BAASnotes.com – Bay Area Audiophile Society

Lotus Group “Granada” and SMc Audio “VRE-1″ Impress Audio Group

BAAS members ventured up to lovely Marin County for a day of music played on a truly ‘reference-quality’ system.

Hosted in the lab of Sausalito Audio, we were treated to a stunning example of open-baffle speaker design and engineering. For most members, this was an introduction to this unique speaker architecture. The use of a custom DSP-based crossover/EQ device was also a first for BAAS. The words that I heard from members re the Granada’s included “accurate,” “articulate,” and “balanced.”

Of course, significant credit for the sound must go to the SMc VRE-1 preamplifier. A signature piece from SMc, this solid state design was found by members to be crisp, dynamic, and color-free.

But as good as the music and equipment was, an equal highlight was the chance for BAAS members to interact with the system’s designers:

• Joe Cohen – CEO of importer/distributor Lotus Group, Joe set the vision for the Granada speakers – from the uber-high-end Feastrex drivers to the provocative open baffle form factor.

• Steve McCormack – CEO of SMc and designer of the VRE-1, the fruits of Steve’s skills have enhanced amplification in many a listening room. We expect power amps and a phono amp from SMc in the future.

• Manny LaCarrubba – CEO of Sausalito Audio and chief architect of the Granada. Many audiophiles will recognize Manny as the design talent behind several highly successful Bang & Olafsen audio products.

On behalf of BAAS – Thanks, guys, for some great listening!

Bob

Jaton Debuts REAL ‘DIY’ Speaker at BAAS Event

Last Saturday, high-end manufacturer Jaton hosted Bay Area Audiophile Society members at their Fremont facility.

The highlight for most was the very-cool REAL DIY (some would say ‘kit’) loudspeaker. A relatively petite floorstander, the vented boxes produced big, full-range sound in an acoustically-challenged room.

The highlight for three members might have been the substantial door prizes – three speaker systems.

The lunch was great too.

Thanks, Jaton!

Apple Launches New Macbooks with Firewire 800

Apple just released a great (to the converted at least) new lineup of laptops.

As I expected, all feature Firewire 800 ports.

So the (audiophile) rumors of Firewire’s demise are greatly exagerated…

Bob

You’ve heard of audiophile cable break-in devices…

…how about automated violin break-in devices?

Who will be the first audiophile to apply this gear to a speaker cabinet?

(Cable break-in cookers are, of course, still available – starting at $800.)

Bob

Cool little horns for audiophiles

You just gotta love these little babies!

So stylish Relatively inexpensive ($1700/pr) too.

I’ll try to get a pair for a future BAAS event. In the meantime, check them out here..

Brian Eno on Music and Whale Blubber

Today’s Guardian has a very interesting interview with Brian Eno.

The far-ranging discussion presents some novel views on music and its relation to our commercial and cultural worlds.

Thanks, Aaron, for pointing this one out!

Spiral Groove Turntable Impresses Digital Audiophile(s)

BAAS membership reflects the current trends of audiophiles worldwide. As such, the majority (including myself) listen to digital these days. So it was interesting to see how our first “analog event” in several years would be received.

About 30 BAAS members gathered at Jason Victor Serinus’ home yesterday to listen to the latest in analog source technology, delivered by Allen Perkins of local manufacturer Spiral Groove (SG).

The system featured the following gear from SG:

• Spiral Groove SG 2 Turntable ($15,000)
• Spiral Groove SG Tonearm ($6,000)
• Lyra Cartridge ($6,000)
• Lehmann Audio Decade phono section ($2,400)
• Spiral Groove preamplifier (projected $15,000)

An impressive array, to be sure!

