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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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Melco/Exogal/Vitus/Estelon system

As a reviewer I crave change and am always expecting to hear something that just might tell a different musical story. It’s even more intriguing when it comes with solid recommendations and takes the shape of a technology that, with a couple of exceptions, hasn’t completely convinced me of its musical merits up until now. Add the fact that the whole thing will be supplied and installed by a single UK distributor, it’s time to kick back and enjoy the music. No concerns about system compatibility here, and in the case of this system, no pressing reason to leave the couch either.

This Kog-supplied system is simply perfect for the lazy audiophile who likes to wander through their music library via a remote app. But, given my general reservations concerning the overall musical viability of stored digital music (excluding CD), was I really the right person to ask to review this system? I know both the Vitus SIA-025 and the Estelon XC speakers from separate reviews and think very highly of them both. But this system was going to succeed (or not) on the capabilities of its digital front end where both the Melco N1Z music player and the Exogal Comet DAC were new to me. Fraser, from Kog, had been extremely fulsome in his praise for both components for a while, and now it was time for him to ‘put up’ and let the equipment do the talking.

The Vitus is one of those designs that will most certainly go on to be considered something of a classic. A single-box integrated amplifier of a mere 25 watts, it sprang from the loins of the original SS-010 and, like all Hans Ole’s designs, is constructed around a huge transformer that is UI in shape and sits at the core of the amplifier’s weighty build and performance. The Vitus can be switched from Class A/B to A and it certainly should be left in the latter for all critical listening. It does take an hour or more to really show its qualities from power-up, but fully warmed, there is no question of its benefits. With two unbalanced and three balanced inputs and a menu system that I am growing more familiar with (after an initial rather dumb period) it tells its seamless musical story with control and subtle flair regardless of what music that entails.

Describing its sound leads me to the way the music flows through it unhindered. It is one of those open-window amplifiers that is always in control, but without the iron-fisted note shaping of some solid-state designs. It glides along with an almost casual attitude to both rhythm and tempo and never, ever becomes over analytical or flustered. It will sound as good in 20 years as it has done for the past several and is at home in most real-world listening rooms except perhaps for grossly inefficient speakers, larger spaces or the most dedicated of head bangers. If you have all three of these conditions then Vitus have plenty of models further up their ranges that will be better suited.

The Estelon XC has become one of my favourite speakers. This is the only stand-mounted speaker in their range and its single column support is attached deep within that curvaceous shape, necessitating transportation in a pair of chunky flight cases. The speaker comprises a three-way design utilising ceramic drivers from Accuton fabricated to Estelon’s own specific requirement and mounted in a Mid-Treble-Mid configuration. A substantial rear facing port means that they need a metre or so of room between them and a rear wall of which a little more wouldn’t go amiss if you have the space. Kog installed them on my wood floor, sitting atop Stillpoints directly attached to devices and with a modicum of toe-in; in fact, just about where they sat when I reviewed them a while ago.

Balance wise, they are lean rather than over-ripe, and when driven properly they have a superb bandwidth and are clean and enormously focussed. This, coupled with quite fantastic driver integration, gives them a musical togetherness and articulation that is quite special. Tonally, they are on the cool side but are never too bright, though that superb ceramic tweeter has incredible texture and is explosively dynamic when needed. I love the way that they create so much space and depth as they project the music outside of those slim cabinets. Their scale and presence is also notable. The lack of excess fat and undue warmth in the bass is offset by their precision and resolution. When driven by the Vitus (through Nordost cabling in this system), they speak with eloquence and real authority – together they make a very musical pair.

However, given my previous experience with both amp and speakers it was always going to be the front end of the Melco and the Exogal that would make or break this system. Both have been reviewed in these pages recently by AS. The Melco N1Z in issue No. 24 and the Comet in the issue following that. I would suggest a read of both of those for the (much) bigger picture. My concern was how this collection of Kog goodies hung together as a system, if indeed it did: it was always going to be interesting.

The Melco N1Z is best considered a USB digital music library designed and built solely with regard for its musical capabilities and potential as opposed to borrowing internals from the computer spares shelf. The Exogal Comet, supplied here with the optional separate power supply, has also been making noises, not least for its quality/price equation. But, given its excellent connectivity and the fact that it can be employed to drive a power amplifier directly, it is actually a very capable digital hub. My only criticism would be its silvered display that is supremely difficult to read except from a few feet away and in the right light. Though in truth, the remote allows you to quickly scroll through the inputs and adjust the level without recourse to the display. A conventional illuminated design would be my choice, but it’s certainly not a deal breaker. Hook this pair together with a decent USB cable (Entreq in this case) and you’re ready to go.

Both are immensely versatile when it comes to files and can handle anything from MP3, through higher and higher rates, up to many times DSD. The Melco has a pair of 512GB SSDs on-board with the ability to connect with external storage systems too. The entire music library is very straightforward to access and follows the layout that has become so familiar. The only real choices you need to make are whether to use Twonky or the Minimserver, both selectable via the app.

As someone used to listening through an extremely good CD-based digital front end, it didn’t take long to realise that this system has resolution to burn. The Melco had been pre-loaded with all manner of hi-res files and we also ripped some of my own CDs onto it via a MacBook. It seems impossible for me to try and explain how good it is without expressing my general (not total) disappointment with so much hi-res streaming I have heard up until now. What is it that separates a truly musical performance from the somewhat brittle, compartmentalised, detail-etched attempts that have caused me to look the other way? Why do I use my own home streaming set-up as a distinctly second choice musical source? I guess the answer lies in the way the music is joined up, and this is such a broad subject – too involved for this review anyway. So, let me distil it and say that resolution without a truly musical context is rather uninteresting to my ear. It’s like a footballer that can keep the ball up for hours on end, while doing handstands, but has no aptitude for the game, the team, or the tactical flow of play. The Melco/Exogal are definitely team players.

When you hear a system that is truly musical it should draw you in and move you. It really must be as expressive as the musicians and if it’s worthwhile it should be able to take you on an emotional ride. Sitting and listening to a collection of sounds, however explicit, doesn’t get anywhere near it for me. But, as always, the front end just has to be right.

This one is a success from the off. My rips of John McLaughlin’s Remember Shakti: Saturday Night In Bombay [Decca] with all its full-on intensity pace and explosive beauty is a stern test. The atmosphere and rolling textures of the drone from the tambura that opens each track floats across the room and warns of the fire to come; but it is more than just a sound. It’s a colour, a calming constant, and a backwashed, coloured landscape against which the musicians are going to write their message. ‘Bell’Alla’ illustrates this perfectly, and the Melco/Comet is super quiet and allows the drone to softly wallow before heralding McLaughlin’s guitar. McLaughlin can be so lyrical and melodic, but you sense that the percussion train is entering the tunnel somewhere in the distance – when it emerges, it is already doing over 100 mph. The resolution here counts for nothing without some sense of order, and you get a lot more than the leading edges too. This track alone shows that the Melco/Exogal set‑up has the space and the rhythmic integrity to allow these enormous dynamic shifts full impact. As the percussion blasts through patterns of great intricacy and colour, the system is in its element. Never brittle or rushed, the lack of obvious compression is completely invaluable. The Vitus and the Estelons gobble this stuff up as the driving percussion fires across the room at you and never trip over themselves, drop a stitch, or sound disjointed; the whole system is an exercise in energy control and management.

That sense of ease and natural, unbleached tonality is a hallmark of this system and is always present. It lifts the musicality up to the resolution level, instead of towards pure information retrieval. The intimacy this effect can have is evident on the simple but rounded recording sound of Richard Hawley’s Truelove’s Gutter [Mute]. The track ‘Remorse Code’ is a gentle, close ballad with rather more subdued dynamics and pace, but is infinitely denser and tonally nuanced than it may at first appear. The system spreads such musical qualities wide and deep across the room, almost inviting you to step into its casual acoustic. Clever use of mixed reverbs and the instrumental shimmer break against the room’s boundaries as the gentle rhythms and textural contrasts play right into the enormous qualities of the Vitus and the sparse clarity of the Estelon XCs. It is a relaxed but far from straightforward production and highlights the superb ‘out of the box’ presence and accessibility of the system.

Once thoroughly warmed through and dialled into the room, I found this to be a very musical system indeed. I reckon you will love the way that you can hear the musicianship of individual performances and the fact that there is so little unpleasant tension in the sound. The creative aspect of music making that all musicians crave is beautifully realised by this Kog system and its performance arc is broad.

At this moment, I see streaming from a music library like the Melco as being at its most successful when run alongside a quality CD player and not as a replacement. Access to hi-res files through the N1Z is great, if you like hi-res. Personally I am intrigued with certain recordings but until I can get the music I want to listen to in high-res formats, it is no more than that.

The Exogal is remarkable value for money and could quite happily sit at the hub of many a high-end digital system. The Vitus and the Estelons are truly superb too but when together they make a system that perfectly fits the Kog ethos of ultimate musicality and where the musicians and their music are the stars, then that’s what system building is really all about.

