High-End Audio Industry News

02 / 28 / 07

  Exposure Electronics now offers their 3010S series, which is situated between the company's budget 2010S series and high end Classic series. The 3010S offers most of the Classic's higher quality components and construction techniques but with a few exceptions and some costs saved on cosmetic considerations. Products in this new range include the 3010S CD Player ($2,695), Integrated ($2,295), Power Amplifier ($1,795) and MM and MC Phono Cards ($495 each). This new Series is said to be Exposure's 'best bang for the buck' according to the company in terms of sonic performance. The new 3010S CD Player features a new custom-made CD transport mechanism, servo unit and control mechanisms, as well as twin Burr-Brown PCM 1704 mono 24 true multi-bit DACs, discrete output stage and large toroidal power transformer with separate windings for CD transport and audio stages. The new 3010S Integrated Amplifier and Power Amplifier each benefit from larger power supplies, upgraded internal components and a power increase to 110 watts per channel (8 Ohms). Both amplifiers also offer high capacity custom-made toroidal power transformers and power supply capacitors, a short signal and power supply path, bi-wiring compatibility and fast bipolar transistor output stage. All Exposure 3010S products include all-aluminum casework, extruded front panel to control resonance and stray electromagnetic fields, a full function remote control plus a three year warranty.

 

02 / 27 / 07

  rbh Sound is celebrating the company's thirty years in business by proudly introducing the T-30LSE ($14,999 per pair). TAs the newest addition to the company's Signature Series, the T-30LSE is rbh's highest-performance freestanding loudspeaker. The 3-way T-30LSE can produce extreme sound pressure levels and is designed for high-end listening rooms and larger home theaters. Drivers include three 1-inch Ferrofluid liquid-cooled ScanSpeak tweeters, four 6.5-inch mid-woofers and two 10-inch subwoofers. rbh Sound's aluminum cone technology is utilized in the fixed-phase plug 6.5-inch woofers and the two 10-inch subwoofers. To reduce cabinet resonances due to the ability to reproduce 16Hz tone, extensive use of internal bracing is employed within the cabinet. The T-30LSE's mid-woofers and tweeters are arranged in a dispersion averaging alignment which focuses the sound at the listening position. An added benefit of this alignment is reduced sound reflections from surfaces in the listening environment. Measures are 60.5 x 13.25 x 18 (HxWxD in inches), weight is 160 pounds each and 30 genuine wood grain veneers are offered.

 

02 / 23 / 07

  Audiophiles and video buffs looking to tweak and tune their system may benefit from Tacet's new DVD-Audio disc More Power And Ideas (€8.53). This combination tuning, sound effect and music disc can be played on any DVD surround system (including DVD Video) and provides a complete immersion in sound with music from Tacet's top artists. Since 1989, the Germany-based Tacet label has produced music to audiophile standards and offers their recordings on DVD-A, SACD and vinyl. This new title features a full 77 minutes of content and was produced with great care to ensure multi-channel enthusiasts can enhance their listening experience.

 

02 / 22 / 07

  Naim Audio just announced their SUPERNAIT ($4750) integrated amplifier, with availability starting in April. This 80 wpc stereo unit includes DAC inputs and is the latest addition to Naim's reference series. Like other Naim Audio products, in stock form it can easily handle tough loudspeaker loads, yet optional uprated power supply can further enhance the SUPERNAIT's abilities. Standard features include provisions for subwoofer, front panel input and front panel headphone output. The rear of the unit provides six mappable inputs that include two coaxial digital, three digital, CD, tuner, tape, and auxiliary. All five digital inputs are handled by a DAC that can decode signals with sampling rates from 32kHz through 96kHz. There is a power socket for optional Stageline phono preamplifier. Outputs include headphone, subwoofer, and preamplifier while a pair of loudspeaker outputs round out this design. Other connectivity provides RC5 IR remote (included), IR input and output, and RS-232 (dual RJ-45 sockets).

 

02 / 21 / 07

  The battle for digital radio heats up and HD Radio rolls out in more cities while Sirius  and XM Satellite Radio have agreed to a merger. HD Radio is a technology where FM stations send a digital signal for free that can feature not just one broadcast, but can parse out their digital signal to feature near CD quality sound or many lower fidelity channels. With less than 20 percent of the average public aware of the benefits of HD Radio, according to a survey conducted by Bridge ratings, the hopes are to join with various automobile manufacturers and aftermarket auto sound suppliers to incorporate HD Radio. Virtually all automobile manufactures within the USA are making HD Radio an option as a factor or dealer installed option and is available in 218 vehicles for 2007, an increase from 183 in 2006. At the end of March, multicasting FM stations will be in 85 of the largest markets within the United States according to the HD Digital Radio Alliance. This expansion means that 605 stations will deliver content, versus 504 last year.

