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Author Archives: Jacob Heilbrunn

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Siltech Royal Double Crown Interconnects and Loudspeaker Cables

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

Siltech is positioned within the Netherlands, the place it started manufacturing audio merchandise in 1983. They embody the Siltech SAGA System amplification, which was reviewed by Jonathan Valin in 2014, and the mighty Symphony loudspeaker, launched in 2021. But the corporate might be finest identified for its interconnects and speaker cables, each for his or her hefty worth and stellar efficiency. Its chief designer, Edwin van der Kley Rynveld, who invented a novel silver-gold alloy in 1997, enjoys a excessive status within the audio trade. When Rich Maez, previously of Boulder Amplifiers now the American distributor for Siltech, recommended that I overview its new line of cables, I used to be greater than sport.

The packaging for the Royal Double Crown Series that I acquired, one step from the very high of the road, might hardly have been extra putting—the darkish blue packing containers containing these gems have been festooned with giant golden royal crowns. The aristocrat of cables? After prying the packing containers open, I found a passel of pretty hefty-looking interconnects, speaker cables, and energy cords, whose building seemed to be meticulous. The cables are properly shielded—a dual-layer insulation of DuPont Kapton and Teflon coupled with a Hexagon air insulation is meant to decrease inductance and capacitance. Nestled inside all this shielding are Siltech’s S10 monocrystal silver-wire conductors. The connectors are constructed from pure silver, as properly. The build-quality seems to be impeccable.

What did the cables sound like? Abandon all preconceptions about silver cables being harsh or rebarbative or vibrant. Fiddlesticks. Those days appear to be long gone with regards to the highest audio producers, who make use of silver for its velocity and purity. Whatever annealing course of Siltech is using—and it’s clearly a superb one—proper out of the field the cables sounded darned good. Indeed, the Royal Crown cables produced a lustrous sound that was troublesome to neglect. Instruments emerged from about as black a background as I’ve ever heard. Forget that. It was obsidian. Take the Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch performed by Joshua Bell with the venerable Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, a fascinating orchestral work that I’ve been listening to fairly a bit. Through the Wilson WAMM loudspeakers and darTZeel NHB-468 amplifiers, it was a supremely velvety sound. Not just like the notorious “Dockers” time period that my new colleague Michael Fremer likes to make use of as a disparaging phrase for gear that’s too relaxed and mellow, this was one thing else altogether—refined, wealthy, and rewarding. The first motion, which is predicated on the track “Through the Wood Laddie,” was an actual pleasure to pay attention by the Siltech cables. They conveyed the sonority and sheen of the string part with marvelous constancy, permitting Bell’s rubatos to emerge with tender poignancy. Throughout, there was no trace of any stridency within the treble. Instead, there was a lifelike high quality to the sound. It was nearly just like the internal glow of tubes, besides that there was (gulp) nary a tube within the system.

The soothing character of the Siltech was all to the nice on “hotter” recordings reminiscent of Count Basie’s basic Chairman of the Board, launched in 1959. This kick-ass recording was one of many late David Wilson’s favorites–a showstopper, loaded with nifty numbers reminiscent of “H.R.H.” and “Segue in C” which are assured to spotlight the spectacular qualities of a very good full-range stereo. One of the enjoyable issues about this recording is that the songs usually start with Count Basie plunking away, quietly accompanied by a bass, then the remainder of the orchestra joins in, one after the other, till the joint actually is leaping. Such is the case on “Segue in C”; the Siltech cables simply dealt with the great dynamic surge on this quantity. Also spectacular was the panache with which the cables locked down the varied sections of the orchestra, starting from the muted trumpets on the far proper to trombones on the left. All nuances and particulars have been totally obvious, together with these within the bass line. Indeed, I’d be remiss if I didn’t single out the bass efficiency of the Siltech cables for particular commendation.

Siltech Royal Double Crown Power Connector

Put bluntly, they laid down the regulation proper from the second I inserted them. John Giolas of DAC producer dCS in Great Britain not too long ago visited me to take heed to the brand new Vivaldi Apex CD/SACD gear in my system and launched me to James Blake’s album Friends That Break Your Heart. Giolas and the album didn’t. Nor did the playback on “Famous Last Words.” Right from the outset, the Siltech cables nearly appeared to plunge into the sonic depths, delivering a sort of deep propulsive character to the synthesized bass. Immediately obvious, as properly, was the creamy sound of the treble. Blake’s falsetto sounded ethereal, and feminine vocals have been only a trace extra detailed than I’m accustomed to by way of the WAMM.

Adding within the Siltech energy cable solely intensified these attributes. On the Proprius recording Cantate Domino, I used to be taken by the deep bass these cables helped to supply on the track “O Helga natt.” The sound grew to become even hotter and extra fulsome. The sense of refinement and palpability additionally went up one other notch. They additionally go deep into the corridor—on “Silent Night” on the Proprius recording, the cavernous sound of the church was overwhelming. If I needed to describe the cables in plain stereo gear phrases, it might be as a single-ended-triode sound.

The composure and tranquility of the Double Crown cables in all probability gained’t enchantment to listeners on the lookout for extra razzle-dazzle or sizzle. These cables are in one other realm altogether. There is one thing greater than a bit of spooky in regards to the degree of element coupled to the refinement they provide. On Murray Perahia’s imaginative recording of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata for Deutsche Grammophon, for instance, the cables provided a sort of rhythmic stability that made it even simpler to observe his use of the piano pedal. Ditto for a Rolf Smedvig recording for Telarc with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra of Torelli’s Trumpet Concerto. Once once more, I heard the uncanny rhythmic solidity of trumpet and orchestra with unprecedented accuracy. There was no sense of slippage. The notes popped out of the piccolo trumpet. The transient assaults, in different phrases, have been useless on. On the Berlin Academy for Ancient Music’s recording of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos for Harmonia Mundi, the precision of the rhythm rendered the accents of the string devices immediately understandable, once more to a level that I’m undecided I’ve hitherto skilled. It gave the much-beloved third concerto, as an illustration, an pressing character that swept alongside all the things in its path with whole musical conviction.

The absence of grain together with the superior bass management and picture solidity of the Royal Double Crown be certain that it ranks among the many aristocrats of high-end cables. It could not have the identical supersonic velocity because the Nordost Odin 2 or the heft of the Transparent Magnum Opus, but it surely brings its personal set of virtues to the desk. Nothing is brummagem in regards to the efficiency of the Double Crown. Quite the opposite. These cables deserve each accolade that will get showered upon them. Anyone on the lookout for efficiency match for a king would do properly to think about them.

Specs & Pricing

Royal Double Crown interconnect: $18,100/1 meter
Royal Double Crown loudspeaker cable: $37,500/2 meter
Royal Double Crown energy wire: $15,300/2 meter

MONARCH SYSTEMS LTD. (U.S. Distributor)
16 Inverness Place E, Building B
Englewood, CO 80122
(720) 399-0072
monarch-systems.com

The put up Siltech Royal Double Crown Interconnects and Loudspeaker Cables appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

World News

Siltech Royal Double Crown Interconnects and Loudspeaker Cables

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

Siltech is positioned within the Netherlands, the place it started manufacturing audio merchandise in 1983. They embody the Siltech SAGA System amplification, which was reviewed by Jonathan Valin in 2014, and the mighty Symphony loudspeaker, launched in 2021. But the corporate might be greatest recognized for its interconnects and speaker cables, each for his or her hefty value and stellar efficiency. Its chief designer, Edwin van der Kley Rynveld, who invented a singular silver-gold alloy in 1997, enjoys a excessive status within the audio trade. When Rich Maez, previously of Boulder Amplifiers now the American distributor for Siltech, instructed that I evaluate its new line of cables, I used to be greater than recreation.

The packaging for the Royal Double Crown Series that I obtained, one step from the very high of the road, may hardly have been extra placing—the darkish blue containers containing these gems have been festooned with giant golden royal crowns. The aristocrat of cables? After prying the containers open, I found a passel of pretty hefty-looking interconnects, speaker cables, and energy cords, whose building appeared to be meticulous. The cables are properly shielded—a dual-layer insulation of DuPont Kapton and Teflon coupled with a Hexagon air insulation is meant to decrease inductance and capacitance. Nestled inside all this shielding are Siltech’s S10 monocrystal silver-wire conductors. The connectors are constructed from pure silver, as properly. The build-quality seems to be impeccable.