Technical Specifications

Melco N1Z Network Music Player

File types supported: DSF, DFF, FLAC, WAV, ALAC, AIFF, AAC, MP3, WMA, OGG, LPCM

Ports: 2× RJ45 LAN, 3× USB 3.0 terminals, 5v USB charging port

Internal HD: 512GB SSD × 2

Dimensions (H×W×D): 6 × 37 × 35 cm

Weight: 7kg
Price: £6,200
Exogal Comet DAC
Digital Inputs: XLR, BNC, Toslink, USB-B
Analog Inputs: isolated RCA
Analog Outputs: XLR, RCA
Sample Rates Supported: 16bit/32kHz–32bit/384kHz, DSD64, DSD 128
Dimensions (H×W×D): 4.76 × 19 × 29.2 cm
Weight: 4.2 kg
Price: £2,100 (PSU: £550)
Vitus Sia-025 Amplifier
Inputs: 2× RCA, 3× XLR
Rated power: 2× 25 watt Class A / 2× 100 watt Class A / B
Dimensions (H×W×D): 13 × 43.5 × 43cm
Total Weight: 42Kg
Price: £18,500
Estelon XC Standmount Loudspeakers
Drivers: 2× 173mm Ceramic mid/bass drivers, 1× 30mm ceramic inverted dome tweeter in MTM configuration
Frequency Response: 45Hz–28kHz
Nominal Impedance: 4 ohms
Sensitivity: 91 dB
Dimensions (H×W×D): 126×26.2×36.7cm
Net Weight: 49kg with stand
Finishes available: High gloss black as standard. Consult dealer for custom finishes.
Price: £15,500 per pair

System Supplied and installed by: Kog Audio

URL: www.kogaudio.com/

Tel: +44(0)24 7722 0650

Moon Evolution 780D digital converter/network streamer

We keep beginning these reviews of state-of-the-art digital products with variations on the theme of ‘how the digital world is changing’ for a reason: it IS changing. Moon’s prestigious Evolution range is perfectly indicative of that change. The digital top spot in Moon’s top range used to be held by the 750D CD player, but this year that was ousted by the Evolution 780D, a combined digital converter and network streamer.

CD players – essentially DACs with CD transport mechanisms – remain in the Moon catalogue, but it’s possible these players are the last of their line and subsequent generations of Moon digital products will evolve from the 780D (well, an ‘Evolution’ pun was irresistible). In fact, it’s already happening; products that have a direct link to the 780D design brief have already begun to appear in Moon’s more affordable NEO range.

Viewed on a surface level, the Evolution 780D is a nine-input digital converter, already next-gen ready thanks to its USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and aptX Bluetooth connections, alongside the optical and coaxial S/PDIF and AES/EBU inputs. It’s a dual-differential DAC layout where each of the two ESS9018S Sabre DAC chips sports essentially 16 unique DAC circuits per channel that can support PCM to 24-bit, 384kHz and DSD to quad-speed/256. In other words, it can support bleeding-edge formats, for which there are but a handful of tracks. Nevertheless, the logic behind this is if it can process at this resolution, 24/192 and DSD 64 should be a breeze. While I’m not wholly convinced of the need for this endless specification arms race given the paucity of music available in astronomic-resolution, there doesn’t seem to be much sign of a ceasefire yet. Irrespective of file format, the Evolution 780D also features a Femtosecond-grade internal clock, to show jitter who’s boss.

Moon has started a move to a new Hybrid Power (MHP) supply in the 780D, a high performance universal Power Supply using conductive polymer parts, high speed digital switching, and analogue linear regulators post stages designed to smooth the DC output. With an increasing number of DAC designs going switch-mode only, which works well for digital stages, it’s great to see a digital device take its analogue side just as seriously.

The net result of all this taking power seriously does have its downside – acronyms! The dozen stages of DC voltage regulation include two M-LoVo (Moon Low Voltage Regulation) stages and four I2DCf (Independent Inductive DC filtering) stages. All connected with SimLink comms. And probably a PIAPT (Partridge In A Pear Tree) somewhere, too.

Elsewhere, the 780D is all aircraft-grade aluminium, super-thick PCBs, isolating corners, and the kind of last-a-lifetime, you could drive a tank over it build we have come to expect from Moon’s top Evolution range. It also has Moon’s trademark huge red LED front panel readout. It features balanced and single-ended analogue outputs; we preferred single-ended, but not by much.

Integral to the 780D is MiND, or Moon intelligent Network Device. Originally a standalone box, designed to allow more conventional DAC devices to talk to local and internet networked audio, MiND is now becoming integrated into the company’s latest digital products. MiND was one of the first ways of streaming DSD files over Ethernet, and many still consider it the best in terms of flexibility. In particular, MiND and the accompanying app integrate with network streaming service TIDAL in a way few other hardware companies have achieved. This redefines the term ‘seamless’ when it comes to integration of local and online music services. The 780D’s open-ended design suggests that should the need arise to upgrade the DAC or the MiND stages, upgrades and updates will be made available (and Moon does have some ‘form’ in providing such updates, so the idea of future updates is not idle speculation).

On the subject of improvements, several of the top tier products in Moon’s Evolution range can be upgraded using the company’s external 820S power supply. The 780D is no exception, but we didn’t have this to hand. Neither, at the time of test, did we have a Moon amplifier to try out the SimLink communications hook-up between the two devices. However, on past experience, this is a wonderfully integrated connection between linked devices, with control surfaces, functionality, equalised level LED dimming, even cascaded power up and power down routines, passed perfectly and effortlessly from product to product. I have no reason to believe the 780D would behave out of the ordinary here. For Moon devices, that is.

That throwaway end of the last paragraph is actually a pivotal function of Moon’s equipment. Taken alone or together, they work in the way you would expect audio components to work. You don’t need an electronics degree to switch the device on, and you don’t need to pray for a miracle that when you turn it on, it hasn’t permanently locked you out of three-quarters of its functionality. The 780D is an undeniably complex, multifunction piece of electronics engineering, so it’s never going to be as easy to use as a toaster. It requires some installation skills and some understanding of how to create a home network to operate it at its best. If you can’t do that personally, ask your dealer, who will then get his 13 year old son (who can do this kind of stuff in his sleep) to configure and create a network for you. Ultimately, you will end up with some kind of network attached storage, to which you will rip some of your CD collection, before giving up on the whole project and signing up to TIDAL, which you can also do through the network and on the Moon app.

Installation is not – by modern standards – complex, and once your MiND network is up and running, you’ll begin to look at those CD-spinning days with incredulity, rather than nostalgia. It quickly becomes a ‘did I used to do that?’ mindset. I’ve recently started listening to CD anew thanks to the dCS Rossini, and the 780D makes a very fine DAC in and of itself, but it also makes a fine argument for putting CD back in its jewel case and stowing it away because the 780D delivers some of the finest streamed sounds I have ever experienced. CD is still great, and still sounds great, but the 780D extracts the musical marrow from all file types!

Like the 750D CD player before it, the 780D makes music with great authority. The 780D begins with its spatial properties, establishing a fine soundstage of great width and precision. It doesn’t matter what music you are playing here, if it has any kind of stage, the 780D will present it well. I played ‘She Talks To Angels’ by The Black Crowes [Shake Your Money Maker, American], which isn’t the first choice for portraying deep soundstage (the guitar and vocals are close mic’d and the rest of the band seems to appear as a thin layer of musicians in the chorus), but the 780D created a surprising sense of dimensionality and solidity to the sound in the room. When you moved over to music with true soundstaging (yes, it’s an audiophile cliché, but Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else [Blue Note] is a perfect album to play here), you could place yourself in the studio with the musicians, such is the size and precision of the 780D’s staging properties.

The great thing about the 780D is that it doesn’t have that thin, stark, and forward sound so common to ‘next-gen’ audio equipment at this time. The sound digital produces is extremely detailed, highly coherent, and very articulate, but somewhere in the transition from disc-based to file-based music we seem to have forgotten that music is more than shots; it’s there to be drunk deep. Not here though. The 780D has music wired into its DNA: you don’t listen to minute long ‘Classical Moods’ here – you play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony [von Karajan, Berlin Phil, DG] from beginning to end, because you are at ease with the music it plays.

There was a word that kept coming back on the notepad with the 780D. The word was ‘graceful’. It’s not used much in audio today because most music replay devices have forgotten its importance, but music flows from musical theme to theme with such passion and grace on the 780D that it’s hard not to be impressed. It’s almost analogue in intent, although this is the wrong term: it’s not trying to be vinyl, and it’s definitely a digital player, just that it has that sense of musical grace (that word again) you hear immediately on vinyl and is oh so rare on digital.

I can see there will be some who like their music with great gusto, who will find this more majestic, graceful presentation not ‘edgy’ enough. On the other hand, there are also those who find a singular obsession with music’s pulse too limiting and crass, and for them the Moon 780D’s abilities to balance tonal, timbral, and rhythmic elements with great evenness hard to resist.

Part of the Moon’s ability to move beyond the rhythmic end of the spectrum is because the next most common word on my note pad was ‘confident’. This is a big, and bold sound, at once comfortable with huge-scale orchestral works and breathy girl-with-guitar songs, and all points between. Dynamics are effortless (to the point where you stop becoming aware of a thing called dynamic range and just listen to the music) and this dynamism, and a good natural sense of melody (without accenting the beat) combined with that graceful overall presentation, makes this an easy digital device to love.

