Audio gd of Days Gone By
In case you have not noticed, Audio gd turns products over quite a bit. This is in sharp contrast to rest of Chi-fi, that keeps production around for quite some time. Viz., the Ming Da 7R has been around since the mid 90s, the Bada DC-222 is a hot seller for us and it is in its 4th year (although minor cosmetic and circuit changes occurred along the way). I could go on and on. Audio gd, on the other hand, shuffles the deck quite a bit. If you are an Audio gd owner, you might be tempted to trade yours in (although most of you have not done that yet ‘cause I can rarely find them on the used market), but before you do, please read my Audio gd of Days Gone By.
The ST-3 Headphone Amp
What a wonderful amp this was. For under $300, you got a quite a headphone amp. It was dead quite and ultra dynamic. It gave your headphones a sense of immediacy and presence that only the best headphone amps have. It was cobbled inside a Lite DAC AH box, and what a fine little gem this was.
The DAC 19SE / DAC 19DF
The original DAC 19, and still the best DAC 19 I have ever heard. It was the first DAC to combine the gut thumping realism of drum spank that only the best NOS DACs do, but with the detail and sense of inner space that a only the finest over sampling DACs bring to the table. The DAC 19SE came in a box the size of a Lite DAC 60. I still have my original DAC 19SE, and I still love it. I know, I know, you may disagree with me. The DAC 19DSP is a little to top heavy for me in the upper midrange. The DAC 19DF was the closest thing to it and wanted to be the 19SE when it “grew up”. In mind opinion, the new NFB-2 beats them all (sans my beloved 19SE).
The REF 1 DAC
There was never so neutral Audio gd DAC (in terms of tonal quality from top to bottom) and probably Audio gd’s best resolving DAC. Although it is still slightly warm, the REF 1 was the first DAC (albeit, listening through CyberServer) that let me hear the bowels of a wood piano after the key was struck. Truly a high end reference DAC. REF 1, you will be surely missed.
The Audio gd Compass
Probably was the one of the great buys in audio today. The Compass stole some of the ST-3’s “magic” and combined it with a DAC and line output pre that still today, mops the floor with anything close to its price point of $369.00. Probably one of the longest break in times of any of the headphone amps, the Compass really showed you what it was made of when you fed it great ripped music after about 400 hours of play. The fact that you could achieve this level in headphone amp-diom plus a great DAC and line pre, will make this short-lived treasure a keeper for a long time.
The P2 Preamp
You had to play with it. It was fussy about cables, it was fussy about power cords and conditioners. It took forever to break in. I am not a fan of solid state preamps. But, once you got it right, for the money, it was untouchable (as most Audio gd products are) for a solid state preamp. It gave John Curl overtones in Levinson – like construction. It threw instruments in the sound stage correctly and never smeared. It was no tube pre, but gosh, it knew how play music.
All the best,
Vic
Monday, November 01, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Welcome Aboard
In case you have not heard, "Sound, by Singer" lost its lease and is selling (or, by the time you read this) has sold, all of its inventory. I am not sure how you "lose your lease". I have never lost one. I can understand not being able to pay your lease, trying to negotiate a new rate and then bowing out of it. But I am not sure how your current lease, if paid, can be lost. I am not, by any means, implying that this is what happened to "Sound by Singer", I am just saying.
How can you be surprised? The market where high end retailers play is really a "House of Cards". I want to bet that Singer was a pretty good business man, but he should have known that it is the same people buying the same goods over and over again, and net new customers must have been very small. In the Obmama stimulus-sized high end audio market (some $1 billion now), we know that high end audio occupies the smallest of bread crumbs.
I have said it over and over again, but it bears repeating: I have never seen an industry go out of its way to shrink its market as well as high end audio has. High end audio insults consumers and then prices them our of the market with politician-speak unscientific preponderances.
I hear that Mr. Singer may go web based and offer high end over the internet. I find this very interesting as web based retail, marketing and distribution is a completely different paradigm than what high end audio retailers are used to.
Welcome aboard, Mr. High End Retailer.
All the best,
Vic
In case you have not heard, "Sound, by Singer" lost its lease and is selling (or, by the time you read this) has sold, all of its inventory. I am not sure how you "lose your lease". I have never lost one. I can understand not being able to pay your lease, trying to negotiate a new rate and then bowing out of it. But I am not sure how your current lease, if paid, can be lost. I am not, by any means, implying that this is what happened to "Sound by Singer", I am just saying.
How can you be surprised? The market where high end retailers play is really a "House of Cards". I want to bet that Singer was a pretty good business man, but he should have known that it is the same people buying the same goods over and over again, and net new customers must have been very small. In the Obmama stimulus-sized high end audio market (some $1 billion now), we know that high end audio occupies the smallest of bread crumbs.
I have said it over and over again, but it bears repeating: I have never seen an industry go out of its way to shrink its market as well as high end audio has. High end audio insults consumers and then prices them our of the market with politician-speak unscientific preponderances.
