The distinction between our emotional response to music and our ability to describe and analyze it scientifically arises from the differing functions of the brain's right and left hemispheres. The right hemisphere is in constant communication with the autonomic nervous system (ANS) via branches of the…
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In audio reviewing, there's a tension between scientific explanations for the qualities of the sound we hear and how the music, as conveyed through our equipment, makes us feel. Insights from the new field of interpersonal neurobiology can help us understand this conflict (footnote 1).
Melco, the Japanese maker of the N50 Music Library featured in this review, is not a household name among US audiophiles. Veterans may recall the Melco 3560 turntable, which was considered extravagant at its 1978 launch, in part because it supported three tonearms. Confusingly, several subsidiaries of the giant keiretsu Mitsubishi are called MELCO (for "Mitsubishi Electric Corporation"), but the maker of the N50 is not one of those MELCOs. This "Melco" is, rather, short for "Maki Engineering Laboratory Company," and though it got its start in hi-fi, these days its best-known products are…
I connected the N50 to my Okto DAC8 Pro multichannel DAC. With stereo tracks, the N50/Okto combo was just super. I then selected some multichannel files just to see what would happen. I heard music, but the tracks were not routed to the proper channels/speakers and there was noise in unused channels—the Melco N50 is not a multichannel device. I then tried connecting my exaSound s88 to the N50, also by USB, but the two devices failed to communicate. The Melco requires that the attached DAC be UAC2 compliant. The Okto is, but the exaSound is not. Melco has a long list of compatible devices on…
Sidebar 1: Streaming with the Melco N50
I've long been curious about Melco's music libraries, so after Kal had submitted his review, I asked him to send me the N50. Then I read his review and saw his note about its limitations from its streaming "Player" output. I was determined to try it for myself.
The note at Apple's app store says that, while the Melco app doesn't support streaming to an Ethernet-connected DAC, an Ethernet-connected "Music Player" should be able to see the Melco and play music from it via its own app. So I tried it with the CH Precision C1 DAC that I still…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Network-connected music player and streamer with internal storage and compatible with directly attached and network-attached storage. Internal storage: 3.84TB SSD. Inputs/Outputs: 5 USB, 2 Ethernet (RJ-45) with Gigabit (1000Base-T). DHCP server (in isolated mode). Supported cloud services: Tidal, Qobuz,vTuner Internet Radio. Supported formats: DSF, DFF, WAV, FLAC, ALAC, AAC, AIFF, etc. Supported sample rates: 16–32 bit (PCM) to 384kHz (auto downsample to suit connected DAC), 1 bit (DSD) to 11.3MHz Quad DSD. Gapless PCM and DSD supported.
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Sidebar 3: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Oppo Digital UDP-105 universal disc player, custom Baetis Prodigy-X4i music server running JRiver Media Center v28 and Roon 1.8, Mytek Brooklyn+ DAC, exaSound s88 streaming DAC, and Okto DAC8 Pro D/A processors. QNAP TVS-873 NAS.
Preamplifiers: Coleman Audio 7.1SW for source switching. 3 Topping Pre90s for buffer/line-drivers.
Power Amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, NAD C 298.
Loudspeakers: Revel Ultima2 Studio with IsoAcoustics Gaia I isolation feet. Revel Performa3 f206 for surrounds. Two SVS SB-3000 & one SB-2000Pro subwoofers…
Parisian high-end audio dealer AnaMighty Sound's room, F114 in Atrium 4, showed several products made in Switzerland from darTZeel, Stenheim, and Nagra. The room also became a mini-concert venue for a couple of demo sessions on Saturday that incorporated live music: Jazz saxophonist Jérôme Sabbagh played solo, accompanied by playback of his No Filter album bandmates on the room's system. They played 24-bit/96kHz versions of the tracks with Sabbagh's sax parts/tracks omitted.
These half-hour presentations were a nice diversion; a different way of showing how, or to what extent, a system…
The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society (LAOCAS) has chosen John Atkinson, former editor-in-chief and now technical editor of Stereophile, as the winner of its 29th annual Founder's Award. The award comes 57 years after JA1 began making recordings on his first tape recorder and 46 years since he began working at a hi-fi magazine, as an editorial assistant at British magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review.
John's career has been illustrious and varied. Due to his self-described "schizophrenic nature," he was passionately drawn to music but excelled academically in science…
I have this friend, a smart, good-looking young physicist from Argentina. Naturally, I call him "Gaucho." He lives in a glistening-white steel-and-glass apartment overlooking lower Manhattan. I visit him regularly, usually with a group of audio friends, mainly to compare recordings, drink wine, and talk hi-fi.
One day, unexpectedly, Gaucho invited me over to listen to his system—just me—so that I could tell him what I "really think" of his system's sound.
His digital source is Roon into a dCS Rossini DAC and Master Clock. His record player is the latest SME 20/3 turntable with an…
Then Woo Audio's 3ES preamp/electrostatic headphone amplifier arrived. Putting it in my system as a preamp radically changed my thinking about what a line-level preamplifier could be and should do. Its push-pull 6SN7 voltage-amplifier tube and push-pull 300B cathode-follower output put a shot of LSD-clarity and power-triode umph into every signal passing through it. After Jack Wu collected the 3ES, I sulked and sighed longingly for a month, wishing for a full-function linestage that would be at once vigorous and invisible.
Then, recently, when the Linn Audio LP12 Klimax record playing…