At the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in 2017, I walked into the Believe Fidelity room and, just inside the door, I stopped, closed my eyes, and examined the sound with my mind. What I heard was glowing and tactile—and occupied the room in an attention-grabbing way. I asked Believe HiFi’s principal “believer,” Joshua Masongsong, “What’s going on here?” He…
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We were playing some old, cherished black discs when my partner, bb (the 6'-tall Aries artist), declared, "With records you hear touch, and you are not alone." Long pause. "Just holding the cover brings back memories—that's their humanity."
The 1:10 version of EMIA's Phono step-up transformer ($2400) was a Goldilocks-caliber "just right" match, combining punch and excitement with ease and refinement in ways the others didn't quite equal. I'm certain that part of its ability to excite came from its 80% nickel core; I'm just as sure its refinement came from its just-right damping. With the Etsuro Urushi, the EMIA transformer presented a festival of subtle dynamic inflections and transient nuance I had never noticed, on records I've heard countless times. Piano became the fiercest and, simultaneously, the most delicate of…
Sidebar: Contacts
Etsuro Urushi, Dai-ichi Shoji Co., Ltd. The Landmark Tower, Yokohama 20F 2-2-1 MIinatomirai Nishi-Ku Yokohama, Japan Tel: +81 45 228 3251 Web: EtsuroJapan.com. US Distributor: Believe High Fidelity Ltd. 1307 Samson Dtive, Hutto, TX 78634. Tel: (512) 470-2709 Web: ibelieveinhifi.com.
Hana. Excel Sound Corporation 3-7-37, Shin-yoshida-Higashi, Kohoku-ku Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-0058 Japan Tel: (81) 45-543-5100 Web: excelsound.co.jp. US distributor: Musical Surroundings 5662 Shattuck Avenue Oakland, CA 94609. Tel: (510) 547-5006 Web: musicalsurroundings.com
Apple may not have been the first to market with a portable digital audio player, but its original iPod defined the genre: a device small enough to fit into a shirt pocket. When companies like Acoustic Research, Astell&Kern, Fiio, HiFiMan, and Questyle introduced portable players that could play high-resolution files, they echoed the iPod's form factor. The exception was the Toblerone-shaped PonoPlayer, but even that was small. The subject of this review is another exception: The DMP-Z1, from Sony's Signature Series, is comparatively enormous—almost the size and weight of a regular…
In USB DAC mode, the DMP-Z1's display shows a bar-graph level meter for each channel, as well as the sample rate of the incoming data. With Roon performing the first or both unfoldings of MQA-encoded, 192kHz-sampled data, the Sony peculiarly displayed, respectively, "PCM 96kHz" or "PCM 48kHz." The display correctly showed the sample rate with linear PCM or DSD data in USB DAC mode, however. And MQA files played from the DMP-Z1's internal storage were identified as "MQA," with the unfolded sample rate displayed. With all files that have a bit depth greater than 16 or a sample rate higher than…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Bluetooth-equipped portable media player/digital processor/ headphone amplifier with 3.1" (780mm) TFT color display, 256GB internal storage, two microSD slots, internal rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and vibration-isolating aluminum case. File formats supported: MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, APE, DSD64/128/256, MQA. Supported Bluetooth codecs: SBC, LDA C, aptX, aptX HD. DSP functions: 10-band equalizer, tone control, DSEE HX (upsamples standard-definition data), DSD Remastering (transcoded PCM to DSD), Dynamic Normalizer, Vinyl…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Sources: Roon Nucleus+ server; Astell&Kern AK-100, iPad mini, PonoPlayer portable players.
Headphones: Audeze LCD-X, AudioQuest NightHawk, Sennheiser HD 650.
Cables: Headphones: Nordost Heimdall, manufacturers' own. USB, AC: manufacturers' own.
Accessories: AudioQuest Niagara 1000 Low-Z Power/Noise-Dissipation System.—John Atkinson
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Sony DMP-Z1 with my Audio Precision SYS-2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It") using test-tone files copied to the Sony's internal storage. The DMP-Z1's battery was fully charged before I began testing, and I measured the player's performance at its single-ended headphone jack in Direct Source mode, which bypasses the DSP functions.
Apple's USB Prober utility identified the DMP-Z1 as "PLAYER" from "Sony" with serial number "1045A0A1000727" and confirmed that its USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode.…
Early in 2019, three jazz CDs appeared on a new record label. They were Jason Palmer's Rhyme and Reason, Johnathan Blake's Trion (both double CDs), and Eric Alexander's Leap of Faith. The label was Giant Step Arts.
Given that hundreds of jazz records—many of them good— are released every month, and that new jazz labels pop up all the time, is the release of three new albums really news?
Giant Step Arts is news. For starters, it is radically more than a record label. The story begins with Jimmy Katz.
You may not know his name, but if you're any kind of jazz fan, his…
Leap of Faith introduces to the world a new Alexander: searching, impulsive, sometimes strident. The band is a trio with bassist Doug Weiss and drummer Johnathan Blake. It is only the second time Alexander has recorded with a saxophone trio. (The first three GSA releases all present chord-less ensembles. Katz says it's a coincidence, but the stark formats promote edginess.) Pieces such as "Hard Blues" and "Frenzy" and, especially, "Second Impression" (a contrafact of John Coltrane's "Impressions") sound ripped out of Alexander. He said, "When I listen now, there are certain moments that I…