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Wilson Benesch A.C.T. One Evolution

When Wilson Benesch stopped being ‘just’ a maker of turntables and started branching out into those transducers at the other end of the system, the company’s first and arguably most important design was the A.C.T. One. Using the company’s ‘Advanced Composite Technology’ monocoque, this floorstander hit the streets in 1995 and won a dozen awards. The A.C.T. One has passed through three iterations to date, including the ACT C60 and A.C.T. The A.C.T. One Evolution is a fitting name for a truly evolving design.

The A.C.T. One Evolution is the distillation of all the engineering and materials science development that Wilson Benesch can throw at a loudspeaker. Of course, 20 years later, there is a lot more loudspeaker history and engineering to throw around, and where the original A.C.T. One began ‘tabula rasa’, the A.C.T. One Evolution draws upon drive unit and high compression cabinet construction derived from two decades of loudspeaker design, which includes the company’s Cardinal flagship.

Like the Cardinal, the A.C.T. One Evolution is a four-driver, two-and-a-half way floorstander, featuring Wilson-Benesch’s novel Semisphere hybrid silk-meets-carbon dome tweeter with a series of Tactic II drivers. The hybrid nature of the 25mm company’s own Semisphere driver is a method of harnessing the speed of modern hard dome tweeters with the frequency extension and tonal accuracy of a classic soft dome. This innovative tweeter unit remains one of the jewels in Wilson Benesch’s crown.

The 170mm Tactic II is also unique to Wilson Benesch, a development produced in association with Sheffield University (its physics department designed a unique motor assembly encasing neodymium magnets that optimised flux across the geometry of the driver). The driver features a light-yet-stiff isotactic (hence the name) polypropylene cone in a streamlined basket.

Clever officially starts here: the Tactic II is a multi-purpose drive unit. So, the Tactic II driver in its own 26 litre chamber is built precisely for its function as a bass driver, while the one below the tweeter is devoid of any crossover and built as a pure midrange. Wilson Benesch class the Tactic II as a ‘multirole’ drive unit, rather like a multirole combat aircraft like a Dassault Rafale, but with fewer hard-points and gun platform options.

That last line wasn’t as throwaway as it might have first seemed, because Dassault – the group that includes the makers of the French fighter – developed the 3D CAD/CAM software that Wilson Benesch uses in the development of all its products, including the A.C.T. One. While CAD/CAM is not a new thing in loudspeaker design, it’s relatively rare for a company of Wilson Benesch’s size to use the technology so thoroughly. When you look at the design of the company’s speakers, you can see precisely why that design program is money well spent.

Nevertheless, the carbon-fibre monocoque design found in the original A.C.T. One is still a vital part of the new loudspeaker’s development. It means the loudspeaker can be completely unbraced internally, and yet retain the level of stiffness required of a loudspeaker at this level. And that means the internal volume of the cabinet is far larger than most loudspeakers of the A.C.T. One Evolution’s footprint, which spells deceptive amounts of bass for the size of speaker. It also uses Wilson Benesch’s ‘Troika’ arrangement of upper and lower midrange units flanking the tweeter. This is not a typical ‘MTM’ or ‘D’Appolito’ arrangement, because the upper driver sits in its own enclosure. This also acts as a lower midrange/bass unit, instead of another midrange driver, as befits the Tactic II’s ‘multirole’ use. The look also harks back to the original A.C.T. One, with its sculptured and curved lines, and sloping top, but there are also clear elements of the company’s other Geometry Series speakers at work here. A lot of this comes down to what other companies might dismiss as ‘trimmings’ but in fact are vital components of how the A.C.T. One Evolution is sited in its surroundings, with hand wheels, inverted cones and – if need be, cups – can be used for installation. The biwire loudspeaker terminals are set into the integrated plinth, and the rear panel just features two small rear ports for the upper and lower midrange chambers.

Wilson Benesch loudspeakers present a relatively easy load (89dB sensitivity, a nominal six-ohm impedance with a four-ohm minimum and no evil phase angles in the impedance plot) but they do like being driven hard. Good, solid-state power and plenty of it is the order of the day. They were in their element on the end of a Devialet 250 and this suggests a brute force amplifier that can deliver enough current to drive an arc welder is not as important as an amplifier with good power delivery. The function of a beneath the plinth cable entry system precluded significant cable playtime, and perhaps not surprisingly the A.C.T. One Evolution seemed perfectly comfortable on the end of a squillion pounds worth of Nordost Odin 2.

Positioning is key with these speakers, although not perhaps as ‘millimetre-sensitive’ as some of the Geometry Series seem to require. The A.C.T. One Evolution is surprisingly room tolerant, working well in big and small rooms. Naturally, the more you can nuance the system in terms of installation, room acoustics, and precise adjustment, the better. This is a loudspeaker that always gets to ‘good’ but with some fine-tuning can easily get to ‘great’. The one caveat to the small room demands is it does need some free-space at the rear in order to deliver bass properly. Put it less than a metre from the rear wall and those two ports begin to interact with the surroundings.

I’m very fond of Wilson Benesch loudspeakers. They are extremely focused and precise. That doesn’t mean they constrain the life out of music, however. They are just dry and sophisticated, like a really good Martini. They are also extremely dynamic when correctly partnered; not in the writ-large style of Wilson loudspeakers, or horn designs, but more than capable of showing precisely what dynamic range is in your recordings. But I understand that this combination is not for everyone, and some would like a bit more bottom end authority to match that mid and top. Yes, that powerful bass comes with the Cardinal and when using the company’s Torus not-a-subwoofer Infrasonic Generator, but in some respects the gusto of cheaper models like the Square Five is hard to find in the brand’s top models.

The A.C.T. One Evolution changes that. It has the perfect combination of extraordinary control and deep, primal bass: not in a wild way, this is no rabid, Jekyll and Hyde speaker, more a classical guitarist who plays bass for Iron Maiden in his spare time. The A.C.T. One Evolution has all the cerebral, sophisticated properties people have come to expect from Wilson Benesch loudspeakers, but these are harnessed to a deep, potent, powerful bass line that could easily be set to threatening levels. What is truly inspiring here is these two elements combine naturally in the way Guinness and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate do: it’s the kind of combination that shouldn’t work, but does… and does magnificently. Try it!

In the case of the Wilson Benesch A.C.T. One Evolution, the precision of the midrange and treble do not seem like comfortable bedfellows with that much bass, but the level of clarity and control into the deepest recesses of the loudspeaker make for an excellent loudspeaker. ‘Dayvan Cowboy’ from Boards of Canada’s The Campfire Headphase LP [Warp Records] is a deceptive slice of mid 2000s electronica – there doesn’t seem like much bass going on at all, except that it completely underpins the treated, distorted, synthesised sounds and tremolo guitar, making everything seem less of a swirling, cacophonous mess and more like a slice of post rock brilliance.

I don’t want to get carried away by the bass. There is a lot more to this loudspeaker than bottom end. It’s just that the loudspeaker does bass so well, and so deep: that unbraced cabinet makes it TARDIS like and far bigger on the inside than you’d expect and that means more cabinet volume and that means more bass – but the level of control the A.C.T. One Evolution has over that bass is insane. But, let’s move on. What the speaker also does extraordinarily well is create a good soundstage. That requires some space around the loudspeakers that my tiny room generally precludes, but even here it was clear the loudspeakers were doing something remarkable to the soundstage. There was greater depth and width that extended far beyond the limits of the room: so deep in fact, I kept expecting passers-by to be hit in the face by an invisible tympani player!

The A.C.T. One Evolution is also extraordinarily detailed from top to toe. These are great loudspeakers for musical analysis, for listening into the music and extracting both a lot of information and – more significantly – a lot of fun. Play something like Bach’s Art of Fugue [Emerson String Quartet, DG] and you need to hear both the cerebral and the visceral. This should be extremely precise and very clearly a string quartet, but it should also come with a sense of musical joy and vivacity, taking the birthplace of modern music and making it their own. Less detailed loudspeakers fail at one of these two aspects, either making the precision or the fun-factor disappear. Wilson Benesch’s A.C.T. One Evolution combines both elements of the recording with lithe elegance. Paradoxically though, what the A.C.T. One Evolution doesn’t do is pretend to be a studio monitor. If you want that stark, flat sound… look elsewhere. By comparison to that monitor-like sound, the Wilson Benesch has a slight zing in the upper mid to treble. Not much, and the kind of thing that makes vocals and pianos come to life in normal domestic listening rooms. Ultimately, I’d prefer this presentation in the home to a flatter, more dreary sound.

Some of the reason why this isn’t a monitor sound is the A.C.T. One Evolution appears more dynamic than many monitors. This is perhaps excusable in monitor loudspeakers (that close to the real instruments, dynamic range is something studio monitors ‘tame’ rather than ‘exploit’), but the Wilson Benesch loudspeakers do present an effortless, and easy dynamic range.

The A.C.T. One Evolution also go loud. OK, so not as loud as that other Wilson product line, but for real world users who aren’t looking at using their £20,000 loudspeakers in endless party mode, they will play ‘La Grange’ by ZZ Top [Tres Hombres, London] at air guitar levels quite, quite happily.

In short, this is a great all-rounder. You could happily spend hour upon hour sitting in front of these loudspeakers loving every minute. Alongside the analysis and the soundstaging and all the other great aspects of this loudspeaker, that ‘sitinfrontability’ (a poor neologism, I know) is all important. This is a loudspeaker that simply works for long term listening.

The interesting thing with loudspeaker buyers is sometimes we have a taste for the exotic. This means UK high-enders often buy products from far away lands, and ignore home-grown devices, where our international counterparts will consider a UK based loudspeaker on its own merits, because it has its own taste of the exotic if you are on the other side of the world. While ‘designed and built in the UK’ has significant traction outside of the UK, many British people may well skip over the A.C.T. One Evolution because of its local origin, and it’s very much their loss. This is a wonderful loudspeaker, capable of great subtlety at the same time as deep bass wigging out. If this were a sane and fair world, the A.C.T. One Evolution would be considered in the same breath as that other Wilson loudspeaker brand, as well as that handful of big names at the top of the audiophile tree. Very highly recommended!

Technical Specifications

Type: four driver, 2.5 way ported floorstanding loudspeaker
Drive Units: 1× 25mm Semisphere hybrid silk/carbon dome tweeter, 1× 170mm Tactic II upper midrange driver, 1× 170mm Tactic II lower midrange driver, 1× 170mm Tactic II bass driver
Frequency Response: 34Hz–30kHz (±2dB on axis)
Sensitivity: 89dB
Impedance: six ohms nominal, four minimum
Input Connections: bi-wireable, manufactured in house
Internal volume: 46 litres
Finish: Standard/Bespoke Wood/High Gloss
Dimensions (H×W×D): 119×22.5×40cm
Weight: 46kg
Price: £19,950/pair (standard finish) £21,350 (bespoke/high gloss finish)

Manufactured by: Wilson Benesch

URL: www.wilson-benesch.com

Tel: +44(0)114 285 2656

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Naim ‘DR’ power amps and upgrades

In the wake of the ambitious NAC S1 and NAP S1 Statement project, Naim Audio has recently revised its ‘classic’ amplifier line up to incorporate some of the more significant advances resulting from the exhaustive research and development for that flagship product.

In the second half of 2015, the NAP200, 250 and 300 all acquired the DR suffix; the NAP500DR has taken a little longer due to the more complex nature of its circuitry. To coincide with it’s release the company hosted an event to present some of the technical background behind the new amps and have the opportunity to compare new against old through the range.

Recently appointed CEO Trevor Wilson opened the day with brief introduction outlining Naim’s current status, with updates on Spotify and Tidal compatibility in hand for streamers, and confirming a continuing commitment to the traditional hi-fi separates market in which they are doing particularly well. It was then over to Steve Sells, chief designer behind the Statement electronics and subsequent DR engineering to explain some of the electronic theory behind the upgrades, supported by imaginative demonstrations to show its effectiveness in practice. This was followed by listening tests to compare the original NAP250, 300 and 500 against their updated DR counterparts driving Focal Scala V2 Utopia loudspeakers.

Introduced in 2012, the initial DR designated upgrade consists of replacing the long-standing LM317 integrated circuit used to provide power for low-level circuitry such as preamps and active crossovers with a new board of made up of discrete components. As such, it is applicable to the standalone power supplies and smaller power amps that incorporated circuitry to similar effect. The improvement has been well documented, and firmly substantiates the company’s long held belief in the importance of power supplies in the system.

DR – short for discrete regulation – is something of a misnomer when applied to the new power amplifiers. The regulation involved here is capable of delivering tens of amps when necessary, and always been made up of discrete components, with not a single integrated circuit in sight. However, research carried out for the requirements of the massive Statement amplifier led to a redesign of this circuit, resulting in far lower noise floor and superior current delivery. The regulation circuit now utilises a complementary pair of power transistors to supply current to the amplifier section, where the older topology used NPN-type devices for both the +VE and –VE rails. The actual output stage retains the quasi-complementary configuration, where identical NPN-type devices are used, and remains unchanged.

Rather like using a stethoscope, a demonstration allowed us to hear ‘inside’ a 250 amplifier and monitor the noise on the power supply while music was playing. The effectiveness of a regulated supply in cleaning up this crucial part of the circuit was immediately obvious, but more impressive was just how much better the new DR regulator was than the original circuit, audibly substantiating the claim that it is thirty times quieter.

