DVD-Video sound
While the two sampler discs demonstrated the potential of DVD-Audio, the 24/96 recordings from Classic and Fréres Chesky delivered the musical goods in the here and now, producing a familiar, unmanipulated two-channel sound that I related to more easily. But before I tell you what I liked about them, I'll tell you about a weakness they revealed. I popped Dave's True Story's Sex Without Bodies into the DVD-A10 and cued up one of my favorites, "Daddy-O," followed by Kelly Flint's and David Cantor's cover of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side." Now I know this recording…
Sidebar 1: Specifications Description: Single-box DVD-Audio/Video player with remote control. Plays CD, DVD-A, DVD-V. Outputs: 2 pairs RCA line-level audio, one each coax and TosLink S/PDIF, full set 5.1 surround outputs on RCA, video, S-video, and component video. S/N ratios: CD, 115dB (EIAJ); DVD, 106dB (LPCM). Harmonic distortion: DVD, 0.0012% (LPCM); CD, 0.0017%. Power consumption: 26W.
Dimensions: 17" (430mm) W by 5" (125mm) H by 10.8" (275mm) D. Weight: 18.9 lbs (8.6kg).
Serial number of unit reviewed: None.
Price: $1199.95. Approximate number of dealers: 200.
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Sidebar 1: Associated Equipment Digital source: Linn CD12 CD player, Accuphase DP-100/DC-101 SACD 24-bit/192kHz transport/DAC.
Preamplifiers: Audio Research Reference Two, Mark Levinson No.32 Reference.
Power amplifiers: Krell FPB350mc, Cary CAD-1610-SE, Linn Klimax Solo 500 (all monoblocks).
Loudspeakers: JMlab Utopia.
Cables: Digital: XLO The Limited. Interconnects: Cardas Neutral Reference and Golden Reference, Synergistic Research Designer's Reference, TARA The One/Air One. Speaker: TARA The One, Cardas Golden Cross, XLO The Limited. AC: Synergistic Research Designer's…
Sidebar 3: Measurements There's no such thing yet as a test DVD-A, so I checked the Technics DVD-A10's performance using a miscellany of test CDs and the Chesky Test and Sampler DVD-V, which has 24-bit test tones recorded (by Kevin Halverson of Muse Electronics) at 48kHz and 96kHz sample rates. The Technics doesn't play CD-Rs, so I couldn't check its jitter behavior with the Miller Audio Research Analyzer. All measurements were performed on the two-channel outputs.
The maximum output level was 2.153V, 0.66dB higher than the CD standard of 2V RMS. The output didn't invert absolute…
Fig.4 reveals that the DAC has good linearity, any error remaining below 3dB to below -115dB. As a result, the Technics' reproduction of an undithered 16-bit sinewave at -90.31dBFS (fig.5) was excellent, if not quite up to the standard set by the best CD players—or by the expensive Sony and Marantz SACD players, for that matter.
Fig.4 Technics DVD-A10, left-channel departure from linearity, 16-bit data (2dB/vertical div.).
Fig.5 Technics DVD-A10, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at -90.31dBFS, 16-bit data.
Fig.6 shows an FFT-derived spectrum of the…
I repeated the test with other high-level combinations of high-frequency tones—11kHz+12kHz, 14+15kHz—and the noise floor remained low through the top octave. I then used a mix of 19kHz and 20kHz tones from a different test CD and again got the anomalous rise in the noise floor. However, to my surprise, when I repeated the test using the 48kHz or 96kHz sample-rate test signals on the Chesky DVD-V (fig.8), the spectrum revealed no top-octave problems. I can only assume that some aspect of the player's DVD engine, again most probably the Re-Master algorithm, is optimized for the 48kHz and 96kHz…
Kalman Rubinson's Followup review appeared in the April 2001 issue (Vol.24 No.4): When Jonathan Scull offered to send the review sample of the Technics DVD-A10 on to me, I was so anxious to try a multichannel DVD-Audio player in my system that I didn't notice the attached strings: I had to write a Follow-Up to J-10's November 2000 review in the context of the multichannel home-theater system in my country place. A quickie audition in my familiar and comfortable main system would not do.
During these listening sessions, my ever-changing multichannel system comprised a California…
"My car is supercharged, not turbocharged, so you see there's no throttle lag," explained Yves-Bernard André as he reversed at what seemed like 80mph up a narrow cobbled Paris street. "D'accord," I mumbled, afraid to loosen the white-knuckled grip I had on the passenger grab handles. Yves-Bernard's car may have been pointing the right way down the one-way street, but it was not actually traveling in that direction. Okay, so it was 2am and the good residents of the Dix-septième Arrondissement were busy stacking Zs (en français, "emplier les ronflements"). But I still didn't think we would've…
Naturellement, there's no output inductor to define the ultimate high-frequency rolloff with highly capacitive loads, meaning that Yves-Bernard has either designed a circuit with plenty of ultrasonic phase margin, or he just likes living dangerously. (Optional air-cored coils are available for those with problem loudspeakers; the coil is placed between the output terminal and the positive speaker lead.) Negative feedback (said to be less than 20dB) is taken from the emitter resistors' common junction—the fuse therefore doesn't appear to be in the feedback path—and fed to the non-inverting…
Overall dynamics were punchy. Mahlerian climaxes were not reined in; Eddie Van Halen's essential guitar lines on Latoya's slightly-more-famous brother's "Beat It" raggedly ripped around the room. Even at high levels, the amplifier's sound didn't harden or become fatiguing. This amplifier has more power (la puissance, en français) than you'd expect from its modest physical size. The YBA's midrange was more laid-back than the Audio Research Classic 120's, though the Mark Levinson No.20.6 monoblock softened the mid-treble further. The YBA wasn't reticent in the high treble, though, once…
