It has two analog line-level inputs, so that users with an external phono section could rip LPs to the server.
It can connect to a computer to access music stored there and can access the Internet to collect metadata. It supports four…
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Billed as the "world's first audiophile music server," the MS250 contains a 400GB hard disk and a CD ripper/player, as well as "a custom sound card specifically designed for the MS250 using four Crystal CS4398, 120dB dynamic-range, 24-bit, stereo DACs, plus properly implemented power supplies and output filters, just like an Arcam CD player."
ReQuest is betting there's a music server in your future, and they're working hard at eliminating any objections you might have about it. In addition to showing off their new S-series components ("S" for "serious sound"), the company introduced a host of widgets, added functions, new remotes, and the Echo, a daily-updated backup drive for your music library.
All cool stuff, but the announcement I thought was huge went almost unnoticed: Netsync for iTunes, which insures that the ReQuest servers function seamlessly with the world's most popular music-management program.
We get a kick out of Paul Barton, so we wandered into PSB's room to see what's new. He was talking to a good-looking man of a certain age (ours, approximately), to whom he introduced us: it was Vance Dickason, the man who wrote the book on designing DIY loudspeakers: The Loudspeaker Design Cookbook.
What a nice guy.
Then Barton showed us his new Synchrony line of loudspeakers, which are sleek and quite different from the older, boxier PSB Stratus designs. Paul, being Paul, didn't show us the $4500/pair Synchrony One (which JA has for review)—he caressed his $300/pair…
I decided that since Stereophile only had two show bloggers this year, I would avoid writing about weird custom-install products and home-theater systems. However, rules, as they say, are made to be broken.
I knew I was in trouble when I saw NHT's $42,500 7.2 Pro Theater system. Think of it as an Xd system writ large.
The brains of the system is NHT's The Controller. Each channel uses one XdA amplifier, which contains DEQC calibration and 800W of power. The monitors are M-80Xds, with two 8" magnesium-cone woofers, two 2" metal-dome midranges, and a 1" metal-dome tweeter.…
I got a chance to listen to a 5.1 setup of small HM series monitors ($1699 each) from Adam Professional Audio, the same speakers that the recording had been mixed on. Even amidst the hustle and bustle of the CEDIA floor, they made a good showing. Even more impressive were the new Tensor series, all of which use ART (Advanced Ribbon Technology, inspired by the old Oskar Heil ribbons) HF and MF drivers, along with active Hexacone woofers in substantial cabinets. The larger Beta and Alpha models have additional cone midrange drivers. All are also available in fully active versions and the…
Continuing with European speakers, on static exhibit at the Klipsch Group complex was one of the most cleanly and beautifully simple speaker designs I've seen in a while. It was Jamo's S60, the largest in a new "S" line that, so far, includes a tiny bookshelf, a small center channel, and a subwoofer. These looked like many European small designs, almost too small to be effective. But the graceful three-way S60 sports a dome tweeter, a vertically arrayed pair of 4" midrange units, and a side-firing 8" woofer. Everything fit and matched, and the materials and textures just screamed…
There was a lot to see in the Lenbrook Group rooms and I was pleased to see that the anticipated T-175 multichannel pre-pro was ready for prime-time. However, the unit that caught my eye was a little stereo unit, the T-715. This trim, $499 beauty has a 25Wpc amp, a CD player, an AM-FM tuner, and a subwoofer output in addition to the usual audio line-level inputs and outputs and headphone jack. It also sports a USB input for playback of MP3s or of anything streaming off the Internet. It's just about the size of a shoebox. Add a pair of small speakers, like PSB's $279/pair Alpha B1s,…
A beaming Gregg Dunn hailed me over to the Cary booth and said, "I know what you are looking for!" He was right. In his hands, he was holding the new Cary Cinema 11V, the video-input/processor that mates with the Cinema 11 (now 11A) audio-only pre-pro that I found to be a really wonderful performer in my July column. What the 11V adds is a useful array of video (and audio!) inputs and outputs but, most significantly for audiophiles, it strips the hi-def audio content from HDMI inputs and pipes it through a proprietary digital connection to the 11A. Add an RS232 connection and the two…
Wilson's flagship speaker has gotten a make-over, including a new midrange driver that, the company claims, has even "greater clarity, tonal density, and truthfulness" than the original.
The new titanium oxide tweeter also affords improvements, John Giolas explained. "It's sweeter and more resolving, and has an even lower noise floor, making it the perfect companion to the new midrange."
The new drivers necessitated a new crossover for the Alexandria, with the result, Giolas said, of even greater authority and extension in the bass—a result of Wilson's ability to hear "…
A quick, final word on Fred Hersch’s week of piano duets at the Jazz Standard. His early set last night with Jason Moran was one of the most enthralling concerts I’ve seen in a long time. At its peak moments (and there were several of them), the two settled into such a head-spinning groove, they sounded like one pianist playing magically with four hands. Moran, as I’ve noted in an earlier entry, may be the jazz pianist of our times, the supreme post-modernist who appropriates everything around him—musical traditions from Schumann and Jelly Roll Morton to Afrika Bambaata and Jaki Byard, as…