Peachtree Decco hybrid integrated amp/DAC
Manufacturer: Peachtree Audio
Country of origin: Designed in the USA, made in China
Website: signalpathint.com
Price: $799

WHAT AND WHY:

It’s fun to review big $30,000 speakers and amps. Back on Earth however, most people find $3000 a lot to spend on anything audio, and fewer want to turn their living room into Stonehenge with space heaters. Additionally, mp3s, typically about 1/10th the size of the original CD track with the attendant fidelity penalty, are fine with just about everyone.

To which I reply, like the lost bits of an mp3, you don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve heard better. If I’m talking to a music lover, I have their attention at this point. ‘You see, there’s these $3000 speakers you could buy that….’ And now they’re gone, probably forever, from the turn-on that really good sounding music produces.

What we need are some low cost, easy to use components that look and sound good. On ramps to true high fidelity. How about a DAC/tubed preamp/solid state amp combo for $799. But wait, there’s more! A USB input for the growing number of computer-based systems, a headphone jack, and a small and stylish remote with power on, source switching and volume control. Add in coaxial and digital inputs along with two analog inputs and you’ve got a box that it is plug ‘n play with a variety of components – a tubed audio Swiss army knife. There’s also a button on the back for a 5db bass boost below 55hz, a great feature for the small speakers the Decco is likely to be used with. Add a pair of $600 speakers and cables, and for under $1500 bucks you’re there. I can sell the Peachtree Decco to the uninitiated.

The rounded corners of the chassis give contribute to the Decco’s sleek, contemporary look along with the uncluttered brushed metal faceplate. No bewildering array of switches and dials befitting a reactor control panel, rather a clean layout that promotes a sensible left to right operational flow. Push the power switch, move over to the small source selection buttons and then to the big volume knob. A small IR receiver and a headphone jack complete the coherent look of circles on the faceplate, broken only by a rectangular window behind which is the tube. A soft start mechanism slowly brings the tube to life upon powering up. When the tube is ready, a yellow LED underlights it, giving it a nice glow but has function as well. Upon power up, the motorized volume control returns to zero and can’t be moved until the tube is warmed up. A yellow light means go here, you can now up the volume via the dial or remote. This is a useful safety feature – your speakers won’t blast to life when the tube comes online.

Two operational quirks. One is that the unit defaults to the USB input when you turn it on. Fine if a computer is your main source but irritating otherwise. Number two: the remote has a fairly narrow operating ‘cone’. You’ve got to be within forty-five degrees or so of the IR receiver for it to work.

Browsing the Peachtree website furthers the notion that the company gets their intended market. Cutting through the perceived (and not unfounded) complication that music listening has become for many are clear instructions with actual photos of hookups instead of hieroglyphic-like diagrams decipherable only to those who don’t need them. Hooking up an iPod? – you’re covered. Same goes for your computer, Squeezebox, Apple TV or Sonos receiver.

Speaking of the Sonos, pop a couple of screws in the Decco’s back to remove a panel, and you’ve got space to cleanly insert a ZP80 receiver, turning your two piece system into a seeming one (elegant) box solution. As a non-Sonos user, I’d prefer they skipped the space inside the chassis and simply shrunk the whole unit. In places such as my office or bedroom, I appreciate the low key and easy-to-place nature of small chassis components. The Decco is roughly the size of a standard receiver.

SOUNDS GREAT BUT HOW’S IT SOUND?

Smooth, musical and, uh, smooth. The website notes how lossy formats such as mp3 and AAC can sound hard and etched. The Decco has clearly been voiced to take the edge off highly compressed codecs. The result is an always engaging listen, but leading edges of notes are a bit soft and the presentation lacks lockdown precision. Still, the Decco is an easy recommendation for anyone looking for versatile, hassle-free good sound in an attractive box.

The closest competitor I had on hand was a $995 Nuforce IA-7v.1 integrated. For two hundred bucks less, the Decco gives you a DAC and headphone amp, so it’s an inexact though fair enough comparison.

The IA-7 gives me what I was missing from the Decco, namely a sharper, snappier presentation; but sounds awful dry by comparison. I simply enjoyed music more through the Decco.

WHAT’S DOING WHAT?

DAC/tube preamp/solid state amp – in an attempt to evaluate the quality of each section I employed several different hookups. With monitor-sized speakers as the Decco’s likely mates, I auditioned primarily with the Guru QM10s ($2495) though pinch hitters included Amphion Ions ($1395) and Era Design 4s ($600). The Decco, to its credit, did not level the playing field – superior and more expensive speakers sounded as such. In a Decco-based system, you can upgrade your speakers and likely reap the benefits. Just stick to reasonably efficient designs given the 50wpc rating of the unit.

I evaluated the DAC section by hooking both the digital coaxial and analog outs of a Squeezebox to the Decco. This essentially pitted the Decco DAC vs. the Squeezebox’s internal DAC. A $300 streaming receiver/DAC vs. an $799 DAC/preamp/amp is a legit comparison. Since the Squeezebox can simultaneously output a digital and analog signal and the Decco’s remote provides source switching, I would play a track and flop back and forth between the coax input and the analog input I was using, the Decco’s DAC and Squeezebox’s DAC.

Longish paragraph yields short conclusion – I heard little difference between the DACs. Perhaps a slightly more open and clean presentation via the Decco, but noticeable only if you’re inclined to sit around and listen for it. When listening to music, it’s a wash and not the reason to buy a Decco is you have a Squeezebox. For SB owners, think of the Decco as simply a good integrated amp to pair with it.

Sound improved a bit when I hooked up my $2000 Cary 303/200 CD player/DAC (fed by the digital out of a Squeezebox). Good news really: as with speakers though not as dramatically, the Decco’s pre- and amplifier sections are up to the task of differentiating good and excellent. What I glean from this abetted by some testing further down the column is that the Decco’s DAC is quite good at its price point and adequate for most systems it’s likely to be used in.

Briefly hooking my iMac to the Decoo via USB yielded the same appealing smoothness heard with other sources. If you running a computer based system, the Decco provides simplicity (just add speakers) and good boom for the buck at $799.

As noted, main gripe with the Decco’s perfromance was its softening of detail which contributed to a lack of snap in the presentation. Using the handy preamp outs which could also accommodate a subwoofer, I attached an $800/pair set of Llano Mini-Mono solid state amps that put out 50 watts of mostly Class A power. The result? A clear gain in dynamics, focus, and speed – the music sounded both more powerful and lighter on its feet.

Shocking news: adding amps that cost as much as the whole Decco package significantly improves performance. Leave it to reviewers to provide such illumination. Weak link is not the term amidst a good looking and sounding DAC/tube preamp/amp/headphone amp with stylish, full function remote, digital and analog inputs, and a preamp out for only $799, but, I’d identify the amp section as not quite up to speed with the DAC and preamp. The takeaway, though, is that the Decco can grow with you. It will reward an upgrade of speakers, and adding an outboard amp can take you even further. The DAC and preamp are not limiters as you go up a rung or two on the quality ladder.

As a very infrequent headphone user, I can simply say that my Grado SR60s and Etymotic ER4s both sounded much better through the Decco than an iPod. Once again, leave it to reviewers to provide such illumination.

A clear winner however, is the 5db bass boost switch. I engaged it for the Ions and Eras, gaining extension, weight, funk and groove while losing nothing. Few small speakers likely to be used in a Decco system won’t benefit from a little electronic fill-in below 55hz.

ALTERNATIVES

Can you do better for $799? Possiblities include the Outlaw RR2150 receiver ($699) which has more limited digital connection options (USB only), though more power. Being entirely solid state, it will likely have a different sonic flavor. The Outlaw stuff I’ve heard is good value.

$200 dollars more gets you the Music Hall Maven – more power, capable of running two sets of speakers, but no USB input or headphone jack. As with Outlaw, Music Hall makes good value components.

Another way to go would be to get a cheap but good digital amp and power supply like a KingRex ($410) and a UD-01 USB DAC ($190). This would leave you a touch of extra cash for speakers, which generally reward greater expenditure more than other components. Downsides to this approach include no remote, lower power, and very limited connectivity. This is a hardcore audiophile solution, viable for those who value sound quality almost to the exclusion of flexibility and convenience.

CONCLUSION

The industry needs more products like the Decco that provide reasonably priced, attractive and easy to use entre into high quality sound. With its flexible connection options and unusual-at-its-pricepoint tube preamp, the Decco is a unique product that deserves to succeed. It’s at home anywhere in your house – living room, bedroom, office; wherever. Like it says on the box of the thoughtfully provided replacement tube, ‘Who’s your buddy?’

