If you've never suffered a panic attack, the idea of one—of being, in the absence of any real threat, suddenly overwhelmed by fear—can seem inconceivably strange. Try to imagine fear flooding your mind with such fierce momentum that you struggle to catch your breath, so convincing is the sensation that everything is spinning horribly out of control. Once that happens and the fear has taken…
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My friend was in dire straits. What had been rare occurrences of panic attacks—one every year or so—had turned into a full-blown panic disorder that made it impossible for him to enjoy peace of mind..
There's a lot happening, in Raleigh, Charlotte, Edmonton, Calgary, and Ontario.
Wednesday–Thursday, November 16–17, 5–9pm: North Carolina's Audio Advice will host their annual two-day Music Matters Event at their Raleigh and Charlotte locations. The event takes place in Raleigh (8621 Glenwood Avenue) on Wednesday, November 16th, and moves to Charlotte (11409 Carolina Place Parkway) the following day. Manufacturer representatives from Aerial Acoustics, Audio Research, AudioQuest, Bowers & Wilkins, GoldenEar, MartinLogan, Peachtree, PrimaLuna, and more will be on hand to play great…
I'm a progressive who enjoys the company of his conservative friends, a Catholic who's thankful for his atheist friends, and a carnivore who cherishes his vegetarian friends. I'm also a vintage-audio enthusiast who loves his audiophile friends who aren't so inclined—so I was doubly happy to see, in the September 2016 edition of Michael Fremer's "Analog Corner," a hearty endorsement of Ortofon's latest SPU: a 58-year-old phono-cartridge design that, like the coelacanth, continues to thrive despite expectations.
Mikey is a longtime friend who harbors no love for vintage phonography—yet…
At the end of the day, I preferred the SPU #1S, but by a smaller margin than I might have expected: The SPU #1E still satisfied, and did so for a crazy-low price. Indeed, both of these new SPUs offer exceptional value for the money, and either would make an excellent starting point for the shopper who's curious about vintage gear. To anyone whose record player includes an easily adjusted tonearm that can be fitted with an SME-standard pickup head, these new Ortofons are very highly recommended.
Motor trends
Before leaving the subject of quasi-vintage phonography: During the months…
Sidebar: Contacts
Ortofon A/S, Stavangervej 9, DK-4900 Nakskov, Denmark. Ortofon Inc. 500 Executive Boulevard, Suite 102, Ossining, NY 10562. Tel: (914) 762-8646. Web: www.ortofon.com
Perfect Sound, 11 Aspen Place, New Milton, Hampshire, England BH25 6NX, UK. Tel: (44) 0787-6207636. Web: www.perfectsound.co.uk
J.L. Smith & Co., 901 Blairhill Road, Suite 400, Charlotte, NC 28217. Tel: (800) 659-6073. Web: www.jlsmithco.com
AudioSilente, Via Felice Grossi Gondi, 00162 Rome, Italy. Tel: (39) 3289610968. Web: www.audiosilente.com
It has been 20 years since I first became aware of the British company Data Conversion Systems, which manufactures audio products under the dCS brand. Rather than use off-the-shelf conversion chips, the groundbreaking dCS Elgar D/A converter, which I reviewed in our July 1997 issue, featured a then-unique D/A design that they called a Ring DAC. This featured a five-bit, unitary-weighted, discrete DAC running at 64 times the incoming data's sample rate—2.822MHz for 44.1kHz-based data, 3.07MHz for 48kHz-sampled data and its multiples—with upsampling and digital filtering and processing…
Turning to the sound of DSD files: The only UPnP server I have on my Mac mini is Twonky Server, which doesn't play DSD files (footnote 2), but I could play DSD recordings via the Rossini Player's USB port, sourced from my Aurender N10 server. As I mentioned earlier this year, in constant rotation these past months has been the complete set of Brahms Piano Trios performed by violinist Christian Tetzlaff, cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, and pianist Lars Vogt (DSD128 files, Ondine/HDtracks), and engineered by René LaFlamme. (The Rossini app reported these files as having a sample rate of 5644.8kHz…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Rossini Player: Upsampling CD/network player with digital and word-clock inputs and iOS Control app. Digital inputs: 2 AES/EBU (XLR), 2 S/PDIF (1 RCA, 1 BNC), S/PDIF (TosLink), USB2 Type B (high-resolution audio). Network interface on RJ45 connector acts as a UPnP renderer in asynchronous mode, streaming digital music from a NAS or local computer over a standard Ethernet network, decoding all major lossless formats including FLAC, WAV, and AIFF at up to 24-bit/384kHz native sample rate, plus DSD64 & DSD128 in DFF/DSF format. Other supported formats include…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Aurender N10 music server; Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A converter; AudioQuest JitterBug, UpTone Audio ReGen USB cleaner-uppers; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter; 2012 Apple MacBook Pro & Mac mini i7 running El Capitan, Twonky Server, Pure Music 3.0.
Power Amplifiers: First Watt J2, Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Crystal Cable Arabesque Minissimo Diamond, KEF LS50, Magico S5 Mk.2, PSB Imagine T3.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Coffee. USB: Canare AES/EBU.…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the dCS Rossini with my newly recalibrated Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"). As well as test CDs and the Audio Precision's serial digital outputs, I used WAV and AIFF test-tone files sourced via USB from my MacBook Pro running on battery power and played with Pure Music 3.0. I began the testing with the first sample, but continued with the second sample. The Rossini Clock was used for all tests.
Apple's USB Prober utility identified the Rossini as "dCS Rossini Player USB class 2" from "Data Conversion Systems…