The other highly significant factor in the DR makeover is the use of the NA009 power transistors, commissioned for the exacting demands of the Statement. This is a direct off-shoot of Naim’s close collaboration with semiconductor manufacturer Semilab over many years, and has enabled Naim to control design and fabrication to an unparalleled degree.

These unique devices are numbered and parameterised during manufacture, a process that allows precise matching from adjacent positions in the die from which they are fabricated. The benefits of close matching transistors are not only measurable in terms of lower distortion, but have a significant impact on performance, and that is borne out by controlled listening tests. Close examination of other factors – such as mechanical and magnetic properties – have resulted in the total elimination of ferrous materials in the construction of these transistors, while thermal considerations led to the development of aluminium oxide ceramics to couple the transistors to the heatsink. This is claimed to deliver more efficient thermal transfer and reduced bias modulation, while at the same time lowering the stray capacitance between the device and the metalwork, again minimising noise at a crucial part of the circuit.

Naim has also recently announced an upgrade program commencing at the beginning of 2016 that will be available to many existing owners of Naim’s NAP200, 250, 300, and 500 models, but unfortunately older versions (pre 21^st Century models of the ‘olive’ or ‘chrome bumper’ vintage) are not compatible with the new electronics. The NAP200DR is by far the most straightforward upgrade, as it does not incorporate regulated rails for the power amplifiers nor does it demand the extra current capacity of the 09 transistors, requiring instead only the substitution of the on-board preamp supply for a DR board. By contrast, the NAP500 requires the replacement of no less than twenty supplies due in part to its bridged configuration, and together with the 250 and 300, redesigned circuit boards and heatsink assemblies necessitate replacement of virtually all of the electronics. There will be a further option to have the power supply serviced, replacing all the reservoir capacitors in the process.

The demonstration of the NAP250, 300 and NAP500 against their new DR counterparts was handled expertly by Jason Gould, and was both enlightening and informative. While the hierarchy of the range was strongly evident, the improvement in each case was beyond question. The DR amplifiers exhibited a lower noise floor that allowed more detail, greater articulation and presence, together with a far more expansive range of dynamic expression portrayed with a wider bandwidth.

With their predecessors sounding drab and lacklustre by comparison, the technology handed down from the Statement electronics and the way in which it has been incorporated into the new DR amplifiers would have to be judged as a brilliant and unqualified success. This is arguably one of the most significant enduring legacies of the Statement project, as the lessons learned in producing this cost-no-object amplifier are directly filtering down to more attainable amplifiers in the Naim Audio range. That one of those ‘lessons’ involves the production of a transistor specifically for Naim Audio shows the levels of commitment the company is willing to make to get the job done properly.

The prices of the new Naim DR amplifiers and upgrades as follows:

RRP Price DR Upgrade DR Upgrade and service

NAP250 DR £3,495 £995 (£500) £1,295

NAP300 DR £7,295 £1,495 (£750) £1,850

NAP500 DR £19,500 £4,200 (£2,940) £4,900

All prices include VAT. The figures in brackets indicate the upgrade price if the unit was purchased within three months prior to launch.

What Santa didn’t bring this year!

A list of Christmas presents dreamed up by reviewers could be seen as an exercise in self‑indulgence. We get to play with all the toys, all the time anyway. So, in audiophile terms, every day is Christmas Day for an audio reviewer, at least in theory.

In fact, while this is the case, some of those toys stick in the mind more than others. A reviewer covers a lot of products in the average year, and there are some that stand out as being above and beyond the norm. Perhaps surprisingly for a high-end magazine, these are not necessarily the most expensive products tested (often they are some of the cheapest).

Maybe it’s not so indulgent after all. Maybe it’s an insight into the things that stand out in audio. Not simply the day-to-day stuff we test, but the things that we really remember, and that is probably the things that really matter. Over the coming weeks, we’ll ask the same thing of many of our team, and we’d love to hear the same from you, too!

Some of us have also looked forward as well as back, to things they hope to review, or expect to review in the coming months. The promise of good things in audio is a sure sign of an audio enthusiast, even if a professional eye tempers that. Deep down, many of us are still very nerdy when it comes to good audio.

An interesting aside is if you look at this synoptically, analysing what products appear time and time again from different reviewers, there are commonalities. We had a lot of people choose the Rega RP10, the AudioQuest Jitterbug, and the Naim Statement in amongst their list of goodies, and many citing Townshend Seismic Platforms and Chord Mojos as their close run thing choices. We also had a lot of repeated brand names, such as PMC and Naim, constantly reappearing, although maybe not the same products.

One possibly disturbing trend for the collectors of physical discs is that so few of us even considered including a record or CD in their lists, even as a wild-card. This somewhat confirms the suggestion that many of us are, in fact, obtaining our music through streaming and downloaded sources, rather than trawling the record stores for new discs. Is this a worrying trend, or merely an indicator of the conservative world of high‑end audio finally shaking off the 20th Century?

For writers who spend most of their time working on reviews, it’s sometimes good to let your hair down a little. If you have any hair left. We have a lot of audio equipment to write about every month, a lot of it good, but the exceptional ones are relatively rare. These are the things that spark our excitement, that make us remember when and why we first got into this whole audio thing, and they are the products that we either end up owning or wishing we could own in an ideal world. It’s like writing our own fantasy Christmas lists.

At the very top end, there is almost infinite choice. This is, after all, a high-end magazine, shamelessly unafraid of big tickets. The most expensive audio system I’ve ever checked out was the ‘spendy’ side of a million. For me, though, the one high-end device that pressed all my keys recently was the Audio Research Reference 75SE power amp. It’s not just that it is better than the original Ref 75 (although it clearly ticks that box) or that it makes other valve power amps cower in a corner (it’s good, but it’s not that good), it’s that it hung together so well and demonstrates so ably that there is still development to be had from tube amps. It also highlights what a good place audio is in from a sonic standing. This is a company that could so easily drift along on an ocean of past masterpieces and goodwill (ARC has some of the most fiercely loyal owners in audio), but continues to push forwards. It’s not alone, and many other brands have made great-sounding audio recently but the ARC Reference 75SE was surprising in its effortless approachability.

Perhaps it’s digital that has seen the biggest changes taking place, and no list of goodies is complete without mention of that wunderkind wonderconverter, the Nagra HD DAC. We are in a golden age of high performance digital audio today with players, DACs, and streamers that can do things we would have thought impossible from digital a few years back. Set in this context, the Nagra HD DAC is like pressing music’s ‘majestic’ button, capturing the sense of circumstance of a musical performance brilliantly. I am struck at how good the dCS Rossini is as the complete digital packaged deal, however…

In the more affordable world, we just got rocked by the new Chord Mojo. Chord Electronics changed the game of portable audio with its Hugo DAC/headphone amp, but it also pushes the limits of what is ‘portable’ today. Recent improvements to battery technology the FPGA chips used to house Chord’s digital conversion code meant that much of the paperback book sized Hugo could be fitted into the cigarette packet sized Mojo. That’s not all that went on a crash diet – the price of the Mojo is a sylphlike £399.

Mojo is every bit the portable DAC/headphone amp, eschewing domestic connections for micro-USB and 3.5mm minijack headphone sockets, and a ten hour battery life makes it great for music on the move. We’ll be publishing a full review of the Mojo soon as Chord finally built enough to spare one for our resident Hugo user.

A recent and greatly appreciated surprise recently has been the launch of the Russell K brand. Soon to be a three-strong range of two standmounts and an upcoming floorstander, thus far each one has been a gem in its own right. However, it’s possibly the cheapest model we’ve tested – the Red 50 – that has been the nicest so far. A small, front-ported two-way standmount design without any internal damping or wadding, the Red 50 draws upon classic Brit-Fi designs of the late 1980s like Linn Kans and Royd Edens, but also brings that sound up to date, meaning they remain faithful to the recording and can put a smile on your face. This is a rare thing, and an even rarer treat for the music lover.

High-end audio is not known for its ‘stocking fillers’, in part because if you can spend £10,000 on an interconnect cable, you can sometimes wind up with some really expensive stockings. But AudioQuest reset all our levels with the excellent and low-cost Dragonfly DAC, and has done it again with the new Jitterbug, which sells for the princely sum of £39. This is a data and power line USB filter, designed to help clean up noisy USB buses inside computers. Put one on an unused USB socket on the computer you are using as source, and the music played sounds a tiny bit more coherent, integrated, and focused. Then add another, possibly in-line between computer and DAC, and the same thing happens and things get a notch better again. Then you take them out and realise just how big those little changes are to a piece of music.

I currently only have two Jitterbugs, but I’ve seen people using five or more of the things filtering spare USB sockets on NAS drives and routers and everything else computer audio. The great thing about the Jitterbug is it’s cheap enough to give it a try without losing out significantly if you hear no difference. However, if you do hear a difference, the Jitterbug is also cheap enough to end up owning lots of them dotted around your system. So be warned – they are addictive!

Like many members of the press, I put in a lot of hours in the air. As well as CES and Munich, there are a host of international shows, events, factory visits, and more that mean a good set of lightweight noise-cancelling headphones are a must. And this year AKG joined the travel fray with its new N60 folding on-ear headphones. AKG has come up with something really clever here, because these new USB-charging headphones eat sounds better than ANY noise cancellers I’ve (not) heard before. They even manage to reduce background chatter, and make the sound of an aircraft cabin or a train almost disappear. If you are a frequent flyer, and don’t just take short 30 minute hops when you do fly, you owe it to yourself to try a pair of AKG N60s.

There’s always one that got away; a product you’d love to test, but either it never landed on your doorstep or simply never gets reviewed by anyone. For me, that’s the Harbeth range, with either the P3ESR or the C7ES-3 standmount loudspeaker filling in an almost perfect personal sweet-spot of optimum size for my room, plus they balance between BBC-style tonal accuracy and the inevitable ‘pipe and slippers’ criticisms that are sometimes levelled at these designs. They are both also relatively affordable. I’d love to put these superstars up against equivalent models from Spendor and PMC to see how they fare, and they are the kind of loudspeakers that simply excuse you from worrying about what’s next – they are ‘stick a fork in me, I’m done’ speakers. Sadly, we’ve asked and asked for a pair of Harbeths and – because the company is always back-ordered – we’ve always received a polite, yet firm ‘no’. Maybe one day!

Finally, there is a world beyond audio, and for me I’m really taken by the little Fuji X-T10 mirrorless camera. I use its bigger, older brother – the Fuji X-T1 – both in the studio and to cover shows now. It’s combination of excellent image quality, intuitive handling, small size, low weight, and a cracking set of lens options make it a fine all-rounder alternative to bigger DSLR designs from photography’s Big Two (Canon and Nikon). But the tiny X-T10 shrinks the form factor even more while retaining all the things Fuji seems so good at doing. OK, so it sucks at making videos, but it’s an extremely tempting travel camera all the same.

We live in some very exciting times for consumer electronics. Audio and hi-fi might be the most mature branch of ‘CE’, especially compared to self-parking cars and drones, but it has stopped being a sleepy backwater and there’s renewed interest in more than just vinyl these days. I suspect the next big thing in audio is integrating portable Digital Audio Players that already bring hi-res to the headphone community. Astell & Kern is already making in-roads into this sector of the market, and I suspect there will be some two-way traffic here, as home players learn how to make music on the move and vice versa. One thing’s for certain: a list like this would be very different a year from today!

Custom In-Ear Monitors: A Snugs fit?

One of audio’s biggest tipping points is happening between your ears. The latest big thing in personal audio is very personal, with custom-tailored moulds designed for your own ears to make a perfect fit for an in-ear monitor or earphone. This creates a personalised set of in-ear devices, just as a pair of hand-made shoes or a bespoke suit is personalised. But, unlike a pair of John Lobb brogues or a Huntsman suit, the result doesn’t cost a fortune, and new technology is lowering the price of admission. However, because this is a new venture for many audiophiles – especially more traditional audiophiles – we thought it best to walk the listener through the process from beginning to end, using United Sciences’ new in ear-scanning technology – wielded by Snugs.

Like fingerprints, the shape and size of our ears are unique and while standard-fit small, medium, and large ear tips are designed to adjust to your ears they are always going to be something of a compromise. Worse, the left and right ear canals are not identical and in some cases the listener needs to buy different size ear tips for the left and right ear (it is worth experimenting with different size tips in both ears to find the least compromised fit). These compromises simply vanish when dedicated moulds made to fit the contours of your ear and ear canal replace those ear tips.

Until recently this moulding process typically required the services of a specialist audiologist and, while not as unpleasant a process as it looks, the bespoke fitting service involves some degree of drooling: you need to hold a piece of styrofoam between your teeth while the two-part foam compound hardens from its resting ‘goo’ state. These moulds are then sent for 3D scanning. The Snugs experience is different. Rather than filling your ear with foam, the system uses a small light-scanning handset, connected to a computer. The trained operator (who need not be a qualified audiologist, because at no point do they actually insert anything far enough into your ear canal) places a headset (not unlike a pair of headphones, but without the ear cups) on your head, which helps locate the scanning position in three-dimensional space. They then lock the scanner to the headset, and begin to fill in a growing 3D model of the ear and ear canal. Aside from a gentle ‘bap, bap’ sound during the scanning process, and the fact that – like any moulding or mapping process – you look and feel like a bit of an idiot while it’s happening, you can be scanned in about 10 minutes flat.

The 3D map created in the Snugs computer is exactly the same program file as created when a custom moulding is scanned. These files are used to create the custom-fit mouldings for your ears, and as a consequence of cutting out one link in the chain, the Snugs process has lowered the cost of custom moulds. And this means you can now turn your favourite earphones into de facto custom monitors: all you do is specify the kind of earphone you want them for.