ModWright Truth Transporter

Manufacturer: ModWright Instruments

Country of origin: Washington, USA

Model Name: Truth Transporter

Interfaced with: Dan Wright, President & owner

Contact: Dan Wright, modwright@yahoo.com

Additional comments: Dan is a stand-up guy, who really cares for every single customer.  You can always find him over at AudioCircle or better yet, send him an email

Introduction

Accolades upon accolades… Dan Wright ought to be proud of his achievements.  It was only a short five years ago that I first heard of “ModWright” and the company’s charming, quiet, yet impulsive front man.  No, I am not speaking of some long-gone boy band either: this is the real McCoy, the real deal.  You see, Dan new that growing his business from “mod” only status to a real-world meat and potatoes kind of company would take diligence, time and hard work. 

No surprise then that in those five short years Dan accomplished just that: going from one man show to full on business owner with employees, a production line and real world R&D with distribution growing to reach the far corners of the globe.  No more evident was this determination, nay, obsession, to be just that than during the previous month’s Munich High-End show when I had a chance to catch up with Dan, share some thoughts, laughs and beers.  Make no mistake about it, I have no doubt whatsoever that Dan and his business will one day step into the footsteps of such greats as the original Mark Levinson gear, C-J, Audio Research, E.A.R. and others. 

Slimserver, not Slimfast

So what’s this latest hoopla all about than?  Simple: the audio world finally caught up to my predictions of those same five years ago and now is embracing in ever increasing numbers music servers as their source of choice.  Of these music servers, Slimdevices’ Transporter has in fact quickly established itself as leader of the pack, ruler of them all.  The reasons are simple as they are genius: relying on an open source operating system, Slimdevices utilizes a no frills, less is more approach to serving your music.  Instead of relying on a complex (and expensive) self-sustaining eco system, anyone can feel at home with Transporter’s simple to use interface.  Let’s face it, what happens to all these proprietary interfaces with Apple’s release of iTunes 9?  Or 10?  Or 11?  Can you say bye-bye?

Forgoing a complex (and expensive) GUI, that’s graphical user interface to those of you still figuring out what “left-click” and “right-click” mean, Transporter can be up and running in a jiffy.  You install the control software on your desktop, mobile computer or specialized NAS drive (a few are compatible) and dive head first into the world of streaming audio.  iPod pimped.  Audi R8 vs. Mazda Miata.  No kidding, Transporter in stock form already sounds quite good actually, see my review of it right here. 

$30k vs. $3600

What was I to expect of the ultimate Transporter, modified by Dan Wright?  That answer came preemptively in form of fellow colleague’s Srajan Ebaen’s laudable 6moons gushing review: comparing Truth TP to Alex Peychev’s (another modder with accolades out the wazoo) ca. $30k (!) ultimate reference Esoteric UX-1 player is not something you should do with a light hand, unless you have the credibility and resulting oompf behind your name.  Srajan happens to have both in spades so when he proclaimed the Truth TP to be within smidgens of the Über-machine, fancy disc-clamping 6k OEM mechanism and all, eyes, more importantly, heads were rolling.  I’d say.  You think?  Come again?

Let’s recap: the stock Transporter’s much acclaimed fame lies in the heart of AKM’s 24bit miracle DAC’s with a Walt Jung designed regulated power supply.  Add Sean Adam’s (Slimdevices chief scientific guru) meticulous finishing touches and voila, you have yourself a bona fide, cat walking superstar.  Indeed, so impressive is the stock Transporter that none other than John Atkinson, Stereophile’s captain fantastic, has one in his system 24/7.  What’s not to like?  Fidelity comparable to much higher priced premium CD players, 24/96 playback capabilities without a so-silly, it’s plain old stupid data disc as a foundation; Transporter simply works. 

Dan Wright’s haute-couture handiwork treatment of the Transporter leaves all which makes the stock unit sound so good in tact.  What he does add, are exactly the ingredients, which have made Dan so famous in first place: a twin-tube output stage with tube rectified power supply.  Sounds easy enough, though mucho credit and cojones needs to be given to Dan for incorporating such trickery into the stock unit’s slim line case and design.  That’s right, no outboard box to add on: it all fits nicely, albeit tight and snug inside the Transporter. 

Tubes and more...

Pundits may of course cry foul, after all, Dan’s Truth modified (and so passé looking) disc players always carried outboard boxes, alas, Dan’s the man, so if he says the Truth Transporter actually outperforms his previous creations, one box solution and all, I believe him.  It would appear that most everyone interested in jumping on board does too, as Dan tells me that he has effectively been backordered with units since announcing them formally in January of this year.  Wow.  Considering that Dan now employs several technicians to manufacture his wares, that’s saying something.

The Truth Transporter in essence becomes a digital hub: it’s really three units in one.  First, the Truth TP is of course a networked audio streaming device; second, it can be used as a DAC for most any type of digital device up to 24/96; third, it is the world’s most fully featured online radio player.  The Truth modifications are of course totally transparent to the user, ie. you won’t be doing anything different regarding setup, use or control of this digital jewel. 

In my case, I have configured Truth TP to run Squeezecenter 7 off my 2007 MacBook, accessing files through my NAS drive, attached to my Apple AirPort Extreme.  In case you wondered, Truth TP is run via 802.11g, thus, even though our Mac’s all run off the faster N network, APE is configured to run in mixed mode, ie. G & N.  No harm, no foul, haven’t had one hiccup ever even when streaming high-res 24/96 uncompressed wave files.  All those who claim that 802.11g is not sufficient for such data throughput beware: all other things being equal and you have everything properly configured with reasonable signal strength, this is nonsense!

LAME is not lame

Now those files.  As many of you know, I have written about and conducted extensive listening tests to conclude that in fact mp3’s sound damn good and in cases can even sound better than the equivalent compact disc, if encoded using LAME’s latest encoder at 320kps.  I have further concluded that what most people hear as differences in sound quality between the various file formats is in fact the encoding/decoding engine itself, not the digital playback unit, all other things being equal.  Thus, in order to eliminate and minimize this guessing game, I have only the original wave file and appropriate LAME mp3 file on my NAS drive.  Ripping is accomplished through Poikosoft’s absolutely awesome all-in-one software, configured to run with error correction enabled.  The results speak for themselves: using the latest version, 11.5, a neat error display and check-sum error reader reveal zero errors on most my rips.  You won’t find a better app than this, considering you get a lifetime’s worth of free upgrades when making the full purchase.

Evaluating the Truth TP on the merits of sound was a bit of a challenge, I have to admit.  It is not merely good, it’s outstanding, having the sort of quality you expect from a digital reference.  Reference.  My current digital reference is the stupendously good LessLoss DAC 2004, which, when fed data from its transport companion, the beltdriven CEC TL-X51, has the sort of sound you’d be hard pressed to find only a few short years ago at any price, let alone roughly the current ca. $6k asking price ($4400 for LessLoss DAC 2004 + around $1500 for the CEC).  Believe me when I say that the LessLoss / CEC combo plays well north of its asking price, having favorably compared it to the emmlabs one box unit, as well as Esoteric’s stock UX-1 player.  That’s saying something.  Meanwhile Truth Transporter (when supplied from Dan directly) rakes in at $3600.  Folks, that’s downright cheap. 

Having run the Truth Transporter a good hundred or so hours, its qualities immediately became clear: what you have here is a highly resolving, dynamically extended, razor sharp focused digital slayer.  A pretty dramatic difference compared to the stock player, which whilst setting the foundation for the above qualities merely only hints at them.  1:0 for the Truth TP then.  If you are truly bitten by the audio virus, sending your stock unit in for the upgrade is a no brainer, as it will be followed by ever-higher levels of audio nirvana. 

LessLoss & Truth Transporter... very fine indeed

Comparing Truth TP to my current digital reference, the aforementioned LessLoss DAC 2004 & CEC transport proved to be a much more difficult task as both players already are of such high quality that it really boils down to personal preferences.  Where the LL / CEC combo has the slightly more cooler presentation, evident when playing say Mel Tormé’s Swingin’ On The Moon, where Mel’s vocals are just a hair more present, though in absolute terms, richer and more vibrant sounding via the Truth TP.  Running the Gladiator soundtrack proved equally interesting to compare.  Here, rich orchestral passages and an overall bombastic approach to engineering and recording prove similarly that both Truth TP and LL/CEC are on equal but ever so slightly different footing.  Where Dan’s Truth serum gives the more dominant and present sonic aura, the LessLoss combo offer up a bit more sturm & drang; while in the lower registers Truth TP is ever so slightly more articulate in bass definition.  It’s ping and pong, ying and yang.  Our very own SonicCircle would pin it right along the Vivid lines.  Considering that the stock Transporter fell into the Refined category, this if nothing else demonstrates the dramatic change Transporter incurs upon Dan Wright’s Truth injection.

