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Arcam rBlink Bluetooth D/A processor Measurements

Sidebar 2: Measurements

The rBlink is a small, surprisingly heavy, black-finished box made, like all of Arcam's current products, in China. On one end is the jack for the supplied wall-wart power supply, the Bluetooth antenna, and a pushbutton to pair the rBlink with a source; on the other end are two RCA jacks for analog output and a single jack for the S/PDIF digital output.

I tested the rBlink (serial no. EBL 04114) mostly with Stereophile's loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It" and www.ap.com); for some tests, I…

You Really Can Help Save the Stereo

Save the Stereo, a Web-based project dedicated to developing and promoting the best ideas for leading the next generation of music lovers to component-based high-fidelity, launched at the start of the year. Although we have seen a number of prior organizations dedicated to the cause of spreading the gospel of high performance audio wither and die—see John Atkinson's 2005 essay on the subject—this one is different. Because its founder, Gordon White, is soliciting feedback from the audiophile community and developing a grounded action plan before proceeding, perusing the project's website and…

Recordings of June 1986: The First Private Music Releases

Sanford Ponder: Etosha—Private Music in the Land of Dry Water
Private Music 1101 (CD/LP)

Patrick O'Hearn: Ancient Dreams
Private Music 1201 (CD/LP)

Jerry Goodman: On the Future of Aviation
Private Music 1301 (CD/LP)

Ryuchi Sakamoto, Eric Watson, Joachim Kuhn, Eddie Jobson: Piano One
Private Music 1401 (CD/LP)

The four works in Private Music's initial release represent such a consistently high level of creation that it is remarkable to see them released all at once. The label's owner, Peter Bauman, was one of the founders of Tangerine Dream, the…

Jared Sacks: DSD Present and Future

Some months back, SACD and DSD champion Jared Sacks, founder of Channel Classics, stopped by Casa Bellecci-Serinus in Oakland for an extended chat about the history of his label, recording in DSD, and his new NativeDSD.com download site. I started our conversation by asking Jared to share his history with music and the industry with Stereophile:

Jared Sacks: I'm an American who has been in Holland for over 37 years. At Channel Classics, I do most everything alone, and my wife does the booklet designing. With 2 1/2 people in the company, we keep it small.

I work differently than…

Jared Sacks: DSD Present and Future Page 2

Serinus: Do you find Andreas Koch of Playback Design's explanation of the superiority of DSD over PCM satisfactory?

Sacks: He goes more into the technical side. To me, DSD's superiority has to do with emotion, depth, and how the sound leaves the speaker. It's not a block anymore in the way it dissipates. When you listen to PCM, you can literally hear it as a block of sound coming out of the speaker. That doesn't happen with DSD. There's air around the sound. At the end of the day, we are talking about the air around the sound.

To me, recording like wine tasting. If you take a…

Squeezing the Music...

This essay first appeared in the May 2005 Stereophile eNewsletter. But as the opinions and comments are still relevant in 2014 and in some ways the phenomenon of over-compression in recorded music (footnote 1) is just as bad, I thought it worth republishing.—John Atkinson

I write these words mere hours after returning home from Home Entertainment 2005, the Show cosponsored by Stereophile magazine that took place from April 28 through May 1 at the Manhattan Hilton. A full report will appear in the August 2005 issue of the magazine.

HE2005 was an upbeat affair, the majority of…

Unity Audio Signature 3

When I saw the Unity Audio Signature 3 speakers ($1895/pair) arrive in one box, I was happy. Not just because it meant there would be that much more space left in my basement. No, because it means that Unity is saving money on packaging costs. That means they can spend more money on things like super-nice crossover components. That means...well, I think you know what that means. After all, any piece of audio gear is only as good as the parts it's made from.

To get these overgrown bookends to stand up, you slide little black boards into the slots in their bottoms. Each board is held in…

Unity Audio Signature 3 Page 2

The midrange was slightly low in level. It was on the first pair also, but on these it seemed to be slightly more so. This suckout is not serious; it just showed up because the speakers are so smooth in most other respects. Of the many wonderful tracks on Dorian's Sampler II, one taken from J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV63 (DOR-90113), is the real torture test for components in my system. The amazingly rich presentation of all the different instruments, as well as the enveloping feel of the different halls on all the tracks, led me to use this disc as a reference. But if there's anything I know…

Unity Audio Signature 3 Review System

Sidebar 1: Review System

The CD player used for my debut Stereophile review was a Kinergetics KCD-20B that I've modified somewhat. Recently, I've been using the best preamp in the world: no preamp at all. What? I don't listen to vinyl? I must not be a real audiophile. The power amplifiers currently in my system are Nelson Pass–designed 15W single-ended "Zen" monoblocks (footnote 1). They have just one large MOSFET in the signal path, and I have to tell you they sound wonderful because I built them.

Other power amps ready for active duty were an NAD 2100X, a Michael Yee Audio PA-…

Unity Audio Signature 3 Measurements

Sidebar 2: Measurements

Other than impedance, all acoustic measurements were made with the DRA Labs MLSSA system and a calibrated B&K/DPA 4006 microphone. To minimize reflections from the test setup, the measuring microphone is flush-mounted inside the end of a long tube. Reflections of the speaker's sound from the mike-stand hardware will be sufficiently delayed not to affect the measurement.

The Unity Audio's sensitivity was about average at a calculated 86dB/2.83V/m. As stated by Kathy Grost, the Unity Signature 3 does have a flat impedance with frequency, as can be seen…