I hear that Mr. Singer may go web based and offer high end over the internet. I find this very interesting as web based retail, marketing and distribution is a completely different paradigm than what high end audio retailers are used to.
Welcome aboard, Mr. High End Retailer.
All the best,
Vic
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Playing, with records.
The antique phonograph show is held every year in Union, Illinois next to the Wild West Town. You can buy original Edison cylindrical phonographs, Gramophones( those things with the large horns sticking out of them), and of course Victrolas.
We have our Victrola at the entrance to our living room. Operating the Victrola is a step back in time. Place a record on, crank up the turntable, and place the Sammy Sosa forearm on the record and off you go. You adjusts the volume by operating the two hinged draws in front; open the doors for full volume, close the door for decreased volume. Maintenance is a must, as the needle ( or nail, literally a nail, that is) must be changed ever 2 or 3 78 record sides. This is because the shellac on the record is harder than the needle and wears it down. There are receptacles for old needles and new needles, carved into the top panel of the Victrola.
When I have non-audiophile company over, I try to Linn them. Yes, I have. I have tried to Linn them, Unitrac them, Denon them even Sonus Blue them. I VPI them, Triplanar them, Decca them, Dynavector them. I leave them unimpressed.
But show them the Victrola, and they begin sipping wine and toasting Champagne to a 78 record that sounds like someone blowing their nose in the background while large gall stones of hail is hitting the window. They listen to Nat's original Mona Lisa, Solo Mio and Al Jolson. They listen to "I'll be home for Christmas" as snow gathers on my pine outside my living room window. As they whisper conciliatory comments at my Linn turntable, in a louder voice, they swoon over the Victrola. When you listen to the Victrola, so they say, you are hearing music as they did in 1913. When you take that same 78 and play it back on my system, you are hearing it through 2010 refinement. My system is so offended by the tonal quality of the 78, that it tries to correct and subsequently "ruins" it, or so they say.
In 1913 a Victrola cost as much as a car. When someone had one, they were revered. You went over the Uncule Bill's or grandmas house and actually played records. It was a social event in the parlor where you listened to records and entertained company and discussed the artist - even recollecting when you saw them live. In 2010, I watch people listen to music. They download it from a web site, sometimes legally, sometimes questionably, and listen, solo, blank starred with a cheap pair of headphones, discussing nothing.
Vic
The antique phonograph show is held every year in Union, Illinois next to the Wild West Town. You can buy original Edison cylindrical phonographs, Gramophones( those things with the large horns sticking out of them), and of course Victrolas.
We have our Victrola at the entrance to our living room. Operating the Victrola is a step back in time. Place a record on, crank up the turntable, and place the Sammy Sosa forearm on the record and off you go. You adjusts the volume by operating the two hinged draws in front; open the doors for full volume, close the door for decreased volume. Maintenance is a must, as the needle ( or nail, literally a nail, that is) must be changed ever 2 or 3 78 record sides. This is because the shellac on the record is harder than the needle and wears it down. There are receptacles for old needles and new needles, carved into the top panel of the Victrola.
When I have non-audiophile company over, I try to Linn them. Yes, I have. I have tried to Linn them, Unitrac them, Denon them even Sonus Blue them. I VPI them, Triplanar them, Decca them, Dynavector them. I leave them unimpressed.
But show them the Victrola, and they begin sipping wine and toasting Champagne to a 78 record that sounds like someone blowing their nose in the background while large gall stones of hail is hitting the window. They listen to Nat's original Mona Lisa, Solo Mio and Al Jolson. They listen to "I'll be home for Christmas" as snow gathers on my pine outside my living room window. As they whisper conciliatory comments at my Linn turntable, in a louder voice, they swoon over the Victrola. When you listen to the Victrola, so they say, you are hearing music as they did in 1913. When you take that same 78 and play it back on my system, you are hearing it through 2010 refinement. My system is so offended by the tonal quality of the 78, that it tries to correct and subsequently "ruins" it, or so they say.
In 1913 a Victrola cost as much as a car. When someone had one, they were revered. You went over the Uncule Bill's or grandmas house and actually played records. It was a social event in the parlor where you listened to records and entertained company and discussed the artist - even recollecting when you saw them live. In 2010, I watch people listen to music. They download it from a web site, sometimes legally, sometimes questionably, and listen, solo, blank starred with a cheap pair of headphones, discussing nothing.
Vic
Friday, June 18, 2010
Buying the best cable.
The manager of the largest mutual fund of the 1980's, Peter Lynch, once remarked that you can tell a company's return to its shareholders by the lobby of the company's headquarters. If the lobby was opulent, he found the return to the shareholders to be less than, say, a lobby with more modest means. So if your stocks have lobbies like Oprah's carriage house, you might want to sell at market.
I think the same holds true for audio cables. Instead of HQ lobby decorating, look at advertising budgets. For the last couple of months now, the back covers of both Stereophile and Absolute Sound featured advertisements from audio cable manufacturers. Not that there is anything wrong with this except for the fact that to advertise in one of these pubs, especially on the back cover, takes mucho bucks. I can see taking the back cover for two or three months, but the last six? Where are they getting all this dough?