What did the cables sound like? Abandon all preconceptions about silver cables being harsh or rebarbative or vibrant. Fiddlesticks. Those days appear to be long gone relating to the highest audio producers, who make use of silver for its pace and purity. Whatever annealing course of Siltech is using—and it’s clearly a superb one—proper out of the field the cables sounded darned good. Indeed, the Royal Crown cables produced a lustrous sound that was tough to neglect. Instruments emerged from about as black a background as I’ve ever heard. Forget that. It was obsidian. Take the Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch performed by Joshua Bell with the venerable Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, a fascinating orchestral work that I’ve been listening to fairly a bit. Through the Wilson WAMM loudspeakers and darTZeel NHB-468 amplifiers, it was a supremely velvety sound. Not just like the notorious “Dockers” time period that my new colleague Michael Fremer likes to make use of as a disparaging phrase for tools that’s too relaxed and mellow, this was one thing else altogether—refined, wealthy, and rewarding. The first motion, which relies on the music “Through the Wood Laddie,” was an actual pleasure to pay attention by way of the Siltech cables. They conveyed the sonority and sheen of the string part with marvelous constancy, permitting Bell’s rubatos to emerge with tender poignancy. Throughout, there was no trace of any stridency within the treble. Instead, there was a lifelike high quality to the sound. It was virtually just like the inside glow of tubes, besides that there was (gulp) nary a tube within the system.

The soothing character of the Siltech was all to the great on “hotter” recordings corresponding to Count Basie’s traditional Chairman of the Board, launched in 1959. This kick-ass recording was one of many late David Wilson’s favorites–a showstopper, loaded with nifty numbers corresponding to “H.R.H.” and “Segue in C” which can be assured to focus on the spectacular qualities of a great full-range stereo. One of the enjoyable issues about this recording is that the songs typically start with Count Basie plunking away, quietly accompanied by a bass, then the remainder of the orchestra joins in, one after the other, till the joint really is leaping. Such is the case on “Segue in C”; the Siltech cables simply dealt with the super dynamic surge on this quantity. Also spectacular was the panache with which the cables locked down the varied sections of the orchestra, starting from the muted trumpets on the far proper to trombones on the left. All nuances and particulars have been absolutely obvious, together with these within the bass line. Indeed, I might be remiss if I didn’t single out the bass efficiency of the Siltech cables for particular commendation.

Siltech Royal Double Crown Power Connector

Put bluntly, they laid down the regulation proper from the second I inserted them. John Giolas of DAC producer dCS in Great Britain not too long ago visited me to hearken to the brand new Vivaldi Apex CD/SACD gear in my system and launched me to James Blake’s album Friends That Break Your Heart. Giolas and the album didn’t. Nor did the playback on “Famous Last Words.” Right from the outset, the Siltech cables virtually appeared to plunge into the sonic depths, delivering a type of deep propulsive character to the synthesized bass. Immediately obvious, as properly, was the creamy sound of the treble. Blake’s falsetto sounded ethereal, and feminine vocals have been only a trace extra detailed than I’m accustomed to by way of the WAMM.

Adding within the Siltech energy cable solely intensified these attributes. On the Proprius recording Cantate Domino, I used to be taken by the deep bass these cables helped to provide on the music “O Helga natt.” The sound grew to become even hotter and extra fulsome. The sense of refinement and palpability additionally went up one other notch. They additionally go deep into the corridor—on “Silent Night” on the Proprius recording, the cavernous sound of the church was overwhelming. If I needed to describe the cables in plain stereo tools phrases, it will be as a single-ended-triode sound.

The composure and tranquility of the Double Crown cables most likely gained’t enchantment to listeners searching for extra razzle-dazzle or sizzle. These cables are in one other realm altogether. There is one thing greater than somewhat spooky in regards to the degree of element coupled to the refinement they provide. On Murray Perahia’s imaginative recording of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata for Deutsche Grammophon, for instance, the cables provided a type of rhythmic stability that made it even simpler to observe his use of the piano pedal. Ditto for a Rolf Smedvig recording for Telarc with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra of Torelli’s Trumpet Concerto. Once once more, I heard the uncanny rhythmic solidity of trumpet and orchestra with unprecedented accuracy. There was no sense of slippage. The notes popped out of the piccolo trumpet. The transient assaults, in different phrases, have been lifeless on. On the Berlin Academy for Ancient Music’s recording of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos for Harmonia Mundi, the precision of the rhythm rendered the accents of the string devices immediately understandable, once more to a level that I’m undecided I’ve hitherto skilled. It gave the much-beloved third concerto, as an example, an pressing character that swept alongside all the things in its path with complete musical conviction.

The absence of grain together with the superior bass management and picture solidity of the Royal Double Crown be sure that it ranks among the many aristocrats of high-end cables. It could not have the identical supersonic pace because the Nordost Odin 2 or the heft of the Transparent Magnum Opus, nevertheless it brings its personal set of virtues to the desk. Nothing is brummagem in regards to the efficiency of the Double Crown. Quite the opposite. These cables deserve each accolade that will get showered upon them. Anyone searching for efficiency match for a king would do properly to contemplate them.

Specs & Pricing

Royal Double Crown interconnect: $18,100/1 meter
Royal Double Crown loudspeaker cable: $37,500/2 meter
Royal Double Crown energy wire: $15,300/2 meter

MONARCH SYSTEMS LTD. (U.S. Distributor)
16 Inverness Place E, Building B
Englewood, CO 80122
(720) 399-0072
monarch-systems.com

The put up Siltech Royal Double Crown Interconnects and Loudspeaker Cables appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Uncategorized

Gryphon Commander Preamplifier

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

In the movie Caddyshack, the character Ty Webb (performed by Chevy Chase) is an affable businessman and crack golfer who even performs properly when blindfolded. At one level, he undertakes to offer some free recommendation to the bold teenage caddy named Danny (Michael O’Keefe). As the duo survey the course on the venerable Bushwood Country Club, Webb recites a saying that he fancifully attributes to the well-known Seventeenth-century Japanese thinker and haiku poet Matsuo Basho: “A flute with no holes in it’s not a flute. A donut with no gap is a Danish.”

So, what does that make the Danish Gryphon Commander—a black aluminum two-chassis design with no exterior knobs or switches that primarily does nearly nothing to the audio sign? I’m no thinker, however I can attest that it makes the Commander not only a preamplifier however one thing of a magical instrument.

Your eyes will let you know quite a lot of the story. Put bluntly, the Gryphon Commander preamplifier is a commanding object. Its separate packing containers are related by three cables, that are the one slender factor about it. The hefty energy provide sits silently, whether or not in operation or not. So does the signal-processing chassis. No noise, no vibration, no nothing. Just obsidian silence. Quite a feat for a big energy provide that accommodates 4 custom-made 36VA toroidal transformers, two for every left and proper channel, that go a great distance towards rendering this preamp as potent as quite a lot of amplifiers. The energy provide can be able to powering a forthcoming phono- stage from Gryphon in addition to a digital supply. A considerable distant management with a rubber pad on the again to keep away from scratching furnishings controls the Commander, until you resolve to make use of your fingers and make use of the 4.3″ TFT capacitive touchscreen.

Situating the Commander in my {custom} HR-X stand required two individuals to make sure that the preamp didn’t get dented or scratched or take a bit out of the stand itself. Fortunately, Jeff Fox of Command Performance AV in Falls Church, Virginia, and Anthony Chiarella, the Director of Sales and Marketing for Gryphon North America, have been each available to assist set up it safely. All the fuss proved to be well worth the effort. The Commander, which is the successor to the corporate’s earlier Pandora preamplifier, didn’t open up an auditory Pandora’s field. Instead, it supplied a reminder of the significance of nice energy exercised with accountability.

Gryphon Commander Preamplifier rear

In the previous few years, I’ve listened to a wide range of glorious preamps, together with the Boulder 3010 and the Ypsilon PST-100, Mk. II. My present reference is the Swiss battery-powered darTZeel NHB-18NS, which features a phonostage. The Commander introduced its personal distinctive mix of attributes to the sonic desk. I didn’t solely get pleasure from listening to it; I reveled in its dynamic prowess and its capability to resolve positive particulars, each of which will be traced to its superlatively low noise ground. Throughout my audition, the Commander did as little to change the sign emanating from digital or analog sources as I’ve ever heard a preamp do. It could be onerous to think about a extra linear and immaculate element.

