SoundStage! Access | SoundStageAccess.com (GoodSound.com)

Details: Written by: Vince Hanada; Created: 01 June 2012

Paradigm Sub 12 Great Buy If you’re an audio or home-theater enthusiast, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Paradigm, based in Ontario, Canada -- one of the largest speaker manufacturers in the world. With the introduction of the Series 7 Monitors, an extensive line of bookshelf, tower, center-channel, and surround models, it’s only natural that Paradigm would also include a new line of subwoofers, and they have -- the Series 7 Monitor Sub 8, Sub 10, and Sub 12, the model number in each case indicating the diameter, in inches, of the sub’s single driver. Although I reviewed the Monitor Sub 12 last February, in my review of the Series 7 Monitor 11-based surround-sound system, I wanted to more fully explore the Sub 12. I asked Paradigm for a second, additional review sample, their Perfect Bass Kit (PBK), and their PT-2 Wireless Transmitter. They enthusiastically obliged.

Details: Written by: Vince Hanada; Created: 15 May 2012

Cambridge Azur DacMagic Great Buy Digital-to-analog converters have been popular almost since the introduction of the Compact Disc, in 1983. I can understand why DACs were needed in those early days -- CD players’ built-in DACs were of dubious quality, and manufacturers cut corners to bring costs down. But as CD players improved, I couldn’t be bothered with an external DAC, and the two-box solution of CD transport and separate DAC introduced another problem: jitter, or timing errors in the transfer of data between transport and DAC. When jitter reaches a certain level, it becomes audible.

These days, with the diminishing use of CD players and the growing use of computers for storing and playing recordings, standalone DACs have again become important for good sound, especially the playing of high-resolution recordings. SACDs are becoming increasingly scarce, DVD-Audio is dead, and Blu-ray audio has not picked up the hi-rez music banner in any significant way. The simplest way to get hi-rez music these days is to download it from websites such as HDtracks, and play it on a computer through your audio system.

The DAC reviewed here is Cambridge Audio’s Azur DacMagic Plus, a follow-up to their highly acclaimed Azur DacMagic. The price has gone up a couple hundred bucks, to $650 USD, and some worthwhile enhancements have been added.

Details: Written by: Hans Wetzel; Created: 01 May 2012

Audioengine 5+ Great Buy It’s curious to me that, as a generality, the more money you spend at a restaurant, the less you get. Yes, the coeur de gigot d’agneau en gasconnade and accompanying Bordeaux performed the most tuneful tandem that my taste buds will witness for the foreseeable future. Yes, my plate’s presentation was more artfully done than I could have managed on my own. And most important, yes, two hours later I was once again hungry, my wallet felt uncomfortably light, and I experienced a growing sense of guilt and regret. I imagine that, for many, this kind of frivolity is reserved for the most special of occasions, infrequent events in the repetitive mundanity of daily life. In contrast to such transient moments of profligacy, I find that I derive the most pleasure from more utilitarian investments: those marked by a maximization of value of which Jeremy Bentham would be proud.

Apropos of this philosophy, it’s worth noting that the modest entryway to high-end audio is crowded with false prophets who promise high performance and convenience at low prices. More often than not they fully deliver neither, and the design compromises of a given product overshadow any apparent strengths. The folks at Audioengine, however, have exhibited a knack for producing loudspeakers that marry quality and convenience at the expense of nothing. It’s as if their audio engineers and their MBAs actually bothered to ask not only what consumers wanted and how much they were willing to spend for it, but also how the product would be used day to day. Commonsense stuff, this -- and yet remarkably uncommon.

Details: Written by: Rad Bennett; Created: 01 April 2012

Orb Audio Mod1 Great Buy Most speaker manufacturers market a full line of speakers, or even several lines, each line serving a different market niche. Though the models within a line usually vary in size, they often share the same design principles and some of the same parts. Orb Audio makes precisely one model: the Mod1 ($239 USD per pair), a nearly spherical speaker that, at 4 3/16"W x 4 3/16"H x 4 7/8"D, is a little bigger than a softball.

Orb offers many different configurations of single and multiple Mod1s. The Mod2 is simply a stack of two Mod1s, joined by a short desktop or floor stand; from there, it or any Orb system can be upgraded to take one of many different configurations. You can start with a pair of Mod1s, then add to them as your budget allows. But the next thing you’ll probably want to add will be a subwoofer, as the Mod1, with its single 3" driver, is understandably shy on bass. The largest configuration I’ve seen is the Mod4, which is four Mod1s in a row. The speakers come in standard finishes of Metallic Gloss Black or Pearl White; for another $60 per pair, they can be finished in Hand Polished Steel, Antiqued Bronze, or Antiqued Copper.

Details: Written by: Hans Wetzel; Created: 15 April 2012

Musical Fidelity M1DAC In the distant wake of the Trojan War, Odysseus, king of Ithaca, returned home in a journey of the most circuitous sort. Famed for his cunning, as exemplified by the Trojan Horse, and for his blinding of a certain Cyclops named Polyphemus, he navigated myriad obstacles in his ten-year trip. These included the stupor-inducing Lotus-Eaters, the giant, cannibalistic Laestrygonians, the six-headed Scylla, and the whirlpool Charybdis. The seas were not always rough for the Ithacan, however; Odysseus also earned the affections of the nymphs Calypso and Circe, minor female deities of the Greek variety.

Unable to convince Odysseus to remain with her, Circe kindly warned him of perhaps his most beguiling hurdle on his route home: “You will come to the Sirens, who enchant all who come near them. If anyone unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. . . . Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men’s ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like, you can listen yourself . . .”