While we all know we are over paying for these things, rest assured that no one is playing the high end audio con game better than these cable manufacturers who apparently have a lot of folks fooled into thinking they are actually worth the money. These Bernie Madoff students hit their margin number out of the oark on two counts: the previously mentioned price gouging and the low COGS (Cost of Goods Sold).
COGS cannot be contributing much to their overhead. What would raise their COGS and crush their already exuberant profit margin? Lets see, is it the end plugs? If they claim to make the technical advances on bananas and RCA plugs then how come they do not look any different? They maybe made of some special material in some special way, but how much does that cost? It can't be technology, Volta, Ben Franklin and Ampere all proved many years ago, before 2A3 tubes were invented, that conductance makes it work. I can make the case that conductors sound different (for example, silver sounding better than copper etc) but I cannot make the case for different kinds of copper or pure copper sounding different. Sorry, they are commodities.
Gold, Silver, Copper all trade on the COMEX exchange as commodities. Commodities have fixed prices, and metals are measured by the ounce. I really wanted to know the real price of a cable so I did some price checking. The spot prices on gold, silver, copper per ounce are:
Gold - $1249 / Oz, a solid gold cable, about 16 oz, $19,984
Silver - $19 / oz, a solid silver cable, 16 oz, $304.00
Copper - $ 2.85 / oz, a solid copper cable, 16 oz, $45.60
I figure that 16 oz will get me .5M.
Ah, I think I will go with a solid silver cable. Add about $10.00 for some nice connectors, some rubber tubing etc. - another $5.00 There is a cost of labor + shipping,another $20.00. So my COGS is $339.00.
What about my profit? Well that's easy, if I want to advertise back cover on my favorite magazine, my cost to you is $3700.00. But, you should hear them! They sound better than any cable you ever heard! They are made a special way, with pure lead-free silver ! (get it?)
Please email me if you want to buy my cables, I am working on my back cover ad copy now.
All the best,
Vic
The manager of the largest mutual fund of the 1980's, Peter Lynch, once remarked that you can tell a company's return to its shareholders by the lobby of the company's headquarters. If the lobby was opulent, he found the return to the shareholders to be less than, say, a lobby with more modest means. So if your stocks have lobbies like Oprah's carriage house, you might want to sell at market.
I think the same holds true for audio cables. Instead of HQ lobby decorating, look at advertising budgets. For the last couple of months now, the back covers of both Stereophile and Absolute Sound featured advertisements from audio cable manufacturers. Not that there is anything wrong with this except for the fact that to advertise in one of these pubs, especially on the back cover, takes mucho bucks. I can see taking the back cover for two or three months, but the last six? Where are they getting all this dough?
While we all know we are over paying for these things, rest assured that no one is playing the high end audio con game better than these cable manufacturers who apparently have a lot of folks fooled into thinking they are actually worth the money. These Bernie Madoff students hit their margin number out of the oark on two counts: the previously mentioned price gouging and the low COGS (Cost of Goods Sold).
COGS cannot be contributing much to their overhead. What would raise their COGS and crush their already exuberant profit margin? Lets see, is it the end plugs? If they claim to make the technical advances on bananas and RCA plugs then how come they do not look any different? They maybe made of some special material in some special way, but how much does that cost? It can't be technology, Volta, Ben Franklin and Ampere all proved many years ago, before 2A3 tubes were invented, that conductance makes it work. I can make the case that conductors sound different (for example, silver sounding better than copper etc) but I cannot make the case for different kinds of copper or pure copper sounding different. Sorry, they are commodities.
Gold, Silver, Copper all trade on the COMEX exchange as commodities. Commodities have fixed prices, and metals are measured by the ounce. I really wanted to know the real price of a cable so I did some price checking. The spot prices on gold, silver, copper per ounce are:
Gold - $1249 / Oz, a solid gold cable, about 16 oz, $19,984
Silver - $19 / oz, a solid silver cable, 16 oz, $304.00
Copper - $ 2.85 / oz, a solid copper cable, 16 oz, $45.60
I figure that 16 oz will get me .5M.
Ah, I think I will go with a solid silver cable. Add about $10.00 for some nice connectors, some rubber tubing etc. - another $5.00 There is a cost of labor + shipping,another $20.00. So my COGS is $339.00.
What about my profit? Well that's easy, if I want to advertise back cover on my favorite magazine, my cost to you is $3700.00. But, you should hear them! They sound better than any cable you ever heard! They are made a special way, with pure lead-free silver ! (get it?)
Please email me if you want to buy my cables, I am working on my back cover ad copy now.
All the best,
Vic
Thursday, May 13, 2010
That 48K Sound!
In the latest issue of the Absolute Sound, I stumbled upon a press release of the new Audio Research DAC, and gee wiz, it has a USB DAC that takes samples up to 48K. Well, gosh oh golly.
