BAASnotes.com – Bay Area Audiophile Society

Coolest Stereo Ever (If Apple Existed in 1961…)

Just lovely. Designed by the inimitable Dieter Rams, it featured a 6-tube amp and cord drive.

Affectionately called the “Snow White Coffin” by some. I wonder why….

Bob

Alón’s Analogue Array

This system has been a work in progress Since 1980. I bought my first audiophile gear at Hi Fi Haven, which was a high-end audio dealer in my college neighborhood in NJ. This was not a part of town you’d expect an audio store, on its left was a strip club and on its right was Greasy Tony’s Cheesesteaks, which was open all night and staffed with the shadiest motley crew imaginable. Ah, you gotta love college in NJ when the drinking age was 18. Most of my friends frequented the two latter businesses, I think I was the only one who added HiFi Haven as a point of interest.

At HiFi Haven, a guy named Peter Cuddy took the time to teach me how to listen, not just hear. For that I’m not sure if I am eternally grateful or really pissed off for letting a college kid buy a cassette deck in the 4 figures. I wonder if he’s still around? Can’t blame him, since way before we met, I had (as an adolescent) been putting what my wife calls audio-porn up on my bedroom walls. The one I remember distinctly was a cool Sansui receiver with a lit up FM dial I was drooling over at 14 years old. I also remember enhancing the sound of my crappy plastic all-in-one’s speakers by reinstalling them in, wait for it… empty one gallon cardboard milk containers. They sure sounded way better… By 15, I was totally hooked.

As an adult, I tend to choose very good elements that sound great together and hold on to them for a long time while I enjoy my system thoroughly. Only recently did I sell that first piece of high-end gear, which I admit was a strange way to start my Audiophilia – a Nakamichi 680ZX. All those cool phosphorescent lights and knobs to play with… who knew a source component would have been a better choice?

I love gear, but what I really care about is music. As I write this, I’ve got my AKGs on (wife’s asleep), listening to Dexter Gordon’s One Flight Up on a pristine Blue Note test pressing. The combination of my analog front end (both the Alphason/Madrigal set-up and the Townshend/Ortofon rig), fed through the VAC and driven by the Raptor is producing such gorgeous, live sound that it’s hard to imagine it getting any better.

Stop laughing, I know we’ve all felt this way many times… until we reach the next level, where we are once again slack-jawed and astonished that “we never heard that before!”

Adding the REL subs to the Von Schweikert Unifield 3s made my system able to reproduce a believable and frankly astonishing concert-level experience.

Thanks for reading. Your thoughtful comments are most welcome. Except about the photos, I know they suck. I’ll get to them one day. Cheers!

Alón

Components list and more pictures on next page…

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Making a B&W 802D (Not a DIY affair)

Bay Area Audiophiles Hear the DaVinci 384K DAC

Last Saturday, BAAS members were treated to a private sitting with the trend-setting DaVinci DAC.

Impressive in both design and specs, members noted in particular the impressive soundstage that the unit projected.

The music played, all hi-res except for the Montserrat Figueras tribute, was either classical or jazz: excerpts of Haydn and Beethoven string quartets, Mozart, Ole Bull’s very romantic violin, Paul Motian and Vince Guaraldi’s jazz, Montserrat Figueras and Jordi Savall’s period instrument Monteverdi, and, in the second session, Kumiko’s Steve Reich on marimba. A fine tribute to a pair of fallen artists.

Thanks again to Jason Victor Serinus for hosting. His fine room, system, and expert musical selections make auditions a treat.

And, of course, special thanks to Larry Ho and Light Harmonic for supplying this elegant piece of reproduction equipment. You can learn more here.

Bob

Bay Area audiophiles meet the new Qol technology

This weekend offered something new few BAAS members, who were introduced to one of the first net-new technologies to hit the high-end scene in years. Of course, I’m talking about the Qol (think “coal” re pronunciation) algorithm from BSG Technologies.

