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The Fifth Element #71

Music is love in search of a word.—Sidney Lanier

In 2009, I wrote about Luxman's entry-level solid-state integrated amplifier, the L-505u ($3700), and their near-universal (no Blu-ray) disc player, the DU-50 ($4990, now discontinued). I was very impressed by their performance and their quality at those prices. Indeed, I think I commented on these models in no fewer than five columns back then.

When I borrowed a pair of Vivid Audio's B1 loudspeakers ($15,000/pair), I asked Philip O'Hanlon, whose company On a Higher Note imports both brands, to send me some Luxman gear that made…

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Luxman's D-05 stereo SACD/CD player is built like a tank. It is listenable and sophisticated, a mite tubey and euphonic, and a real thoroughbred when playing SACDs. Furthermore, its internal DAC's ability to accept an external digital S/PDIF input might make it an optimal solution for some systems. Luxman's D-05 should be on your shopping list, especially if you have a large collection of SACDs and/or are serious about computer audio. Highly recommended.

Luxman MQ-88 tubed power amplifier
Luxman's MQ-88 ($8000) is a classic push-pull tetrode design based on the KT88 power tube; the…

The Fifth Element #71 Contacts

Sidebar: Contacts

Luxman, 1-3-1, Shin-Yokohama Kouhoku-ku, Yokohama 222-0033, Japan. Tel: 81 (45) 47-0-6980. Web: www.luxman.co.jp. US distributor: On a Higher Note, PO Box 698, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693. Tel: (949) 488-3004. Fax: (949) 488-3284. Web: www.onahighernote.com.
Behringer, Music Group Services USA, Inc., 18912 N. Creek Parkway, Suite 200, Bothell, WA 98011. Tel: (425) 672-0816. Fax: (425) 673-7647. Web: www.behringer.com.

Ed Meitner: Audio Maverick

Ed Meitner is one of those rare individuals who charts his own course in audio product design. From his platterless turntable of the mid-1980s to his new Intelligent Digital Audio Translator (IDAT, reviewed elsewhere in this issue), Ed Meitner's products have been distinguished by original thinking and innovative engineering. Although not all his designs have been commercially successful, in each he has attempted to advance the state of the art by rethinking fundamental principles.

Ed is also pursuing an ambitious project that would radically change the way recordings are made. It began…

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Harley: Tell me about your design philosophy—how you think audio components should be built, and priced, and how they should function.

Meitner: If we want to advance the state of the art, we might be stuck initially with something that looks like it is more expensive than it should be. But if electronics are handled properly and the design is elegant, the product is just going to get cheaper and cheaper.

But the design has to be simple. I don't like band-aid designs with massive amounts of chips and all sorts of stuff hanging around. To me that means it doesn't work. That's my…

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Meitner: When you record something as simple as an electric guitar with a standard microphone and you realize you can't even play it back through a 10" speaker when the sound was produced by a 10" speaker, it makes you wonder what is missing. That sound is a simple event. It doesn't take big technology to pick that up. There's nothing mysterious about what's coming out of this 10" speaker. There won't be anything fast in there. There won't be any complex events happening. It will probably be a bandpass of some kind. So why can't we get that back? Close-miked, far-miked, it doesn't make any…

Meitner IDAT D/A processor

There are as many ways of designing a digital-to-analog converter as there are engineers. One approach is to select parts from manufacturers' data books and build the product according to the "application notes" provided by the parts manufacturers. This is the electronic equivalent of a paint-by-numbers kit.

A more creative engineer may add a few tricks of his own to the standard brew. Bigger and better regulated power supplies, careful circuit-board layout, tweaky passive components, and attention to detail will likely make this designer's product sound better than the same basic…

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Although the IDAT implements its filters with the same the Motorola DSP56001 Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chips found in other custom-filter processors, they are used in a unique way. To understand how the IDAT's filter works, a little background in digital filters is helpful. Digital filters come in two varieties, Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) and Finite Impulse Response (FIR). IIR filters can be optimized for time-domain performance; they can have less ringing, overshoot, and pre-echo than FIR types. This makes them ideal for processing waveforms with steep attacks—like musical…

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First, the IDAT's overall perspective was somewhere between the No.30's laid-back ease and the Gen.III's more forward and incisive character. The IDAT was more upbeat, energetic, and driving; the No.30 was more subtle, refined, and had greater treble resolution. More on this later.

There was, however, one aspect of the IDAT's presentation that grabbed me right away: an extraordinary ability to convey the music's rhythmic qualities. This characteristic was unmistakable, and clearly the best heard from any digital processor. There was a cohesion, a fundamental rightness to the music's…

Meitner IDAT D/A processor Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: 21-bit digital/analog converter. Digital filtering: 8x-oversampling DSP-based "Intelligent" design. D/A conversion: four 20-bit DACs per channel in "Class-A Data Scheme," balanced in digital domain. Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz +0, –0.3dB. THD+noise: less than 0.01%, 20Hz–20kHz (no level specified). Output impedance: 300 ohms unbalanced, 600 ohms balanced. Jitter: less than 100ps RMS, no periodic jitter. Inputs: coaxial on RCA jack, Toslink optical, ST-type optical (one each). Analog outputs: one unbalanced stereo pair on RCA jacks, one balanced…