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equipment report any nasty vibrations. There’s also a little hole cut into the CD tray for your thumb, so that you can easily seat and unseat discs. And speaking of the CD tray—it’s a special sled that’s been designed with an internal clamping system that essentially holds the disc in a vise. No stupid pucks placed on top of the CD that can wiggle and bounce around inside—these guys at TEAC are dead serious about excavating the last drop of performance. To its credit, TEAC has clearly put a lot of thought, effort, and TLC into this baby. While some audiophiles get hung up on the nuances of SACD versus CD. I don’t and neither does the Esoteric, which plays them both beautifully. In fact, the Esoteric never balked at playing any disc—burned, scorched, seared, or otherwise. The machine is mechanically as unflappable as it sounds. It never loses its serenity. Far too many players suffer transport breakdowns or balk, for often inscrutable reasons, at playing certain discs. No doubt the Esoteric’s virtues come at a stiff tariff. At $7700 the Esoteric is not inexpensive, but to acquire this kind of sound five years ago would have required the fortune of a Croesus. It’s important to say upfront, however, that this is not a player for the headbanging crowd. It doesn’t draw attention to itself and lacks the slam that rock aficionados not only crave, but also deserve. Rather, the Esoteric seduces you with its wonderful palette of tonal colors, bloom, and capacious soundstage. The first and most immediate impression that the Esoteric makes is how fully it reproduces the musical line. In visual terms, to me it’s the difference between a balloon that’s sagging or bursting with air. On one of my favorite recordings of the Handel Trio Sonatas [Convivium Ensemble, Hyperion], the mellowness of the oboe and the amount of tube-like air surrounding it were enchanting. I can’t get that beautifully woody oboe out of my head. Overall, the sound was full and warm with each instrument carefully reproduced in its own space. Hearing all four instruments like this, particularly the cello with its rich resonance, bumbling along together, each easily distinguished, each limpidly communicating with the other to create a coherent musical message, is always a thrill for me. Isn’t that what this hobby is, or is supposed to be, about? The truth is that the Esoteric is so mellifluous that it simply floats out the music, tugging at your heartstrings rather than bellowing, “Listen to me!” On “I Deserve It” [Warner], Madonna’s voice simply sounded immaculate—relaxed, luscious, and heart-rending—while the accompaniment, especially the drums, was perfectly in place, with nary a trace of harshness. It’s the kind of sound, I’m convinced, that would instantly make any non-audiophile, if not capitulate to the siren song of high-end audio, at least understand why a table radio may not always be the right answer. A friend of mine who is an experienced listener discerned the Esoteric’s gentle qualities within seconds, and it was certainly fun to watch his eyes bulge at the refined sound. Don’t get me wrong. The Esoteric does not smudge or blur transients. Quite the contrary. The Esoteric lingers over notes, giving them their full value. Its sound is not effervescent, but stately with extremely measured and regular pacing. This makes for a convincingly whole presentation, unruffled and unhurried, where the notes simply unfold instead of colliding with each other. Indeed, what makes the Esoteric so enjoyable is the combination of articulateness and bloom. The things that audiophiles crave—the reproduction of quavers, vibratos, and shadings within a phrase—are what make the rise and fall of a passage more than just a rote recapitulation of a series of pitches. The ability to deliver these qualities is what distinguishes what the Germans like to call the Liebhaber, or amateur, from the Kenner, or expert, musician. The Esoteric, you might say, is a Kenner. After weeks and weeks of listening to the Esoteric, I returned to my regular Meitner digital gear. It reinforced the virtues of listening to different gear for me. The Meitner threw the Esoteric’s qualities into even starker relief. The Meitner was more detailed, complex, and transparent, revealing more lines of music. In addition, it was more energetic, particularly in the bass and treble. The Esoteric’s octave-tooctave balance is irreproachable, but it sounds slightly shrunken next to the Meitner. It’s simply not quite as big. It seems to me that the Esoteric is a piece that you love, excusing any deficiencies, however minor, because you love it, whereas the Meitner is the King Kong of digital. It simply commands awesome respect for its power and sweep. Ultimately, however, the similarities rather than the differences between the players are what stood out. I could easily live with either with no regrets. Of course, audiophiles like to place enormous importance on small distinctions, which is their