Hi-Fi Choice - May

JITTERBUG
USB Filter
Quintet Black certainly comes to mind
as an excellent upgrade consideration
for you. However, if you fancy a change
of manufacturer, then the new Hana
SL (HFC 408) is a superb-sounding
cartridge with an extremely
competitive price tag. It offers a very
refined sound and will perform really
well in your setup.
Cassette boy
I would appreciate it if you could
give me some advice regarding
some gear. I am looking for a
component that would create a
typical tape signature sound. I
pretty much fell in love with the
sound of cassette in my old car
and I’ve been looking to enjoy
the same signature in my home
system. Can you recommend
something suitable?
Guillaume, by email
NR: Hi Guillaume, well, the obvious
choice is to look for a secondhand
cassette deck. As we said in our Guide
To Buying Secondhand Audio Equipment
in HFC 396, there are some real
bargains to be had and you are likely
to be able to pick up a Nakamichi or
similar for a fraction of the new price
as people are clearing space in their
hi-fi racks to accommodate new
equipment. Many items have been
sitting unused for many years and
some are in superb condition. High
quality cassette tapes are also still
readily available from all the usual
outlets, including Amazon.
Drunk and disorderly
I have purchased a pair of DALI
Ikon 1 Mark 2 speakers and I’m
more than happy with them.
For the price they offer a good
degree of accuracy and respond
well to my amplifier – the Rotel
RA-10. During a manic drunk
session last week the speakers
got accidentally turned up to
12 and this was too loud for my
stereo – in the space of a couple
of minutes the speakers had
started sounding fuzzy and old.
On the advice of a contact over
the internet – who informed me
that there was a residual charge
in the drivers, which was
affecting the performance – I left
the stereo off for three days. This
allowed the charge to naturally
dissipate and they magically
repaired themselves!
I’m so happy I still have a
stereo and I want to share this
information with everybody
I fell in love with the
sound of tapes in
my old car and want
it in my hi-fi system
because it could well save
someone from throwing out a
pair of speakers which could
have been reused had they been
given a little bit of a rest.
Alex Hampson, by email
CW: This is great news Alex, but you
may have been lucky. Very few
manufacturers give clear guidelines for
safe volume levels alongside associated
units of alcohol. Please drink and play
music responsibly. Other readers
should note that 12 is of course only a
‘theoretical’ volume level, with 11
being more widely accepted as the
maximum possible, as pioneered by
Spinal Tap in 1984.
Ethos excitement
I am writing to you from Sydney,
Australia. Although far away,
I have been getting my Hi-Fi
Choice every month for years.
I recently had a hybrid power
amp, which I used with a
PrimaLuna Prologue Premium
Can a £39 insect make all
your CD files sound better than
Hi-Res?
Yes and no: Using the same
equipment and a quality DAC, a 24/96
file (for example) will always sound
better than a CD 16/44.1 file … but,
even a single JitterBug will often
allow a CD file to be more musical and
more emotionally stimulating than
a Hi-Res file without the benefit of a
JitterBug.
Noise is the problem. Real noise—
the kind you can’t hear directly. Most
often, the word “noise” is used to
describe tape hiss or a scratch on a
record, but these sounds aren’t noise;
they are properly reproduced sounds
that we wish weren’t there.
Problem noise is essentially random,
resonant or parasitic energy, which
has no meaning. It can’t be turned
into discrete sounds, but it does
compromise signal integrity and the
performance of everything it touches.
JitterBug’s dual-function lineconditioning
circuitry greatly reduces
the noise and ringing that plague both
the data and power lines of USB ports,
whether on a computer, streamer,
home stereo or car audio front-panel
USB input.
A single JitterBug is used in between
devices (i.e., in series) as shown
below. For an additional “wow”
experience, try a second JitterBug
into another USB port on the same
device (such as a computer). Whether
the second port is vacant, or is
feeding a printer or charging a phone,
JitterBug’s noise-reduction ability is
likely to surprise you. No, the printer
won’t be affected—only the audio!
While a JitterBug helps MP3s sound a
lot more like music, high-sample-rate
files have the most noise vulnerability.
Try a JitterBug or two on all your
equipment, but never more than two
per USB bus. There is such a thing as
too much of a good thing.
Buying a
secondhand
tape deck on
ebay needn’t
break the bank