by Michael

News of the Week

A lot of unrated bits and pieces.

Apparently Hi-Fi+

was in dire straits when it was purchased.

Besides that nugget, 98% of what goes on Audio Asylum is bickering. So, yeah, nothing new there.

Mike (me) is miffed

that 1/2 of the hallway A on the 29th floor of the large photos section of the CES report was missing the photos and commentary and no one (NO ONE) told him (me). 😉

I have been listening

to a hip-hop radio station and it is great. Well, except for the repeating of about 10 songs over and over (not kidding) and the SHOUTING at me between songs to buy stuff, or, as often as not, telling me HOW GREAT they are that they are not running a commercial that particular moment.

But they play the Hip Hop’s that is a blend of techno (electronics), disco (it has a beat), rap (one can understand the words and they use a lot of slang) and soul (it is not angry like rap, instead it is more like love songs and good times). Anyway, sometimes it is nice for a pick-me-up, and then switching to the classical station at the first commercial to balance out the hormones and minimize the speeding ticket income of the local police.

Let’s see.

The Kegon Balanced

amps kick butt. They control the Kharmas like nothing else I have heard. I just sit there and listen to them and it is so fun, switching between the glory of the harmonic structure and the beauty of the music and the impressiveness of he control.

Solid state amps on the Kharmas, and probably on everything, can be likened to SHOUTING [I know, twice in one post with the all caps shouting. What is with that?] when they get loud. The drive the speaker by punishing it. By throwing watts at it. But a great tube amp drives it by controlling it with an iron fist.

I am not saying that solidstate amps don;t have their place. Sometimes we want to punish the senses, to push them aggressively. After work, sometimes we might want to let off some steam, or to get a little rowdy.

Kind of like a couple of shots of tequila versus a glass of fine wine. I’ve enjoyed both [and now enjoy neither] and it is great that music, and our systems, can be tailored to suit our every mood and desire… 😉

Danny Kaey reviews

the Audi car stereo over on sonicflare. This is probably a step above the one in my Audi S8, even though I had it replaced about 6 months ago [a pushbutton on the dash had fallen off, so they replaced the whole unit. Ah, German engineering. You have to love it. You have to wonder why.]. As I get older [yes, it happens here at Audio Federation too, darn it] I wouldn’t mind taking a look at that A8 V12. But just a look, mind you. A good… long…. look.

Oh, the stereo is decent. It is well-balanced, top to bottom for what it has to work with. A little tipped up [or more like pumped up, the port frequency of the door?] in the bass to counter the bass of the wheels on the road. I don’t listen to XM or Sirius – which needs like a tube radio or something to be moire than just bearable, it is so bright and neutral sounding [aka DIGITAL]. The stereo, for me, is better than the ones in the less expensive Audis and was way better than the Levinson in the Lexus, the Levinson being worse than the cheaper Bose in the Lexus. So, the Audi Bose system is nice, but no great shakes… it is not audiophile, IMHO.

in Audio Note / CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Music / News 0 comments
 by Michael

Radiohead – 'In Rainbows' arrived. Warning – Photo Spolier

Unfortunately, no ‘sonic spoiler’ as everything is packed up or plundered to take to CES 2008 to set up our two exhibits. Doh! But we are taking this so we can all hear it at the show.

We heard the downloadable at RMAF 2007 – a 128K MP3 [thanks Steve!] It was pretty good, musically, but sonically – it was OK for one song, as we were interested in whether their style had changed much – but as one heard the whole MP3 album the muffleling and lack of harmonics and dynamics and … etc… got to be a little wearing.

We ordered in December 10th, which was the first day it came out. Didn’t QUITE get here for Christmas, but close enough.

It has two CDs and two LPs. The LPs run at 45 rpm.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Music 0 comments
 by Michael

Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms": XRCD vrs SACD

Last weekend, K.O. and I listened to the title track of these two CDs back to back in order to hear the differences between them, if any.

This was on the following equipment: EMM labs / Meitner digital running into Lamm ML2.1 amps on the Triolon speakers, Stealth INDRA interconnects and Shunyata Anaconda Alpha powercords, HRS isolation bases and nimbuses, the CDSD transport resting on an Acoustic Dreams rack.

The album cover

We both agreed that we liked the SACD version better.

Of course there was more detail on the SACD version, but it also had more suspense, which I found to be an unexpected difference. Or maybe one can call it anticipation. This refers to that feeling you get, which this album does so very well, at the end of a loooong drawn out note when …you …know …the …next …note ..is …coming… …it …is …almost …here… …YES!

Imaging was also better and there was more solidity and presence.

Everything was better, though stepping back from the music a bit, mentally, one might say they was a slight artificial taint to the whole thing. That the ‘whole’ was not blending together as it might.

My interpretation of this was to reflect that the XRCD, being a very smooth, almost tube-like presentation, was also just as artificial, it is just that most of us are used to it because we grew up with that kind of artificiality.

This implies something interesting about the younger CD / DVD / MP3 / SACD generation, but I do not think I care to speculate right now on what that ‘something interesting’ may portend. No reason to think about tomorrow’s problems, we got enough right here today, thank you very much.

By the way, in the past we have compared the LP version to the XRCD version – and the LP was laughably (or very distressingly, depending on your point of view) better. It so out-classed its digital counterpart that I really felt ripped off that I had paid the $35 for the XRCD. Oh well. I think the day of the XRCD is over – it was great when most CDs and CD players had a strident edge . Now most CDs sound pretty good and the playback equipment either rolls off the treble a little or just plain sounds pretty darn good [or at least the playback equipment no longer sounds so bad as to require CDs like this that roll off the midrange and treble in order to make the music halfway listenable].

I guess we should next compare the SACD to the LP, but I am thinking that altough the SACD is closer now to the LP in quality, it will still be no match. Well, when the new HRS MXR equipment rack gets here (gloss black, ahhhhhhhhhhh. Yes, like that pictured in the post below this one. Oops, can’t let Neli see me drooling all over the keyboard or she’ll never type on this thing again) we will move the Brinkmann Balance upstairs and try this very thing. You want to be here for this, K.O.? 🙂

in Music 4 comments