I am quite familiar with Jason’s system and listening environment, at least for digital sources. Here are my impression of yesterday’s sights and sounds:

• The SG gear is beautiful to look at, and even better to listen to. Furthermore, it’s practical. For example, it can be set up by one person in 30 minutes (!). Simple elegance.
• All told, I listened to the system for five hours. I heard fewer than a dozen tics or pops. This is a new record for me <g>. Especially notable: not a single record was treated in any way during the event. No rituals – just load & play. (Sorta like a CD…) [One member told me that the sound was clean because only vintage older "virgin" vinyl was used.]
• Allen’s description of the engineering design choices that guided him made a lot of sense to me.
• The sound in the second session was a bit tighter than the first. (This is not unusual. I think it’s caused simply by the gear being more fully warmed up.)
• Nordost Odin cables are the real deal. At one point we substituted the preamp’s power cable with a Odin. Wow.
• For the first time in a very long while, I was thinking “…maybe I do need a turntable…”

We also conducted several listening tests on digital sources. These allowed us to compare several digital exemplars to state-of-the-art analog. I’ll say here that two things were apparent:

• Analog rocks. There’s a reason why so many audiophiles are driven to turntables (see this article from today’s NYT). – they can sound great!
• PS Audio’s(PSA’s) new “Perfect Wave” stack combines outstanding ease-of-use with media flexibility and great sonics. That’s a tough combo to beat! Very nice kit, especially for audiophiles wishing to get into high-resolution without going to a computer. (Digital sources that I consider “reference quality” generally have price tags beginning at 2X the PSA tariff.)
• I preferred the sound of the Wavelength Wavelink USB audio interface to that of the the transport (many members agreed). I don’t think it yet matches the best in firewire converters, but it sounded quite detailed and transparent to me (especially on hires material).

Note that Jason’s description of the event – and activities leading up to it – can be found on the Home secrets Blog.

Kevin’s System = Music Server + Open Baffles

I have the Linkwitz Orions and I recently added a music server. I am running a Logitech Transporter with the Modwright Platinum  analog stage. I run the software on a Netgear NAS. No need to have a PC running to make it work and the NAS has mirrored drives, so my music is backed up.

I have also found some excellent software for ripping CDs that collects all the CD tracks, composers, music catagories etc., with little or no input from me. I use FLAC and the sound is tremendous. Add to that the ease of accessing my music library.

This is all controlled with a remote or from a PC which displays album art. There are so many ways to stream music and it is all confusing. I listened to a Berkeley DAC but it was difficult to evaluate due to all the other system and room differences. I really chose the Transporter due to the ease of use and some positive press.

I am very happy with my choices.

Event: Synergistic ART System, Power Conditioner, and Cables

Last Saturday, we had another great event, this time featuring two technologies that would drive by-the-numbers audiophiles batty:

• A room/acoustic treatment system consisting solely of small metal “cups”; and
• Cables whose outer layer contained a powered “EMF” element.

Say what? How could these designs possibly affect the sound at the listening position, let alone improve it? Well, subject to a couple of small caveats, about 30 audiophiles agreed that they did effect changes for the better. (This is tantamount to blasphemy in some folks’ minds, cf. these forum threads: Stereophile 1, Stereophile 2 and AudioJunkies.)

First, the ART system. Synergistic CEO and designer Ted Denney began with a fascinating tale of their genesis that included single-handed trans-oceanic sailing, Buddhist temples, and advanced metallurgy. Then on to the demonstration, wherein we played various tracks with and without the various ‘ART pieces’ (couldn’t resist).And damned if the didn’t make a difference – often a big one and almost-always for the better (IMO). To my ear, the more bass content in the piece, the better ART worked.

OK, but how do they work? Resonance, of course. The little devils vibrate and – like Shakti Holograms or absorbent panels – when placed in strategic positions (e.g., first-reflection points) they diffuse the reflected sound field. Thus, the ear gets more direct sound energy and the brain is less confused. Not as exciting as magic, but cool nonetheless.

As for the Tesla cables and PowerCell, we did not have the opportunity to compare them to anything, and so few real conclusions could be drawn. We did hear them in the powered and unpowered state, and the system sounded much better with them powered (as one would hope). But who’s going to buy them and not power them? Kinda like listening to an electric guitar without the amp. It plays music, but….

