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There are components that stick in a reviewer's memory long after they have been crated up and entrusted to the tender mercies of UPS. When I reviewed the Verona Master Clock from English company dCS in March 2005, the sound it allowed the combination of a dCS Verdi transport, Purcell upsampler, and Elgar Plus D/A processor to achieve from SACD was the best I had heard from my system—better, even, than I remember getting from the EMM Labs SACD transport and processor I had borrowed for a weekend a few months earlier. But at what price? The stack of four dCS components adds up to a cool $45k…
Paradoxically, given the increase in sample rate, it is in the richness and definition of low frequencies that DSD encoding often makes its presence known, in my experience. Playing the SACD I produced of Antony Michaelson performing Mozart's Clarinet Concerto (K622, Musical Fidelity MFSACD017), the P8i reproduced the power of the two double basses in full measure. Similarly, the double bass on "Temptation," from Diana Krall's The Girl in the Other Room (SACD, Verve B000293-36), was reproduced with its full weight without losing definition.
Throughout the review period, I kept returning…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Single-box, two-channel SACD/CD player, with single-ended and balanced analog outputs, two digital outputs (AES3 and S/PDIF), two digital inputs (AES3 and S/PDIF), and word-clock input and output jacks (BNC). D/A section upsamples CD data to DSD. Maximum output voltage: 6V/2V (switchable). No other specifications given.
Dimensions: 16.93" (430mm) W by 3.74" (95mm) H by 15.55" (395mm) D. Weight: 26.44 lbs (12kg).
Serial Number of Unit Reviewed: 0b1 7e5 3d1 1b4 1d4 002005. Software version: 1.05.
Price: $13,995. Approximate number of dealers…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Ayre C-5xe universal player; Mark Levinson No.30.6, Benchmark DAC 1, Grace m902, Musical Fidelity X-DACV3 D/A processors; Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder.
Preamplifier: Mark Levinson No.326S.
Power Amplifiers: Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Sonus Faber Amati anniversario, Genesis 5.2, Snell LCR7.
Cables: Digital: Kimber Illuminations Orchid AES/EBU, AudioQuest SVD-4 S/PDIF. Interconnect: AudioQuest Cheetah, Madrigal CZ Gel-1, Ayre Signature Series, Crystalconnect, Canare (balanced). Speaker: AudioQuest…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The dCS P8i put out a maximum of 6V from both CD and SACD with its Level set to "6V." Set to "2V" with the Menu button, this dropped appropriately, to 2V RMS. The source impedance was less than 1 ohm from both the unbalanced and balanced outputs. The signal polarity, with the Phase set to Normal, was noninverting from the single-ended outputs but inverting from the balanced outputs, implying that the XLRs are wired with pin 3 rather than pin 2 hot.
Tested using the Pierre Verany test CD, which has calibrated gaps in its data spiral, the P8i had the best…
The Sessions: Wes Phillips
Tuesday, November 18, 1997, was chilly and clear; Santa Fe had received its first snowfall of the season only two days before. Toward dusk, heavy fog drifted down from the hills overlooking the city, blurring the crisp lines that distinguish "Santa Fe light" from that elsewhere.
"Oh no!" I thought, as engineer John Atkinson, executive producer Gretchen Grogan, photographer David Hendrick, and I ferried recording equipment into Loretto Chapel. "Ida's going to have a tough time maintaining tune..." A logical suspicion, but one that ultimately proved…
The chapel is now deconsecrated and a popular tourist destination during the day. We recorded at night, starting several hours after sunset in the hope that traffic noise would be manageable. As you will hear from the odd car or motorcycle passing, this hope was not entirely realized, but by and large we managed to record the entire Schulhoff Sonata with relatively little accompaniment from Santa Fe's driving public.
The chapel's long reverberant signature, while gorgeous for the solo violin sonata, would have proven too much of a good thing for a Steinway grand piano in the Enescu and…
The Music: Ida Levin
In choosing the works on this recording, I turned to a musical period I find ceaselessly fascinating—the years between the two World Wars. They were a fertile time for all the creative arts in Europe and the United States, and composers flourished with particular expressiveness, moved in part by the devastation in so many societies. In this selection, I have focused on two Eastern European countries: Czechoslovakia (as it was then) and Rumania. The three composers represented have distinct styles and musical languages, yet they communicate in common a heartfelt…
Notes on the Engineering: John Atkinson
The more recording I do and the more microphones I acquire, the further I seem to move away from my purist roots. Once a diehard Blumlein devotee, who would countenance only the theoretically correct pure-amplitude stereo imaging proposed in the early '30s by the visionary English engineer Alan Dower Blumlein, I have been increasingly prepared to sacrifice imaging specificity in favor of a sound that is true to what you hear in the concert hall. What is the point of capturing the optimal imaging on a recording if the instrumental sounds are changed…
The central cardioid and omnis were around 6' from the violin in all three works. Ida Levin was centrally placed in the Schulhoff, and about 3' to the left and in front of the Steinway keyboard in the other two works. The image of her instrument should therefore be halfway between the center and the left-hand loudspeaker in the Janácek and Enescu sonatas; the piano image, which should be broad and rather amorphous, should extend from stage center all the way to the right-hand loudspeaker position. The mikes were 8' from the chapel floor in the Schulhoff, and just over 9' from the stage floor…