It might sound paradoxical, however the quiescence of the Commander was instantly audible. It offered silky black backgrounds on recording after recording. One CD that I very a lot loved listening to on the Commander, for example, was a reside recording from December 2010 of the legendary Chicago Symphony Orchestra brass part taking part in every thing from Bach to Percy Grainger, from Gabrielli to Prokofiev. All the facility on faucet meant that the Commander was in a position to situate every instrument securely in its personal area. This was significantly noteworthy, because it have been, on a spooky piece by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas referred to as “Sensemaya.” The tuba emerged from what appeared like prehistoric depths with an nearly voluptuous tone, conveying properly the instrumental rendering of the Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen’s saga a couple of ritual Afro-Caribbean chant that’s recited through the killing of a snake. And drumsticks had a extra authoritative and life like crack to them. Then there was the CSO brass’ rendition of Bach’s C minor Passacaglia and Fugue which vividly shows the clarion may of the ensemble. The precision of soundstaging on Bach’s blockbuster work was actually marvelous, and the piccolo trumpets had a piping high quality to them that was wholly endearing.

Another factor all the facility of the Gryphon buys you is easy leisure—not the soggy variety that you simply discover when collapsing right into a La-Z-Boy, however one thing a lot tauter and extra elegant. The sheer exactitude of the Commander meant that there was no sense of smearing or bloat, which translated into an enviable readability of musical line. This attribute was abundantly obvious once I streamed Roberta Flack, who made an abortive try at a profession as an opera singer then took R&B to new heights, singing “Jesse” or “I’m the Girl” on her basic album Killing Me Softly. The Commander’s lack of grain and its iron-fisted management allowed it to focus on the lilting and lissome high quality of her voice. Something comparable occurred on a Concord LP of the Warren Vache Trio referred to as Midtown Jazz. The elegant breathiness of Vache’s cornet taking part in on numbers comparable to “I’m Old Fashioned” was by no means extra in proof on my stereo system. On Count Basie Remembered [Nagel Heyer Records], which options the New York All Stars taking part in reside in Hamburg, Germany, every thing snapped into place. When a preamp exerts the form of grip that the Commander does, it turns into so much simpler to hint the interaction of an ensemble, in addition to its circulation. The rhythm turns into audibly snappier on swing music, because the devices, from piano to guitar, appear to cease and begin only a hair extra rapidly. The command of the Commander supplies that “you’re there” sensation that each one audiophiles in good standing are inclined to covet.

The may of the Commander additionally signifies that it could actually distill the music to its essence, stripping away any digital detritus or encrustation. This got here dwelling to me whereas listening to the well-known German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. She made many recordings underneath the supervision of her husband, Walter Legge, who headed the classical music division at EMI/Angel. One such LP was a 1975 launch on the EMI label referred to as Songs I Love that I lately picked up off eBay. Its excellent high quality instantly displays the notoriously authoritarian Legge’s fastidious consideration to element (he was recognized, amongst different issues, as “the autocrat of the turntable”). Two notable songs on this recording are Schubert’s “To Silvia” and “Still Sea.” In her insightful memoir of Legge, On and Off the Record, Schwarzkopf observes, “Schubert didn’t soak himself in his poets; his nature was so stuffed with music, so wealthy in melody, that just about any piece of verse was sufficient to stimulate his creativeness.” Still, it nearly goes with out saying that these two songs, which set to music poems by Shakespeare and Goethe, traverse the very best creative peaks, no matter Schubert’s inattention to poetry. In listening to them by way of the Commander, I heard an unprecedented degree of readability on the vocal strains and within the relationship between voice and piano that made it simplicity itself to observe each the textual content and Schwarzkopf’s musical intention. In this regard, it jogged my memory of the mesmerizing transparency that I skilled when lately visiting my pal Ali Saad’s elaborate Avantgarde Trio setup in Beverly Hills.

More Schubert was on faucet once I reached for the Austrian baritone Florian Boesch’s 2012 recording of the Viennese composer on the Hyperion label. As you’ll anticipate, Hyperion did a bang-up job, however the Commander took it to a brand new degree by way of pellucid playback. It could be straightforward to confuse the calm that the Commander conveys with placidity. But that’s actually not the case in any respect. Rather, the reserve energy signifies that essentially the most delicate tonal shadings at pianissimo ranges—these umbratile passages that may be so haunting in classical music—are conveyed with stupendous constancy on songs comparable to “Der Wanderer.” My consideration didn’t wander. On the opposite, on quite a few recordings I used to be impressed by the Commander’s capability to seize the tonal shadings of a wide range of singers.

As you’ll anticipate, the brute pressure of the Commander additionally signifies that it exerts a level of management within the bass that’s fairly uncommon. On jazz recordings, the place the recording of the standup bass can usually be a little bit murky, the Commander reached proper down into the nether areas to clear issues up. And on numbers the place you simply rock out—Pharrell Williams’ Girl or Isaac Hayes’ Shaft—the Commander, in tandem with darTZeel 468 amplifier, offered a bass basis that was each richly sonorous and rock strong. On Williams’ hit track “Happy,” the cymbal within the background might hardly be crisper. What’s extra, there was merely no sense of bass bloat on numbers comparable to “Gush,” the place Williams evocatively croons about “eager to get soiled, woman.” Suffice it to say that the efficiency of the Commander is all the time pristine.

Perhaps the easiest way to explain the Commander is as a preservation gadget. It preserves the sign about in addition to a Boulder preamp however provides a level of silkiness to the proceedings. And it’s received actual cojones. If you’re the form of particular person that wishes to go straight to the supply, as my colleague Jonathan Valin likes to say, then the Commander actually ought to be at your beck and name. Compared to the darTZeel preamp the Gryphon lacks a little bit of the supernatural musical circulation and midrange bloom that’s the hallmark of that preamplifier. But the Commander has superior dynamics, a decrease noise ground, higher management of the bass, and extra correct transient pitch definition. The Commander occupies a spot on the very apex of musical playback and casts a fascinating spell, whether or not or not you occur to be a devotee of the fabled Basho.

Specs & Pricing

Inputs: Four pairs XLR balanced, two pairs RCA single-ended
Outputs: Two pairs XLR balanced, one pair RCA single-ended
Input impedance: 18k ohms balanced, 12k ohms single-ended
Gain: 18dB
Frequency response: 0.1Hz–1.5MHz at –3dB
Dimensions: Audio/management unit, 18.8″ x 9.3″ x 17.9″; energy provide, 18.8″ x 9.29″ x 17.3″
Weight: Audio management unit, 67.2 lbs; energy provide, 84.2 lbs.
Price: $63,000

GRYPHON AUDIO NA Inc.
9 Lynn Court, Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07677, USA
Anthony Chiarella, Director of Sales & Marketing
(201) 690-9006 (workplace)
(201) 264-7217 (cell)
[email protected]

The submit Gryphon Commander Preamplifier appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

World News

Gryphon Commander Preamplifier

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

In the movie Caddyshack, the character Ty Webb (performed by Chevy Chase) is an affable businessman and crack golfer who even performs properly when blindfolded. At one level, he undertakes to provide some free recommendation to the formidable teenage caddy named Danny (Michael O’Keefe). As the duo survey the course on the venerable Bushwood Country Club, Webb recites a saying that he fancifully attributes to the well-known Seventeenth-century Japanese thinker and haiku poet Matsuo Basho: “A flute with no holes in it isn’t a flute. A donut with no gap is a Danish.”

So, what does that make the Danish Gryphon Commander—a black aluminum two-chassis design with no exterior knobs or switches that primarily does virtually nothing to the audio sign? I’m no thinker, however I can attest that it makes the Commander not only a preamplifier however one thing of a magical instrument.

Your eyes will let you know a variety of the story. Put bluntly, the Gryphon Commander preamplifier is a commanding object. Its separate containers are related by three cables, that are the one slender factor about it. The hefty energy provide sits silently, whether or not in operation or not. So does the signal-processing chassis. No noise, no vibration, no nothing. Just obsidian silence. Quite a feat for a big energy provide that incorporates 4 custom-made 36VA toroidal transformers, two for every left and proper channel, that go a great distance towards rendering this preamp as potent as a variety of amplifiers. The energy provide can be able to powering a forthcoming phono- stage from Gryphon in addition to a digital supply. A considerable distant management with a rubber pad on the again to keep away from scratching furnishings controls the Commander, until you resolve to make use of your fingers and make use of the 4.3″ TFT capacitive touchscreen.

Situating the Commander in my {custom} HR-X stand required two folks to make sure that the preamp didn’t get dented or scratched or take a bit out of the stand itself. Fortunately, Jeff Fox of Command Performance AV in Falls Church, Virginia, and Anthony Chiarella, the Director of Sales and Marketing for Gryphon North America, had been each available to assist set up it safely. All the fuss proved to be well worth the effort. The Commander, which is the successor to the corporate’s earlier Pandora preamplifier, didn’t open up an auditory Pandora’s field. Instead, it provided a reminder of the significance of nice energy exercised with duty.

