"Wish You Were Here"
Here's the SACD in its multichannel glory, newly arrived at RMAF!
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John Atkinson
Linn—Rega—Wilson
A quarter century ago, it was de rigeur for show exhibitors to use a Linn Sondek LP12 as the source. The only Linn I have found at RMAF so far was in one of the Audio Alternative rooms, which was using the fully loaded LP12/Ekos SE/Radikal/Urika/Keel LP player/phono stage with a Lyra Kleos cartridge ($23,905). But with Wilson Sasha W/P speakers ($28,900/pair) hooked up to a Rega Osiris integrated amplifier ($8995) with AudioQuest cables, the sound of Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man" from the new APO 45rpm pressing of her classic Dusty in Memphis album was vividly real-sounding.
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Vandersteen Tréo—"Dimensional Purity"
"Dimensional Purity" is the promoted benefit of Richard Vandersteen's approach to speaker design, and in one of the two rooms I went into at RMAF organized by Fort Collins retailer The Audio Alternative, the Vandersteen Tréos ($5990/pair) were living up to that promise. Driven by an Audio Research Vsi60 integrated amplifier ($4495) with the source the Bryston BDP-1 digital player and BDA-1 DAC, all hooked up with AudioQuest cable, Mark Isham's Blue Sun reproduced with excellent bass extension and clarity and a laidback but detailed midrange.
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Hegel DAC
New from the Norwegian Hegel company at RMAF was the HD11 D/A processor ($1200), which features a 32-bit TI DAC but also a unique impedance-optimizing circuit on one of its coaxial S/PDIF inputs. Single-ended digital audio connections are specified to be 75 ohm transmission lines, explained Hegel's Anders Eitzeid, but not all all datalinks conform to that specification. (The RCA plug is a major source of the impedance mismatch even when the cable itself has a characteristic impedance of 75 ohms.) The impedance mismatch creates reflections that corrupt the integrity of the RF datastream, increasing jitter.
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DEQX (pronounced Dex)
I first encountered DEQX when Kalman Rubinson and I reviewed the NHT Xd speaker system a few years back, which featured its digital signal processing to implement its crossover and response optimization. The Australian company was putting on an impressive dem of its HDP-3 standalone processor at RMAF, showing the sound of a pair of Gallo Reference speakers driven by Parasound Halo amplification could be first optimized in both time and frequency domains, then its interaction with the room. DEQX's Larry Owens, shown in the photo, enthused about an unanticipated benefit of the speaker correction was the reduction in loudspeaker intermodulation distortion.
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Politically Incorrect?
This was posted on the wall of his RMAF room by one manufacturer who still makes his products in the US. The message seems clear enough, even if it over-simplifies what is actually a complex situationsee my September 2011 "As We See It" on this subject.
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Ayre's QA-9 A/D Converter
It looks like the best-selling QB-9 USB DAC until you notice the level meters and the level control next to the display. This is Ayre's new QA-9 A/D converter, aimed at audiophiles who want to rip their LPs with the highest possible quality. The analog input is balanced and there are both USB and AES/EBU digital outputs. The ADC chip is fed by an input stage featuring Ayre's zero-feedback, discrete circuitry and it will output 24-bit LPCM at up to a 192kHz sample rate. However, there's no reason why it couldn't also output DSD data. The QA-9 will be in production in the first quarter of 2012 and while price is not yet decided, it will be somewhere between the QB-9's price and $5000, I was told.
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Wavelength Tubes & Digital
I am always intrigued by Wavelength's combination of cutting-edge digital technology and tubes. Their room at RMAF featured new developments in both areas. Shown in the photo are the latest HS 24(32)/192 version of the Cosecant asynchronous USB DAC (left, $4000), which features the new Denominator D/A module with 9016 ESS converters, and the new Royal preamp (right, $7500). Wavelength's Gordon Rankin walked me through the design of the minimalist preamp. The input signal is taken to a transformer hat inverts the polarity and feeds high-precision Penny & Giles two-channel attenuator. The wipers of the attenuator are connected directly to the grids of two 71A triodes and that's it! (The third tube is a rectifier.) Because the single tube stage inverts polarity, the preamp output is again in correct absolute polarity.
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Clarus Cables
Joe Perfito's Tributaries cable line is mainly found in home-theater systems but Joe launched a new brand at RMAF, Clarus, aimed at the high-end two-channel market. Significantly more expensive than the Tributaries equivalentsClarus Crimson balanced interconnect sells for $1500/1 pair and the Clarus Aqua $800/1m pair, compared with $400/1m pair for a Tributaries balanced cableClarus cables are designed by Jay Victor, who, I was told, has previously contributed cable designs to Monster and AudioQuest, among others. The speaker cables feature a combination of a large-gauge rectangular conductor and multiple Litz-wound conductors. All the cables feature polyethylene dielectrics and all PC-OCC copper conductors.
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Joe was still fine-tuning the systemB&W 803 Diamond speakers, McIntosh MCD100 CD player/DAC and McIntosh monoblocks, and a Tributaries power manager when I visited the Clarus roombut I kidded him that the only non-Clarus cable in the system was the USB link from the laptop to the McIntosh MCD100.
Vivid—Luxman—On A Higher Note
"That's a familiar sightand a familiar sound." When I walked into On A Higher Note's large room on the Denver Tech Center Marriott's mezzanine floor, the speakers being demmed were the Vivid B1s that I review in the October issue. I loved the sound of the $14,990/pair B1s in my room and they were doing equally sterling duty at RMAF, driven by a Luxman M600A amplifier ($8500) and a modified Revox open-reel recorder. A 15ips tape of a cello, piano, and double bass playing what sounded like a tango by Astor Piazolla, recorded in LA's Disney Hall by Yarlung Records, had an ease to its sound that allowed the music to flow. The room had a touch too much bloom in the upper bassperhaps the Synergistic "magic bowl" you can see on the post on the wall behind the speakers was fatigued after a long day adjusting the room acoustics.
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