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Lovers of high-resolution multichannel sound still don't have it easy. While the two-channel market is replete with snazzy, efficient music servers in stylish boxes, the only multichannel equivalents are Merging Technologies' Merging+Player Multichannel-8, and a handful of stereo devices that are rumored to do multichannel, though no such claims are made in print. To be candid, the latter will play multichannel tracks via USB, Ethernet, or HDMI outputs to suitable DACs (but that's another story), but because they're aimed at the two-channel market, they tend to skimp on the CPU horsepower…
I'm happy to say that DigiBit's Aria Piccolo + is a well-integrated music server that's delightfully capable and easy to use. With suitable attached devices it will play uncompressed (AIFF, WAV) and lossless (ALAC, FLAC) formats up to 32/384 PCM, as well as DXD (32/352.8), DSD64, DSD128, and DSD256 files in glorious multichannel. It was a pleasure to use, and will suit the needs of almost any aficionado of music and multichannel-sound.
Powering the miniDSP U-DAC8
When I reviewed miniDSP's U-DAC8 multichannel USB DAC in September 2015, I found it well worth its price of $299. I used…
Sidebar 1: Contacts
DigiBit, Madrid, Spain. Tel: (34) 915334250. Web: www.ariamusicserver.com. North American distributor: Goerner Audio, 91, 18th Avenue, Deux-Montagnes, Quebec J7R 4A6. Canada. Tel: (514) 833-1977. Web: www.goerneraudio.com
HDPLEX Ltd., 3972 Barranca Parkway, Suite J337, Irvine, CA 92606, Web: www.hdplex.com
Oppo Digital, Inc., 162 Constitution Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025. Tel: (650) 961-1118. Web: www.oppodigital.com
Sidebar 2: Recordings in the Round
Schubert: Piano Trio 2, Notturno for Piano & Strings
Trio Alba
Audiomax 9032013 (SACD/CD).
I discovered the second movement of Schubert's Piano Trio 2 in E-flat, D.929, in 1975, when it was used as a stately and insistent motif throughout the film Barry Lyndon. Director Stanley Kubrick said that the piece had "just the right restrained balance between the tragic and the romantic without getting into the headier stuff of later Romanticism." Deeply affected by it, I ran from the theater and purchased a recording, though I no…
Stop me if I've said this before (okay, I have): There's much to be said for integrated amplifiers. While separates have long dominated high-end audio, an increasing number of integrated products not only bundle a preamp and power amp, but sometimes add digital inputs of various flavors, phono stages, bass and treble controls (long on life support in audiophile gear), and more.
It's the "more" that interests me—specifically, the access to equalization that can compensate, at least to some degree, for the inevitable problems created by any listening room of domestic size, particularly in…
There are four different Profiles, into which you can load different speaker setups; eg, with and without a subwoofer. Since I didn't use a sub, I used only a single Profile. But the manual uses the words profile and configuration (or config) synonymously, which can be confusing. And while it also isn't made entirely clear, the same input can be configured in different ways with different names. For example, I set up two separately named configurations for Coax 1, the input I used 99% of the time: one with ARC on, the other with ARC off. This made switching between them, for comparisons,…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Solid-state, class-AB integrated amplifier with Anthem Room Correction (ARC). Analog audio inputs: 4 unbalanced (RCA), 1 balanced (XLR), 2 phono (MC, MM). Digital audio inputs: 2 S/PDIF (RCA), 2 S/PDIF (TosLink), 1 USB, 1 AES/EBU (XLR). Preamplifier outputs: variable, fixed, subwoofer (all RCA). Communication (updates & control): USB, mini USB, Ethernet RJ-45, RS-232, IR in, 12V trigger out. Digital input sample rates: USB: PCM 32/384, DSD at 2.8MHz & 5.6MHz. HDMI & S/PDIF: PCM 24/192. Internal digital processing: 32/192. Power output (…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Source: Marantz UD7007 universal BD player.
Preamplification: Marantz AV8802A surround processor.
Loudspeakers: Energy Veritas V2.8, Monitor Audio Silver 10.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Coffee (USB), Kimber Kable AGDL (coaxial). Speaker: AudioQuest Rocket 88. AC: manufacturers' own.—Thomas J. Norton
Sidebar 3: ARC Measurements
While ARC's own computer-screen results show the performance of the system before and after running the room EQ, I also measured the results with an independent system: the Parts Express OmniMic. While this system isn't as sophisticated as the gear John Atkinson uses to measure loudspeakers for Stereophile, it does use a calibrated microphone, and can reveal what ARC is doing to the response.
While the actual equalized responses were performed by ARC using an average of eight or nine microphone positions, the OmniMic plots shown here (all were 1/6-…
Sidebar 4: Measurements
I measured the Anthem STR using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"). Before I test an amplifier, I precondition it with both channels driving a 1kHz tone at one-third power into 8 ohms for an hour. This thermally stresses an amplifier with a conventional class-AB output stage. At the end of the hour, the top panel was a warm 95.4°F (35.3°C), but the exposed tops of the internal heatsinks were too hot to touch, at 150.6°F (65.9°C). Even so, the STR has sufficient heatsinking for its rated power.
The analog inputs can be…