Gryphon Commander Preamplifier rear

In the previous few years, I’ve listened to quite a lot of wonderful preamps, together with the Boulder 3010 and the Ypsilon PST-100, Mk. II. My present reference is the Swiss battery-powered darTZeel NHB-18NS, which features a phonostage. The Commander introduced its personal distinctive mix of attributes to the sonic desk. I didn’t solely take pleasure in listening to it; I reveled in its dynamic prowess and its means to resolve fantastic particulars, each of which will be traced to its superlatively low noise ground. Throughout my audition, the Commander did as little to change the sign emanating from digital or analog sources as I’ve ever heard a preamp do. It could be exhausting to consider a extra linear and immaculate part.

It might sound paradoxical, however the quiescence of the Commander was instantly audible. It offered silky black backgrounds on recording after recording. One CD that I very a lot loved listening to on the Commander, as an illustration, was a reside recording from December 2010 of the legendary Chicago Symphony Orchestra brass part enjoying all the pieces from Bach to Percy Grainger, from Gabrielli to Prokofiev. All the facility on faucet meant that the Commander was in a position to situate every instrument securely in its personal area. This was notably noteworthy, because it had been, on a spooky piece by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas known as “Sensemaya.” The tuba emerged from what appeared like prehistoric depths with an virtually voluptuous tone, conveying properly the instrumental rendering of the Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen’s saga a couple of ritual Afro-Caribbean chant that’s recited throughout the killing of a snake. And drumsticks had a extra authoritative and life like crack to them. Then there was the CSO brass’ rendition of Bach’s C minor Passacaglia and Fugue which vividly shows the clarion would possibly of the ensemble. The precision of soundstaging on Bach’s blockbuster work was actually marvelous, and the piccolo trumpets had a piping high quality to them that was wholly endearing.

Another factor all the facility of the Gryphon buys you is easy rest—not the soggy variety that you simply discover when collapsing right into a La-Z-Boy, however one thing a lot tauter and extra elegant. The sheer exactitude of the Commander meant that there was no sense of smearing or bloat, which translated into an enviable readability of musical line. This attribute was abundantly obvious after I streamed Roberta Flack, who made an abortive try at a profession as an opera singer then took R&B to new heights, singing “Jesse” or “I’m the Girl” on her traditional album Killing Me Softly. The Commander’s lack of grain and its iron-fisted management allowed it to spotlight the lilting and lissome high quality of her voice. Something comparable occurred on a Concord LP of the Warren Vache Trio known as Midtown Jazz. The elegant breathiness of Vache’s cornet enjoying on numbers akin to “I’m Old Fashioned” was by no means extra in proof on my stereo system. On Count Basie Remembered [Nagel Heyer Records], which options the New York All Stars enjoying reside in Hamburg, Germany, all the pieces snapped into place. When a preamp exerts the type of grip that the Commander does, it turns into rather a lot simpler to hint the interaction of an ensemble, in addition to its circulation. The rhythm turns into audibly snappier on swing music, because the devices, from piano to guitar, appear to cease and begin only a hair extra rapidly. The command of the Commander supplies that “you’re there” sensation that each one audiophiles in good standing are inclined to covet.

The would possibly of the Commander additionally signifies that it could actually distill the music to its essence, stripping away any digital detritus or encrustation. This got here dwelling to me whereas listening to the well-known German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. She made many recordings beneath the supervision of her husband, Walter Legge, who headed the classical music division at EMI/Angel. One such LP was a 1975 launch on the EMI label known as Songs I Love that I not too long ago picked up off eBay. Its very good high quality instantly displays the notoriously authoritarian Legge’s fastidious consideration to element (he was recognized, amongst different issues, as “the autocrat of the turntable”). Two notable songs on this recording are Schubert’s “To Silvia” and “Still Sea.” In her insightful memoir of Legge, On and Off the Record, Schwarzkopf observes, “Schubert didn’t soak himself in his poets; his nature was so filled with music, so wealthy in melody, that just about any piece of verse was sufficient to stimulate his creativeness.” Still, it virtually goes with out saying that these two songs, which set to music poems by Shakespeare and Goethe, traverse the very best inventive peaks, no matter Schubert’s inattention to poetry. In listening to them via the Commander, I heard an unprecedented stage of readability on the vocal traces and within the relationship between voice and piano that made it simplicity itself to comply with each the textual content and Schwarzkopf’s musical intention. In this regard, it jogged my memory of the mesmerizing transparency that I skilled when not too long ago visiting my buddy Ali Saad’s elaborate Avantgarde Trio setup in Beverly Hills.

More Schubert was on faucet after I reached for the Austrian baritone Florian Boesch’s 2012 recording of the Viennese composer on the Hyperion label. As you’ll count on, Hyperion did a bang-up job, however the Commander took it to a brand new stage by way of pellucid playback. It could be simple to confuse the calm that the Commander conveys with placidity. But that’s actually not the case in any respect. Rather, the reserve energy signifies that essentially the most delicate tonal shadings at pianissimo ranges—these umbratile passages that may be so haunting in classical music—are conveyed with stupendous constancy on songs akin to “Der Wanderer.” My consideration didn’t wander. On the opposite, on quite a few recordings I used to be impressed by the Commander’s means to seize the tonal shadings of quite a lot of singers.

As you’ll count on, the brute pressure of the Commander additionally signifies that it exerts a level of management within the bass that’s fairly uncommon. On jazz recordings, the place the recording of the standup bass can typically be slightly murky, the Commander reached proper down into the nether areas to clear issues up. And on numbers the place you simply rock out—Pharrell Williams’ Girl or Isaac Hayes’ Shaft—the Commander, in tandem with darTZeel 468 amplifier, offered a bass basis that was each richly sonorous and rock stable. On Williams’ hit music “Happy,” the cymbal within the background might hardly be crisper. What’s extra, there was merely no sense of bass bloat on numbers akin to “Gush,” the place Williams evocatively croons about “eager to get soiled, woman.” Suffice it to say that the efficiency of the Commander is all the time pristine.

Perhaps one of the simplest ways to explain the Commander is as a preservation machine. It preserves the sign about in addition to a Boulder preamp however provides a level of silkiness to the proceedings. And it’s received actual cojones. If you’re the type of individual that desires to go straight to the supply, as my colleague Jonathan Valin likes to say, then the Commander actually needs to be at your beck and name. Compared to the darTZeel preamp the Gryphon lacks a little bit of the supernatural musical circulation and midrange bloom that’s the hallmark of that preamplifier. But the Commander has superior dynamics, a decrease noise ground, higher management of the bass, and extra correct transient pitch definition. The Commander occupies a spot on the very apex of musical playback and casts a fascinating spell, whether or not or not you occur to be a devotee of the fabled Basho.

Specs & Pricing

Inputs: Four pairs XLR balanced, two pairs RCA single-ended
Outputs: Two pairs XLR balanced, one pair RCA single-ended
Input impedance: 18k ohms balanced, 12k ohms single-ended
Gain: 18dB
Frequency response: 0.1Hz–1.5MHz at –3dB
Dimensions: Audio/management unit, 18.8″ x 9.3″ x 17.9″; energy provide, 18.8″ x 9.29″ x 17.3″
Weight: Audio management unit, 67.2 lbs; energy provide, 84.2 lbs.
Price: $63,000

GRYPHON AUDIO NA Inc.
9 Lynn Court, Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07677, USA
Anthony Chiarella, Director of Sales & Marketing
(201) 690-9006 (workplace)
(201) 264-7217 (cell)
[email protected]

The publish Gryphon Commander Preamplifier appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Uncategorized

dCS Vivaldi Apex Digital-to-Analog Converter

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

This past summer I had the good fortune to attend a performance at Washington’s National Cathedral of Brahms’ German Requiem, which was dedicated to the people of war-torn Ukraine. Where I was seated high up in the balcony, with a bird’s-eye view of the orchestra and chorus, it was hard not to be wowed by the sheer grandeur of the cathedral. The sound effortlessly expanded into space, whether it was the soloists or the mighty brass section.

Listening to the dCS Vivaldi DAC with the new Apex upgrade vividly reminded me of this concert for a variety of reasons. Foremost among them was the ability of the Vivaldi Apex to reproduce the sense of air in concert halls or recording studios, allowing it to position an instrument or singer firmly in the soundstage and to capture a wealth of ambient detail (down to the degree of hall echo produced by a performer) with well-nigh uncanny accuracy. Until now, no digital system in my experience has succeeded in capturing this phenomenon as well as analog playback. The Vivaldi Apex does. Just listen to a Beethoven piano concerto—the DAC has the piano resounding so emphatically in the hall that it constitutes the very essence of sonic realism. In situating instruments so incisively in the actual venue, it takes a big step toward digital playback that is not simply improved but gobsmacking in both its precision and emotional power.