We thank Ted and Jason, and wish Synergistic Research the best. You can learn more about Synergistic here.

by Bob Walters

Building a Music Server By Lee Mincy

Early last year I began listening to a number of dac/music server combinations with the hopes of discovering a better alternative to my 16 bt/44k cd player. I’d already been considering a used turntable and phono pre as one possible option. But I had sold all my records years ago and the thought of buying back into vinyl all over again was a tough swallow. Fact is, my modified Shanling cdt-100 tube player sounded pretty good and was silky smooth, even did upsampling to 24/96k and native HDCD. Well, that player is now for sale on Audiogon. In the end, my listening and research paid off and now I have a pretty solid music server storing all of my 500+ cd’s and much downloaded music on a 4TB NAS drive (along with reams of photography).

Now, is that really such a big deal you might think? So, my cd collection is now ready for eBay. Yeah, I’ve got my Redbook collection, along with a handful of HDCD albums and HRx DVD’s, accessible from a networked hard drive. Big deal. So what’s it sound like? Well, my answer to that is pretty darned good, significantly more analog than my previous digital rig (to get the attention of some of you vinyl hard-liners) but more importantly, the collection is unified, like a jukebox, so that I find myself playing all of my music, discovering stuff I didn’t know I had, and actually feeling so in touch with my collection that I actually want to commence lessons in guitar (yet again). And piano. And maybe after that, sax… It’s amazing! Read on. You might too…

› Continue reading

An Inexpensive High-Resolution Music Server for PC (by Dave Keith)

I recently ordered the very inexpensive M-Audio Firewire 410 ( $299.95) in hopes of finding a cheap way to get high resolution sound out of my computer.

IT WORKS!!!!

It was a bit of a hassle setting it up properly. The sticker on the equipment said to install the drivers first, before hooking up the Firewire 410.

I first had to juggle around Firewire connectors, and eventually went from my primary Firewire connector (4 pin) out to the Firewire 410, then via a separate Firewire connector to my Firewire external drive.

Since 4-pin Firewire connectors do not provide external power, I then had to connect the external power supply. I turned it on with the button on the upper right of the unit.

On restart, Windows XP found the new hardware, and it went through the driver installation again. When it indicated that the drivers were properly installed and ready to go, the computer had to be restarted before the drivers took effect.

I had already connected my ER-6i earphones hooked up to one of the two headphone connectors, and I got the Windows startup wav clearly through the earphones.

Then I just had to go straight to the HRx example I had previously downloaded from my Crown Imperial HRx disc. I played the Strauss Festival Intrada file as clear as a bell with wonderful power. There seems to be a much cleaner sound coming through the Firewire connection to the Firewire 410 with virtually no interference from my router, which is only about 4 1/2 feet away.

The setup with a Mac will undoubtedly be easier, and here you probably really will need to have the drivers installed first, as indicated in the instructions. By the way, I have read horror stories about using the other included software for producing your own music. I only installed the Firewire drivers, and that’s all you need to use this wondrous device as a DAC.

Only Line Outputs 1 and 2 (and the headphones) can output 24-bit 176.4 kHz and 24-bit 192 kHz, but all the others can apparently output at 24-bit 96 kHz, so you can output sound for a complete surround system, at a suitable sample frequency for the AIX surround files.

Tomorrow I need to go and buy at least 2 of the male mono phono jack to female RCA connector adaptors so that I can output to my sound system, but in the meantime I have been blown away listening  through my earphones to the various 24-bit 96 kHz high res files I have downloaded from HDTracks – really hearing the wonders of them for the first time. I have other stuff I need to do tonight, but I can’t take the earphones out.

I previously listened to these files diluted via the USB connector of my computer to only 48 kHz – they sound amazing via the Firewire connectors and the M-Audio Firewire 410.

I LOVE THIS!  THERE IS JOY IN MUDVILLE TONIGHT!