Reviewers can be prima donnas at times, and our ears are no exception. Mine are either ‘dinky’ or ‘kinky’, and this poses a challenge for custom in-ear moulding processes. It was interesting to see if the same challenge troubles ‘light’ as it troubles ‘goo’. In fact, the scanning process was not troubled by ‘difficult’ ears, although if that kink in my ear canal was closer to the surface, a light scanner would be unable to get past that and this might pose fitting difficulties. In fact, the scan passed off without a hitch and a week later I was the proud owner of my own pair of custom Snugs. It took me longer to set up my camera and take remote-controlled photos of me having my ears scanned than the scanning itself.

This is also going to get simpler: and simpler means cheaper. Currently, the United Sciences eFit scanning system requires connection to a Windows laptop, but it’s clear the next generation of equipment will turn this into an app for a tablet and the scanner itself will become smaller and cheaper. This will mean more people offering a scanning service. Currently, there are just a handful of people criss-crossing the country to zap the ears of CIEM enthusiasts, musicians wanting ear protection, and reviewers trying the system out (a journalist from one of the major newspapers was scanned a few hours before it was my turn). While this is unlikely to ever be the kind of ‘while you wait’ £10 upgrade to a pair of £30 earphones, Snugs is stealthily democratising custom monitors, and that’s a good thing for ears and listeners alike.

In democratising custom mouldings, however, it means approaching a new audience with little or no understanding of how these mouldings work, how they fit, how they feel, and how to use them, and these are all important elements of good custom monitor use. The range is fairly large, depending on whether you are using custom monitors, or applying full or half-shell mouldings to existing earphones. There are also specialist models for ear defence (without a headphone component), single ear units for headset users, and even waterproof models for divers. The key models, though, are likely the half and full-shell mouldings because they represent the affordable gateway to CIEM sound to those who already have good earphones. The Snugs are custom made to fit the earphones in the ideal position for your head – while still not quite so flexible or as optimal as CIEMs, this represents the best fit for a production line earphone possible, especially the full-shell design.

Custom monitors mean you play quieter, especially in loud environments. It’s worth remembering at this time that the first CIEMs were designed for rock musicians on stage, replacing fold-back monitors and protecting their hearing in the process. While the floor-mounted angled ‘cab’ was great for hair-rock guitarists to put a foot on to show their purple Spandex ‘prowess’ to one and all, even all that permed, poodle big hair was no protection against high sound pressure levels, and as a result many musicians who toured during the 1970s and 1980s have significant hearing damage. CIEMs allow musicians to monitor their music on stage without having to destroy their hearing. Today, the level of attenuation need not be so severe (few of us regularly work in an environment that can deliver 120dB+ average sound pressure levels), but the benefits remain at quieter levels.

With this comes an important caveat. In a few cases, the absence of background noise has the opposite effect, and listeners turn the music up until they hear distortion. Often this is your own ears relaxing, and long exposures to this sort of listening level can damage hearing. Generally, this is not the case with CIEMs, because this kind of listener is at once more discerning and more knowledgable than their ear‑bud using counterparts, but the sheer comfort of custom moulds can make for very extended listening sessions (on long flights, for example) and many hours of constant exposure to music at lower SPLs can also add up. Simply taking short breaks periodically helps a lot here. For those used to CIEMs, this is going over old news, but for newcomers to the whole world of custom monitors, this is a new world.

The only other point to note is the first time you go out in the wide world with a pair of Snugs in place, take extra care. It’s surprising how much of our spatial awareness comes from little sonic cues, and when they are significantly attenuated, you can tend not to notice the world around you. Remember this the first time crossing a road! It takes a little while for listeners to get used to wearing custom moulds, and Snugs are no exception. If you’ve never tried custom-fit in-ear monitors before, the first time you try them is slightly unnerving, like putting those little yellow ear defenders into your ear, except it covers the inner section of the ear. Perhaps worse for first-timers, the Snugs come with a little tube of lubricant and you need to ‘lube up’ for the first few times you insert them, at least until your own earwax takes over. You also need to learn how to insert and remove custom moulds, if you have never done this before (it’s a corkscrew motion in and out of the ear – as described in the supplied booklet).

So, why go through this? You do this because the outside world quickly disappears like putting your head under water, in that strangely comforting ‘back to the womb’ manner. But then the strangeness of the feeling quickly disappears, especially at the first bar of music. Put them on a couple of times, however, and it’s like a natural extension of your ear, and fitting a universal fit ear tip will seem forever clumsy and wrong afterwards. The sensation some have of earphones always almost falling out of your ears is replaced with a natural and easy fit that feels like it was made for your ear… because it was. When they are in place, nothing apart from physically removing them is going to shake these monitors loose: over-ear loop sport earphones are exceptionally solidly held in place, and anything that might accidentally dislodge these earphones will dislodge dental work first!

Although you could in theory use Snugs custom moulds for any earphone (and Snugs has an ever-growing list of ‘compatible’ earphones), it’s unlikely that someone will use a £150 custom mould with a £30 earphone (although the SoundMAGIC E10S is proving a surprisingly popular match). Two popular choices have emerged within the Snugs line – the Sennheiser ID800 and the Shure SE846, with the Shure model edging ahead slightly in the popularity stakes. Never one to pass up on a good thing, I borrowed a set of Shure SE846 earphones, and had a set of silicone Snugs (a red metallic one for the right ear, and a blue metallic one for the left) made up specifically for my ears.

The Shure SE846 is a truly remarkable earphone in its own right, with an incredibly detailed, dynamic, and accurate presentation that you’d struggle to find from a pair of loudspeakers that cost this side of a nice Mercedes. With the Snugs in place, everything snaps into even tighter focus. They are comfortable and the tonal balance is nigh on perfect because the positioning of IEM in your ear canal is nigh on perfect. It’s a strikingly perfect audio experience, one that will both highlight any potential weak links in the signal chain and yet one that invites you to listen to music for hours and hours on end, at lower levels than you might expect. Pretty much as soon as the loan period for the Shure SE846 expires, I’ll be buying a pair of SE846 to match my Snugs. And from there, I’m going to be shopping around for a good DAP, DAC and/or amp to match: it is that good!

What’s the difference (if any) between moulds made by an audiologist, and those made by a Snugs specialist? Irrespective of differences an audiologist can advise you on good ear health, the right way to clear your ears of cerumen (ear wax), how to clean both your ears and your CIEMs, and more. We will discuss this and more in a subsequent feature in Hi-Fi+.

My problem now is there’s no way back. The Snugs team have my ears on file, and although our ears change over the years, those files should be good for at least another half a decade. I’m now running through those really good earphones (like the AKG K3003) that I thought posed a legitimate challenge to dedicated CIEMs, and wondering how good they would sound with a set of Snugs on their speaker tips. I have a horrible feeling this could be the start of a beautiful friendship, between my bank account, Snugs, and a host of great earphone brands.

Details

Snugs Custom Fitted Earphones

Price: £159 (replacements: £47 per ear, £79 per pair)

URL: www.snugsearphones.co.uk

Tel: +44(0)1984 640582

Shure SE846 Sound Isolating Earphones

Price: £799

URL: www.shure.co.uk

Tel: +44(0)1992 703058

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Wadia 321 Digital Converter

Wadia was one of the first companies to make a decent CD player back in the early nineties. It achieved this by identifying that jitter was a major source of problem for digital audio, a fact that was subsequently taken onboard by the rest of the industry and is now a standard consideration when designing DACs. Wadia were prepared to think outside the box back then and has continued to do so with the Intuition power DAC, which is a combined converter and digital power amplifier in a very distinctive clamshell case. Wadia’s first creation was a DAC, the Digimaster 2000 Decoding Computer and the technologies developed in that DAC remain at the core of Wadia’s models to this day.

The Wadia 321 is enormous – it wouldn’t fit on my Townshend Seismic rack because the 20 inch depth meant that the small feet fell off the edge. But it’s a lovely piece of kit with high build quality and very attractive casework, large radius corners on the diecast aluminium surround, and a black glass top surface through which the Wadia logo glows in what is a distinctly Apple style. Inside the box there is a lot of space as you might imagine, but it has the same footprint as Wadia’s m330 Media Server and a315 and a340 digital amplifiers that might be used to partner with it.

There is plenty of space on the back panel for a good array of in and outputs, these include coax and Toslink for S/PDIF connections and USB for computers and the like. Outputs are available in balanced and single ended form and both variations can be connected directly to a power amplifier, another feature that Wadia pioneered back in the day. The actual digital to analogue converter consists of eight DAC channels which combine to produce a genuinely balanced output for minimum noise and maximum dynamic range.

The 321 is a couple of years old now and this shows in the absence of DSD*, the current flavour of the month in converter compatibility. Instead, the 321 is a PCM based unit that’s limited to 24-bit/192kHz, which are pretty standard numbers for any modern DAC. This is not commercially very attractive to a world obsessed by DSD, but it’s important to remember that specs do not indicate sound quality. Editing is ‘difficult’ in DSD, which is part of its appeal to the purist of course, but in practice it means that any commercial release on the format will have been in PCM at an early stage of its creation. Moreover, DSD can have high frequency noise issues, and even if the actual noise is out of the audioband, as high sampling rates have shown us, what goes on up there can be heard by mere mortals who have maximum 20kHz high frequency hearing. The reason it doesn’t offend many is that it is harmonious, and a bit like the harmonic distortion of valves; some feel that it adds to the end result.

Perhaps the 321’s most serious omission is of a headphone output. As you will doubtless be aware the headphone market has exploded over the last few years and it must be quite difficult to sell a high end DAC that cannot drive them. Both the omission of a headphone amplifier and DSD support show just how fast moving this sector of the audio world has become, a 2015 version of the Wadia 321 would include such things as standard.*

The controls on the 321 include volume, input, and setup, the latter consisting of firmware version display and the option to disable auto power off which kicks in after 30 minutes if left enabled. I had expected an option to switch between fixed and volume controlled output, but that is just a matter of maxing the output. The only other features are display dim, mute, and phase control via the remote handset. The display is pretty informative for a DAC, showing input, sample rate, and volume level in large dot matrix characters. If you access this DAC using its USB software control panel (in the Windows driver) it’s possible to change latency and sample rate. You can select whether the USB input handles the signal natively, maintaining the incoming sample rate, or upsamples it to 32/192 as is the case with S/PDIF inputs.

I used the Wadia 321 with a Melco N1A digital transport; this has both Ethernet and USB outputs and by sending the network connection via a streamer (in this instance a Moon MiND) it is possible to create a coaxial digital output from the same source. Having the two options proved quite revealing of the differences between the coax and USB inputs on the Wadia, which were not small, but I should add that USB travelled along cables from Vertere and CAD while the S/PDIF signal took the considerably pricier route of Chord Sarum Super ARAY.

With the coax input Joni Mitchell’s rendition of ‘The Man I Love’ [Gershwin’s World, Herbie Hancock, Decca] had all its poignancy thanks to excellent stage depth and creamy mids and highs. There is a slight but discernible polish to the presentation that doesn’t stop brass from rasping or guitars from screaming but takes away any remnants of dryness in the digital stream. So the snare drum has snap and the groove is good and taut on Herbie’s version of ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ from the same album. The piano is strong yet avoids the tendency to glare that some digital sources produce.

Image depth is particularly good, the 321 recreates properly three dimensional sounds in a soundstage that reflects the nature of the recording. So the brass, piano, and rhythm section on Gershwin’s World is properly in the room, while the solo piano on Javier Perianes rendition of Manuel Blasco de Nebra’s Piano Sonatas 1-6 Op.1 [Harmonia Mundi] is in the space behind the speakers with all the reverberation characteristics of the room it was recorded in.

Image depth is the main area where better digital devices show their strength, it is not, after all, just a case of there being more ‘air’ or openness in the sound; there is more space for the instruments and voices to take shape within. This means you hear more of the character of each and there is less tendency for one to mask or muddle another. The importance of this ability becomes clearer with denser music. Almost any DAC can make a voice and guitar sound good, but when there is an orchestra or a jazz band playing complicated rhythms only the better devices can present the music in an engaging way that let’s you hear what each element is doing in the context of a coherent whole.

With the USB input the Wadia is not quite so strong, the degree of resolution is lower, and the image loses some of its depth. There is plenty of height, and width and depth is still good, but the comparison with coax shows that it could be better. That said, I did enjoy all sorts of music with this input, from Boris Blank’s ‘Electrified’ (Electrified, Polydor) with its deep, powerful bass, to the full-scale orchestra of Mozart’s ‘Violin concerto in D major’ (Marianne Thorsen, TrondheimSolistene 2L). This last exemplified the openness that this DAC brings to USB sources but also its relatively flat, diffuse nature compared to the coaxial alternative. As noted, I tried different USB cables to see if this might be altered, but it remained much the same. I also tried a different, much more down to earth Ethernet cable to the streamer, but the dimensionality remained much stronger with coax. The thing that could make the difference is the USB source, and the Melco is very good in this regard, but it can be bettered by its brother, the N1Z, for instance.

Fortunately, both inputs deliver a degree of musicality that makes you want to listen regardless of the presentation. Coax is an easier listen with dense material, but the Melco is not exactly taxing either.