Believe it or not, even with the mighty TechDAS Air Force Zero ’table on hand, I listen to a lot of digital. Yes, siree! There’s simply too much repertoire on digital that cannot be accessed on LPs or, if you prefer, tapes, to be a fuddy-duddy about it. Plus, digital often sounds first-rate—low noise floor, fortissimo dynamics. What’s not to like? So, when John Giolas, the vice-president of sales and marketing for dCS, which is based in Cambridge, England, intimated that something swell was on the horizon, my ears perked up. It’s been about a decade since dCS introduced the Vivaldi suite of digital source components (DAC, upsampler, CD/SACD transport, clock) to the Yanks at a demo at the audio retailer Ears Nova in Manhattan. Back then I was quite chuffed, as the Brits like to say, by the image stability of the four-box Vivaldi, which featured a superlative Esoteric VMK3 VRDS-Neo CD/SACD transport mechanism. I bought the whole stack. Since then, dCS has made some important software upgrades, but undertaken no major component upgrades until now to revivify the Vivaldi DAC. This Apex upgrade costs $9000 and is available for the Vivaldi DAC, Vivaldi One (one-box DAC, upsampler, transport), Rossini DAC, and Rossini CD/SACD player, regardless of vintage. The upgrade is handled through your dealer, who ships the unit to the dCS service center in Boston for North American customers (dCS has service centers around the world).

At the heart of dCS products is its innovative Ring DAC. The task of a digital-to-analog converter is implied in its name—to take a digital audio data stream and convert it to an analog signal. Optimally, this occurs without adding any new distortion to the signal. The folks at dCS note that the problem with transforming 1’s and 0’s into an analog wave is that it can do just that. The company explains that its Ring DAC architecture eliminates any correlation between the audio signal and errors introduced by the inevitable parts tolerances in even the most precise resistors: “Given that any combination of current sources can ‘fire’ any bit in the Ring DAC, the error generated is completely unrelated to the audio signal; it is decorrelated. This decorrelation means that any errors are randomized and converted to white noise.” The aim, then, is to lower this distortion and preserve fine detail. To this end, dCS frowns upon the use of DAC chips, which it regards as a recipe for built-in obsolescence. Instead, it employs a Field Programmable Gate Array platform to ensure future software upgrades, something that it regularly offers to its customers. Now, dCS has taken further steps to attempt to improve the performance of the Ring DAC that include revamping the power supply, designing a new analog output stage, and reconfiguring the main Ring DAC circuit board. (See the sidebar on how the Ring DAC works.)

The changes were instantly audible the first time I had a chance to hear the new DAC. David and Steve Kennedy, who own a local store called JS Audio in Bethesda, Maryland, dropped by one evening, and we listened to several tunes through the unit. It was obvious that the Vivaldi Apex, which claims a 12dB improvement in its linearity, was noticeably smoother and richer in tonality than its predecessor. That demo whetted my appetite to hear the Apex fully warmed up and ready for battle. Enter Giolas, who sent me his burned-in unit from Salt Lake City, Utah.

I ran the Apex into both the darTZeel NHB-18NS preamp and the Gryphon Commander. It mated well with each preamp. With the darTZeel I used a 50-ohm BNC cable run off the RCA outputs of the Apex, and with the Commander I employed a balanced AudioQuest Mythical Creature interconnect. As I listened to the Apex for several months, I began to realize that the improvements to the DAC were more sweeping than I had initially realized. Part of this was probably because, when I first heard it, the unit was not warmed up. Another is that I’ve sometimes found that you start to perceive more intently when the critical apparatus gets switched off over time, and you just relax into the music. This hobby, after all, is supposed to be fun, a quality that can occasionally go by the boards in all our forensic examinations of everything from power cords to CD players.

Put simply, the Apex renders listening to music, classical or jazz, rap or rock, a lot more pleasurable. This nifty piece of gear has a salubrious effect on playback that manifests itself not only in the aforementioned enhanced sense of scale, but also in improved dynamics, clarity, imaging, and bass solidity. The bass region, as it happens, is a trouble spot for more than a few systems. Some of this can be chalked up to the challenges of simply creating linear bass in a home environment. But it’s also the case that on digital jazz, as opposed to analog recordings, I’ve noticed bass reproduction can often sound somewhat murky. The Apex exerted a much firmer grip in the nether regions that was all to the good.

The bass line on Count Basie’s celebrated Pablo album 88 Basie Street, for example, sounded appreciably tauter. On tracks like “Sunday at the Savoy,” the warmth of Cleveland Eaton’s upright double bass could hardly have sounded more distinct and palpable. Then there was British pianist Rob Barron’s elegant recording From This Moment On (on the Ubuntu label), which could sound a little woozy in the bass on the older Vivaldi unit. With the Apex in action matters were clarified considerably. In cleaning up the bass region, the DAC also displayed a lot more ferocity on drum passages. Just as fast piano runs were delivered with supernatural clarity, so drum rolls emerged with a lucidity that had to be heard to be believed. Once more, the low noise floor of the Apex came to the fore.

On the CD Count Basie Remembered by the New York All Stars, which features a live concert recorded in the Amerika Haus in Hamburg in 1996, Joe Ascione, who apparently started to play drums at age 2, belts it out on a number of cuts with a dynamism and crispness that—at the risk of belaboring the comparison with the Vivaldi—simply were not apparent in the past. This is the kind of stuff, by the way, that the Wilson WAMM Master Chronosonic loudspeakers, which were designed by the late David Wilson, an aficionado of drums played at loud levels, revel in reproducing. Getting the bass region is a big part of why the Vivaldi Apex can produce such a cavernous soundstage. It also helps to explain the sheer dynamism, the sense of unbridled energy that the Vivaldi Apex can bring to the table. On Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1976 live album One More from the Road, it was a real pleasure to hear this travelin’ band unleashed.

No compression here, folks. All that wealth of detail uncovered by the Vivaldi Apex coupled to real oomph delivered something akin to a sonic explosion. There is a latent sense of power and menace that permits the Apex to gradually ramp up the dynamic fireworks to dazzling levels. Put otherwise, it increased the sonic headroom, allowing the Wilson WAMM loudspeakers to perform in a relaxed fashion even at healthy output levels (not that the darTZeel NHB-468 amplifiers, no slouches they, weren’t helping as well).

The upsides don’t end here. The reduction in grain of the DAC means that it banishes a lot of the troublesome ills that have traditionally afflicted digital playback. The tonal purity of the Apex is remarkable. On vocals, it offers a beautiful mellifluity on Schubert art songs performed by the likes of the Austrian baritone Florian Boesch or the Dutch soprano Elly Ameling. But it can also bring on the ardor and brashness of Mick Jagger or John Lennon. Some of this can be ascribed, I think, to the DAC’s excellent imaging, which ensures that there is no smearing of vocals with various instruments that are simultaneously playing. Everything is in its corner pocket, so to speak.

Is this the last word in digital playback? Heaven forbid. The blunt truth is that digital engineers keep chasing down the audio gremlins to provide better and better playback, and I’m told that dCS itself has some developments up its sleeve that may further rock the audio world. But to hear what the Vivaldi Apex can provide is mesmerizing. The British are known for their stiff upper lips, but I would wager that if managing director David Steven and his trusty corps of engineers were to hear what the dCS delivers on a big system such as the Wilson WAMM, even theirs might start to quiver. This isn’t a good DAC. It’s a great one.      

