THE CD PLAYER PLUS - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

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There are now numerous Listening Feedback Room Music Through the Air ways to move music that is stored in your computer over to your stereo system, and most of them involve somehow getting a USB cable from the computer over to the hi-fi. That can be handy if the computer and the system are nearby, but what if they’re not? There’s a less messy way: over the air. We’ve looked at that possibility before. In UHF No. 76 we reviewed the Squeezebox 3 (from Slim Devices, now a division of Logitech). And there’s another popular method: Apple’s Airport Express. “Airport” is the clever name that Apple gave to its Wi-Fi devices. Most Airport units are simply wireless routers, not unlike those from D-Link, Linksys and Netgear. The Airport Express is unique, however, and its relatively low price (US$99, C$109) has attracted audiophiles eager to experiment, and also equipment modders. Us too. The Airport Express is deceptively simple. Shaped just like the battery charger for a MacBook portable, it plugs right into any convenient AC outlet. It has an Ethernet connector (necessary so that you can set it up from your computer), a USB plug intended for a printer that is then made accessible to your Wi-Fi network, and an audio miniplug output, for headphones or an audio cable to your amplifier. But there is also a hidden output. At the bottom of the audio jack is an optical transducer that gives you access to the raw digital bitstream from the Airport Express’s signal. That requires a special optical cable, a point we’ll get to in a moment. A similar hybrid outlet is found on some laptops, and on all current Macintosh computers. Actually, it would have been nice if Apple had found room for a full-sized TOSLINK optical jack. Where do you find an appropriate cable, with a mini-optical 52 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine jack at one end and a conventional TOSLINK plug at the other? Apple sells one… from Monster, available only as part of a cable kit, which includes an extension AC cable for the Airport Express and an analog cable, going from a mini-phone plug to a pair of phono plugs. The kit is expensive, too, at US$39 or C$49. We do in fact have one of the Monster cables, and we also have a much lowerpriced TOSLINK cable and an adapter. We don’t have, for the moment, a glass TOSLINK cable, though several years ago we liked what we heard from one such cable, a Wireworld Super Nova. Amphenol also makes a glass optical cable, as does SonicWave. To set up our Airport Express we connected it to a Mac Pro computer using Ethernet, and fired up the Airport Setup Assistant (part of Mac OS X — the Windows version comes on the included installer version disc). of Though our magazine. Apple products all but configure themselves, this one is an exception, and the manual could use a total rewrite. However we did succeed in coaxing amount it to of join information…for our Wi-Fi network, free. and we then connected it to our Omega system with the optical cable. Though we have a reference DAC, the Counterpoint DA-10A, we opted for the DAC that is part of the Eximus player (reviewed in this issue). We could then compare what we heard to the original disc played on the same Eximus player, thus taking one variable out of Why a free version? the chain. We chose five CDs, which we played one after the other. We then listened to the same selections through the Airport Express, connected to the Eximus by the Monster optical digital cable. We added an operational shortcut. It’s not what you would call convenient to get up and walk to the room where your computer is stored in order to choose your next music selection. However our iPod Touch has a free application from Apple called Remote (shown on the next page). It lets you see titles and artwork for the music that is on your computer, not on the iPod itself, and use the iPod as a remote control. The application is intended for use with iTunes, but other remotes are available free or inexpensively for a number of other “juke box” programs: for instance, the $4.99 iAmpRemote can control the popular WinAmp program. Heading for the Airport We began with our long-standing favorite choral recording, Now the Green Blade Riseth. It can easily turn to mush, or worse, if mishandled, and initially we were pleasantly surprised by the numerous qualities that moved intact through the pipeline. The choral voices were well defined, and the flute which opens the piece, and which continues in a delightful counterpoint, was smooth. Even the purely sonic aspects, such as the depth and the impression of height, were surprisingly good. The down side was what we would have expected from a CD player less competent than the Eximus, namely increasing hardness in louder vocal passages, accompanied by a somewhat rougher texture. That was not a surprise, to be sure. And, let us repeat, this is a difficult recording to reproduce even acceptably. We continued with one of our For years now, we have been publishing, on our Web site, a free PDF The reason is simple. We know you’re looking for information, and that is almost certainly why you’ve come to visit our site. And that’s why we give away what some competitors consider to be a startlingly large We would give it all away for free, if we could still stay in business. Recent figures indicate that each issue is getting downloaded as many as 100,000 times, and that figure keeps growing. Yes, we know, if we had a nickel for each download… Truth is, we’re in the business of helping you enjoy music at home under the best possible conditions. And movies too. We’ll do what we need to do in order to get the information to you. Of course, we also want you to read our published editions too. We hope that, having read this far, you’ll want to read on.