In a way, although the hardware is the power behind the throne, the one element that ultimately makes or breaks a product today are the programs and apps used to interface and control the device. The best sounding DAC with a poor app will fail to thrive. And that’s where MiND really comes into its own – the app is so good here, I could almost imagine someone buying the 780D because of the app. The best way I can describe the app is it works the way you would expect a music playing app to work, and it just happens to connect with and control one of the best sounding digital devices you can get. In fact, the Moon does come with a really nice handset with squidgy touch buttons that glow every time you pick it up (it has an accelerometer inside), and eight touch buttons on the front panel, but the moment you power up the app, those elements become redundant.

In fact, the only real limitation to the 780D is that well documented running in period that applies universally to all Moon devices. If you get a demonstration, make sure the store has given the 780D plenty of time to get its act together. That includes not leaving it unpowered for any significant time. When you get it home, it will sound pretty good out of the box. Weeks later, you’ll suddenly relax into the 780D’s performance more than you have before, and at that point it’s about half way there. I’ve had a few ‘wow!’ moments along the way with the 780D and – from experience with Moon products – I’m about a third of the way through the whole warming up process. Check back next year, and those early adopter 780D users will be absolutely blissed out. Over the Moon, in fact!

The Moon Evolution 780D is something to get excited about, even if you might never get close to being able to afford one. It deserves that excitement not just because it sounds damn good, not just because it works so well, but also because it shows us all the right way to do audio in 2015. It’s a complete digital solution in a world of half-finished audio jigsaw puzzles. It’s a template for engineers to create a new generation of products that actually work as they should work, and it’s a call to arms for enthusiasts to demand this level of professionalism from the manufacturers, whether you are spending £100 or £100,000. And to those other brands, let’s make this abundantly clear: Moon got things very right with the 780D – why can’t you do the same? The 780D comes very highly recommended!

Technical Specifications

Type: Network streaming DAC
Digital Inputs: 1× AES/EBU XLR, 3× S/PDIF (1× BNC, 2× RCA), 1× Toslink S/PDIF, 1× USB Type B, RJ45 Ethernet, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth aerial
Inputs: RS232, 12v trigger in/out. SimLink in/out mini-jack
Analogue outputs: RCA stereo, XLR stereo, 2.0V rms
Output impedance: 100 Ω
Formats supported: PCM to 32bit, 384kHz, DSD 64, DSD 128 and DSD 256, DXD supported
Frequency Response: 2Hz–100kHz (+0db/–3dB)
THD: 0.0001% (@1kHz, 0dBFS)
Intermodulation Distortion: 0.0001%
Dynamic range: 124dB
Signal to noise ratio: 124dB (full output 120dB)
Jitter: 150 femtoseconds
Finish: All black, all silver, silver with black, custom finish to order
Dimensions (W×H×D): 47.6×10.2×42.7cm
Weight: 16kg
Price: £10,500
Made by: Moon

URL: www.simaudio.com

Distributed in the UK by: Renaissance Audio

URL: www.renaissanceaudio.co.uk

Tel: 44 (0)131 555 3922

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“Acoustical-Systems Breaking News”

Imagine ….. the turntable’s design based on asking the right questions first – and its construction truly based on drawing the right conclusions.

Imagine ….. a turntable designed purely and firmly on the basis of the clearly defined physical and technical requests of the complete model of the record tracking process.

Imagine ….. a most consequent design. A design where the required form strictly follows the desired function – not economical nor marketing requirements.

Imagine ….. a full bi-radial aero-static true air-bearing. A true 3D-airbearing originally designed for multi-million euro automatic placement machines.
Now for the 1st time implemented in an analog turntable.

Imagine ….. a rotating 110 lbs compound platter. A compound platter made of Delrin, 3 specific alloys, V2a stainless steel and HD18 Tungsten.

Imagine …… a platter with definite energy transfer, internal liquid dampening and a full non-reflective inner architecture.

Imagine …… a platter where the center of mass is exactly in the horizontal bearing axis. Resulting in a perfect resting mass concept of unparalleled stability.

Imagine …… that platter to feature an inertia 38x the inertia of the largest and most expensive turntables in history.

Imagine …… symmetrical double belt and symmetrical double idler-drive both incorporated in one turntable – selectable at your service and disengaging on the press of a button.

Imagine …… the motors driven by pure DC-power.

Imagine …… an unique custom designed air-suspension system. Based on optical table designs, but featuring a most advanced air-spring-capacitor-induction suspension system with a resulting resonance frequency below 0.5 Hz.
Isolating your analog front end from any parasitic vibrations like no other device.

Imagine ……. a resulting isolation from periphery vibrations so complete, it allows you to jump down a chair with full force next to the turntable while the stylus is in the groove – with no impact on the tracking process.

Imagine ……. an unique all-new designed bell-shape down-force-mechanism for the LP. Creating an unique energy-transfer-optimized contact between record and platter.

Imagine ……. a resulting natural dynamic energy transfer that finally puts a real meaning and content to the so often abused phrase of “finite element analysis”.

Imagine ……. a tonearm base to follow the very same principle of energy transfer and the very same complex compound architecture as the turntable’s platter.
A tonearm base more complex and sophisticated in design than most turntables.

Imagine …… up to 4 of these tonearm bases mounted simultaneously on one turntable. Giving the user maximum flexibility and choice of tonearm/cartridge combinations.

Imagine ….. this turntable not being designed and manufactured to serve as a product. But as the most serious attempt to explore to the very last the possibilities of the medium.

Imagine …… all these efforts and expenses in research, design and manufacturing only done for one single purpose:

to let the encoded music in the groove of your records
shine to its full potential – for the first time ever!

Imagine …… a sound and a “sonic picture” so free of any “veils”, so pure in its unheard dynamics and supreme authority, so absent of any grain, so real in it’s physical presence, so life-like ……

Imagine …… true consequence – taken seriously beyond comparison, beyond competition, beyond commercial aspect.

Imagine ….. a turntable going beyond ….. far beyond …..

Imagine ………the APOLYT

A turntable like no other…… ever

*****
designed to finally unchain the sound – and to set the music free
*****
Entirely designed and manufactured in Germany by acoustical-systems

In an individually numbered and certificated limited edition of 22 units

Available only at the finest and most experienced analogue audio dealers.

Technical Specifications

– platter weight: 58 kg

– chassis weight: 188 kg

– 4 motors – motors weight 26 kg

– powersupply weight: 38 kg

– net weight: 388 kg

– shipping weight: 580 kg (delivery in 8 flight cases)

– dimensions (w x d x h): 108 cm x 69 cm x 128 cm

– wow & flutter: below 0.01% (W.R.M.S)

– speed: 33 1/3 rpm and 45 rpm – all speeds w/ precise adjustment option

– operation voltage: DC-operation and selectable 100 / 120 / 220 / 230 / 240 V – 50/60 Hz

– drive: belt drive, custom aramide belt AND symmetrical idler-drive

– power consumption in operation: 0 W, in re-charge logic mode: 120 Watt

Adjustments:

– user choice / selectable: 1, 2, 3 or 4 arm bases

– user adjustable – build-in – air flow and air pressure for optional air-bearing tonearm

– user adjustable tuning resonance frequency

Features:

– automatic levelling

– optional 2 shelves incorporated for phono stage / line stage – full isolated within the air spring frame.

– platter based on bi-radial, full aero-static, air-bearing – vertical and horizontal.

– complete plinth and optional integrated rack suspended on true air-spring-induction-field suspension with resonance frequency below 0.5 Hz.

– speed quartz controlled and user adjustable +/- 5%.

– double belt drive AND double idler-drive – user selectable and engaging/disengaging on push button.

– center of moving mass resting in bearing plane.

– platter inertia 38x of Micro Seiki SX-8000 platter.

– compound platter featuring definite energy transfer and internal liquid dampening.

– center of platter mass identical with plane of bearing/rotation = perfect resting mass principle.

– compound arm bases with identical energy transfer concept as platter.

– super fast exchange of arm boards.

– no possible build-up of static energy during play.

– both double motor-drives powered by custom amplifier and pure DC-power supply.

(battery sourced with automatic recharging and automatic redundant AC-power supply)

Options:

– optional additional speeds: 16 2/3 rpm and 78 rpm

– optional wooden or smoked glass side panels – detachable

– optional rack front cover choice of prime wood veneer or smoked glass

– acrylic dust cover

– optional 24kt plating or polished chrome finish on selected parts (frame, dome caps)

Questyle Audio QP1R Digital Audio Player

Questyle Audio, led by audio engineer Wang Fengshuo (Jason Wang in Anglicised form), is an innovative manufacturer of high-performance DSD‑capable DACs, preamps, power amps, a 5GHz wireless hi-fi system, and very high quality, portable high-res DAPs (Digital Audio Players). Unlike some of its competitors in these categories, however, Questyle is less about the blind pursuit of features and functions for their own sake and more about the pursuit of very serious sound quality. For this review, we chose Questyle’s recently released flagship QP1R portable digital audio player (£660, or $899), which packs a formidable amount of audio technology into an elegant package about the size of a typical smartphone.

