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NFS Goes Green

In what has become a tradition, Anton Dotson (aka Buddha on the Stereophile forum) and Michael Alazard set up a room at T.H.E. Show as NFS Audio (Not For Sale), which they describe as "a chill out zone for people tired of the show's relentless grinding down of the human spirit."

What do the good doctors prescribe? "Alcohol and music." NFS runs an open bar all day (and night) and play music: LPs, CDs, you name it. This year Dotson lugged his Ferguson Hill loudspeakers in for the fun of it. "These used to belong to Ray Kimber," Dotson said. "It's a long story."

They always…

Empirical Audio's Pace-Car

Empirical Audio's Pace-Car Reclocker ($1100—2300, depending on number of clocks installed) is designed to reduce the jitter of any source to "inaudible levels." Empirical's Steve Nugent said the device is primarily intended for USB, WiFi, and network devices such as the Sonos and Squeezebox. "The pace-Car is inserted between source and DAC, it can either provide a master clock to the source or accept the source's data stream and 'bracket' the rate of the stream. No modifications to the source are required."

The Pace-Car uses a FIFO-buffer to store the streaming data. The clock that…

Maxxing Out

I was so impressed by the 9" Feastrex drivers designed by Haruhiko "Hal" Teramoto of Japan that I was excited to hear how the 5" Feastrex DF Monster alnico driver sounds in MaxxHorn's new Lumination loudspeaker. The speaker, which also incorporates the Tractrix horn technology developed by Johan van Zyl, is so new—the pair at THE Show had been finished a mere 12 days before—that only the dealer price ($18,500/pair) has been set. All speakers are hand constructed, with 3–5 pairs produced a month.

MaxxHorn's Robert Spence first encountered Mr. Teramoto at RMAF, and immediately…

New Sooloos Gear

Sooloos' Rob Darling was on hand again this year showing off their elegant touch screen music server system. Stereophile has a review of this system in the works.

In the year since we last met, the company has been busy. They've built an extensive dealer network, signed on some new manufacturer reps and begun rolling out quite a bit of product.

However, the big news was a glimpse at what they have planned for release in March.

Darling described two new systems, the flagship Twin Store system retailing at $10,500 complete and the entry level Ensemble system priced…

Rockport

It was great to again encounter Andy Payor of Rockport Technologies and hear the stunning 200 lb Ankaa loudspeaker ($26,500/pair). Of all the speakers I heard on the first two days of T.H.E. Show, the Ankaa produced images so large and lifelike that it made other speakers (including several wonderful-sounding models I’ve already discussed) seem like pipsqueaks. I have no doubt that the expensive, neutral-sounding Gryphon Antileon Signature stereo amplifier ($31,000 for 150Wpc) and Mirage preamplifier ($25,000), as well as the debuting Purist Audio Design Proteus Provectus cabling had a…

Basically Better

Meridian has completely redone its Signature Reference 808 CD player, now the 808.2 ($14,995). "We've changed its drive, drive navigation software, power supply, DSP, and clocking and buffering. I'd like to say that the only thing we've retained is the case, but we've improved that, too," said Bob Stuart.

Meridian's proprietary Resolution Enhancement system upsamples 44.1/16-bit CD data to 176.4/24-bit with 48-bit internal precision, and applies a newly refined delta-sigma digital-to-analog converter system of reference accuracy. Stuart says that allows the 808.2 "to extract from…

Are You Being Served?

Naim has created a separate line of music server products that will be marketed independently of its component distribution system. On display at CES2008 was the DigiLinX compatible six-stream NaimNet NS01 Music Server ($6200), which has an internal ripping drive, a 400GB RAID 1 array, so data is secure.

The NS01 has network scanning for both PC and Mac, easily accommodates network NAS storage, sports a front panel USB socket (instant iPod connectability), and unique NamNet user and Music Manager interfaces.

Its line level output is 2V RMS and it also sports coaxial S/PDIF…

Microsoft's Strange Sense of Humor

Microsoft wanted to talk to me about its Windows Home Server division—and I wanted to hear what they said because I was impressed last summer at the company's commitment to making its Home Server software as simple as pie.

But the first thing Todd Headrick wanted to show me was a children's book called Mommy, Why is There A Server in the House? by "Tim O'Connor, Ph.D."

Good one, MS!

Actually, Microsoft is very serious about the home server concept and is about to introduce Powerpack 1, which will add a bunch of fervently requested features. "Who requested them?" I…

More than a Black Box

Instead of using conventional CD playback technology, the Rockport room featured the DC-powered Black Box Audiophile PC from Blue Smoke Entertainment Systems of Chicago. (Preliminary pricing, expected to lower before the unit reaches the market, is $7999.) With no moving parts in the box into which one inserts a CD, the DSP-based system reclocks the data after reading the CD, basically eliminating jitter. It copies the audio data from a CD onto a hard drive, reading the CD multiple times if necessary to eliminate data-reading errors. It is said to be far more accurate my own…

Music Culture Technology Corporation

Music Culture Technology Corporation's Reference line has been designed and engineered by MBL's official engineers. Though not yet distributed in the US, the combination of MC's partnership with MBL and their components' arresting good looks drew me in for an extended listen. It was also a belated listen, but that had to do with the Hard Rock Café across the street from the St. Tropez, whose bass blasting from the rock video they project in their parking lot between 5pm and 10pm made listening to anything other than equally blaring rock music an absurdity. Call it high end trumped by…