If the price of imported equipment is not getting to USA manufacturers, the sheer lack of technology will. It seems that most of them (sans but a few) really understand computer audio or are at least making an attempt. So, my advice is, if you are going to come out with a new USB DAC and use 10 year old technology, then do yourself a favor and omit the USB capability all together and stick to making ridiculously priced preamps, amps and an occasional decent cross over. And don't do that wireless server thing... please, our ears!
There are so many issues with using audiophile grade USB technology that it eludes most high end manufacturers. This will ultimately not be so good for the CES crowd as young upstart companies, who advertise on head fi through tenacious postings, show that the poor USB capability can be solved with software and an inexpensive cable. So, if you are looking for USB capability from the mainstream affluent, my words of advice:
Caveat Emptor.
First, let me say this: as good as you think it sounds, playing music through a USB port is not going to be as good as a decent CD player or transport. And, I don't care if its 96K or 192K on that there computer hard drive - the problems with USB double and triple as the native clock speed increases. There are so many problems with using a computational device (PC) as a music streamer that I cannot list them here. We do a reasonable job explaining this in our videos: the block read/write nature of PCs as opposed to streaming, EMI interference from monitor screens, fans, graphics cards, the USB drivers, slow disk drives... the list goes on.
But, hey I am here to help high end manufactures get their skin from unknowing suckers wishing to over pay for decent sounding technology, so listen up:
First, don't believe those USB converters that claim they can extract 192K from USB without replacing the PC drivers. Now, you can certainly correct the clock and send it up to 192K, but what good is it if you destroyed the resolution of the music to begin with? The only right way to do this is to replace the USB drivers with software that hand shakes with your DAC hardware. In this way, you will be using less of the "re-clocking" trick (and that is what it is, its a trick) and more of the pure music. The next thing to do is use a short USB cable, the shortest that you can possibly run between the USB port and the DAC. (You can still charge your astronomical tuft-hunting prices for this cable, lets say $899? even though you can buy it from Radio Shack, for $1.49. Shhhh! I won't tell anyone)
So there you go, its that easy. Your only problem is your competition. Its out on the web. The Musiland Monitor 02 allows audiophile sound quality through a USB with native 192K clock speeds. And now the bad news: it does all this for $189.00.
Good luck with your 48K sound.
All the best,
Vic
In the latest issue of the Absolute Sound, I stumbled upon a press release of the new Audio Research DAC, and gee wiz, it has a USB DAC that takes samples up to 48K. Well, gosh oh golly.
If the price of imported equipment is not getting to USA manufacturers, the sheer lack of technology will. It seems that most of them (sans but a few) really understand computer audio or are at least making an attempt. So, my advice is, if you are going to come out with a new USB DAC and use 10 year old technology, then do yourself a favor and omit the USB capability all together and stick to making ridiculously priced preamps, amps and an occasional decent cross over. And don't do that wireless server thing... please, our ears!
There are so many issues with using audiophile grade USB technology that it eludes most high end manufacturers. This will ultimately not be so good for the CES crowd as young upstart companies, who advertise on head fi through tenacious postings, show that the poor USB capability can be solved with software and an inexpensive cable. So, if you are looking for USB capability from the mainstream affluent, my words of advice:
Caveat Emptor.
First, let me say this: as good as you think it sounds, playing music through a USB port is not going to be as good as a decent CD player or transport. And, I don't care if its 96K or 192K on that there computer hard drive - the problems with USB double and triple as the native clock speed increases. There are so many problems with using a computational device (PC) as a music streamer that I cannot list them here. We do a reasonable job explaining this in our videos: the block read/write nature of PCs as opposed to streaming, EMI interference from monitor screens, fans, graphics cards, the USB drivers, slow disk drives... the list goes on.
But, hey I am here to help high end manufactures get their skin from unknowing suckers wishing to over pay for decent sounding technology, so listen up:
First, don't believe those USB converters that claim they can extract 192K from USB without replacing the PC drivers. Now, you can certainly correct the clock and send it up to 192K, but what good is it if you destroyed the resolution of the music to begin with? The only right way to do this is to replace the USB drivers with software that hand shakes with your DAC hardware. In this way, you will be using less of the "re-clocking" trick (and that is what it is, its a trick) and more of the pure music. The next thing to do is use a short USB cable, the shortest that you can possibly run between the USB port and the DAC. (You can still charge your astronomical tuft-hunting prices for this cable, lets say $899? even though you can buy it from Radio Shack, for $1.49. Shhhh! I won't tell anyone)
So there you go, its that easy. Your only problem is your competition. Its out on the web. The Musiland Monitor 02 allows audiophile sound quality through a USB with native 192K clock speeds. And now the bad news: it does all this for $189.00.
Good luck with your 48K sound.