The QP1R, offering self-evident quality of build, sports a tasteful, CNC-machined aluminium enclosure that is treated to an elegant bead-blasted matte finish and given either a Space Grey or Gold anodised finish. The front and back panels of the player are covered in durable and attractive Gorilla glass, with the front panel provides a 43 x 39mm full-colour display screen plus what Questyle terms a “twin steering wheel” control system that combines some aspects of the familiar Apple iPod control wheel system with a series of touch-sensitive panel surfaces that provide additional control options.

The top edge of the player provides a protected volume control knob (said to be patterned after the crown of a high-end wristwatch), plus two recessed jacks: a headphone output jack and a combined line out/optical jack. The right edge of the player presents a simple, pushbutton On/Off switch. Finally, the bottom edge of the player provides two recessed MicroSD memory card slots, plus a mobile universal Micro USB jack that is used for uploading music files and for charging the QP1R’s 3300-mAh lithium-polymer battery. The player comes standard with 32GB of memory and can accommodate up to two 200GB MicroSD cards for even more music storage capacity, and a Micro SD is also used for installing periodic firmware updates. All in all, the player exudes an elegant, purposeful vibe and conveys a substantial and pleasingly high-quality feel (but be forewarned: if you let your friends play with the QP1R, they may not want to give it back).

Readers familiar with Questyle’s full-size audio components will be pleased (and perhaps surprised) to find that many of the technologies employed in those bigger units have found their way into the compact QP1R. Specifically, the DAC section of the QP1R borrows certain elements such as the 3X clock design from the firm’s flagship CAS192D DAC. The QP1R uses Cirrus Logic’s top-shelf CS4398 DAC device to support native decoding of DSD64 and DSD128 files, as well as native decoding for PCM files at rates up to 24-bit/192kHz. Virtually every digital audio file format imaginable is supported, making the QP1R one very versatile portable digital audio player.

The amplifier section of the QP1R uses Questyle’s patented, signature CMA (current mode amplifier) circuit topology as pioneered in the firm’s CMA800R-series headphone amplifier. Further, the amp uses a pure Class A circuit comprised entirely of discrete components. The benefits of a current mode amplifier, says Questyle, involve the fact that the circuit’s slew rate, “grows linearly with input signals, without any limit,” meaning that the circuit can safely apply very high-speed negative feedback (feedback hundreds of time faster than in a traditional voltage amplifier) while yielding transient intermodulation distortion (TIMD) “so ultra low that it can hardly be tested.” As a result, the amplifier offers wide bandwidth, extremely low distortion, and nearly complete freedom from annoying TIMD artefacts, or sonic stridency or edginess.

With digital audio players, a product’s user interface can often spell the difference between a winner and a dud, and I’m happy to say the QP1R has an attractive and intuitive interface that most listeners master in a matter of minutes. The primary user controls are simple: there is a ring-shaped metal control wheel at the centre of which is a matching metal pushbutton. As in an Apple iPod, the pushbutton has multiple functions, including “turn on the display screen”, “select the album or track shown”, or “start/stop playback”, depending on the context at hand. Questyle’s ‘steering wheel’ is likewise a context-sensitive control that lets users rapidly scroll through menu, song, album, artist, genre, playlist, or track selection options.

Surrounding the wheel/pushbutton controls are four touch-sensitive ‘switch zones’ in the unit’s Gorilla Glass faceplate. The clearly labelled switches support four frequently used functions: go-to-the-home-menu, go-back-one-menu-level, track forward, and track backward. More so than many DAPs I have tried, the QP1R proved exceptionally easy to learn and use—even for newcomers (many of whom said they felt the player’s interface reminded them of the controls for an Apple iPod).

Two of the most interesting menu options are software selectable master gain settings (offering Low, Medium, and High-gain options) and user definable EQ settings (the QP1R provides a ten-band graphic equalizer and allows users to store two separate banks of EQ pre-sets). Overall, the QP1R interface is a joy to use, even though the player’s high-resolution display screen often presents miniaturised text too small for aging eyes. Thankfully, my own eyeglass prescription is a recent one, so I had no problems with the Questyle’s screen, though I noticed some friends and colleagues squinting at the unit in attempts to read the fine print.

Now we come to the important part: the sound. Here is what I discovered. Where some DAPs, most notably the Astell & Kern AK380 reviewed in issue 127, focus on an almost hyper-precise sound of pristine clarity and purity, others tend more toward a warm, inviting, hearty, and organic sound. The QP1R falls in that latter camp, but with two important twists. First, unlike other warmth-orientated players, the QP1R in no way sounds softly focussed or lacking in resolution or detail. On the contrary, its focus is tack-sharp and its ability to resolve fine textural and transient details is fully competitive with the best in its genre.

Second, and again unlike many other organic-sounding digital components, the QP1R does not soften, underplay, or round off either transient sounds or dynamic contrasts in the music. Instead, the Questyle renders transient sounds with sharply defined (although never exaggerated) leading edges, while also giving dynamic contrasts, including crescendos and decrescendos large and small, their full due.

To appreciate what I mean, listen to ‘Walking On The Moon’ from The Yuri Honing Trio’s Star Tracks [Jazz in Motion], noting in particular the dynamic contrasts heard near the beginning of the track. The song opens with what will prove to be a series of brief, sharp, and widely spaced percussion figures in between which we have a very soft and gently repetitive acoustic bass motif that will gradually build in intensity over time. But as the song begins, the contrast between the bass and the drums is so stark and so powerful that, when I first heard the song through my Westone CIEMs as powered by the QP1R, I experienced an abrupt, involuntary ‘startle’ reaction when the fierce ‘pop’ of the drums burst forth from the monitors’ earpieces. That’s right; the QP1R literally made me jump, which tells you precisely what sort of dynamic acuity and impact the Questyle has on offer.

All that is ‘missing’ in the Questyle—and I for one am profoundly glad that it is missing—is the subtly cold, clinical, ‘antiseptic’ quality that some hyper-analytical players manage to impose upon the music. In contrast, the Questyle offers a sort of best-of-two-worlds sound: a sound that is at once fascinating, exciting, and endlessly rich in detail, yet at the same time inviting, comfortable, and, yes, relaxing. Another way of stating this is that some players bowl you over with spectacular detail and definition for a few tracks, but soon leave you ready to turn things off and to go do something else; the Questyle, on the other hand, is a player that pulls you from track to track, and recording to recording, for hours on end.

A great example of this detailed yet eminently listenable quality in action would be the title track from Alison Krauss and Union Station’s album Paper Airplane [Rounder]. Ms Krauss’ voice is often cited as a near perfect example of the famously ‘high and lonesome sound’ so beloved of Bluegrass music aficionados. However, the sad truth is that through many DAPs, DACs, and amps, Krauss’ voice often winds up sounding not only ‘high and lonesome’, but also ‘bright, dry, and shrill’, which obviously is not a good thing. Happily, the QP1R captures the high, pure, sweet, and yet plaintive tonality of Krauss’ voice, preserving the breathy textures that are characteristic of her sound, but avoiding the many sonic pitfalls that, with other amp/DACs, often arise.

Two points worth noting are that, owing to its software selectable master gain settings, the QP1R is more than quiet enough for use with high-sensitivity CIEMs, yet it also has enough dynamic ‘oomph’ to yield usable and satisfying volume levels with comparatively power-hungry planar magnetic headphones. Frankly, you wouldn’t necessarily think the QP1R would work all that well with full-size headphones, because—on paper—its power output specifications are not all that impressive (maximum output is quoted as 1.9V with power output of just 40mW at 32 Ohms). Nevertheless, the QP1R amp section sounds terrific at each of its gain settings, offering freedom from noise with finesse and punch aplenty with my very sensitive Westone ES60 custom-fit in-ear monitors, while also serving up a potent and highly nuanced sound with my big HiFiMAN HE 1000 planar magnetic headphones. The only caveat I would mention is that, when push comes to shove, the QP1R may not have sufficient power to probe the upper output limits of some of today’s more demanding full-size headphones.

In most settings, with most headphones, and with most types of music, however, the QP1R offers entirely ample output. As a test, I tried playing ‘Jazz Variants’ from the O-Zone Percussion Group’s La Bamba [Klavier] with the Questyle driving my reference HiFiMAN HE 1000 headphones. Now ‘Jazz Variants’, as many of you know, is a supremely colourful and at times explosively dynamic and demanding percussion extravaganza. But even on this torture test, the QP1R drove the HiFiMAN HE 1000 headphones with unflagging authority and vigour, albeit with its volume control turned up nearly all the way to the stops.

Are there any drawbacks prospective QP1R might wish to know about? I can think of only a few. First, listeners seeking higher memory capacity, greater decoding flexibility (e.g., 32-bit/384kHz decoding), broader connectivity options, or a more extensive set of add-on accessories might be happier with something like Astell & Kern’s very expensive AK380 player (although it is worth bearing in mind that the AK380 sells for more than three times the price of the QP1R). Second, Questyle needs to extend the maximum number of tracks the QP1R’s internal database can manage in order to keep pace with the very high capacity memory cards now coming to market (this is said to change in the next firmware update). Finally, the QP1R’s 4-to-8-hour battery recharge time is longer than some might wish. Apart from these very minor issues, however, the QP1R is an absolute gem.

