This unique device is irrelevant to many audiophiles—but to some, it’s the solution to a problem that previously couldn’t be solved. In the recent past, you could buy a good quality—even audiophile-grade—universal player and listen to SACDs via its good-sounding analog outputs. But good-sounding universal players are becoming scarce. People still want to play their discs, though, now and into the future, even after their current player fails, which of course it will do sooner or later.
As disc players have become fewer in number, they have also become less flexible. The market is dominated by mass-market “universal” players, and these have been shedding output options: Multichannel analog outputs have already disappeared, and stereo analog outputs are vanishing. Analog outputs that still exist usually use cheap DACs, and their output stages and don’t sound very good. Some disc players still have S/PDIF digital outputs, but SACD-licensing rules forbid any unencrypted digital output from DSD tracks, even if internally converted to PCM.1
There are, of course, any number of little boxes that can extract audio from the HDMI video bitstream; they began to appear on the market to fill a need for a way to route audio from a player’s HDMI output to older AV receivers (AVRs) that lacked HDMI inputs. Like cheap universal players, such boxes usually output analog audio via the cheapest, lowest-quality internal DACs and digital audio via S/PDIF, which does not support DSD because of content-protection rules for DSD and the copy protection hurdles of the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection system (HDCP), part of HDMI licensing.
This story is from the May 2020 edition of Stereophile.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the May 2020 edition of Stereophile.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
German kitchens, Japanese amps, and Afropop gems
BRILLIANT CORNERS - I have a day job at a museum. One of my favorite things about working there is taking the elevator from my office down to one of the floors open to the public; I walk into the galleries through a discreet panel in the wall. This makes me feel like I'm in one of those horror-movie manors with a tunnel concealed behind a bookshelf. Sometimes I startle people, which I kind of enjoy.
EDITOR'S PICK - RECORDING OF THE MONTH
The record business was awash in money and power. Vinyl LPs were still five bucks, and while the pressings could be suspect, the music-buying public still snapped them up en masse.
The Butthole Surfers wipe out
REVINYLIZATION - Music's lunatic fringe drifts further out every hour. As it should. In this century, with computers playing an ever-larger role, music continues to fragment and become infinitely more varied. This splintering is either the essence of what keeps it relevant as an art form or something profoundly disturbing, to be hated and feared.
You're only lonely
AURAL ROBERT - The least surprising story in music today is the inevitable passing of irreplaceable talent. Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson died at age 95 the day I finished this salute to another fallen star, Southern California singer/songwriter John David \"JD\" Souther.
PS Audio Aspen FR5 - LOUDSPEAKER
I remember the first PS Audio product: a simple phono stage. It was so simple - a passive RIAA eq filter flanked by a pair of primitive op-amps - that when the schematic was made public, I built one myself; I was in the midst of my DIY years. I thought it was, to use a word from that time, nifty.
TEAC UD-701N - STREAMING PREAMP, D/A CONVERTER
In Gramophone Dreams #88, I described the sound of TEAC's VRDS-701T CD transport as \"dense and precise in a way I had never previously heard from digital.\" I went on to explain, \"by dense, I mean there was a tangible corporeality effected by seemingly infinite quantities of small, tightly packed molecules of musical information.\"
Sonus faber Sonetto V G2 - LOUDSPEAKER
Here's a hard truth: A written review of a full-sized speaker any speaker, really-is, at best, semi-useful. We all listen differently, we have different musical tastes, our system electronics are different, and our listening rooms vary a lot. You will gain a general picture of a speaker's capabilities and foibles from John Atkinson's measurements, and I can tell you how the speakers sound to me, in my room. But that's it. You need to hear them for yourself before making a buying decision. The best I can do is tell you how my music brain felt when the speakers were in my house and making music.
STEREOPHILE'S 33RD ANNUAL - PRODUCT OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024
When Stereophile's Product of the Year Awards were first published, in 1992, we decided that unlike some other publications and their awards schemes, we would keep the number of categories to a minimum. That way, we would avoid what the late Art Dudley once described as the \"every child in the class gets a prize\" syndrome.
Moon 861 - POWER AMPLIFIER
It is unusual to begin a review with a detailed discussion of setup. But setup protocol for the Moon 861 power amplifier ($22,000 each), the top-level amplifier in the North Collection from Moon, which I reviewed bridged in mono, proved crucial to its sound.
Mobile Fidelity, PrimaLuna, and First Watt redux
GRAMOPHONE DREAMS - It's important for readers to remember that I've spent my adult life as an artist and mechanic. Making things. Working as a tradesperson during the day then at an easel or workbench at night.