All the best,
Vic
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The Greatest Dangerous Import
The current trade imbalance is giving heartburn to manufacturers and unions alike, who are having just an industrial age Dickens’ of a time digesting the new reality. The current rate of the imbalance is expected to increase proportionally in the next few years. Last November, for example, the gap increased to almost 9.4%. Most high end companies, B&W, Krell, Vincent (Sheng Ya), Musical Fidelity et.al, have their equipment (or in the case of Krell, some of the equipment) made in the same place that puts duck sauce on pancakes.
The biggest import threat to those who want to manufacture and sell audio in the USA, is not the trade imbalance with China, but the import of Chicago politics to Washington D.C. And that my friends, more than anything, is a real threat to any small business trying to make a buck in a lethal economy.
The bullying, conniving and shoving executed with the breath-taking precision of a Hawks game was on display during the passage of what I think seems to be some sort of health care bill. Make no Jimmy Hoffa bones about it my friends, this is just the start of the Chicago dance. As the Jimmy Carter redux era unwinds the boom of the 1980s, our “Check Please” President is more apt at commenting on the foie gras then he is at nuclear disarmament (“Check Please” is a PBS show in Chicago that has people go out and eat at a restaurant and report back. There, the fresh Senator Obama appeared and gave a review of his favorite eating establishment). Since he has managed so little (except some community organizing- Psssst, very few communities in Chicago actually did get organized), he is going to have a hard time navigating us out of this mess. What we all hope does not happen is that he may use some of his Lake Michigan toxins to do more damage to what is a very fragile climate for any small business. We now know that this ‘Change” he was talking about was really the change of thin crust to thick crust pizza.
US bound audio manufacturers are going to have it tough in hiring expenses, taxes - perhaps even a VAT to avoid a “Greece” like trauma. Someone has to pay for these things and it’s the same people that buy high end audio. Consumers are going to face higher taxes and will have less discretionary income to part with their current rigs and step up to high end audio. Just wait and see after the election.
High end audio need not worry though, “change” is on its way: Pepperoni or just plain cheese?
All the best,
Vic
The current trade imbalance is giving heartburn to manufacturers and unions alike, who are having just an industrial age Dickens’ of a time digesting the new reality. The current rate of the imbalance is expected to increase proportionally in the next few years. Last November, for example, the gap increased to almost 9.4%. Most high end companies, B&W, Krell, Vincent (Sheng Ya), Musical Fidelity et.al, have their equipment (or in the case of Krell, some of the equipment) made in the same place that puts duck sauce on pancakes.
The biggest import threat to those who want to manufacture and sell audio in the USA, is not the trade imbalance with China, but the import of Chicago politics to Washington D.C. And that my friends, more than anything, is a real threat to any small business trying to make a buck in a lethal economy.
The bullying, conniving and shoving executed with the breath-taking precision of a Hawks game was on display during the passage of what I think seems to be some sort of health care bill. Make no Jimmy Hoffa bones about it my friends, this is just the start of the Chicago dance. As the Jimmy Carter redux era unwinds the boom of the 1980s, our “Check Please” President is more apt at commenting on the foie gras then he is at nuclear disarmament (“Check Please” is a PBS show in Chicago that has people go out and eat at a restaurant and report back. There, the fresh Senator Obama appeared and gave a review of his favorite eating establishment). Since he has managed so little (except some community organizing- Psssst, very few communities in Chicago actually did get organized), he is going to have a hard time navigating us out of this mess. What we all hope does not happen is that he may use some of his Lake Michigan toxins to do more damage to what is a very fragile climate for any small business. We now know that this ‘Change” he was talking about was really the change of thin crust to thick crust pizza.
US bound audio manufacturers are going to have it tough in hiring expenses, taxes - perhaps even a VAT to avoid a “Greece” like trauma. Someone has to pay for these things and it’s the same people that buy high end audio. Consumers are going to face higher taxes and will have less discretionary income to part with their current rigs and step up to high end audio. Just wait and see after the election.
High end audio need not worry though, “change” is on its way: Pepperoni or just plain cheese?
All the best,
Vic
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Blue Tooth Audio
If you listen closely, well, if you ever listen at all, you will notice the nasal congestion from the Bluetooth headset on the other end of the line. In my personal calls, this congestion is so bad, that I ask the other party to switch back to the regular phone. I shrug my shoulders and chalk up my experience to a cheap blue tooth headset.
Or is it something else?
When I ask about the price paid for one of these fine units, I usually get a $150 - $200 range. These headsets seem not so cheap. I think I know who the culprit is and it’s a good one. No one talks about the culprit because no one understands it. The culprit is wireless jitter.
In the telephony world outside of audio, wireless jitter is common place and all phone companies struggle to improve signal quality by lowering wireless jitter. Last year, collectively, phone utilities spent millions of dollars on their network edges to help with wireless jitter. In the early VOIP installations, you could really hear wireless jitter at its best. For example, it was hard to tell who was at the other end and it was difficult to finish a phone call without line drops.
No I am sure, as this blog reader, that you are not spending millions of dollars on your wireless network edge. But, you may be using a wireless music server, and your wireless server is just full of jitter. A simple blind comparison between a decent CD player and your server will reveal this difference.