Specs & Pricing

Vivaldi Apex DAC

Conversion: dCS proprietary Ring DAC topology
Analog outputs: One pair balanced outputs on XLR jacks; one pair unbalanced outputs on RCA jacks
Digital inputs: USB 2.0 interface on B-type connector, accepts 24-bit/44.1–384kS/s PCM, DSD64 & DSD128 in DoP format; 4x AES/EBU inputs on 3-pin female XLR connectors, accepts up to 32-bit/192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 2x dual AES pairs, accepts 24-bit/88.2–384kS/s PCM, DSD64 & DSD128 in DoP format; 2x SPDIF on RCA phono connectors, accepts 24-bit/32–192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 1x SPDIF on BNC connector, accepts 24-bit/32–192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 1x SPDIF on TosLink connector, accepts 24-bit/32–96kS/s PCM; 1x SDIF-2 interface on 2x BNC connectors, accepts 24-bit/32–96kS/s PCM or SDIF-2 DSD (auto selected)
Wordclock I/O: 3x Word Clock inputs on BNC connectors, accept standard Word Clock at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, or 192kHz (the data rate can be the same as the clock rate or an exact multiple of the clock rate); 1x Word Clock output on 1x BNC connector
Residual noise: Better than -113dB0 @ 20Hz-20kHz unweighted (6V setting)
Crosstalk: Better than -115dB0, 20-20kHz
Output levels: 0.2V, 0.6V, 2V, 6V rms for a full-scale input, set in the menu
Output impedance: 3 ohms
Maximum load: 600 ohms (10k–100k ohms is recommended)
Dimensions: 17.5″ x 6″ x 17.2″
Weight: 16.2 kg/35.65 lbs.
Price: $46,500 (upgrade for Vivaldi units, $9000)

dCS Limited
Cambridge, England, UK
dcsaudio.com

The post dCS Vivaldi Apex Digital-to-Analog Converter appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

World News

dCS Vivaldi Apex Digital-to-Analog Converter

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

This past summer I had the good fortune to attend a performance at Washington’s National Cathedral of Brahms’ German Requiem, which was dedicated to the people of war-torn Ukraine. Where I was seated high up in the balcony, with a bird’s-eye view of the orchestra and chorus, it was hard not to be wowed by the sheer grandeur of the cathedral. The sound effortlessly expanded into space, whether it was the soloists or the mighty brass section.

Listening to the dCS Vivaldi DAC with the new Apex upgrade vividly reminded me of this concert for a variety of reasons. Foremost among them was the ability of the Vivaldi Apex to reproduce the sense of air in concert halls or recording studios, allowing it to position an instrument or singer firmly in the soundstage and to capture a wealth of ambient detail (down to the degree of hall echo produced by a performer) with well-nigh uncanny accuracy. Until now, no digital system in my experience has succeeded in capturing this phenomenon as well as analog playback. The Vivaldi Apex does. Just listen to a Beethoven piano concerto—the DAC has the piano resounding so emphatically in the hall that it constitutes the very essence of sonic realism. In situating instruments so incisively in the actual venue, it takes a big step toward digital playback that is not simply improved but gobsmacking in both its precision and emotional power.

Believe it or not, even with the mighty TechDAS Air Force Zero ’table on hand, I listen to a lot of digital. Yes, siree! There’s simply too much repertoire on digital that cannot be accessed on LPs or, if you prefer, tapes, to be a fuddy-duddy about it. Plus, digital often sounds first-rate—low noise floor, fortissimo dynamics. What’s not to like? So, when John Giolas, the vice-president of sales and marketing for dCS, which is based in Cambridge, England, intimated that something swell was on the horizon, my ears perked up. It’s been about a decade since dCS introduced the Vivaldi suite of digital source components (DAC, upsampler, CD/SACD transport, clock) to the Yanks at a demo at the audio retailer Ears Nova in Manhattan. Back then I was quite chuffed, as the Brits like to say, by the image stability of the four-box Vivaldi, which featured a superlative Esoteric VMK3 VRDS-Neo CD/SACD transport mechanism. I bought the whole stack. Since then, dCS has made some important software upgrades, but undertaken no major component upgrades until now to revivify the Vivaldi DAC. This Apex upgrade costs $9000 and is available for the Vivaldi DAC, Vivaldi One (one-box DAC, upsampler, transport), Rossini DAC, and Rossini CD/SACD player, regardless of vintage. The upgrade is handled through your dealer, who ships the unit to the dCS service center in Boston for North American customers (dCS has service centers around the world).

At the heart of dCS products is its innovative Ring DAC. The task of a digital-to-analog converter is implied in its name—to take a digital audio data stream and convert it to an analog signal. Optimally, this occurs without adding any new distortion to the signal. The folks at dCS note that the problem with transforming 1’s and 0’s into an analog wave is that it can do just that. The company explains that its Ring DAC architecture eliminates any correlation between the audio signal and errors introduced by the inevitable parts tolerances in even the most precise resistors: “Given that any combination of current sources can ‘fire’ any bit in the Ring DAC, the error generated is completely unrelated to the audio signal; it is decorrelated. This decorrelation means that any errors are randomized and converted to white noise.” The aim, then, is to lower this distortion and preserve fine detail. To this end, dCS frowns upon the use of DAC chips, which it regards as a recipe for built-in obsolescence. Instead, it employs a Field Programmable Gate Array platform to ensure future software upgrades, something that it regularly offers to its customers. Now, dCS has taken further steps to attempt to improve the performance of the Ring DAC that include revamping the power supply, designing a new analog output stage, and reconfiguring the main Ring DAC circuit board. (See the sidebar on how the Ring DAC works.)

The changes were instantly audible the first time I had a chance to hear the new DAC. David and Steve Kennedy, who own a local store called JS Audio in Bethesda, Maryland, dropped by one evening, and we listened to several tunes through the unit. It was obvious that the Vivaldi Apex, which claims a 12dB improvement in its linearity, was noticeably smoother and richer in tonality than its predecessor. That demo whetted my appetite to hear the Apex fully warmed up and ready for battle. Enter Giolas, who sent me his burned-in unit from Salt Lake City, Utah.

I ran the Apex into both the darTZeel NHB-18NS preamp and the Gryphon Commander. It mated well with each preamp. With the darTZeel I used a 50-ohm BNC cable run off the RCA outputs of the Apex, and with the Commander I employed a balanced AudioQuest Mythical Creature interconnect. As I listened to the Apex for several months, I began to realize that the improvements to the DAC were more sweeping than I had initially realized. Part of this was probably because, when I first heard it, the unit was not warmed up. Another is that I’ve sometimes found that you start to perceive more intently when the critical apparatus gets switched off over time, and you just relax into the music. This hobby, after all, is supposed to be fun, a quality that can occasionally go by the boards in all our forensic examinations of everything from power cords to CD players.

Put simply, the Apex renders listening to music, classical or jazz, rap or rock, a lot more pleasurable. This nifty piece of gear has a salubrious effect on playback that manifests itself not only in the aforementioned enhanced sense of scale, but also in improved dynamics, clarity, imaging, and bass solidity. The bass region, as it happens, is a trouble spot for more than a few systems. Some of this can be chalked up to the challenges of simply creating linear bass in a home environment. But it’s also the case that on digital jazz, as opposed to analog recordings, I’ve noticed bass reproduction can often sound somewhat murky. The Apex exerted a much firmer grip in the nether regions that was all to the good.

The bass line on Count Basie’s celebrated Pablo album 88 Basie Street, for example, sounded appreciably tauter. On tracks like “Sunday at the Savoy,” the warmth of Cleveland Eaton’s upright double bass could hardly have sounded more distinct and palpable. Then there was British pianist Rob Barron’s elegant recording From This Moment On (on the Ubuntu label), which could sound a little woozy in the bass on the older Vivaldi unit. With the Apex in action matters were clarified considerably. In cleaning up the bass region, the DAC also displayed a lot more ferocity on drum passages. Just as fast piano runs were delivered with supernatural clarity, so drum rolls emerged with a lucidity that had to be heard to be believed. Once more, the low noise floor of the Apex came to the fore.

On the CD Count Basie Remembered by the New York All Stars, which features a live concert recorded in the Amerika Haus in Hamburg in 1996, Joe Ascione, who apparently started to play drums at age 2, belts it out on a number of cuts with a dynamism and crispness that—at the risk of belaboring the comparison with the Vivaldi—simply were not apparent in the past. This is the kind of stuff, by the way, that the Wilson WAMM Master Chronosonic loudspeakers, which were designed by the late David Wilson, an aficionado of drums played at loud levels, revel in reproducing. Getting the bass region is a big part of why the Vivaldi Apex can produce such a cavernous soundstage. It also helps to explain the sheer dynamism, the sense of unbridled energy that the Vivaldi Apex can bring to the table. On Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1976 live album One More from the Road, it was a real pleasure to hear this travelin’ band unleashed.

No compression here, folks. All that wealth of detail uncovered by the Vivaldi Apex coupled to real oomph delivered something akin to a sonic explosion. There is a latent sense of power and menace that permits the Apex to gradually ramp up the dynamic fireworks to dazzling levels. Put otherwise, it increased the sonic headroom, allowing the Wilson WAMM loudspeakers to perform in a relaxed fashion even at healthy output levels (not that the darTZeel NHB-468 amplifiers, no slouches they, weren’t helping as well).

