Pulling a fast one

Walk down the streets of Shanghai and you will quickly get an education on the state of high end audio in the USA. On a street you will find many a hi fi shop. These shops carry amps, preamps and CD players with unique designs and brands you never heard of. Your stroll will make the latest hi fi rag’s “recommended components” a kin to hospital food – generic, lack –luster and downright boring.

What is even more interesting is that you will find brands like Cayin, Xindak, the “Spark” amplifiers that look mysteriously like the Prima Donnas and a host of other products that look mysteriously like a brand that you just saw advertised. These brands are often offered at a fraction of the price that they are sold for in the USA, and except for a voltage winding on the transformer, are identical to those offered in the USA. However, they don’t have the mark up that USA distribution.
Now, being from Chicago, I can completely understand the “one hand washes another” paradigm. And I too, long to play in this game of “advertise in your magazine, review in your magazine” . And while my Heinz ketchup anticipation awaits me, I am going to do it without marking up my items or such other nonsense as part of the game. Only because I know that all of you will blow me off quicker than a Lou Dobb’s exit.

While I have complained about the high cost of audio in the past, I just cannot complain about equipment that is hand-crafted. Equipment from Audio Research, Mark Levinson, Macintosh, Conrad Johnson etc.. may very well be worth the money – they are collector’s items. If you are looking for a hand crafted piece and want to pay the mark up – then please go right ahead.

We are not trying to compete with those items or manufacturers. We are trying to give people a taste of those components, at a fraction of the costs. Recently, there have been some items that are in the less than 1K range on our website that are just outstanding audio values and are above and beyond what you can get in the USA.

What frosts me is when something that you can buy in Shanghai is marked up by a distributor trying to pull a fast one. That is not buying audio, that is just plain dumb.

The other day I sat down to listen to some music. K.D. Lang, Chris Boti, Sara Vaughan was my selection. It was nice. It was listening.

Every once in a while, I get a new lease on my listening life; Instead of listening to music, I discover an artist. I have been discovering my whole life. In my salad days (when I was crisp with knowledge and green with my convictions – that’s Willie Shakespeare), I remember discovering the Moody Blues. I just could not believe the writing, the music and the vocals. I also remember discovering a band called Fleetwood Mac and not the annoying Clintonian Rumors, I mean real albums like Penguin, Future Games, Then Play On… My discovery continued with Peter Frampton, Joni Mitchell, Grateful Dead and so on.

And it was not until a dreadlock squirt drone of American Idol, one Jason Castro, who sang a song that absolutely moved me. The name of the song was “Halleluiah” and it was written by someone I never paid any attention to: Leonard Cohen.
I was destined to discover Leonard Cohen. On his Grammy CD, “The Joni Letters”, Herbie Hancock has Leonard Cohen reading the poetic Joni’s Jungle Line from “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” . Juxtapose and just as mysterious, Stereophile wrote a great article on some new re-releases of Leonard’s past work. Needless to say, I am in the process of discovering Leonard and I am quickly buying his albums, going through them, bit by bit. Understanding Leonard’s music, listening as he matures and then changes, trying to understand his musical direction and writing. Truly, discovery is fun. This is how one becomes a “fan”.

Classical music fans discover all the time, whether Antal Dorati or Tchaikovsky. See, that is why two channel is still around…. Its all about discovery.

Hallelujah

Emerging from a quiet and dark background, the dynamics of CyberServer slowly fill my room. And then suddenly blooms into a full orchestra allowing me to hear every detail, yet not over bearing or etchy. The fact that I can get this sound so relatively inexpensively, is nothing to sneeze at. While it is true, that most of the cost of CyberServer is in its solid state disks and clever configurations of the buffer cache, the tweak-er-ing (that’s a cancatenation of a tweak and tinkering), is well worth it.

But, this blog is not about CyberServer, it is about computer audio.

The fact that I can have all of my music, regardless of sampling rate and resolution, at my finger tips without leaving the chair, is something to behold. Before this, the so called “wireless” servers, never sounded as good as our CD players. Thus, nice for background, but bad for serious listening. Well, that paradigm is changing. We expect more and more so called “quiet” servers – non-wireless servers with no moving parts, will be hitting the market soon. They will have astronomical prices. They will advertise in high end pubs and they will get their review. See Harry and Wes swoon.

But, there prices cannot fool me. Its just an AMD/Intel chip, linux, a solid state drive and a clock. That’s all it is. No big whip, and ergo no big price.

Here they go again.....

