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The Greatest Day of My Life: Seeing Elton John Live!

Last week, I experienced what may have been the greatest day of my life so far: the day I got to see Sir Elton John live in concert for the first time. This happened on September 27, 2016, in Allentown, PA.

Elton was joined by his usual band: Davey Johnstone (musical director, guitars, mandolin, banjo, vocals), Matt Bissonette (bass, vocals), Kim Bullard (keyboards), John Mahon (percussion, drums, vocals), and Nigel Olsson (drums, vocals).

It seems so simple—if you're a fan of a current performing artist, all you need to do is pay a large sum of money and you'll be granted semi-…

The Comparable Cassette

Thanks to two developments and a promise, the compact cassette has finally become, as they say, a force to be reckoned with.

Development one, perhaps the most significant factor in the changing picture, is the ready availability of B-type Dolby devices (which are single-band Dolbys, acting only on hiss frequencies). Advent makes two that can be used with any tape machine, cassette or otherwise, while Fisher, Advent, and Harman-Kardon (as of this moment) are producing cassette recorders with built-in Dolby-B. No doubt there will be others by the time this gets in print.

We have…

T+A Elektroakustik DAC 8 DSD D/A processor

"They're so damn hard to tell apart!"

So exclaimed my longtime pal and fellow audiophile Bruce Rowley when I revealed to him that T+A Elektroakustik's new DAC 8 DSD digital-to-analog converter ($3995) had arrived for review, just after I'd finished writing up the Ayre Acoustics Codex DAC–headphone amp ($1795). Bruce had recently compared his own brand-new Codex with a DAC he'd owned for a couple years, both costing about the same but built to very different designs. He was surprised that, after carefully matching levels and working to eliminate any other variables, they sounded more…

T+A Elektroakustik DAC 8 DSD D/A processor Page 2

But as we saw earlier, with filters there's always a trade-off—and in this case it's a gradual rolloff in frequency response that starts at 12–15kHz at low sampling rates (44.1 or 48kHz). And so T+A provides another Bézier filter: an interpolator plus an infinite impulse response (IIR) correction stage that combines a very good impulse response (not as good as the pure Bézier, though) with a very accurate and flat frequency response at high frequencies. The filter rolloff is less of a problem at higher sampling rates. Again, pick your poison.

In all cases, T+A says it uses 56-bit data…

T+A Elektroakustik DAC 8 DSD D/A processor Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: D/A processor with four selectable oversampling algorithms for PCM playback (FIR kurz, FIR lang, Bézier, Bézier/IIR) and DSD Direct DSD Signal Path via T+A True 1-bit converter. Analog outputs: high level (RCA), 2.5V with 22 ohms output impedance; balanced (XLR), 5.0V with 44 ohms output impedance. Digital inputs: 4 S/PDIF coaxial, 1 optical TosLink, 1 AES/EBU, all handling 16/24-bit data at sample rates from 32kHz to 192kHz;1 USB (Device mode) USB Class 2 Mode; support for asynchronous data transfer; PCM Mode, 16/24/32-bit data with sample rates…

T+A Elektroakustik DAC 8 DSD D/A processor Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Digital Sources: Apple MacBook Pro computer (2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) running OS 10.11.5, Roon v.1.2 Build 142, JRiver Media Center 19, iTunes 12, Amarra Computer Music Player, VLC, Reaper 5.20.100, XLD; Western Digital NAS device (2TB); Oppo BDP-103 universal BD player; Meridian Sooloos Control 15 & QNAP TS-669 Pro NAS; Apple iPad Air & iPhone 6; Benchmark DAC1 USB & DAC2 HGC DACs, Ayre Acoustics QB-9DSD & Codex digital processors; AudioQuest DragonFly USB DAC.
Preamplifier: Marantz AV7005 in Pure Direct Mode.
…

T+A Elektroakustik DAC 8 DSD D/A processor Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

I measured the T+A DAC 8 DSD with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"). Sources were either digital signals fed via AES/EBU or TosLink from the SYS2722, or WAV and AIFF test-tone files played with Pure Music 3.0 on my MacBook Pro running on battery power and fed via USB. Apple's USB Prober utility identified the processor as the "DAC 8 DSD HD-AUDIO" from "T+A ELEKTROAKUSTIK," and confirmed that the T+A's USB input operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. The AES/EBU and S/PDIF inputs accepted data sampled at up to…

Revox G-36 open-reel tape recorder

The Swiss-made G-36 recorder had earned an enviable reputation among perfectionists during the few years that it has been available in the US, and our inability to test one (because of a backlog of other components for testing) became increasingly frustrating to us with each glowing report we heard from subscribers who owned them. Now that we have finally obtained one through the courtesy of ELPA (footnote 1), we can see what all the shouting was about, but we also have some reservations about it.

We must admit at this juncture that we have a certain, somewhat irrational tendency to be…

Revox G-36 open-reel tape recorder Specifications

Sidebar: Specifications

Description: Two-speed, all-tube, solenoid-operated, two-channel open-reel tape recorder with built-in monophonic power amplifier and loudspeaker; three drive motors; DC hold-back braking; tape lifters; automatic safety shutoff. Speeds: 3¾ips and 7½ips, via dual-winding hysteresis-synchronous capstan motor. Wow & flutter: <0.1% at 7½ips; <0.15% at 3¾ips. Speed accuracy: Within ±0.3% of nominal. Reel capacity: Up to 1O½". Frequency response: 40Hz–18kHz, +2, –3dB at 7½ips; 40Hz–12kHz +2, –3dB at 3¾ips. S/N ratio (unweighted): 52dB at 7½ips; 50dB at 3¾ips.…

Gramophone Dreams #12

When you get old and gray and all them shoot-'em-up dudes doe wanna ride wit you no mo, don't fret—you can still have fun. Once you're a geezer, you'll have more time to work in the garden, drink tea, buy LPs, and fiddle with your unipivot.

When I was José Cuervo young, I mocked belt-drive turntables, unipivot tonearms, and teetotalers. "You can't drink, dance, shoot up the bar, and play hot records wit no persnickety belt-drive or wobbly unipivot. You need a masculine, pro-fessional-quality direct-drive or rim-drive turntable with a sturdy a gimbal-bearing tonearm!"

It feels…