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While I hadn't actually been in several years, the Tenth Anniversary of Record Store Day on Saturday, April 22 was, despite a rainy afternoon in NYC, quite a success. Everywhere I went lots of LPs, RSD special releases, and vintage vinyl alike, were steadily flying out of the bins. Stores were crowded. The energy levels were off the map. And it did my `ol 331/3 heart good to be shoved out of the way, at Academy Records in Brooklyn's Greenpoint district, by vinyl-mad teenagers who'd grown impatient with my aimless grooving to Let It Bleed and my serious abuse of the free Stumptown Coffee.…
Anything that involves DIY or contains the word "kit" is of automatic interest to me, nearly to a fault. It began with homemade stuffed animals (read: ugly felt objects) and miniature inedible pastries (God knows why), which later evolved into headphone mods
and now, my current learning project: a Pete Millett Butte DIY headphone amp, recommended by Sir Tyll Hertsens.
This obsession brought me to the wondrous room of SB Acoustics, a high-end audio division of the Indonesian manufacturer Sinar Baja Electric Group. Until now, SB Acoustics has mainly been a supplier to other high-end…
Someone on Audio Asylum wrote, "When it comes to hi-res audio, Herb is a babe in the woods." This is true, though probably not in the way this person imagined. High-resolution master David Chesky has been my friend forever, and I used to write for his website HDtracks.com. Todd Garfinkle, founder of and producer for MA Recordings, and Kavichandran Alexander, of Water Lily Acoustics, are not only valued friends, but I own most of their stunning recordings. In short, I'm no stranger to SACD or 24-bit/192kHz playback. But compared to most audiophiles, I've been a bit slow in appreciating the…
Through the Hegel Mohican, the track "Milanó" sounded like 21st-century religious music. Synthesized tones and sparkling textures seemed to literally flow and expand. Bass was firm and dense, with color as well as form. The high frequencies were nicely open, making Jónsi's voice sound even more androgynous and extraterrestrial than usual.
Among the numerous encounters of Mohican and Sigur Rós I witnessed were moments, here and there, when the Hegel's usual transparency morphed into opacity, its businesslike lucidity into confusion. Overall, though, the Mohican revealed itself to be an…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: CD player with Sanyo disc transport. DAC resolution: 16-bit/44.1kHz. Analog outputs (fixed, line level): 1 unbalanced (RCA), 1 balanced (XLR). Digital outputs: 1 BNC, true 75 ohm. Maximum output level: 2.6V RMS. Output impedance: 22 ohms unbalanced, 44 ohms balanced. Frequency range: 0Hz–50kHz. Noise floor: –145dB. Distortion: 0.0015% typical.
Dimensions: 16.93" (430mm) W by 3.14" (80mm) H or 3.93" (100mm) H with feet by 11.42" (290mm) D. Weight: 14.3 lbs (6.5kg) net, 20 lbs (9kg) shipping.
Finish: Black steel.
Serial number of unit…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Integra DPS 7.2 used as transport, Mytek HiFi Brooklyn, Schiit Audio Yggdrasil DACs.
Preamplifier: Pass Labs HPA-1.
Power Amplifiers: First Watt J2.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93.
Headphones: Audeze LCD-X, HiFiMan HE1000 V2, Sony MDR-Z1R.
Cables: Interconnect: AudioQuest Cinnamon & Big Sur & Golden Gate, Auditorium 23, Kimber Kable Silver Streak, Wireworld Silver Eclipse 7. Speaker: AudioQuest Type 4 & GO-4, Auditorium 23. AC: AudioQuest NRG-2.
Accessories: AudioQuest Niagara 1000 Low-Z…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
It's been a long time since we reviewed a CD player that included no digital inputs of any kind, so my measurement of the Hegel Mohican's technical behavior was limited to using 16-bit test files, using both those on CBS CD-1 test disc and those burned to a CD-R. The Mohican's balanced and unbalanced analog outputs were connected to my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It").
The Mohican's error correction was excellent—no glitches were apparent in the player's output until the gaps in the data spiral on the Pierre Verany…
It's the sad realization at the heart of every product review: No matter what the writer has to say, the reader may hear things—or see or feel or taste things—rather differently. I refer not only to physiological differences in hearing acuity from person to person, but also to the no-less-critical differences in the ways we process and prioritize the things we perceive. It's an oft-made point that bears any amount of repetition: In our pugilistic little pastime, the priorities of the listener who values, say, fidelity to the musical timing captured in a recording over fidelity to that…
Manufacturer's Comment
Editor: Thank you for publishing extensive and detailed technical measurements of the Hegel Mohican CD player.
We were surprised to see that the spectrum in fig.4 showed some low-level (–120 to –130dBr), discrete, 100Hz harmonic artifacts in the Mohican's analog output, because we have not seen these artifacts in our own measurements when testing the Mohican with Hegel's Audio Precision SYS2722A test systems.
After investigating this in Hegel's R&D lab, our conclusion is that the low-level 100Hz artifacts are inherent with the particular 0dB,…
While in Setup mode, I tried to advance through the functions by again pressing the Setup button for longer than 2 seconds, but that didn't work. Then I tried pressing the Input button, but that didn't work either. Finally and entirely by accident, I held the Setup button for less than 2 seconds, and that did the trick: I was at last able to make my way to the LCD Brightness screen and to restore—you guessed it—LCD brightness.
Thus encouraged, at the end of my time with the ZeroUno, I tested some of its non-default settings; that said, except as noted otherwise, all the remarks that…