In an attempt to woo readers to their never ending boredom of over price audio components, we see our two beloved magazines blaze the dusty desert trail of high end audio in search of the next giant killer. In an effort to keep the very subscribers they are disenfranchising, they will suddenly perseverate on mediocre components and try to make them great. Their history of doing this makes a much better read than their latest pro-bono $20000 amp that they have sitting in their listening rooms waiting for a glowing review.

The giant killer trend started back in the late ‘70s when Mr. Peter Pritchard was making the wonderful moving iron ultra high compliant ADC cartridges. Having sold the company and the patent, Mr. Pritchard started a cartridge company called “Sonus”. The cartridge they all went ga-ga over was the troubled Sonus “Blue” that was put together with peanut butter as the cartridge would literally fall apart while playing, leaving magnets and other space shuttle debris whirling around the player. While they praised these high compliant wonders, the Shure V15 Type III, beat the pants off of the Sonus, as it went much deeper and wider. That’s why my friends, the V15 type III was always in pictures with the excellent SME tonearm. The folks at SME were no dopes.

They went on to hale the $13.00 Grado FTE+1 cartridge all the way to a inexpensive CD player out of Tawain that they claim sounds so good, when in fact, an $80 Onkyo player sounds just as good. Now, in the latest issue of a magazine, they are at it again, claiming that an $89 USB DAC is the same as the $495 Bel Canto 3. ( I can’t wait for the review)

Now I know that folks who read this blog are not falling for the hype of the $89 USB DAC. If they really understood that the weak link in the whole USB computer audio chain is the computer itself, they would not be so quick to jump to this conclusion. And to be honest, I did not order or hear this $89 USB DAC. I don’t have to.

The correct way to compare and listen to computer audio via USB (except for software based USB products like the LILO, Brigatta, Ayre and the Wavelength) is to 1) reboot, 2) close applications in your start tray, 3) close all applications and 4) turn off your monitor. If they did that, then they could help remove most of the grunge that computers generate. Hence maybe they would see the differences in these two DACs are wider than they think.

But why? Saying you have an $89 USB DAC that is a giant killer sells advertising and magazines. It fools the reader into thinking you actually have some value to offer. I got it.

All That Jitters……..


Computer high end audio. Before you embark , let me inform you that it is not as easy as it seems. If you do not do it right, even on the most budgeted of systems, computer audio is not going to sound as good as a redbook CD does.

Take my foray into computer audio at your favorite high end audio say-lon. Desperate for sales, they were pushing the PS Audio digital link. They were all excited about its new price point because they finally got a product for the rest of us. Now, I am not here to bash PS audio, who unlike some “other” high manufacturers, will actually survive this down turn. I am here to give you a caveat on high end computer audio.

I listened to some Magico speakers and a VTL amp. The dealer was trying to impress me with the price point. “How does it sound?” he said. “Well, it sounds like someone is blowing their nose in the background”, I said. “Get out!”, he said.

The sound was 2 dimensional, lifeless and bland. At about 1000Hz – 20Hz, there was a dull suck out as if the system had a cold. Mysteriously, I could here some good detail, but as if I had a cold. What I heard was a thick veil, a thud, a murk, a mud. Hence, I could not help but curb my salesperson’s enthusiasm.

As I said before, this is not a bash on PS Audio, I want to make that clear. What I heard, loud and clear, was the sound of jitter. Even the PS Audio’s Herculean efforts at re-clocking, could not help the sound quality.

It no wonder. There are many kinds of jitter. In computer audio, the physical aspects of jitter, (E&M waves, power line disruptions etc.) play a big role. This guy put two Theil speakers together and had the laptop sitting on the speaker coffee table he just made. The magnets loved it. Even more troubling was a florescent light display in back of the Theils, spraying the entire assembly with magnetic waves that make grasshoppers 10 feet tall on the Sc fi Channel.

Where you place you PC in your digital audio set up is a big deal. The computer monitor, external and internal hard drives, all affect the sound. Until we sort this out, USB audio is good in a pinch, but we still have a lot to learn.

DACs that have drivers that allow asynchronous I/O, like the Musiland LILO DACs,the Ayre and the Wavac go a long way in helping. In theses DACs, the DAC controls the streaming and not the PC. Hence, that is why they replace the drivers on the PC. But, alas, the LILO only has windows drivers.

So go ahead, download, rip and tear. But I would be careful, don’t throw away those redbooks, not just yet.