A wireless server is great for parties, background music or any other non serious application. But to build a serious music system around a music server, I would think again. You can help the sound with some decent DACs, but I would not spend too much money. The Fathom is an all around champ on this as is the Musilands. Spending more beyond that, is a waste of money.
All the best,
Vic
If you listen closely, well, if you ever listen at all, you will notice the nasal congestion from the Bluetooth headset on the other end of the line. In my personal calls, this congestion is so bad, that I ask the other party to switch back to the regular phone. I shrug my shoulders and chalk up my experience to a cheap blue tooth headset.
Or is it something else?
When I ask about the price paid for one of these fine units, I usually get a $150 - $200 range. These headsets seem not so cheap. I think I know who the culprit is and it’s a good one. No one talks about the culprit because no one understands it. The culprit is wireless jitter.
In the telephony world outside of audio, wireless jitter is common place and all phone companies struggle to improve signal quality by lowering wireless jitter. Last year, collectively, phone utilities spent millions of dollars on their network edges to help with wireless jitter. In the early VOIP installations, you could really hear wireless jitter at its best. For example, it was hard to tell who was at the other end and it was difficult to finish a phone call without line drops.
No I am sure, as this blog reader, that you are not spending millions of dollars on your wireless network edge. But, you may be using a wireless music server, and your wireless server is just full of jitter. A simple blind comparison between a decent CD player and your server will reveal this difference.
A wireless server is great for parties, background music or any other non serious application. But to build a serious music system around a music server, I would think again. You can help the sound with some decent DACs, but I would not spend too much money. The Fathom is an all around champ on this as is the Musilands. Spending more beyond that, is a waste of money.
All the best,
Vic
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Updated Picks.
Hello all!
I have some new picks here for my favorites and deleted those items that I no longer carry. I will update the PV site shortly. Anyway, In addition to the alreaedy famous picks here are four new favorites:
The Teradak Chameleon
As Teradak gets closer and closer to a reference NOS DAC, we have with the Chameleon, a very reasonable stop along the way. In our pursuit of great DACs, we are looking for the dynamics, bling bling and articulation of vinyl, without a smushy soundstage. The Chameleon comes close to this as it has some of the resolution capabilities of the Musiland Modified, although it falls short on complex passages and what we use for the digital audio test tone, the piano. But, what a fun listenable DAC we have here – and most of your average catalog Class “B” or whatever DACs cannot touch it.
The Audio gd Reference One
While it is not as musical as the Brigatta, where you can hear throat smoke on the singer, the Reference One is my DAC champ. Why? Because it does everything right, so much so, that on the piano test, not only can you hear the correct initial tone and after tone, you can also precisely hear the after tones of the chords echoing around the wood in the piano. I have only heard this, BTW, with EAC ripped FLAC files through a CyberServer.
The YS Audio Symphonies R
There are resolving preamps, musical preamps, musical preamps that resolve and resolving preamps that are musical – phew!. The YS Audio Symphonies R is a musical preamp that resolves. With the tube upgrade, it is just so much fun because it gets musical timbres right. For the price point, purchasers of this preamp are going to get a price / performance that is out of this world. I just love listening to this thing and right now it leads the pack in preamps less than 1K.
The QLS CyberMini
Ok, putting WAV files on an SD card is a pain in the butt, but, for a couple hundred bucks, you will have a transport that can create such a jitter free sound, that it easily compares to transports costing 3K. When you purchase the CyberMini, you see what we are talking about that digital music should be played through a quiet, spin-less, motionless device that is hard wired and NOT wireless into a DAC. WAV files on the CyberMini excel at our piano test and the lower bass registers are properly produced. You will see what we mean.
Hello all!
I have some new picks here for my favorites and deleted those items that I no longer carry. I will update the PV site shortly. Anyway, In addition to the alreaedy famous picks here are four new favorites:
The Teradak Chameleon
As Teradak gets closer and closer to a reference NOS DAC, we have with the Chameleon, a very reasonable stop along the way. In our pursuit of great DACs, we are looking for the dynamics, bling bling and articulation of vinyl, without a smushy soundstage. The Chameleon comes close to this as it has some of the resolution capabilities of the Musiland Modified, although it falls short on complex passages and what we use for the digital audio test tone, the piano. But, what a fun listenable DAC we have here – and most of your average catalog Class “B” or whatever DACs cannot touch it.
The Audio gd Reference One
While it is not as musical as the Brigatta, where you can hear throat smoke on the singer, the Reference One is my DAC champ. Why? Because it does everything right, so much so, that on the piano test, not only can you hear the correct initial tone and after tone, you can also precisely hear the after tones of the chords echoing around the wood in the piano. I have only heard this, BTW, with EAC ripped FLAC files through a CyberServer.