However you wish to read or interpret my findings, keep in mind that all these minute difference are only as prevalent as the rest of your chain allows for.  These differences went from being clear and present to “wait a minute, was that someone knocking?” dependent upon what amp was used in the final stages (no doubt adding different pre-amps would have perhaps even further compounded these differences, alas, I only have one pre-amp on hand).  Currently, my reference transparency and resolution meter is my ca. mid nineties Threshold T400 amp, which, all other things being equal, is the most neutral and transparent amp I have in my system driving the Zu Presence & Definition 2 speakers.  Replacing the mighty Threshold with the newly arrived Trafomatic Audio Experience Two (review in Positive –Feedback Online forthcoming), changed the perspectives altogether.  Whereas the Threshold allows me to hear these differences rather quickly, ET makes these differences much more difficult to spot (this amp is killer by the way, perhaps the most vocal friendly I have yet auditioned in my system). 

Convenience is where it's at...

We arrive at the following penultimate conclusion: Truth Transporter plays in the big league sonically (say players $10k and up), but absolutely kills when you factor in the magic of convenience, at its $3600 asking price no less.  Playing disc after disc is passé – selecting tracks from different albums in an instant is what music servers are all about.  Playlists?  Got’em.  Random play of 500 albums?  Check.  No disc player (I don’t care how good it is) can ever hope to achieve that goal.  In addition to the benefits derived from this convenience, playing back files off a hard drive is in my opinion superior to reading those same bits off the disc through a disc transport.  $6K Esoteric OEM disc clamping mechanism and all, Poikosoft and hard drive will do better.  A recent thread on AudioAsylum has Gordon Rankin posting of his latest experiences playing back digital files via his MacBook (converted to solid-state hard drive) and USB.  Supposedly this is the best transport he has heard thus far. 

Being that Truth Transporter serves its music off hard drives, it stands to reason that following Gordon’s lead of using solid state drives would probably yield even more benefits, compared to whirling and spinning (really, really, really quickly!) magnetic drives of today.  Problem is that SS discs are Über-expensive, not to mention rather severely limited in capacity.  A quick peek to Apple.com reveals a solid state priced MacBook Air to ring in at a tad more than $3k, vs. $1800 for the “normal” version.  I suspect that in two to three years time we will be looking at reasonably priced terabyte solid state drives going for acceptable dollars and senses.

Thus, we are at a cool 2:0 for Truth Transporter.  Can we go for 3?  Let’s see, how does access to over 6500 online radio stations sound?  Let’s recap: these online radio stations are streaming music at anywhere from 32k to 192k lossy encoded mp3 files.  Typically, I’d say that to enjoy any kind of fidelity, mp3 files should be encoded at the very least with128k.  Before you skip this part thinking that 128k mp3’s sound lame, I ask that you read my article published at Positive-Feedback Online regarding my experiments with the LAME encoder.

Online Radio - way cool!

Mind you, it is at this point wishful thinking to assume that most stations you would be interested in listening to actually offer a sublime streaming experience.  Much like FM, there are lots of choices for radio stations to serve their wares.  Unlike most FM stations however, there are some which sound truly outstanding, far superior to anything XM could offer, fancy Magnum Dynalab tuner and all (obviously not the fault of MD, rather the lousy “HD” experience XM offers).  Take for example LA’s last remaining classical station, KUSC.  Streamed at 96k mp3, it absolutely kills the FM equivalent in terms of dynamics, definition and overall quality.  Or try one of my top favorites, Soma FM’s Groove Salad.  Chilled and grilled down tempo tunes streamed at 128k, which sound superb if you are into that sort of genre. 

Then there are of course myriads of international world music stations.  At the flick of my wrist, I have access to Serbian music, my favorite Austrian pop standards, or the quirky cool Virgin Radio morning show, streamed live from London.  Care for music from Pakistan or Sri-Lanka?  No problemo Sir, it’s all right then and there.  As predicted, 3:0 for Truth Transporter.

The Big Bang...

We finally arrive at my concluding remarks.  Truth Transporter is perhaps the ultimate digital boy-wonder toy box.  Sonically, it plays right up there with the best of what I have heard in my system, except for the fact that it actually costs far less than any of them.  If internet postings are anything to go by, Truth Transporter has replaced many a high-end disc transporter including such marques as Burmeister, not to mention far less costlier ones.  Regarding USB vs. FireWire vs. 802.11g vs. S/PDIF I would caution you not to jump to conclusion all too quickly.  I think that there is a ton of stuff going on there we are simply unaware of and much which I am aware of, like for example the sonic impact a decoder has on the encoded signal.  Patience, patience, there’s lot’s more to discover.

The real kicker of course is the term convenience.  Convenience is something you simply have to try for yourself, though I assure you, once you’ve been bitten by the bug, getting up to play a disc will not come easy.  Been there, done that, now drink the cool-aid.  Convenience as in you download the latest NIN album as a 24/96 wave file, place it into your music folder and press play.  Voila, the best NIN sound Trent Reznor could hope for, all delivered wirelessly without any sort of configuring at your loudspeakers.  This, friends, is way, way cool.  Physical medium?  Sure, vinyl is my name.  Otherwise, welcome to the 21^st century!

The “EHO” made by Serbia’s latest entry into the world of high-end audio, Trafomatic Audio, is billed as a reference quality headphone amplifier.  Sasa Cockic, Trafomatic’s President and residing fidelity genius says that the EHO is in principal based on the successful design implementations of the Experience series.  “Fantastic” I said and immediately requested a review sample – considering Sasa was already sending me his Experience Two 300B amplifier (to be reviewed at PFO), this was a no brainer. 

The “little” EHO headphone amp arrived just in time to overlap my pending review of the little STAX 3010 system, thus allowing me for quick one-two punches between both camps: that’s right, the STAX system will face the EHO & AKG 701 pair which translates to about roughly the same price point, peaches for peaches, nuts for pounds.  While the STAX system is indeed something magical, AKG’s latest cans which have garnered up impressive reviews by the who’s who of the higher fidelity reviewing community, never quite seemed to “do” it for me.  Before sending me a barrage of emails inquiring if I had burned them in long enough (they do require at least 500 hours in my humble opinion), etc. let me make it clear that up until now I have been missing a proper amplifier to drive them – hence my request to review Mr. EHO from Serbia. 

The great unknowns, the mysteries of two-channel headphone nirvana could yet be unraveled by this combo – stay tuned for my findings just as soon as I have enough time with this power-pack.  Cheers for now!

Count Zeppelin would be amazed at the latest iPod/iPhone speaker system designed by the fine folks at Bowers & Wilkins.  No, the B&W Zeppelin iPod/iPhone speaker system doesn’t fly, but it does provide superb fidelity for such a small and genuinely fresh styled package.  Who would have thought that a company synonymous with premium fidelity loudspeakers would dive head first into the world of iPod?  The answer to that question lies in the shear penetration iPod/iPhone have been able to attain over the last couple of years (150+ million and counting).  Knowing full well that many audiophiles have iPod’s as all-round music players and often want and need a secondary or tertiary music system, B&W went on to capitalize on the iPod phenomenon in a cool, Zeppelin sort of way.

Premium iPod boom boxes are of course nothing new: to the contrary, most every mainstream audio company has something to offer: JBL, Klipsch, Polk, Bose, heck even Apple have their very own premium boom box implementation, though curiously, Apple’s has been deleted from their catalog some time ago.  When Apple introduced their $349 Hi-Fi speaker system in 2006, it quickly established itself as the setup to beat: it was rather big and boxy, ran on either AC or batteries and clad in all white, looked like a true Apple product.  Sound wise, it was nothing to sneeze at either, though of course you can’t expect miracles from such a small system – or can you?

Enter B&W’s $599 Zeppelin: styled like a Zeppelin, the casing is truly first rate and the choice of materials oozes quality and grand workmanship.  Don’t be fooled: this isn’t just another iPod boombox you’ll see advertised on late night TV.  Naturally, the Zeppelin is packed full with proprietary B&W technology, which coming from the company that has such a prolific history in designing world-class loudspeaker systems is saying quite a lot actually.  After all, who can forget such ground breaking designs as the famous Nautilus or the 800 series of loudspeakers, many of which grace today’s most respected music studios. 