favorite violin recordings, the Dvorak Romantic Pieces with violinist James Ehnes (Analekta FL 2 3191). The violin is a challenge for any digital system, because its sound is so rich in upper harmonics, which digital doesn’t always handle well. The Airport Express didn’t handle it as well as the Eximus player itself had, of course, but it sinned more by omission than by commission. The melody flowed with great transparency and fluidity. So did the piano accompaniment. It sounded very good, and unless you heard better you might not realize you were missing something. But some aspects of the music were missing nonetheless. “There’s less of the violin’s woody resonance,” said Albert, “and you lose some of Ehnes’ subtle bow work.” There were several signs of diminished resolution, but the liquid character of the sound kept it from ever being disturbing. Not perfect, but not bad. We had another voice recording on tap: soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian singing Pauline Viardot-Garcia’s Haï Luli (Analekta AN 2 9903). We have toured shows with this one too, and it is common for other visitors to ask us for the record number. Once again we were impressed by the sense of flow to the music transmitted by the Airport Express. Albert proclaimed this the most successful recording yet, and he noted that, as in the violin piece, the accompanying piano flowed like a mountain stream. Bayrakdarian’s voice was clear and touching, the words satisfyingly audible. And yet, despite the fact we were using the same converter (that of the Eximus) for both sides of the comparison, there were notable losses. Louder passages did not sound quite right, and we were less mesmerized by the illusion that the singer was really present before us. “It’s a bit like listening to the CD on FM radio,” said Toby, “but with a notbad tuner.” Our fourth recording was of another solo instrument, acoustic guitar. We played the romantic ballad Rosa from the album Seresta Brasileira (Milestone MCD-9212-2), by Baden Powell (the guitarist, not the founder of the Scout as they are for loudspeakers, but the Airport Express did well with the song, perhaps better than it had with any of the previous selections. “At the very beginning,” said Albert, “you can sense her eagerness to get into the song. The emotion of the song comes through.” Indeed, even the shortcomings were turned into advantages. “There’s less resolution, and the lower register is less rich,” said Toby, “but that means it’s a little less ‘zippy’ too. I got a better sense of the sort of song this is, and I enjoyed it.” A first conclusion: getting music from hard disc in this way results in sound that is always pleasant and — this is perhaps even more important — never annoying. Could we make it a little better yet? Some variations The optical cable we had used might movement). This recording is a delight, have a famous (or infamous some would at least it is when it is played properly. say) name on it, but it looks like the Not just hardware… And the Airport Express did well sort of product you’d pick up in a dollar with it. The melody came through fine, store. Of course lots of companies make What long-time readers tell us they most like about UHF is that it and in every way we found the experi- optical cables, but few have the minidoes more than review amplifiers and speakers. ence pleasant. Of course we did notice TOSLINK connector that will fit the In every issue, we discuss ideas. the somewhat thicker sound, which Airport Express. We found another, with We try to tell you what you need to know, besides what CD player to kept us from hearing how terrific this no brand name but a fit and finish that buy. guitarist truly is. “There’s more string put the Monster to shame (the two are It’s one of the features that makes UHF Magazine unlike any other noise,” said Toby, “and it stands in for shown below). We added an inexpensive audio magazine. the missing detail. There is a lot to like, mini-TOSLINK adapter, and we were though when we played the CD there good to go. was just more of it.” We played the Margie Gibson song We ended with a song by Margie once more, and the difference between Gibson, not from her famous Sheffield the two optical links was evident for all recording Say It With Music, but from her three of us. self-produced album All We Need to Know There was simply more detail for (Gibson Girl Music GG-1). We played A one thing. The sibilance (Margie was Song For You, familiar from versions by quite close to the microphone for this Karen Carpenter and Leon Russell, but recording) was a little more evident, but which Gibson sings particularly well. so were lots of musical cues. There was Of course female singers are a lots more to the solo cello that opens the challenge for digital playback systems, song, and we could hear Margie’s breathing. “There’s much more energy in the double bass,” said Toby, and the ‘liquidity’ is back too.” The softly-brushed snare drum was a delight. This was getting pretty good, and Gerard thought it was good enough to compete with many a CD player with audiophile pretensions. We’ve already mentioned that some computers have the same hybrid output jack as the Airport Express. We copied Margie Gibson’s song to the hard drive ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 53 Listening Feedback Room
Page 1: No. 87 CAN $6.49 / US $7.69 THE CD
Page 4 and 5: UHF Magazine No. 87 was published i
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Page 56 and 57: 56 THE AUDIOPHILE STORE MORE CONNEC
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Page 60 and 61: 60 THE AUDIOPHILE STORE Romantic Pi
Page 62 and 63: 62 THE AUDIOPHILE STORE VINYL ALBUM
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