Dimensions: 6.7" (170mm) long by 3.75" (95mm) wide by 1.7" (40mm) high, including all feet and terminals.
Price: $299.
Manufacturer: Musical Fidelity, Units 24-26, Fulton Road, Wembley HA9 0TF, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)20-8900-2866. Fax: (44) (0)20-8900-2983. Web: www.musicalfidelity.com. US distributor: KEF America at time of review; Tempo Sales & Marketing, P.O. Box 541443, Waltham, MA 02454. Tel: (617) 314-9296. Fax: (617) 336-3486.
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Sidebar 1: Specifications
Sidebar 2: System
Digital Source: Marantz CD63 Special Edition and Denon DCD-1650AR CD players, Cambridge Audio DacMagic D/A processor.
Integrated amplifier: LFD Integrated Zero Mk.III.
Headphone amplifier: Musical Fidelity V-CAN.
Headphones: Audio-Technica ATH-AD700.
Loudspeakers: Harbeth Compact 7ES3.
Digital cable: Analysis Plus Digital Oval S/PDIF.—Sam Tellig
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The V-DAC offers bare-bones construction. The power supply is a separate wall wart. A plain, black-painted box of extruded aluminum carries a single printed-circuit board, with the input jacks (TosLink, coaxial, USB) at one end and a single pair of RCA output jacks at the other. Other than three surface-mount LSI chips, the circuitry is based on traditional through-hole components, and local voltage regulation appears to be performed with the usual ±5V chips. The USB input feeds the ubiquitous Burr-Brown PCM2706 receiver chip, which is limited to 16-bit data and…
"Turntable Wars" was the phrase used by Anthony H. Cordesman to head his review of the Oracle, SOTA, and VPI turntables in Vol.9 No.4. To judge from the reaction of the manufacturers at CES to this innocent phraseology, you would have thought that Stereophile had been warmongering, rather than publishing what were actually pretty positive opinions of the products concerned. So enraged was Jacques Riendeau of Oracle, and concerned that the record be put straight, that he insisted on a "right to reply" to AHC's review; as it happened, Ivor Tiefenbrun and Charlie Brennan of Linn (right in…
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