Unlike the free HD Radio, Sirius and XM Satellite Radio, who each offer around 100 digital channels of audio entertainment and charge around $13 a month for their services, have announced a $13 billion merger deal. While the deal does face approval by companies' shareholders and various United States government agencies, both companies have "entered into a definitive agreement, under which the companies will be combined in a tax-free, all-stock merger of equals with a combined enterprise value of approximately $13 billion, which includes net debt of approximately $1.6 billion" according to a recent press release by Sirius. Because both companies are the only two services providing monthly subscription satellite radio, there are concerns with what was one two competing companies will now be one monopoly and their fee could increase without any fair alternative to millions of consumers who already subscribe to one or both services. Sirius and XM Satellite Radio together achieve revenues of around $1.5 billion with approximately 14 million combined subscribers. Claimed benefits for the merger include increased programming and content choices, accelerated technological innovation, and enhanced financial performance due to combining efforts versus each company working independently and in competition of one another. One of the advantages of satellite radio over HD Radio is the last of commercials that interrupt the audio content and the ability for satellite radio to broadcast content aimed towards adults (i.e. Howard Stern).

 

A look back at news from... December 01, 2000

While digital radio has been available in Europe for quite some time, XM Satellite Radio has announced that the first of two satellites will arrive tomorrow at Sea Launch's Home Port in Long Beach, California. This satellite's launch into orbit above America is scheduled for January 8th. The two satellites, one named "Rock" and the other "Roll" are Boeing 702 satellites which are the world's most powerful commercial satellites built by Boeing Satellite Systems. These units will deliver to America upwards of 100 channels of digital radio programming. Consumers will need XM radio hardware will be needed to receive these signals.

"XM continues to execute its business plan in the three key areas necessary for the launch of commercial satellite radio service," Panero said. "The broadcast studio complex was unveiled in September featuring 82 all digital studios; XM's satellites are now poised for launch; and finally, we have fully validated our chipset architecture and we are finalizing production plans with our radio manufacturing partners which include such household names as Sony, Alpine, and Pioneer Electronics Corporation, among others. These radios will include AM, FM, and XM."

 

02 / 20 / 07

  SlySoft is now offering their AnyDVD HD program ($79) that rips HD DVD discs, with Blu-ray ripping planned in the near future. This new software will decrypt AACS protected HD-DVD movie discs and allows users to watch movies over a digital display connection, without HDCP compliant graphics card and HDCP compliant display. Another benefit is that movie buffs and wanna be directors can remaster movie disc using simple XML scripts. AnyDVD comes with a UDF 2.5 file ripper, no need to install 3rd party UDF 2.5 filesystem under Windows XP. SlySoft AnyDVD HD removes user prohibitions including selection of language and subtitle tracks plus parental restrictions without going through the disc's menu. Furthermore, studio logos and warning messages can be skipped plus a standard UDF 2.5 file ripper is included for ease of use. Note that HD DVD and Blu-ray uses AACS protection, therefore a Blu-ray version from SlySoft should be available shortly. For hackers and cybergeeks who are curious, it has been reported that SlySoft is using the host certificate of Cyberlink's PowerDVD application.

 

02 / 19 / 07

  The Sound Quest SQ-12 CD player ($1,200) features upsampling, a high-end performance coax digital output and both balanced (XLR) and unbalanced (RCA) analog output. With a front panel in beautiful maple and remote featuring matching wood, the SQ-12's DAC achieves a resolution of 24-bit/192kHz via multilevel sigma-delta with synchronous upsampling. The clock jitter is rated at less than 14ps and, if desired, an outboard digital to analog (DAC) can be used via the digital coax output. Outstanding measurements include a frequency response from 20Hz to 20kHz, phase response of less than 2 degrees deviation, signal-to-noise of more than 105dB, and crosstalk of less than -100dB. Output terminals are gold plated and overall dimensions are 3.2 x 17.2 x 11.6 (HxWxD in inches with a weight of 22 pounds plus 2 year guarantee.

