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Recording of June 2016: <I>Emily's D+Evolution</I>

Esperanza Spalding: Emily's D+Evolution
Concord 7238281 (LP, 24/96 FLAC from PonoMusic). 2016. Esperanza Spalding, Tony Visconti, prods.; Kyle Hoffman, Tim Price, engs.; Martin Cooke, Kyle McAulay, Erin Tonkon, asst. engs.; Paul Blakemore, mastering; Rich Costey, mix. Mario Borgatta, mix assist. DDA? TT: 43:41
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½

It may have started back in 2011, when the crowd at the Grammy Awards let out a collective "Who?" as Esperanza Spalding was named Best New Artist, an award almost everyone had thought would go straight to Justin Bieber. Spalding was the…

Let Him Roll

What can you say about a man who wrote a love song to tomatoes?

“Now you can go out to eat and that's for sure/ But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure/ Put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew/ You make your very own tomato juice.

"You can eat 'em with eggs, eat 'em with gravy/ Eat 'em with beans, pinto or navy/ Put 'em on the side, put 'em in the middle/ Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle

"Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes/ What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes/ Only two things that money can't buy/ And that's true love and homegrown tomatoes.”…

VPIAudioQuest Event in New Jersey Friday

Friday May 20, from 2-10pm, Hi-Fi Sales (1732 Route 70 East, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003) is hosting an event in which audiophiles can get their first look at VPI's brand new ADS (Analog Drive System) speed controller (projected price: $800-$1000), the first product of the company's newly forged partnership with electronics designer Mike Bettinger. Attendees will also have a chance to compare VPI's magnetic-drive and direct-drive turntable technologies, in the form of two otherwise-identical VPI Avenger turntables—a first for their direct-drive system.

Mat Weisfeld and Harry Weisfeld of VPI…

Dan D'Agostino Dems in Dallas Saturday

May 21, 2–6pm, Bill McKiegan, President of Sales at Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems, will be presenting a day of listening at Audio Concepts (11661 Preston Rd #280, Dallas, TX 75230) in Dallas, Texas. The featured system will include the new Momentum M400 mono amplifiers, Momentum Preamplifier, and Momentum Phonostage (above), driving Wilson Alexx loudspeaker and using the AMG Viella 12 turntable.

Also on display will be the Momentum MLife integrated amplifier, which has been recently upgraded to include Tidal streaming.

Meridian Explorer2 D/A headphone amplifier

I was lying on a mattress on the floor of an empty apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Not as grim as it sounds—it's a nice apartment, and the mattress was new, and had just been delivered—but it was hot (no air-conditioning), and my family and my furniture were still in my condo up in Maine, and I was lonely. I needed some cheering up. Which is how I rationalized the decision to buy an Explorer2, Meridian Audio's tiny, inexpensive ($299) digital-to-analog converter.

Thanks to Amazon Prime, 24 hours later I was sitting on a newly delivered bar stool—still no other furniture—…

Meridian Explorer2 D/A headphone amplifier Page 2

MQA also uses a clever approach to nondestructive compression (in interviews, Stuart has used the phrase analog-lossless) in which timing-relevant data from the higher sampling frequencies—including the range above the range of human hearing, where music still has energy—are folded back into the first 44,100 samples and reversibly buried below the noise floor. In this way, MQA claims to deliver music with studio-master quality in packages small enough to conveniently download and stream, and in a form its exponents say sounds better than a CD even if you don't have an MQA decoder.

If MQA…

Meridian Explorer2 D/A headphone amplifier Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Single-box, USB bus–powered, MQA-capable digital/analog converter and headphone amplifier. Input: mini USB-B. Output: line-level and headphone via separate 3.5mm minijacks. Maximum word length: 24 bits. Maximum sampling rate: 192kHz. Maximum line-level output voltage: 2V RMS. Headphone output impedance: 0.47 ohm.
Dimensions: 4" (102mm) L by 1.25" (32mm) W by 0.7" (18mm) D. Weight: 1.76oz (50gm).
Serial number of unit reviewed: E201EP.
Price: $299. Approximate number of dealers: 136. Warranty: 2 years parts & labor.
Manufacturer:…

Inside MQA

Jim Austin briefly discusses MQA in his review of the Explorer2 in this issue, but a more complete description of MQA can be found in an article posted on Stereophile's website at the end of 2014.

MQA involves two fundamental concepts, discussed in a paper presented to the Audio Engineering Society in October 2014 (footnote 1), the first responsible for a potential improvement in sound quality, the second responsible for a large reduction in the bandwidth required for storage and streaming of high-resolution files:

MQA can compensate for the time-domain errors of both the…

Meridian Explorer2 D/A headphone amplifier Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Digital Sources: MacBook Pro computer (early 2015); Benchmark DAC 1, PS Audio DirectStream DACs; Apogee Groove, Meridian Explorer USB DACs; Ayre Acoustics CX-7eMP CD player.
Analog Sources: Thorens TD 124 turntable reconditioned by Schopper AG; Oswalds Mill Audio slate plinth; Ortofon RMG-212 tonearm (rebuilt); Schick 12" tonearm; Ortofon 90th Anniversary SPU cartridge; Sony XDR-F1HD AM/FM/HD tuner.
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 standard step-up transformer; PS Audio NuWave Phono Converter phono stage/analog-to-digital converter, EAR phono stage.…

Inside MQA Manufacturer's Comment

Manufacturer's Comment

Editor: Thank you for the chance to respond.

In fig.3, the green/gray curves show the observed spectrum with no decoder. The noted small rise of noise in the treble is in fact a manifestation of the (noise-shaped) MQA signaling, rather than buried higher-frequency information. This signaling is at this level for wide compatibility and is completely removed by the decoder; the buried information from the higher octave is at a lower level.

The level at which MQA buries information from higher octaves is not predetermined; it's responsive to the…