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Twenty-three years ago, in 1993, Charles Hansen cofounded Ayre Acoustics, Inc., in Boulder, Colorado. On Ayre's website, Hansen is named as Research Director for Ayre, and it seems an apt description. Along with experimenting in and developing audio-electronics hardware and software, Hansen has strongly hewn to certain design principles, among them fully balanced operation, an absence of loop negative feedback, and solid-state circuitry. Ayre's current flagship preamplifiers and amplifiers, the twentieth-anniversary R Series, have received reviews and accolades, while at the other end of…
Your little car gets in and out of traffic better than minivans or monster trucks. Your little dog runs rings around the other dogs at the park. Maybe it's time to get a couple of little loudspeakers, too?
The reasons for doing so are pretty much the same: little speakers deserve consideration not because they sell for little prices—although some of them do—but because they're nimble, they're fast, and they get out of the way of the music they play. That last characteristic can be crucial to listeners for whom stereo imaging is important: A small speaker has less cabinetry to diffract…
Screwed to the bottom of each SS-NA5ES is an aluminum plate 8" wide by 9.9" deep by about 0.2" thick. Fastened to the bottom of the plate, one at each corner, are four thin, stiff, self-adhesive rubber pads. I sat each speaker on its stand and made sure that each pad was in good contact with the steel beneath. After that, and before making final adjustments to the spiked feet, I experimented with speaker placements while listening to recordings of music with reliably good bass content, as well as to test tones, such as the delightful "Pink Noise at –20dB L + R (Uncorrelated from 1:11),"…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, four-driver, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: two 0.75", one 1" fabric-dome tweeters; 5" bass/midrange driver with anodized-aluminum cone. Crossover frequencies: 400Hz, 4kHz, multislope. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Sensitivity: 86dB/2.83V/m. Frequency response: 45Hz–45kHz, –10dB. Maximum instantaneous input power: 70W (non-clipping).
Dimensions: (including protruding parts) 13.85" (355mm) H by 8" (205mm) W by 12.7" (325mm) D. Weight: 22 lbs (10kg).
Finish: Dark brown.
Serial numbers of units reviewed:…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Garrard 301 turntable; EMT 997 tonearm; EMT OFD 15 & TSD 15, Shindo Laboratory SPU pickup heads.
Digital Sources: Halide Designs DAC HD USB D/A converter; Apple iMac G5 computer running Audirvana Plus 1.5.12; Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Hommage T2 step-up transformer, Shindo Laboratory Masseto preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Shindo Laboratory Corton-Charlemagne (monoblocks).
Loudspeakers: Altec Valencia, Auditorium 23 Hommage Cinema, DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96.
Cables: USB: Wireworld…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Sony SS-NA5ES's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield. My estimate of the Sony's voltage sensitivity was 86.7dB(B)/2.83V/m, which is very slightly higher than the specified 86dB. The SS-NA5ES's electrical impedance is specified as 4 ohms, but, as can be seen in fig.1 (solid trace), the impedance remains above 4 ohms at all audio frequencies other than the lower midrange, where it reaches a minimum value of 3.4 ohms at 220Hz. However, the…
Two of the great jazz pianists on the scene have just released two of their greatest trio albums: Fred Hersch, Sunday Night at the Vanguard (Palmetto); and Brad Mehldau, Blues and Ballads (Nonesuch).
Both musicians come out of a traditional, though modern, jazz vibe. Unlike some of their peers, such as Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer, who seek to redefine the piano trio in myriad ways, Hersch and Mehldau explore new pathways in song-forms, as the titles of these albums suggest—Mehldau underlining the core ingredients of jazz standards, Hersch nodding to Bill Evans' classic 1961 Sunday at the…
Simaudio saw disc-based digital audio in its rear-view mirror at least as far back as 2011, when it introduced the Moon Evolution 650D and 750D—two iterations of what it called a "digital-to-analog converter CD transport." These were actually multiple-input CD players, but Simaudio was evidently so eager to distance itself from the spinning disc that it went with a product category that, in spite of its cumbersome, run-on name, drew a clean line between the disc-reading and signal-processing functions—while bestowing upon the former second-class citizenship.
With the new Moon Evolution…
I downloaded the app and read the manual, but still had no idea how to integrate my hard drives into the network. Another call to Goodfield produced the answer, which was provided (sort of) in the list of MiND streaming capabilities. But really, a product like the 780D needs a manual that holds your hand, not a list of bulleted "capabilities"! I don't care if the dealer does the setup. Better that the customer learns how it all works, and how best to integrate sources into the MiND network. Don't you think?
Using the MiND app with an iPad
Again, I won't try to describe something…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Streaming D/A converter. Digital inputs: AES/EBU (XLR), S/PDIF (2 RCA, 1 BNC), S/PDIF (2 TosLink), Bluetooth with Qualcomm aptX audio support and Ethernet RJ45, USB Type B (high-resolution audio). Analog outputs: 1 pair balanced (XLR), 1 pair single-ended (RCA). Sample rates supported: PCM to 32-bit/44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.2, 192, 384kHz; DSD (via USB only) to 2.8224, 5.6448, 11.2896MHz. Frequency response: 2Hz–100kHz, +0/–0.3dB (full range). THD at 1kHz, 0dBFS (A-weighted): <0.0001%. Intermodulation distortion: <0.0001%. Dynamic range: 124dB…