right. Fine. One person’s diminishing returns is another’s minimum requirement. But both the Esoteric and the Meitner offer stratospheric performance, an embarrassment of riches, by any standards. Top-notch digital playback is becoming scary stuff and breathing in this rarefied air can be a dizzying, even intoxicating, experience. The Esoteric draws you into the sound to such an extent that you tend to forget about the nuts and bolts of the player and simply wallow in the music. If you haven’t guessed by now, I did a not insubstantial amount of wallowing. Yup, I liked it. A lot. And so, I bet, will you. If you’re in the market for a top-notch player and your budget permits the likes of the sumptuous Esoteric, I suspect that, after listening to it, you may decide not to waste much time looking elsewhere. & SPECIFICATIONS Transport outputs: One optical, one coaxial, one i.LINK terminal Analog outputs: Balanced (XLR) and unbalanced (RCA) Dimensions: 17.5" x 6" x 13.75" Weight: 51 lbs. MANUFACTURER INFORMATION TEAC AMERICA, INC. 7733 Telegraph Road Montebello, California 90460 (323) 726-0303 teac.com Price: $7700 108 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND ■ APRIL/MAY 2006
equipment report Channel Islands Audio D-200 Monoblock Amplifier Another offering in a rapidly growing area of amplifier design. Chris Martens Imet Dusty Vawter, President of Channel Islands Audio (often abbreviated to CIAudio), on a shuttle-bus ride to the Denver airport as we returned home from the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Mr. Vawter, I learned, had been head of customer service at now-defunct Audio Alchemy before founding CIAudio, and the experience left him with a refreshingly different slant on high-end design. Like any serious manufacturer of audio products, he is passionate about sound quality, but more than many he believes Class D amplifiers are light, but the D-200s weigh in at a comparatively chunky 15 pounds apiece. components should offer solid buildquality and should be rigorously designed and tested to provide troublefree performance and reliability at sensible prices. Amen to that. CIAudio offers a range of audio components that includes a family of Class D amplifiers, some of which I’d heard in speaker manufacturers’ demonstration suites at RMAF. CIAudio amplifiers are based on the comparatively new Philips/Hypex UcD (Universal class D) modules, rather than on the earlier Tripath or Bang & Olufsen/ICEpower technologies used in many other Class D designs. Like the NuForce amplifiers recently reviewed in TAS, the CIAudios are analog switching amplifiers, not “digital” amplifiers—an approach that proponents say gives Class D amps a more open and detailed sound. With the current proliferation of new Class D amplifiers on the market, many TAS readers (and writers) are curious to learn how the latest designs sound, and for this review we chose a pair of CIAudio’s newest model, the D-200 monoblocks. The D- 200s are small, cube-shaped units that deliver 200Wpc at 8 ohms and sell for $2299 per pair. At that price, the D- 200s offer two options: either 26 or 32dB of gain (the latter intended primarily for use with passive level-controls), 112 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND ■ APRIL/MAY 2006
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IN THIS ISSUE ISSUE 161 ■ APRIL/M
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L E T T E R S Best Article Ever As
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L E T T E R S mend enough the posit
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L E T T E R S the initial imprint o
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a b s o l u t e a n a l o g Lamm In
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ut the resolution, tone color, tran
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Page 16 and 17: A HIGHER HIGH END 2006 CONSUMER ELE
Page 18 and 19: CES2006 REPORT LOUDSPEAKERS $4000-$
Page 20 and 21: CES2006 REPORT the current 988 and
Page 22 and 23: CES2006 REPORT Final Sound’s Virt
Page 24 and 25: CES2006 REPORT dimensionality, grea
Page 26 and 27: CES2006 REPORT expensive SG2 (about
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Page 30 and 31: CES2006 REPORT Still, a novice visi
Page 32 and 33: CES2006 REPORT user not only to do
Page 34 and 35: CES2006 REPORT phono preamp ($7300)
Page 36 and 37: CES2006 REPORT Time to get off the
Page 38 and 39: CES2006 REPORT trol, and coherence
Page 40 and 41: CES2006 REPORT E.A.R. Martin Miles
Page 42 and 43: CES2006 REPORT Sound Lab Sound Lab
Page 44 and 45: CES2006 REPORT Avantgarde Acoustic
Page 46 and 47: CES2006 REPORT MBL’s 116 Elegance
Page 48 and 49: T A S J O U R N A L Basic Repertoir
Page 50 and 51: Marks Mankwane and rock-solid bassi
Page 52 and 53: their inspiration in the pop music
Page 54 and 55: the centuries, and the griot (or je
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Page 58 and 59: equipment report Like its forbears,
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