Each of the three sessions began with a thorough briefing from BSG CEO Larry Kay. We then tested the transparency of the analog circuits in the Qol device. With Qol in a tape loop of the Wavelength preamp, we switched the unit in and out while playing the Mahler 2 from Classic. Not a single member could hear a difference. Nada. This in itself can be considered a fine accomplishment IMO. In fact, add an attenuator and a little gain to the Qol and a great preamp would emerge,

We spent much of the rest of the time switching the actual Qol processing in and out. This test was a bit tougher to interpret, as the nature of the Qol – adding (“restoring”) phase and harmonic information to the signal – results in a 0.5dB-2dB rise in acoustic power. So everybody heard a big and positive difference when the Qol was switched in. The question was how much of this goodness was due to the effect and how much do to the gain.

It’s not my role here to render a judgement. But I will say two things. First, BAAS members were unanimous that the Qol processing did no harm, i.e., the processed signal sounded at least as good as the raw signal. Second, one minute into the demo, an experienced BAAS listener sitting in the room’s sweet spot pronounced “I’m sure it’s doing more than a gain change!” Beyond that, I’d urge interested listeners to spend time with the unit themselves. (As I understand it, BSG has a reasonable home audition policy, at least in the Bay Area.)

All of our testing was supported by the new Triode loudspeakers from Jim Jordan of Vaughn. Jim also brought a stack of Wavelength electronics, which featured NOS Western Electric 300B tubes. The source was my highly-modified Pioneer Elite universal player.

Many thanks to Larry, Jim, and Shawn Herrara (local Qol dealer) for making the event a success.

Bob

Edit: The new issue of The Absolute Sound (#220) contains a seven-page rage of the Qol device by Robert Harley.

Lindemann System Impresses Bay Area Audiophiles

Jonathan Josephs, head of importer One World Audio, wowed local audiophiles yesterday with an impressive array of mostly-Lindemann components.

Front-and-center in the performance were the small-but-mighty BL-10 monitors (pictured). They not only sounded great, but also measured well using the Goldline MP-30 Real-Time Analyzer that was on hand.

Vinyl-loving members were also impressed by the vintage Luxman turntable and Zesto phono stage being demmed.

Later in the day, newly-minted BAAS member Baron Lum was informed that he won the event’s house prize – a new $990-list Lindemann USB-DAC 24/192. (Unbiased post-event drawing shown.) Talk about “membership has its privileges”!

Many thanks to Jonathan and One World Audio….

Bob

Audiophile Light Bulb?

The listed freq response is about the same as I hear in some “high end” systems.

So it might be the way to go… (LOL)

[Thanks, Aaron]

Bob

It’s (Almost) Time…for Burning Amp 2011!

One of the true audiophile highlights of the year will be held on October 1st at Fort Mason in SF – Burning Amp.

Virtually mandatory for do-it-yourself (DIY) folks, I also recommend it for “general” audiophiles.

This year will feature a veritable “DIY God” – Douglas Self. I’m sure that I’m far from the only builder who got major acceleration from Mr. Self’s teachings.

Edit: The BA organizers are looking for help, especially in providing high-end digital and/or analog sources for the event. Contact info is on their site.

See you there,

Bob

Sonorus – Pure. Audiophile. Analog.

I’m a digital guy, buy I gotta say this is sexy. Recommended by Yarlung Records (which has released two hot-selling LPs and may release on tape). Get yours here. Note that they are coming out with amps and electrostats!

I will investigate for a BAAS event when the line is released.

Bob

Pictures from the 2011 California Audio Show

These pictures via BAAS member Vince (skeptica).

If other members have pix, let me know and I will post them.

Thanks, Vince!

Bob

Thunderbolt – The world’s most sophisticated cable?

The geometry of Nordost Odin. The circuit-in-a-cable approach of MIT. The static charge on Synergistic shielding. All examples of how audio cables have progressed beyond the twisted pair.

But these are childlike in sophistication compared to the Thunderbolt cable, as featured in new Apple Macintosh products.

T-bolt, which some suspect to be the ‘next big thing’ in computer-audio connectivity, houses a dozen I/C’s in each cable!

Check out the details in this iFixit blog piece.

Fascinating stuff (for a geek).

Bob

Dr. Linkwitz & His Orion Impress Bay Area Audiophiles

Yesterday, BAAS members were treated to the unique and highly capable “Orion IV Loudspeaker” system from Linkwitz Lab and Wood Artistry.