To get “real” Hi-Fi experience, B&W employs a total of 5 custom drivers, a DSP engine and a “digital” amplifier, not bad for a design that has fairly modest proportions, measuring about 25 inches in length and weighing in at a respectable 16.5 lbs.  Speaking of the drive units, one would assume these to be some cheap, plastic type’s in order to fit the target price.  Sorry Jack, try again: these are authentic B&W drivers, the main woofer for example featuring a Kevlar reinforced cone, while the tweeters are actually the same alloy dome units found in B&W’s much more expensive and elaborate home audio and stereo speaker systems.  Nicely done! 

The aforementioned superbly constructed cabinet was specifically designed to be as stiff as possible and thus features a sturdy polished stainless steel enclosure.  Apart from the added strength, one added side effect is a truly gorgeous look of the Zeppelin: high-class baby!  Finally, there’s video output (mandated I believe by Apple), a USB input for software updates and such as well as an auxiliary input for external connectivity.  A neat, Zeppelin shaped remote which takes care of all functions completes the beautiful package. 

Zeppelin being the high-tech flagship that it is was designed specifically around the latest generation of iPod’s and iPhone, although it is of course compatible with earlier iPod’s, such as Nano, mini, etc.  I used both my iPhone and iPod mini of the 1^st generation to conduct my listening and usability tests.  Files loaded onto my pods where mostly 320kps LAME encoded mp3’s, though I did have a few lossless files on my iPhone as well. 

If all stereos where as simple to setup and use as Zeppelin, we’d be breaking down new walls and frontiers: plug your iPod into the gorgeous looking pedestal and the unit powers itself on.  A flick of the remote quickly adjusts playback volume and that’s pretty much it: off you go er, fly!  Of all iPod speaker systems on the market that I am familiar with, Zeppelin immediately struck me as being the best and most natural sounding - by a long shot.  The typical tinny, undefined, cheap sound inherent in most of these ultra mass market manufactured systems was replaced by well defined, full range Hi-Fi sound.  Simply unbelievable what B&W has created here!  Bass output is taught, firm and plentiful; the critical midrange well defined, and the highs extended, yet never harsh or piercing.

Playing a variety of material, from Frank Sinatra to Yello; Shostakovich and Led Zeppelin (‘come on now, you can’t help it: Zeppelin on Zeppelin rocks!), B&W’s Zeppelin never blinked an eye and always offered the best possible sound from such a small and convenient form factor.  Ultimate loudness, ie. overall volume level was downright frightening, what with the 50w bass amp pumping out clean lows to way louder levels than most would care for.  I used Zeppelin in my main music room as well as next to my bed and our kitchen.  Never once did I feel as though Zeppelin couldn’t do the job, or that bigger guns were needed.  Simply outstanding!

Mind you, all the whiz-bang technology B&W managed to pack into Zeppelin won’t replace a true, proper high-fidelity system, much less something in B&W’s own 800 series.  You can’t defy physics.  No matter how many times Steve Jobs claimed exactly that (with the introduction of Apple Hi-Fi in 06’), a big speaker system fed by proper electronics will undoubtedly create a whole new experience level when fed by the very same iPod.  While sound is full, engaging and truly welcoming, you never really unravel a true full bandwidth stereo image with real depth for example.  In the end, none of these shortcomings are a fault of Zeppelin: it was never created as a true stereo replacement.

What is truly amazing however, is how cleverly designed Zeppelin really is: particularly when fed by the graphically intensive iPhone, usability is top notch and leaves nothing to be desired.  At $599, Zeppelin takes the crown of all these so-called iPod Hi-Fi systems.  In my opinion it outclasses all others by a wide margin and actually manages to bring across the very essence of Hi-Fi in a small package.  Mine’s on order – what are you waiting for?!

Leben CS-600 Tube Integrated Amplifier

CONCLUSION FIRST

Every once in a blue moon, in music as in life, we are sometimes afforded a rare encounter with something which makes us wonder and re-evaluate our prior experiences and standards. I’m a born skeptic; I don’t believe in ultimatums. There is no “best-ever” in my sliding scale. Proust or Tolstoy? Beethoven or Bach? The Clipse or Mobb Deep? If there are clear answers, life wouldn’t be worth living. Yet there are those rude encounters in life and art which so shatter all our expectations, that they raise a new vanguard. In hi-fi, at least for me, Leben CS-600 ($4995 MSRP; US distributor – Tone Imports) constitutes as that rude encounter.

SONIC CIRCLE SOUND: Vivid

Being a push-pull tube integrated amplifier of limited wattage (28 wpc on EL34 driver tubes/32 wpc on 6L6GC), one might expect it to belong comfortably in the Smooth category in the Sonic Circle. Yet, its surprising dynamic power and clarity combined with the liquid fluidity of tubes place the Leben CS-600 in the Vivid family.

This is one of the instances that the Leben CS-600 subverts your preconceived notions about tube amplifiers. Just as you expect the Smooth tube sound – warm and opulent in decay (i.e. Shindo) – you instead hear tremendous slam, neutrality and transparency. Sure it has the traditional liquid fluidity to the sound, too, but pop in Valery Gergiev’s full-blooded live account of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and the murder in the music – the violently ugly percussion explosions, the terrifying trombone glissandos – confronts you with force and slam that defy reason.

In “Pyramid Song” from Radiohead’s Amnesiac, one of their most poorly recorded albums, many fine integrated amplifiers failed to rein in disparate elements of the song, make the music cohere. But the Leben did so in spades. Thom Yorke’s calm but plaintive voice rose to its falsetto effortlessly, and the hiccupping, off-kilter beats keeping their ungainly 16/8 meter, as well as the ghostly wail of Jonny Greenwood’s Ondes Martenot came together like a miracle, made me lose my sense of time.

Listen to how the Leben replicates the long psychedelic guitar jam in the song “Baltimore” from Stephen Malkmus’s new Real Emotional Trash. The sly thrumming of Janet Weiss’s drums in “Hopscotch Willie” coming alive from the same album. Classical, jazz, hip-hop, electronica, rock… it didn’t matter. Any music I played through the Leben CS-600 sounded like its most transparently honest version. It made me follow every melodic line, harmonic progressions, with a kind of fanaticism that felt obsessive and pleasurable at the same time. No added sugar. No preservatives. I heard music at its most luminous capacity. 

Leben CS-600 also has a reputation for having an excellent headphone-out, so I decided to test it extensively, using AKG-701 and Sennheiser PXC-450 headphones. The Leben relays the music from the output transformers straight to the headphone-out. I am far from being a headphone aficionado, but I do a fair amount of listening through my headphones, the AKG-701s especially, as I live in a small apartment in Manhattan. Through the Leben, the AKGs’ bass response gained a sonorous depth; the pronounced treble response of the AKGs, which frequently led to listening fatigue, lost none of its clarity while gaining a warmer resonance which eliminated fatigue. As mentioned, I am not a headphone-intensive listener, but in my experience of auditioning headphone amps with my AKG-701s, no other head amp had made the AKGs sound so full and warm as the Leben did, and “full” and “warm” are not the usual adjectives associated with the AKG-701s. Sennheiser PXC-450 noise-canceling cans, which I use primarily for outdoor listening in subways, sounded remarkably close to Sennheiser HD 650 through the Leben, running passive with noise-canceling turned off: pleasantly bloomy mid-bass and crystalline but slightly rolled-off highs. With both headphones, the soundstage became deeper in dimension through the Leben. Strictly viewed as a headphone amp, Leben’s performance is off the charts. To get the most out of the Leben as a headphone amp, I strongly recommend open cans over the closed ones.

SYSTEM SYNERGY

To be safe, a certain amount of care is needed in matching Leben CS-600 with speakers. One should look for speakers that are reasonably sensitive, that perform nearly level at the stated impedance. That said, the Leben is known to handle difficult speakers with relative ease, despite specs and common knowledge. If there are speakers that you are interested in trying with the Leben but are afraid that they might be difficult loads, I suggest that you try matching them up while auditioning. You might be pleasantly surprised. (Most of the tube amplifier purchasers place undue importance on high sensitivity while shopping for speakers. For example, the Leben effortlessly commands Harbeth Super HL5s, which are rated at a mere 86 db.)

In my tests, Leben CS-600 matched best with Vivid and Smooth speakers. It is fabulous with Vivid Harbeth speakers, and in fact, with most of the BBC monitors; I know a couple of audiophiles who use Spendor SP 2/3e and Rogers LS 3/5 with their Leben CS-600. They swear by this synergy. Although I did not have an opportunity to do so, I suspect that Vivid ProAc speakers would be a great match with Leben, as well.

