PIONEER PD-70AE SUPER AUDIO CD PLAYER REVIEW
March 7, 2018 Comments Off on PIONEER PD-70AE SUPER AUDIO CD PLAYER REVIEW
“But the design feature that is a standout for me has to do with the PD70-AE’s capacitors. These are no ordinary off-the-shelf caps. Instead, they were custom made for Pioneer and one huge reason why this player sounds so good and so different, from any of Pioneer’s previous flagship machines.
Connections are laid on and include one pair of gold-plated RCA outputs, one pair of gold-plated XLR outputs, one coaxial output, one optical output, one coaxial input and one optical input.”


TAD Evolution Series D1000MK2 Disc Player $14,995 Review
February 3, 2018 Comments Off on TAD Evolution Series D1000MK2 Disc Player $14,995 Review
‘The beautiful thing about owning a device like the TAD D1000MK2 Disc Player is you don’t have to worry, you just have to be happy. I did spin some shiny discs on the TAD’s disc spinner and they all sounded good. Really good. Better than the file? I wouldn’t say better but if you own lots of discs, CDs and perhaps more importantly SACDs that you don’t plan to turn into files, you can rest assured that the TAD will serve them very well. For my personal listening preferences, the TAD TAD-DA1000 DAC ($10,995) makes more sense because the physical music media I enjoy is of the vinyl variety but part of me really loves the sexy silent machined smooth beauty of the D1000MK2’s disc mechanism. It certainly plucks at my lover-of-lovely-things heartstrings.”

Chord Blu MkII review
November 26, 2017 Comments Off on Chord Blu MkII review
“Why would you want to add noise to the data stream? Using dither is a well-known technique in digital products to help improve resolution at very low signal levels. Here it only works for 16-bit signals, letting 24-bit streams pass unaffected.
With CD, we prefer the sound with the added dither as there’s a slightly greater sense of solidity and overall subtlety.”
Read more at https://www.whathifi.com/chord/blu-mkii/review#9BIpqQOvvikuhwqz.99

TAD Evolution Series D1000MK2 DISC PLAYER BLACK EDITION
November 3, 2017 Comments Off on TAD Evolution Series D1000MK2 DISC PLAYER BLACK EDITION
“This model embodies the philosophy and technical standards behind TAD’s dedication to conveying all the passion contained within music. Testifying to this is the latest development derived from our top-end, highly praised TAD-D600 disc player: the Ultra-High C/N*1 Master Clock UPCG*2. To ensure precise reproduction with no tonal changes, TAD focused on minimizing low frequency distortion caused by noise from the clock itself occupying the same spectral region. Designed to achieve a pure low-noise signal approaching the upper limits of audibility, our highly innovative master clock is featured in this model.

OPPO UDP-205 $1,300 REVIEW
September 23, 2017 Comments Off on OPPO UDP-205 $1,300 REVIEW
“I found the HA-1 to be more musical on the low end and more reserved on top than the flat neutral 9018 of the Burson 9018 Conductor. Here, I have almost no reference point for the newer 9038Pro used in the UDP-205. I can say that I think it has more of a shared tonality to the HA-1 of old than anything else. So, in other words, the 9038PRO here in front of me with whatever other parts are in there, sounds more like the HA-1’s 9018 circuits than anything else I can think of.”

MCINTOSH D1100 2-CHANNEL DIGITAL PREAMPLIFIER REVIEw
September 9, 2017 Comments Off on MCINTOSH D1100 2-CHANNEL DIGITAL PREAMPLIFIER REVIEw
“I realize that the more I wrote about the music I listened to, the less I talked about the McIntosh D1100 2-Channel Digital Preamplifier. That is really the highest praise I can give to an audio component. Listening to quality music through the D1100 brought me a level of involvement and joy that I have not experienced in a long time. I wasn’t thinking about the playback gear, I was simply getting lost in the sound. I had forgotten just how good two-channel music can be when played through a top-notch piece of gear and the D1100 did nothing to pull me out of my sonic dreamland. From a sound quality perspective, the McIntosh D1100 delivered everything I could possibly want; amazing bass, a beautiful midrange, detailed and airy treble, stunning imaging, and an expansive soundstage”

Chord Blu Mk. 2 M Scaler CD Transport Review
September 9, 2017 Comments Off on Chord Blu Mk. 2 M Scaler CD Transport Review
“. Upscaling audio isn’t anything new but most implementations are rudimentary and sound contrived. The Chord Blu Mk. 2 presumably applies a holistic waveform algorithm to determine how those data points are generated (not just based upon a couple of sample points at a time) and with this, we should get the most analog digital sound EVER. Although the data points are technically artificially recreated, hopefully, what we hear is what we should’ve been hearing from our recordings.”

OPPO UDP-205 Hi-Res Music & 4k Ultra HD Audiophile Blu-ray Disc Player $1299 Review
July 26, 2017 Comments Off on OPPO UDP-205 Hi-Res Music & 4k Ultra HD Audiophile Blu-ray Disc Player $1299 Review
” The term “audio” comprises both the technology involved and the resultant sound. Insofar far as music reproduction is concerned, what’s the point of digital audio if the end result is audio shite? Measurements can provide engineers data about certain parameters of performance and suggest changes that should improve the outcome but, in the final analysis, it is our ear that determines the truth of the thing.”

Accuphase DP-560 REVIEW
July 25, 2017 Comments Off on Accuphase DP-560 REVIEW
“The full name of the DP-560 player is the MDS SA-CD Player. MDS refers to a technology that Accuphase has been developing for years – the Multiple Delta-Sigma – and means that a few DACS are connected in parallel. Thanks to this, their quantization errors are minimized and dynamics is improved. At the time when the ESS Technology ES9018S reigns, it is really simple – there are eight DACs in each circuit and they can be used to decode multi-channel signal or be connected in parallel for stereophonic signal; the latter option is used by many manufacturers.”

MCINTOSH LABS MB50 STREAMING AUDIO PLAYER £2,750 REVIEW
July 24, 2017 Comments Off on MCINTOSH LABS MB50 STREAMING AUDIO PLAYER £2,750 REVIEW
” The McIntosh MB50 is a remarkably versatile device. It’s a first toe in the streaming waters for many McIntosh users, it’s the obvious next step for MHA150 and MXA70 users, and for some it might be their first McIntosh product. It’s capable of standalone use, although I’d recommend using it in conjunction with an amp or headphone amp, and it communicates to the outside world effortlessly using the Play-Fi app. It’s not without idiosyncrasies – the lack of wired DLNA streaming seems a notable exclusion – but the potential for using this as the start of an ad hoc Play-Fi network does offer future promise. Recommended.”

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