 

02 / 16 / 07

  Popular online discussion board Head-Fi will have their Second Annual International Head-Fi Meet in San Jose, California from April 21st though the 22nd at the Radisson Hotel San Jose Airport. Hosted by hotel owner Richard Kim (nickname Sleestack), Clarke Robinson (Clarke68), Al Bedecarre (Voltron), and the rest of the San Francisco Bay Area Head-Fi organizing committee and membership, this will be the West coast event to attend for headphone music lovers. The main ballroom of the San Jose Radisson will have an array of 18 member equipment display tables in the middle of the room that will be ringed by 15 vendor tables along three walls. Another feature of the show will be members-only high-end section and 12 rooms with ultra-fi gear to allow for very serious listening with low noise floor due to less foot traffic and controlled entry into this special section of the show. Various special events during this event include door prizes, conferences, and seminars plus there will be meal tickets available for the Head-Fi Bar-B-Q lunch. An after-hours fifth floor lounge will be a meeting and relaxing spot throughout the meet. See our show coverage by clicking here.

Radisson Hotel San Jose Airport
1471 North Fourth Street
San Jose, California 95112 USA
Hotel Reservations: (800) 333-3333

For additional information, questions, and help please contact:
Jude Mansilla at Jude@head-fi.org

 

02 / 15 / 07

  Enjoy the Music.com midmonth Review Magazine update features very important information that concerns billions of music lovers worldwide. Editor Steven R. Rochlin's article titled The DRM Wars Concern You! provides the latest information on the situation concerning Steve Jobs of Apple Computers, Microsoft, plus the two largest music content rights organizations (RIAA and IFPI). There are many angles to the recent Digital Rights Management (DRM) wars and ways of spinning the data. After many years of following this debacle, Steven R. Rochlin once again provides insight to what he feels is the truth of the matter... and the possible outcome that greatly concerns music lovers worldwide! See the midmonth edition by clicking here.

 

A look back at news from... April 19, 2001

  Sony Music and Midbar Tech Ltd. are now proclaiming success with protecting CDs using Midbar's Cactus Data Shield. Midbar's technology is claimed to stop the ability to copy CDs or allow the music to be compressed into the .mp3 format. While various player incompatibilities and a subsequent recall of discs using the same type of technology in a Germany-released title by BMG music last year, further fine tuning of the technology and the recent Sony release have Sony proclaiming success. The Sony music CDs were released in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in late 2000 and Sony claims that there were no incompatibilities as experienced by BMG's earlier release using Midbar's technology. "Our consumers did not feel that the protection limited their experience. We didn't receive any complaints and the feedback from our sales force was only positive," Zbynek Knobloch, managing director of Sony Music said. Midbar CEO Ran Alcalay added that the technology did not face compatibility issues even with older CD players.

 

02 / 14 / 07

KRK Systems has released their flagship Exposé E8B close-field studio monitor system ($5,995 per pair). The new E8B monitor carries the legacy of KRK's Exposé line to new heights with a beryllium/aluminum tweeter (AlbeMet) that provides smooth, lightning fast transient response. The woofer consists of two layers of Kevlar with a layer of Rohacell in between. The layer of Rohacell provides additional stiffness for the woofer and also functions as a dampener to eliminate unwanted resonances. The E8B copper pole cap and the aluminum shorting ring are said to reduce motor induced distortions. By taking into account comments from the recording industry's most well regarded professionals, the design of the E8B was in seeking an accurate, transparent and 'truthful' monitor. A very linear measurement was the result and significantly reduction in distortion through the implementation of design concepts concerning port turbulence and diffraction. Furthermore, the E8B cabinet is designed with thick, non-parallel, internal walls which reduce the chances of standing waves inside the cabinet. The base of the monitor is made from a non-slip, sound absorbing rubberized material that eliminates vibrations transferring to the surface the monitor is resting on, ensuring the E8B will not move on its pedestal. KRK's Exposé E8B system utilizes two discrete, Class A / AB power amplifiers, 120w for the tweeter and 140w for the woofer. This is a bi-amplified system — one amplifier each for HF and LF.