Sporting a “classic” planar baffle for mids and treble, bass is handled by a clever “W baffle” – a feature that no doubt contributes to the speaker’s fine top-to-bottom tonal balance and soundstage stability.

Also contruting to the overall sound were electronics from Pass Labs, Marantz, Bryston, and Auraliti (whose music server is becoming as ubiquitous at BAAS events as the first movement of “Symphonic Dances).

Indeed, I heard several members comment to each other after the event: “best sound I’ve heard in a long time.”

But that’s not all…. Also on hand were the designer (Siegfried Linkwitz) and builder (Don Naples). In addition to the obvious technical expertise of these two professionals, it was clear to me that both were avid audiophiles and music lovers too. Each describes his path in the audio biz, and the technical goals that were the targets of their efforts on Orion.

A discography of the music played is given below.

Thanks to West Valley College and all the folks that helped make this gig the success that it was.

Bob

JVS Hosts Audiophile Tour-de-force in Oakland

[Late post, with apologies.]

Late last month, our Jason Victor Serinus hosted an event at his home featuring both a vast array of new audiophile technologies and three guest presenters: Jason Jones of Jones Audio and Ray Burnham and Demian Martin of Auraliti.

Highlighting the equipment demmed were:

• The mighty Eficion F300 4-way loudspeakers;
• The sophisticated and elegant (prototype) Auraliti L-1000 file player; and
• The also-mighty Jones Audio PA-M300 Series II monobloc amplifiers.

Also on hand were the Gen. 8 Series II’s 24/192 (and 176.4) upgrade, Stillpoints isolators, Magico QPods, the PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport, Nordost Odin cables Odin everywhere, the Wavelength Wavelink USB to S/PIDF interface, and the Amarra playback software (2.2).

Musical selections included hi-res tracks from the new Attention Screen CD, more Yarlung Records via Linn Records hi-res download site, the ever-present works of Reference Recordings and Chesky Records/HD Tracks, and interesting hi-res content from ECM Records. There was also some funky hip-hop!

A bit of levity was added to the proceeding as JVS demmed how a particular orchestral crescendo could literally blow one of his gym socks out of the rear port on the Eficion’s midrange/tweeter module (a “knock your socks off” recording that indeed)!

In addition to the simple joy of hearing great music on a formidable system, members got yet more exposure to the realities of “why all digital does not sound alike.”

Many thanks to all those who made it happen.

Bob

Bay Area Audiophiles Wowed by APL and Yarlung

Lysy on Yarlung

It was just one of those days where everything seemed to click.

At 8AM yesterday, a 3-car caravan descended on West Valley College in Saratoga. We were met by a smiling Gerard Carter of the Music department, and we started unloading the gear and setting up. We had the gear assembled, room redecorated (chairs and tables moved), and music playing by 9AM.

We spent an hour dialing in speaker positions and the like. Alex Paychev of APL Hi-fi liked what he was hearing – a good sign. So did Doug Olsen, who had graciously contributed some of the gear. Just after 10AM, Bob Attiyeh of Yarlung Records landed at SJC, and was picked up by member Andrej Sali.

In fact, just about the only thing that went wrong was a formatting error on one of my hard drives. The drive wasn’t needed anyway. Oh, and the founder of a famous audio webzine couldn’t find the place.

APL UA-S4

And then came the music. And things got even better. About 50 BAAS members listened for hours to great music, carefully recorded and produced, and rendered beautifully by the APL DAC-S and accompanying amps and speakers. And just when we thought things couldn’t go any batter, we were treated to some tracked on the über alles $30K+ APL NWO Universal Player/USB DAC. Nice. Very.

Along the way, we learned some very interesting things about Bob’s recording techniques, Alex’s design philosophy, and the effects of sampling rate on fidelity.

Special thanks to Bob Attiyeh and Alex Peychev – great stuff!

Bob

DSP & Digital Crossovers Using a Mac

Crossover - eFicion F300

I just wrote a lengthy post about digital crossovers and EQ over on the Computer Audiophile forums (click here to read it).

Bottom line, while not for everybody, DSP technology can revolutionize the way you interact with your system.