I also contrasted the Wadia’s direct output with routing it through a preamplifier – my trusty Townshend Allegri. This revealed that digital volume controls still have their limits, and whacking the DAC’s output up to max and using the preamp brought quite significant rewards in terms of dynamics, drive, and solidity of stereo image. My most positive experiences with this converter were had with the Allegri in line. And they were very positive indeed. This DAC is not just good at resolving differences between inputs, it’s even better at getting to the heart of the musical matter. Some DACs are incredibly transparent, but a shade amusical; this Wadia is revealing of all the elements that make a piece of music come alive in front of you. It has high resolution – in the full meaning of the word – so whether you want to play Debussy or Daft Punk it can do so in a spine tingling fashion. It may not have all of this season’s most fashionable accoutrements, but it will make your music no less enjoyable than DACs that do, and possibly, dare I say it, more so because of their absence.

*As we published this review, Wadia announced that its upcoming and not-yet-released di322 DAC will feature both DSD compatibility and a headphone amplifier. We hope to test the new di322 as soon as the product is released.

Technical Specifications

Type: Solid-state high-resolution PCM digital-to-analogue converter/preamplifier.
Digital Inputs: Two Coaxial, two Toslink, and one USB 2.0
Analogue Outputs: One stereo single-ended (via RCA jacks), one balanced (via XLR connectors). Both outputs are level variable
DAC Resolution/Supported Digital Formats: All PCM from 44.1 kHz to 192kHz with word lengths up to 24-bit
Frequency Response: 4Hz – 20kHz, ± 0.1dB
Distortion (THD): 0.002%
Output Voltage: 8Vrms at maximum
User Interface: Wadia remote control, dot matrix display
Dimensions (H×W×D): 86 × 454 × 508mm
Weight: 11.4kg
Price: £2,798
Manufacturer: Wadia Digital LLC

Tel: +1 (607) 723-3539

URL: www.wadia.com

UK Distributor: Absolute Sounds

Tel: 020 8971 3909

URL: www.absolutesounds.com

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The Monaco Yacht Show – The Audio Perspective

A Superyacht: a private vessel above 30 meters, used for leisure. Total market for 2013: 75 new hulls. Worldwide. Only. Exclusive enough

Just getting aboard these floating mansions to test their onboard sound systems is almost impossible. In most cases, you will never be told who the owner is: even the shipyards, which built them, may never meet the commissioner in person, or are often bound by ironclad Non-Disclosures. Luckily there are events like the Monaco Yacht Show where about 100 of these ships gather to be sold or chartered. Some are so big that they cannot even enter Port Hercule, around whose docks Formula 1 cars race once a year. I’ve attended three of these shows so far, and, during the last one, I finally gained access to a few of them.

I’ve seen worse alfresco cinemas… The Maltese Falcon’s DynaRig used for open-eyed dreaming

As one would imagine, Superyachts could be though of as, “such stuff as dreams are made on”. Things actually installed on a Superyacht (and these are not the weirdest) include: transponders identifying the vessel (like a commercial plane), a bespoke table designed by Brad Pitt, a professional gym installed under the guidance of Usain Bolt a “snow room” where children can go and play snowball / make a snowman while in the Caribbean, a fully fledged IMAX theatre (a $2 million undertaking in a residence), a professional recording studio where Peter Gabriel recorded some material while exploring the Amazon, two helipads (is one not enough?), panic room(s), an underwater escape pod for the owner and family, a 10m-tall “virtual aquarium” made of flat screens stacked on the walls of the elevator shaft giving the transparent cabin the impression of moving up and down an ocean scene (bizarrely, real fish in a onboard aquarium suffer from seasickness!), a submarine that can reach a depth of 1km, a laser system to blind long-lens cameras pointing at the boat, an underwater observation room with 20-cm thick glass, 100-metre tall sail masts, so tall that the ship will not be able to pass under the Golden Gate Bridge, and finally, a 100-metre yacht that is a submarine itself – and has a swimming pool inside (still just a project). Not forgetting room for the artwork, which is generally worth twice as much as the vessel itself…

But, in all their extravagance, how do Superyachts play music?

It’s a split world. Some are unbelievable installations, often talked about as if they were urban legends, as they are never showcased. Take SY Vertigo for example, the New-Zealand-built 67m dream-like ketch that features a multi-room JBL Synthesis system that has once awaken the inhabitants of a Pacific island: her master bedroom is optimized to sound best at ear-level of the owner sitting in bed. However, most other installations are ranging from expensive audio disappointments to outright dramatically underpowered, underspecified, badly designed and even worse installed systems. In most cases, the cars (vans, even!), in which owners and guests reach the docks where their splendid boats, costing from tens to hundreds of millions, are moored, can play music better than on board.

SY Vertigo: 67 metres of true audiophile Dream Boat – and a high-performance party-pod

Audio brands on board

Audio systems on board are never conceived in isolation. In almost all cases where a valid one is installed, it comes as the 5.1 surround system for the AV theatre, which can take dimensions seldom seen even in the wealthiest homes. There are some notable exceptions, such as Roman Abramovich, czar of Chelsea, who, according to the late Dieter Burmester, has every environment where he listens to music Burmester-fitted (to the point that the billionaire confided to him of buying a Porsche solely because it would have the Berlin-made system installed), the Superyachting world is largely cleansed of all brand names.

Even if they weren’t sworn to secrecy on such things, no Superyacht crew member would announce, “we use McIntosh”, or “there’s a Meridian system in every room”. Rather they would refer either to the provider of the AV Management system (‘we use a Crestron system’), the main component hub of the AV system (“it’s a Kaleidescape” – citing the high-end Blu-Ray and audio juke-box/vault), or to the name of the AV engineering company; one of 20 or so specialists worldwide – some focusing solely on marine installations – that corner the market for system integration. So few master this field because the problems of integrating all that happens on board represent a very complex project, with kilometers of cabling and dozens of networks that need to speak seamlessly to one another.

MY Suerte: 70 metres of unexpected marvels – including ones you cannot possibly see…

One fantastic new build, the 70m Suerte by Tankoa, was introduced as the first yacht to have undergone a full electromagnetic emissions certification, for which engineers had to segregate cabling by type of signal / use, and map all radio and electronic equipment’s emissions to abate electro-pollution. Not your average minimalistic one-room stereo installation. Their zeal was evident in all the measures put in place for the full engineering of a system that needs to be as simple to operate as possible and yet maintained operational at sea, by people who may have never seen its ‘guts’ before. The forethought that went into the management of background noises to avoid using noise-canceling devices, which are not uncommon on these boats, was above and beyond what I had seen even in home installations.

The most popular audio names on Superyachts may be unfamiliar to readers:

Fusion is a producer of marine-grade single-DIN head units and weather-proof speakers whose audio prowess can be classed in the same league of some car systems of the eighties.

JL Audio, known to most for its automotive aftermarket origins and some spectacular home audio subwoofers, like the 11,000 GBP, 3,800 Watt Gotham, specializes in external speakers that make mp3 content sound well, but whose main atout is their impervious resistance to sun, salt and temperature excursions, but less so timbral finesse. On board it is more important to be hosed down clean.

Setting up some CAT “mobile” 200Kg speakers on deck… All is relative on Superyachts…

California Audio Technology (CAT) are purveyors of the “highest road” to audio among marine suppliers, with bespoke loudspeakers and amps, deploying the most expensive components (founder/owner Brian Barr is an advanced materials pioneer) for impressive installations of heavy-duty (and hefty) equipment whose performance is solidly in High End territory. Their installations can weigh tonnes and cost hundreds of thousands, but, having heard three systems (not on a boat), I can vouch that they are absolutely on the outer edge of what can be achieved, specifically because of their approach to bespoke engineering, design and installation. At one of the main yachting fairs, one of their systems would rock the entire hall where VBH, the company’s partner installer, responsible for almost 10% of the Superyacht market, played their demos. A 32-bit, 386 KHz recording of a huge tractor starting had me fooled into turning towards it in apprehension more than once.

On smaller boats, less custom-designed, Bose, the omnipresent “no one was ever fired for choosing IBM” choice, can be had for as little as $8,000 (whereas the equivalent for the home may cost $1,000). Putting this into perspective, this is an option worth approximately the same as the leather upholstery for one on board sofa. Harman systems are also involved in this end of the market, an off-the-peg solution in an inherently bespoke world.

Apple computer, and, more recently, Sonos equipment, often constitute the backbone for audio, for their capability to connect devices wirelessly and to integrate with devices already in the hands of owners and guests, albeit limiting the quality of the throughputs – a glass ceiling that no true audiophile is ready to accept, but which is more than adequate for those who think that an mp3 file is all you need.

Music listening and audio performance are often the Cinderellas among all technologies on board. The vast majority of installations inspected are plagued with disastrous design decisions, which would seriously hamper the performance of even the most well crafted electronics and drivers. I was really surprised to hear crew dissuade me from testing their boats more on the grounds of them not being good at all, more than because of privacy matters.

The main issue is that most yacht designers simply do not consider acoustic performance as a parameter at all. Loudspeakers must not be visible, ever. Their positioning is too often decided after everything else. Hence, incredible workarounds become the norm. One a project I saw featured a cavernous multifunction room of approximately 6,500 square feet. While music will be played in this ballroom-sized space, there is no provision whatsoever for loudspeaker positioning, with three of its four sides made in floor-to-ceiling glass, possibly one of the worst nightmares for proper musical performance.

Even when the acoustic design shortcomings are not so glaring, installation decisions may be just as appalling. On a Superyacht that costs almost half a million Dollars to charter (per week!), the best room for playing music was fitted with a 5.1 installation, where either someone had forgotten the subwoofer, or it was inexplicably turned off – and the engineer on board would not know how to activate it. On another equally exclusive yacht, the front three channels of the home theatre were fitted in the ceiling right over the listeners’ position.

In-ceiling speakers only – yet voted one of the best on-board cinemas… Imagine the others…

Why does this happen? Is it just because owners do not care enough for music? Or is it because owners (and their decision-making associates, the project managers or owners’ representatives) have not been exposed to what properly configured hi-fi and home theatre can achieve? Considering how much they are ready to spend on any other detail, the audio industry has to do a better job at showing them what they are missing, for no other reason than having the same excellence that everything else on board exudes.

First and foremost, the attitude shared among too many designers that their lines must be unspoilt by such ungainly eyesores as loudspeakers. Hence the ubiquitous presence of in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, which unfortunately leave little if not negative traces in the acoustic performance of the audio on board. Only on one Superyacht to date I have been able to witness the presence of ‘home-like’ speakers: a pair of Beolab 8000s to the side of a disappearing screen.

As a result, AV installers choose components more for their non-appearance than their quality. Speakers are installed for their 10-cm thickness, their flush mounts, their minuscule presence, weather-proofing, or the ability to pivot in and out of the scene on motorized arms. Notwithstanding these limitations, some systems still achieve little acoustic miracles. Most of the time they do not.

A ‘new build’, like any multi-million dollar project, has budgets and other priorities to adhere to. Competing AV installers have to submit proposals that will win them the commission, which includes major integration with AV, home automation, Navigation, Security, Internal Communications, Radio Communications, and all IT. Unsurprisingly, project managers will not be keen on allocating significant percentages of the total budget to audio performance unless specified by the client. Horror stories also abound about clueless workers in the shipyard cutting corners indiscriminately, moving the location of a speaker because “the cable would not reach there”.

The final insult comes in the form of sources chosen. Naturally playing vinyl is all but impossible, but none of the installations visited (eight “full tests” and 15 “impressions”) had anything better than mp3 for the Owners’ collection. Even services offered by professional DJs, who would charge “from $10,000” for a couple of party playlists and a few hundred songs, all loaded on an iPod. The audiophile’s heart, at this point, sinks.

Starting “small”: the Tenders

Most smaller boats at the show, in the range of 12-20 metres, were classified as tenders: utility vessels to ferry people and objects, when Superyachts are too big to enter certain marinas. Most of them had audio systems, but in the vast majority, powered by single-DIN Head Units of automotive origin or from specialist makers, none of which I could cajole into playing anything above mp3 quality, not even uncompressed wav 16/44.1.

Their overall performance was in all cases but one, vastly disappointing. Confused, underpowered, wrongly installed, rattling, with acoustically second-rate drivers driven by unspecified amps of no refinement, the musical experience on board could be summed up in one word: regrettable (and soon to be forgotten).

Only the biggest among the Pascoe tenders had a reasonably decent setup in the enclosed area for its 12 short-term passengers. Four satellite speakers at ear level in the corners of the enclosure and a 600W JL subwoofer provided a sound pressure level that was not drastically affected by spurious noises, nor excessive distortion. High-end audio it was not, but, discounting the fact that I could not play any of my audio content, but just mp3 files via a Bluetooth connection, it provided a lot more acceptable performance than much larger vessels at the show. One must underline, however, that the shipyard owner is a Mr. Ken Freivokh, one of the leading Naval Architects, responsible for landmarks like the 88m Maltese Falcon Sail Yacht, who, last year, presented plans for installing a full-size IMAX theatre on a Superyacht – whose dimensions must exceed 150m in length, just to accommodate the theatre… A rare designer who has an incline towards AV performance, at last.

Ken Freivokh is an Audio geek indeed. How many of us dreamt of his GT2101?

Perhaps Freivokh’s audiophile intentions should not be that much of a surprise: as a graduate student in 1974 he designed the Gale GT2101, a direct drive, non-resonant, turntable floating on a magnetic bearing, which is still impressive 40 years later. Pity it cannot be used on any of his later designs.

