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2015 Recommended Components Cables

Loudspeaker Cables & Interconnects

Interconnects

Audience Au24 SE: $1190/1m pair
Audience's latest interconnect uses an RCA plug of tellurium-copper alloy with a single, small contact point, meant to reduce the formation of eddy currents. Compared to Audience's Au24 e, the SE version offered superior detail, clarity, timing precision, and image focus, said BD. Au24 e owners can upgrade to SE status for $220. (Vol.36 No.12, Vol.37 No.2 WWW)

Audience Au24: $795/1m pair, unbalanced, $455/additional meter; $1350/1m pair, balanced, $845/additional meter ✩
"The…

Grrls!

The original pillars of the music showcases at South By Southwest are, in order, acts from Austin, America and the UK. Bands and singer/songwriters from the UK have always had a special place in their heart for flying into Austin in March. I suspect that the government also helps defray the cost of their airline tickets which takes the sting, at least financially, out of those long transatlantic flights. As I do every year, I slid into a few Scottish showcases in 2015, and there I stumbled upon Honeyblood, an energetic female duo from Glasgow, who make a prodigious noise which is both fun and…

The Quiet Mind

After the warm beers, the chattering conversation and the endless weaving through the masses on Sixth Street, SXSW 2015 did have a few moments of relative calm or what we used to call "art gigs," where the crowd stands and silently watches and listens to the music. At the genteel Driskill Hotel, I found a Pakistan showcase where Mai Dhai (Thar Parker Sindh) was playing a lively, rhythmic set.

And Finally...

And finally, no trip to Austin would be complete without some quality crate digging for LPs in stores like Waterloo, End of an Ear, Antone's and Friends of Sound, where I encountered this memorable scene. Now that's what I call a category!

Pono PonoPlayer portable music player

In the 1960s, musical giants walked the earth. I vividly remember the first time I heard a song called "Expecting to Fly," in a UK record store. The vast, reverberation-drenched sound was extraordinary; the frail, shaky alto voice of the singer riveting.

"Who is that?" I asked the clerk.

"It's a new American band, Buffalo Springfield . . . but they've already broken up."

I bought all I could find of the Springfield, which wasn't much, and learned that the singer and composer of "Expecting to Fly" was a Canadian, Neil Young. Young's first solo album, released in 1969, had…

Pono PonoPlayer portable music player Page 2

But it was with hi-rez recordings that the PonoPlayer shone brightest. The first recording this baby boomer purchased from PonoMusic World, for $27.49, was the remastered Deluxe Edition of Led Zeppelin's IV, and the first track I played was, of course, "Stairway to Heaven" (24/96 FLAC file). The blue PonoMusic World light between the output jacks lit up as it should.

I don't think I had heard either the unique character of the electric-piano bass line or the rather cheesy quality of the echo on the guitar intro quite so clearly before. This was with the original mix; the bonus Sunset…

Pono PonoPlayer portable music player Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Portable music player with 2.5" color touchscreen. Compatible file formats: FLAC ALAC, WAV, AIFF, AAC (unprotected), MP3. Compatible sample rates: up to 192kHz. Compatible bit depths: 16–24. RAM: 64GB internal, 128GB total; supports microSD cards. Power supply: 2950mAH Li-ion rechargeable battery. Supplied accessories: AC universal adapter (100–240V), USB-Micro USB cable, 64GB SanDisk microSD card. Firmware: v.1.0.4.
Dimensions: 5" (130mm) H by 2" (51mm) W by 1" (25.4mm) D. Weight: 4.6 oz (130gm).
Finishes: Matte yellow, black.
Serial…

Pono PonoPlayer portable music player Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini running OS10.10.1, iTunes 11, Pure Music 2.0, Audirvana Plus 1.5.10, PonoMusic World 20.0.50; Ayre Acoustics QB-9 D/A processor; Astell&Kern AK100 portable player.
Preamplification: Ayre Acoustics KX-R Twenty.
Power Amplifiers: Ayre Acoustics MX-R Twenty monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Audioengine A2+, DALI Rubicon 8, KEF Blade Two.
Headphones: Audeze LCD-X, Sennheiser HD650, Ultimate Ears 18 Pro and JH Audio JH16 Pro in-ear monitors.
Cables: Digital:…

Pono PonoPlayer portable music player Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

With its battery fully charged and using both its unbalanced Headphone and Line 3.5mm output jacks, I measured the PonoPlayer with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 "As We See It"). I uploaded WAV and AIFF files of the test signals to the player's internal memory using the JRiver-sourced PonoMusic World app.

The volume control operates on the headphone output only; the output with a 1kHz tone at 0dBFS from the headphone jack with the volume control set to its maximum was the same as from the line output: 961.3mV. Both…

Pono PonoPlayer portable music player Manufacturers' Comments

Manufacturers' Comments

Editor: Way back in 1979, when I was a staff producer for Columbia Records, I was asked to produce Jerry Goldsmith's seminal music score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

I started looking around for something futuristic that would be compatible with the movie's ethos, and while I was at the Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention in downtown Los Angeles, at the Biltmore Hotel, I happened to stumble on a small exhibit in a Sony demo room. They were showing a PCM-1600 digital recording system that processed sound at 16-bit/44.1kHz, as well as a hand-…