The YS Audio Symphonies R
There are resolving preamps, musical preamps, musical preamps that resolve and resolving preamps that are musical – phew!. The YS Audio Symphonies R is a musical preamp that resolves. With the tube upgrade, it is just so much fun because it gets musical timbres right. For the price point, purchasers of this preamp are going to get a price / performance that is out of this world. I just love listening to this thing and right now it leads the pack in preamps less than 1K.
The QLS CyberMini
Ok, putting WAV files on an SD card is a pain in the butt, but, for a couple hundred bucks, you will have a transport that can create such a jitter free sound, that it easily compares to transports costing 3K. When you purchase the CyberMini, you see what we are talking about that digital music should be played through a quiet, spin-less, motionless device that is hard wired and NOT wireless into a DAC. WAV files on the CyberMini excel at our piano test and the lower bass registers are properly produced. You will see what we mean.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
I Guess I Missed It
Looking as silly as ever, our high end audio’s leading publication rags are rushing to review the exact same products like Time Magazine and Newsweek rushed to get Bruce Springsteen on the cover.
I just cannot figure out why they tip their hand so readily? It has become increasingly obvious that if you advertise and spend the cash, you can get Washington style lobbying sweets such as your product on the cover, favorable reviews, and kudos from multiple reviewers. Since I still manage to remain a capitalist in this Jimmy Carter redo era, I am all for these publications making money. But they have to know, as we know, that sooner or later, placing your ethics in jeopardy, places your business in jeopardy.
High end audio magazines, since I know you read this, I am here to help. All you have to do is listening. Well, not to me, to this thing called the internet. Outside of your realm of in-the-pocket distributors, high end rip offs and product companies that you have been supporting and eating candy with since the ‘70s , lies a cadre of great audio products just waiting for a great reviewer to discover them. You see guys, this is where the rest of us are hanging out and this is what we read. As you become increasingly irrelevant, I suggest that you could circumvent your certain fate by opening up your web browser.
The Internet board, Audio Asylum maybe a good place to start. They have product names that you are familiar with so you won’t get too alienated. Walk over to the ‘Tubes Asylum’ and check out what they are saying about the latest Shuguang tubes. While they will probably never advertise in your magazine, you may at least want to mention them while you are listening to your new tube amp that you are about to write favorable review for.
After Audio Asylum, venture a little deeper to Audio Circle where you may find equipment that you never ever heard of, but dollar for dollar are probably the best values in audio. There is even a section for manufacturers where you may want to give them a mention or two. Now I know you don’t want to hurt your advertising dollars, so be sure not to mention how good they really are, as you will certainly scare your high mark up constituents.
If you are feeling really daring, go over to head fi, where I prefer to hang out. Head fi is so much more than headphone listening and has really grown. There are people there that are truly brilliant audiophiles that I can’t even hold an EL84 candle to. Hey, they even sometimes don’t agree with the products we carry or our viewpoints, but heck, they are as honest as tubes are hot. At head fi you will take a dare as they sometimes don’t even care how the product looks, and are truly helping to grow some great audio companies. Take a look at some of the great stuff that Audio gd is doing, audition the Beresford DAC, find out why they like NOS DACs so much, watch them get carried away on a product and take it to the Nth degree of audio nirvana. Come back a few days later and witness their O’Hare like flights as they just took off on another product where the board looks completely different that it did a few days ago.
You see, Mr. Audio Reviewer, this is where audio is really taking place, and you need to get a hold of this really quickly lest you become the Boston Globe of paper once been. So please, let me vent:
You never mention the joys of ripping a CD using EAC and playing it back using Media Monkey. You give no ink time to discussing over sampling, non-oversampling or upsampling. You never bat an eyebrow at the difference between a 2A3, 300B or 845 - these are not Pontiacs Mr. Audio Reviewer, they are tubes, FYI. You never toast the fading of SACD, and the birth of high rez formats like 96K or 192, or for that matter, how they will really catch on to replace SACD because we already have DACs that have this capability. Heck, you never tell anybody what these sampling rates really do.
Our audio rags claim they are advancing the hobby and helping to support the audio business in general. They claim that they have products that sound the best. I guessed I missed it.
Looking as silly as ever, our high end audio’s leading publication rags are rushing to review the exact same products like Time Magazine and Newsweek rushed to get Bruce Springsteen on the cover.
I just cannot figure out why they tip their hand so readily? It has become increasingly obvious that if you advertise and spend the cash, you can get Washington style lobbying sweets such as your product on the cover, favorable reviews, and kudos from multiple reviewers. Since I still manage to remain a capitalist in this Jimmy Carter redo era, I am all for these publications making money. But they have to know, as we know, that sooner or later, placing your ethics in jeopardy, places your business in jeopardy.
High end audio magazines, since I know you read this, I am here to help. All you have to do is listening. Well, not to me, to this thing called the internet. Outside of your realm of in-the-pocket distributors, high end rip offs and product companies that you have been supporting and eating candy with since the ‘70s , lies a cadre of great audio products just waiting for a great reviewer to discover them. You see guys, this is where the rest of us are hanging out and this is what we read. As you become increasingly irrelevant, I suggest that you could circumvent your certain fate by opening up your web browser.
