Digital Processor Reviews

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Budget Component ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsMedia Server ReviewsComputer Audio Reviews
Slim Devices Squeezebox WiFi D/A processor
John Atkinson  |  Sep 09, 2006  |  0 comments
As readers of the Stereophile eNewsletter will be aware, the twin subjects of distributing music around my home and integrating my iTunes library of recordings into my high-end system have occupied much of my attention the past year. I bought an inexpensive Mac mini to use as a music server, using an Airport Express as a WiFi hub, which worked quite well, but my big step forward was getting a Squeezebox. I described this slim device in the mid-March and mid-April eNewsletters; I urge readers to read those reports to get the full background on this impressive device. In addition, the forums and Wiki pages on the Slim Devices website offer a wealth of information on getting the most from a Squeezebox.
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Digital Processor ReviewsMedia Server ReviewsComputer Audio Reviews
Slim Devices Transporter network music player
Wes Phillips  |  Feb 11, 2007  |  5 comments
Is a high-end music server the audio equivalent of polishing a turd?
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Digital Processor Reviews
Sonic Frontiers SFD-2 D/A processor
Robert Harley  |  May 08, 2005  |  First Published: Dec 08, 1993  |  0 comments
I feel privileged to have followed the remarkable evolution of digital processors over the past four-and-a-half years. Since my first digital review—a survey of three modified CD players back in August 1989—I've been fascinated by the developments that have inexorably improved the quality of digitally reproduced music.
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
Sonic Frontiers Transport 3 CD transport & Processor 3 D/A processor
Shannon Dickson  |  Oct 26, 2004  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1998  |  0 comments
Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when I first spied the prototypes for Sonic Frontiers' luscious new digital combo, the Transport 3 CD transport and Processor 3 D/A processor, at HI-FI '97 in San Francisco. After all, this is the company whose meteoric rise from an electronic parts-supply outfit run out of president Chris Johnson's basement, to a large factory pumping out an impressive array of entry-level to crème de la crème tube electronic components, has elevated Sonic Frontiers to front-line status among high-end manufacturers.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Sonnet Morpheus D/A processor
Alex Halberstadt  |  Nov 05, 2021  |  7 comments
Playlists embody who we are. We use musical affinities to understand (or at least categorize) others, not only as evidence of their aesthetic discernment but also of their emotional and political affiliations, which amount to an entire worldview. In other words, the database of favorite music that we carry around in our brains is no laughing matter. So, one of the most unexpected—and rewarding—things that can happen in music fandom is a complete and sudden inversion of one's beliefs. Which brings me to the perennially touchy subject of Steely Dan, a band that cleaves the ranks of listeners like a gold-plated katana.
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Budget Component ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsMedia Server ReviewsComputer Audio Reviews
Sonos ZP80 & ZP100 WiFi Music System
John Atkinson  |  Sep 17, 2006  |  First Published: Oct 17, 2006  |  0 comments
Don't get the wrong idea. I don't watch trash TV. I am not interested in the doings of people who are famous merely for being famous. I was probably the last to realize that Paris Hilton was not the name of a French hotel. But the kitchen TV just happened be tuned to Channel 4 when I switched it on while I was preparing dinner. No, I do not watch NBC's Extra, but as I was reaching for the remote I was stopped in my tracks by what I saw. The show was doing a segment on the new L.A. home of Jessica Aguilera, or Christina Simpson, or . . . well, it doesn't matter. What does matter was the host's mention of all the cool stuff the bimbette had had installed in her new pied-à-terre: "...and a Sonos audio system, of course."
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Digital Processor ReviewsHistorical
Sony DTC-1000ES R-DAT recorder & Sony PCM-1630 A/D converter
Martin Colloms  |  May 06, 2021  |  First Published: Aug 01, 1987  |  3 comments
With the furor over the launch of DAT (digital audio tape), it is worth remembering that commercial digital recorders have been with us for some time now: it is now nearly a decade since studio PCM converters were first successfully used for audio recording in conjunction with a VCR (which uses a helical spiral recording via a spinning drum to achieve the high writing speed).
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Digital Processor ReviewsHistoricalJ. Gordon Holt
Sony PCM F1 Digital Audio Converter
J. Gordon Holt  |  Jun 09, 2021  |  First Published: Sep 01, 1982  |  4 comments
In 1978, when I reviewed Sony's first audiophile-type PCM-1 converter, I earned the undying scorn of a large segment of audiophilia by reporting that, on the basis of a rather short testing period (which did however include some live recording), I was unable to hear anything the matter with its sound. Four years later, but after substantially more testing, I am obliged to report the same thing about the PCM-l's son, the PCM-Fl.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Spectral SDR-2000 Professional D/A processor
Robert Harley  |  Jul 03, 2020  |  First Published: May 01, 1995  |  3 comments
Spectral is a bit of an enigma in the high-end audio world. Although nearly 20 years old and one of the founders of the American high-end audio industry, Spectral isn't a name that comes quickly to mind when considering the best of the best in high-end.

