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That first recording was a 44.1kHz file of Clarence and Roland White and colleagues playing Merle Travis's "Nine-Pound Hammer," ripped from the Kentucky Colonels' Appalachian Swing! (CD, Rounder SS31). Clarence, on guitar, plays some passages with a crosspicking pattern in which two downstrokes are played in rapid succession, followed by a similarly rapid upstroke; the first note in each pair of downstrokes is played as a rest stroke—the plectrum comes to rest, however briefly, against the adjacent string as the note is played—giving that note a distinctive attack. (Clarence sometimes…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: D/A processor-headphone amplifier. Analog outputs: 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 pair balanced (¼" headphone jack). Digital inputs: 2 S/PDIF (RCA), 1 AES/EBU (XLR), 1 optical (TosLink), 1 USB Class 2. Headphone amplifier power: 3W. Headphone amplifier output impedance: 0.1 ohm.
Dimensions: 5.5" (140mm) W by 1.74" (44mm) H by 8.5" (216mm) D. Weight: 3 lb (1.5kg).
Finish: Dark gray.
Serial number of unit reviewed: 03003-1801-168
Price: $995. Approximate number of dealers: 60. Warranty: 2 years.
Manufacturer: Mytek Digital, 148 India…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Garrard 301 turntable; Audio-Creative GrooveMaster II, EMT 997 tonearms; EMT TSD 15, Ortofon SPU A Wood, Shindo Laboratory SPU pickup heads; Grado Labs Epoch, Koetsu Onyx Platinum, Miyabi 47 cartridges.
Digital Sources: Apple MacBook Air computer running Roon v.1.5, build 339; Sony SCD-777 SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 Hommage T1 & T2 step-up transformers, Shindo Laboratory Monbrison (2017) preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Luxman MQ-88uSE, Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Mytek Liberty with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"), using both the Audio Precision's S/PDIF 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 SE as "Liberty DAC" from "Mytek Digital," its serial number as "03003-1801-168," and confirmed that its USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. Apple's AudioMIDI utility revealed that, via USB, the Mytek Liberty accepted…
The still youthful Danish String Quartet, whose 2016 release on ECM New Series inspired this glowing review in Stereophile, has returned with another hi-rez recording, Prism I (ECM New Series 2561). The first in a projected series of recordings for ECM New Series that will place one of Beethoven's late string quartets in the context of a related fugue by J.S. Bach and another linked quartet, Prism I begins with Mozart's string quartet arrangement of Bach's Fugue in in E-flat, BWV 875, from The Well-Tempered Clavier. It then invites us to discover what, besides key, Bach's short fugue shares…
J.S. Bach: Six Suites for Viola Solo, BWV 1007–1012
Kim Kashkashian, four- & five-string violas
ECM New Series 2553/54 (2 CDs). 2018. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Judy Sherman, eng. DDD. TT: 2:22:35
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
Kim Kashkashian, four- & five-string violas
ECM New Series 2553/54 (2 CDs). 2018. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Judy Sherman, eng. DDD. TT: 2:22:35
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
Little is known of the origins of the Solo Suites, usually performed on the cello. No manuscript in Bach's hand survives, and in the copy produced by his second wife, Anna Magdalena, markings for slurs, articulation, and dynamics are sparse even by baroque standards. The suites may actually have been composed for the violoncello da spalla, an…
I have flip-flopped between these points of view: that some audio products or technologies are better suited than others to specific styles of music, and that any good product or technology should be equally at home with rock'n'roll, chamber music, large-scale classical, hard bop, techno, ragas—even George Crumb.
At age 19, in my first job as a hi-fi salesman, I was asked to adopt the first of those views. The shop I worked in carried only two loudspeaker lines—EPI and Ultralinear, both long gone—and the owner urged me to push the former on lovers of classical music, and the latter on…
The UNI-DIN curve is available commercially via the Acoustical Systems Smartractor ($599, footnote 5), a phono-alignment protractor described by the manufacturer as "universal" inasmuch as it can be used with virtually any pivoting tonearm. Like Dennesen's popular Geometric Soundtracktor before it, the Smartractor has much in common with a draftsman's beam compass: here, the beam is a 13"-long rod of square cross-section, machined from polyoxymethylene (POM), that slides along a block of POM that has both a locking screw and a vernier scale. Fastened to one end, perpendicular to the beam,…
To celebrate its fifth birthday, Southern California retailer Audio Element (117 East Union Street, Pasadena, CA 91103) is having an open house on Saturday, November 3, from 11am–4pm. Featured will be new products from dCS (the Bartók D/A headphone amplifier), Musical Surroundings (the Nova III phono preamplifier and Hana ML phono cartridge), and Wilson Audio (the Sasha DAW loudspeaker).
Light refreshments will be served. More details can be found here.
Audio Element was founded in 2013 by Brian and Jennifer Berdan. The Old Pasadena storefront (above) was once the site of a music…
Thursday November 1, 6–9pm, Atlanta specialty audio retailer HiFi Buys Atlanta (3157 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta, GA) will have an open house featuring special guest Richard Vandersteen, founder and head engineer of Vandersteen Audio. Richard, along with global sales manager Brad O’Toole, will demonstrate the System 9 (above), featuring the new Sub Nine subwoofers and System 9 granite bases, the Quatro Wood CT loudspeakers with the new M5-HPA high-pass amplifiers, and the new Sub Three adjustable subwoofer with the Treo CT loudspeakers.
To RSVP click here.