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Wadia Digital has offered four upgrades of its 2000 Digital Decoding Computer since the model's 1989 debut. The first was a streamlined power supply that was much more aesthetically pleasing than the square metal box supplied with the first units. Multiple digital inputs on the 2000 also replaced the separate fiber-optical converter and its outboard power supply—necessary if you wanted to decode more than one digital source—and reduced the four-box 2000 to two.

The latest upgrade is much more extensive: the 2000's entire circuitry is…

I drove the Wadia 2000 with both the Wadia 7 transport and the Mark Levinson No.31 transport. The former was connected with the Wadia-recommended glass-fiber optical (ST-Type) cable. Other digital links included the Illuminati coaxial and AES/EBU cables.

Loudspeakers were Genesis II.5 dynamic/ribbon hybrids. The upgraded 2000 saw action driving the Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 preamplifier as well as with a direct connection to the Audio Research VT150 power amplifiers.

The long balanced interconnect between the 2000 and VT150s was WireWorld Gold…

Description: Stereo digital processor intended to take a standard SPDIF multiplexed L/R, serial digital datastream. Sampling frequencies: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz. DigiLink 30 unit converts coaxial digital signal to optical format for feeding the decoding computer. Maximum analog output level: 5V RMS (balanced), 2.5V RMS (unbalanced). Analog output impedance: 3.5 ohms.
Dimensions: 17" W by 2.5" H by 12" D (main unit), 8" by 4.5" by 13.75" (main unit power supply), 8.5" W by 2.5" H by 10" D including psu connector (DigiLink 30), 5" W by 2.75" H by 11" D…

The manufacturer's initial advertisement for their mis-named "Vestigal" arm (footnote 1) was so laced with nonsense that we will admit to having been skeptical about the product from the outset.

For example: Transcriptors claims that the "Perfect Arm" should have zero mass. If it did, the low-…

Editor: To put forward to your readers a doctrine of low-compliance cartridges in the required high-mass tonearms is offering advice that a technology 20 years out of date should be followed. I am not able to argue at such a level, as such thinking indicates only an utter lack of knowledge on this subject Whilst in no way would I fault lack of knowledge, I do fault unqualified journalists writing about highly complex subjects such as tonearms, when in reality their vocation is that of a greengrocer, garbage worker or whatever.

Contrary to your comments, no…

Okay, we admit it. We probably were guilty of oldthink in our reaction to the Vestigial arm. There is no doubt but that tracking cleanness and record life are enhanced by reducing total system mass (or inertia) as much as possible, and that in this respect the Vestigial arm represents a substantial advance in the state of the phono art. It is also true of course that the compliance must be very high (as it is in the KLM) in order to place the resonance of the system at the optimum frequency (or frequencies when vertical and lateral mass are different).

But the…

Description: Low-mass arm for use with high-compliance cartridges.
Price: $100 (1975); no longer available (2015).
Serial number of review sample: Un-numbered sample loaned by Music & Sound, Ltd., Willow Grove, PA.
Manufacturer: Transcriptors, Ireland. US Distributor: Transcriptors, 330 West 58th St., New York, NY 10019 (1975); Transcriptors Limited, Unit 10, Daybrook Business Centre, Daybrook, Notts. NG5 6AT, UK. Web: www.transcriptors.eu (2015).

The Waterfall is all that and yet it’s not. Well beyond becoming a moving target, MMJ have now solidly framed a house called singular. Here the Louisville band that started out as southern indie rockers, have gone all left coast sweeping and melodic which is appropriate for an album recorded in the Panoramic House above Stinson Beach in Marin County, an environment…

Trevor Wong and Stacey Sniderman (right to left in the photo), owners of Update TV & Stereo Elevated (which I will just refer to as Update), have two more stores in the Greater Toronto Area, but these are more oriented toward home theater, whereas the Unionville store, while not slighting video and home theater, has a strong emphasis…