The upsides don’t end here. The reduction in grain of the DAC means that it banishes a lot of the troublesome ills that have traditionally afflicted digital playback. The tonal purity of the Apex is remarkable. On vocals, it offers a beautiful mellifluity on Schubert art songs performed by the likes of the Austrian baritone Florian Boesch or the Dutch soprano Elly Ameling. But it can also bring on the ardor and brashness of Mick Jagger or John Lennon. Some of this can be ascribed, I think, to the DAC’s excellent imaging, which ensures that there is no smearing of vocals with various instruments that are simultaneously playing. Everything is in its corner pocket, so to speak.

Is this the last word in digital playback? Heaven forbid. The blunt truth is that digital engineers keep chasing down the audio gremlins to provide better and better playback, and I’m told that dCS itself has some developments up its sleeve that may further rock the audio world. But to hear what the Vivaldi Apex can provide is mesmerizing. The British are known for their stiff upper lips, but I would wager that if managing director David Steven and his trusty corps of engineers were to hear what the dCS delivers on a big system such as the Wilson WAMM, even theirs might start to quiver. This isn’t a good DAC. It’s a great one.      

Specs & Pricing

Vivaldi Apex DAC

Conversion: dCS proprietary Ring DAC topology
Analog outputs: One pair balanced outputs on XLR jacks; one pair unbalanced outputs on RCA jacks
Digital inputs: USB 2.0 interface on B-type connector, accepts 24-bit/44.1–384kS/s PCM, DSD64 & DSD128 in DoP format; 4x AES/EBU inputs on 3-pin female XLR connectors, accepts up to 32-bit/192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 2x dual AES pairs, accepts 24-bit/88.2–384kS/s PCM, DSD64 & DSD128 in DoP format; 2x SPDIF on RCA phono connectors, accepts 24-bit/32–192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 1x SPDIF on BNC connector, accepts 24-bit/32–192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 1x SPDIF on TosLink connector, accepts 24-bit/32–96kS/s PCM; 1x SDIF-2 interface on 2x BNC connectors, accepts 24-bit/32–96kS/s PCM or SDIF-2 DSD (auto selected)
Wordclock I/O: 3x Word Clock inputs on BNC connectors, accept standard Word Clock at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, or 192kHz (the data rate can be the same as the clock rate or an exact multiple of the clock rate); 1x Word Clock output on 1x BNC connector
Residual noise: Better than -113dB0 @ 20Hz-20kHz unweighted (6V setting)
Crosstalk: Better than -115dB0, 20-20kHz
Output levels: 0.2V, 0.6V, 2V, 6V rms for a full-scale input, set in the menu
Output impedance: 3 ohms
Maximum load: 600 ohms (10k–100k ohms is recommended)
Dimensions: 17.5″ x 6″ x 17.2″
Weight: 16.2 kg/35.65 lbs.
Price: $46,500 (upgrade for Vivaldi units, $9000)

dCS Limited
Cambridge, England, UK
dcsaudio.com

The post dCS Vivaldi Apex Digital-to-Analog Converter appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

World News

dCS Vivaldi Apex Digital-to-Analog Converter

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

This past summer I had the good fortune to attend a performance at Washington’s National Cathedral of Brahms’ German Requiem, which was dedicated to the people of war-torn Ukraine. Where I was seated high up in the balcony, with a bird’s-eye view of the orchestra and chorus, it was hard not to be wowed by the sheer grandeur of the cathedral. The sound effortlessly expanded into space, whether it was the soloists or the mighty brass section.

Listening to the dCS Vivaldi DAC with the new Apex upgrade vividly reminded me of this concert for a variety of reasons. Foremost among them was the ability of the Vivaldi Apex to reproduce the sense of air in concert halls or recording studios, allowing it to position an instrument or singer firmly in the soundstage and to capture a wealth of ambient detail (down to the degree of hall echo produced by a performer) with well-nigh uncanny accuracy. Until now, no digital system in my experience has succeeded in capturing this phenomenon as well as analog playback. The Vivaldi Apex does. Just listen to a Beethoven piano concerto—the DAC has the piano resounding so emphatically in the hall that it constitutes the very essence of sonic realism. In situating instruments so incisively in the actual venue, it takes a big step toward digital playback that is not simply improved but gobsmacking in both its precision and emotional power.

Believe it or not, even with the mighty TechDAS Air Force Zero ’table on hand, I listen to a lot of digital. Yes, siree! There’s simply too much repertoire on digital that cannot be accessed on LPs or, if you prefer, tapes, to be a fuddy-duddy about it. Plus, digital often sounds first-rate—low noise floor, fortissimo dynamics. What’s not to like? So, when John Giolas, the vice-president of sales and marketing for dCS, which is based in Cambridge, England, intimated that something swell was on the horizon, my ears perked up. It’s been about a decade since dCS introduced the Vivaldi suite of digital source components (DAC, upsampler, CD/SACD transport, clock) to the Yanks at a demo at the audio retailer Ears Nova in Manhattan. Back then I was quite chuffed, as the Brits like to say, by the image stability of the four-box Vivaldi, which featured a superlative Esoteric VMK3 VRDS-Neo CD/SACD transport mechanism. I bought the whole stack. Since then, dCS has made some important software upgrades, but undertaken no major component upgrades until now to revivify the Vivaldi DAC. This Apex upgrade costs $9000 and is available for the Vivaldi DAC, Vivaldi One (one-box DAC, upsampler, transport), Rossini DAC, and Rossini CD/SACD player, regardless of vintage. The upgrade is handled through your dealer, who ships the unit to the dCS service center in Boston for North American customers (dCS has service centers around the world).

At the heart of dCS products is its innovative Ring DAC. The task of a digital-to-analog converter is implied in its name—to take a digital audio data stream and convert it to an analog signal. Optimally, this occurs without adding any new distortion to the signal. The folks at dCS note that the problem with transforming 1’s and 0’s into an analog wave is that it can do just that. The company explains that its Ring DAC architecture eliminates any correlation between the audio signal and errors introduced by the inevitable parts tolerances in even the most precise resistors: “Given that any combination of current sources can ‘fire’ any bit in the Ring DAC, the error generated is completely unrelated to the audio signal; it is decorrelated. This decorrelation means that any errors are randomized and converted to white noise.” The aim, then, is to lower this distortion and preserve fine detail. To this end, dCS frowns upon the use of DAC chips, which it regards as a recipe for built-in obsolescence. Instead, it employs a Field Programmable Gate Array platform to ensure future software upgrades, something that it regularly offers to its customers. Now, dCS has taken further steps to attempt to improve the performance of the Ring DAC that include revamping the power supply, designing a new analog output stage, and reconfiguring the main Ring DAC circuit board. (See the sidebar on how the Ring DAC works.)

The changes were instantly audible the first time I had a chance to hear the new DAC. David and Steve Kennedy, who own a local store called JS Audio in Bethesda, Maryland, dropped by one evening, and we listened to several tunes through the unit. It was obvious that the Vivaldi Apex, which claims a 12dB improvement in its linearity, was noticeably smoother and richer in tonality than its predecessor. That demo whetted my appetite to hear the Apex fully warmed up and ready for battle. Enter Giolas, who sent me his burned-in unit from Salt Lake City, Utah.

I ran the Apex into both the darTZeel NHB-18NS preamp and the Gryphon Commander. It mated well with each preamp. With the darTZeel I used a 50-ohm BNC cable run off the RCA outputs of the Apex, and with the Commander I employed a balanced AudioQuest Mythical Creature interconnect. As I listened to the Apex for several months, I began to realize that the improvements to the DAC were more sweeping than I had initially realized. Part of this was probably because, when I first heard it, the unit was not warmed up. Another is that I’ve sometimes found that you start to perceive more intently when the critical apparatus gets switched off over time, and you just relax into the music. This hobby, after all, is supposed to be fun, a quality that can occasionally go by the boards in all our forensic examinations of everything from power cords to CD players.

Put simply, the Apex renders listening to music, classical or jazz, rap or rock, a lot more pleasurable. This nifty piece of gear has a salubrious effect on playback that manifests itself not only in the aforementioned enhanced sense of scale, but also in improved dynamics, clarity, imaging, and bass solidity. The bass region, as it happens, is a trouble spot for more than a few systems. Some of this can be chalked up to the challenges of simply creating linear bass in a home environment. But it’s also the case that on digital jazz, as opposed to analog recordings, I’ve noticed bass reproduction can often sound somewhat murky. The Apex exerted a much firmer grip in the nether regions that was all to the good.

