Swimming in DSD DACs
I was just looking at my lovely Box Furniture equipment rack and realized this is probably somewhat of a rare sight. Reviews forthcoming.
Meridian Explorer News Courtesy of InnerFidelity.com
InnerFidelity's head honcho, Tyll Hertsens, has reported on a very interesting development related to the Meridian Explorer DAC/Headphone Amp. It's that last bit, the headphone amp, that has come under scrutiny and Meridian has recently modified the headphone output of their popular Explorer DAC.
Metrum Acoustics Hex NOS Differential DAC
The Hex DAC is, according to Metrum Acoustics, a non-oversampling (NOS) filterless DAC in the strictest sense. This means that inside, including inside its mysterious* DAC chips, the PCM signal remains a PCM signal and it passes through the D/A process un-oversampled and un-filtered, as it were.
Download of the Week (and then some): Miles Davis (and Sony's Silent Way)
Miles Davis' In A Silent Way is near the top of any list I'd make. When I first listened to it decades ago my heart raced (literally) after the opening notes and things got more intense from there on in. The same still holds after countless listens.
Parasound Zdac
The Zdac hails from Parasound's Z-line of "ultra-compact components" that includes the Zamp V.3, Zphono, Zphono-USB, Zcd, Ztuner, Zpre2, Zbreeze cooling fan, and the Zselect five-pair speaker selector. The Z-line comes in silver or rack-mountable black and all of the Z components share the same chassis so one could have a complete matching Z-system (sans speakers).
Download of the Week: Devendra Banhart
Just when I thought the bloom was off the rose, Devendra Banhart reaches way down (and as far back as the '50s) and pulls out a bouquet. Mala isn't for everyone, what is, but I've been streaming the entire thing for days for free from NPR's first listen and I've been smiling, laughing, and shaking my head at the crazy beat and banter of Banhart.
Ancient Audio Studio Oslo
Single driver speakers have some fairly straight-forward pluses and minuses--they only use a single driver to reproduce everything. So that means no crossover which, contrary to some adherents of the single driver way, is not necessarily an evil one way or another but most single driver speakers I've heard, and I've heard a bunch, tend to do at least one thing really well and that thing is immediacy.
Source Audio Stream