The Leben also plays beautifully with Smooth speakers; it played up all of Devore Super 8’s musical strengths while adding a welcome muscularity to their Smooth sound. The Smooth Zu Druid Mk IV speakers are an enticing prospect for Leben CS-600; with the Zu’s 101 db sensitivity, the Leben will likely sound like a power-beast. Whether or not you like your amps to sound like power-beasts is strictly your order of preference.

But beware of matching the Leben with Precise and Intense speakers, especially ones that are voiced too “audiophile” style. As mentioned, Leben CS-600 is not your typically warm, dark, tube-y amplifier that will temper the elements in Precise/Intense components. It will rather heighten the inherent Precise/Intense qualities, which will make the system sound too edgy or overly brightened.

I’d also recommend staying away from Emotional speakers, as one of the greatest strengths of Leben CS-600 is the transparency it brings to the music. Some of the Emotional speakers sacrifice a bit of fidelity for added warmth and liveliness. This would distort much of Leben’s ability to relay music honestly.

Likewise, in matching front-end components, I’d advise to stay with Vivid and Smooth groups and avoid Precise/Intense/Emotional. As far as cabling is concerned, I recommend cables and interconnects that are just a touch on the warm side of neutral. I’ve personally had great results with Cardas.

Holistically speaking, one should ideally build a system around the CS-600 that is slightly on the warm side of neutral, without losing precision and fidelity. This may prove trickier in practice than in theory. But it’s a tightrope-walk that will pay immense dividends when the system is completely built.

TECH TALK

One of the few disappointments I’d experienced with Leben CS-600 was a certain brightness I detected in the treble, especially in the brassy passages in orchestral and jazz music. At first, I attributed that slight harshness to the amplifier itself, but it turns out that the brightness was caused by the stock Sovtek 6L6GC driver tubes. I replaced the Sovteks with Winged C 6L6GC tubes, and the brightness disappeared completely, and the sound became lush all the while maintaining its impeccable balance and punch.

The design of Leben CS-600 is ingenious. It is a push-pull design, but the designer Taku Hyodo, who is considered one of the true masters of tube amp designers in Japan, if not in the world, designed the CS-600 so that only a single pair of power tubes is used per channel: the best path to purity is the simplest path.

For the tube-rollers, there are cathode resistor and plate switches which can be toggled in various combinations to allow for a wide array of driver tubes. You can use most of the 6L6 and EL34/6CA7 families of tubes. If you are fine with keeping the top cover off, you can tube-roll with even more variety of tubes, such as KT-88s, 350Bs, etc. (should a wad of cash fall from the sky and land on my head, I would like to try Western Electric 350Bs in Leben CS-600.)

Merely switching out the stock Sovteks with Winged C 6L6GCs or EL34s will make the Leben sound $1K above its price, in my opinion. Then just imagine how the CS-600 responds to the various NOS tubes! With its incredible versatility, you can fine-tune Leben CS-600 to virtually your exact preference. As for me, I prefer using 6L6GC tubes over EL34s. With EL34, the sound is more typically tube-y: very lush in the midrange, bloomy bass, and the treble and the mids presented forward. The music becomes very extroverted with an intoxicating midrange. But it comes at the cost of losing some of the detail and balance of the music (this may not be the case with NOS EL34s like the Mullards). With the kinds of music I listen to, I found 6L6GC tubes more to my liking.

FINAL THOUGHTS

For an integrated amplifier, Leben CS-600 is relatively pricy at $4995, especially because of the weak dollar. It’s obviously impossible to recommend the Leben to a novice audiophile strapped for cash, but for those discriminating listeners who are willing to pursue the best from their music, I can make this recommendation without the slightest hesitation. Those days are long gone when integrated amplifiers were looked upon as a poor-man’s solution to getting into mid-fi, forgoing the route of separates. The market is now rife with no-compromises $10K+ integrated amplifiers which purportedly offer performance commensurate with the separates. In comparison with such models, then, Leben CS-600 is a clear and relative bargain. The music from a system centered by Leben CS-600 will sound truthful, honestly powerful, and beguiling in beauty of tone. It will best and out-perform systems consisting of separates costing many times more.

On a personal note, I remember shopping for audio gear with my father when I was a kid. He would lift each equipment to gauge its heaviness. He told me that generally, heaviness equaled quality. Of course that’s superstitious rubbish, but somehow, his remark had stayed with me all through these years. Lifting up the Leben CS-600, I almost strained my back. I couldn’t believe how heavy it was, and I immediately thought of my father’s pseudo-scientific comments.

Perhaps other users will have a similar experience with the Leben, will be transported to the past. Even before turning on the amp for music, most people will be smitten with its looks: its faceplate in a luxuriously golden matte, highlighted by the gleaming golden knobs, the two thin strips of aqua-blue serving as upper and lower borders of the faceplate. The rosy wood side panels made of real Canadian white ash. The fit and finish of this amplifier is simply not of this era, and hearkens back to the times when style meant something more substantive than “skimpy minimalism.” To the lost times when things were meant and built to last.

Leben CS-600 achieves a flawless harmony of form and function, in which the visual aesthetics perfectly reflects the musical performance. The CS-600 is an integrated amplifier which will not prove easy to replace for an upgrade, and qualifies without reservation as an exit-level component. At least in my system, as I suspect in many others, it will stay put for many years: Leben CS-600 is a classic, today.

Background

The nature of music reproduction is changing. Many old-school audiophiles lament the slow decline of companies who produce primarily large, impressive living room stereo systems. They wax about days when a decent hi-fi system was a necessary ticket to enter society. They spill ink and tears over the death of an industry. The audiophile industry, if the growing number of national trade shows and high-end dealerships are any indication, seems to being doing just fine. Somewhere these music lovers have missed the boat.

Americans, on the whole, are listening to more music than ever. Music has become a part of people’s lives – in the car, in the office, on the train, etc. Music is no longer an event to many people; it’s just something that accompanies them from place to place and task to task. Music, to many, has lost the majesty it once enjoyed as the focal point of a living room, or an evening. Many of these people just don’t know what they’re missing.

Believe it or not, the solution to both of these problems lies in the same product: high quality portable headphones. Surprise! That’s just what I have here:

Pedigree

The AKG K518dj’s are a reissue of a popular previous model, the K81dj’s. There are no real sonic differences, but one major cosmetic change: The gloss black portion on the earcups of the above headphones are silver on the K81dj. If you prefer one or the other, many retailers still have the now-discontinued silver K81dj in stock.

This product is situated squarely in the middle of AKG’s personal audio headphone line, and it’s in good company. The Austrian headphone giant has been well known in the audio production industry for years for their K240 model, which can be found in the studios of producers around the world. They’re also fairly well known for their flagship K701 model, which is widely considered to be one of the finest dynamic headphones available today.

Those are big boots to fill, so it helps the little K518dj that it is geared at a slightly different market than the above-mentioned ‘phones. As their name implies, these are designed for DJ use. To hear my German friends tell it, being a DJ in Europe is akin to being a knight 400 years ago: the equipment is expensive, but everyone else respects and fears you … but I jest.

Technology

Being designed for “DJ use” really means three things:

1) Exaggerated bass response,
2) A design that’s capable of being worn on only one ear, and
3) The capability to block out some ambient noise

For the portable user, one of these is a benefit, one a liability, and one is basically pointless. Most non-dj users won’t find a need to sport these cans on just one ear, so scratch that as a selling point. Most users will, however, greatly appreciate the noise-blocking capabilities these headphones provide.

The K518dj’s are what is considered a “closed” headphone. This means that there is little blocking the airflow between the driver and your ear, but there is solid material blocking the driver from the rest of the world. That means your neighbor on the train or in the cube next to you won’t be able to hear what you hear, and you won’t be able to hear them. There is a limit to this noise reduction, of course, but it is rather impressive. I could readily hear large vehicles passing by my bus, but smaller ones were inaudible. I couldn’t hear my wife speaking to me from the next room, but I could hear when she yelled. It’s basically a functional level of noise canceling, and it serves its purpose well.

Sound

The possible liability of these headphones, the bass response, brings us to the real purpose of this review: what do they sound like? In getting to the bottom of that, I tried to use a wide variety of gear, but I took into account gear that a consumer of a $70 headphone might likely already own. My primary systems were:

1) Directly out of an 80gb iPod video’s headphone out.
2) USB DAC to dedicated headphone amplifier

I used a number of musical selections to make my decisions, with some tried and true references and some new favorites. After all, gear is for enjoying new music too, isn’t it?
All files were, naturally, ripped directly off of the CD using Apple Lossless encoding. Nothing but the best for my ears. I’m sure you feel the same way.

