search

Marantz Reference

Marantz was showing some heavy metal: Its new line of reference components, which will only be available at select dealers. Shown here are the SA-11S2 SACD player ($6999.99), the SA-7S2 stereo control preamplifier ($7999.99), and the MA-9S2 monoblock power amplifiers ($7999.99 each).

The SA-7S1 has a massive toroidal transformer, isolated digital and analog circuits, an external clock input, and an aluminum SACD-1 mechanism.

The SA-7S2 has a copper-plated chassis to reduce magnetic interference, a choke-input power supply, fully balanced circuit design, and a low-noise…

Bryston's First CD Player

I finally got a chance to look at, but not yet hear, Bryston's first venture into a source component, the BCD-1 CD player. James Tanner gave me a tour of the innards which were even more impressive than the beautifully carved front panel and sturdy disc tray. He said that, while they used a Philips transport, all the control electronics were replaced by discrete Bryston-designed drivers and DACs and that separate transformer windings powered separate power supplies for the transport and audio electronics, with multiple isolated and regulated supplies for individual circuits and…

Bag End Introduces Active Acoustics Correction

Look at the picture and tell me that those don’t look like speakers! They are, of course, but they are not intended to be driven by audio signals directly. What subwoofer manufacturer Bag End was demonstrating is a small, active bass trap, the E-Trap, and they are driven by the bass frequencies in the room. Each of these small boxes contains a driver, two microphones, and some pretty snazzy electronics that let the driver cancel the energy at the frequency (or two) of your room’s major mode. Sure, acoustic treatment is generally best, but that can get awfully cumbersome below 100Hz.…

Wisdom In-Walls Use Audyssey EQ

It was disorienting to arrive in the Denver Convention Center and both have to re-learn where everything is and to try to maintain my bearings on the Show floor. The grid of floor sites is very approximately regular, with each numbered row thickening and thinning to complement its neighbors. At one point, I had let myself be led around to three different booths by a press representative, only to look up and not know which was the front and which was back!

As I cruised the first aisle, I was attracted to a stack of silvery components at the Wisdom Audio display. They had undulating…

Art Decco

Peachtree Audio, which is distributed by Signal Path, introduced a tasty little 50Wpc digital integrated amp, the Decco ($799). That little window in the front has a 6922 tube behind it, feeding, presumably, a class-D power amp. The Decco has two analog inputs and three digital inputs: USB, Toslink, and S/PDIF coaxial. It decodes MP3, FLAC, AIF, and WAV and even has a slot in the rear to accommodate a Sonos ZP80 WiFi media player. It is also compatible (but lacks slots for) Apple TV and other music servers. There's a preamp output, in case you want to go for more power.

That ought…

Breaking News!

Joe Harley was striding around the Denver Convention Center. When we shook hands, he glanced around and said, "Let's go somewhere private." We ducked into an empty demo room and he pulled a few records out of his bag. "Nobody else knows about this, I'm giving you the exclusive."

He then handed me a gorgeous, double gatefold LP of the Horace Parlan Quintet's Speakin' My Piece, the first release in Music Matters' new definitive Blue Note reissue series. They'll be mastered by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman at Acoustech Mastering, which will produce the metal parts. Because the recent…

Salsa Means <i>Soul</i>

I've mentioned my insecurities and low self-esteem, told you of how I often feel so out of place and inferior. Whether in my personal relationships or professional duties, I can overwhelm myself into paralysis and depression with the idea that there is someone better suited for my life, that I do not belong where I am, that I am simply not good enough. It's a problem. But, considering that I was a red-headed white kid, growing up in the housing projects of Newark, within a large, Puerto Rican family who spoke a different language, and had an alcoholic father who cheated on my mom and often…

Arcam FMJ MS250 Music Server

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."

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…

ReQuest's New Wave

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.

PSB Synchrony

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…