Art Dudley

In the fall of 2005, while the People's Republic of China continued to hold political dissidents in prison without due process, the US government wiretapped its citizens with impunity, tensions rose on the border between Chad and Sudan, Israeli citizens annexed thousands of acres of land from poor Palestinian farmers, Saudi Arabia executed more petty thieves and adulterers in the name of Allah, Russia "lost" a few more tons of nuclear armaments, and the polar icecaps continued to recede as the levels of preventable greenhouse emissions climbed out of control, a small band of middle-aged men took to the Internet to express their seething outrage.

Verity Audio’s entry-level Finn ($6495/pair) was an intriguing beast: a 91 dB sensitive loudspeaker that sounded open, authoritative, and smooth—the latter quality more so than the dearer Verity Sarastro II, which sounded overly sibilant in another room. (But the good Lord knows that might have been caused by something else in the chain, so do keep these comments in perspective.) Music was supplied by digital files on a MacBook Pro (running Amarra playback software), addressing the digital inputs of a Musical Fidelity M6CD CD player ($2499), while the controller was Musical Fidelity’s new M1 CliC ($1999). Power was supplied by another new Musical Fidelity product, their M6500 integrated amplifier ($6995): a seemingly sweet-sounding 500Wpc monster that’s dual-mono from A through Z.

I've never aspired to owning a BMW 7-series, or a Martin D-45, or a Rolex Submariner: BMW's far less expensive 3-series models capture my imagination by bordering on the affordable, likewise Martin's D-18—and as long as I live, I'll never understand the appeal of expensive wristwatches. Bling's not my thing.

True to form, when I visited the Mytek display at High End 2018, in Munich, my attention was drawn to the brand-new Mytek Liberty DAC and its three-figure price: for $995, one could now own the equivalent of the original Mytek Brooklyn D/A processor, without that model's phono preamp—this according to the company's Adam Bielewicz, who served as my product-line guide on that sunny May day.

Naim Audio has a reputation for making products that are truer than most to music's temporal content: rhythm, pacing, the beat almighty. Beginning with their classic solid-state amps of the mid-1970s, Naim's designers have stressed, above all else, the reduction of distortions that puff up and pad the attack and decay components of musical sounds: Getting rid of those additives seems to clarify the timing relationship between different notes in a line, making music more compelling and easier to enjoy. That their gear has historically favored musical content over sonic attributes is no shock to the Naim faithful.