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Okay, here you are: You're a Real World music lover trying to sling together a Real World hi-fi rig. You gotcha budget-king NAD/Rotel/JVC/Pioneer CD player, your SOTA Comet/Sumiko Blue Point analog rig, and your cool-man NHT/PSB/Definitive Technology entry-level speakers. Hell, you've even gone out and bought a few pairs of Kimber PBJ interconnects to hook it all up. This ain't no dog and pony show—you want that High-End High, not just some cheap'n'cheerful, low-rez rig to stick in the rumpus room so the kids can listen to that weak-ass, faux-grunge, watered-down Hendrix-howl that modern-…
I should put this into perspective, though. If you're more accustomed to the higher-end gear in Stereophile's "Recommended Components," you'll be far more sensitive to what both the Adcom and Rotel amps "do" to the sound of a hi-fi rig than most entry-level audiophiles. But you also probably won't be shoppin' for no $350 amplifier, neither!
On the other hand, if you're movin' on up from a cheap mid-fi Japanese receiver, you'll probably find that either of these amps sounds vastly better than what you've been listening to music with. Of course, then you'll be off'n'running down that long…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: stereo solid-state amplifier. Output power: 60W into 8 ohms (17.8dBW). Bridged mono output: 180W into 8 ohms (22.6dBW). Peak current: 30A into 0.1 ohm, 10µs. Input sensitivity: 1V RMS. Input impedance: 27k ohms. Frequency response: 15Hz–100kHz, –1dB. S/N ratio: 116dB. Power consumption: 300W.
Dimensions: 17 3/8" W by 3 5/8" H by 13 3/16" D. Weight: 20.2 lbs.
Price: $369.90. Approximate number of dealers: 125.
Manufacturer: Rotel of America, P.O. Box 8, 54 Concord Street, North Reading, MA 01864-0008. Tel: (800) 370-3741. Fax: (508) 664-4109…
Sidebar 2: Systems
As with all the Real World gear I review, I listened to both amps in my Real World system, which is affordable, and my He-Man rig, which is not. The He-Man rig tells me exactly what the gear under review is doing, while the Real World system tells me how much of that info is transportable to a system that's more like the one the gear is likely to be mated with.
My Real World system featured, at one time or another: Sumiko Project One turntable and Oyster cartridge (reviews comin' up); JVC XL-Z1050 CD player; Rotel RCD-955AX CD player; NAD 502 CD player (also…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The Rotel RB-960BX was also hot to the touch after preconditioning at 1/3 power. Its input impedance measured 28k ohms, its 8-ohm gain 27.4dB. The output impedance was below 0.04 ohm from 20Hz to 1kHz, and rose just slightly to under 0.55 ohm at 20kHz. DC offset measured 2mV in the left channel, 1mV in the right. Signal/noise (unweighted at 1W into 8 ohms) measured 90.3dB. The Rotel is noninverting, a positive-going signal at its inputs remaining positive at the outputs.
Fig.1 shows RB-960BX's frequency response at 1W into 8 ohms—virtually flat above 100Hz…
During an Audio Engineering Society meeting where a former colleague of mine was giving an arcane technical discussion of the optical considerations of data retrieval from a Compact Disc, a longtime AES member whispered to me: "What happened to the good old days of AES meetings when we talked about things like tape bias and saturation?"
Although I found this quite funny, his reaction exemplifies the quandary of trying to keep pace with the rapidly changing technology of the late 20th century. As the field of audio recording and reproduction becomes more and more sophisticated,…
De-emphasis is passive and switched in by a pair of relays, one for each channel. A second pair of relays mutes the unit by shorting the analog outputs to ground. Output inductors are located on the analog output wires just before the jack to meet FCC radiated-noise requirements. Polypropylene capacitors are used exclusively in the audio signal path. The multi-layer PCB features independent ground planes for digital, and left and right analog audio channels.
Most of the X-32's digital electronics have been condensed into two large programmable gate arrays. These chips allow the designer…
By clocking a data sample through a shift register with four taps, four data samples are created. These four samples are then input to four DACs for conversion to analog. Each DAC receives four different samples at the 8x-oversampling rate performed by the DSPs. The 8x-oversampled data is thus interpolated four more times, creating the final 32x oversampling rate. Finally, the four DAC outputs are summed by hardwiring their current outputs.
In essence, the staggered DAC array linearly interpolates three additional points on the waveform in the analog domain between the seven oversampled…
The X-32's soundstage was superior in width and depth to some less expensive processors, but didn't have the feeling of depth provided by the DSPro Basic. The forward quality noted earlier seemed to push all the instruments toward the front of the soundstage, without a clear delineation in the front-to-rear perspective. There was a slightly closed-in character, without the sense of air and space heard through the 2000 or the DSPro Basic. On the Dick Hyman Plays Fats Waller CD (Reference Recordings RR33CD), the Bösendorfer had a reduced feeling of room around the instrument. Jazz at the…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Decoding software: DigiMaster. Resampling rate: 32x. Resolution: 18 bits. Power bandwidth (–3dB): DC–20kHz. Passband ripple: none (monotonic). CPU power: 36-MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second). Inputs: two coaxial S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format), one EIAJ optical fiber. Input sampling rates supported: 44.1kHz, 48kHz. Math resolution: 36-bit. Output buffer: monolithic "sledgehammer" with 400mA peak output current and 1300V/µs slew rate. Output level: 8dBV at full modulation. Channel isolation: >110dB at 1kHz. Interchannel phase…