Based on my experience, I’ll bet the RME Fireface 400 and Apogee Ensemble work very well indeed when used as the system DAC.

Now here’s what happened the next day….

› Continue reading

My Mac Mini music server (by Peter Truce)

I thought I would post what I having been experimenting with for a music server.  I started with an Intel Duo-Core Mac Mini that I purchased on Amazon last December for $550.00 (no tax or shipping).  I upgraded it with a 60GB solid state drive (SSD) from NewEgg.com that was $150 delivered.  Also added 4GB of memory which cost $40.  The SSD seemed to improve the sound, but I was unable to A/B it so not really sure.  Lee Mincy who is running one of those fanless all-out pc’s and the Berkeley dac, tried an SSD and felt if the song was played from it there was definitely and improvement.  In any event, it appears to be faster.

I store my music files on an Iomega Home Server, 360GB.  They had them on sale last December for $80.  It will not do AFP so I am connecting to it as an SMB server.  As long as the music server is the only one connecting to the drive, it works flawlessly.  If another user tries to use it, it suffers dropouts.  If I were going to use multiple users, I would use a LaCie 500 GB, cost $150.  I purchase smaller drives and replace them often rather than buy giant drives and wait for them to fail.  So far my strategy has worked.

As you may infer, I wanted to do this cheap as I am not totally convinced that the quality of the server is up to my vinyl rig.  So far, it has been a total barrel of fun.

The Mini is really a connection machine:

photo courtesy of Apple’s web site.

As you can see, 4 USB ports, a firewire port and an optical port hiding in the headphone jack.  In addition, it also has Ethernet, Blutooth and Wi-Fi.

You can connect the Mini to a Chord dac with Blutooth, to other dacs with either usb or optical and probably connect other devices with eithernet (Squeezebox) and wi-fi – just haven’t tried that yet.

I can control the mini with my Treo cell phone under Bluetooth using the Salling Clicker program, $23.95:

http://www.salling.com/Clicker/mac/

The program will display iTunes on the phone including album art.  It will search iTunes using its own search program which can be slow if there is a lot of music – my library is approx 10,000 songs, 225GB.  The better way is to setup Playlists and then select them.  It is loads of fun to play with.

You could also control the Mini with an iPhone or iPod Touch with wi-fi and probably have a more stable longer range connection.  Haven’t tried that as I am waiting for my Verizon contract to end.

The Mini also comes with its own IR remote and mini media program, Front Row.  I have the usb out going to my tube dac and my 2 channel system and the optical port goes to my 5.1 home theatre system.  When using the 5.1 system, I sometimes run the Front Row program which works pretty well.  The display of iTunes changes every few seconds so that one doesn’t burn one’s plasma, which is good for my ISF calibrated 58” Samsung.

The output is controlled by an Apple Utility program called Audio Midi.  You can use this program to change the output, say from usb to optical or Firewire.  The program reads the receiver chip in the dac apparently and you can see the highest rate possible with the dac by clicking on the properties button:

The Mini can also record high def video over the air with EyeTV and do the other more mundane Mac things.

But if you are missing Windows, the Mini will also boot natively in XP or Vista using the included Boot Camp program.  You have to allocate part of the hard disk which it does on the fly with no data lass and you have to supply the Windows program of at least XP service pack 2 or higher – you cannot go XP only and upgrade.  I can confirm it works well with XP service pack 3 as I use Windows to run the XTZ room measurement program.

Currently my dacs are limited to 24/96 and I can play the Reference Recordings 24/176.4 music but down converted to 24/96.  I have not purchased a better dac yet as I believe that field is still pretty fluid.  It appears from reading this thread on Audio Asylum:

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/4/45388.html

that the high end audio world may be waiting until Windows can output 24/192 through usb without custom drivers ala Emu and others.  Probably a good business decision, but it doesn’t really effect the mac world as we already can do this, albeit with custom drivers for firewire.