 

02 / 13 / 07

  Anvil Sound Display, a UK-based company that specializes in the manufacture of superlative stands, has introduced a loudspeaker stand system that is claimed to enhance audio reproduction (£199 to £289). This loudspeaker unit can be customized to the user's specifications for base material, base shape, upright column type and height. Other choices include metal color preference, choice of floor spikes and loudspeaker mount options. Colin Wintrip of Anvil, and the engineer who has developed the systems, said, "Our stands are acoustically engineered to the highest standard by combining selected B.S. graded aluminum and steel in the main components to eliminate any problems usually associated with vibration and ringing. Speaker performance is vastly improved by adding vigor to the sound where treble is refined, supported with detailed mid-range and solid, emphatic bass. Once mounted on such a unique platform, speakers can then perform to their full potential."

 

02 / 12 / 07

  As the 49th Annual Grammy Awards has now come to a close, they celebrated Don Hanley as MusCares' Person Of The Year and raises more than $4.2 million to help struggling musicians. The tribute dinner featured many musicians and songwriters including the Tony Bennett, Dixie Chicks, Shawn Colvin, Michael McDonald, Sam Moore, Seal, Trisha Yearwood and many others. With sales in excess of 120 million albums, the Eagles are America's best selling band while Dony Henley himself has millions of albums sales during his solo career. As for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards themselves, this start0studded spectacular opened with the pop band The Police, who have not performed together for well over a decade. Other performers during the event included Christina Aguilera, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown, John Mayer, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Shakira, Justin Timberlake and others. With over 100 categories, only a handful actually make it to the televised portion as many awards are given out during the earlier daytime hours. Grammy Awards wet to //Simple Gifts// Bryn Terfel (London Voices; London Symphony Orchestra) for Best Classical Crossover Album. Other awards included:

Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra): Chopin: Nocturnes Maurizio Pollini

Best Classical Album and Best Orchestral Performance: Mahler: Symphony No. 7 Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor (San Francisco Symphony)

Best Engineered Album, Classical: Telac label Elgar: Enigma Variations; Britten: The Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra, Four Sea Interludes
Michael Bishop, engineer (Paavo Järvi & Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra)

Best Surround Sound Album: Morph The Cat by Elliot Scheiner, surround mix engineer; Darcy Proper, surround mastering engineer; Donald Fagen, surround producer

Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical: At War With The Mystics by The Flaming Lips & Dave Fridmann, engineers (The Flaming Lips)

Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group: The Ultimate Adventure by Chick Corea

Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album: Modern Times by Bob Dylan

To see a complete list of all the Grammy nominees and winners please click here.

 

A look back at news from... May 28, 1999

Analogue Devices now offers a new chip with enables 192kHz sampling rate! Their AD1853 offers proprietary data conversion with multi-bit sigma-delta converter core. The AD1853 is fully backward compatible with current CD and DVD technology. This is the first chip to offer this high a rate of sampling.

 

02 / 09 / 07

  Steve Jobs of Apple fame, makers of the incredibly popular iPod device, has published a letter on the company's website asking the music industry to "open the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods." While Apple's iTunes currently offer users to play their DRM protected music on up to five computers and on an unlimited number of iPods, Steve Jobs' concern is that when, not if, the DRM is hacked that iTunes will have to patch their entire online music service or they may find that content owners will remove their content due to hacked DRM concerns. Recently, Norwegian regulators feel that the DRM scheme makes Apple's iTunes Store illegal and there has been speculation that Jobs' letter was in some ways a response to this recent decision. As pointed within Job's letter, "Music purchased from Microsoft's Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony's Connect store will only play on Sony's players; and music purchased from Apple's iTunes store will only play on iPods. This is the current state of affairs in the industry, and customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices." And while Job's letter also mentions an alternative for Apple to license the FairPlay DRM technology as used in the iTunes store, this would "involve disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak. The Internet has made such leaks far more damaging, since a single leak can be spread worldwide in less than a minute." said Jobs. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry, released a statement concerning Steve Jobs' recent letter and said "Apple's offer to license FairPlay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough and would be a real victory for fans, artists and labels. There have been many services seeking a license to the Apple DRM. This would enable the interoperability that we have been urging for a very long time." Of interesting note is that there may already be a crack for the Apple FairPlay DMR for those who do not already hold a license key and this letter may be a precursor before it goes public. Steve Jobs admits that "DRMs have not worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That's right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player... Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100 percent owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50 percent owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly." Perhaps Steve Jobs has some clout as over 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store have been sold to date while the music industry is currently selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free on physical formats (CD, HD DVD, etc.).

