The Top 10
Stop Looking At the Amp
This is usually the first thing I ask when you call me for Amplifier Help. I will then ask the size of your room. I am obviously trying to match an amplifier, price point to your speaker room. Overpowering and/or over damping a speaker will make it sound cold. Under powering a speaker will make it sound thin and closed. Yes, there is an amp for every speaker / room combination.
Stop Paying Attention To The DAC Chip
I know that you have heard me say this time and time again. Any designer can make a good chip sound bad and a bad chip sound good. The most important part of a DAC that effect sound quality are in order 1) the filtering that designer chooses to use, 2) the Analogue output stage and finally the DAC Chip.
Don’t go Crazy with Sampling
I get this all the time. The other day I was talking to some poor sole that ripped all his vinyl (some 300 albums) into 192K files and placed them on his PC. He called me up and said that the 192K DAC did not good with these samples. As a matter of fact, it sounds the same as a 44.1K sample. That’s because, and I keep saying this, USB cannot handle 192K without USB driver replacements. The only way to get 192K USB out of computer is the use the M2Tech, Musiland Monitor 02 or the Musiland MD 11. Better yet, place it on a CyberServer and you will eliminate most of the noise that a PC produces. Again, a PC is not a good playback device; it’s a computing device.
Stop using your CD Player as a Transport
Your CD player was not really meant to properly output digital S/PDIF. Quality transports have correct buffering, error correcting and buffer management that make sound good. When your CD player plays a CD, most of this circuitry is next to the converter chip, so it does not have to worry about error correction. When you use it as a transport, your CD player runs the digital output naked to the DAC without any significant error correction. In other words, it comes out with errors galore. Ouch!
Stop Paying Too Much Money for Digital Cables
The best USB cable is the shortest USB cable. The best coax cable is the one that “Larry the Cable Guy” uses. It’s always shielded, 75 ohms and has BNC connectors. Coax cable has 10 times more jitter than BNC, and Optical cable has 30- 50 times more jitter than Coax. No serious audiophile uses optical.
Stop Paying Too Much For Mods
The best mod you can do to tube equipment is to change the tubes. Period. Do this, before investing in any modifications.
Stop Paying Too Much For Audio
I had someone call me up the other day and say that the problem with our stuff (and I was not aware that there was a problem) is that it is too low cost, so nobody believes it’s that good. Look, spending $4000 for preamp, really? Ok, let’s do the math, how much, do you think, the individual components in the preamp cost? Let’s say they are using some really excellent caps, transistors / tubes, resistors and switches. But all that can’t be more than $800 right? After, all they are commodity components available from a supply store like Digi-Key. Then there is the case, another say $300 bucks or so? Now, I would add another say 2-3K for intellectual property, but I cannot. The reason is that the secrets are all out, and audio is not rocket science, it’s not even introductory college science, its prep school science. Sampling, Push-Pull, Inductance – all make audio work, this was discovered years ago. There are not any “New” or “Revolutionary” discoveries are there? So, I cannot pay the 2-3K for IP. What I will pay, however are the marketing, sales and profit costs. Say, another $400. There, that’s a fair price for a solid state high end preamp, $1500. For a tube preamp, I am apt to pay a little more for tubes, say $1500 - $2000.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Now, that’s dumb.
In Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, the author speaks of many strategies for defeating and combating the enemy. One of them is “taking the high ground”, where instead of confronting your advisory directly, you kind of “go around”, thereby devising a completely different strategy in hopes of obtaining a victory later.
Our brick and mortar retailer friends, if they can get past there upturned snobby noses, should take the “high ground” by buckling down with what they do best: rubbing shoulders with industry stalwarts such as Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, McIntosh, Levinson etc… After all, this is their niche: catering to the upper crust, who think this high end boutique paradigm is still “happening”. Instead, our brick and mortar friends are doing something that in my opinion, is, well, dumb.
What’s really dumb is offering Chinese-made equipment at Levinson prices, a strategy that I just cannot figure out. The minute that the internet-o-sphere figures out that the high end boutique brand is really offered on the streets of Shanghai at 1/3 of the price, the brand gets flushed down to loo.
Instead of figuring out hot to sell over priced equipment better, they are getting adroit at disguising the brand rip. A little sleuthing and homework will help you figure out which brand is which. Let me share with you my work.