Bob and Ori at the last demo had indicated that the Mini could output 176.4 through the optical port without custom drivers, but it was not reliable.  Bob can you further expand on this with your experiences?  Also, Gordon Rankin of Wavelength has posted that the Mac can output 24/192 through usb without custom drivers now,  just no dac to take advantage of it yet.  Seems like a great business opportunity.

[Actually, it's the Fireface 400 that can output up to 192khz on optical, but most receivers only go to 96khz reliably. - Bob]

The Mini has been running 24/7 for the last 40 days or so with no problems.  I am having a ball using it as it sounds pretty good and the convenience and “toy factor” is outstanding.  If you haven’t checked out computerAudiophile.com or the PC Audio forum at audioasylum.com, they both offer a wealth of info and plently of people ready to answer your questions.

The next project wil be to see if I can record my vinyl with the Mini and higher quality than my current Alesis Masterlink recorder.  There is a new program Pure Vinyl from Channel-D that looks pretty cool.

[Thanks, Peter. Hopefully more members will donate tips and reviews for BAASnotes!]

Bob’s 2009 “Best Five Rooms in Vegas (CES)”

Vegas was filled with great sights and sounds last week as CES and THE Show both descended on the humble desert village (along with the annual porn show).

Of the hundreds of rooms showing audio gear, I heard about twenty very refined systems. Narrowing these down to just five was tough, so I cheat and also cite some “Honorable Mentions.”

The best sound that I heard in Vegas was in these rooms (named after the speakers in them, with some mention of electronics):

1. Classic Audio “Project 3.3″ – BEST IN SHOW. Large, heavy loudspeaker system featuring modified professional horn and dynamic drivers. From $24K-53K, depending on options. Great bass, detail, and transparency. Extremely dynamic. Nice balance from ~25hz up, but just a bit warm & romantic. See them here.
2. Art “Deco 20″ - About $30K. Nearly flawless presentation: fast, tonally neutral, and able to resolve the fine detail and time coherency necessary for great ambiance extraction. Deep, tuneful bass. A sonic treat from Scotland. Excellent “Audio Techne” electronics didn’t hurt the cause. See them here (“20″ not yet shown).
3. Tidal Acoustics “Piano Diacera” – Accuton woofers and diamond tweeter combine to create SPEEEED: This is one fast speaker! Great presence on voice, and very good resolution of the finest detail. Beautiful finish. Small enough to be intimate (in a Teutonic way), but big enough to fill large rooms. See it here.
4. Magico “V2″ – About $18K. At last, a Magico floorstander to cuddle with and love. Combines the approachability of the “Mini”with the dynamics and range of the “V3.” I suspect that it’d even be relatively easy to drive. Neutral yet inviting – I liked these better than the uber-alles “V5.” Here it is.
5. Marten “Coltrane Sonata” – About $45K. Great tonality, bass mids and treble are seemless and coherent. Good detail with truly superb midrange resolution. Dynamics are excellent too. Ear electronics brought out their best. See them here.

So there we have it. These are really reference-quality systems, but it pains me that they are also all mega-buck systems. Didn’t any relatively-affordable kit sound good? Honestly, I didn’t see much in that bracket, but here are a couple:

• Zu “Essence” – A truly capable and dynamic speaker that’s also easy to drive. Quite attractive too (in a “modernist” way). Slight mid-treble emphasis. I think they were about $6K. See them here.
•  Sonist “3.4″ – A “Top 5″ speaker last year, these $3.4K beauties are simply stunning at that price point. IMO, these speakers are better than most (but not all) similarly-priced speakers on Audiogon. They are that good. Assisted by the always-capable deHavilland tube gear. BEST “BARGAIN” SPEAKERS IN SHOW. They are here.

And what about the RMAF “Top 5″? How did they fare in Vegas?