Common wisdom on these headphones is that they need to be “broken in” (have sound played through them) for around 100 hours to loosen up the moving parts and sound proper. I’m glad I knew this, because out of the box these headphones sounded rough. Their high end was shrill, and the bass was all over the place. Sometimes it felt totally absent, other times it felt like a 60-dollar subwoofer in a ’93 civic. In a word: sloppy. This symptom went away very quickly, and after about ten hours of burning them in with pink noise, the bass was under control and the high end had gotten much more listenable. Now we were talking.

The first thing I should point out about the sound of the K518dj is that it is not terribly accurate. According to the sonic circle, it is dead-on-center Vivid. The bass isn’t flat, but rather it’s wonderfully accentuated. If you can’t accept that, it’s best to look elsewhere. Even after 100 hours, the impression the listener gets is not one of standing in the audience; it’s one of standing on the stage…next to the bassist.

With that out of the way, I should point out that the bass is really very dependent on amplification. It is powerful and controlled out of an iPod, but not overpowering. Out of my desktop system with a beefy Millett Hybrid amplifier, the bass was otherworldly. Listening to excellent track “Massive Nights” by The Hold Steady, one couldn’t help but feel like they had never heard it before. The bass part is so crucial, and so well highlighted, that it makes me wonder how I ever listened to this song before I had the K81dj’s. During the louder passages, where the choir joins in, the bass unfortunately gets drowned out somewhat. I guess you can’t expect perfect instrument definition out of portable headphones, but what is there is very impressive.

This illustrated a larger trend with these headphones. They separate instruments very well, but their performance degrades with the complexity of the music they’re playing, both out of an iPod and out of better gear. These are a wonderful choice for most electronic music, naturally, but also for combo jazz, bluegrass, and most every other small group music I threw at them. I played Nickel Creek’s “The Fox” through both the iPod and the computer rig, and the only difference was in the impact of the bass. The mandolin and voices rang out beautifully, with stunning definition.
Their liveliness is infectious, and it’s hard to go back to more neutral-sounding reproduction after a few minutes with these. Their wonderful clarity on the high end really accentuated close-miked string instruments like Spanish guitar or Mandolin, and the bass weight really complimented super-deep trance synthesizers and standup basses alike. Though powerful, I found the K518’s bass to be tasteful, and just lively enough to be fun without being overwhelming. The midrange naturally suffered somewhat from the emphasis on bass and treble, but what was there was warm and accurate, and I never felt myself missing any midrange detail or tonality from most instruments. Only when I listened to full-scale choir music like the boys choir of Riga, Latvia’s beautiful version of “I Saw Three Ships” did the AKG’s truly miss the mark, and that is far from my standard portable listening fare.

Are They For You?

For a street price of $70 USD, there is nothing else like the K518dj. They sound much more lively than the Sennheiser PX100, and have superior bass to the legendary Grado SR-60s. Plus, unlike both of those headphones, these seal noise around you and don’t burden your neighbors with your music. They’re also attractive, and aside from the flimsy 10-foot cord they feel extremely durable.

Over a period of hours, the lively character of these cans might prove to be overwhelming. If you’re looking for a pair of headphones to listen to for hours on end, you might look elsewhere. If, however, you’re looking for a good pair of portable headphones that can take a beating, deliver good isolation and excellent bass, and benefit from occasionally being plugged into a proper stereo or computer-based system, these would fit the bill very well. For $70, what else is there to consider?

I must, at this stage, provide a cautionary note. The K518dj is smaller than it looks. The earcups fit over your ears, not around them. I have a comically large head, and my pair took some judicious stretching and bending to make them comfortable. For some people, especially those who wear glasses, the K518’s put too much pressure on the ears. This can be easily rectified by stretching them over a stack of books for a few nights while they burn in, but patience is important here. My problem was that they pushed on the top of my giant noggin too hard, and that requires you to actually bend the top metal band of the headphones into some that more closely approximates a circle. That fixed my problem, and my comfort issues have disappeared. If there are any questions about stretching your pair, just shoot them over to me at and I can advise you.

Source: Apple iPod Video 5th generation, Apple iPod shuffle 1st generation, Firestone Audio Fubar II Digital/Analog Converter
Amp: DIY Millett Hybrid Tubed headphone Amplifier
Headphones: AKG K518dj, AKG K81dj, Sennheiser HD580, Grado SR125
Cables: Nordost Black Knight stereo interconnect
Sundry Accessories: AKG 1/8” to _” adapter
Review Component Retail: $99

Please allow me to introduce myself.  In the time I have been given I have done quite a few different things, rarely for more than a few years.  Perhaps I’m flighty, perhaps I’m capricious, but I greatly enjoy pursuing new avenues.  I’ve made a living working construction, selling ice cream, designing home theatres, producing a conservative AM Radio talk show, DIYing electronics, teaching English, and countless other things that together form a rather mediocre resume.  These things have taken me all around the world, all the way from my home in Boulder, Colorado to Ankara, Turkey, where I’m currently employed at Bilkent University.  In fact, one of the few constants in my life has been music.  No matter what I was doing, I have always loved, and been involved with, music.  What does all of this mean to you?  Well, at the risk of sounding cliché, it means that I’m very open-minded, and not terribly traditional.  It is this attitude that I take into my reviews, and it’s both a strength and a weakness

I’m not exactly sure of the qualifications a person needs to have in order to be a respected audio writer, but I’m confident they’re not set in stone.  I’m going to venture a guess that there are only three important ones, though.  First, you have to love music, and love music I do.  I’m a classically trained jazz saxophonist, an acapella singer, and a rock bassist.  I was the guy with a 200 CD binder labeled “A-E” in the back seat of my car.  If anything, I’m not nearly discerning enough.  I devour music – 5 or 6 albums a week – and not all of it is excellent.  In fact, I doubt most of it meets audiophile standards, but I think you, dear reader, share in this passion.  That’s why we’re both here at Sonic Flare.  I undoubtedly enjoy turning the lights down, getting comfortable, and listening to the entirety of Mahler’s 1^st with my eyes closed in the optimal center of the room.  That doesn’t mean I won’t crank out Junior Senior at 110 Db after a few drinks later that night, though. 

The second qualification for an audio critic, then, must be that they enjoy the reproduction of music as an art form and as a technical exercise.  This is different than just listening, and it is sometimes tedious.  It is listening not for pleasure, but for information.  It’s listening with a notebook.  If that doesn’t sound appealing, well, I understand.  It is appealing to me, though.  Years of playing instruments and recording music have given me an appreciation for how music is made, and how important reproducing it correctly is.  To explain, perhaps you’ll permit me an analogy.  Recorded music is a lot like photography.  Sometimes, the idea of a photograph is to convey a real object realistically.  Sometimes, though, the goal of photography is to view an object in a nontraditional way.  With the addition of modern tools like Photoshop, photography can now be an art used to digitally create what is organically impossible  Recorded music is exactly the same.  When Telarc records Don Giovanni, the idea is to transport you to the concert hall.  That’s not always the goal, though, and it is the job of a good audio system to not only reproduce music faithful to the performance, but animate music that is almost against the laws of nature.  This is what I expect of equipment, because that’s the music I enjoy listening to. So, sometimes, I’m looking for a system to be larger-than-life, rather than merely life-sized. To do these things right, a system needs to be extremely dynamic above all.  My personal bias, then, would be towards sensitive equipment, higher volumes, and exciting presentation.  In other words, the bottom left of the sonic circle – vivid, emotional, and smooth all do it for me.  I appreciate and enjoy other equipment, but it’s not where my heart is.

The third qualification of an audio critic is both more important and less interesting than the previous two.  Having listened to this equipment, I have to be able to accurately convey what I’ve heard to you.  I have to turn sound into words, which is inherently impossible to do without using dumb terms like “milky”, “dry”, “PRaT”, or any of the other myriad terms the audiophile press abuses today.  Please forgive me for this, and know that I want to give it to you straight.  I’m not above a little criticism, either, and Sonic Flare is a cooperative exercise.   I would still be doing this if you weren’t here to read it, but what would be the point?  I’m here to help you, and in the process indulge what has been the great passion of my life.  I’m glad you’ve taken the time to get to know me, and I hope it helps you make a better decision about what equipment belongs in your home, or at least your wish list.