Other smaller boats showcased all sorts of amazing technologies, including a single-structure 17-metre carbon-fibre hull for a dinghy, extractable wings and water-foils for exhilarating speeds, but none showed any proclivity to audio.

The Large Yachts

Even on Superyachts with over 60 crew members, I have not been able to spot a single Auditorium. Home Theatres, at best, or creative dancefloors: teak-clad helipads or swimming pools that raise their floor up to become a floating Studio 54. Booming, PA-like audio on board is a must for parties. And yacht parties, moored in port, out at sea, or in fantastically secluded bays, are quintessential to the “yachting lifestyle”. Again, hardly the place where one will try to assess accuracy in the sound of a Stradivarius.

Trump cards are Sound Pressure Level, and the ability to host a DJ console, possibly hooking up to portable PA-like components, neither in itself a guarantee of quality, but elements for turning the decks, the beach club, or an entire bay into a roaring club scene.

SilverFast, a most modern and Hi-Tech MotorYacht

Some boats succeed at this better than others. The award winning MY SilverFast, a 77-metre, $90 million marvel from Australia, launched this year, sports an area that could easily host the biggest party most of us have ever been in, served by coaxial(!) JL speakers and subwoofers. These are thankfully not located overhead, but at ear and body level of revelers, powered, according to the Owner’s Representative, by 70,000 Watts. We could not confirm this, but the whole system seemed controlled by a diminutive Marantz receiver, embedded behind a hidden recess nearby. We could only play a few mp3s from the hand-held controller in his hands, and not at the volume I would have liked, lest we disturbed the afternoon of neighbouring Superyachts, neatly packed like thousand-tonne sardines in the most glamorous harbour in the world. But I was vastly more impressed by other details on this sleek boat, starting from the mesmerizing movement of the glass door separating the sun deck from the superb salon inside.

Sea Force One’s Master bedroom may not sound as wonderfully as Vertigo’s, but wouldn’t you like to be awaken in it by the sea breeze as her owner can?

The morning after, I came across the same young gentleman as he was stepping out of a 54-meter all-Italian creation called Sea Force One, a 2008 Motoryacht that can be yours for a measly 22 Million Euro, and, according to many, the incarnation of the spare-no-expense floating “toy for big boys”. As he stepped off the gangplank, he uttered a very understated: “This one sounds better than mine”. Although this was the only boat whose owner I know personally, I could not “play her” or have any details about her system either via him, or the installer, Eggzero, one of the leaders in the field. Evidently they had a full “test” on it the night before, when the battles for top dog take shape in the form of glamour and loudness of one’s exclusive parties, and decibels are not an issue any longer. Perhaps we’ll be invited next time.

Breaking the wrong record?

There are some valuable records out there. Earlier this month, Ringo Starr’s ‘No. 0000001’ copy of The Beatles (also known as the White Album) achieved $790,000 at auction, and a copy of The Sex Pistols God Saves The Queen/No Feelings single on A&M in good condition could fetch $10,000 with the wind in the right direction (A&M hired and fired the band so rapidly, there are only 300 of these singles reputedly in print). But, when it comes to rarity value, nothing tops… the Wu-Tang Clan.

In March 2014, the hardcore hip-hop group announced that alongside the release of their latest album A Better Tomorrow, they also recorded a compilation album called Once Upon A Time in Shaolin. Generally expensive and rare records become expensive and rare because ‘something happened’, such as a record company equivalent of the ‘Inverted Jenny’ stamp on the label, or a record that was withdrawn and only a handful of discs survive. In this case, the ‘expensive and rare’ component was factored into the recording itself – only one pressing of the 31 track double album was ever made, with the discs wiped and the master tapes destroyed. The album was encased in a specially made silver and nickel box, and was accompanied by a 174-page manuscript containing lyrics, credits and anecdotes on the production of each song, printed on gilded Fedrigoni Marina parchment, and encased in leather by a master bookbinder.

This one-off album featured everyone from Cher to members of the FC Barcelona team singing. It was covered by almost every music magazine, website, and blog, effectively rebooting the visibility of the Wu-Tang Clan (useful when a band has been in the public domain for more than 23 years). And it originally came with a very specific rider for the prospective owner – the music and artwork was not for public consumption for another 88 years. There are no physical or digital duplicates.

There was also a hi-fi connection. British loudspeaker manufacturer, PMC, was commissioned to produce a one-off pair of its MB2-XBD loudspeakers for the project. These six-foot tall loudspeakers, each with a pair of 12” drivers, are designed to handle up to 2kW and are proving very popular with studios and recording artists alike. These loudspeakers were chosen on the grounds that Tarik Azzougarh (a.k.a. Cilvaringz) produced this one-off project using a pair of these monitors in his own studio.

In talking about the speakers, Wu-Tang rapper/producer Robert ‘The RZA’ Diggs said: “In order to curate the experience of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for the collector, we decided to have two PMC MB2-XBD speakers included with the album. These speakers were used during production and mastering and distil this work into its purest form, and in sculpting each beat, each frequency and each flash of feeling, they are themselves a work of artistry.”

According to The RZA, the motivation behind the album was to restore the idea of a cash value to music, a concept undermined by streaming sites, illegal downloads, and YouTube channels. Music has, “been devalued and diminished,” RZA told Forbes magazine in 2014, “to almost the point it has to be given away for free.”

The album was put on display in a tour of museums and art galleries before finally being sold through the online auction house, Paddle8. Rumors abounded that the buyer might be dubstep superstar Skrillex, or possibly even Quentin Tarantino (who has worked with The RZA on movie projects in the past). But at the end of November this year the rumour mill ground to a halt, and the album was sold. For $2,000,000.

All of which should have made for a great story and excellent publicity for the Wu-Tangs, Cilvaringz, PMC, and even the Anglo-Moroccan artist Yahya who fashioned the album cover. That was, until it was discovered that the whole package was bought by Martin Shkreli, the 32-year old entrepreneur and – until today, at least – CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG. Although the original plan was to preserve the anonymity of the purchaser, that was never going to be part of Shkreli’s plan:

Shkreli made headlines in September this year, because his company raised the price of the drug Daraprim (used in the treatment of pneumocystis pneumonia and toxoplasmosis for HIV/AIDS patients) from $13.50 to $750 per pill, and was dubbed, ‘the most hated man in America’ by the BBC as a result. Worse, Shkreli was arrested by the FBI on December 17 and charged with ‘widespread fraudulent conduct’, citing seven counts of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, and securities fraud, dating back to his time at hedge fund firm MSMB Capital Management and biopharm company, Retrophin (both founded by Shkreli).

The FBI did not have authority to seize the album under the terms of the arrest warrant, as they were quick to tell fans hoping to hear the album:

Even before Shkreli’s arrest, when it became public knowledge that he had bought the album, The RZA was quick to distance himself from the purchaser, and announced the Wu-Tang Clan “decided to give a significant portion of the proceeds to charity.” And, although Miles Roberts, PMC’s head of sales and marketing, said, “We’re sure the lucky owner will be delighted with the performance,” Shkreli admitted that he has no plans to listen to the album: “I’m going to kind of save it for a rainy day,” he said to Bloomberg Newsweek.

I think it’s raining, Martin! Maybe you should go off and listen to that album through some kick-ass PMC loudspeakers, because maybe – just maybe – it might make you a little less of a butt-crack.

TAD Compact Evolution 1 standmount loudspeaker

There’s a myth surrounding loudspeakers that needs tearing apart. It’s that Japanese audio manufacturers aren’t as good as making loudspeakers as their British or American counterparts. Generally, this is nonsense, and comes about in part because of Japanese collectors and their passion for classic BBC and Tannoy designs, and in part because a lot of the best products made in Japan, stay in Japan. TAD is one of the rare exceptions – the high-end audio arm of a larger company that has a truly international outlook, and as a consequence its loudspeakers have commanded extraordinarily high respect in the audiophile community.

TAD’s loudspeakers have also commanded an extraordinarily high price. The TAD Compact Evolution 1 is an attempt to address those lofty tags; it’s still not a cheap loudspeaker in any sense of the term, but TAD is not a cheap brand. This standmount loudspeaker represents everything TAD can put in a standmount loudspeaker without it either costing as much as a new E-Class Mercedes, or having it sacrificing what TAD represents in sonic terms.

First seen as a concept at last year’s Munich High End, then in final form at CES 2015 this year, something of a buzz went around the Venetian Tower that TAD was making a sound from a standmount that shouldn’t be happening – they were filling a big room with the kind of sound you might expect from a larger floorstander and the sort of transparency you could hear from an electrostatic design. A similar result occurred at Munich 2015 and a similar result occurs every time people sit in front of them – including when I sat in front of them.

These are three way loudspeakers with a 35mm coaxial beryllium dome tweeter sitting in the acoustic centre of the 140mm midrange cone, and a 180mm MACS (multi-layered aramid composite shell) woofer sitting beneath that. These loudspeaker units are made by TAD for TAD and are recognised for being virtually unbreakable in normal use. Or even abnormal abuse: basically unless you take a chisel to them or connect the speakers to an arc welding generator in place of an amplifier, nothing you can throw at them will trouble the CE1 drivers.

The signature bit of deep-clever in the Compact Evolution 1 is its port. Make that ‘ports’; there are two vertical slits built into the enclosure’s side panels, and the aluminium plate that covers these side panels effectively creates a flared port extension to the front and rear of each loudspeaker. This means the port fires simultaneously to the left and right sides of the front and the rear of the loudspeaker. You could almost think this a port with a loudspeaker attached to its centre. What this unique BiDirectional ADS (Aero-Dynamic Slot) port arrangement does is help overcome the physical placement issues that surround a rear-firing port as well as the ‘chuffing’ effect from a front-firing port, but also helps reduce internal standing waves within the cabinet. In the last throws of a show, when the visitor numbers begin to dwindle and the engineers go walkabout, I know of many loudspeaker designers who took a very close look at this port design with a combination of professional respect, personal envy, and corporate espionage on their mind. Doubtless within a couple of years, we’ll see a lot more loudspeaker companies ‘discovering’ this innovation.

TAD rates the loudspeaker with a sensitivity of 85dB, a nominal impedance of four ohms and a maximum power input of 200W, which suggests you need a powerful amp, but not a power-house amp, to drive the CE1 comfortably. Naturally, a lot of those amps are also likely to come from TAD’s own stable, and this is what we used. But this is not mandatory, and at Munich this year, the CE1s were also sounding excellent hanging off the end of some new Audio Alchemy electronics.

TAD’s website suggests the Compact Evolution 1 to produce an “Overwhelmingly massive sound from a compact cabinet.” Which would be an overwhelmingly pompous thing for a company to say, were it not for one little detail – it just happens to be true. It does make a truly massive sound, one that just can’t come out of a cabinet that small – and I’m used to “it’s bigger on the inside” loudspeakers like the Wilson Duette 2 and the KEF Reference 1.

This is one of those rare speakers that redefines what is possible from a standmount. Every thread of King Curtis’ ‘Memphis Soul Stew’ [Live at Fillmore West, ATCO] is played out with harmonic structure fully intact, not just faux richness or depth. This is a complex, slow-build live cut that starts with a bass guitar and ends with a whole funk band playing at full tilt, and as a consequence needs to be able to be as convincing when it’s just one musician playing and when there are a dozen people on stage without underplaying the former or blurring the latter. This is normally the acid test of smaller loudspeakers, because they can do the opening parts but fall over by the time the Memphis Horns kick in. By way of comparison, most bigger loudspeakers are fine with the full brass section, but tend to make Jerry Jemmott’s bass lines sound a little too big for their own good. The CE1 is one of the few exceptions that can cope with both equally well.

This track tells you a lot more about the CE1. You can hear voices in the crowd picked out with ease, but not undermining the sound of the audience as a whole. You can hear the picking dynamics of Cornell Dupree’s signature Fender Telecaster playing change during the repeated riff, even when his playing is pushed back in the mix as more and more musicians are playing. All those threads are clearly defined: even Pancho Morales’ congas – which can get lost in the mix – are easier to pick out and follow than through many other loudspeakers.

Moving over to solo piano (Martha Argerich playing Chopin Preludes on DG) there is a sense of physicality and weight to the sound, like you get to hear on a real piano in a live event: not just in the midrange, but extending up to the far left hand and down to the far right. In a way, this is what a BBC loudspeaker is supposed to sound like, rather than exaggerating the slightly softened bottom octave and the very slightly ‘shiny’ upper mids.

But it was playing ‘Chameleon’, by Trentemøller [The Last Resort, Poker Flat] that really showed what these speakers are capable of. I’ve used this track to determine low-end performance of a system for some time, but there are little demi-semiquaver pre-beat beats that I’ve not heard before. The track takes on a malevolence even more menacing than before, as it should: the track can do atavistic things to you. At its best, this track shouldn’t sound like it was played, programmed, or recorded; it should sound as if it was squeezed out through the ovipositor of something very big, very sticky, and very scary that was best locked away in H.P. Lovecraft’s, H.R. Geiger’s, or Hieronymus Bosch’s imagination. That usually only happens if you are playing the track through big full-range loudspeakers at ‘naughty’ levels. But this happened here, even played at normal levels. Impressive doesn’t even cut it.

Imaging too is exceptional, with bass integration that fits the room, not just the loudspeaker. Which all sets a standard you’ll struggle to replicate from a loudspeaker at this size, price, or performance.

If there’s a deviation from absolute honesty, the CE1s adds a mild warmth to the overall presentation. This adds to the listening pleasure, rather than masking fine detail, but it’s this that sets it apart from its far bigger Reference models. In its peer group though, it simply trades blows with the best of them.