• My Best-in-Show Kaiser “Kawero” speakers had tough going in the Venetian. The room was small, placement was bad, and some “cap problem” was causing uncomfortably-aggressive treble. Very different from their stunning performance in a huge room in Denver. Yikes! (A good lesson for me, though, re factoring in the room.)
• The Eficion “F300′s,” on the other hand, were just as competent as at RMAF. Only the increased competition (and maybe choice in electronics) kept them off the podium. In fact, they are so good that I bought them. (You’ll hear them at the next BAAS event.)
• The Joseph Audio “Pearl’s” are in a similar situation – just as good as RMAF but nudged out of the medals.
• The Ascendo’s were a no-show (Laufer Technic brought something else.)
• The Sonist’s are mentioned above.

Other “Honerable Mentions” go to the rooms featuring products from TAD/Berkeley Audio/Pass, Evolution Audio/Playback/darTZeel, Reference 3A (Grand Veena), Gershman (Black Swan), Red Wine/WLM, and Sanders Audio.

Let me add a note about my “grading” methodology. A key point is that I use only my own material – stuff that I’ve played on 100 or more systems over the years. If I can’t, I may listen but I don’t grade.

Then, as I begin to listen to my selected tracks, I ask myself: “Do I simply enjoy this sound?” If I don’t, the deal is killed. This speeds my reviewing along quite a bit.

After that, I play 1-minute excerpts from tracks, each of which is designed to test one or two technical aspects of the presentation. Detail, speed, tonality, extension, coherence, soundstage dimension, and image placement are all given weight.

Finally, based on the 4-8 minutes of listening that I’ve done, I ask myself: “Do these sound real?”

That’s about it….

Inexpensive Music Server – A Flawed Dell-based Solution

The most common question that I get asked – other than “Am I confirmed for the event?” – is: “How should I implement a good music server?”

Well, here’s a way to implement a great-sounding music server for about $1K. The key strategy in play here is to house a stellar Lynx sound card in a (very) cheap Dell box.

However, while this system has the capability of delivering great sound, I do not recommend it for most audiophiles.

Specifically, the system has the following weaknesses:

• It’s too geeky – both to build and to maintain;
• It’s noisy;
• It’s incomplete; and
  • (As described, it lacks keyboard, mouse, monitor, decent CPU, and ample storage, which would collectively add  $500 or more to the price)
• There are better ways to go (IMO), which would sacrifice little sonically.

What are these better solutions?

When I get some free time, I’ll outline my current recommendations for all to see (and hear)!

Bob

The Great BAAS DAC Comparison – Results are In!

We just completed another great BAAS event. When we succeed, we combine listening pleasure and camaraderie with a “wisdom of the crowds” learning experience. We seem to have hit the right note(s) yesterday in Jason’s superb listening environment.

First, here are the DAC’s that we had on hand:

• Weiss Medea – $16K MSRP    (thanks Clive)
• Theta Gen VIII Series II – $11K   (thanks Jason)
• Berkeley Audio Design Alpha – $5K   (thanks Tim & Michael)
• Bel Canto DAC-III – $2.5K    (thanks Dan)

We used a variety of music to audition each DAC, including:

• Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra)
• Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances (Ref Recordings)
• Jane Selkye & Chris Kee:  Slow Day (Blue Coast Collection)
• Dave Matthews Band: All Along the Watchtower (Live at Red Rocks)
• Patricia Barber: Alphie (Unpublished, but older version here)
• Jun Fukamachi: Chopin Nocturne in E Flat Major (At Steinway, direct from 45-RPM vinyl – a groovy disk!)

So – after a man-week or more of preparation (much of it by the esteemed digital consultant, Tim Marutani), five hours of listening, and much discussion – what did we learn?

I’ll save my specific conclusions for a later post, but here are some general comments:

• Sonic quality was not generally proportional to price or packaging
• No DAC was best on all material, for example:
  • The Bel Canto was superb on simple acoustic material, but stumbled on “big,” complex pieces
• Digital interface type (SPIDF vs AES/BU) and analog out type (RCA vs XLR) can matter
• The quality of the digital clock and the manner in which it’s implemented matter greatly; and
• In this event, the Berleley Audio Design Alpha (BADA) DAC was a stunning performer, and – dare I say it – I want one ( even at its $5,000 price point). It sounded that good to me.

