Description: D/A processor & headphone amplifier. Digital inputs: 1 coaxial S/PDIF (RCA), 1 TosLink, 1 USB Class 2 (Type B). Analog outputs: 1 pair balanced (XLR), 1 pair unbalanced (RCA), 1 headphone on &Q#188;" stereo jack. Digital formats supported: 16–32-bit/44.1–384kHz PCM; DSD128 (DoP); 352kHz, 384kHz & DSD128 are via a precision digital decimation filter. Frequency response (line): –0.05dB at 6Hz, –3dB at 1.5Hz; –0.05dB at 21.4kHz, –3dB at 22.0kHz (44.1kHz data); –0.05dB at 23.2kHz, –3dB at 23.9kHz (48kHz data): –0.05dB at 32.0kHz, –3dB at 47.…
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP disc player; NAD Masters Series M50.2 music server; Mytek HiFi Brooklyn, PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DACs; Meridian 518 format converter; Mac mini running Roon 1.3, MacBook Pro running Pure Music 3.0.
Power Amplifiers: Lamm M1.2 Reference monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Sonus Faber Guarneri Tradition, TAD ME1.
Headphones: Audeze LCD-X.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Coffee (USB), Esperanto (S/PDIF), DH Labs (AES/EBU). Interconnect (balanced): AudioQuest Wild Blue, Canare. Speaker: AudioQuest K2. AC:…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Prism Sound Callia with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 As We See It"), using both the Audio Precision's optical and electrical digital outputs and USB data sourced from my MacBook Pro running on battery power with Pure Music 3.0 playing WAV and AIFF test-tone files. Apple's USB Prober utility identified the DAC as "Callia" from "Prism Media Products, Ltd.," its serial number as "000001," and confirmed that its USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. Apple's AudioMIDI utility revealed that, via USB, the…
Saturday March 31, from 12pm to 5pm Hi Fi Sales (1732 Route 70 East, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003) are holding a listening event featuring Technics' top direct-drive turntables: the SP-10R and the SL-1000R. As always light and adult beverages will be available and and catering will be by the Kibitz Room.
To RSVP, click here.
Why review another recording of Stravinsky's great ballet score for the 1913 season of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring)? Besides the fact that it's a fabulous performance, it's part of a disc that: 1) showcases one of our most renowned conductors, Riccardo Chailly, leading the superb Lucerne Festival Orchestra; 2) includes the world premiere recording of Stravinsky's long-lost 11-minute Chant Funèbre, Op.5 (1908), a tribute to his late teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, which disappeared after its first performance at a memorial concert in St. Petersburg in 1909…
Jim Austin auditioned the Mytek HiFi Brooklyn DAC+ in April 2018 (Vol.41 No.4):
In the year since I sampled Brooklyn's music scene—in my November 2016 review of Mytek HiFi's Brooklyn DAC—there's been a lot of local music news. Jay-Z (whose name is or ought to be derived from the subway lines that pass through Williamsburg and Bushwick on the way to Jamaica, Queens) was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the first rap lyricist to be so honored. He released a new album, 4:44, to critical acclaim. (I listened. It's good.) He also had twins—a boy and a girl—with his wife, Beyoncé.…
Multichannel MQA again, from April 2018 (Vol.41 No.4):
"Not MQA again!" I'm sure some of you will say, regardless of where you stand on it. The loud debate is often less about how MQA actually sounds and works than about opinions and, to an alarming degree, charges of dishonesty and bias. While Stereophile's John Atkinson and Jim Austin continue to strive to rise above all that, all I want to know is what value MQA might have for my own enjoyment of music.
This is not my first stab at this: In the May 2017 Stereophile I both recounted my long-ago first exposure to MQA, which…
It is doubtful that pianist Alexander Melnikov had audiophiles in mind when he decided to record great works by Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Stravinsky on pianos the composers were accustomed to hearing and playing at the time of composition. Melnikov is, after all, an early music specialist who, like András Schiff, has a number of impeccably restored historic instruments in his personal collection. Nonetheless, given that Harmonia Mundi has recorded him in high resolution (24/96), seemingly without compression, in the fine acoustic of Teldex Studio Berlin, and that each instrument has a…
"When good Americans die, they go to Paris."—Oscar Wilde
There is a particular art that many Americans have mastered, involving the collective lamentation of the unwelcoming nature of the French towards American tourists—whether this has been experienced firsthand or not is irrelevant—coupled with inexplicable, unwavering desire for all that the French stand for. The art, the wine, the cheese, the architecture, the haute couture—it is all of these, yes, but it is (I believe) the all-encompassing French vibe that we are drawn to.
Naturally, I was a Francophile before I ever was an…
I find quite appealing the image invoked by Museatex to describe its Real Time Ripple Effect (RTRE) loudspeaker line: a stone rippling the surface of a "still pond on a warm summer afternoon." Replace the stone with a voice-coil attached to the center of a stretched Mylar diaphragm and you begin to get a glimpse of the RTRE technology's conceptual beauty and promise. The idea of cohesively covering at least the midrange and treble with a single driver, without crossover filters, quickens my audio pulse.
Technology
It has been less than three years since Paul Burton and Highwood Audio…