The Internet board, Audio Asylum maybe a good place to start. They have product names that you are familiar with so you won’t get too alienated. Walk over to the ‘Tubes Asylum’ and check out what they are saying about the latest Shuguang tubes. While they will probably never advertise in your magazine, you may at least want to mention them while you are listening to your new tube amp that you are about to write favorable review for.
After Audio Asylum, venture a little deeper to Audio Circle where you may find equipment that you never ever heard of, but dollar for dollar are probably the best values in audio. There is even a section for manufacturers where you may want to give them a mention or two. Now I know you don’t want to hurt your advertising dollars, so be sure not to mention how good they really are, as you will certainly scare your high mark up constituents.
If you are feeling really daring, go over to head fi, where I prefer to hang out. Head fi is so much more than headphone listening and has really grown. There are people there that are truly brilliant audiophiles that I can’t even hold an EL84 candle to. Hey, they even sometimes don’t agree with the products we carry or our viewpoints, but heck, they are as honest as tubes are hot. At head fi you will take a dare as they sometimes don’t even care how the product looks, and are truly helping to grow some great audio companies. Take a look at some of the great stuff that Audio gd is doing, audition the Beresford DAC, find out why they like NOS DACs so much, watch them get carried away on a product and take it to the Nth degree of audio nirvana. Come back a few days later and witness their O’Hare like flights as they just took off on another product where the board looks completely different that it did a few days ago.
You see, Mr. Audio Reviewer, this is where audio is really taking place, and you need to get a hold of this really quickly lest you become the Boston Globe of paper once been. So please, let me vent:
You never mention the joys of ripping a CD using EAC and playing it back using Media Monkey. You give no ink time to discussing over sampling, non-oversampling or upsampling. You never bat an eyebrow at the difference between a 2A3, 300B or 845 - these are not Pontiacs Mr. Audio Reviewer, they are tubes, FYI. You never toast the fading of SACD, and the birth of high rez formats like 96K or 192, or for that matter, how they will really catch on to replace SACD because we already have DACs that have this capability. Heck, you never tell anybody what these sampling rates really do.
Our audio rags claim they are advancing the hobby and helping to support the audio business in general. They claim that they have products that sound the best. I guessed I missed it.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Time Magazines "Man of the Year"
Become increasing irrelevant with accelerated colossal arrogance, Time magazine launched Ben Bernake as the “Man of the Year”. While nobody really cares, expect for their few readers, I think that they really missed the boat on this one. The one that I would like to see win did not even make their “short list”. My nominee will not rub shoulders with likes of Nancy Pelosi, the Chinese Worker or the mesianic Obama. But, my nominee is just as bold, brash and tenacious as the prices he has on deck. My nominee, just like Time, has colossal arrogance out the wa-zoo-bee. Akin to only a carnie swindler, my nominee convinces suckers in a down economy to plunk down their hard earned cash for items that cost 10 times of what they should. My nominee has also shown tremendous resilience to change as he is aided and abetted by an industry that is slowly eroding beneath him. My nominee has single handedly disinfranchised an entire generation of music lovers who, thanks to my nominee, think that IPOD is high end.
Congratulations high end audio salon owner, I nominate you for Time Magazines “Man of the Year”.
You deserve the nomination because you actually still believe that this distribution model is still “happening” and you deny the fact that most of high end audio commerce is being done over the net. Your manufacturers and their crony publications still believe in this high cost , low volume distribution model. Yet you hang on, albeit with your finger nails into the wall, but you still hang on.
Kudos to you, you “Man of the Year”, and hang in there, as long as you can.
Become increasing irrelevant with accelerated colossal arrogance, Time magazine launched Ben Bernake as the “Man of the Year”. While nobody really cares, expect for their few readers, I think that they really missed the boat on this one. The one that I would like to see win did not even make their “short list”. My nominee will not rub shoulders with likes of Nancy Pelosi, the Chinese Worker or the mesianic Obama. But, my nominee is just as bold, brash and tenacious as the prices he has on deck. My nominee, just like Time, has colossal arrogance out the wa-zoo-bee. Akin to only a carnie swindler, my nominee convinces suckers in a down economy to plunk down their hard earned cash for items that cost 10 times of what they should. My nominee has also shown tremendous resilience to change as he is aided and abetted by an industry that is slowly eroding beneath him. My nominee has single handedly disinfranchised an entire generation of music lovers who, thanks to my nominee, think that IPOD is high end.
Congratulations high end audio salon owner, I nominate you for Time Magazines “Man of the Year”.
You deserve the nomination because you actually still believe that this distribution model is still “happening” and you deny the fact that most of high end audio commerce is being done over the net. Your manufacturers and their crony publications still believe in this high cost , low volume distribution model. Yet you hang on, albeit with your finger nails into the wall, but you still hang on.
Kudos to you, you “Man of the Year”, and hang in there, as long as you can.
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