So that’s the story of this successful BAAS event. Special thanks to Jason Victor Serinus and Tim Marutani for their many contributions.

OK, attendees, the world wants to know what you heard. Post your comments now!

Best Systems at Rocky Mountain (RMAF 2008)

Let me begin with a quotable quote:

• Audiophile: “I just don’t understand how a power cord can matter.”
• Well-known cable vendor: “The first thing to understand is that the improvement has nothing to do with power….”
• Audiophile: “Huh?”

Yep – believe it or not – a lot of hype and misinformation flowed in Denver this weekend. But so did a lot of knowledge and great access to very interesting sound systems.

For my list of “best sounds at the show,” read on…

› Continue reading

LittleFlashlight – Valhalla Cable Better than a Woman?

Check out this funny, creepy video from confessed audiophile LittleFlashlight.

A bit over-the-top, but cool.

Lots of other a-phile related vid’s there too…

Latest in DIY Reference Music Servers

Those of you that attended Saturday’s event, heard high-quality music from a Mac supplemented by a Slim Devices Transporter. I personally consider this reference-quality, and it’s relatively easy to implement.

(Note: it’s only reference quality if you rip the disk correctly and use a reference-quality DAC.)

However, this setup will not currently play high-resolution music (e.g., the 24/192 RR HrX material).

If you want the truly best, you have to get your hands a bit dirty (pardon the pun). This article from the excellent “Computer Audiophile” blog explains how – both for a Mac and a PC.

The reference DAC on both systems is the fine Berkeley Audio Alpha DAC. Some of you will remember this DAC from the HrX sessions at Jason’s house.

Enjoy!

The Perils of Audiophile Solder

To my growing list of “audiophile stuff that doesn’t work” I must now add solder!

Here’s what Bruce Rozenblit, owner of Transcendant Sound, has to say:

Don’t  Use WBT Solder On My Kits. I have had to repair a couple of kits recently that used WBT solder.  The flux used in it does not properly wet the metals used in terminal strips and tube sockets.  It just doesn’t stick and flow well to them.  It works fine on gold-plated terminals.  Beginners think solder is supposed to act this way and don’t realize what is going on and get bad joints.   Do you yourselves a huge favor and just use Kester brand solder.  I use Kester 245.  If you want to use a no-lead variety, use one of theirs.  In fact, don’t use ANY audiophile grade solder on my kits.  I don’t know what’s in them.  Several kits use a bare heavy copper wire as a ground buss and some have  reported to me that they had great difficulty soldering to it.  I could not understand what the problem was.  Now I realize that they all were using some kind of audiophile grade solder.   Solder has nothing to do with the way an amp sounds but it sure can ruin a kit.

I myself have had mixed results with some name-brand solder that I bought from Parts Express. But never a problem with Radio Shack brand! Go figure….

Audiophile Ethernet – Pushing the Snake Oil Barrier?

Despite all the heat I took from my last “snake oil” article, I’d like to think that I’m open-minded about the performance of tweaks.

This one, however, pushes the limits another step – it appears to be an audiophile-quality ethernet cable priced at $500!

In truth, it seems that most pundits at Wired, Slashdot, and elsewhere are assuming that ethernet is the underlying hardware standard and TCP/IP is running on top. But just because  the cable looks identical doesn’t mean it is identical. And Denon describes the ‘Denon Link’ as a proprietary standard capable (in V3) of transporting SACD and PCM natively.

Now that the geek-speak has made everything clear as mud, I’ll offer that:

• Were I a betting man, I’d say that this is a standard “ethernet” cable; and
• I’ve not heard these, and so can’t comment on their sonic efficacy. (Personally, I use radio waves as my ethernet transport at home.)

And, as in all such things, YMMV….