I began this review by trying to unseat a meme. I’m going to end the same way. TAD’s Compact Evolution 1 is an outstanding loudspeaker. Not just a loudspeaker to make big sounds in small rooms. And it’s not just the first choice for TAD users. This is a cogent loudspeaker system in its own right, for people who have no plans to buy any other TAD equipment. Yes, it sounds great in context, but the TAD Compact Evolution 1 loudspeaker sounds great with a number of different amps in a wide variety of locations because it’s a great loudspeaker. Strongly recommended.

Technical Specifications

Type: Three-way bass reflex standmount loudspeaker
Driver configuration: 35mm dome tweeter coaxially mounted within 140mm cone midrange. 180mm woofer
Frequency response: 34Hz–100kHz
Crossover frequencies: 250 Hz, 2kHz
Maximum input: 200W
Nominal impedance: 4Ω
Sensitivity: 85dB (1m, 2.83V)
Dimensions (W×H×D): 29× 52.4×44.6cm
Weight: 30 kg
Price: £16,495 per pair (£17,995 with stands)
Manufactured by: TAD

URL: www.tad-labs.com

Distributed by: Nu Nu Distribution

URL: www.nunudistribution.co.uk

Tel: +(0)203 544 2338

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Merging NADAC digital converter

Merging might not be one of those names that trips off the audiophile tongue, but if you scratch the surface, this Swiss company has one heck of a pedigree. The company is extremely well known in the high-end pro audio world and Merging’s Pyramix Virtual Studio suite is the gold standard in album publishing and mastering. Let’s put it this way; unless your music collecting came to an abrupt end a few years ago, the chances are some of your best-loved recent albums were recorded or mastered using Merging’s Digital Audio Workstations.

Perhaps more relevant given the NADAC tested here, the best studios around the globe often feature Merging’s Horus or Hapi ‘analogue sections’ – robust, network-enabled multichannel DACs, designed for optimal conversion in monitoring and analogue applications in the sort of studios where they bandy around terms like ‘mission critical’.

The networked Merging NADAC is close to a consumer version of the Horus and Hapi converters used in those studios, and as Pyramix is the DSD recording system (developing DXD in collaboration with Philips in the process) it’s little wonder the NADAC is very DSD-friendly. Using the super-robust RAVENNA audio-over-IP networked audio in place of UPnP or USB/DoP, the NADAC is the closest you’ll get to the sound of DSD in the place it was mastered, with phenomenal detail and soundstaging. NADAC even allows completely independent control of the built in headphone amplifier, even to playing entirely separate music files.

The domestic NADAC comes in two flavours – two and eight channels. The logical choice for a two-channel audiophile is not automatically the best one, especially as there’s less than a grand between the two. In fact, the NADAC is built around the high-performance eight-channel ESS Sabre ES9008S D/A converter, and in the NADAC’s eight-channel guise, these channels can be summed into respective left and right digital outputs from the menu. Summing eight-into-two should give slightly superior linearity, a greater dynamic range and a lower noise floor over the two-channel only version. We tested the eight-into-two configuration.

Because the NADAC runs genuinely balanced outputs, you can also use the eight channels to drive stereo balanced lines around the house, for example. Because it’s very much a network-enabled DAC (actually, if we are being brutally honest, the NADAC is so linked to its network, the point where ‘network-enabled DAC’ ends and ‘the best dirty great sound-card in history’ begins is very blurred here), the single AES/EBU, and S/PDIF coaxial and optical inputs are very much on the ‘legacy’ side of things. It does, however, include a word clock input, which is again a nod to its studio heritage.

The clever thing about the NADAC’s network robustness is it makes the converter hugely capable, flexible, and load tolerant. You can stream different music to the line-level outputs than to the headphone sockets, and you can configure the DAC as a network preamplifier, or assign full scale output to the line outs, but retain volume control over the headphone socket, all of which is software driven from the small, but surprisingly informative, front panel.

The downside to this call for network robustness – in fact, the sole downside to the NADAC in a domestic setting – is Merging takes a more belt-and-braces approach to digital system design than every other domestic DAC on the market. This is not deliberate obfuscation and the reasons for this uncompromised approach is predicated on good, solid digital engineering you need to perform when you are building converters for broadcasters who demand electronics that are not fazed by any environment. However, this means there’s no USB port fitted to the NADAC because Merging suggests USB isn’t as fault-tolerant under static electric discharge: the level of static discharge we’re talking about here would effectively destroy most computers anyway, but in a studio environment the tools must survive.

Similarly, Merging eschews UPnP and DLNA protocols for networked audio, instead running under RAVENNA/AES67 Audio over Internet Protocol (AoIP) standards. RAVENNA is commonplace in the studio, and is designed for large scale, low latency, and highly stable audio transmission across Gigabit Ethernet LAN. This is fantastic news, because your audio replay is dropout-free, and used with a wireless router and any device with a web browser, fully remote controlled. However, RAVENNA demands a wired network, fixed IP addresses, and managed switches, which limits the number of options open to the end user and raises the typical cost of the audio Ethernet network itself. That being said, if you are spending more than £7,500 on a DAC, then spending £150 instead of £50 per network switch is no biggie, and Merging’s website has a list of recommendations. Installing a RAVENNA-compatible network is entirely possible for those without a black belt in TCP/IP, but if you are more used to constructing ad hoc domestic networks, the uncompromising nature of that RAVENNA backbone is shifting up several gears. In a similar vein, the NADAC supports PCM (up to 24 bit/384kHz precision), DXD, and DSD 64, 128, and 256. That’s it: it doesn’t upsample, it doesn’t over-sample, and it doesn’t play MP3. In short, it’s refreshingly resolute.

This shouldn’t be considered a criticism of either RAVENNA or the NADAC. Our plug and play domestic network infrastructure perpetually hovers on the brink of falling over, and that network robustness can only be guaranteed by using a system that takes RAVENNA’s belt-and-braces approach. And it comes from a place where ‘have you tried turning it off and turning it on again’ would involve three hours of powering down and rebooting a whole studio. If you want that kind of absolute reliability in your networked audio replay, RAVENNA isn’t overkill – it’s just the right and proper way to do things.

The ‘pro’ heritage also kicks in when you boot the device up (remembering that it’s essentially a computer rather than a DAC, so it’s best to power it down from the menu than use the pyramidal power button on the front panel). It takes a little less than a minute to start and the same to stop. And then, the amount of time it needs to get stable is… zero. As it boots up, it is ready to roll. OK, close scrutiny does suggest there are a few minutes of getting to optimum thermal operating temperature, but the improvements are minimal. The test NADAC arrived fully run in from several audio shows, so we cannot speak as to its need for ‘running in’, but judging by its no-nonsense demeanour in general, I’d imagine such concepts are alien to the NADAC. It just works!

Just as professionals use its rack-mounted brothers to act like a searchlight on the recording, so the NADAC acts on both their work and, although a significantly lesser extent, the system. The engineer puts a microphone out of place, or maybe goes a little too valvey-syrupy in the choice of microphone preamp (the words ‘tube mic pre’ are all the rage in the studio world right now) and you’ll hear it. Maybe not with quite the stark surgical precision of a control room, but that comes down to our choice of partnering equipment. Nevertheless, what you get from the NADAC in your system is a level of musical focus and shading that is extremely rare in audio.

The chances are, in listening to this, you’ll reach for a high-resolution recording, and very probably something out of 2L’s excellent catalogue: it actually doesn’t matter which 2L recording, they are all routinely excellent. However, with the NADAC in place, you hear why they are so good and how sophisticated Morten Lindberg’s recording techniques are. Nothing is left to chance in the studio, and nothing is the slightest bit out of place. Once you begin to discover that Lindberg has a Merging DAC in his arsenal, and uses it to ensure nothing is left to chance, you begin to understand how good the NADAC is at communicating the intent of that engineer. Move slightly south to the Netherlands, and all those remarkable DSD recordings from The Spirit of Turtle and you get the same effect, for the same reasoning. It’s not just classical music, it’s not just DSD, and it’s not just the latest output from European studios that benefits from using the NADAC: this converter is so transparent to source, you can hear deep into any recording you pass through its curvy case. Yes, there are DACs with a more easy presentation than the NADAC, but this usually comes at the expense of softened transients or a rolled off top-end. Only a tiny number of digital devices I’ve heard manage to combine all those virtues without a significant downside, and the NADAC is the most affordable DAC on that select list.

If I give the impression this is best used for Pyramix-made material, or that all that detail makes NADAC a converter of stark and barren honesty, that is far from the intention. You can – and will – point the NADAC at all kinds of musical genres and come away impressed at the results. At least, impressed by the mix if it’s a good mix. The NADAC is extremely demanding of source material and doesn’t suffer excess compression gladly. If a recording is bright or toppy it will let you know, and if a recording is made with thumpy, lumpy bass, you will hear thumpy, lumpy bass. Interestingly though, it’s not so demanding that it will make these recordings unlistenable, and cuts through the mix well. Listening to less well-recorded music through the NADAC is more like writing a report card on the recording than limiting your listening.

When the recording is good and the music is great, though, the NADAC is a joy to listen to. The honesty of the Merging device simply makes it seem like it is playing music totally unconstrained by the electronics. ‘Welcome To My World’ by Depeche Mode [Delta Machine, Mute] is a perfect example of this, with its powerful and deep synth bass starting and stopping sharply in the verses it’s a striking piece of demonstration-quality audio and that comes across perfectly here. However, with heavy string and choral sounds, and Gahan’s large-scale bombastic vocals, this track can also turn into a loud mess during the crescendos, but on the NADAC remains on track and both enjoyable and dynamic.

There’s one last box to tick – the headphone amplifier. This can be run as an entirely separate stream to what’s playing through the rear panel outlets, and in set up you can assign fixed output to the rear panel feeds, and variable to the headphone amp (using the controller on the front panel as a volume knob). I also love the idea of having separate 3.5mm and ¼” jack sockets; they are identical in performance, but having both saves scrabbling round for an adaptor. The headphone amplifier itself is excellent, retaining all the precision, detail, and transparency of the line outputs. It isn’t the most powerful of headphone amps, and those determined to drive torturous, no quarter given headphone loads might be better served using one pair of those eight XLR outputs to drive the custom-made dedicated headphone amp of their choice, but as a one-box solution, there aren’t many devices that will better it. Once again, Merging’s pro roots are showing here, as it makes a fine partner to detail-orientated headphones.

The NADAC shows its true colours in the headphone space in a way. Not because of sound quality or drive potential, but by virtue of how close to the NADAC you will likely be when using headphones. Although it is also browser controlled, its navigable on-screen menu system is shown in an inch-square front panel in tiny legends, that only the eagle eyed could see beyond arm’s length. If you are using the control surfaces and display on the NADAC, you need to be very close to the DAC. Headphone close.

The Merging NADAC has an important tale to tell audiophiles – it shows us that what the pros really work with is really good quality equipment, after all. Moreover, it makes a good case for saying RAVENNA should be more common in domestic audio. If it were, the NADAC is the kind of DAC I could seriously envisage using as a reference point. The Merging NADAC is about the most accurate and precise digital listening tool I can think of. Very highly recommended.

Technical Specifications

Type: Open-Standard Network Attached DAC
Digital inputs: Ethernet (RAVENNA/AES67) on RJ45 connector, AES/EBU XLR, S/PDIF Toslink and RCA Phono, word clock input on BNC connector
Analogue outputs: 2/8 XLR outputs, 2/8 RCA outputs, ¼” and mini-jack headphone sockets
Precision: S/PDIF to 24 bit/96kHz PCM; AES/EBU to 24 bit/192 kHz PCM; Ethernet to 24 bit/384kHz PCM, DXD and DSD 256 maximum
Formats supported: PCM, DXD, DSD
Impedance: 40Ω (XLR and headphone output), 20Ω (RCA)
Max. output level: 6.1Vrms (XLR), 2.1Vrms (RCA), 4Vrms (headphones)
THD+N: 0.00022% (multichannel XLR and RCA), 0.00016% (stereo XLR), 0.0002% (stereo RCA), 0.00028% (headphones)
Dynamic range: 124dB(A) multichannel XLR, 130dB(A) stereo XLR, 120dB(A) stereo XLR, 123dB(A) stereo RCA and headphones
Dimensions (W×D×H): 43.5×43.5×9.5cm
Weight: 11kg
Price: £7,640 (2ch), £8,400 (8ch)

Manufactured by: Merging

URL: www.nadac.merging.com

Distributed in the UK by: Emerging

URL: www.emerginguk.com

Tel: +44(0)118 402 5090

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Lotoo PAW Gold Digital Audio Player

I first became aware of the Lotoo PAW Gold high-res digital audio player (£1,499) some time ago when online discussion threads began suggesting the Lotoo might be a strong (and more cost-effective) competitor to Astell & Kern’s expensive top-tier players. But now that I have spent some time with Lotoo’s flagship player, which is the subject of this review, I’m prepared to say that it is anything but a copycat, ‘me-too’ product. Rather, it strikes me as being a player methodically designed to do a great many things and to do them all well. While Lotoo’s PAW Gold is by no stretch of the imagination an inexpensive product, I think a careful survey of its capabilities, which I hope to provide here, will demonstrate that it offers very good value for money.

