Fortunately, we have Accuphase, the first "outside" company to hitch its technical wagon to the Sony/Philips SACD technology with the world's…
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What's it take to compete on the bleeding edge of digital? Foresight, commitment of resources, and lots of money. Of course, it's all fundamentally about money, so we shouldn't be surprised that the audiophile's emotional needs aren't paid much respect by the large international manufacturing and marketing concerns stalking the earth today. Megaglom vs Cockroachacus. [Sigh] Where are those pesky miniature princess twins when you need 'em?
'Round back are two digital outputs to choose from: S/PDIF on RCA (CD playback only) or the proprietary Accuphase HS-Link, implemented on a Cat-5 TIA/EIA 568A cable with an RJ-45 connector. The HS-Link is made up of four twisted pairs of copper wire, allowing plenty of bandwidth for security codes, left and right channels, and clock signals. SACD appears only at the HS-Link output, not the the S/PDIF RCA, and you cannot record or port the HS-Link signal into anything other than an Accuphase option card. Accuphase claims that the HS-Link will pass 400 megabits per second, with a theoretical…
In explaining the apparent marketing de-emphasis on upsampling at Accuphase, Kawakami highlighted several points. First, when playing 44.1kHz material, the DC-101 "runs the digital bus as it is," which I take to mean that the datastream appears as a 16/44.1 S/PDIF signal at the RCA S/PDIF output or at the HS-Link digital output. "But," he goes on, "it is upsampled (oversampled) to 352.8kHz in the Multiple Delta Sigma DAC." In other words, industry-standard 8x oversampling.
Kawakami goes on to say that the actual signal content of 16/44.1 is the same whether upsampled to 176.4kHz, 192kHz…
Speaking of which, it's only natural that Glenn Gould should bring tears to the eyes, and that he did. From the opening notes of the Goldberg Variations (SS 37779), I could hear his ghostly voice breathing and humming along with God's music—so deeply felt, the musical intents of composer and artist seeming to sail through the system wholly unimpeded. The timing of Gould's playing, the trueness of the piano sound, even the interplay of his voice with the music—the you-are-right-there of SACD rang true, like a well-tempered blade slicing through the electronics and projecting the music at the…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Accuphase DP-100 Super Audio CD transport: Plays CD, CD-R, and SACD single-layer, dual-layer, and hybrid (SACD/CD) discs. Laser diode wavelength: SACD, 650nm; CD, 780nm. Digital outputs: RJ-45 HS-Link and RCA S/PDIF. Power consumption: 20W.
Dimensions: 18 11/16" (475mm) W by 6 5/16" (160mm) H by 15 11/16" (398mm) D. Weight: 42.3 lbs (19.2kg) net.
Serial number of unit reviewed: G0Y076.
Price: $12,995.
Accuphase DC-101 Precision Digital Processor: Digital inputs: RJ-45 HS-Link, RCA S/PDIF, TosLink. Sampling frequencies: 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, and…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital playback: dCS Elgar Plus D/A processor, dCS 972 and Purcell D/D converters.
Preamplifification: BAT VK-50SE, Mark Levinson No.32 Reference, and Conrad-Johnson 16LS.
Power amplifiers: Krell FPB 350MC, Linn Klimax Solo 500, and McIntosh MC1201 monoblocks; Forsell Statement.
Loudspeakers: JMlab Utopia.
Cables: Digital: XLO The Limited RCA and AES/EBU. Interconnects: TARA The One, Synergistic Designer's Reference (Discrete and Active Shielding). Speaker: TARA The One, Cardas Golden Cross, XLO The Limited, Synergistic Research Designer's…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Looking first at the Accuphase DC-101's measured performance playing back CDs, its maximum output level was 2.465V unbalanced, 2.46dB balanced, both figures approximately 1.8dB above the CD Standard level. The analog output was sourced from a low 47 ohms from both sets of outputs. While the unbalanced outputs didn't invert absolute signal polarity, the balanced outputs did so, the XLR jacks being wired with pin 3 positive (the opposite of the AES-recommended convention). Setting the DC-101's rear-panel switch to "inverting" actually restored absolute polarity.…
Examining the DC-101's analog distortion proved fruitless, as any harmonics were below the noise floor of the Audio Precision System One measurement system. Fig.7, for example, shows an FFT-derived spectrum as the processor decoded PCM data representing a full-scale 50Hz tone into a punishing 600 ohm load. Yes, harmonic components—the 6th, 7th, 8th, 15th, 17th, and 18th—can be seen above the -120dB level, but I suspect these are actually due to the AP's lack of mathematical dynamic range. The story was similar regarding intermodulation distortion. Even with the Accuphase driving a torture-…
Of much more significance in this graph is the very high level of ultrasonic noise resulting from the aggressive noiseshaping used by the DSD process to achieve such a wide audioband dynamic range from a 1-bit encoding system. The noise appears to peak at 75kHz in fig.11, but this is the result of the player's ultrasonic rolloff (seen in fig.10).
The method of analog analysis used to capture this spectrum possibly exaggerates the impact of DSD's HF noise within the audioband. Fig.12 therefore shows an FFT-derived spectrum taken while the Accuphase decoded DSD data representing a 1kHz…
What is truth? What is reality? What is music?
What is this, a philosophy seminar or an audio review? Perhaps both; maybe neither. I've been walking around in a funk lately, pondering Monitor Audio's Studio 2 loudspeakers, thinking about how much I like them, yet fretting because, according to our own revered founder, J. Gordon Holt, they aren't even worthy of recommendation, since they limit low-frequency information. This is pretty heady stuff for a new kid on the block, but if loving the Studio 2s is wrong, then I don't want to be right.
Listening to these Monitors, that hoary…