The Raysonic brand, looks good, but to me, it looks like a Shanling, doesn’t it? There is another company that claims it is an “Austrian Brand”. They take out big ads in Stereophile and Absolute sound. But I was offered to sell a Chinese amp that look mysteriously like the “Austrian Brand” with round chrome faced transformers for much less than these are going for. Then there is another importer who sells CD players and integrated amps made by Shanling but marked up much, much more than the comparable Shanling products. That same importer, by the way, has succeeded in running what was left of the Shanling franchise right into the ground. Likewise, with re-branded Chinese vacuum tubes sold at exclusive distributors with what it seems to be exclusive prices. Note to self, “If you cannot find a Chinese tube on the web from China, then it’s a "markup” brand re-labeled. I thought that the whole reason for buying an import these days is the high value proposition, and not high price proposition. Right? I cannot believe that folks are getting conned into these tubes - they are jsut re-branded stock Shuguangs (P.S. - I am not talking about the treasures).
Jolida had it right, sell high value at discounted prices and offer USA based service and support. The Jolida model is the one we choose to imitate. But, buying a Chinese import at Conrad Johnson prices? Well, that’s plain dumb. Buy the Conrad Johnson.
In Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, the author speaks of many strategies for defeating and combating the enemy. One of them is “taking the high ground”, where instead of confronting your advisory directly, you kind of “go around”, thereby devising a completely different strategy in hopes of obtaining a victory later.
Our brick and mortar retailer friends, if they can get past there upturned snobby noses, should take the “high ground” by buckling down with what they do best: rubbing shoulders with industry stalwarts such as Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, McIntosh, Levinson etc… After all, this is their niche: catering to the upper crust, who think this high end boutique paradigm is still “happening”. Instead, our brick and mortar friends are doing something that in my opinion, is, well, dumb.
What’s really dumb is offering Chinese-made equipment at Levinson prices, a strategy that I just cannot figure out. The minute that the internet-o-sphere figures out that the high end boutique brand is really offered on the streets of Shanghai at 1/3 of the price, the brand gets flushed down to loo.
Instead of figuring out hot to sell over priced equipment better, they are getting adroit at disguising the brand rip. A little sleuthing and homework will help you figure out which brand is which. Let me share with you my work.
The Raysonic brand, looks good, but to me, it looks like a Shanling, doesn’t it? There is another company that claims it is an “Austrian Brand”. They take out big ads in Stereophile and Absolute sound. But I was offered to sell a Chinese amp that look mysteriously like the “Austrian Brand” with round chrome faced transformers for much less than these are going for. Then there is another importer who sells CD players and integrated amps made by Shanling but marked up much, much more than the comparable Shanling products. That same importer, by the way, has succeeded in running what was left of the Shanling franchise right into the ground. Likewise, with re-branded Chinese vacuum tubes sold at exclusive distributors with what it seems to be exclusive prices. Note to self, “If you cannot find a Chinese tube on the web from China, then it’s a "markup” brand re-labeled. I thought that the whole reason for buying an import these days is the high value proposition, and not high price proposition. Right? I cannot believe that folks are getting conned into these tubes - they are jsut re-branded stock Shuguangs (P.S. - I am not talking about the treasures).
Jolida had it right, sell high value at discounted prices and offer USA based service and support. The Jolida model is the one we choose to imitate. But, buying a Chinese import at Conrad Johnson prices? Well, that’s plain dumb. Buy the Conrad Johnson.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Still Evangelizing
Now as ubiquitous as John Boehner's smoking habits, high def TV is still alive and kicking - and growing like July crabgrass. To us audio geeks, we know what high def means; it means high sampling rates and more bits per second. If the high rez sampling rate works for TV, just think of what it can do for music.
The problem confronting audiophiles with 96K-192K, lets just call it high rez, is not finding high definition music, but playing it back properly. If the comparison to high def TV is in tact, then 192K should sound significantly better than 44,1. Alas, in most cases it does not and for some 'philes out there, they can hardly tell the difference. So, back to my original theory: there must be a problem with playback.
As you can clearly see from my CyberServer videos, the PC is the problem. Being a computer jock, I know a little about PCs and USB. The block input / output that USB uses requires a pre-fetch of data blocks to be placed in computer memory, where, it is clobbered to death by other high speed clocks on the mother board and graphics card. Computer memory is not a good place for Oscar Petersen. Its really bad, if Oscar is at 192K. Using your computer for high rez playback is like watching high def TV on the SONY Trinitron: it just was not made for it.