The footprint of the PAW Gold is surprisingly compact; if you place it atop the screen of, say, a Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone, you will discover there is a bit of screen surface showing all the way around the perimeter of the player, which will give you a sense for its pocket-sized dimensions. Even so, the Lotoo does not register on the mind as being truly ‘small’ owing to two factors: first, it is relatively thick (25.4mm or about one inch from front to back), and second, its beautifully machined solid Duralumin casework feels somewhat like a solid block of billet aluminium in the hand. Rather than offering slimline styling in the vein of players from Acoustic Research, Astell & Kern, Questyle, and others, the Lotoo comes across as a decidedly purposeful (indeed, almost military-grade) chunk of a player—an impression further reinforced by the PAW Gold’s handsome two-tone, dark silver and even darker grey anodised outer surfaces.

Lotoo also marches to the beat of a different drummer when it comes to the PAW Gold’s user controls. Where some manufacturers prefer minimalist, but therefore perhaps inscrutable, multifunction user controls that rely heavily upon extensively branched pull-down menus, Lotto takes a different approach. Instead of fitting one or two cryptically labelled ‘mystery controls’, the PAW Gold takes the old-school approach of providing a number of clearly labelled pushbutton switches, each of which pulls down its own tightly constrained set of control menus.

The front panel controls include the following switches and screens:

FILE (which allows users to choose selections from a general song, artist, track, and album directory)

LIST (to choose from among user-defined playlists)

SETUP (which provides comprehensive player setup configuration options)

ATE/PMEQ (which offers sets of studio-quality ‘Acoustic Timbre Embellisher’ and user-definable Parametric EQ options),

An engraved and gold-plated metal rocker-type selector ring (which provides Play/Pause, Forward, Backward, and Stop functions),

A user-definable ‘function button’ positioned in the centre of the sector ring,

An Fn switch (which lets users define the role of the ‘function button’),

A Power On/Off switch that doubles as an ‘enable’ switch for the player’s display screen and front panel controls, and

A sapphire glass-covered 1.8-inch full colour OLED display screen (which can, at the user’s option, provide three different screen views: the main playback/control window, a two-channel real-time spectrum analyser, and a window showing cover art for the track/album in play).

The player’s main playback control window is a marvel of user-interface design, presenting a substantial amount of information in a very small space. Specifically, the window shows play settings (repeat or sequential playback modes, etc.), EQ/tone effects settings if any, a colour-coded 2-channel playback VU meter, total time and running playback time for the track in play, the track’s sequential number within a given album, file format/bit-depth/sampling rate information, artist/song title/file suffix information for the track in play, and playback status (playing/playback paused/playback stopped). In short, virtually anything one might want to know about playback can be found at a glance on the PAW Gold’s screen.

Top mounted controls and jacks include:

A master gain switch offering high (+15 dBu) or low (0 dBu) gain settings,

A Hold switch (in essence a control lock-out switch),

A knurled and gold-plated metal thumbwheel-type volume control (which is protected by a machined metal arch cut into the top surface of the player),

A headphone output jack (3.5mm), and

An analogue line-out jack (3.5mm).

The left side of the player provides a USB 3.0 jack (used for loading digital audio files and metadata to the player’s music library memory card) plus a dedicated socket for the player’s included 12V battery charger. The right side of the player is deliberately left blank, while the bottom edge of the player provides a covered memory card slot that can accommodate SDHC/SDXC music library memory cards of up of to 2TB capacity.

If the Lotoo’s controls sound overly complicated, in practice the player proved easy to understand and to use. Its hybrid button-plus-menu control architecture is often quicker and easier to use than the controls of many ostensibly easy-to-use players that force users to move up, down, and sideways through labyrinthine menu structures. With the PAW Gold, you simply press the button that corresponds to the task you want to accomplish, and then make your selection from a focused set of menu options. That’s it: simplicity in action.

The DAC section of the PAW Gold is based on a Burr‑Brown PCM1792 DAC chip ably supported by a stable and accurate clock promising <5ps of jitter. The DAC supports decoding for PCM files from 16-24 bits/8kHz-384kHz, as well as decoding for DSD64 (2.8 MHz) and DSD128 (5.6MHz) files. Next, a dedicated Blackfin 514 DSP device supports the player’s extensive EQ and tone-shaping options. Then, a Texas Instruments LME49600 headphone driver device supports the PAW Gold’s very powerful 500mW headphone amplifier section. Last but not least, a stonking 6,000mAH lithium-polymer battery gives the Lotoo 11 hours (or more) of playback time, which is impressive considering the player’s formidable output capabilities.

Lotoo has packed an awful lot of player in a very small package. The longer I used the Lotoo, the more capable and satisfying it seemed to be. In particular, I found myself drawn to the fact that—unlike many DAPs—the PAW Gold has more than enough output to drive relatively power-hungry planar magnetic headphones. Headphones and CIEM’s I used with the PAW Gold during my listening tests included the Audeze LCD-3, HiFiMAN HE 1000, and Oppo PM-1 planar magnetic headphones plus the JH Audio Roxanne, Noble Kaiser 10, and Westone ES60 custom-fit in-ear monitors. Here is what my listening tests revealed.

The overall sonic character of the PAW Gold falls somewhere in between the precise and almost hyper-pure sound of the Astell & Kern AK380 (as reviewed in issue 127) and the detailed but also warm and highly organic sound of the Questyle QP1R (reviewed in this issue). Frankly, a solid case could be made for choosing any one of these players purely on the basis of one’s listening tastes or personal voicing preferences. However, the Lotoo is far more powerful than either of the other two players referenced here, which gives the PAW Gold certain qualities of sonic self-assurance and dynamic swagger that few other portable players can match. When you consider the PAW Gold’s middle-of-the-spectrum voicing characteristics and abundant dynamic clout, it may just be that rare bird that fits most listeners and most listening applications, most of the time.

To hear what I mean, try listening to the O-zone Percussion Group’s ‘Jazz Variants’ from Musik wie von einem anderen Stern [Manger test CD] as played through a set of HiFiMAN HE 1000 headphones driven by the PAW Gold. The ensemble features a veritable potpourri of percussion instruments that, on this track, are heard at everything from subtle and delicate on up to ‘blow-the-roof-off-the-house’ volume levels (and everything in between). Faced with an admittedly challenging track and a set of very revealing and somewhat power-hungry headphones, the Lotoo did not flinch or stumble, but rather rolled up its sleeves and went to work with the sort of finesse and gusto I have usually have heard only through powerful, full-size desktop amp/DACs.

On ‘Jazz Variants’, then, the Lotoo caused transient sounds to be carved with plenty of leading-edge energy, snap, and speed, while instrumental timbres sounded pure and were highly differentiated. In particular, it was satisfying to hear the Lotoo render the energetic ‘pop’ of snare drum notes with fierce authority and vigour, while at the same time capturing the distinctive and fleeting ‘rattle’ of the snares ringing forth from the undersides of the drums. It was also a treat to hear the PAW Gold reproduce the sharp initial ‘ping’ of notes sounded from chimes (or perhaps tubular bells) and then to hear how the voices of the instruments seemed to ‘bloom’, then sustain and slowly decay within the reverberant acoustics of the recording space. Finally, the attack, sustain, and intensely modulated ‘skin sounds’ of the giant concert bass drum strikes heard on the track were simply mind-blowing owing to their impressive combination of raw power and unexpected subtlety. Throughout the track, the Lotoo made dynamic contrasts stand out in a vivid way—effortlessly conveying information about the shapes and dynamic envelopes of notes in a way many expensive loudspeaker-based hi-fi system would have found difficult to capture.

In terms of detail and resolution, I felt the Lotoo Gold was essentially on a par with the Astell & Kern AK380 and Questyle QP1R players mentioned above, although the sonic presentations of the three players can at times sound significantly different. As I noted above, the AK380 emphasises sonic purity, clarity, and detail, where the also finely detailed Questyle delivers a more naturally warm and organic sound. The Lotoo, for its part, falls somewhere in between these two, with a sound that is somewhat brighter and more overtly transient-orientated than the Questyle, but that is perhaps not quite as purity, clarity, and detail-centric as the Astell & Kern.

When I initially listened to the Lotoo, I wondered if it had as much to offer in the way of subtlety and fine focus as the AK and Questyle players. However, one recording that settled the question for me once and for all (in the Lotoo’s favour) was the intricate and evocative bluegrass track ‘Why Don’t You Go Back To The Woods’ from Jerry Douglas, Russ Barenberg, and Edgar Meyer’s Skip, Hop & Wobble [Sugar Hill]. What especially caught my ear was the effortless manner in which the Lotoo crisply differentiated the attack, timbre, and decay characteristics of the overlapping voices of Douglas’ Dobro and Barenberg’s steel-string guitar—instruments that, as rendered by lesser players, can be very difficult to distinguish indeed. I was also favourably impressed by the Lotoo’s ability tease out the astonishing array of textures that master bassist Edgar Meyer is able to draw from his acoustic bass on this track. At one moment Meyer will explore the instrument’s deep, growling sonorities, yet in the next he will evoke lighter, higher pitched, and more fleet-footed aspects of the instrument’s sound in a manner reminiscent of, say, a mandolin. Through it all, the PAW Gold admirably keeps pace with Meyer’s variegated performance – something that would be hard for amp/DACs of any size or price to do so well.

Over the course of listening for this review, Lotoo’s PAW Gold has become a favourite listening tool for me, as well as a preferred travel companion. I say this because this versatile and accomplished digital audio player is as much at home driving power-hungry full-size headphones as it is in making high-quality, high-sensitivity CIEMs sing. It can literally drive anything and everything well, making it the portable digital audio player for all seasons and reasons.

Technical Specifications

Type: High-res portable digital audio player/DAC
Inputs: Super Speed USB 3.0 (via Micro-B jack; used solely for uploading digital audio files to the player), Music library memory card (see ‘Storage’, below)
Outputs: Stereo analogue line output (via 3.5mm min‑jack), single-ended headphone output (via 3.5mm mini-jack)
Firmware: Upgradeable via Lotoo-supplied downloads
Storage: Single card slot for SDHC/SDXC music library memory card at capacity of up to 2TB
DAC: Burr-Brown PCM1792
Other Processors & Major ICs: Blackfin 514 DSP device supports ATE & PMEQ options. Texas Instruments LME49600 headphone driver
Clock Jitter: 5ps (Typ)
Supported Formats: WAV, FLAC, AAC, ALAC, MP3, WMA, M4A, CUE, OGG, APE, WavePack, and DSD (DFF, DSF, ISO)
Sample Rates: PCM: 8kHz – 384kHz, 16/24-bits. DSD: DSD64 (2.8Mhz), DSD128 (5.6MHz).
User Interface: 1.8-inch colour OLED screen, plus control switches and jacks as describer in the main review text.
Frequency Response: Headphone& Line Output: 20 Hz – 20KHz, ± 0.06dB; 5Hz – 50kHz, ± 1dB
Output Levels: Maximum output: 500mW@32 Ohms. Headphone output, high gain: +15dBu. Headphone output, low gain: 0 dBu
Line output: Maximum output: 2V RMS, +9dBu
THD + N: Headphone output: 0.00058%
Line output: 0.00036%
Signal/Noise Ratio (headphone and line output): 120dB
Battery: 6,000mAh, Li-Polymer battery
Playing time: 11 hours
Dimensions (H×W×D): 104 × 60 × 25.4mm
Weight: 280g
Price: £1,499

Manufacturer: Lotoo, Ltd.

Tel: +86-400-653-8168

URL: www.lotoo.cn

Distributed in the UK by: KS Distribution

Tel: +44(0)1903 768919

URL: www.ksdistribution.co.uk

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Benchmark Media Systems DAC2 HGC digital converter

Benchmark was the brand that introduced the first serious small scale digital to analogue converter. Before the original DAC1, most converters were either full width or not taken seriously. All that has changed with a plethora of high-spec, all-singing DACs that are primarily designed for the headphone market but which also have preamp outputs. The DAC2 HGC has a lot more competition than its forbear, so Benchmark has upped the ante in terms of conversion capability, but it remains very similar in facilities terms.

There are three DAC2s in the Benchmark line of which the HGC (hybrid gain control) is the most comprehensively equipped. The DAC2 DX (£1,599) is essentially a professional version that dispenses with the analogue preamp and remote control but adds another analogue output and AES/EBU digital input, while the DAC2 L is as per the HGC but has no headphone outputs (£1,549); that’s right, this DAC has two analogue inputs and full preamplifier functionality thanks to XLR and RCA phono outputs with volume control. Unusually, the analogue input does not get converted into digital so that it can be attenuated with a digital volume control, instead it bypasses the digital side and has its own passive attenuator – hence the H for hybrid.

The feature list is rather larger than its sub 25cm width might suggest, it includes sample rate and word length display via LEDs with rather tiny legends, five digital inputs including asynchronous USB, digital pass through, 12V trigger, home theatre bypass, and a polarity switch. Oh yes and a diecast remote handset with squidgy keys somewhat reminiscent of a Sinclair ZX81. With all of this and a lovely knurled aluminium control knob, it’s easy to see why Benchmark has established itself in both our world and that of the burgeoning home studio market. But £1,699 is quite a lot to pay for a compact DAC. Most of the competition has most of these features, albeit proper analogue in/output is rare. So with this DAC there is more: internal jumpers allow you to convert a digital input into digital pass-through (more of a studio thing), the attenuation of the XLR ouptuts can be altered by +/- 10dB, as can headphone output level, and finally, the headphone output on the left can mute or let be the pre-output as you choose. So it’s pretty flexible, definitely more so than most.

