For the last couple of nights, I've been listening to Promises, a recent collaboration between Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Almost the entire 46-minute, nine-movement album is built on two chords, played simultaneously on an acoustic piano and a celeste. The instrumentation swells and wanes—Sanders's intense sax lines piercing into prominence, the large string section turning cacophonous, a…
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The advantage of a highly resolving music system is that you can hear deeper into recordings. The disadvantage is that you can hear deeper into recordings.
There’s a new audio company in the headphone/IEM category: Grell Audio. German audio designer Axel Grell recently formed his eponymous company in tandem with Icelandic product manager Gisli Gudmundsson.
Grell is a former Sennheiser design engineer and audiophile product manager who was the mind behind many of that German company’s well-known HD series headphones, including the HD 650. As I reported in Industry Update in the August 2021 print issue, Sennheiser’s consumer electronics division was acquired by Sonova in May 2021. Grell started his company the following September, Grell’s…
Why do the names of some headphone brands sound like they originated with marketing flacks or PR hacks? Some brands have natural, fuzzy sounding names, others a sci-fi bent.
So What do you get from Dan Clark Audio? Obviously, Dan Clark!
In preparation for this show report, I quietly asked for recommendations from my headphone-oriented buddies, from Audiophiliac Steve Guttenberg to physicist-audiophile Miguel Barrio. And of course, Herb Reichert. To a man, they whispered "Dan Clark Audio." So into the Dan Clark Audio room I walked to hear their new closed-back, planar-…
I've been on a Kim Gordon kick lately. It began a few months ago with rediscovering some Sonic Youth albums and picking up Gordon's solo record, No Home Record. I recently finished reading her memoir, Girl in a Band, about her life, art, and musical career. I tend to read books rather than listen to them, but this time I listened with the Audible app, and I found the experience compelling. Gordon's delivery is direct, her voice even-keeled, almost deadpan. She's giving us the straight dope. Subtle inflections are detectable: moments when she felt strong and proud; leftover cobwebs of…
Another day, before settling in to critical listening, I had on Kim Gordon's No Home Record (24/96, Matador/Qobuz). On "Murdered Out," around the 1:50 mark, fuzzed-out guitar emerged from the left channel and suddenly grabbed my attention. This snarling, electrifying effect sounded like it was coming from somewhere ahead of and outside the speakers. An impressive and surprising bit of imaging.
As I often do, I started my serious auditioning with phono, connecting the MoFi Electronics StudioPhono phono stage to the Caruso. The source was the MoFi Electronics UltraDeck turntable.…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-channel multisource digital receiver with integrated amplifier, CD player, music server, streamer with DSP-controlled sound. Supported services: Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer, Spotify Connect, DLNA, AirPlay2, UPnP, Qualcomm aptX Bluetooth (A2DP 1.2 for audio). Supported formats: MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, ALAC; FM radio, Airable internet radio, DAB+. Inputs: LAN (1 uplink, 1 out), WLAN, USB 2.0, S/PDIF (coaxial), TosLink, analog (one RCA stereo pair). Outputs: preamp output, variable (one RCA stereo pair), subwoofer output (RCA), 3.5mm…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital source: MacBook Air (M1, 2020), running as Roon Core.
Analog source: MoFi Electronics UltraDeck turntable with tonearm and UltraTracker MM cartridge and weight.
Preamplification: MoFi Electronics StudioPhono phono stage.
Loudspeakers: Caruso S 10, MBL 120 Radialstrahler.
Subwoofer: Pioneer SW-8 with Morrow Audio MA-6 interconnects.
Cables and accessories: AudioQuest Niagara 1000 Low-Z Power Noise-Dissipation System with AudioQuest NRG-Z3 and NRG-10 power cords, AudioQuest Vodka Ethernet/LAN, Ansuz Acoustics D2 loudspeaker cables and…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I tested the T+A Caruso R with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system, repeating some of the measurements with the magazine's APx500. I controlled the Caruso R with the front-panel touchscreen and with the Caruso Navigator app on my iPad mini. Because the Caruso R uses a class-D output stage, I inserted an Audio Precision AUX-0025 passive low-pass filter between the test load and the analyzers. This filter reduces (but does not completely eliminate) RF noise that could drive their input circuitry into slew-rate limiting. I used it for all the loudspeaker output tests…
Justin Weber's Ampsandsound was showing the Agartha ($6300), the Nautilus ($9200), and the new Red October ($12,000) tubed amplifiers.
Weber's lineup includes 20 amplifiers, a SUT, and an XLR-to-RCA converter with input transformers and a stepped volume control. All Weber's products are built by hand in southern California.
The Nautilus is a single-ended, class-A design with zero feedback and a tube complement of two 6L6GC-STRs, KT88s, or KT-120s, a single 12AX7, and two 5AR4 or 5U4 rectifier tubes. The cool blue Nautilus sits in a 12-gauge steel chassis and offers 8Wpc…
Woo Audio, makers of tube electronics, are known for designing great-sounding and great-looking amplifiers intended especially for driving headphones. At an AXPONA a few years back, I became fond of their smaller-scale products such as their WA7 Firefly, a cube-shaped headphone amp/DAC/preamp now in its third generation.
At CanJam, Woo unveiled a preproduction prototype of the WA23 Luna, a combination headphone amplifier and preamp. Woo Audio's Jack Wu (the Wu behind Woo) explained that the idea was to offer a top-tier product smaller than their WA33 flagship, which is a single-…