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Wes Phillips, Stephen Mejias, and Kal Rubinson join San Antonio, Texas retailer Galen Carol on the way to the Venetian. As Galen explained to us, high end retailing is a bit of a challenge, but still viable to dealers that take care of their customers and offer old fashioned service.
The PS Audio Memory Link ($1695) is a CD/DVD/RAM drive. It's a mechanical player (ie, it still spins the discs), but it has an unusually large cache. Conventional players have caches of around 8–16MB, the Memory Link has a 64MB cache. Why is this better?
Paul McGowan says the larger cache—about three minutes worth of music—allows the processor to handle larger "packets" of information, which in itself reduces the amount of timing jitter. The data is put through a digital lens with output jitter measured as low as 0.5ps.
The Memory Link runs Linux and, McGowan says, will be…
The Lyngdorf Server 1 is a music and video server had us drooling. Lyngdorf, of course, loves to keep signals digital until the last millimeter, building DACs into their active DSP-driven loudspeakers. The Server 1 sounded great—there was just one problem: It isn't available. Yet.
"We have the software written and the GUI is done, but we're working on lowering the jitter in HDMI and USB—which is not an inconsiderable task," a Lyngdorf rep explained. "We think we can do even better, so we won't bring the server to market until it outperforms everything else we've seen."
And…
Audio Space's DAC-1 US ($3000) is a hybrid tube/Mosfet DAC with a difference.It has two pairs of RCA analog outputs: One deriving its signal from the tube DAC; the other taking its signal from the discrete Mosfet DAC.
The tube section employs two 6922s.
Both are 24-bit and upsample to 192kHz.
We were impressed by the warm, alive sound in Audio Space's room. The Audio Space Reference 2 preamplifier ($9500 with MM/MC phonos section) and Reference 3 50W monoblock amplifiers ($7800/pair) were driving Von Schweikert VR-5 Anniversary loudspeakers.
Nils Lofgren's "…
We glanced into Oracle's room to see what was new. We'd seen the Delphi, we'd seen the CD 1500 and CD 2500 before. "Nothing new?" we asked.
Actually, yes: the Thalia moving coil cartridge ($1500). It was voiced to be used in a Delphi Mk V turntable, fitted with an Oracle/SME 345 tonearm feeding an Oracle Temple phono section.
The Thalia's body is ebony, the cantilever is boron, and the output 2.5mV. "We voiced it to be warm and have lots of body without sacrificing Oracle's traditional speed and detail," said Rusty Taub.
Based on what we heard coming out of the…
Several rooms this year are sporting 1/4" reel to reel decks as source components. The Tape Project has caught on with exhibitors in the Venetian including Pioneer/TAD & Magico. Representatives from TTP were often spotted hauling reel to reel tapes, along with the machines that play them (such as this modified Technics 1600) up and down the halls.
There's just something positively elegant about watching the reels slowly turn as incredible sound rolls out.
We were listening to Magico's fabulous V3s ($25,000/pair), which John Atkinson will be reviewing in the May issue, when we noticed a large music server. "What's that?"
"It's just a music server I built to play hi-rez files," Alon Wolf said.
"You built it? What does it cost?"
"It's not for sale. You can't write about it. I just did it because nothing available did what I wanted."
Please let us write about it. Please. Please.
"Okay, but you have to say it's not for sale. Now, would you like to hear some 24-bit/88.2kHz recordings JA made?"
He…
"You know," Alon Wolf told us. A lot of what you liked about the sound of my music server was the Pacific Microsonics Model Two DAC I was using. But that's no longer manufactured, this is even better and only $5000."
He pointed at Berkeley Audio Design Associates' Alpha DAC. It did seem pretty fly; 32–192kHz sampling rates, 24-bit word lengths, HDCD decoding, advanced input signal jitter rejection, and specs that were just stunningly low.
We're betting it's a DAC to watch, listen to—you know what we mean.