USB DONE RIGHT: Two magic boxes that let computer audio ...

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And they’re class D.
You can send music from an Apple
iOS device (with AirPlay) or from an
Android device (with AllShare). Or, if
you must, with Bluetooth.
As you’ll recognize, this is the opposite
of what Chicken Little warned us
about. Blogger Mike Masnick doesn’t
80 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
think the end is near for the “content
industry,” and he has numbers to prove
it. Masnick and his Floor64 colleague
Michael Ho released their report, titled
The Sky Is Rising, at the last MIDEM
music industry convention in Cannes
in January. It purports to shows how the
global entertainment industry actually
grew by 50% in the last decade, despite
BitTorrent and all the warez sites.
We should warn you that the report
was commissioned by a computer indus-
The UHF Reference Systems
Equipment reviews are done on at least one of
UHF’s reference systems, selected as working
tools. They are changed as infrequently as
possible, because a reference that keeps changing
is no reference.
The Alpha system
Our original reference is in a room with special
acoustics, originally a recording studio, letting
us hear what we can’t hear elsewhere.
Main digital player: Linn Unidisk 1.1
Additional digital playback: CEC
TL-51X belt-driven transport, Moon
300D converter, Apple MacBook Pro,
Stello U3 interface
Digital cable: Atlas Mavros 1.5m
Digital portable: Apple iPhone 4S
Turntable: Audiomeca J-1
Tone arm: Audiomeca SL-5
Pickup: Goldring Excel
Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono 2
Preamplifier: Copland CTA-305
Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon W-5LE
Loudspeakers: Living Voice Avatar
OBX-R
Interconnects: Atlas Navigator All-Cu,
Pierre Gabriel ML-1
Loudspeaker cables: Atlas Mavros with
WBT nextgen banana connectors
Power cords: Gutwire, Wireworld Aurora
AC filters: Foundation Research LC-2
(power amp), Inouye SPLC
The Omega system
It serves for reviews of gear that cannot easily
fit into the Alpha system, with its small room.
Digital players: shared with the Alpha
system
Turntable: Linn LP12/Lingo II
Tone arm: Alphason HR-100S MCS
Pickup: London Reference
Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono 1.6
Preamplifier: Simaudio Moon P-8
Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon W-8
Loudspeakers: Reference 3a Suprema II
Interconnects: Atlas Navigator All-Cu,
Atlas Mavros, Pierre Gabriel ML-1
Loudspeaker cables: Pierre Gabriel ML-1
for most of the range, Wireworld Polaris
for the twin subwoofers
Power cords: BIS Audio Maestro, UHF14,
Wireworld
AC filters: GutWire MaxCon Squared,
Foundation Research LC-1
Acoustics: Gershman Acoustic Art panels
The Kappa system
This is our home theatre system. As with the
original Alpha system, we had limited space,
and that ruled out huge projectors and screens.
We did, however, finally come up with a system
whose performance gladdens both eye and ear,
with the needed resolution for reviews.
HDTV monitor: Samsung PN50A550
plasma screen
Source: Pioneer BDP-51FD Blu-Ray
player, Apple TV
Preamplifier/processor: Simaudio Moon
Attraction, 5.1 channel version
Power amplifiers: Simaudio Moon W-3
(main speakers), bridged Celeste 4070se
(centre speaker), Robertson 4010 (rear)
Main speakers: Energy Reference Connoisseur
(1984)
Centre speaker: Thiel MCS1
Rear speakers: Elipson 1400
Subwoofer: 3a Design Acoustics
Cables: Atlas, Van den Hul, MIT,
GutWire, Wireworld
Line filter: GutWire MaxCon Squared
All three systems have dedicated power lines,
with Hubbell hospital grade outlets. Extensions
and power bars are equipped with hospitalgrade
connectors.
try association that includes Google and
Facebook among its members, and which
therefore may have a certain agenda.
Judge for yourself, though. A PDF of
the report is at http://gigaom2.files.
wordpress.com/2012/01/theskyisrising.
pdf.
Here’s the new sponsor of TAVES,
the Toronto show.
Yes it’s a Porsche, but what’s a car
company doing sponsoring a high end
audio show? Well, the latest 911 (the
“real” Porsche, if you ask us — there is
no substitute) will be featuring a sound
system from Burmester. Expensive, if we
had to guess, but then so is the car. You
may recall that, some years back, a James
Bond picture, Die Another Day, featured
an Aston Martin Vanquish with a Linn
12.1-channel system.
TAVES is scheduled for September
28th to 30th at the King Edward hotel in
downtown Toronto, the same (excellent)
venue as last year.
From the sublime to the ridiculous…
Certain stores, like Best Buy, have
been offering trades on your DVDs
against the same titles in Blu-ray. Oh,
they don’t offer much, something like
$5, but it’s found money, right?
Amazon has its own trade-in program
on music, films and even electronics.
That’s amazon.com, by the way, not
amazon.ca. Amazon does offer to give
you a gift certificate of up to $4 or even
a little more, though user reviews are
overwhelmingly negative.
But Amazon is now offering to buy
your “old fashioned” CDs against credit
you can use to buy the music in MP3 on
the company’s US-only music store.
Yes, sure. We’re going to unload our
full-resolution recordings, and then pay
money to get the music back in a lossy
compressed version!