A Terrific Tube Preamplifier From Korea, And A - Ultra High Fidelity ...

I’m looking forward to the Simaudio
review. Simaudio products are mostly
top-tier, and the price point of the 300D
DAC is within reach of most — unlike
much of Simaudio’s product line, alas.
I’ve been searching for a no compromise
DAC, higher end than the DacMagic
reviewed last issue, but not one that’s
stratospherically priced. Impossible?
I’ll be relying heavily on UHF’s review
panel as usual.
If I’m doubtful of most other magazine’s
reviews of analog products, my
reservations are multiplied for digital
products. Most seem to think that an
iPod connected via its headphone jack to
a receiver equals perfection. Euuwww!
Jeff Tennant
Burlington, ON
P.S. Please don’t forget to test the
Simaudio’s USB port (ha, ha).
The review is in this issue, Jeff, and no
we didn’t forget the USB. We also bought a
300D for ourselves.
For many years I’ve respected (but
not necessarily agreed with) your views
on matters dealing with music, acoustics,
equipment, composers, etc.
I read on the BBC Website that Linn
is ending CD production. It said discerning
customers recognize the superior
quality of digital streaming. Linn has
pointed out that sales have come down,
yet it continues to manufacture the LP12
and Majik LP12 turntables.
How do you interpret this news? Is
this the beginning of the end of the CD
player? Do you think that the CD will
continue to survive amongst limited
manufacturers like the turntable?
Larry Byrd
SCARBOROUGH, ON
Linn has been reading the writing on the
wall, Larry, and it is written rather larger
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in Europe than (for the moment) in North
America. Downloads are selling well, as is
the reinvigorated LP, and in between is a
black hole, with the CD — or at least the
CD player— falling into it.
In fact the trend reveals more than that.
Compact Discs are still a major support for
music, but more and more buyers are loading
them onto their hard drives, not their CD
players. We decided some time ago we would
no longer review CD players without digital
inputs, for use with a computer. Though we
expect the CD to be around for a long time,
it will be just one source among several.
Have you considered making UHF
available on Kindle? For those of us far,
far, far away ( I am now in the DRC), the
Kindle is a great way to access newspaper
or magazine. Every day I have in my bag
The New York Times, The Economist, or
Le Monde. I get them in the morning
and keep them with me, whether I have
access to a Web page or not.
As of now, I don’t even bother
downloading the versions you have in
your Reading Room. They take 30 to 60
minutes to download. This is too heavy.
Can we expect such a version any time
soon?
Samir Jahjah
Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Kindle is well suited to books and even
to newspaper articles, but it has neither the
resolution nor the tonal nuances to handle
a magazine with graphical content like
UHF. We do expect to be on the iPad (we
are now official developers), but that will
still require a considerable download time.
Most magazines seem to be going in the same
direction.
Let me first of all congratulate you
for your excellent work.
I’m writing because I’m left perplexed
by technological changes in the
hi-fi industry. I’ve been reading you for
some 20 years, and I understand the
importance of the source component in
order to extract the maximum amount of
information from the medium, whether
CD or vinyl. So I was astonished, last
week, to find in my record shop the
Beatles record collection on…a USB
key. Can such a key really contain all
the information present on a CD? I
know it may have greater capacity (as
much as 16 GB), but is the quality of the
information adequate to transmit all of
the musical nuances?
More and more music is being stored
on hard drives. Even Linn favors that
approach. But can a hard drive costing
under $200 really give the same sonic
quality as the old disc? Also, if music
is transferred to a computer or from a
computer, that implies the use of a cable,
and therefore a theoretical quality loss.
I could be wrong, but I’m worried
about the future of high fidelity.
Jean Dufresne
SHERBROOKE, QC
It’s a concern we have shared ourselves,
Jean, but we have since observed that with
advancing technology it is now possible to
get surprising quality from a computer, and
even to match the sound of all but the very
best audiophile-grade CD players. Read our
review of the Moon 300D DAC in this issue,
and you’ll have a hint of what’s possible even
today. But we’re with you on the question of
the USB key.
On a cold evening in January I was
flipping though some back issues of UHF
(and listening to Mahler — the two seem
to go together), and I saw an article I
never thought I would see in the audio
press, Is Hi-Fi Too Expensive? (in UHF
No. 84). I’m writing to comment on
the article and the responses that follow
by both you and Costa Koulisakis of
Simaudio.
Not only did Mr. Meyers dare to
address the elephant in the room of
high fidelity — the astronomical costs
of the equipment — he did so in an
extremely effective way, by emphasizing
the opportunity cost of other purchases
or savings that could be made with the
same amount of discretionary income.
I don’t believe Mr. Meyers was against
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 7