Over the time it has been with me, Questyle’s QP1R has gone from being an interesting and compelling review subject to becoming one of my favourite go-to reference tools for evaluating virtually any type of earphone, CIEM, or headphone. The player’s fit, finish, and build quality are simply exquisite, which comes as no surprise given that the QP1R is built by Foxconn—the same firm that builds Apple’s products and the Sony PS4. In turn, the Questyle’s sound quality is remarkable, which leads me to think the firm is on to a very good thing with its signature current mode amplifiers. Finally, the QP1R may be the only legitimate top-tier DAP contender that is offered at a near mid-fi price, which means this terrific player must be considered an outright bargain for the quality on offer.

Technical Specifications

Type: High-res portable digital audio player/DAC

Inputs: Built-in 32GB music library. Two MicroSD memory card slots (supports cards up to 200GB)

Outputs: Stereo analogue line out and optical S/PDIF output (via combo 3.5mm output jack/optical output jack), single-ended headphone outputs (via 3.5mm mini-jack)

Firmware: Updates via Questyle-supplied downloads

DAC: Cirrus Logic CS4398

Supported Formats: WAV, FLAC, ALAC, APE, AIFF, ADPCM, LPCM, MP3, WMA, WMA Lossless, OGG, AAC, DFF, and DSF

Sample Rates: PCM: 44.1–192kHz, 16/24-bits, DSD: DSD64, DSD128

User Interface: 43 × 39mm colour screen, twin ‘steering wheel’ control system

Frequency Response: 20 Hz–20KHz, ± 0.1dB

Output Levels: High gain: Up to 1.9V rms: 40mW @ 32 Ohms, 12 mW @ 300 Ohms

Middle-level gain: Up to 1.0V rms: 31mW @ 32 Ohms, 3.1mW @ 300 Ohms

Low gain: Up to 0.53V rms @ 32 Ohms. Up to 0.51V rms @ 16 Ohms, 8.8 mW @ 32 Ohms, 16.3 mW @ 16 Ohms

THD + N: 0.0006%

Battery: 3,300mAh, Li-Polymer battery

Playing time: 8–10 hours

Recharge time via USB @450mA: 8 hours

Recharge time via 2A charger: 4 hours

Dimensions (H × W × D): Not specified

Weight: Not specified

Price: £660 (UK) or $899 (US)

Manufacturer Information: Questyle Audio

Tel: +86-755-82835670

International distributor: Questyle North America Inc.

Tel: +1-702-741-9978

URL: www.questyleaudio.com

UK Distributor: SCV Distribution

Tel: +44(0)3301 222 500

URL: www.scvdistribution.co.uk

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Trilogy Audio Systems 925 integrated amplifier

Trilogy Audio Systems is a small British amplifier manufacturer, best known for making hybrid amplifiers that rely on valves for their performance and not their looks. This is because seemingly unlike many manufacturers, Trilogy’s Nic Poulson actually read the EU regulations on electrical safety and isn’t too keen on breaking those rules by leaving exposed something that can at once cut, burn, and electrocute. This is what separates the simply ‘small’ from the ‘small, but highly professional’, and the 925 drips professionalism.

The 925 is Trilogy’s first integrated amplifier, and could be considered a hybrid within a hybrid: not only does it combine hollow and solid-state technologies (two Russian 6N6π triode valves per channel supply pure Class A voltage gain for the 925’s input stage, in an otherwise all-silicon design), it uses an intriguing zero feedback bridge configuration that combines the electrical and sonic benefits of both MOSFET and bipolar devices, all providing a meaty-sounding 125W per channel and a solid, but not immobile, case.

The circuit itself is very short, very symmetrical, and very ‘belt and braces’ in design. Switching is by ruthenium relays, because they sound good and are built to last. The valves are servo controlled to make them extremely symmetrical (and Trilogy’s own discreet HT shunt regulation provides them with optimum voltage feed with no potential for ‘sagging’). And that volume control is actually a digitally controlled potentiometer, allowing for 1dB steps in volume and balance. And, of course, key power supply feeds are kept entirely separate, which is why when you pop the cover on the 925, you are met with a huge toroidal transformer.

The hybrid output stage is worth examining. MOSFETs are wonderfully linear output devices (it’s why they are so often the solid-state choice for valve amp manufacturers turning to transistors), but their high-current performance is not so hot. Bipolar transistors are great at providing high-current muscle, but seldom sound as refined as FETs. There have been many ways to try to overcome this fundamental dichotomy in output stage performance (usually involving a lot of hand-selection, or buying up vast quantities of a typically discontinued ‘wonder’ transistor, both of which significantly increase the per-unit cost of the amplifier). Trilogy’s solution is to build a bridge: two power amplifiers per channel that simultaneously push and pull power to the loudspeaker. This allows the FET to do its ‘first watt’ thing without the heavy lifting of the bipolars to mess up the system ground with large amount of current, even when heavy lifting is required. The amp runs in Class AB, but also runs high bias, which is like saying more Class A than B. This is very carefully monitored by the amp’s own logic system, but does mean the heatsinks get warm to the touch.

Trilogy is keen to stress the 925 is part of an amplifier system, and uses the company’s own RJ45-based TAS link to connect the amplifier to other Trilogy products and the outside world. This allows user configurability of a Trilogy based system down to a very refined degree; power-on volume and balance can be preset, that LED matrix can be set to any level (or to track ambient light levels), and you can even set a seven-day timer to warm up the amplifier remotely while you are still commuting (even to the point of knowing you work late on Thursdays, so power up a couple of hours later that day), rather like what Hive or Nest does with heating systems.

Naturally, with that large red dot matrix panel, products can be assigned names and given trimmed gain levels, but the TAS link also provides status monitoring of connected devices. The two RJ45 connectors are divided into a high-speed data line to communicate between control circuits for general ‘housekeeping’ tasks, and a low-data rate QuietBus that monitors the audio circuitry spends most of its time in active, and therefore keeps digital control noise out of the signal chain. There’s even a PIN code to lock the amp.

These functions are best controlled from a remote handset, and not necessarily the little plastic one that comes as standard, but the matching aftermarket PRC or Personal Remote Control. You can also control these functions through the front panel, using the ‘ENT’, ‘ESC’ and volume dial to navigate the menus, but only if you like watching movies about safecracking.

The amplifier very definitely needs a short warm up before it comes on song every time it is powered up. There is a ‘hand on the heatsinks’ test that you should apply before listening; when the heatsinks are cold, the 925 sounds flat, mechanical, and distant. When they aren’t, the amp comes to life, and when they are the just the right side of uncomfortably warm (after about half an hour) the sound is transformed.

This is a balanced amplifier; the sonic differences between balanced and single-ended are relatively mild, so while you won’t lose out by using RCAs, if you can go balanced, you should. In fact, ‘balanced’ is also the best description of the Trilogy 925’s performance, whatever input you use. Although this may be Trilogy’s first integrated amp, the 925 is a mature design from a mature designer for a mature audience (‘mature’ in the ‘refined and sophisticated’ sense, not that it only appeals to an older generation).

This is not an amp that does ‘chocolatey mids’, ‘velvet highs’, ‘powerful bass’, or any other aspect of the adjective soup we audiophiles use to describe sound, unless that aspect of the presentation is called for by the recording or the source component itself. The key indicator to this is not picking out individual recordings but when changing from one recording to another; the changes in soundstage width and depth, the changes in dynamics from album to album, the subtlety of recording engineering, the way the microphones were used, the mix, and the master are all easy to hear. This chameleon-like property means the amp imposes no significant character on the sound. This may not be the most dynamic sounding praise for an amplifier, but in fact it’s this quality that marks the 925 out as one of the finest integrated amplifiers you can buy today.

Move from small scale (‘Lucky’ by Kat Edmonson’s Way Down Low album on MRI) to the largest (the final movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Solti on Decca) and the 925 behaves like a different amplifier, moving from something like a single-ended triode when playing breathy girl-with-guitar to a beefy powerhouse when Mahler throws everything at the listener. The same happens with tonal range, the light and fluffy ‘Lucky’ doesn’t have the same bolted down underpinnings of the Ninth. These are extremes, but the same ‘no amp’ performance applies universally. It’s only on really bilargeg scale music played loud on big, difficult to drive loudspeakers that the Trilogy 925 show its hand – and its limits. Otherwise, it’s a sophisticated, transparent amplifier that is actually really rather rare in our world.

Let’s dispel the big myth. The Trilogy 925 doesn’t use valves to make the amp sound ‘valvey’ or ‘soft’ or ‘warm’. It uses valves because they are the right device for the task at hand. Their linearity in the preamp means a more natural, less overtly forward sounding signal is fed to the power amplifier stage. The use of MOSFETs and bipolars combined helps to deliver the same more natural, less overtly forward sounding signal to the loudspeakers. This means what the 925 sounds like is a damn good amplifier: the kind that doesn’t draw attention to itself, and that’s the kind you end up keeping for years and years. Very highly recommended.