Cheers, 

Tyler Beebout

Zu Audio Presence…

A preview of sorts: well, the day finally came this past weekend, when the Zu crew showed up at my door step delivering a pair of their latest and greatest, the Presence.  Being that colleague Srajan reviewed the speakers recently at his emporium, 6moons, I was eagerly expecting these pupps to show up.  Sitting somewhat between the mighty Definition Mk2 and the evergreen Druid, the Presence at $8k ain’t cheap. 

As many have said all along (including Sean and Adam of Zu), the Presence is more of a scaled down Definition than a scaled up Druid and as a result it shares many features of the bigger brother: built in Hypex powered (yay!) dual 10” subs, the latest driver and filter technology and most importantly, a ground up redesigned triangular cabinet. 

Where the Druid is all about minimalism in the strictest sense, the Presence ads the ability to take advantage of room correction in the bass department, thus allowing for a more seamless experience and room integration.  Now, obviously, 8 dedicated 10” subs as in the Definition, will undoubtedly deliver more punch, presence and power than 4 10” subs; alas, the Presence should deliver much of what the Definition Mk2 does at less cost and it should be more favorable to smaller rooms. 

Immediately striking is the unusual looking design of the Presence; delivered as it was here in polished black wet gloss, even more so - the big black obelisk from 2001 comes to mind… At any event, I will be most curious to give the Presence a serious listen, as many music lovers and ‘philes would love to get into true full-range Zu sound but don’t quite have the space for the mighty Definitions.  

So far, so good…

STAX SRS 3010 System

Ever since I was exposed to the music and audio fever at the ripe age of around 11, STAX, much like Luxman, appeared as the quintessential audio brand to look forward to.  I recall seeing their earspeakers at various European trade shows and always being in awe as to their style, musicality and mystique surrounding the coveted brand and their striking products.  Alas, at price points much higher than your typical ‘cans of say AKG, Sennheiser and Beyer, STAX appeared to always be the top brand to look to. 

Anxiously awaiting the Trafomatic Audio Experience Head One ‘can amp to arrive, I figured that I might as well inquire about a review sample of the STAX SRS 3010 system, consisting of the SR 202 earspeakers and matching SRM 310 discrete class-A amplifier.  Together, the package retails for what I consider to be a real-world price of $950, which, when considering you get a pair of electrostat ‘cans and a class-A amp, is really not that much.

The STAX SRS 3010 system is certainly at the lower echelon of all things STAX, though you still get a product that has been cured for many generations and is in fact the only remaining electrostat earspeaker manufacturer in the world.  The STAX system will certainly fall squarely into the price point of the aforementioned Trafomatic Audio amp and say AKG’s latest “reference” cans, the 701’s.  While many in the audio press have gone gaga over these cans, I have to admit my reservations.  Full disclosure of my thoughts will commence once the Trafomatic amp arrives, as it is rumored to be quite a well-designed setup.

This should be fun… 

The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society had a big shindig over the weekend showing off the new German Physiks Carbon MKIV speakers with a Vitus integrated and EAR CD player. Signals SuperFi, US importer of up-and-coming exotic Euro brands, hosted the event while Signal's Chris Sommovigo, a class act if ever there was one, walked us through what these strange German speakers are all about.

The LAOCAS, for those that don't know, is the nation's largest hi-fi society, run by one Bob Levi. From the number of Ferraris, Bimmers, and Mercedes in the parking lot, it's clear this is the club to showcase the latest and greatest gear. Latest and greatest means big bucks -- the German Physiks Carbon speakers are $40k while the Vitus amp was, likewise, $40k. Cabling was provided by Chrois Sommovigo's own Stereovox brand.

So what is a German Physiks Carbon speaker? What you see in the picture above is an omni-directional, direct-radiating, point-source driver -- DDD for short. The DDD driver, in either titanium or carbon, transitions over to a lower woofer anywhere between 80Hz and 200Hz (depending on model) and goes above 20kHz. Definitely exotic.

For those familiar with omnis and bi-pole speakers, you're probably asking what's with Germany and omni speakers? MBL, Duevel and German Physiks all tackle this omni game in different ways. German Physiks' DDD driver, made entirely in house, is a mad scientist's brew of hi-fi driver tech. So much tech, it's almost impossible to define just how the driver works. In fact, Chris Sommovigio admitted he barely knows how it functions -- the German Physik's designer, classically reserved in his German way, doesn't depart with his secrets easily.

Needless to say, the driver is something amazing to behold (to me, at least). The Carbon MKIV speaker doesn't only have the carbon driver, but a cabinet crafted from woven carbon. The lows -- and low they were -- emanated from a down-firing 12" woofer using a sealed double Helmholtz resonating chamber. Double Hemlholtz? Again, so bizarre and proprietary I couldn't sweet talk out a single detail.

Of course, all the strange technology in the world doesn't mean it sounds good. So how did it sound? Somewhere between "fantastic" and "superb." Because the speakers are omnis, firing music in ever direction, the soundstage was wall to wall, front to back and ceiling to floor. The bass, rated down to 28Hz, was amazingly full for the incredibly large conference room. A fellow reviewer had the speakers in his place for a couple days and, where his quad 10" woofer speakers are a fine match for the room, the Carbon's bass completely overwhelmed the space.

Referencing our Sonic Circle, the speaker's sound was in the Precise or Intense camp and, with the EAR tubed CD player, the entire system leaned more into the Vivid category. As the tube CD player warmed up, the sound became really sooth and everyone I talked to was really loving the sound. The Vitus Amp, a 50 watt pure class-A powerhouse, sounded very much in the super accurate Precise category. Overall, the snap and pop of the instruments was amazingly fast. My initial prejudice was that the Carbons, sans tweeter, wouldn't cut it up top. But that wasn't the case at all -- having the highs seamlessly blend with the rest of the frequencies was a wonderful experience.

And so here's the point where I complain about the weak dollar -- the entire German Physik's range, from $12k Troubador to the $280k Gaudi, isn't for mere mortals. That said, Chris Sommovigo pointed out that the Troubador 40, at $5995 each, is simply the DDD driver without a bass module. The same driver, in fact, as the big house-priced speakers. Add a powered sub or two and you have the German Physiks magic for a lot less.

I can't wait to hear these speakers again -- word is Signals SuperFi will have two rooms at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in October.

If you're in LA, check out the LAOCAS website for future hi-fi events. And word on the streets is Ray Kimber, of Kimber Cables, will be the guest of honor at the LAOCAS annual gala in December. Be there!

Having reviewed the stock Transporter in these pages a few months ago, my expectations for Dan Wright’s latest offspring were indeed high.  Then again, I have known Dan for almost 5 years now and known him to be an exceptionally talented and spirited designer.  His Truth mods of various Sony and Denon incarnations have defacto launched him into the mainstream of audiophilia – he now sports his very own pre- amps and a phono stage.  Rumor has it a Modwright branded amplifier isn’t too far behind.

Each of these products have received massive praise and accolades throughout the usual set of internet publications; most recently TAS’s Sally Reynolds lent her golden ears to Dan’s entry level pre-amp with much praise.  The Transporter represents a whole new frontier for audiophiles in general and their mainstream counter parts.  Slimdevices is uniquely positioned to cater to both ends of the spectrum, ie. the casual music lover who wants something better than Squeezebox as well as the seasoned and hardcore audiophile who looks to replace his vintage compact disc player.

Compact Disc, boy, that sure sounds so passé, doesn’t it?  Therein lies the strength of the Transporter: it is able to at once rid your house of those little silver discs, whilst offering you no compromise listening, further convenience and ultimately the internet’s best (and worst) streaming radio stations.  Last I counted, there were around 5000 or so listed under the controlling Slim software, SqueezeCenter.  Wow.  The world is my oyster; indeed! 

Having archived roughly a third of my discs to wave and LAME encoded mp3’s which sadly, most audiophiles poo-poo, (read my mp3 truth exposing article here) onto my NAS drive, any of these songs, tracks and albums are at my fingertip.  Dan’s tube rectified and tube based output stage should do the rest.  I’ve said it time and again that in today’s world, I find it very difficult to recommend a standard CD player to anyone, unless they are looking to get a statement player, Lindemann, EMMlabs, Einstein, Accustic Arts, etc. for old times sake and the ability to play the occasional high-res disc. 

I’d say you are waisting your money: a Squeezebox3 and Lessloss DAC 2004 or Dan’s Truth modified TP will serve you way, way better in my humble opinion than most any disc player.  Mind you, I am not of the camp that believes that any harddisc based music player is better than a comparable disc transport – that’s foolish and akin to comparing apples to oranges.  I do however believe and argue, that all other things being equal, a hard disc will in fact act as a superior transport than any disc player, even state-of-the-art stuff like Esoteric’s much heralded transports, etc.