Headphone Amplifiers

Ok, I admit it. I am trying to sell you a headphone amplifier so beware. But if you are going to do headphones,- do them right. The right way to do it, is, to have a separate headphone amplifier. In this way, you get the maximum fidelity from the cash you spent on the headphones. There are exceptions, where stand alone headphone amps are embedded into products. For example, the Shengya S10CSII, The Shenda Music Van and the Classic 16.0

Headphone amplifiers come in all shapes and sizes. If you want to drink from a washing machine hose of information, then go to head fi where, I am sure, they are marshalling through the rinse cycle of the headphone amplifier du jour with threads the length of Chicago Irish parades. I am here to talk about our headphone amplifiers, so the drink will be a little less pressurized.

We have tube headphone amps, solid state headphone amps, hybrid headphone amps, headphone amps that moonlight as DACs and integrated amplifiers that moonlight as headphone amplifiers. Whew!!

If you want a tube headphone amp, then you need to be prepared for a little noise. Not that these amps are noisy per se, but tubes are. I for one, do not mind the noise because I cannot hear it once the music starts. Plus, with the right tubes, it is just so darn tantalizing I just cannot put the phones down. Grados and low impedance phones work best with all tube amps: the Doge 6210, the Ming Da MC84C07, the Trancendere and the Timester. The Ming Da, for some reason, also sings with AKGs and Senns – go figure, I guess there is not a general rule.

Hybrid amps, like the Bada PH-12 and the Bada PH-31, work best with high impedance phones. Probably because there transistorized amps can handle the impedance loads, The Bada PH-12 is the de facto standard for AKGs – so this is what I use with these phones. The 6SN7 tubes paint a warm inviting sound stage while the Mosfets pass the resolution to the phones against a dead quite background.

Solid state amps are the enigma wrapped in the mystery. The Audio gd amps are class A amps, so they sound very un-transistorized and the BL Audio moving coil amp is a beast all its own. These silicon salamanders sound like the Bizarro of transistors. Warm midranges, deep bass yet articulate, but not to point of being annoying. These work well with a variety of phones – from the low to high, and unlike some other amps, you do not need a high / low switch like you do with the tube amps.

We have not heard a DAC/Headphone amp that we like – including the Benchmark or any of ours for that matter. The neutral Yulong is your best bet if you want to go this route.

If you want to start low cost, my pick is the Audio gd ST-3. You cannot go wrong with this amp if you are just getting into headphone amplifiers. You will be amazed at its resolution quality. The Ming Da MC 84C07 is a bets buy – it is great with headphones + you are getting a little amp all your own. The crème de la crème is the mainstay Bada PH-12, now in its 5th year with us, is a must for those who want the best out of their Senns or AKGs. For you tube lovers, the Doge 6210 – roll the tubes and you will be in for a treat.

Audio for the Rest-Of-Us

As they march-on with their self-destructive parade down Bankruptcy Street, you can still here the usual suicidal bromides coming out of the high end audio salon. This discourse is designed to disenfranchise all but the few, who put up with the retailers colossal snobbery just because there is no other place to buy this stuff. My personal favorite is, “Its not about the money, its about the sound”.

But, as everyone but the high end press and the retailer knows, it’s the complete opposite; It is about the money. As a matter of fact, it is all about the money. Mr. High End Retailer, show me the money. Well you did and its just too darn much. The only time that it is not about the money, in my book, is charities: where savings lives and souls can really make a difference. They also tell me to “support” my local high end retailer – implying that internet retailers should be avoided. That’s like telling Amazon to support their local bookstore. I support charities. Mr. High End Retailer, you are no charity.

It’s the “Show me the Money” pitch that will really get to them and get you the cold shoulder or a kick to the curb. Just what are we getting for all this money, I am not sure. New product introduction at the high end audio salon is at such a rapid pace, that driving it out of the lot easily reduces its net worth. Not to say, by any means that some of them are not well crafted; they are. However, if you think you are buying a work of art, then by all means, pay the gallery prices.

But I am purchasing equipment that will stir my scotch and get my brain moving with the jazz singers thoughts. I need to get the best for the money, because you see, I want to get as close to this is possible without feeling like I blew the college fund. The very idea that I may risk $20K for an amp that will only get me incrementally closer than spending $2K, just does not sit right with my common sense, so it is about the money.

An therefore its no secret, that the IPOD crowd has no interest in high end audio because at these Mt. Everest prices, they cannot get near it. So, this is what every marketing 101 student knows: IPOD is successful for one reason and that its barrier to entry is small. If you are in high end audio and want it to survive, make the entry point small.

As I stated in my previous blog, the Darth Sideous Triorca of high end manufacturers, retailers and journalist got us into this mess, and as of date, their governor Rod denial shows no real interest in getting us out. As far as supporting my local dealer goes -its hard to support something that has no interest in supporting my real needs. Enter the internet, which is really the only market place supplying product for the mid tier. Because of the thin margins, it is almost impossible for the high end retailer to get into the game. So in effect, they are squeezed out.

