Description: Remote-controlled, network-connected, D/A-integrated preamplifier with BluOS network streaming, Dirac Live (full range) Room Correction, tone controls, multiroom capability, and front-panel 7" color touchscreen. Analog inputs: one pair RCA (line), one pair XLR (line), two pair RCA (phono MC/MM). Digital inputs: two TosLink, two S/PDIF (RCA), one AES3 (XLR), one HDMI ARC/eARC, 1Gb Ethernet (RJ-45), USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 aptX HD. BluOS supported file formats: MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG, WMA-L, ALAC, OPUS, MQA, FLAC, WAV, AIFF. Supported sample rates: up to…
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Custom Intel/Win11 music server running JRiver Media Center v32 and Roon 2, Merging Devices Hapi II multichannel DAC. QNAP TVS-873 NAS. Oppo Digital UDP-103 universal disc player.
Power amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, NAD M23.
Loudspeakers: KEF Blade Two Meta with IsoAcoustics GAIA II feet, 2 × KEF KC92 subwoofers.
Cables: Digital interconnects: Mogami Gold AES TD DB25-XLR0 snake. Analog interconnects: Mogami Gold AES TD DB25-XLR snake, Benchmark Studio&Stage XLR-XLR. Speaker cables: Blue Jeans Canare 4S11.
Accessories:…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I performed a full set of measurements on the NAD M66 using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system,1 repeating some of the testing with the magazine's higher-performance APx555 analyzer. I used the BluOS app on my iPad mini to control the M66's volume and settings and select the inputs. Looking first at the M66's line inputs (turning off Dirac Live, tone controls, A/V mode, and Compressed Grouped Audio mode), the M66 preserved absolute polarity at the balanced and unbalanced outputs but inverted polarity at the headphone output. The line inputs have an Analog Direct…
To examine the performance of the M66's DAC, I used the coaxial and optical S/PDIF inputs, both of which accepted data sampled at rates up to 192kHz, and network data sourced from Roon.
The NAD's digital inputs preserved absolute polarity at the balanced and unbalanced outputs but inverted polarity at the headphone output. With the volume control set to its maximum, the M66's output level with a full-scale 1kHz tone was 5.28V balanced, 2.64V unbalanced, and 7.93V headphone. The M66's DAC offers a well-managed gain architecture.
Most of the provocative and charismatic popular music made today is an unclassifiable mixture—a hybrid of whatever styles, sounds, and instruments happen to move its creators. Violinist Jenny Scheinman not only composes multi-hued music that is singularly her own, but she lives in two very different musical worlds: the progressive world of jazz, and the more song- and tradition-based environs of Americana.
Scheinman's latest solo album, All Species Parade, released in October 2024 on the Royal Potato Family label, is a classic example of her unique vision and chameleon-like ability to…
Register to win a pair of Monitor Audio Studio 89 loudspeakers (MSRP $2,499) Stereophile is giving away.
Small, compact and visually unique, Monitor Audio's Studio 89 is an uncompromising loudspeaker capable of filling large rooms with pristine sound. It benefits from a host of cutting-edge Monitor Audio innovations and is born of the same Transparent Design Philosophy as the statement Hyphn.
Studio 89’s topology ensures that even in large rooms, the soundstage, imaging and detail levels are completely enveloping and remain true to the ethos of bringing ‘studio monitoring…
Photo by Frank Gargan
All bands dissolve eventually, for reasons ranging from commercial failure, personnel dynamics, and death to just running out of steam. The band X, beloved by its niche fanbase and highly influential in punk, hard rock, and even alt-country, decided to control the time and place of its end. Earlier this year, they announced "the final album," Smoke & Fiction. "The End Is Near" tour listed shows through October 2024 (footnote 1).
Singer Exene Cervenka and drummer D. J. Bonebrake, now in their late 60s, told me that touring is a mixed bag these days. "The…
I spent the second three-and-a-half years of my life living with my family in Sweden. Our home was on an island just outside of Stockholm called Lidingö, which locals tell me today is like the Beverly Hills of Stockholm, a fancy place where the rich and famous live. Fifty-nine years ago, it wasn't quite so fancy; it just seemed like a cool place for a little kid from New York City to grow up.
I can't honestly say I remember many details about my life between the ages of three and a half and seven, yet apparently some of that Swedish way of thinking ended up influencing my life view,…
Johnny Hartman's album Once in Every Life (Bee Hive Records BH 7012) has become an audiophile chestnut, but I give credit to my friend Brian Futterman for bringing this lovely record into the audiophile realm. Nearly 40 years ago, Brian brought it along to a dealer I was working at to audition some new speakers, and it soon became a demonstration favorite. "I Could Write a Book" is my go-to track, with its bouncy bass line played by Victor Gaskin accompanying Hartman's deep, rich voice. Sibilance can rear its ugly head with this record if the playback isn't top notch, but, assisted by the…
Yello's Boris Blank poses at an outdoor cafe in old town Zurich. (Photo by Rogier van Bakel.)
Boris Blank has a cold, and three days after meeting him in his hometown of Zurich, I do too. This seems apt. Metaphorically, he's been infecting me for decades.
For almost 45 years, Yello, the pioneering Swiss band that Blank formed with singer Dieter Meier, has created witty electropop that provokes joy and awe in attentive listeners. You can dance to most of this music, of course—it's often hard not to—but its allure, its spell, goes deeper. For one thing, Yello's music is delightfully…