Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini running OS10.9.3, iTunes 11, Pure Music 2.0, Audirvana Plus 1.5.10; PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A processor; dCS Vivaldi upsampling D/A system.
Preamplification: Ayre Acoustics KX-R Twenty line preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Coffee, Belkin Gold USB, Kubala-Sosna Elation! AES/EBU, Transparent USB (with dCS Vivaldi). FireWire: AudioQuest FireWire 400 (prototype). Interconnect (balanced): AudioQuest Wild…
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Sidebar: Associated Equipment
For final tuning, I played Stevie Nicks's smoky rendition of "Silver Springs," from Fleetwood Mac's The Dance (CD, Reprise 46702-2). Surprisingly, her voice was thicker, with a chestier timbre, than when played through the Quads alone. Resetting the crossover-filter corner frequencies to 40Hz didn't help.
I turned to SVS's Merlin. When the setup advisor asked for my satellite speakers, I typed in "Quad ESL-989." It recommended running the Quads full range and setting the SB13-Ultra's low-pass corner frequency to 40Hz, 24dB/octave.
Voilà! Nicks's voice lost the coloration, and…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Front-firing, sealed-box, powered subwoofer. Drive-unit: 13.5" Rohacell composite cone with 3", bifilar-wound aluminum voice-coil and underhung motor structure. Inputs: balanced (XLR) and unbalanced (RCA) for two channels, trigger. Outputs: balanced (XLR) for each channel to additional subwoofer. Controls: input level (High/Low); Power; Integrated Function Controller (IFC) knob with 2-line display to control volume level, high- and low-pass filter (Enable, Slope, Frequency), phase, high-pass delay (milliseconds), room gain compensation (Enable, 40,…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Linn Sondek turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ittok tonearm; Spectral MC cartridge; Day-Sequerra 25 Year Reference FM tuner.
Digital Sources: Bryston BCD-1 CD player & BDP-2 media player & BDA-1 DAC.
Preamplifier: Bryston BP-26.
Power Amplifiers: Theta Digital Prometheus monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Quad ESL-989; JL Audio Fathom f113, Velodyne DD-18+, B&W DB1, Revel Rhythm2 subwoofers.
Cables: Digital: WireWorld Starlight Coaxial. Interconnect: Mark Levinson Silver, Red Rose Silver One, Totem Acoustic Sinew…
On Monday January 5, Naxos rings in the New Year with the worldwide launch of their ClassicsOnline HDLLclassical music streaming and download site. ClassicsOnline HDLL streams music in both "high-definition"—Naxos' term for high-resolution audio up to 24-bit/192kHz sampling rate—and full CD quality (lossless, or, in Naxos' lingo, LL). The site also sells high-def, lossless, and MP3 downloads in FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, and 320kbps MP3 formats.
Naxos claims that its service, which costs $14.99/month, is the first in the US to use "adaptive bitrate streaming technology." They further…
It's cold in New York City, but don't expect that to keep jazz fans from dashing through the streets of Greenwich Village this weekend, darting in out of various clubs and theaters, to see a dozen or more topflight musicians playing in the 2015 Winter Jazzfest.
An annual event now for 11 years, Winter Jazzfest has evolved into a more-than-worthy successor to the festival sponsored in the 1990s by the now-defunct TriBeCa club called the Knitting Factory as a downtown-laced alternative to the staid morass into which the uptown Kool Jazz Festival had degenerated at the time.
This…
Almost everyone has their own unique lens through which to view the alternate reality which some call "Lost Vegas." Without wishing to put my own prejudicial stamp on the site of the annual Consumer Electronics Show—would I ever?—I instead offer you this view from the 16th floor of the Mirage Hotel, across the Strip from the Venetian Resort, where the high-end audio exhibits are housed. You tell me what's going down, and where the true mirage lies.
For our part, Jon Iverson is poised to cover new products digital, Herb Reichert "affordable" products in all categories (go easy on us, boys…
Bridging the gap between your network players or NAS drives and your DAC, the new Bel Canto REF Stream plugs into your ethernet network, appearing as a node with IP, and then outputs SPDIF, AES or Toslink. Company president Michael McCormick says it can accept both DSD or PCM streams and outputs the PCM at the native sample rate, but converts DSD to 24/176 PCM.
McCormick was demonstrating the REF Stream using JRiver Media Center software on his phone and tablet. Price will be $2,495 and is available now. McCormick adds that "it takes patience to set up a networked audio system, but it's…
The first in two planned streaming products from D'Agostino is the MLife shown at CES this year. The MLife is based on the company's Momentum 200/wpc integrated amp, and adds built-in UPnP streaming, AirPlay, Bluetooth and the hot new streaming service at the show, Tidal. There is also a 5-inch LCD screen on the front panel for displaying streaming metadata (where the tone controls on the Momentum used to sit)
At $48k it's not cheap but does include some very nicely developed bespoke software to run the entire system from an iOS or Android tablet. At showtime, the demo had not fully…
Following in the footsteps of their pro-audio brethren such as Benchmark, Grace, Mytek and Antelope, Prism is "testing the waters" at this CES for their first consumer product. They've made their mark in the pro audio business creating converters for digital recording software.
The prototype on display was missing logos, and other features, but the production version would probably retail "around $2k" and appear in the 2nd quarter this year if they go through with it. The USB Hi-Fi DAC will include preamp and headphone listening capabilities.