On the commercially sensitive side of what the converter is capable of, you have a native DSD channel that does not turn DSD into PCM prior to conversion to analogue. However, the DAC2 is limited to DSD64 and not the multiples thereof offered by some in the market. And even if the DAC2 runs four 32-bit DACs arranged in balanced configuration to minimise noise, this does not produce a balanced output at the XLR connections. The USB input can be run in class 1 or 2 with the latter requiring drivers when used with a Windows based computer. You can run it in class 1 too, but that limits sample rate to 96kHz. As the driver is a free download it seems worthwhile installing it for the truly high-res material in your collection. Given that Benchmark is a North American company it’s surprising and refreshing to see it point out that while the differences between the now discontinued DAC1 and its replacement are many and various, those wanting to enjoy great sound alone and who do not want to play the latest formats will not find a big difference between the two. I am not familiar with the DAC1 so cannot comment, but it sounds as though those that are can rest easy, for now at least.

Those who use reading glasses will need them to identify what the legends on the front of the Benchmark say, but that is where the remote comes in. Even if you don’t recall which coaxial input you used, clicking through the options reveals the active one to have a steady blue light and the empty ones to flash, ditto other inputs which is handy. I started by connecting the DAC2’s single ended outputs to my ATC P1 power amp with a Macbook Air hooked up to the only USB input, so no input selection challenges there. I played a DSD version of Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’ [Blonde On Blonde, CBS], which seemed a little lightweight but it’s an old recording that the effects of DSD do not necessarily enhance. That said, the song retained its evergreen appeal, and the soundstage was notably wide, if lacking in depth. After a few more pieces, which proved that this DAC is transparent enough to reveal big differences in recording style, I switched to the coaxial input. This was fed by the somewhat convoluted chain of the Melco digital transport via Ethernet to a Moon MiND streamer and thence through Chord Co’s finest to the coax input. All of which did nothing to stop this input sounding clearly superior with the soundstage opening up in width and depth to provide a space for far more realistic instruments and voices to unfold within. The effect produced what seemed like a doubling of resolution thanks to the increase at low levels, and the structure that brings to the overall sound. Even the bass seemed to be tighter, which wasn’t expected, but the Melco is a rather more dedicated audio source than the Macbook.

That said, when I made comparisons between coaxial and USB inputs using the Melco alone, the former remained obviously superior. This time the change was more subtle, but nonetheless pretty obvious. In essence, the coax input sounds more relaxed and delivers more detail and the music becomes more sophisticated or intricate, allowing you to hear further into the mix. It even makes the music played on the Benchmark DAC2 easier to enjoy. In fairness, USB is louder in both level and character, which may of course suit some systems. However, in a system designed for maximum resolution, the older input remains the more appealing.

Going from the DAC2 connected directly to the power to having its full output routed into a Townshend Allegri passive pre also brought gains. Given that I was using digital inputs and thus digital volume control this is not entirely surprising, but Benchmark does go to some lengths to get this aspect sounding as good as possible. However, the Allegri is very good and improves the timing, dynamics, and the high frequencies on this DAC despite the extra run of interconnect in the system. Switching to the XLR outputs did help to redress this, and the extra voltage available proved a better match for the power amp and delivered dynamics far more effectively. Now Barenboim’s Symphony No.7 in A Op.92 [(Beethoven For All, 24/96, Decca] had light, shade, and vigour and no longer receded in the way it had via the RCAs.

The analogue input proved to be rather good, too. Using a Naim Audio NAC-N 272’s digital and analogue outputs via the Benchmark made a good case for the latter, which produced a more relaxed and open result that made me want to listen for longer. It reveals what you would expect: the Naim NAC-N 272 has a better DAC as you might hope at around twice the price of the DAC2, but also that the analogue inputs on the latter are sufficiently transparent to show as much.

With DSD recordings, results are on a par with PCM. Modern classical recordings, such as a Marianne Thorsen recording of Mozart’s Violin Concerto in D major (TrondheimSolistene, 2L), sound beautifully open, detailed, and just a tiny bit bright, but spectacular nonetheless. Contrasting the Benchmark with a Hegel HD12 DSD (£900) made a case for the extra cost of the newcomer, but only in terms of openness. While you get more of the hall acoustic with the Benchmark, in other respects the two are more or less at level pegging.

The latest incarnation of the Benchmark DAC remains a comprehensively equipped and highly capable piece of kit. Those looking for flexibility of operation will find little that competes while listeners in search of the ultimate affordable DAC have a small but remarkable contender to add to the must hear list.

Technical Specifications

Type: Solid-state high-resolution PCM and DSD-capable digital-to-analogue converter/preamplifier.
Digital inputs: Two Coaxial, two Toslink, and one USB 2.0 DoP V1.1 transmission protocol supported through USB only
Analogue inputs: Two single-ended pairs (via RCA jacks)
Analogue outputs: One stereo single‑ended (via RCA jacks), one balanced (via XLR connectors), two headphone (via 6mm jacks).
DAC Resolution/Supported Digital Formats: All PCM from 44.1KS/s to 192kHz with word lengths up to 24‑bit, DSD64 (2.8224MHz)
Frequency Response: 20Hz–20kHz, +0dB / –0.04dB
Distortion (THD + Noise): < 0.00035%, 20Hz–20kHz at 0dBFS
Output Voltage: not specified
User Interface: diecast metal remote handset
Dimensions (HxWxD): 44.5 × 249 × 237mm
Weight: 1.36kg
Price: £1,699

Manufacturer: Benchmark

Tel: +1 315-437-6300

URL: benchmarkmedia.com

UK Distributor: SCV Distribution

Tel: +44(0)3301 222500

URL: www.scvdistribution.co.uk

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Audion Black Shadow 2 mono power amplifier

I remember my first Audiophile. That isn’t as odd as it sounds, I’m talking about the UK magazine called Audiophile (long since defunct) that was briefly the new face of high-end audio. The reason I remember it was it was in the early 1990s and featured the Audio Note Ongaku amplifier on the cover. I wanted one because it was so fantastic, like something from a parallel universe. Unfortunately, it’s price was from a parallel universe too: I remember it costing slightly more than the house I was living in at the time, I believe. But the idea of a single-ended triode amplifier with huge power tubes never quite left me.

Fast-forward to 2015 and Kondo Sound Lab Ongakus are still way above my pay grade, and while Audio Note UK brings the prices of SET amps to a more real-world level, that level is still more than I could bring myself to pay for every watt.

Enter the Audion Black Shadow 2 mono amps: pumping out a surprisingly meaty sounding 25W from each channel’s lone 845 power tube in no feedback, single-ended Class A triode operation, these amplifiers take minimalism to the edge. Technically, you could use these babies as a one-source, two volume pot amplifier without a linestage, but in reality this is likely used with either a source component with built in gain control or some kind of active or passive preamplifier. There is a rear ground lift switch to help reduce any earthing hum that may occur in a system. There are also four and eight ohm tapped loudspeaker terminals (with, strangely, two sets of black terminals for the return) – but these are not marked as such: four-ohm is next to the black terminal and eight is to the far right of the terminal block. We suggest experimenting anyway, but eight ohms is a good starting place.

The circuit is very simple, with just an E182CC (a kind of super-grade version of the ECC82 double triode) in the line driver stage, partnered with the 6922/6H23N as a pre-amp input and the big 845 tube as power amp stage. The latest Black Shadow 2 differs from its predecessor in terms of adding an additional buffer stage, as well as some clever tricks to drop its noise level even lower than its predecessor. It is fully hard-wired with high purity silver cabling throughout. The valves are exposed and run hot, so site the amps with care!

Like many SET amps today, the Black Shadow can be upgraded through improved components. Given there is a relatively low component count in any SET amp (it’s part of their charm) this is a logical way to improve on a good amplifier design and the Audion can be turned from its Standard specification, through Insignia and Excelsior, to the full Signature level experience, where all the components (right down to the replacement silver-wired transformers and case wiring) are ‘no compromise’. Of course, you can buy your Black Shadow 2 in whatever configuration you choose or can afford at the time, knowing that – unless you went right to the top, there is always more possible.

Let’s get this out of the way first. You don’t buy a SET amplifier for its neutrality. You buy it because you like the sound of its sound. If that does not compute, there are other amplifiers that will be a more perfect fit, and you should lose no sleep over the continued existence of amps like the Audion Black Shadow 2. I know this is a forlorn hope, and what really happens is people who don’t like the concept of SET amps go all Victor (“I don’t believe it!”) Meldrew on audio forums. But this is a little like those people wearing a grey suit telling those wearing a blue suit that their suit isn’t grey. The blue-suit wearers know their suit isn’t grey and they are perfectly comfortable with that. Similarly, people who like SET amps know they are higher in distortion than push-pull ultra-linear pentode or solid-state amps. They just like what that distortion does to the sound.

While we are in full disclosure mode, a SET amp isn’t going to be perfectly compatible with every loudspeaker, even one as powerful as the Audion. And we’re not talking difficult loads; even some potentially perfectly compatible loudspeakers (Monitor Audio for example) seem to require an amplifier with more damping factor than the Black Shadow 2’s provide. A pair of ProAc’s Response D20 Ribbon speakers loaned from the Hi-Fi+ offices, on the other hand, might seem a less perfect partner on paper, but the two sing sweetly together. If in doubt, put your trust in the dealer or distributor or amp manufacturer; they will likely know what works and what doesn’t.

The Black Shadow 2 draws out the harmonic richness of music and its natural sense of dynamic range. This is the kind of sound that makes you argue over pianists, not cables, because it perfectly shows the playing dynamics of different virtuosos. If you have an opinion about Haifetz vs. Ricci, or Casals vs. Rostopovich, or even Argerich vs. Barenboim vs. Brendel, the Audion amp will be your friend. If you ‘like a bit of Mozart in the evening’, this is probably not for you. The Audion’s unforced dynamic shading and ability to move from fff to ppp without a hesitation makes music something that must be engaged with, not played in the background.

SET amps are frequently praised for their great soundstaging abilities, and the Audion shows why this is the case. The dimensionality of the soundstage in width, depth, and even height is preserved perfectly, and alters as you move from a small, almost claustrophobic jazz club (Art Blakey’s A Night At Birdland on Blue Note) to the scale of an orchestra in a huge studio. There’s a simplicity and lack of artifice to the sound that makes most audio equipment sound fake and mechanical. This obviously works best when working with music that is ‘naturally’ recorded and not too electronic.

All this being said, dub reggae sounds wonderful through the Audions. In truth, I’m probably not the right man to judge this, having only a handful of reggae albums in my collection, but like many of my generation I own a copy of Garvey’s Ghost by Burning Spear [Island/Mango] and ‘Black Wa‑Da‑Da (Invasion)’ is a bit of an occasional favourite. Fellow Hi-Fi+ writer Jason Kennedy periodically refers to bass as ‘chewy’ and I never quite understood what that meant until hearing this track through these Audions; there’s a real shape and thickness and texture to that deep dub bass that you feel you want to get your teeth into and take a bite from. Yes, you find yourself nodding along in that slow every other backbeat way you are supposed to when listening to dub, but those bass notes give this track a sense of real effortless flow.

That’s the word that best sums up the sound of the Audion Black Shadow 2 – effortless. There is no sense of electronics getting in the way of the sound, more like musicians have been fed into your loudspeakers (without the inevitable icky mess this would cause in reality). Whether it’s the lack of global feedback, the increased amount of even-order harmonic distortion, the limited number of components between input and output, or the quality of those components in the signal path, the net result is that this amplifier simply sounds great in a kind of “gets out of the way” manner.

In ultimate terms, the Audion Black Shadow 2’s effortless and openness means recordings that are not sympathetic to those musical goals sound thin and flat. The downside with living in 2015 is there are a lot of recordings from the last 20+ years that have heavy signal compression. While the classical and jazz idioms are mostly free from this blight, rock and pop recordings suffer greatly, and the Audion amps do not take kindly to this form of compression. Where less open-sounding amplifiers mask the horrors of this kind of peak loudness recording style, the Audion leaves nowhere to hide, and that will make a lot of new recordings hard to hear.

SET amps aren’t for everyone, but the Audion Black Shadow 2’s show just how seductive they can be. This is a beguiling amplifier, with the sort of effortless sound that wins people over. Correctly partnered and used with music not plagued by peak loudness, this hot running amp will inflame the passions.

Technical Specifications

Type: Zero feedback, single-ended triode mono power amplifier
Tubes: 1× 845, 1× 6922/6H23N, 1× E182CC per channel
Power output: 25W Class A into 8Ω
Loading: four and eight ohm nominal
Frequency Response: 13Hz–34kHz ±3dB
Distortion: < 0.1%
Noise: < (CCIR) –90dB
Sensitivity: Variable > 150mV full output
Dimensions (W×H×D): 26×25×46cm (per channel, excl. tubes)
Weight: 12kg per channel
Price: From £7,000 per pair

Manufactured by: Audion International

URL: www.audion.co.uk

Distributed in the UK by: Deco Audio

URL: www.decoaudio.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)1296 422224

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Technical Specifications

Manufactured by: Wilson Benesch

Technical Specifications

UK Distributor: Absolute Sounds

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Manufactured by: Merging

Distributed in the UK by: Emerging

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Manufacturer: Lotoo, Ltd.

Distributed in the UK by: KS Distribution

Technical Specifications

Manufacturer: Benchmark

UK Distributor: SCV Distribution

Technical Specifications

Manufactured by: Audion International

Distributed in the UK by: Deco Audio

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