Audio for the rest of us is being led by Pacific Valve, GR Research, The Horne Shoppe, Van Alstine, Morrow Audio, McCallister et.al who are trying to run business for the middle tier who have common sense for price / performance. he middle: where men are men, woman are woman and cash is king. Support you internet high end retailer, they are the only ones in the game.

Piano Tuning

The other day we had our Yamaha piano tuned. As I walked around the house, I could not help but noticed the different sounds emanating from my piano as the piano teacher turned piano chiropractor, styled the tightly wound rope to get the sound he wanted. As he prodded and twisted, sounds echoed my halls. Some sounds were well placed. Others were cacophonies of out of tune notes and harmonics which pierced ears and freely gave headaches.

You can have some the same experience with high end audio. For example, you can assemble a series of components that really don’t mesh at all. The result: blurred over tones, sharp piercing midranges, raspy highs. Assemble the right components: silky smooth midrange , texture, deep bass, no beaming – smooth sailing.

So, how to avoid? What causes this is listening in a dealer show room, impulsive ebay shopping and late night audiogon-ning. While it may have sounded all so well in the store, the interaction of rooms and equipment have created quite the mess.

Luckily, audiophiles have some weapons that can aim at the right tone with Apollo 13 "bring it on home" precision. You need a 30 day audition. Not just to see if the item you bought was of high quality, but to hear first hand, if your new piece “tunes” with your current system. If it does not, return it for another item that the retailer agrees will gel more with what you have. This, if anything, is the argument for not jumping into “used” equipment so fast. Return, you see, if it does not gel.

Yet another not so subtle one is tube rolling. Tubes can make such a difference that incorrect tubes can cause the piano tuning torture described above. For this reason, I keep several tube types on hand, swapping them to and fro, looking for the correct harmonic structure that I want.

The lesson is simple. You can hear this right off the bat. The best audition, is the home audition.

The Horne Shoppe System

Some time ago, a magazine or a an audio retailer (can’t remember which one) gave me some advice, “You need a balanced system, spend 10% on a preamp, 30% on an amp, 20% on a turntable and the rest, 40%, save that for a speakers – or something like that. Like a bad guilt trip, it has stuck with me. But, now me thinks, these people might have been a highly misinformed.

Take the dilemma that I am smack dab in the middle right now. A speaker that I have wrote about before, the Horn Shoppe Horns has baffled (no pun intended) me. So much do I love this speaker for my den that I can’t help but write about and listen to it.
As I read about this speaker, I could not help but notice that it kept weak company. Even from Mr, Schilling himself suggested to us that a common amp to use with horns is the “GLO” amp, a modified Timester amp. While this is a good amp for the money, me thinks that most folks probably have wrong components with the horns. This type of pairing cannot do them justice.
Ok, here is what I have: I used the Classic 16.2 300B amp (Shuguang Mesh plagte 300Bs, RCA Clear top and Raytheon 6SN7s), with a Doge 6 CD player (Telefunken 12AX7s, RCA 12AT7s), Xindak FS-1 speaker cables and the Bada HL-3 interconnects. Total system, without horns, about $4K. I know you might think that I am nuts, but nuts is as nuts does and I am clearly not following the 60/40 rule described above.

This nut has imaging and tonal quality in the highs and mids like you cannot believe. The horns have the incredible ability to take music apart bit by bit and re-assemble it on a grand stage never heard before by yours truly. Its not all pizza and ice cream as the Horns have cone break up at very loud levels and there is considerable coloration in the mid bass. The way I have them placed in my small den, washes out bass response as I do not have the lower registers. You can tell though, that the Horns are doing something so incredibly right. Example: a piano note does not drag from one note to the next and thereby smear the piano concerto. The timbre is ever so right.

On the flip side, the Ming Da MC 34A06 , for $699, is a tube amp that shows incredible Marantz like liquid midrange and a non-bass bloom that amps costing 3X its price. I run this amp into Quad ESL57s, and paired with the right tubes, they are capable of some extreme sound quality. I listen to the Doge 6 , the Shenda Music Van or a Vanguard / Brigatta combination. This little amp is capable of so much, it is so easy to set up and use and images like a son of a gun, you would swear the amp costs 3 times as much.

So how do you size up what to spend on what and how much? One use to be able to follow the 60/40 rule, but not anymore. What rules now, what will rule in the future an what will always rule is price performance