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Peachtree Audio has declared that "Computer Audio is here to stay—so let's make it sound right." The 80Wpc Nova ($1199) includes an ESS 9006 Sabre DAc, which has a jitter reduction circuit and a 24-bit/96kHz upsampler. It employs a 6922 tube tas the driver for its class-A/B output stage. It decodes MP3, MP4, FLAC, AIFF, ALC, "plus all others. It even has a slot in the back to accommodate a Sonos ZP80/90. And did I mention that it has an HT pass-through? Or 11 regulated power supplies? That last is to isolate separate sections from digitally generated noise.
Here's a view of the by now familiar grid of albums on the Elo touchpanel connected to The Black Box.
The touchscreen music server market has picked up a new face with the official release of Blue Smoke's "The Black Box". Demonstrated in prototype form at last year's CES, the final version is a sleek, um, black box with a single disc slot on the front and an array of connectors on the back. Retail is $6995 and should be hitting dealer shelves Q1 2009.
Inside the DC powered box is a custom tailored PC running Vista, which according to designer Peter Sills, is the best operating system for processing digital audio. Due to an array of heat sinks on either side of the box, there are no…
As more audiophiles start to view their computer systems as another audio source component, finding good sounding ways to bridge from the computer to the preamp becomes paramount.
Bel Canto's $495 USB Link 24/96 was developed to take the first step by grabbing the stream present at the computer's USB port and converting it to SPDIF for connection to the DAC of your choice. It handles up to 24 bits and 96kHz and outputs the data to a 75 ohm BNC connector (the box contains a Stereovox SV2 BNC/BNC cable with RCA adaptor so you can connect it to the DAC).
The company's John…
Esoteric has upgraded the wiring and parts inside the flagship P-01 and D-01 SACD/CD transport and DAC and has renamed them the P01-VU and D01-VU respectively. Each DAC is a single channel and retails for $16k and the transport will run you $32k. These are superbly built and incredible sounding digital products. Even if you can't afford them, just be glad they exist in our world.
The above photo is the P01-VU transport.
Innovation comes from surprising places. Esoteric has always focused on pushing the state of the art with their flagship and pricey digital players (the financially squeemish can skip to another post now), but they've also begun to accommodate digital media wherever it may be found.
Though the digital disc is far from dead, streaming media is the new reality. With this in mind the company has created an upgrade for the D-05 DAC which enables wireless streams in addition to the usual wired suspects.
The USB upgrade kit allows wired or wireless transmission of data from…
Between 150 and 200 producers of cables and components rely on WBT for their terminations and connectors. Hence, any advance in their line has profound implications for audiophiles. This year, WBT was touting its Nextgen terminations. Composed of either pure copper or fine silver, Nextgen connectors s boast less mass than other WBT terminations, and are claimed to yield superior sound.
In a very convincing demo, genuine WBT terminations were compared with one of the cheap (probably brass-plated) rip-offs that frequently surface on imported equipment. The genuine WBT sounded…
Is PS Audio's Paul McGowan out to harness all of the world's AC for musical ends? You'd think so from the host of new power products in his line-up.
Perhaps the most striking is the PS Power Port Premier ($90 for two sockets). Consisting of outlets that boast a special dielectric of gold-plated copper, these tight AC receptacles are said to eliminate every trace of glassines from sound. Cryo'd by Lee Weiland of Locus Design to further take the glassy edge off, they require a good 400 hours to break-in. They also demand a significant outlay of energy to pull a plug out of them. You…