Sound + Image Jun/Jul-14

There have been a number of new and exciting products come our way over the last few weeks. Firstly we are now receiving sufficient stocks of the Krell Foundation Audio/Visual processor (pictured below) for us to talk about it. This has actually been on the market for some time, but stocks have been very difficult to come by. The ability of Krell to get the very best musicality out of every component that they touch is extraordinary. Yes, it is an A/V processor, and it carries out all of the functions that you would expect an A/V processor to carry out. But at the same time, and somewhat unusually, the Foundation sounds great – not only on theatre, but also on music. The Krell Foundation sells for $10K. Another exceptional product…

Streaming streaming everywhere. Not all but most of the products reviewed in this issue are able to stream music and/or movies in some way or other. Not that they all do it the same way, or with equal ability. With the choice or combination of Bluetooth, AirPlay, DLNA/UPnP, internet streaming plus other proprietary solutions, that ‘some way or other’ can be considered as either richly or confusingly diverse, depending on your technical prowess. Certainly if you’re after a streaming music system, you don’t want to be walking into a chain store with no idea what to buy — there are simply too many options now, and probably not enough knowledgeable advice in there to point you in the right direction. We continue to recommend specialist dealers for their expertise, experience…

Remarkably this DA-300USB is Denon’s first ever standalone USB DAC — the category has been largely left by the major manufacturers to lesser brands and high-end specialists until recently. Not that Denon is a stranger to the technology, given its DAC technology is embedded within all its CD and SACD players (some of which have included USB inputs), as well as in digitally-equipped Denon amplifiers and AV receivers. So the DA-300USB provides what it describes as “the same Advanced AL32 Processing and high precision 192kHz/32-bit technologies used to deliver the astounding sound quality of Denon’s top-of-the-range CD / SACD players” This neat unit either stands as shown or lies horizontally, and is priced here at $799. It upsamples all input signals except DSD to a 192kHz/32-bit high definition data stream, and although the…

No one would have believed, in the last years of the 20th century, that a turntable launched in the “final years of vinyl” would have stayed on the books, its sales ever rising, and 23 years after its first appearance would hit the stores in a sixth generation. But so it has come to pass, with the arrival of the Pro-Ject 1Xpression Carbon Classic, with a new carbon tone-arm and other fresh approaches, including a resonance-damping counterweight that allows best performance for any cartridge, low-noise AC motor with effective motor decoupling, and a precise DC-driven AC generator for speed stability. Speed changes require the platter removed and belt shifted. It’s available in four colours — high-gloss white and black, plus the olive and mahogany pictured below — all priced at $1299, making…

AUSTRALIAN AUDIO & AV SHOW DATES We’re hearing great things in preparation for the 2014 Australian Audio & AV Show, which will return to the Melbourne Intercontinental The Rialto from 17-19 October. NextMedia is again delighted to be the Media Partner. Discounted tickets are now available in advance at www.chestergroup.org DEFINING HIGH-RES AUDIO This should be good news, but we’re not entirely sure. Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group have joined with the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and Recording Academy to come up with a formal definition of high-res audio which they hope will be adopted industry-wide. Their definition is: “lossless audio that is capable of reproducing the full range of sound from recordings that have been mastered from better than CDquality music sources.”…

We’re only just seeing (and hearing) Dolby Atmos adopted in the cinemas, but the first compatible home AV receivers are already on a promise for later this year, with both Denon and Yamaha confirming the technology on their top models for the upcoming season, and Onkyo also promising Atmos-compatible models. Dolby Atmos in cinemas allows up to 61.3 discrete channels of information, with five screen channels and up to 56 surround channels, including two rows of speakers on the ceiling (as pictured), and three differentiated bass channels. Sound engineers have been salivating over the new ability this delivers to steer their soundtracks precisely where they want them. For the home this will translate to a new nomenclature for surround sound. Denon says that a nine-channel receiver will be able to run Dolby…