 

02 / 08 / 07

  CodexNovus now offers their DV-1 Digital Media Reader and HDcodex media players DML-1000 and DML-1600 Digital Media Libraries ($795, $4,999 and $6,999 respectively). Ease of use and integration is key as you place media into the DV-1's trayless DVD mechanism and upload using an intuitive user interface plus an 8-in-1 media card reader to streamline memory card uploads. The reader supports a wide variety of data storage and transfer technologies, including Type I/II Compact Flash, IBM Microdrive, 3.3 V Smartmedia (capacity to 128MB), Secure Digital/Multimedia Card, Memory Stick, and Memory Stick PRO. The DV-1 offers matchless flexibility and configuration options and supports MPEG, AVI, TS, VC-1, MP2, MP3, AC3, WAV, AAC, HTML, SWF, BMP, PNG, TIFF, GIF and JPEG media files. All HDcodex players are ISF-certified and incorporate All Media Guide's (AMG) LASSO media recognition system. With the capability to faithfully reproduce SD and HD formats at resolutions up to 1920 x 1080p, high resolution digital audio is also captured in multi-channel 5.1 and 7.1 formats. CodexNovus' HDcodex DML-1600 stand-alone media server stores 1.6 Terabytes of data and can be operated thru IR remote control or by RS-232 and are compatible with most popular external control systems. It helps to organize any collection of DVDs, CDs, home movies, pictures and metadata media files. The system can operate as a single room or networked whole house media server with multiple streams of on-demand content while storage capacity can be expanded with additional HDs.

 

A look back at news from... January 20, 2000

  It has begun... Sirius Satellite Radio has announced their plans on spending $1 billion U.S. on their new digital radio system. David Margolese, chief executive of Sirius Satellite Radio, said they have already planned on financing implementing three satellites into orbit around earth to support their new wireless digital radio network. In fact they have already put aside $100 million for their advertising budget! Their plans are in offering digital wireless radio as a subscription base service just as America now pays for DSS and cable TV. "Our ability to entertain ourselves is getting more sophisticated," says Margolese, a key player in the rise of the 1980s cell phone industry. "Today, radio is fine because you don't know any better. With music, frankly, we can do a better job... It's about choice, control, flexibility and a higher standard. Once people experience this, they'll never go back to the old radio. It would be grating, jarring, intolerable." Availability of their service is projected to be in the third to fourth quarter of 2000.

 

02 / 07 / 07

  As partners to America's authoritative print magazine The Absolute Sound, we have just posted the March issue's table of contents and complete editorial. In this issue, editor Robert Harley's Reflecting a Rich Diversity editorial states "Our selection of review products is also intended to contribute to the greater good of the industry and to bring high-performance audio products to a larger audience. Companies with long track records who make great-sounding, reliable, and affordable products that are readily available through a large dealer network (think Rotel, NAD, Arcam, Bowers & Wilkins, Paradigm, PSB, and NHT, for examples) are given high profile simply because they make wonderful products that bring great sound to a large portion of our readership. Our overriding goal is to connect readers with music; featuring products that are in many cases comparably priced, but vastly superior to, mass-market audio serves that goal. It's worth noting that the companies those of us in the high end consider "mainstream" are actually extremely esoteric to the larger potential customer base for high-end audio." To see the complete table of contents and read the editorial please click here.

 

02 / 06 / 07

The Esoteric division of Teac now offers their MG-10 and MG-20 loudspeakers ($5500 and $9200 per pair respectively). Esoteric's loudspeakers are unique to the industry representing a three way venture between Esoteric acoustic engineering, Nippon Kinzoku chemical development and British manufacturing and assembly techniques used by Tannoy Ltd. These unit incorporate a new technical application of magnesium (Mg) alloy diaphragms for driver components since magnesium provides very high internal energy dissipation that is said to allow for extremely high sensitivity, smooth transient response, and enhanced resolution over other metals. The woofer cone is damped by an extra-thin two layer coating of organic membrane with ceramic coating to provide resonance control. The high frequency driver is formed by a specially developed process for piston production, with a very high stiffness to mass ratio and optimized ceramic coating. Lastly, the crossover network components are high precision, low-loss and thermally stable. Polypropylene capacitors and large, laminated iron core inductors are used while top quality wiring connects the crossover to the drivers.

