Stereophile January 2016

THERE ARE AS MANY OPINIONS AS THERE ARE EXPERTS THIS ISSUE: It appears that listeners can hear the difference between CD-quality audio and its hi-rez equivalent. My spirits sank as I read the comments on Stereophile’s Facebook page. In the November issue, we had published reviews of UpTone Audio’s USB Regen device by Kalman Rubinson, Michael Lavorgna, and myself.1 Michael and Kal had enthused about the positive effect the USB Regen had made, but I could detect no measurable difference. On Facebook, Dan Madden had written, “I think a device like this would need a blind listening test to verify that a listener could hear the difference in a statistically measurable way, in a very high percentage of times.” I have no argument with that statement. But then, Madden went on to say,…

TAKE HEED! Unless marked otherwise, all letters to the magazine and its writers are assumed to be for possible publication. In the spirit of vigorous debate implied by the First Amendment, and unless we are requested not to, we publish correspondents’ e-mail addresses. Hello, Lachlan I just want to thank Michael Fremer for inspiring me to decide to get into hi-fi. I’m 15 years old and I’m absolutely obsessed with analog systems, especially vinyl ones. I think I’m probably one of the youngest audiophiles you’ve heard of! Don’t let that fool you, though—I know my stuff, and I love tweaking my setup like everyone else. —Lachlan Cuskelly lmcuskelly23@gmail.com Goodbye, John Marks Editor: I was despondent to read that John Marks has left Stereophile (November, p.19). His “The Fifth Element” was always my favorite column in Stereophile.…

SUBMISSIONS: Those promoting audio-related seminars, shows, and meetings should e-mail the when, where, and who to JAtkinson@enthusiastnetwork.com at least eight weeks before the month of the event. The deadline for the March 2016 issue is December 20, 2015. UK: KENT & WEST SUSSEX Paul Messenger Two British companies are currently introducing new DAC technologies. The two approaches are very different from each other, and each is radical in its own way. Chord Electronics has long set benchmarks for hi-tech DACs, using technology based on consultant Robert Watts’s field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Chord’s two most recent DACs, the Digital to Analogue Veritas in Extremis (DAVE, $16,000 in the US) and the Mojo ($599), represent the two cost extremes of the marketplace. Similar to the philosophy first adopted by Chord nearly 20 years ago, the DAVE…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website dedicated solely to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophilesocieties. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@XLinkAudio.com. Please note that it is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless this is associated with a seminar or similar event. CALIFORNIA Sunday, January 31, 2–5pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting at The Source Audio/Video Design Group, in Torrance (3035 Kashiwa Street). Our hosts, Steven and Jason Lord, will demonstrate top-of-theline equipment in spaces customdesigned to maximize your musical (and visual) enjoyment. Listen to Boulder, Dan D’Agostino, Denon, Linn, Marantz, MBL, McIntosh, Pearl Evolution, Simaudio Moon, Sonus Faber, Totem Acoustic, Wadia, and other fine examples…

INSIDER VIEWS ON EVERYTHING VINYL THIS ISSUE: Mikey auditions the new turntable from England’s SME. In the April 2000 issue of Stereophile, I reviewed SME’s Model 10, which was an attempt by that storied company to produce an “affordable” turntable.1 I described the Model 10’s $5500 turntable-only price—about $7600 in today’s dollars—as “stiff.” (At the time, the Model 10 cost $5995 with SME’s M10 arm, or $8250 with their IV. Vi arm.) But 16 years later, the same Model 10 costs only $5000 ($7000 with the more recent Model 10 arm, which is superior to the M10). Today, a turntable price of $7000, while not exactly cheap, can’t be called stiff. What happened between then and now was a vinyl revival beyond anyone’s imagining—even mine—and a revitalization of the turntable market that has…

IN SEARCH OF THE EXCEPTIONAL THIS ISSUE: Art plays his music with perhaps the heaviest modern phono cartridge ever, the Tzar DST. In a typical phono cartridge, the stylus is at one end of an oversize cantilever (oversize in comparison with the cartridge’s other moving parts), the fulcrum of which is nearer the cantilever’s other end. That design makes possible a certain amount of mechanical compliance that, when the cartridge is lowered to the record surface, helps the stylus seat itself in the groove rather than bounce or skip all over the place. Without at least a modicum of springiness, cueing up a record would be more difficult, and jukeboxes and automatic record changers might never have been possible. Imagine! But, as I described in last month’s column, the cantilever of an ideal…