I also make some specific product recommendations that I thought would be inappropriate for BAASnotes (being as how we’re Switzerland and all….

Bob

The Cool Sound of Valves

Check out this article in IEEE Spectrum regarding why tubes sound better.

It’s a bit long, but its arguments are lucid and well-presented. Be sure to read the sidebars too!

Amazingly (for an IEEE pub), bothe the objective and subjective sides of the story are covered.

Also, note how many Bay Area people are on center-stage.

The money quote:

In spite of the bad press, high-end audio was estimated in a Wall Street Journal article in December 1991 to sell as much as $1 billion per year worldwide, enjoying a 20 percent annual growth rate. Japan, alone, consumes $200 million per year in high-end components.

Bob

Proof that Digital Cables Matter? – A Prism Demo

I had a good time at the AES 2010 Conference in San Francisco.

I saw interesting people: Dan Weiss, Bruno Putzeys (Hypex Class-D inventor), John Curl, Jack Bybee, Alan Parsons (really!), etc.

I listened to cool stuff: the new Antelope DAC that Head-Fi’ers seem to like, various pro monitors (JBL, Adam, Genelec, ATC, Grimm), Apogee’s cool modular DAC, etc.

But – most importantly – I learned stuff. Like this….

It seems to me, that of all the cables in a modern audiophile rig, the one with the toughest job is the digital cable (SPDIF or AES/EBU). Why? Because it has to carry a very-dynamic, very-high-bandwidth analog signal. And it can’t be noisy.

Well, it turned out that the Prism folks – who make both pro audio gear and test gear – had a perfect rig to put this to the test. Specifically, they had the gear to analyze the dynamics, jitter and noise of a word clock signal. Further, the gear could be configured to use either internal soldered connections or an external cable. I took pictures of the results on my Droid. (Yes, the quality sucks.)

Word clock jitter was discussed in detail almost 10 years ago in “The Jitter Game,” an epic treatise appearing in Stereophile in early 1992. The illustrations below depict “eye patterns” of the word clock signal. Both these references are recommended.

Let’s get to today’s measurements….

For all of the pictures that follow, a key metric is that the signal be stable at its max or min during the time depicted by the horizontal red bars. Another key metric is the cleanliness of the zero-crossings. Finally, it’s vital that the eye stay open! As the area within the eye closes down

The first image (below) shows an eye pattern for the Prism clock at 48khz.  Importantly, the signal is both generated and measured in the same box, i.e., the wiring between the clock and the o’scope is internal and soldered. As you can see, this curve is very clean in terms of both the red bars and the zero-crossings. In fact, the only flaw in the signal is the slight-but-well-damped overshoot.

At 192khz, the signal remains very clean, but rise time starts to become an issue, closing the eye slightly.

But what happens when an external cable and its connectors enter the mix? To find out, we patched in a 100′ balanced AES/EBU cable of typical studio quality between the word clock and the o’scope. This should represent a ‘worse case’ scenario – long cable, noisy XLR connectors (BNC would be preferred), and mediocre cable quality.

The result: jitter! At 48khz, the signal showed noticeable variations in timing. Notice how the timing errors lead to amplitude errors. This signal would still be usable, though it might lead to audible distortion.

At 96khz with the cable in place, things get worse. Jitter becomes sizable, and the eye shuts down significantly. This signal is a mess.

We couldn’t even get the scope to sync at 192khz with the cable in the loop.

So what can we conclude from all this?

Given that we threw this exercise together in real time on the AES 2010 show flow, documented it loosely with my Droid camera, and had no scientific controls in place – not a lot. Let’s put it this way: I’m not rushing these results into peer review!

But on this day with that system we seemed to show that ‘regular sudio’ cables can create signal distortions in a word clock signal that are likely audible.

Your milage can – and quite possibly will – vary. Caveat lector (reader beware)!

Anyone care to try Nordost Odin?   ;~)

Bob

Disclosure: I own a Prism Orpheus.

Tubes for Christmas (1930)

10 Most Expensive Loudspeakers?

OK, here’s the list.

I doubt if it’s totally accurate, but it’s quite entertaining.

Hint: The Japanese Transmission Audio numbers on the right go for a cool $2M.

Bob

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