Better still, as listeners have become more knowledgeable and demanding, vinyl releases…
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It turns out that PVC, or polyvinyl chloride—the stuff used to make Starbucks gift cards, imitation leather wallets, inflatable pool unicorns, the pipes under your sink, and Billy Idol's pants—is also the main ingredient in phonograph records. And today we're living in the silver age of PVC. Not the golden age, since records are no longer the dominant medium for recorded music, but these days we're lucky to again have access to a remarkable amount of music stamped on top-quality hot plastic.
For years now, I've wanted to learn more about what I was hearing and just what was encoded on those great-sounding early records—and about why that sound seems to elude engineers today. When you write about things, sometimes having preferences and opinions isn't enough, so I reached out to four mastering engineers. This turned out to be a mistake. For starters, engineers love master tape, which sounds better than records and digital but is largely off limits to those of us who listen at home. How many audiophiles have even heard a master tape? Second, three of the engineers are, or have…
Since the 1980s, I've been asking every speaker designer I meet, "What amplifier do you recommend using with your speakers?" Annoyingly, they always say, "My speakers are easy to drive. Any amp will do." Whereupon I'd whine, "Aww, come on man, don't feed me that. What amp did you use when you were designing the speaker?" The closest any manufacturer came to providing a real answer was Wendell Diller of Magnepan, who, when I reviewed his .7 quasi-ribbon speaker, said, "We used an amp of our own design. It's not for sale. But any amp that doubles its power into 4 ohms will be fine." Wendell's…
The most exciting part of listening to this unusual album is how it slowly builds its own universe—inside the headphone listener's head—becoming more visual and emotionally associative with each track. Its progression of tracks and successions of tempos represent a musical promenade through the 16th to the 19th centuries in Spain, played on guitars that might have been used to play these works by the composers themselves. Played on guitars that had not been played in generations. When this album is reproduced in its full colorful pulsing vibrancy—like it was for me with the Diana TC—it…
On Friday, May 5, 6–9:30pm, AV Therapy of Nashua, New Hampshire, will host its annual spring event. This year, the company proudly celebrates its 10th anniversary with a Cinco De Mayo Party!
New products will be displayed in multiple demo spaces with featured guests from Luxman, Sonner, Focal/Naim, KEF, Linn, Nordost, and Paradigm/Anthem available throughout the evening to demonstrate products and answer questions from attendees. The event will be held at AV Therapy, 216 Daniel Webster Highway, Nashua, New Hampshire. RSVP by phone at (603) 759-7183 or by email at info@avtherapy.…
They say a jack of all trades is the master of none. While this expression is typically used to describe people, it also works for machines that play 5" optical discs.
The Compact Disc was launched in 1982, but the four decades since have seen an alphabet soup of similar-looking shiny discs including major formats like DVD, SACD, DVD-A, and Blu-ray Audio. As each new format arrived, hardware manufacturers scrambled to keep up, developing machines that could play just about any disc you could throw at them (or, rather, insert in them). The result was a bunch of "jack of all trades" disc…
What can it play?
While the CDT3's user manual claims compatibility only with standard CD, CD-R, and CD-RW, I was curious to see if it could play the other types of discs that are supposed to be playable on a regular CD player. In addition to a few CD-Rs and CD-RWs I had burned several years ago on my Alesis Masterlink, I tried a handful of hybrid SACDs to see if reading the CD layer might cause difficulties, and I tried the CD side on a couple of DualDiscs. Because they are double sided, DualDiscs are slightly thicker than standard CDs, which can cause loading problems with some…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: CD transport supporting CD, CD-R, CD-RW with 3.12" dimmable OLED display, front-panel push buttons and remote control. Digital outputs: 2 S/PDIF (RCA and BNC), AES3 (XLR), 2 I2S (HDMI/LVDS and RJ45/LVCMOS). Reference clock input and output 10MHz on 75/50 ohm BNC. Output resolution: Direct (16/44.1), 4× oversampled (24/176.4), switchable. Power requirements: 110–120V, 220–230V, 50/60Hz, set at factory. Power consumption: 50W; 1W standby.
Dimensions: 17.0" (430mm) W × 15.0" (380mm) D × 5.9" (150mm) H. Weight: 48.5lb (22kg).
Finish: Silver or…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Audio Note CDT2, Oppo UDP205, CD transports, Denafrips Terminator II DAC, Audio Note DAC3 Signature DAC.
Preamplification: PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium, Croft Vitale.
Power amplifiers: Audio Note P2-SE Signature, Belles 150A, Conrad-Johnson Classic Sixty.
Integrated amplifier: Pass Labs INT-150.
Loudspeakers: Quad ESL-57 electrostatic speakers with Gradient SW-57 subwoofers, PSB Synchrony One loudspeakers, HSU Research TN1220 subwoofers (2), SVS SB-2000 Pro subwoofer.
Cables: Interconnect: Cardas Neutral Reference, Cardas…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The most meaningful test of a CD player or transport is of how well it deals with disc errors. I examined the Jay's Audio CDT3-MK3's performance with the Pierre Verany Digital Test CD, which has tracks with single or double gaps in the data spiral. It successfully played tracks with gaps up to 1mm in length, but when the gap was 1.5mm or longer, there were audible glitches. The Compact Disc standard requires only that a player cope with gaps of up to 0.2mm. The Jay's transport copes well with damaged CDs.
Next, I examined the amount of timing uncertainty—…