Details: Written by: Jeff Stockton; Created: 01 March 2012

Tyler Acoustics D4M Great Buy I spend a lot of time thinking about how to shave my beard: which sort of razor to use, whether to use a cream or gel, which brands of each to buy. It’s the same sort of deliberation that goes into assembling a stereo system.

In this analogy, your amplifier is your choice of razor. Three blades? Four blades? Five? Tubed or solid-state, the amp could determine how smooth your music will sound, or how close you get to the artists’ intentions. Your recordings are your face -- you can clean them up, try to improve their quality, but ultimately, you have to do the best you can with what you’ve got.

Last comes the shaving cream: your speakers. Even a dull blade will cut, but a well-chosen shaving cream can soothe and smooth the process. There are, however, dozens of choices, and while each fulfills the baseline qualities, Barbasol, say, might not offer as much comfort as Edge. Maybe Gillette is an improvement on that -- and Nivea might beat them all. Only you can decide.

The remarkable Decade D4M, a two-way, rear-ported, bookshelf loudspeaker ($2400 USD per pair), handmade by Tyler Acoustics in a modest three-person shop in Owensboro, Kentucky, is like shaving with a rich cream that comes in a little pot and goes on with a brush. In the world of store-bought, mass-produced speakers, it’s in a different category.

Details: Written by: Roger Kanno; Created: 01 February 2012

Bel Canto C5i Last June, when I reviewed Bel Canto’s e.One DAC2.5 DAC-preamplifier, I found it to be an excellent combo worthy of being used as the digital control center of a high-quality audio system, and it's relatively affordable at $1995 USD. But for those who prefer the convenience of an integrated amplifier, Bel Canto also then offered the e.One S300iU with built-in USB DAC, also an excellent value at $1995.

Although the S300iU was very favorably reviewed by our own Randall Smith, its single USB input for the DAC and no S/PDIF inputs meant that it wasn’t possible to digitally connect a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray player. The new e.One C5i DAC and integrated amplifier is more like one of Bel Canto’s DAC-preamps, with multiple S/PDIF digital inputs in addition to its USB input, which makes it much more practical, in my view. And because the C5i costs even less -- only $1895 -- it has great potential for use in the high-end systems of budget-conscious audiophiles.

Details: Written by: Roger Kanno; Created: 15 February 2012

ESP power cord Essential Sound Products (ESP) -- or, more specifically, its owner and head designer, Michael Griffin -- knows a thing or two about making power cords and power distributors: that’s all they make. Griffin’s company offers the budget MusicCord products and above them a complete line that tops out at their highest-priced models, the Essence Reference power cord and power distributor. They’ve carved out a niche for themselves by offering high-quality gear at what most audio enthusiasts would consider to be reasonable prices. They’ve been in business since 1995, so they must be doing something right.

In the years I’ve been using various models of ESP’s budget cords in my reference system, Griffin has continually upgraded his entry-level products without significantly raising their prices. His latest MusicCord models are still priced very reasonably by high-end standards, but feature a complex conductor geometry that’s similar to that used in his more expensive Essence Reference cords, and lots of other technology trickled down from that line. The MusicCords are marketed as professional products, but according to Griffin they’re good enough to be used in high-end audio systems, especially the MusicCord-Pro ES. Reviewed here are the MusicCord-Pro ES power cords ($399.99 USD/2m) and matching power distributor ($799.99).

Details: Written by: Hans Wetzel; Created: 01 January 2012

DH Labs Encore Great Buy Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which he explained in a 1905 paper, ushered in a paradigm shift in the study of physics. Two-century-old Newtonian mechanics, which viewed space and time as fundamentally independent of one another, were superseded by a framework of space-time in which space and time existed coextensively. One of the consequences of Einstein’s theory was that certain absolutes could no longer be counted on as empirical constants, and one of those was time. Specifically, time would be measured as elapsing more slowly the closer one approached the speed of light. A curious hypothetical result of this would be that astronauts making an interstellar journey of 100 years (as measured by those left behind on Earth) at a constant velocity approaching the speed of light, might themselves experience the passage of only one year. Time is thus, like other terrestrial concepts, relative, and dependent on one’s perspective.

This all resurfaced as I thought about the various types of people who are interested in high-end audio equipment: the engineers who design it, the dealers who sell it, the consumers who buy it, and the people -- like me -- who review it. Standing apart from these individuals is everyone else: the folks who can’t tell a vacuum tube from a light bulb, and would choke on hearing that people spend thousands of dollars on cables. In short, depending on where one stands, a single audio product can simultaneously represent wildly different things. As in so many other areas of life, perspective is everything.

Details: Written by: Ron Doering; Created: 15 January 2012

Elemental Designs EL8.3t For a short while I owned a Saab station wagon (too short for me; not short enough, saith my wife) that was, at the same time, the sweetest and the most frustrating ride I’ve ever had. Saab must have made a vow at some point in its history that its cars would never be propelled by any engine having more than four cylinders, no matter how large their cars became or how much power the car-buying public demanded. This was basically true even during GM’s ownership of Saab and its attempts to work a V-6 into the line. The result was that, as Saab’s competitors settled on the V-6 engine as the absolute minimum for a self-respecting near-luxury car, with a V-8 available as a common option, Saab’s self-imposed constraint forced it to become extremely clever about extracting the maximum from engines of smaller displacement. As you can imagine, Saab had to pay a high price in R&D costs, and Saab owners in problems with reliability.