 

02 / 05 / 07

  Gracenote, a leader in embedded technology including data services for digital entertainment, announced a new data management and delivery method within its service that resolves the decade-long struggle by classical music fans to view accurate, complete and consistent classical music information on digital devices. Gracenote worked closely with the classical music community to create this new standard, which has been endorsed by classical music experts, music labels, and several prestigious orchestras. Gracenotes Classical Music Initiative (CMI) interfaces with most of the popular music management applications and devices designed primarily for use with pop music genres such as R&B, Rock and Country. This is usually the three-line displays that typically only show Album Title, Track Title and Recording Artist information when a song is played. Because classical music is more intricate than other genres, Gracenote feels it is essential to display the Composer name in addition to Recording Artist when organizing classical music collections. Additionally, the Recording Artist is not typically just a single name, but is comprised of several independent parties, including the Conductor, Ensemble, and Soloist. Likewise, Track Title is not just the name of a song, but typically incorporates unique Work, Movement, and in some cases, Catalog Number elements. The Gracenote Classical Music Initiative has received support and endorsements from classical artists, experts, critics, and customers including symphonies such as the San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; music labels Naxos and Harmonia-Mundi; and top classical music scholars and authors.

 

02 / 02 / 07

BursonAudio, an Australian company founded in 1996 by a small group of audio enthusiasts in Melbourne that pooled their knowledge and experience to build and develop audio projects that include loudspeakers, tube amplifiers, SuperClock, Power Supply, HDAM module, and DACs, has announced their PI-100 amplifier ($840 in bare non-power transformer version or $1010 complete). This 75 watt per channel integrated stereo unit has no ICs within its signal path and a design philosophy that included the desire for discrete circuitry. The design of the PI-100 took BursonAudio over twelve months and has no coupling and decoupling capacitors between amplification stages, which are said to introduces coloration while limiting dynamic range. This includes using only discrete regulation while they also refused to ise ICs as found in chip-based digital and Class D amplification. The BursonAudio PI-100 features three sets of relay base RCA inputs, fully optimized discrete power supply with 40.000 uf Audio grade NOVA power capacitors, fully discrete voltage gain stage, and closely matched power transistor group for current gain stage. There are three stereo inputs, volume control, two sets of loudspeaker outputs, and the case is made from non-magnetic polished aluminum. Specifications include a frequency response from 10Hz to 120kHz (+-3dB), signal to noise of 96dB, and overall weight of 28 lbs.

 

A look back at news from... January 25, 1999

As first seen world-wide on the Enjoy the Music.com Milan Show report, just hitting the American shores is their new Audio Note Zero system. The Audio Note DAC Zero ($699) uses a 24-bit/96kHz DAC-Zero processor. The analog uses a single 6111WA miniature valve which is claimed to last approximately 100,000 hours! The matching transport ($799) as seen on top includes a wireless remote control and offers a 75 ohm digital output.  Matching structure is the M-Zero line level pre-amp. The M Zero preamplifier ($599) as seen in the middle also uses the 6111 WA tube and offers four inputs plus a tape out. Two sets of preamplifier output are included for bi-amplification. The bottom pieces are the  P Zero monoblock power amplifiers ($1,199 pair) uses two ECL882 tubes per unit for a total output of 8 watts.

 

02 / 01 / 07

  Enjoy the Music.com has polished off our CES / THE Show reports and have new issues of both the Review Magazine and Superior Audio online. Our Review Magazine features the McIntosh MS300 music server & C220 preamplifier, Stax SRS-4040II system with SRM-006tII vacuum tube output driver plus revisits of the Axiom Audio Millennia M3Ti loudspeaker, Manley Labs' Steelhead phonostage/preamplifier, and Marchand Electronics' XM-44 active crossover. Superior Audio presents three mega-dollar reference loudspeakers; Triangle's Magellan Concerto sw2, older Magellans, and Focal.JMlab's Grande Utopia Be, all of which are reviewed by Alvin Gold. With a grand total well in excess of $130,000, we let you decide which is truly the ultimate loudspeaker!

 

A look back at news from... January 24, 2000
An all new tube is now being offered by Alesa Vaic Vacuum Technology (AVVT). Their new AV 2A3M is a Mesh Version of their AV 2A3. These new mesh plates are not made of nickel wire. All electrical properties are claimed to be identical to normal 2A3 tubes and each AV 2A3M includes a 5 year warranty when ordered via official distributors. The new tube also features AVVT's parallel ribbon filaments with sixteen flat surfaces, "anti-microphonic suspension" in tube top, ceramic UX4 socket with gold plated pins and is only available in C37 shaped glass. No US pricing given.

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