The bass line on Count Basie’s celebrated Pablo album 88 Basie Street, for example, sounded appreciably tauter. On tracks like “Sunday at the Savoy,” the warmth of Cleveland Eaton’s upright double bass could hardly have sounded more distinct and palpable. Then there was British pianist Rob Barron’s elegant recording From This Moment On (on the Ubuntu label), which could sound a little woozy in the bass on the older Vivaldi unit. With the Apex in action matters were clarified considerably. In cleaning up the bass region, the DAC also displayed a lot more ferocity on drum passages. Just as fast piano runs were delivered with supernatural clarity, so drum rolls emerged with a lucidity that had to be heard to be believed. Once more, the low noise floor of the Apex came to the fore.

On the CD Count Basie Remembered by the New York All Stars, which features a live concert recorded in the Amerika Haus in Hamburg in 1996, Joe Ascione, who apparently started to play drums at age 2, belts it out on a number of cuts with a dynamism and crispness that—at the risk of belaboring the comparison with the Vivaldi—simply were not apparent in the past. This is the kind of stuff, by the way, that the Wilson WAMM Master Chronosonic loudspeakers, which were designed by the late David Wilson, an aficionado of drums played at loud levels, revel in reproducing. Getting the bass region is a big part of why the Vivaldi Apex can produce such a cavernous soundstage. It also helps to explain the sheer dynamism, the sense of unbridled energy that the Vivaldi Apex can bring to the table. On Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1976 live album One More from the Road, it was a real pleasure to hear this travelin’ band unleashed.

No compression here, folks. All that wealth of detail uncovered by the Vivaldi Apex coupled to real oomph delivered something akin to a sonic explosion. There is a latent sense of power and menace that permits the Apex to gradually ramp up the dynamic fireworks to dazzling levels. Put otherwise, it increased the sonic headroom, allowing the Wilson WAMM loudspeakers to perform in a relaxed fashion even at healthy output levels (not that the darTZeel NHB-468 amplifiers, no slouches they, weren’t helping as well).

The upsides don’t end here. The reduction in grain of the DAC means that it banishes a lot of the troublesome ills that have traditionally afflicted digital playback. The tonal purity of the Apex is remarkable. On vocals, it offers a beautiful mellifluity on Schubert art songs performed by the likes of the Austrian baritone Florian Boesch or the Dutch soprano Elly Ameling. But it can also bring on the ardor and brashness of Mick Jagger or John Lennon. Some of this can be ascribed, I think, to the DAC’s excellent imaging, which ensures that there is no smearing of vocals with various instruments that are simultaneously playing. Everything is in its corner pocket, so to speak.

Is this the last word in digital playback? Heaven forbid. The blunt truth is that digital engineers keep chasing down the audio gremlins to provide better and better playback, and I’m told that dCS itself has some developments up its sleeve that may further rock the audio world. But to hear what the Vivaldi Apex can provide is mesmerizing. The British are known for their stiff upper lips, but I would wager that if managing director David Steven and his trusty corps of engineers were to hear what the dCS delivers on a big system such as the Wilson WAMM, even theirs might start to quiver. This isn’t a good DAC. It’s a great one.      

Specs & Pricing

Vivaldi Apex DAC

Conversion: dCS proprietary Ring DAC topology
Analog outputs: One pair balanced outputs on XLR jacks; one pair unbalanced outputs on RCA jacks
Digital inputs: USB 2.0 interface on B-type connector, accepts 24-bit/44.1–384kS/s PCM, DSD64 & DSD128 in DoP format; 4x AES/EBU inputs on 3-pin female XLR connectors, accepts up to 32-bit/192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 2x dual AES pairs, accepts 24-bit/88.2–384kS/s PCM, DSD64 & DSD128 in DoP format; 2x SPDIF on RCA phono connectors, accepts 24-bit/32–192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 1x SPDIF on BNC connector, accepts 24-bit/32–192kS/s PCM & DSD64 in DoP format; 1x SPDIF on TosLink connector, accepts 24-bit/32–96kS/s PCM; 1x SDIF-2 interface on 2x BNC connectors, accepts 24-bit/32–96kS/s PCM or SDIF-2 DSD (auto selected)
Wordclock I/O: 3x Word Clock inputs on BNC connectors, accept standard Word Clock at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, or 192kHz (the data rate can be the same as the clock rate or an exact multiple of the clock rate); 1x Word Clock output on 1x BNC connector
Residual noise: Better than -113dB0 @ 20Hz-20kHz unweighted (6V setting)
Crosstalk: Better than -115dB0, 20-20kHz
Output levels: 0.2V, 0.6V, 2V, 6V rms for a full-scale input, set in the menu
Output impedance: 3 ohms
Maximum load: 600 ohms (10k–100k ohms is recommended)
Dimensions: 17.5″ x 6″ x 17.2″
Weight: 16.2 kg/35.65 lbs.
Price: $46,500 (upgrade for Vivaldi units, $9000)

dCS Limited
Cambridge, England, UK
dcsaudio.com

The post dCS Vivaldi Apex Digital-to-Analog Converter appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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2022 Golden Ear: J.Sikora Standard Max Turntable

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

J.Sikora Standard Max Turntable 

$21,000

The J.Sikora ‘table immediately goes to the head of the class. Its fit ’n’ finish can only be termed exemplary; the sound it produces, captivating. The Sikora, which accepts up to two tonearms and employs two motors and rubber belts, is impressive when it comes to speed stability, creating a deep and wide soundstage allied with excellent pitch accuracy. A more expensive reference power supply ($4625) kicks overall performance up another notch. Throughout, the Standard Max displays an enviable certitude in navigating treacherously dynamic vinyl passages that makes for hours of blissful reproduction, whether the genre is rock or classical or jazz. Perhaps its most notable feature is that like far more expensive ’tables, the Max produces the jet-black backgrounds that were once thought to be the sole province of digital recordings. Not so. With the Sikora, many of the irritants that were once part and parcel of listening to LPs are simply relegated to yesteryear, at a price tag that until recently would have been considered inconceivable. Anyone searching for a ’table that will deliver the musical goods with panache and power, solidity, and punch, need look no further.

The post 2022 Golden Ear: J.Sikora Standard Max Turntable appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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2022 Golden Ear: J.Sikora Standard Max Turntable

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

J.Sikora Standard Max Turntable 

$21,000

The J.Sikora ‘table immediately goes to the head of the class. Its fit ’n’ finish can only be termed exemplary; the sound it produces, captivating. The Sikora, which accepts up to two tonearms and employs two motors and rubber belts, is impressive when it comes to speed stability, creating a deep and wide soundstage allied with excellent pitch accuracy. A more expensive reference power supply ($4625) kicks overall performance up another notch. Throughout, the Standard Max displays an enviable certitude in navigating treacherously dynamic vinyl passages that makes for hours of blissful reproduction, whether the genre is rock or classical or jazz. Perhaps its most notable feature is that like far more expensive ’tables, the Max produces the jet-black backgrounds that were once thought to be the sole province of digital recordings. Not so. With the Sikora, many of the irritants that were once part and parcel of listening to LPs are simply relegated to yesteryear, at a price tag that until recently would have been considered inconceivable. Anyone searching for a ’table that will deliver the musical goods with panache and power, solidity, and punch, need look no further.

The post 2022 Golden Ear: J.Sikora Standard Max Turntable appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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2022 Golden Ear: darTZeel NHB-468 Monoblock Amplifier

Posted on by Jacob Heilbrunn

darTZeel NHB-468 Monoblock Amplifier

$235,000/pr. 

These glamorous, gold-and-crimson Swiss amplifiers offer a level of performance that is truly bedazzling. One moment they are belting out an orchestral or piano crescendo with absolute authority, the next they are plunging into a quiet abyss of sound with impressive control and transparency. With up to 2000 watts on tap, the darTZeel is a powerhouse of an amp that effortlessly traverses the summits of musical reproduction. For one thing, the amp is a real toe-tapper. It commands an alacrity and dynamic liveliness that few, if any, of its brethren possess, allowing it to reproduce transients with an explosive power that is pretty darn close to the real thing. Add in a tonal accuracy throughout the frequency spectrum that ensures the proper weight in the bass region and endows the treble with a delightful mellifluity, banishing any lingering sense of electronic artifacts that can render prolonged listening a chore, particularly on digital recordings. Throughout, it simply seems imperturbable, no matter the musical demands. When matched with the elegant custom stands crafted by Thixar’s CEO Dirk Ruedell, the results are heavenly, indeed. Oh, the places you’ll go! The bottom line: In designing these magnificent amplifiers, Herve Deletraz has outdone himself.

The post 2022 Golden Ear: darTZeel NHB-468 Monoblock Amplifier appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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