by Michael

Audio Note S9 Phono Step-up Transformer: the photos

Audio Note S9 Phono Step-up Transformer with integral (brown) PALLAS interconnect.

Thanksgiving is traditionally a day for over-eating… and now… over-photographing [if that is possible :-)].

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The S9 is Audio Note U.K.’s top-of-the-line step up – [it helps increase the output of those uber high-end phono cartridges enough to feed a standard full-function preamp or dedicated phono-stage].

Fred Crowder has reviewed this phono step up in comparison with more pedestrian brands on Dagogo at: Audio Note S9 Phono Step-up Transformer Review .

For my part, once I heard the S9, I would never willingly go back to anything else – not to say that the AN S4 on a small system isn’t entirely wonderful and, of course, much more appropriate – and we hear it regularly in this context.

Thinking about it now – my appetite for audiophile description of sonic differences is currently near-zero – now that I require my music to have powerful quasi-medicinal capabilities to relax and assuage a worried and angry mind.

 

 

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 by Michael

CES 2021 complimentary registration Dec. 1- 11

The 100% digital (online) conference lives on. Although Neli tells me Ray Kimber (KimberKable) is setting up an exhibition this year – CES is certainly dead with respect to high-end audio in my opinion and what I want to get out of an audio show.

Munich – a real show for audiophiles – is scheduled for September next year as a show you-can-actually-attend – but Neli tells me there is talk that this may have to be put off again and delayed until 2022.

The Keynote speakers, below, for CES 2021 are sure – boring? I think that is too nice of a word… How about shockingly uninteresting?

I might sign up for grins – just to see what Ray’s booth looks like from my office… 🙂

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 by Michael

New device puts music in your head

We’ve been trying to reproduce the original sound field using 2 (or more) speakers for a long time. Here is anther way… (link to AP news story) (link to RollingStone story)

LONDON (AP) — Imagine a world where you move around in your own personal sound bubble. You listen to your favorite tunes, play loud computer games, watch a movie or get navigation directions in your car — all without disturbing those around you.

That’s

the possibility presented by “sound beaming,” a new futuristic audio technology from Noveto Systems, an Israeli company. On Friday it will debut a desktop device that beams sound directly to a listener without the need for headphones.

But this is a little discouraging…

 

The listening sensation is straight out of a sci-fi movie. The 3-D sound is so close it feels like it’s inside your ears while also in front, above and behind them.

The ‘inside the head’ effect has always seemed to me to be quite ‘unreal’ and takes away from the enjoyment of headphones. The above technology, however, seems like it could put the holographic soundfield between the head and wherever we want the sound to be coming from – right?

I guess if there was wall of these transducers, we might conceivably be able to do something quite realistic…

From the Noveto Systems website [why do none of the major sites link to the source of the tech they are talking about? What a bunch of SEO cowards].

SoundBeaming works using ultrasonic waves and beamforming to place sound just outside the ears. The waves are generated using Noveto-developed proprietary DSP algorithms and pushed into the air via a custom-designed transducer array. From the inside it may look like a small speaker, but you won’t hear anything coming out.

 

The Israeli company ‘patented’ the tech, so we’ll see what happens with it, if anything [besides beaming ads directly into our head why we are out and about – scary thought. Hey, a dystopian world gives rise to dystopian thoughts].

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