To fresh your memory, the data on Red Book CDs is limited to a sample rate of 44.1kHz—44,100 samples of data per second—and has a word length of 16 digital bits per sample. This yields a range of 65,536 possible…
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Universal Music Group (UMG) is currently fulfilling its promise to release hundreds of 24/96 High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-Ray (audio only) titles in 14 countries by the end of 2014. While many of these titles are from its rich back catalog, a few are new. These include, on the pop front, George Michael's Symphonica, and for classical, one of my 2013 R2D4s, Jonas Kaufmann's Wagner.
I suppose I’m glad I’m on this train. . .
— John Cale, “Half-Past France”
— John Cale, “Half-Past France”
Here’s the trick to show reporting: accomplish as much as possible ahead-of-time.
Thus my decision, while riding the Amtrak train from Albany, NY to Montreal for this year’s Salon Son et Image, to write about the journey itself, and to illustrate my post with a photo of something I’d seen along the way.
But that turned out to be easier said than done. Photographing beaver lodges, ice-fisherman, or even the bald eagles one sees on this route is tricky, especially when the train is moving, which it…
It should be no surprise that The Bad Plus, the bad-boy trio of polymorphous po-mo jazz, should take a stab at Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The stunner is that they've pulled it off so masterfully. This disc (on the Sony Masterworks label) is no "jazzing up the classics" gimmick; it's the real thing, as legitimate a rendering—and, on its own terms, as walloping—as any out there.
Stravinsky himself might have approved. While putting the final touches on the symphony, he wrote a four-hand piano arrangement of Rite and played it with Debussy (now that would be a long-lost recording worth…
My primary focus this month was MSB's Analog DAC, but since it needed some software updates, MSB suggested that the easiest way to install them was with their Universal Media Transport plus ($5995). Turned out the updates were easier via my regular Meridian Sooloos system, but since they'd sent me a sample of the UMT+, I hooked it up.
The UMT+ is built around Oppo's BDP-103 Universal Network 3D Blu-ray player—a great place to start, and a player I'd already had in my video system for a year. All of the Oppo's playback abilities are retained (including the ability to apply Oppo update…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Multiformat disc player. Disc formats supported: Blu-ray, SACD, HRx, DVD-Audio, DVD-Video, CD, more. Audio formats supported: WAV, FLAC, DSD 64x, MP3, Dolby Digital HD, DTS HD, more. External media connections: USB ports (3), computer network streaming. UPnP/DLNA compatible: Yes. DLNA DMR compatible: No. Outputs (audio): coaxial, TosLink, balanced AES/EBU, MSB PRO I2S (32-bit). Multichannel outputs: coaxial, TosLink, HDMI for connection to surround-sound processor. Analog audio outputs: none. Video outputs: 2 HDMI 1.4a up to 1080p; coaxial, composite…
Back in high-end audio's golden days—for the purposes of this story, the mid- to late 1980s—my audio store, Audio Ecstasy, had a service tech named Tom Hewitt. Were he still with us (and I wish he were), Tom would appreciate the radical case design of the MSB Analog DAC. Tom loved not only to fix things, but to see what happened when things were violently stressed. He tested the limits of component construction.
Tiring of dropping receivers off our building's roof or ramming TVs (tied to the back of a pickup truck) into the shop's brick wall, Tom soon discovered that one of our customers…
In his e-mail, Galbo had said this about the updates: "Because the MSB DAC modules are not format specific and can convert any format, now and in the future, such firmware updates make our DACs 'all new' in any way we choose. As an example, late last year we enabled DSD 64x and 128x in all MSB DACs, even though the DAC was never specifically designed for DSD." Cool.
Serious Listening
First things first: I wanted to establish the proper volume setting for listening and all of my comparisons. John Atkinson had recently sent me Benchmark's new, highly regarded DAC2 HGC, which has a…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Solid-state D/A processor with outboard power supply. Inputs (three slots): choice of coaxial, TosLink, balanced AES/EBU, MSB network PROi2S, or USB; one pair of analog inputs on RCA jacks. Analog outputs: one pair single-ended RCAs, one pair balanced on XLRs. Volume control (optional): 1dB stepped attenuator (78 steps). Sampling frequency: 32–384kHz. Bit depth: 32. DSD: 64x, 128x. Maximum output level: 2.62V RMS, single-ended and balanced. Output impedance: 53 ohms, single-ended, 106 ohms, balanced, without volume control; 38 ohms, single-ended, 76…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Apple MacBook Pro computer (2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD) running OS 10.6.7, iTunes 11.1.3, Sonic Studios Amarra 2.5, Songbird 1.9.3, XLD; Western Digital 2TB NAS device; Oppo BDP-103 universal Blu-ray player; Meridian (formerly Sooloos) Digital Media System Control 15, TwinStore (3); Universal Media Transport plus; Apple iPad Air, mini; Apple iPod Touch 1G; Apple iPhone 4S. Digital processors: Benchmark DAC1 USB & DAC2 HGC, AudioQuest DragonFly USB DAC.
Preamplifier: Marantz AV7005 in Pure Direct mode.
Power…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
I examined the MSB Analog DAC's measured behavior with Stereophile's loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 "As We See It"). All measurements were taken with the Analog DAC powered by the Analog Power Base and with the DAC's volume control, which operates in accurate 1dB steps, set to "0"—its maximum setting is "9," equivalent to 9dB higher than the nominal output level of 2.65V, this measured from both balanced and single-ended outputs. Both sets of outputs preserved absolute polarity (ie, were non-…