Technical Specifications

Type: hybrid integrated line amplifier:
Inputs: 3× XLR stereo pair (balanced), 3× RCA stereo pair and 1× 3.5mm front-mounted stereo jack (single‑ended)
Outputs: 1× RCA stereo pair (single-ended tape send), multi-way loudspeaker terminals:
Comms: 2× RJ45 TAS link connectors
Rated power: 135W per channel (eight ohms)
Frequency Response: 10Hz–50kHz ± 0.5dB
Distortion: Less than 1% A weighted at rated output
Finish: soft natural silver/aluminium as standard; Mediterraneo Blue and Nero Carbonio paint finish, or ‘Chameleon Colour System’ options
Dimensions (W×H×D): 44.5×43×12.7cm
Weight: 25.5kg
Price: £8,995

Manufactured by: Trilogy Audio Systems

URL: www.trilogyaudio.com

Tel: +44(0)20 8856 0616

Distributed in the UK by: Symmetry

URL: www.symmetry-systems.co.uk

Tel: +44(0)1727 865488

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Magnum Dynalab ‘Signature’ tuner upgrades

This is a little odd as far as reviews go, because it’s a review of an upgrade of products, rather than the products themselves. However, as we’ve already given a lot of column inches over to the Magnum Dynalab tuners upgraded by these circuit boards, it’s perhaps not so odd as it first seems.

In fact, this is not a new thing for Magnum Dynalab. From the outset, Magnum Dynalab has offered multiple upgrade options to owners of its products. It has always been possible to modify Magnum Dynalab’s tuners (from the early FT‑101 onwards), bringing older designs as close as possible to the current specification and performance of later variants of the model in question. That upgrade path doesn’t change. However, this is slightly different: instead of reinvigorating an older tuner with newer ‘innards’, this Signature project allows users of current tuners to raise their performance.

In May this year, Magnum Dynalab released ‘Signature’ versions of its analogue (MD108T and MD109) and Internet media (MD809T) tuners. However, it didn’t leave existing customers out in the cold, as there are upgrade packages for standard versions of these popular high-end tuners. Theoretically, you could buy a standard version of one of these tuners today and upgrade to ‘Signature’ status at a later date, but economically speaking, this doesn’t make a lot of sense: the Signature upgrade costs £1,990, while ordering a Signature version of the MD108T, MD109, and MD809T adds £1,500 to the respective prices of the standard models, which will continue to be available.

The Signature upgrade kit replaces two-thirds of the tuner internals, including completely new designs of the multiple power supply circuits and the crucial analogue output audio boards. In fact, all that remains from the non-Signature product is the chassis, mains transformers and the FM front-end module for signal reception; or, in the case of the MD809T, the streaming and Internet tuner module. All the rest of the tuner is completely new.

Actually ‘new’ isn’t necessarily the right term, because each ‘Signature’ tuner uses a set of rare and newly discovered, specially selected, NOS (new old stock) Telefunken E88CC valves, which have been cryogenically treated, which should deliver better performance and reliability from already highly rated classic valves. Nothing in the modern hollow-state world comes close to these classic valves. Everything else in the ‘Signature’ upgrade is brand new.

In essence, the Signature upgrades are wholly new analogue audio and power supply boards. Zdenko Zivkovic, Magnum Dynalab’s in-house designer, has completely redesigned and in the process improved both stages. In the analogue audio boards, this involved implementing a new valve biasing solution within the proprietary TRACC MkII module, as well as sourcing significantly better passive and active components (such as Mundorf Supreme and Teflon by-pass capacitors) in the audio signal path. Meanwhile, the power supplies for the FM front end, analogue audio, and ancillary circuits have been redesigned from scratch, with solutions that give much lower noise levels and cleaner frequencies within the voltage and current required for the active segments of each tuner. Again, with the exception of the two mains transformers (one for the audio circuits and other for the rest), virtually every component on the power supply motherboard has been improved relative to the standard version.

A/B demonstration is very difficult for two understandable reasons. First, you need to have a standard and Signature tuner side-by-side, and these tuners don’t tend to hang around long enough to have two similarly run-in models available for comparison purposes. Second, radio is a fast moving stream, and you won’t be able to listen to the same piece of music twice for comparison purposes, unless you have your own FM station… or a time machine. That being said, the internet-enabled MD809T does allow you to stream the same music from your server, but they are still too rare for there to be two in the same room at the same time. Nevertheless, the upgrade from standard to Signature tuner is large enough to be noticeable, even after a protracted absence while the tuner is upgraded.

Magnum Dynalab’s tuners are already currently the best FM you can get, so the Signature upgrade has some big shoes to fill. Frankly, any improvement brought to these tuners could be likened to Usain Bolt trying to shave a couple of hundredths of a second off his 100m record – nothing and no-one else comes close, but there is always room for improvement. The end result of the Signature upgrades is a sound that gives an even more holographic presentation of good FM broadcasts, better low frequency extension, overall improvement in natural transparency throughout the audible frequency range, and a more solid and full-bodied sense of dynamics both in speech and music. This makes a lot of sense when listening to productions like BBC Radio Three’s Proms season or Radio Four’s often-fascinating weekday at 11am audio documentaries, because these are often some of the least interfered-with radio moments on the airwaves. But the Magnum Dynalab tuners are also remarkable at extracting good radio moments from almost any station (even compressed prime-time music stations don’t sound quite as vexatious through a decent system), and the Signature versions help raise the audio quality still further.

The only downside to the Signature upgrade (for existing owners) is the upgrade cannot be fitted by the end-user, and you have to wave goodbye to your tuner for a short while. The retro-fit upgrade can be performed by Audiofreaks’ own engineers, however, so the tuner does not need a return ticket to Canada, and you don’t end up with months without a tuner. Audiofreaks suggests the turnaround time is ‘fairly quick’, if you get in the queue fast enough…

Magnum Dynalab has stayed true to the path of making the best tuners it can, and its tuners are incontestably the best sounding FM devices you can buy at this time. The Signature upgrades, then, take already great tuners and make them better in almost every way, because the upgrades improve two core sections of these devices. Form an orderly queue…

Details

Upgrades for: Magnum Dynalab MD108T, MD109, and MD809T

Price: £1,900 (Signature versions of tuners bought new adds £1,500 to standard prices)

Manufactured by: Magnum Dynalab

URL: www.magnumdynalab.com

Distributed by: Audiofreaks

URL: www.audiofreaks.co.uk

Tel: +44(0)208 948 4153

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MartinLogan Motion 35XT standmount loudspeaker

I reviewed MartinLogan’s miniature two-way Motion 15 loudspeaker back in Issue 98 and it was quite the surprise package. Small but perfectly formed, it was the musical performance that really impressed: here was a hybrid AMT/dynamic speaker that really worked, a miniature that really delivered – a rare beast indeed. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps its astonishingly capable performance shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, MartinLogan have been building hybrid designs for over 30 years and are also one of the few companies to crack the puzzle of actually delivering the potential cost/performance benefits of Chinese manufacturing (for the Motion series) with consistent quality. The Motion 15 stands as an impressive monument to the careful blending of Western expertise with the realities of global economics, a signpost to the future that can be enjoyed (and I do mean enjoyed) now. But the real question is, did MartinLogan – and the rest of us – simply get lucky with the Motion 15, or can they make lightning strike twice?

Outwardly, the 15’s larger sibling, the Motion 35XT looks all but identical: same flawless lacquer finish, same beautifully contoured and machined baffle, same distinctive, sloping topped cabinet and same combination of pleated AMT treble unit and neat, aluminium-coned mid-bass driver. In fact, short of sitting them side-by-side you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart. The 35XT might be a couple of inches taller and deeper as well as an inch wider, but it’s growth is proportional, meaning that the pleasingly balanced appearance remains almost unchanged. But appearances can be deceptive. As well as the increased cabinet dimensions (and internal volume) the 35XT sports a 165mm driver in place of the 15’s 133mm unit, as well as the larger XT tweeter. 32mm on the diameter of a bass-mid unit might not seem like much, but do the maths and you’ll realize that it all but doubles the swept area available. Combine that with the larger cabinet and you are looking at a handy increase in bass weight and extension – an area in which the 15 already excelled.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but when it comes to designing loudspeakers you don’t even get a half-empty dish of peanuts. Every design choice involves its own associated compromises. In the case of hybrid speakers that attempt to meld the virtues of two differing driver technologies, those compromises can be potentially fatal. The Motion 15’s performance is built around the successful integration of its two disparate drive units. But increase the diameter of the bass driver and you impair both its ability to reach up into the mid-band and its dispersion characteristics, key considerations when it comes to seamless integration. Simply stick the Motion 15’s tweeter into a bigger box with a bigger bass unit and the results would be predictably awful and disjointed. Which is exactly where the larger XT tweeter comes in, a unit with just over twice the radiating area of the one used in the Motion 15. That extra area allows it to reach lower down the range, in turn allowing the designer to roll it in at a low 2200Hz, rather than the 2700Hz used in the Motion 15. The end result is a loudspeaker that has almost identical sensitivity and electrical characteristics to the Motion 15, the same seamless integration and musical coherence but extends the –3dB point from 60Hz down to the magic 50Hz point. Why magic? Because that’s the point at which a speaker generates enough bottom end that it no longer sounds small or curtailed. Of course, extension and weight, body and presence aren’t givens, but at least the system has some meat to work with. The 35XT’s large, rear-facing port tells you that it’s bass is going to roll off pretty sharply, but it also hints at the substance it will deliver within its operating range and that’s exactly what you hear. The 15’s bass was quick, articulate, pitch secure, and rhythmically informative. The 35XT’s bottom end is all that, plus weighty, solid, and outrageously BIG – well, given the compact cabinet. Where the 15’s were a perfectly executed miniature, physically and musically, its bigger brother is a real room filler.

