April 2014

In This Issue...
April Fools, AXPONA And Adventures In Audio
Plus the world’s first live TV studio @ AXPONA 2014!
Article By Steven R. Rochlin

  Usually within our industry March is historically a slow period since all the great new gear made their way to CES / T.H.E. Show in January. This is certainly not the case in 2014 as technological advancements has marked the continual release of high fidelity audio gear, especially those used for digital music files. The news has been coming to my e-mail inbox at a fast and furious pace! The biggest recent news event was the Pono portable high resolution audio player that appeared on K’Starter. As of this writing is has reached over a cool $5,000,000! For those unfamiliar, legendary music artist Neil Young has been touting the Pono 192kHz/24-bit player for years, yet nothing ever seemed to come to fruition. That is until the official announcement at SXSW in March. Audiophiles take note as the CEO and team leader of Pono, John Hamm, will be at the upcoming AXPONA (Audio Expo North America) event in Chicago from April 25^th through 27th. And this brings you the opportunity to get involved too!

Am sure many of you reading this have already reserved your Pono music player, yet what if you had questions that needed answering? Their FAQ and updates have been very informative. We here at Enjoy the Music.com are bringing our full TV studio to AXPONA so you can ask John Hamm questions during our live video streaming broadcast that will also have an interactive chat feature too! Of course there is much more happening at AXPONA including seminars, new product announcements and live music events. Never before in the history of high-end audio has anyone tried doing a professional video production, let alone one that included live streaming.  Our sister site Enjoy the Music.TV is doing just that and we look forward to seeing many of you during AXPONA in Chicago. For those of you within the industry, please see me at the gathering at AXPONA the night before the event to reserve your TV time. We want you to shine during this very special event.

Our April edition of Enjoy the Music.com’s Review Magazine has some special treats for you! First up is something that was many years in the making. Specifically, we have links to all 20 issues of DIY/enthusiast magazine Vacuum Tube Valley! Next is our busy studio where we have produced three recent videos including Positive Feedback Online's David W. Robinson and musician David Elias discussing Sony’s DSD format. We also have an interview with Paul McGowan of PS Audio and engineer Ted Smith of DirectStream with their new, and quite interesting,  DAC unit. Lastly, we have all around audio enthusiast Michael Mercer covering the bases for those who enjoy portable audio. Speaking of portable audio, multi-award earning Benchmark Media Systems has an interesting article concerning headphone amplifiers featured within this edition.

For those of you who love music without financial limits, reviews of the Accuphase DP-720 SACD player, the incredible Oracle Audio Delphi MK VI turntable with SME V tonearm, and lastly the unique and quite expensive ($90,000!) SoulSonics Impact LE speakers help round out the audio esoterica reviews. Now before you budget-minded readers decide to shout on all the discussion boards that audiophile mags only seem to review stratospherically-priced products, we also have a review of the under $2000 Audio By Van Alstine Synergy integrated control amplifier and our partner HIFICRITIC has their Naim Nait integrated amplifier revisit. Looking at the calendar and giving the nod to April 1, we also have some fun ‘reviews’ including the LIRPA DDRX - 401 Reference converter, Tweaking To Beat The Band and the au natural We Tree Audio Ring turntable. Other articles include the Sony VFETs from the industry’s amplification genius Nelson Pass.

Our partner magazines here at Enjoy the Music.com bring forth Dick Olsher’s brilliance as his fine-tuned ears gives assesses the Von Schweikert Audio UniField Two MK2 speakers, Jimmy Hughes wraps his room in 360-degree audio with the Duevel Enterprise loudspeaker and Edgar Kramer lights up the tube twilight with the powerful VTL MB-125 monoblock amplifiers. You want some reasonable priced high rez portable? We got you covered as Noel Keywood finds the $199 (street price) FiiO X3 with the 192kHz/24-bit Wolfson WM8740 DAC a runaway success!

Rest assured our coverage of the Salon Son & Image 2014 show will be appearing online shortly and we look forward to seeing you at AXPONA from April 25th through 27th at the Westin O'Hare in Chicago. Click this link and use code AXP52D to save 15% off AXPONA 2014 tickets. 

Our fun Facebook page and Twitter feed gave you a head up to our April Cardas Audio contest! We are giving away a set of $425 Cardas Audio EM5813 Ear Speakers! Come join Enjoy the Music.com's fun and informative Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest pages. We feature great music, fun photos, and up to the minute updates plus so much more for you to enjoy!
   

As always, in the end what really matters is that we all...

Enjoy the Music,

Editor and Creative Director, Enjoy the Music.com