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Listen to the Sounds

On Sunday, I took a walk through Inwood Hill Park—the last existing glimpse to the natural wonder that Manhattan once was. Tulip trees and red-backed salamanders populate these woods. Along the paved trail, a playful soul chalked in instructions for hikers:

"Listen to the sounds."

I stood inside the designated listening square and closed my eyes. To my right, I heard cars rushing on the not-so-distant Washington Bridge. I thought of pink noise. To the left was the nothingness of the salt marshes and above green leaves rustling. From all around, birds chirped, tweeted, and brrrrrd…

The Annual High End Prague hi-fi show

Saturday–Sunday, October 5–6, 10am–6pm: The annual High End Prague hi-fi show will be held at the Corinthia Towers Hotel. The admission price per day is about $5 US and includes automatic entry into a "hi-fi lottery," with a chance to win Monitor Audio loudspeakers, Focal and Grado headphones, IsoTek electronics, and more. A percentage of the money earned from High End Prague goes to the Czech UNICEF. For a complete exhibitor list and more info, visit www.high-end-praha.cz.

Recording of October 2013: <I>Selected Signs IIIVIII</I>

Various Artists: Selected Signs III–VIII
ECM 2350 through 2355 (372 6163 through 372 6168) (6 CDs). 2013. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Jan Erik Kongshaug, Peter Laenger, Stephan Schellmann, others, orig. engs.; Kongshaug, Christoph Stickel, sequencing engs. AAD? TT: 7:19:56
Performance *****
Sonics *****

The most indelicate, if not gory, term in all of music is the ever-popular "bleeding chunks." The bane of classical audiences cursed with lazy pops conductors, bleeding chunks are movements of works—or even parts of movements—strung together in that abomination known as a medley.…

The Pursuit of Audio Excellence

At the time of my August 2011 "As We See It," I was using a Wilson-McIntosh system. That system is still with me and still gets quite a bit of use. Its location, however, has changed. In its place is a system that I can't see switching out or needing to replace: Wilson Alexandria XLF speakers with VTL Siegfried Series II Reference monoblock power amps, TL-7.5 Series III Reference preamplifier, and TP-6.5 Signature phono stage. It might take a small army of people to move it, but beyond that, I think I'm good to go.

This system has taken my listening sessions to an entirely different…

Marantz Reference NA-11S1 Network Audio Player/DAC

The older an audiophile becomes, the faster time flies. Has it really been 60 years since Saul Marantz founded the company that bears his name? Has it really been almost 50 years since that company was acquired by the Tushinsky brothers and Superscope? Has it really been 33 years since Superscope sold Marantz to Philips, just in time for the launch of CD? Has it really been 13 years since Marantz Japan acquired the brand's assets and, a year later, merged with Denon to form D&M Holdings? And more significant in the context of this review, has it really been almost 35 years since Ken…

Marantz Reference NA-11S1 Network Audio Player/DAC Page 2

Finally, I connected one of the Mac mini's USB ports to the NA-11S1 and streamed audio data to it using Pure Music. Now I could play everything in my iTunes library with the Marantz, including the AIFF and 192kHz ALAC files it had stuck up its nose at with the other inputs! Even DSD-encoded DFF files—but see later.

Remote Control
A word on controlling the NA-11S1. Its display is too small for me to see from my listening seat, which made using the remote control awkward. It was also a pain to use the remote's numeric keypad to type search keywords the first time when looking for…

Marantz Reference NA-11S1 Network Audio Player/DAC Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Remote-controlled, network-connected media player and D/A processor with two user-selectable digital filters and direct access to SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify (separate subscriptions required), and Internet radio. Digital inputs: 1 S/PDIF on coax, 1 S/PDIF on TosLink, 1 USB 2.0 on USB type B connector on rear panel, 1 USB 2.0 on USB type A connector on front panel; CAT5 network connector. Digital outputs: 1 S/PDIF on coax, 1 S/PDIF on TosLink. Analog outputs: 1 pair balanced on XLRs, 1 pair unbalanced on RCAs, 1 headphone output. Compatible file…

Marantz Reference NA-11S1 Network Audio Player/DAC Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog Source: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B phono cartridge.
Digital Sources: Astell&Kern AK100 hi-rez portable player, Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini laptop running OS10.7, iTunes 10.7, Pure Music 1.89, Twonky Server 7.2.3, MinimServer 0.72, Audirvana Plus v1.5.4; Shuttle PC with Lynx AES16 soundcard & dual-core AMD Athlon processor running Windows 7, JRiver Media Center; Arcam FMJ D33, MSB Diamond DAC IV D/A converters; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D…

Marantz Reference NA-11S1 Network Audio Player/DAC Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

I examined the Marantz Reference NA-11S1's electrical performance 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"); for some tests, I also used my vintage Audio Precision System One Dual Domain. Because of the NA-11S1's complexity, I performed most of the testing using its TosLink input, repeating some of the tests using: test files stored on a USB stick, streamed to the Marantz via USB from my MacBook Pro mini running Pure Music; files pulled from my Mac mini running Twonky…

Croft Acoustics Phono Integrated integrated amplifier

The name sounds perfect. It fits neatly next to those of Messrs. Leak, Sugden, Walker, Grant, Lumley, and others of Britain's most rightly revered amplifier builders. In fact, when their distributor called and asked if I'd like to review the latest amplifier from Croft Acoustics, I accepted without actually knowing who they are, simply because they sounded like someone I was supposed to know—someone who's been around for 60 years or so, shellacking bell wire in an old mill with a thatched roof.

As it turns out, this British company has been in business just 30 years—itself no small feat…