Spectral's low profile is of their own choosing. They advertise very little, their products are demonstrated in a small number of stores, they almost never send products to magazines for review, and they are very quiet about their accomplishments.

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CD Player/Transport ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
Sumo Axiom CD transport & Theorem II D/A processor
Robert Harley  |  Dec 13, 2019  |  First Published: Jun 01, 1995  |  7 comments
Making digital audio sound good appears to be a much more difficult job than its developers first realized. When digital audio was in its infancy, there was a tendency to think that digital either worked perfectly, or didn't work at all. This belief led the engineering community to devise ill-considered and flawed standards that affect the musical quality of digitally reproduced music today.
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Digital Processor Reviews
Sumo Theorem D/A processor
Robert Harley  |  Sep 12, 2019  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1992  |  1 comments
The $799 Theorem was originally shown at the 1992 WCES in a very small chassis that prohibited adding features or upgrades. Sumo has since become more ambitious, putting the Theorem in a full-sized chassis and offering several upgrade options that would have been impossible in the truncated version.
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Computer Audio ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
Sutherland Engineering 12dAX7 USB DAC/preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 15, 2002  |  0 comments
Computers and vacuum tubes go together like Trent Lott and flyaway hair, right? The last time filaments glowed in computers was during the 1960s, when a computer was a building. I remember laughing at the ponytailed computer-science dweebs back then, who spent their college days playing nursemaid to a football field's worth of electronics capable of little more than adding two plus two. Chained to a computer half the day, as most of us now are, guess who had the last laugh?
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Digital Processor Reviews
T+A Elektroakustik DAC 8 DSD D/A processor
Jon Iverson  |  Oct 04, 2016  |  13 comments
"They're so damn hard to tell apart!"

So exclaimed my longtime pal and fellow audiophile Bruce Rowley when I revealed to him that T+A Elektroakustik's new DAC 8 DSD digital-to-analog converter ($3995) had arrived for review, just after I'd finished writing up the Ayre Acoustics Codex DAC–headphone amp ($1795). Bruce had recently compared his own brand-new Codex with a DAC he'd owned for a couple years, both costing about the same but built to very different designs. He was surprised that, after carefully matching levels and working to eliminate any other variables, they sounded more alike than not, and only slightly different even after hours of listening. Technically, these were two very different animals.

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Digital Processor ReviewsHi-Rez Disc Player/Transport ReviewsMedia Server Reviews
T+A MP 3100 HV SACD player/streaming DAC
Jim Austin  |  May 15, 2020  |  27 comments
At the 2019 AXPONA, I took part in one of my first official meetings, as editor of Stereophile, with members of the manufacturing community: the German company T+A. They were presenting in the room of Texas dealer Lone Star Audio, which was owned by the late Jim Hench. They had a corner hallway to themselves: two rooms and, at the time when I arrived, a hallway table brimming with coffee and pastries. Fortuitous timing.
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsMedia Server ReviewsComputer Audio Reviews
T+A Music Player Media Streamer
Jon Iverson  |  Aug 14, 2009  |  0 comments
"Two years ago I discovered my latest guilty pleasure: Internet radio. As long as it's 192k or higher. My whole buying/download cycle had been reduced. The pleasure and savings have increased. If they succeed in killing Net radio, I'm done with the hobby."—Reader Peter DeBoer, in response to a recent Stereophile online poll.
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