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I write this in a Seattle coffee bar—my flight home to New York has been canceled due to a snowstorm. As I try to put down these thoughts, I'm listening to the high-resolution masters of the April issue's "Recording of the Month," Sasha Matson's jazz opera Cooperstown, on my Pono player using Ultimate Ears UE18 in-ear monitors. I was in Seattle for Music Matters 10, held by retailer Definitive Audio, and this was my first road trip with the Pono since I reviewed it for the April issue. (Bruce Botnick and Charles Hansen comment on that review elsewhere in this issue.)
Pikes Peak Upgrade, May 2015 (Vol.38 No.5):
Although I've been a happy owner of an Ayre Acoustics CX-7eMP CD player for five years, I decided last fall that it was time to upgrade my CD playback. My choice was a PS Audio combination of DirectStream DAC ($5999) and DirectWave Transport. What I found particularly appealing about the DirectStream (DS) was that its data processing is performed by field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) rather than by a dedicated chip, and can be upgraded with downloadable firmware that's free to all DS owners.
When I got the DS last fall, it had…
"In the fields of observation, chance favors only the mind that is prepared."
When Louis Pasteur uttered these words more than a hundred years ago, he must have speculated that they would apply equally well to future circumstances as to the events of his day. What he couldn't anticipate, however, was the technology to which his insight now seems so appropriate.
Finding himself by "chance" without a CD transport at home one night, Theta Digital designer Mike Moffat (footnote 1) borrowed a videodisc player from his video system and hooked its digital audio output to a digital…
Finally, the videodisc medium is much more demanding on the playback system than the CD format. Unlike CD, the data stored on a videodisc result in an analog video signal, without the benefit of error correction. Slight changes in the signal reflected from the disc caused by player imperfections will show up as poor video quality. These factors force videodisc players to perform to a much higher standard than their CD-only cousins.
All this seems good in theory, but how does the Data sound as a CD transport in a demanding high-end audio system?
Music
I might as well come…
Sidebar 2: What I Listen for in Digital Components
The Clark Terry Live at the Village Gate CD (Chesky JD49) is particularly revealing of many aspects of a digital source component's performance. This recording of all acoustic instruments is remarkably transparent, tonally accurate, and has a stunning sense of instrument placement within a three-dimensional soundstage. Here's what I listen for on track 2:
The audience applause and laughter at the beginning should have a sense of immediacy and palpability. With the right components, the audience can seem to wrap around the…
Sidebar 2: Review System
The Theta Data has been my primary CD transport for the past two and a half months, replacing the Esoteric P-2 that had been returned to Esoteric. Although I never had the P-2 and Data for side-by-side comparisons, the Wadia WT-3200 and Meridian 602—both known in relation to the reference P-2—were still on hand.
Digital processors used with the Data included the Meridian 203, Theta's DS Pro Prime (also reviewed in this issue), a PS Audio SuperLink, a Wadia 2000, and an Audio Research DAC1-18. Digital interconnects were the Aural Symphonics Digital…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description: Videodisc-based "universal" transport (CD audio, 8" and 12" Laservision videodiscs) with full-function infrared remote control. Outputs: One digital audio (S/PDIF), one video, one stereo analog audio pair, one S-video, one RF on F-type jack.
Dimensions: 19" W by 5½" H by 17½" D. Weight: heavy.
Price: $2400 ($2800 with optional AT&T glass fiber output), 1991; no longer available, 2015. Approximate number of dealers: 90.
Manufacturer: Theta Digital, Agoura Hills, CA 91301 (1991). Theta Digital/ATI, 1749 Chapin Road, Montebello, CA…
Perhaps it’s a form of cosmic justice, but it seems that just as a form of audio playback technology is perfected, it dies. But often, in its death throes, it also finds its finest expression and suddenly now that the CD is on the run, oodles of live material, some of which has never been heard before, have been digitized and released on CD. While some of it is bad-sounding nonsense meant to make a quick buck (until a weight of bad user reviews on Amazon blows their cover), some of it is important and worth hearing.
While there have always been lots of tempting rock CD and LP bootlegs (…
In the consumer audio show arena, the newly rebranded Audio Con (after Comic Con) from AXPONA Chicago seems on course to claim the crown as one of the three top high-end shows in North America. Taking place April 24–26 in the Westin O'Hare in Rosemont, the show is prepared to welcome a significantly larger number of visitors (pre-registration is up 30% 11 days before show opening) to 105 active exhibits (two-channel and multi-channel), plus an entire ballroom's full Ear Gear Expo (participation is up 50% from last year) and a sizable marketplace area (displays up at least 30%).
Given the…
As vinyl geeks know, the 2015 version of “The List,” the annual compilation of special items to be released for Record Store Day, had little this spring that was either super rare, super essential or super exciting. This would not be a year to stand in line at 4 am to score the killer single. The grumbling amongst pro record collectors, those willing to ransom loved ones or offer vital organs for a single by an obscure psychedelic band from Wales, was a constant undertone of discussion at SXSW 2015.
Yet this did not stop the masses from turning out, queuing up and over heatin’ their…