They still can't convince me that the standard USB 2.0 drivers are adequate for high end audio and attaching a well made music "streamer" is the end all. The standard USB drivers are not fast enough for 192K (they were never meant to stream music, you see? ) and can barely do 96K. If audiophiles used DACs like the Matrix mini that display the sampling rate, they would find that most DACs, find so much jitter in the 96K signal that they down sample it to 48K. If the Audio gd DACs find ka ka in the signal, they just shut off, refusing the play the mess. The only way to get 192K and 96K reliably out of a PC is to replace the drivers a la Musiland or M2Tech. While they make a world a difference, you still have the block input / output - pre-fetch problem described earlier.
One easy solution to the USB problem is to get a computer with what is called "streaming" I/O (I/O stands for input / output). Streaming I/O reads a byte - writes a byte. No memory to muck up the sound, no blocks with their choppy latency that translates into jitter. While fairly primitive, streaming I/O is ideal for digital playback. The best operating systems to make use of the streaming I/O are the Unix / Linux brands. Here, a computer programmer can open a music file and specify this somewhat primitive I/O mechanism for the pushing the music file down the stream.
The next fly in the high rez ointment, is latency. Since the computer is not really meant for high speed streaming of anything, latency abounds. The DAC sees latency as jitter, and although the asynchronous USB drivers help, they are not as fast as they need to be so latency prevails. You have to cut latency anywhere you can: on the I/O bus, which carries the digital music, to the hard drive. The hard drive is slowest of the bunch and any increase in I/O speed from the disk yields an appreciable improvement. A solid state drive is about 40% to 50% faster that a conventional hard drive with a motor. Its one drawback is that it is expensive. Like a sports car, you pay for speed.
When you put this all together, a Linux operating system with streaming I/O and a solid state drive, you get CyberServer. I cannot tell you how happy we were to see Byrston trying this same idea out with their new media server. One thing though, the Bryston costs over $2K price tag - although it uses a terabyte. The USB thumb drive that they use, in our opinion, may still be a little too slow. Stick with the faster solid state ones. Ours start at $720.
All the best,
Vic
Now as ubiquitous as John Boehner's smoking habits, high def TV is still alive and kicking - and growing like July crabgrass. To us audio geeks, we know what high def means; it means high sampling rates and more bits per second. If the high rez sampling rate works for TV, just think of what it can do for music.
The problem confronting audiophiles with 96K-192K, lets just call it high rez, is not finding high definition music, but playing it back properly. If the comparison to high def TV is in tact, then 192K should sound significantly better than 44,1. Alas, in most cases it does not and for some 'philes out there, they can hardly tell the difference. So, back to my original theory: there must be a problem with playback.
As you can clearly see from my CyberServer videos, the PC is the problem. Being a computer jock, I know a little about PCs and USB. The block input / output that USB uses requires a pre-fetch of data blocks to be placed in computer memory, where, it is clobbered to death by other high speed clocks on the mother board and graphics card. Computer memory is not a good place for Oscar Petersen. Its really bad, if Oscar is at 192K. Using your computer for high rez playback is like watching high def TV on the SONY Trinitron: it just was not made for it.
They still can't convince me that the standard USB 2.0 drivers are adequate for high end audio and attaching a well made music "streamer" is the end all. The standard USB drivers are not fast enough for 192K (they were never meant to stream music, you see? ) and can barely do 96K. If audiophiles used DACs like the Matrix mini that display the sampling rate, they would find that most DACs, find so much jitter in the 96K signal that they down sample it to 48K. If the Audio gd DACs find ka ka in the signal, they just shut off, refusing the play the mess. The only way to get 192K and 96K reliably out of a PC is to replace the drivers a la Musiland or M2Tech. While they make a world a difference, you still have the block input / output - pre-fetch problem described earlier.
One easy solution to the USB problem is to get a computer with what is called "streaming" I/O (I/O stands for input / output). Streaming I/O reads a byte - writes a byte. No memory to muck up the sound, no blocks with their choppy latency that translates into jitter. While fairly primitive, streaming I/O is ideal for digital playback. The best operating systems to make use of the streaming I/O are the Unix / Linux brands. Here, a computer programmer can open a music file and specify this somewhat primitive I/O mechanism for the pushing the music file down the stream.
The next fly in the high rez ointment, is latency. Since the computer is not really meant for high speed streaming of anything, latency abounds. The DAC sees latency as jitter, and although the asynchronous USB drivers help, they are not as fast as they need to be so latency prevails. You have to cut latency anywhere you can: on the I/O bus, which carries the digital music, to the hard drive. The hard drive is slowest of the bunch and any increase in I/O speed from the disk yields an appreciable improvement. A solid state drive is about 40% to 50% faster that a conventional hard drive with a motor. Its one drawback is that it is expensive. Like a sports car, you pay for speed.
