by Sandy Greene, Mar 16 '07
It’s great writing reviews for SonicFlare. The exposure allows me access to some really fantastic gear. And the publisher’s (Hey, Josh!) preferred slant towards system reviews aligns with my preferred way of putting reviews together. I have three very cool systems shaping up that I just couldn’t wait to tell you about…
I'm very excited by what I'm hearing in a system built with a Mac Mini as source, feeding the Hagerman Chime DAC to the Kore-Eda pre and amp driving the AudioNote An-E/Lx speakers. Quite a mish-mosh aesthetically... all different sized boxes of different materials, but with quite a decent synergy between the amps and speakers. The Mac Mini is storing music captured from CD on iTunes with the Apple Lossless codec feeding the Hagerman Chime DAC via USB. I am amazed at how that "source" is blowing away just about every other stand-along CD player I have used in the last few years. The Chime DAC is really working some magic. The convenience and flexibility of using a Mac as a source is unbeatable. I should have this system review posted in a couple of months.
The next system assembling will be at the other extreme aesthetic- and composition-wise. An all-silver Resolution Audio Opus stack feeding the new maple Verity Audio Rienzi loudspeakers. A very robust system with a very well reviewed CD player, headphone amp, AM/FM tuner, MM & MC phono stages, and even multiple digital inputs (for that Squeezebox). All aesthetically, sonically and functionally matched. I’ve reviewed the Verity Audio Tamino’s in the past and the Rienzi’s are their new next step up. The Tamino’s blew me away. Verity has such a great reputation and has always sounded amazing to me. I am really looking forward to reviewing this system.
Last but not least… when the new Gemme Audio Tanto's arrive, the Monarchy Audio SE-250's will do the powering. Gemme’s new VFlex technology claims lower-than 20hz output from what is a very compact 2-way in beautiful looking cabinet. Below 20hz?… we’ll see (or hear) about that.
Sidebar... recently bought new music: latest Shins, Decemberists and Arcade Fire. Some new music I eagerly await: the new Kings of Leon album and the latest LCD Soundsystem.
The Mac-Chime system review is something to look forward to. An interesting addition to the review would be to substitute a PC for the Mac Mini. Not as elegant as the Mac Mini, but the difference in sound may be illuminating. I notice a flattening in the sound between WAV and FLAC lossless encoding. The Cowboy Junkies recording of Mining For Gold on their first Trinity Session CD is a good example using Foobar 2000 with ASIO4All as the player. The room echoes are missing in action using FLAC. Now Maximum PC in the April 2007 issue (pg 22) chimes in stating that the Apple Lossless codec sounds worse than FLAC. It would be a shame to hobble an otherwise excellent system with inferior recordings.
Posted by: Wayne at March 19, 2007 1:36 PM
RSS