Select anything with a deep, fast, and mobile bass line (‘Tears Inside’ from Art Pepper’s Smack Up [Contemporary] will do nicely) and you’ll hear exactly what I mean. There’s a wonderfully tactile attack and decay to the beautifully pitched, paced, and spaced notes of the bass line, with an absolute security of their weight and tone. And this holds in the way they work with the piano, the way you can follow them as a constant presence under the other instruments, the way they maintain the direction and momentum of the track is all perfectly configured. These are genuine corn-fed, free-range bass notes, not the texture-less, processed nuggets served up by most small standmounts.

That sense of purpose and energy extends across the 35XTs’ whole musical range, from the stabbing brass of small ensemble jazz, to the breathy intimacy of well-recorded vocals, the sudden attack of crisply hit snare drum to the prolonged harmonic decay of an acoustic guitar. These speakers have an uncanny ability to fasten on the sense of life and presence in a recording and project it into a room. It’s a quality that serves them well when fed by modest electronics (Arcam’s A19 for example), but it also allows them to grow and thrive in more exalted company. After hearing what the Motion 15’s could do on the end of the VTL 450 mono amps, the presence of Audio Research’s Ref 10 line-stage and Ref 150SE power amp was too tempting to pass up…

On paper, the price disparity makes this an unlikely combination, but sonically and more importantly musically, it’s perfectly valid. Play Don Henley’s inspired cover of ‘These Days’ from the Jackson Browne tribute album, Looking Into You [Music Road] and the opening guitar that usually lodges firmly in the right-hand speaker with most stand mounts, steps away from the cabinet, its reverberation revealing the extent of the whole soundstage. Henley’s vocal has a natural expressive presence and body, and is beautifully dimensioned and stable. The subtle bass line works the track, the cascading drum patterns have real impact and dynamics. This is one speaker that just gets bigger and better the more you give it, that will play quietly but loves to play loud, and that will surprise you with the musical coherence and insights it brings even to familiar tracks. I’d never really rated Bob Schneider’s cover of ‘Running On Empty’ until I heard it on the ARC/35XT system. Suddenly the measured tempo and melodic extrapolations make sense, the bottom-end locks in and ties it together, while the elongated rhythmic evolutions and that deep, deep, almost flappy bass drum all start to make sense.

One downside of the larger tweeter diaphragm is a more restricted listening window – meaning that you need to pay attention to the speaker’s rake angle and I found myself inverting the speaker and running it with the tweeter below the mid-bass driver. The good news is that the extra bass also adds up to a slightly fuller and more forgiving balance without sacrificing the lucid clarity and natural sense of musical organisation that characterised the Motion 15, making the 35XT an easier speaker to partner, especially with solid-state amps. Experimentation is the name of the game here, but put the effort in and this unassuming little speaker has the capacity to startle and excite in equal measure. The 15s were capable of remarkable performance, especially in smaller rooms, but give the 35XTs a little extra space (and especially if you can give them a lot of extra drive – in quality terms that is) and they simply blow their little brothers away.

The MartinLogan Motion 35XT succeeds in ticking pretty much every box on the small-speaker wish list: easy to drive and easy to live with, but can really grow with your system, a sound that is detailed and open but also genuinely solid and musically convincing, and a speaker that is entertaining and informative at the same time. The perfect alternative for the high-end music lover looking for a second system or stand-in, it’s also the hair-shirt audiophile’s starter speaker par excellence – except that it might just embarrass the speakers in more than a few big, high-end systems and lacks the basic appearance so important for budget–esoteric credibility. Let’s face it, speakers this pretty (and this affordable) really shouldn’t sound this good, be this engaging, or this much fun. Like lightning striking twice in the same place, it upsets the natural scheme of things!

Technical Specifications

Type: Two-way, reflex loaded hybrid loudspeaker

Driver Complement: 1× XT Air Motion Transducer, 1× 165mm aluminium cone mid-bass

Bandwidth: 50Hz–25kHz, ±3dB

Crossover: 2,200Hz

Efficiency: 92dB

Impedance: 4 Ohms

Dimensions (W×H×D): 192 × 343 × 300mm

Weight: 8.4kg ea.

Finishes: High gloss black, white or red cherry

Price: £1,298 per pair

Manufacturer: MartinLogan Ltd

URL: www.martinlogan.com

UK Distributor: Absolute Sounds Ltd

Tel: +44 (0)208 971 3909

URL: www.absolutesounds.com

dCS Rossini disc player and clock

As any maker of digital audio devices can verify, the last few years have seen a significant change in the way the digital happens, and the digital landscape has been entirely redrawn. If you think back to our review of the dCS Puccini player from 2009 and look at what’s changed in the digital world since then, what was then ‘state of the art’ looks ‘out of the ark’ in today’s world. Clearly, if you are at the vanguard of digital audio development like dCS, it’s difficult to stand still, and the new Rossini is the result of this restlessness.

The Rossini is dCS’ ‘entry point’ to the company’s digital ethos (the Debussy DAC is cheaper, but it is essentially ‘just’ a good DAC). That ethos makes a device like the Rossini a sophisticated digital nexus, accepting virtually any digital audio signal you can squeeze, fire, point, pull, or push at it. However, the company is keen to stress it isn’t in the DSD ‘arms race’; it supports DSD 128, but it questions the need for even higher grade processing in the light of almost no software availability.

Rossini is the first disc player from dCS not to include SACD in its line-up, although the Rossini supports DoP (DSD over PCM). This is an unfortunate by-product of trying to make a digital multistandard player in 2015 because the lack of SACD comes down to a lack of SACD transport and controller chip availability today. Companies like Esoteric have withdrawn OEM sales of transport mechs, in part because Sony has called time on the chips Esoteric uses to read SACD data off discs. Companies like CH Precision, dCS, and Playback Designs are left out in the cold as a result. While these brands have bought stocks of mechs and chips to supply and service their existing top players, building a new model with finite stocks of a key component is not a good idea. But maybe this lack of SACD replay is not as important today, because the Rossini itself comes in two forms – with or without that built-in CD transport. Only time will tell whether audiophiles go for the ‘hub’ or ‘hub+CD’ version in greater numbers.

A problem in writing about dCS products is attempting to edit down the technology inside. The company has always been at the forefront of digital audio development, and that means the technologies involved with a dCS player don’t conform to regular descriptions. No off-the-shelf Burr Brown or ESS chipsets here. Instead, dCS rolls its own Digital Processing Platform, which includes its patented Ring DAC, and uses the latest and greatest iteration of that DAC as found in the Vivaldi. This Digital Processing Platform means dCS can implement a multi-stage DXD oversample/DSD upsample schema, allowing the user to experiment with a range of DSD and DSD filter settings.

Connectivity is key for the 21st century digital player, and the Rossini is well stocked. There are ‘legacy’ AES/EBU and S/PDIF inputs, USB inputs (both Type B for a computer, and Type A for a thumb drive), main and loop-through Ethernet connections, as well as a trio of clock connections (two in, one out) and variable balanced and single-ended outputs. Importantly for tomorrow’s audio, the Rossini platform is a fully integrated network player. Again not content with an off-the-shelf solution, dCS has developed its own Ethernet streaming front end, and this is fully app controlled.

Those last three words – fully app controlled – are easy to roll out when discussing Ethernet streaming, but the Rossini is available as a CD-player version. App control of a CD player is not as easy as it sounds: bringing 1981’s technology into 2015 can be a little like trying to fit a turbocharger to a horse, and writing an app that can control the logic chips of a CD player is no mean feat. That it works as seamlessly as it does, so that you can slide effortlessly between player, network storage, and online streaming services like Tidal and Spotify belies a lot of coding. Sadly, no one tends to notice such things when they are done properly because they become effectively invisible.

There is a new dCS sound, which began with the Vivaldi and continues here in the Rossini. It is a hugely complete sound, proving that analysis and enjoyment are not mutually exclusive. What becomes patently clear in the listening is just how rare that complete package is in reality. Most digital devices tend to fall into somewhere on the continuum, but precious few manage to balance these two seemingly opposing forces with such poise.

This ‘completeness’ of sound is, of course, exceptionally detailed; detail was always a core strength of dCS players. But this detail is now joined to a sense of cogent musical integrity and coherence that simply beguiles the listener. This applies universally; whether you are listening to Led Zeppelin, Leadbelly, or Lizst. The normal musical snippets we roll out seem trite here, because the Rossini’s ‘completeness’ applies, er, completely.

That ‘complete’ sound – drawn down from the Vivaldi – would have spelt the death-knell of the Puccini, Paganini, and even the Scarlatti even if the Esoteric SACD transport mech was still freely available. This is because – and I understand this might be of little comfort for owners of those products – the Rossini is a better performer than those previous generation players in almost every respect. The functionality is significantly improved, the connectivity is substantially better, but more importantly, unless you are playing SACD discs the older models just don’t sound as good as the Rossini.

