Kind of blue
For all their convenience, Bluetooth headphones and earbuds have fundamental problems.…
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Bluetooth headphones have brought me joy for years—sometimes a little too much. Once, while waiting for a flight at my regional airport, I switched on the active noise cancellation, closed my eyes, and got so sucked in by Elvis Costello's album Imperial Bedroom that I didn't hear the boarding calls. It was no fun texting my client that I'd missed my flight. I fibbed that I'd been stuck in traffic, because blaming Costello for delivering such an immersive triumph would've been uncouth.
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
When people talk of the "Apple tax," they mean the priciness of Apple's products—a negative that for many of us is offset by how well the company's devices usually work, separately and together. Apple, though, has rarely emphasized interoperability with non-Apple devices, and the Bathys is no exception. Focal includes only a minijack cable and a USB-C–to–USB-C cord in the box; to use the built-in DAC, I had to go rummaging through drawers for a USB-C– to-Lightning adapter. The good news: I found two. The bad news: Neither worked.
Even after…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Closed-back wireless headphones with active noise cancellation. Connections: Bluetooth 5.1/3.5mm minijack/USB-C. Audio codecs SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX Adaptive. Drive units: 1 5/8" (40mm) aluminum-magnesium M-shaped dome. Frequency range: 15Hz–22kHz. Harmonic distortion <0.2% @1kHz. Bluetooth range appr. 50' (open field). Battery life 30 hours in Bluetooth mode; 35 hours in minijack mode, 42 hours in USB DAC mode.
Dimensions: Carrying case: 9 7/16" (240mm) × 8¼" (210mm) × 2¾" (70mm). Weight 12.3oz (350gm).
Finishes: Black, Dune.
Price: $…
Today's scrappy record labels understand that an intimate brand connection captures consumers. Every major label has its own boutique imprints, from Columbia's Legacy to Blue Note's Tone Poet and Classic Vinyl. Craft Recordings, the catalog label for Concord, is set up well for achieving such a connection, since the parent company also owns Fania, Prestige, Milestone, Pablo, Telarc, Vanguard, Concord Jazz, and Riverside (not to mention Stax, Rounder, and Sugar Hill). For vinyl reissues, that's the jazz motherlode.
Craft created Jazz Dispensary to reissue some of this music, with shall we…
I have found that turntable designers typically fall into one of two camps. First are what I call the obsessive machinists. These are the people with impressive manufacturing chops and a sharp eye for fine detail and precision. For them, making a better turntable usually involves taking what we already know and simply doing it better.
Whether it's a thicker chassis, more powerful motor, more precise bearing, more effective isolation system, or something else, the emphasis is always on stepping things up a notch or two, rather than reinventing the wheel. This obsession can result in some…
Performance: Measurements made with the Shaknspin2 speed-measuring device showed that the DG-1S was running about 0.4% fast—not terrible but a little disappointing at the price, and not adjustable (footnote 4). More importantly, the peak wow and flutter was around 0.18%, an excellent result.
After several days of casual use to get everything bedded in, I started a round of more intent listening with "Round Midnight" from Chick Corea's 1982 album Trio Music (ECM 1232/33). Right out of the gate, I heard the hallmarks of a Touraj Moghaddam design, the kind of forward momentum and…
Can an audio brand maintain a "house sound" if the original creator of that sound is no longer among the living? If the brand in question is Ayre Acoustics, the answer is a resounding Yes.
When Ayre founder Charley Hansen passed in late 2017, Ariel Brown, who is now Ayre's vice president and chief technology officer, was ready, waiting in the wings. Brown has worked for Ayre since he was a sophomore in college. As John Atkinson wrote in his February 2019 review of Ayre's EX-8 Integrated Hub, "Brown says that for better or worse, he was indoctrinated in Hansen's way of thinking and design…
Silence of the Equilock
A test of whether you've purchased an ordinary hi-fi component or a special one is how many of your favorite recordings it makes sound new—how many favorite albums seem freshly imagined when experienced through the component. No component is entirely transparent; each reproduces recordings in its own image. The VX-8 made familiar records new again. It wasn't so much casting recordings in a new light as digging deeper to reveal more of a recording's sonic architecture; a different kind of light induces a different reflection. What's more, the VX-8 made all the vinyl…
A test of whether you've purchased an ordinary hi-fi component or a special one is how many of your favorite recordings it makes sound new—how many favorite albums seem freshly imagined when experienced through the component. No component is entirely transparent; each reproduces recordings in its own image. The VX-8 made familiar records new again. It wasn't so much casting recordings in a new light as digging deeper to reveal more of a recording's sonic architecture; a different kind of light induces a different reflection. What's more, the VX-8 made all the vinyl…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Solid state balanced stereo power amplifier. Inputs: 1 balanced pair (XLR), 1 single-ended pair (RCA). Output power: 100Wpc into 8 ohms (20dBW), 170Wpc into 4 ohms (19.3dBW). Frequency response: DC–250kHz (–3dB). Voltage gain: 26dB. Input impedance: 1M ohm unbalanced, 2M ohm balanced. Max line/subwoofer output: 4.0V RMS balanced, 2.0V RMS single-ended.
Dimensions: 17.25" (438.15mm) W × 4.5" (114.3mm) H × 13.00" (330.2mm) D. Weight: 24lb (11kg).
Serial number of unit reviewed: 30A0001. Designed and manufactured in Colorado.
Finishes:…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: VPI Avenger Direct turntable with VPI 12" Fatboy Gimbal tonearm and Hana Umami Blue MC cartridge.
Digital sources: HoloAudio May DAC, Sonore opticalRendu, Roon Nucleus+, Small Green Computer power supply, TRENDnet switch, Apple iPad mini.
Preamplifiers: Sugden LA-4, Ayre K-5xeMP line preamplifiers; Manley Labs Chinook, Goldnote PH-5 phono stages.
Power amplifier: Pass Labs XA-25.
Loudspeakers: Volti Audio Razz SE.
Cables: Interconnects: AudioQuest Pegasus Zero-Tech, Triode Wire Labs Spirit II (RCA). Speaker: Analysis Plus…