iTunes library on my Mac mini, and levels were matched to within 0.1dB at 1kHz.

Ah, that's what I was missing…