I’m going to have to contort a term from photography. What the Rossini offers that is so extremely rare in digital players irrespective of price is what I’d call ‘depth of field control’. A photographer might want the whole scene sharp from nearest subject matter to infinity, or just want the subject matter in focus and nothing else. Moreover, they talk about ‘bokeh’ – the nature of those out-of-focus components, and pay handsomely for lenses with the right number of aperture blades to make sure the scene looks just right. If you transfer that control over the depth in the picture to control over the soundstage, you get what sets the Rossini apart. Other good players ‘scale’ according to the size of the recording, but the Rossini is one of the very few that has this sense of ‘depth of field control’ over the soundstage that adds a level of precision that is hard to live without once heard. The best way I can describe this is it’s about absolute integrity to the recording, without adding the word ‘slavish’ into the mix. Make the jump from some lo-fi recording like ‘I See A Darkness’ from the album of the same name by Will Oldham in his ‘Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’ guise [Palace] and you have a claustrophobic small ball of sound that can only be described as “diffuse at the edges”; change that for ‘Excuse Me Mr.’ from Ben Harper’s Fight For Your Mind album [Virgin] and you have a tight zone of image precision around the singer, guitar, and bass, but more soft-focus to the drum kit. This sort of depth differentiation is something I’ve only encountered in a tiny handful of components.

Here’s the thing, though. Despite making one of the best streaming front-ends I can think of, despite the excellence of the USB input, and the sublime performance of DSD playback under DoP (as you might expect from the company that first minted the concept), I still prefer the sound the Rossini makes when spinning a disc. I don’t think I’m channelling my inner luddite here, and this conclusion isn’t that dCS doesn’t know how to do streaming – if anything, I’d put dCS’ network and online streaming performance at the top of what is currently possible. Rather, it’s that CD replay is just more ‘organic’ sounding than file-based versions of the same. Even the like-for-like WAV file ripped from the disc doesn’t sound quite as ‘there’ as the CD. The problem is the dCS CD replay doesn’t just out-perform dCS’s take on ‘next-gen’ audio; it’s a universal thing, and using the Rossini as transport to the other DACs in this test (and more besides) pointed to the same conclusion. Every time. As someone who was early to adopt file-based music, this comes as something of a shock.

There is another thing about the Rossini that is a bit of a joy, mindful that I recently negotiated the monumental box-fest that is writing about systems: it’s incredibly consistent. The dCS Rossini is instantly recognisable and a similar force for audio good whether it’s going into a decent mid-range audio system or something really mighty. And while I’m still not entirely won over by dCS’ ‘you don’t need a preamp’ claims, the Rossini does sound good hooked directly to a power amp. OK, so it’s unlikely that a player that costs close to £20,000 will front an £800 amp and £1,000 loudspeakers, and that it is expected to be seen in systems costing nearer £50,000 and beyond; but regardless, the Rossini character is stamped across the system. App control makes the player a worthwhile addition to any portfolio, and because it can process virtually any digital format you can think of (SACD discs notwithstanding).

I’ve not logged enough Vivaldi hours to see where the jumps in performance lie between Rossini and its bigger brother. I’ll hand that one over to my colleague Chris Thomas in a long-term listening follow-up in a later edition of Hi-Fi+ because he has extensive experience with both systems. It seems, however, that although the Rossini is very good in all the ways the Vivaldi stack is good, the full Vivaldi experience raises that naturalness and completeness to another level. The dCS Rossini is more than just a scaled-down Vivaldi, though, and has a beguiling property of its own. What’s more, in systems that aren’t at the extreme limit of what’s currently possible from audio, the Rossini’s consistency might make for a better overall performance. Remember that in some of the systems that show what the Vivaldi can do to its best, the cost of connecting those four boxes with audio cable commensurate with its performance is more than a Rossini!

That, in essence, encapsulates what is so good about the Rossini, and it is an encapsulation as I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface of what this player can do. To better it – especially when partnered with the matching clock (see box) – doesn’t just need a serious financial boost to the digital audio stages of your system, it probably needs a better system. The dCS Rossini sets a high standard for digital audio of all kinds today. You may find ‘different’ but you won’t find ‘better’ at anything even close to this level. The dCS Rossini is a powerful, confident player in all its guises and highly recommended for those fortunate enough to be able to take digital audio to the next level.

dCS Rossini Master Clock

The matching Master Clock to the Rossini is a logical upgrade to the ‘basic’ Rossini. For the longest time, dCS has recommended and supplied Class 1 clocks for its players, and for good reason. This one features two entirely separate phase locked looped crystal oscillators running at 44.1kHz and 48kHz, temperature controlled by microprocessor, and the handshake between Rossini and Clock switches in the correct clock for the sampling frequency of the digital signal (they all run to multiples of those two clock frequencies). Its aluminium design continues and extends the style of the Rossini and when bedded in offers clock accuracy to ± 0.1ppm, thanks to a lot of internal multi-stage regulation.

Connecting it couldn’t be simpler. There are three BNC sockets on the rear of the clock. Hook up inputs 1 and 2 to the corresponding clock outputs on the Rossini. Strangely, given this is basically just a pair of timing signals and not in the analogue or digital audio chain, the choice of cables makes a difference, although it comes with good basic 75 ohm coax connectors as a fine starting place.

What the Rossini Clock does for the sound is simple. Describing what it does is difficult. Not as difficult as designing the thing, I grant you, but the difficulty in description is in part discussing the scale of the effect, as well as the effect itself. The Rossini is one of the best-sounding standalone digital hubs I know of in sound quality terms, and the Clock improves on that. When you put it in the path of the Rossini, you can hear the enhancement, and when you take it out your very next action will be to call the dealer to buy one.

Put simply, what the Clock does is bring a greater sense of authenticity to an already authentic sound. Sounds in the soundstage are more solidly placed: whether that placement is through natural ambience and careful recording or judicious use of the pan pot, you’ll notice the instrument is rock solid in its own physical space in the soundstage. Reverb tails are more clearly delineated, and there is a palpable sense of being in the presence of music and musicians. This is something that the Rossini excels at in its own right, but this ‘thereness’ is strengthened under the power of the Clock.

Curiously, what might seem like the most obvious benefit of having a precision external clock – improvements to the temporal nature of music, its timing and rhythm – are not uppermost. There is slightly more temporal focus, but the Rossini was already an excellent rhythmic performer in its own right, and as such don’t expect big changes to the beat.

The Rossini player isn’t hobbled without the Clock. Instead, what the Rossini (on its own) does over lesser players, the Rossini+Clock does to the Rossini. It’s not subtle, and there is no going back to a Rossini on its own, even though the Rossini on its own is better than most digital front ends out there, regardless of price.

Technical Specifications

dCS Rossini Player

Type: Upsampling CD/UPnP media renderer

Digital Inputs: 2x AES/EBU, 3× S/PDIF (1× RCA, 1× BNC, 1× Toslink), USB A and USB B, 2× RJ45 (one network loop out). Accepts data streamed from an iPod, iPhone or iPad via Apple AirPlay

Digital input precision: RJ45: FLAC, WAV, AIFF to 24/384, DFF/DSF formats to DSD 128. USB A: PCM to 24/384 or DoP to DSD 64, Asynchronous, USB B: PCM to 24/384 or DoP to DSD 128, Asynchronous, Class 1 or 2 mode. AES/EBU: Singly, PCM to 24/192 or DoP to DSD 64. Used as a Dual AES pair, PCM to 24/384kS/s, DoP or dCS‑encrypted DSD to DSD 128. S/PDIF coaxial: PCM to 24/192 or DoP to DSD 64. S/PDIF Toslink: PCM to 24/96

Supported formats: PCM, DSD (DoP/DFF/DSF), FLAC, WAV, AIFF, WMA, ALAC, MP3, AAC & OGG

Analogue outputs: 1× RCA pair, 1× XLR pair. 2V or 6V rms for full-scale input, set in the menu

Upsampling Rates: DXD as standard or optional DSD upsampling

Filters: PCM mode: up to 6 filters. DSD mode: 4 filtersl

Crosstalk: Better than –115dB0, 20Hz–20kHz

Finish: Silver or Black

Dimensions (W×H×D): 44.4 × 43.5 × 15.1cm

Weight: 15.6kg (17.4kg with CD)

Price: £15,500 (network DAC alone), £18,000 (with CD transport)

Rossini Master Clock

Type: Class 1 Master Clock

Clock Frequencies: 44.1kHz/48kHz

Accuracy: Typically + /– 0.1ppm

Start up time: Typically 1 minute to rated accuracy

Word Clock I / O: 3 independently buffered outputs on 75Ω BNC connectors. Output 1: fixed at 44.1kHz Output 2: fixed at 48kHz Output 3: 44.1kHz, RS232 controllable

Finish: Silver or Black

Dimensions (W×H×D): 44.4 × 43.5 × 6.4cm

Weight: 8.2kg

Price: £5,000

Manufactured by: dCS Ltd

Tel: +44 (0)1954 233950

URL: www.dcsltd.co.uk

Technical Specifications

Manufactured by: Merging

Distributed in the UK by: Emerging

Technical Specifications

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

Technical Specifications

Technical Specifications

Distributed in the UK by: Renaissance Audio

Technical Specifications

Manufactured by: Trilogy Audio Systems

Distributed in the UK by: Symmetry

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