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Robert Lighton's career has included stints as a clothing manufacturer, a maker of expensive wristwatches, and, most recently, a designer and manufacturer of high-end furniture, examples of which grace the homes of Richard Gere, Kevin Kostner, and Renee Zellweger. It was during the latter occupation that Lighton—whose introduction to hi-fi and record collecting came while growing up in Kansas City—began to consider high-end audio as a professional pursuit. He was impressed with playback gear from Audio Note UK, and thought he might succeed in representing them in New York City—but Robert…
Editor: We are really happy to read this review, our first in Stereophile. We are particularly happy to have the quality of our DAC confirmed. We have worked really hard on designing a DAC with very low noise and very low jitter levels, without going through the roof on cost. Obviously, we needed to make a few sacrifices; eg, as John Atkinson mentions, on 88.2kHz over USB to meet the price target. But the lack of asynchronous USB is intentional, as we believe we can achieve even lower jitter levels with our solution.
We also read that Herb Reichert was missing an extra analog input. We…
Editor: Thank you for the thoughtful review of the VAC Signature SE preamplifier. We are grateful that Robert J. Reina found the Signature to be "the most significant audio product I've ever hooked up to my reference system."
With regard to John Atkinson's concern about the low-frequency measurements of the moving-coil phono stage, with the Signature SE's MC input, the selected load resistance is reflected through a transformer designed specifically for the particular traits of MC cartridges. Many active electronic signal generators bog down when confronted with this sort of load at low…
It was with regret that I heard John Ulrick had passed away on May 20, 2015 due to complications from cancer. With Arnie Nudell and Cary Christie, John was one of the founders of loudspeaker manufacturer Infinity, a company that, with Audio Research, Magnepan, Mark Levinson, and Threshold, epitomized the nascent High End that emerged in the early 1970s. After leaving Infinity, John Ulrick started Spectron, to manufacture class-D amplifiers.
Just by chance, I met with the John Ulrick, in Los Angeles in late 1987, when he was doing some design consultancy on a switch-mode power amplifier to…
Editor's Note: We are reprinting this 38 year-old "As We See It" essay because if you substitute the words "WiFi" and "cellphone" for "Citizen's Band" and "CB Radio," you will realize that not much has changed in the decades since, with our audio systems still awash in a bath of RFI.—John Atkinson
Although Citizen's Band radio may hold little interest for perfectionist audiophiles, there is a good chance that it may intrude upon our activities in some disastrous ways if we, and the audio industry in general, sit back and ignore what has been going on behind the scenes in Washington, DC…
Herbie Hancock's 1965 quintet album Maiden Voyage holds a firm place as one of the great jazz records of that transformative decade, and a new vinyl edition on Music Matters Jazz—the LA-based house renowned for its audiophile LP reissues of Blue Note titles, and only Blue Note titles—sounds finer than it has on any pressing in 50 years.
Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, tenor saxophonist George Coleman, and drummer Tony Williams had been playing in Miles Davis' band for a couple years (they were joined here by Freddie Hubbard on trumpet), and Miles' influence is clear, especially his modal…
The Model 34 preamplifier is the component from English manufacturer Quad that will disenchant perfectionists, partly because of its obvious pandering to connoisseurs of old and sometimes lousy-sounding records, and partly because of its sound.
This solid-state design is supplied with a built-in moving-magnet cartridge preamplifier, and a moving-coil preamp is included with it for (easy) installation by the user if desired. (Remove two screws, pull out the old module, plug in the new one and replace the screws. The job takes about 3 minutes.) The MC preamp supplied is for 20 microvolt-…
Aurender was a name new to me when I encountered the company at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, where they displayed a range of music servers designed in California and manufactured in South Korea. But what caught my attention in Aurender's suite was their Flow portable D/A headphone amplifier ($1295). This handsome, battery-powered device, housed in a machined aluminum case about twice the size of a pack of playing cards, offers optical S/PDIF and USB 2.0/3.0 input ports and a single ¼" stereo headphone jack. Two features distinguish the Flow from the pack: Its USB input can be used with…
Sam Tellig wrote about the Quad 34 in August 1985 (Vol.8 No.4):
"You bought Quads again!"
Now my son really thought the old man was nuts. In my last installment, I told you how I sold my Quad ESL-63 speakers. A little later, I sold my Quad 34 preamp and 405-2 power amp. Unlike the speakers, however, the 34 preamp and 405-2 power amp were two pieces of equipment I wished I hadn't sold...there are the tonal balance controls on the Quad 34 preamp. Prevailing orthodoxy says tone controls degrade the sound; avoid tone controls. If you like a poorly recorded performance, suffer; if…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Portable D/A headphone amplifier with LCD screen. Inputs: USB 3.0/2.0 (Audio Class 2.0), S/PDIF optical. Output: ¼" (6.35mm) stereo headphone jack. Compatible sample rates: up to 96kHz via S/PDIF, up to 384kHz and DSD128 via USB. Compatible bit depths: 16–24 (S/PDIF), 16–32 (USB). Internal storage: up to 1TB total via mSATA bus. Output impedance: 0.06 ohm. Output power (0.1% THD): 43mW/600 ohms, 87mW/300 ohms, 384mW/56 ohms, 570mW/32 ohms. THD+N: –114dB. IMD (SMPTE): –112dB. THD (1kHz, 5.1V RMS output): 0.0002%. Dynamic range: 122dB. Damping factor…