Stay tuned for my impressions of the Truth Transporter right here… hint: it’s really good!

In a followup to his review, Robert Learner interviews Guru QM10 designer Ingvar Ohman to find out just how these black boxes with 4" woofers do what they do...

2. The motor system is of a fairly long stroke design (+/- 5 mm lin.) for its size and for its wide band purpose. This is essential for its ability to play low frequencies without causing severe modulation of the midrange (a boomer design is more difficult to do than a pure squawker).

3. The surround has a half roll that is minimized, also to make sure that the modulation effects are haold down. The bigger half roll, the more the radiating area will change with the stoke (also at small strokes), so I always try to make the surround as small as possible, big enough to cope with the maximum linear stroke of the motor, but not more than about 50% more.

4. The motor system of the boomer driver is also strong, and actually, the pressure factor is very high (higher than most 18" PA-drivers!) with it's about 176 pa/V, and that means that it can push a sound pressure of 140 dB inside the box, at just about 1.1 volts input signal. This is what it takes to produce the extension you can hear from that little box. (Producing low frequency output is a product of input voltage X pressure factor X box volume X isotermization factor. Besides that, the only enemy is unwanted losses, which I try to keep low.)

5. The strong motor in combination with a relatively light moving system, enables the driver to produce a very high intrinsic sensitivity, which is necessary for a driver in a Guru-system since it incorporates compensations for both the stereo system and the room (thus need to have some head room for the "positive compensations"). The latter means that the speaker is using the room to its benefit at very low frequencies, but also that is has to cope with the non-constructive effects of the room. Most of them can be taken care of by adding some absorption behind the loudspeaker, but there is a range between 200 – 300 Hz where the room will contribute with destructive interferences. That means that the driver must have an intrinsic sensitivity of about 90 dB, to achieve the good system sensitivity (~86 dB) that we want and ended up with.

Robert: Can you give some details on how the helmholtz resonator concept is employed?

I don't know where to start, but the heart of the concept is to treat every aspect of the problem appropriately, which means – treat different acoustic dimensions differently - consider every aspect of the acoustic scene inside the loudspeaker. The inner behaviour of the box itself has to be very dead, to make sure that the mid range can play flawlessly, but at the same time; at the Helmholtz-resonance there must be as little acoustical losses as possible (ideally, 100% of the control should emanate from the boomer driver alone). So it's about engineering of the inner acoustics. Also, there is a considerable advantage in using a slit port in such a small box, and one reason is that in this specific design, the slit port for the H-resonator was easy to design to eliminate the "organ pipe resonance", i.e. the half wave length resonance. Another thing is, that the port length in combination with the port diameter if using a cylindrical port - would exhibit a severe shift of tuning frequency when coming close to overloading*, but the shift from the slit port is very small due to the lack of H/V-symmetry. The height is very small, and thus the rim radius can be small too, but still expanding the surface area significantly at the end.

And I always try to make port designs that will come close to overloading! That might sound strange, but in my experience, having a port overloading at approximately the same level as the woofer (or in this case boomer) does, will benefit the transient behaviour. Having a driver overloading before the port does, tends to colour bass transients because the Q of the H-resonator will rise significantly at driver overloading (since the mechanical impedance is rising when the surround is passing its linear stroke) causing an unarticulated ringing bass. It will not rise to its intrinsic Q (which is 7-9) but way above the much lower Q that is at hand when controlled by the woofer working within its linear range. In short: The port must take over the controller-job from the driver, when the latter is starting to overload.

Robert: What is meant by 2-7khz, non-schoolbook function for crossover type. Can you elaborate?

Well, it is about many things, but to start with, the crossover has many jobs. Accomplishing the cross over function moving the energy from one driver to another when frequency change and protecting the tweeter from overloading is just two of them. These are some of the other:

1. To communicate with the drivers with an impedance optimized to lower distortion and minimizing compression. (The distortion of the QM10 is more then 4 dB lower in the midrange and up, than if the drivers had been driven directly from amplifiers! (i.e. had been a conventional active design. The thermal compression is less than half. This is also true for the active version that is on its way, since it is not a classical active design. It preserves all the above mentioned advantages from the present crossover design.)

2. The crossover in the QM10 does also control the vertical dispersion so that the timbral properties are modulated to make the speakers disappear as sounding object in the soundstage. It also enables the speaker to perform the same task for listeners positioned at different heights (like in a stepped multi row seating). To perform that "trick", the speaker has to change character with height, to avoid letting the ears detect them as sound sources, and that trick should optimally be covering the range 800 – 7 kHz, but it's just not possible with the QM10, because the tweeter just can't perform at such low frequencies. In practice, it does not mean all that much since the ears are easily fooled by the dominating higher frequency clues, which for psychoacoustic reasons wins over the lack of height modulated information between 800 – 2000 Hz.

3. A large part of the stereo system compensation is performed by using the baffle shape, or rather by letting the corners of the speakers add some timbral shaping anti phase reflections. Actually, this part of the performance can only be done in this manner, out in the acoustic decoder world which is entered by the loudspeaker. Attempts to do it in the uncomplicated one dimensional "trafer link-world" before the speaker is impossible, since any timbral change made there would be shaping the sound radiated in ALL directions from the loudspeaker. However, only the sound going direct from the loudspeakers to the listeners must have the stereo system correction (to ensure that a psycho acoustically linear response is at hand, i.e. that the response at the ear drums is the same from the phantom images, as they would have been from real life sound sources being moved though the sound stage) since reflected sound is reaching the pinnas in random directions naturally, and are in no need of compensations from stereo system timbral flaws. BUT – the baffle of the speaker can only do that much. The rest of the task is to create an "invisible sound" and must be done by other means. One of them is performed by the crossover, controlling not only the amplitude from each driver, but also the way the drivers work together. But not even that is enough. In the QM10, the woofer actually has to come back into action at around 6,5 kHz, adding a part of the correction aimed basically only frontally, than can not be done by the much to dispersive tweeter.

Robert: How do the above (and anything else) contribute to the huge soundstage and powerful base these squat little boxes throw?

I've touched some of it already, but I can go into some more detail I guess. One of the things I've tried to accomplish is to give the speakers the power to communicate not only to a single listener in a "sweat spot" position, because even if I do like the word "sweat", I'm not very fond of the word "spot". How many ears can be fitted in a spot? Not even two! And in real life music situations - I've never seen people fight to get the sweat spot chair!

Obviously, something is very wrong when such a need is accepted in the world of reproduced music. So what I try to accomplish is speakers that can be listened to basically from any point within the width of the speakers themselves. That does basically mean, that the speakers, besides what is already mentioned regarding vertical dispersion properties, also must have a phase stabile behaviour within a fairly large horizontal window, and they also need some horizontal directivity. If all these qualities are at hand, they will perform to the task of opening a holographic window rather than a 3D-window, to the recorded world. At least if toed in so that the time-intensity-trading can be balanced to make the HAAS effect loose its typical dominance. Normally, that means that a listener sitting in the middle, will actually see the outer sides of both speakers.

Regarding performance in the low frequency range, it is all about throwing nothing away. I do not know how many times I've heard people saying that the QM10 seem to have a performance that defies the laws of nature. That is not true of course, but I try to get really close to the limit of what is possible (closer than most are used to hear, and that can obviously create the impression that something defying the laws of nature is going on).

There is a mathematical/physical limit to what can be accomplished that basically says that a bigger box can go either deeper in the bass, or be given a higher efficiency, a speaker that has a higher efficiency must sacrifice its size or extension, and a speaker that has a better extension must have sacrificed its size or its efficiency. But the limit differs depending on type of box. An optimal H-resonator is better than a normal symmetrically damped bass reflex box, which is better than a transmission line box, which is better than a closed box… Most designs have more than a few dB to the limit, some have 10 dB to go. I try to get much closer than that. Also, designing the speakers to work close to a wall, and at a specified height above the floor, makes it possible to take the support from these surfaces for granted, and the speaker can use the equation in a… twisted way. For normally designed loudspeakers (made with no room taken into consideration) each octave of extension costs 9 dB, but not when room support is a part of the equation (and speaker wall reflections above the constructively interfering range are damped), you get at least 9 dB for free (which in itself can be used for getting an extra octave of range). But also that extra octave typically gets you down into the range where the room is starting to be a reactive acoustical lo