Welcome to Audiophilia. We publish honest and accurate reviews of high end audio equipment and music.
About 9 months ago PS Audio released a significant software upgrade, Snowmass, for their DirectStream (DS) DAC; I was impressed and wrote about it.
I stated that ‘I think the most apparent changes are in soundstage, imaging and reduction of noise. Snowmass throws a larger/deeper soundstage with a more stable imaging of instruments that synchs so well with my new amps; kindred spirits.’
Before rapper Dr. Dre became a billionaire by selling his eponymous headphone company Beats by Dr. Dre to Apple, he propelled the company into first place among the lucrative millennial mobile/computer/home headphone market with relentless marketing and colourful products that were deemed ‘cool’ by the kids. And in marketing and profitability, nothing beats ‘cool’.
His first headphone, the Beats by Dr. Dre Studio (2008), was a bass monster. And not in a good way. Listening to anything but rap or electronica on those things was a waste of time. Complex classical? Forget it. Coherence was a mess. I remember a laughable Mahler 1.
At the recent 2019 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF), Alta Audio premiered a new $10,000/pair 2-driver loudspeaker (1 tweeter, 1 woofer) named the Alec. Unlike Alta’s flagship FRM-2 Celesta ($15,000/pair), which also has 2-drivers but is monitor sized and sits on stands, the Alec is a floor standing model, with a larger (8.75” versus 6”) woofer, and 20 more pounds in weight (75 pounds versus 55 pounds). In the showroom at RMAF, Alta’s President, Mike Levy, joined forces with VPI Industries for the source (an HW- 40 direct drive turntable loaded with an Audio Technica cartridge, and VPI phono stage) and Krell Industries for the amplification (amp, preamp). Not only was Levy in the room, but so was Mat Weisfeld, President of VPI, and Walter Schofield, Chief Operating Officer of Krell.
Whenever I entered the room, it was abuzz with crowds of listeners and was widely acclaimed as one of the finest sounding rooms at RMAF. Audiophilia, for example (including yours truly), found the room superb sounding and unanimously placed it in the top two rooms. You can imagine then my surprise and satisfaction when two weeks after RMAF, Levy pulled up to my apartment in a car with a gorgeous pair of the Alec in black Onyx for my perusal (they are also available in Rosewood); hence this review. I add that the Celesta are my reference for speakers for almost 4 years now, and the VPI HW-40 serves as my reference for vinyl.
For audiophiles of all stripes, The Power of the Orchestra, a 1962 Kingsway RCA, produced by Charles Gerhardt and engineered by Kenneth Wilkinson, is the stuff of legends.
A top ten classical vinyl on most lists.
Gerhardt probably came up with the cool name—he was one of the most enlightened musicians/producers working at the time—but in reality, it’s simply a recording of Mussorgsky’s two best loved works, Night on Bare Mountain and Pictures at an Exhibition.
David Beetles of Hammertone Audio, the North American distributor for Allnic Audio electronics, gave me a nod that an L-7000 Preamplifier was available for review. The new linestage is the $16,500 replacement of the L-3000 ($13,900). After my continuing musical experiences of the most passionate and intense kind with Allnic’s similarly priced H-7000 Phono Stage, how could I pass up the opportunity to hear Allnic’s linestage equivalent?
The L-7000 is not your grandpappy’s 300B tube linestage preamp. It is a single gain stage unit and is transformer coupled. But, to shake things up completely, designer Kang Su Park uses the much-loved DHT 300B tube, not in the audio chain, but in the power supply chain as a voltage regulator.
Yet one more performance of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony for one’s library, a symphony ranked 10th out of 20 of the greatest symphonies in the canon by 151 British conductors in a BBC Music Magazine poll of 2016.
Maestro Adam Fischer, appointed Principal Conductor in 2015, leads the forces of the Dusseldorfer Symphoniker, contralto Anna Larsson, with the fine choral assistance from the Women’s Choir of the Städtischer Musikverein zu Düsseldorf and the Clara-Schumann Jugendchores.
The CD was released by CAvi on October 13th, 2018 with the recording done in the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Germany between November 9th and the 13th of 2017. If the recording is any indication of acoustic excellence, the Tonhalle is a very impressive venue for this fine orchestra.
Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.
These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.
A few criteria:
Recording must be on either Qobuz and/or Tidal HiFi.
It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.
No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.
Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.
These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.
A few criteria:
Recording must be on Qobuz and/or Tidal HiFi.
It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.
No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.
The key technology Allnic Audio’s owner/designer Kang Su Park calls ‘Zero Loss’ is used in all his cables and power cords including the previously reviewed ZL-5000 Power Cable and the subject of this review, the Mu-7R RCA Cable.
Cables can be difficult to nail down in review, specifically their ‘sound’ and the effect on the overall sonic picture. Much like the ZL-5000, which totally exceeded my expectations, I treat cables as a component, nothing less.
Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.
These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.
A few criteria:
Recording must be on both Qobuz and Tidal HiFi.
It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.
No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.
Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.
These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.
A few criteria:
Recording must be on both Qobuz and Tidal HiFi.
It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.
No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.
Diamonds are formed of carbon (C) atoms that have been placed under extremely high temperatures and pressures that exist naturally very deep beneath the earth’s surface. This natural process from carbon to diamond takes an incredibly long time—about 2 billion years.
Although widely prized for their beauty as jewelry and treasured since BC, they possess other qualities such as extraordinary hardness that are ideal for various industrial applications including audio, such as diamond styli for phono cartridges. They also, under normal everyday conditions, will last forever. Fortunately, scientists can mimic the process in the laboratory, ‘growing’ diamonds in a matter of weeks. These lab-grown diamonds have essentially the same chemical, physical, and optical properties as the natural ones—but still are expensive.
Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.
These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.
A few criteria:
Recording must be on both Qobuz and Tidal HiFi.
It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.
No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.
How does a medieval Bavarian town of 70,000 have an orchestra this good?
It doesn’t hurt that one of the great maestros, Herbert Blomstedt (92 this month), is on the podium. Blomstedt is the Honorary Conductor of the Bamberger Symphoniker. For the past few years, Blomstedt has been busy conducting in Berlin, Dresden, a few miles south of Bamberg in Munich, and other major musical centres. So, good for Bamberg that they keep enticing the great man back to what is a provincial German town.
The orchestra, formed shortly after the war in 1946, was originally made up of Czech expatriates. Many believe Bohemian style cultivates a unique sound to this day. I’m not sure about that. The players sound to me of international standard and must be living an idyllic life in a beautiful Bavarian town where they make music and teach. Nice, if you can get it.
The wonderful Toronto Symphony Orchestra is in another Golden Age, built from near bankruptcy 20 years ago by a talented backroom team, superb hires and a brilliant orchestral trainer in Peter Oundjian. Oundjian hired almost half the orchestra present on this recording. He was an inspired choice at the time when it was more of an Iron Age than Golden in The Big Smoke.
Replacing Oundjian is the recently appointed Spaniard Gustavo Gimeno. He was a Concertgebouw section percussionist who jumped into conducting quite late and is enjoying a very fast upward trajectory via Luxembourg and now the plum TSO gig.
Renée Fleming is a glorious singer of lieder, showcased here in a 2019 CD release of Romantic and late Romantic art songs. Works by Brahms, Schumann and Mahler are included, with the latter represented by his ‘Rückert-Lieder’ in the orchestral version. The Brahms and Schumann songs are accompanied by pianist Hartmut Höll. His playing, and the Münchner Philharmoniker conducted by the very musical Christian Thielemann are spectacular.
In conjunction with a stellar recording by Decca—I’m hard pressed to think of a recent recording with a better piano tone—Fleming in mainstream repertoire is pretty hard to beat.
Just as Rossini had accomplished with his brilliant String Sonatas twenty years earlier, Mendelssohn, too, was absurdly young when writing his wonderful String Symphonies (1821–3).
The repertoire was hitherto unknown to me. The music is charming and belies the youthful years in which they were composed.
There are 12 string symphonies, and record label cpo (based in my old stomping grounds of Osnabrück, Germany) has spread them over three volumes. I’m late to the party with Vol. 3. No matter when the music is performed and recorded so brilliantly. And I have no reason to think the other two volumes are at least as good. So, fans of Mendelssohn and beautiful string music, grab Vol. 1, 2 or all three.
What is all the buzz about Qobuz?
In a nutshell: Think Tidal—but for the connoisseur.
Qobuz is a subscription based digital music provider/streaming service that is quickly gaining attention by offering lossless streaming of high-resolution (Hi-Res) 24 bit FLAC audiophile quality music files up to 24/192 PCM in addition to CD 16/44.1 resolution (and MP3). Yes: flawless lossless streaming of even native 24/192 FLAC files. Crucially, their files are curated carefully and thoughtfully from the best original sources they can get their hands on. And they have over two million 24 bit Hi-Res files; already twice as many as Tidal’s MQA collection (more about MQA below). A Qobuz mantra is, ‘Qobuz: quality sound, always’. And they mean it. As such, Qobuz maintains a large and diverse selection of music in many genres; even their classical selection is given close attention.
Many of the albums include the names of musicians, the producers, and the lyrics, and they publish weekly interactive online articles. Qobuz also allows you to import native Hi-Res music FLAC files onto a desktop computer for offline listening (they are unique in allowing/enabling that) and to purchase Hi-Res downloads. For example, at an audio show (where the internet might be too slow or unpredictable), a company can download onto a desktop a library of native Hi-Res Qobuz files to use instead of streaming them over the internet. As an exhibitor, I’d think that was cool. You can also download a Hi-Res library on your iPhone/iPad and play music while traveling (one just has to login on a web browser and download).
Before reading this post, please check back to the full review of the Vinnie Rossi L2 Signature Preamplifier. It’ll give you a better understanding of this DAC module review. It may be fun to read the Phono Stage module review, too. It’s the other plugin available for this fully functional and brilliant preamplifier.
The Phono and DAC modules’ MSRP is $3495 each. They are both plug and play. Unscrew the four screws, remove the plate, install the module. Click, rescrew, done.
It would be instructive before reading my thoughts about the L2 phono stage module to read the full line stage review of the Vinnie Rossi L2 Signature Preamplifier.
Skinny audio seems to be all the rage these days. Fewer boxes, smaller boxes, fewer cables and a much lighter lifestyle footprint. While this trend can look the part and put a few more dollars in your pocket, the sound trade offs can be quite powerful. It’s why flying cars never took off, pardon the pun. Jacks of all trades and masters of none. I’m much more of a do-one-thing-well kind of guy.
Vinnie Rossi, designer and manufacturer of the tremendous L2 Signature Preamplifier ($16,995) has given the high end community a sub 20K benchmark line stage to propel reference components to the next level. It pushed my Jeff Rowland amplifier, Mytek Manhattan DAC II, Antipodes CORE Music Server and Sutherland Engineering DUO Phono Preamplifier into rarefied air. As such, it was a crying shame when I took it out of my system.