When you put this all together, a Linux operating system with streaming I/O and a solid state drive, you get CyberServer. I cannot tell you how happy we were to see Byrston trying this same idea out with their new media server. One thing though, the Bryston costs over $2K price tag - although it uses a terabyte. The USB thumb drive that they use, in our opinion, may still be a little too slow. Stick with the faster solid state ones. Ours start at $720.
All the best,
Vic
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
They Call Me Mr. Chips
Well, they might as well. I probably have here, at my disposal, a slew of DACS and codecs of all shapes and sizes. I have old Philips TSA1543s, PCM 1702, PCM 1798s PCM 1704, ADM 1852, ADM 1853, all sorts of Delta Sigmas and Wolfsons.
What I find interesting is that you say that each of these chips have a sound of their own. See if this conversation sounds familiar to you:
"Hello, Pacific Valve"
"Yes, I am interested in the Bluto DAC, What chip set does it have?"
"It has an AD1853"
"Oh, forget it, I don't like the sound of that chip."
Really?
For the life of me, as I dig through all the DACs and chips that I have, I cannot correlate a sound signature of the chip with the DAC. I can say that it is easy to make the Analogue Devices chips sound soft, but the Lite CD 22 player has the AD 1853 chip and it sounds anything but soft - as a matter of fact, it has given me joy through its dead neutral sound.
Or how about the ubiquitous PCM 1704UK. I have heard this chip sound soft as in the Lite DAC 60 Modified, sound dynamic as in the Audio gd DAC 19SE, sound romantic as in the Brigatta 2 - well, you get the picture.
The disparity between chips and sound is prevalent in Audio gd's latest round of now discontinued. SABRE DACS. The NFB-1 seems to have the classic SABRE sound - slightly analytical, forward, dynamic. But, the NFB-7 has some of that, but not all of that and sounds more like the REF 7, which means the SABRE sounds like a PCM1704UK - get it?
As I have said before, its not the chip, its the filtering and the output stage that gives the DAC its signature. Take for example the NOS DACs. Some use the TDA1543, some do not - but they all tend to sound the same (dynamic, high energy, "just ok" resolution) probably because of the sampling they use which in turn, effects the filtering. So its really the implementation of the chip and not the sound of the chip itself that contributes to the sound of the DAC. It may be easier, for a DAC designer, to get the sound they want by choosing one chip set over another. But again, they are tailoring the sound, and not using a chip's sonic signature.
All the best,
Vic
Well, they might as well. I probably have here, at my disposal, a slew of DACS and codecs of all shapes and sizes. I have old Philips TSA1543s, PCM 1702, PCM 1798s PCM 1704, ADM 1852, ADM 1853, all sorts of Delta Sigmas and Wolfsons.
What I find interesting is that you say that each of these chips have a sound of their own. See if this conversation sounds familiar to you:
"Hello, Pacific Valve"
"Yes, I am interested in the Bluto DAC, What chip set does it have?"
"It has an AD1853"
"Oh, forget it, I don't like the sound of that chip."
Really?
For the life of me, as I dig through all the DACs and chips that I have, I cannot correlate a sound signature of the chip with the DAC. I can say that it is easy to make the Analogue Devices chips sound soft, but the Lite CD 22 player has the AD 1853 chip and it sounds anything but soft - as a matter of fact, it has given me joy through its dead neutral sound.
Or how about the ubiquitous PCM 1704UK. I have heard this chip sound soft as in the Lite DAC 60 Modified, sound dynamic as in the Audio gd DAC 19SE, sound romantic as in the Brigatta 2 - well, you get the picture.
The disparity between chips and sound is prevalent in Audio gd's latest round of now discontinued. SABRE DACS. The NFB-1 seems to have the classic SABRE sound - slightly analytical, forward, dynamic. But, the NFB-7 has some of that, but not all of that and sounds more like the REF 7, which means the SABRE sounds like a PCM1704UK - get it?
As I have said before, its not the chip, its the filtering and the output stage that gives the DAC its signature. Take for example the NOS DACs. Some use the TDA1543, some do not - but they all tend to sound the same (dynamic, high energy, "just ok" resolution) probably because of the sampling they use which in turn, effects the filtering. So its really the implementation of the chip and not the sound of the chip itself that contributes to the sound of the DAC. It may be easier, for a DAC designer, to get the sound they want by choosing one chip set over another. But again, they are tailoring the sound, and not using a chip's sonic signature.
All the best,
Vic
Monday, November 01, 2010
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
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
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.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, October 09, 2009
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
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
Monday, August 24, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
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.
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.
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