|
|
Posted by Malcolm  Wednesday, 27th of January 2010 at 02:26:08 AM
A friendly and amazingly helpful visitor to this site has very kindly spent a great deal of time scanning his collection of Hi-Fi Review magazines and posting me sheaves of articles I wrote for that title back in the 80s. That was back in those far-off days before we all carried USB drives on our keyrings. In fact it was before USB drives had been invented. I kept no copies of those articles and thought that they were effectively gone for good. Little did I know that one HFR reader had kept his entire collection of the magazine in his loft… Thank you, Peter!
Even though I am as busy as can be right now, I will try to burn some midnight oil and start OCRing my way through those articles as quickly as I can. The first, an interview with Gregson and Collister from 1988, is already available here. Please forgive any literals or other errors you might find: it has been a long day, I’m knackered and I still have lots of work to do in preparation for 2 heavy listening sessions starting tomorrow.
 Linn Majik DS-I Two fellows from Linn have been here today installing a Majik-DS-I system for me to have a play with: that’s one hi-fi component –or 5 if you include the Majik 109 speakers and their stands – and about the same number of networking boxes, along with a USB hard disk and an iPod touch for some added fun. All went well and I even managed to reconstruct the Linn/Naim axis by plugging the digital output of my Naim HDX , which was acting as a UPnP server into a S/PDIF input on the Linn Majik DS-I. Actually, my maths are wrong: I just spotted the RipNAS ripping/storage unit Linn supplied with the DS-I. Nonetheless, the balance of boxes in my home and office seems to be inexorably tilting away from regular hi-fi to favour computer and computerised hardware.
 Keith Monks Ruby Bringing me straight back down to earth, at the far end of the room there sits toy no.2: £4000 worth of Keith Monks Ruby Record Cleaning Machine, all fired up, full of eco-friendly fluid, ready to start cleaning the LPs that were missed the last time I had a Monks RCM here. So my music room looks a little contradictory at the moment. A hand-crafted machine that celebrates Keith Monk’s 40-year anniversary of de-lousing vinyl at one end, and the technology that replaces the CD players that Linn is no longer producing at the other.
It was good to see the Linn boys again after all the years during which I had little contact with the company. The last visit they made was when I was living in London, and that is nearly a decade ago. You could always expect them to arrive in interesting motors and it was nice to see that that hasn’t changed. Alan Williams today bounced down my rutted, muddy, unmade-up road in a a Ford Mustang. I’m so glad I don’t have to pay his chiropractor bills. My lane knocks seven shades of sh*t out of Land Rovers: it certainly wasn’t built for friendliness to American muscle cars. My kind of car, though: the extras bill included the carpets!
Posted by Malcolm Friday, 22nd of January 2010 at 05:51:34 PM
The new hi-fi e-zine I told you a little about is nearly ready to launch.
 the Hi-Fi Journal The coders are still tidying up/finishing bits and pieces and there is still plenty of content to upload but you can get an idea of how it is going to look at www.thehifijournal.com. Take look and let us know what you think, bearing in mind that it is not finished yet. Please regard this link as just a sneak preview. I hope it is going to be a lot of fun and trust me that the words ‘kit’ and ‘awesome’ are never going to appear on it.
Posted by Malcolm Tuesday, 12th of January 2010 at 01:19:52 AM
Up until about 5 years ago, I used to schlepp across to Las Vegas every January to attend the International Consumer Electronics Show, or CES.
Back then the dollar was pathetically weak, which made the USA a great place in which to shop, particularly when the sales were on – and they rather conveniently coincided with CES. So four days traipsing round, and staying in, revolting Las Vegas hotels was a small price to pay for having to buy an additional suitcase to bring home all the clothing and footware bargains I’d purchase. However, the show’s appeal began to dwindle as hi-fi increasingly assumed less importance in the overall scheme of things. Digital plumbing – piping MP3s round ‘intelligent’ homes – began to assume greater importance at the event and this opened the door to all manner of custom installation widgets, which helped introduce computers and gaming into the mix, especially when the Comdex show bit the big one. Now if you find CI shows too tedious to visit (and what is there to interest anyone in a plasma lift?), you’ll find computer shows ten times worse, believe me. By the way, in the UK the CEDIA show looks to be moribund at best, and I frequently hear moans and groans from exhibitors at Europe’s ISE, which rather proves my long-held theory that there’s only a finite number of the main audience for whole house integration – one is bound eventually to run out of drug dealers and professional footballers.
So when what was the world’s finest hi-fi show started turning into the world’s most boring custom install and computer show, I cancelled my winter sojourn in Nevada. By a strange twist of fate, though, it appears that computerised devices are now looking like they might well be the saviours of the quality audio industry with companies such as Linn and Naim producing hard disk players and network streaming devices. Linn has even announced very loudly that it has no further interest in making CD players even though its record label will still sell you CDs. When this soft digital media movement starts to assume significant importance at the higher end I might be tempted back to Vegas. I do not, however, plan to cross the Atlantic, or even my road, to gaze at any mass-produced, twopenny-halfpenny commodity audio gadgets sourced from China or Eastern Europe.
Earlier today I received an e-mail from an American hi-fi magazine editor who had just arrived home after attending CES 2010: he described the experience as ‘dismal’ with ‘lots of gloom’, ‘and the impression that the vendor room count was ‘lower by about 25% than two years ago’, and that overall attendance was between 10% and 15% less. Compare this with the ‘official’ report that spoke of attendance for the first two days exceeding expectations (which is completely meaningless spin and typical of the rubbish pumped out by, or on behalf, of show organisers the world over.) I know whose opinion I would sooner believe, but if computer audio can have a meaningful impact upon CES, I might just reinstate the event in my calendar. I could certainly do with some more £25 Timberland deck shoes and a few new Abercrombie & Fitch sweaters.
Going to Vegas also currently might prove beneficial to my health: I have just spent three days snowed into my house with no electricity and, hence, no lighting and no heating. At one point my wife and I dug our way into her car so that we could enjoy its heating, which was more effective than our domestic alternative – candles! Yeah, Vegas still has some appeal even without CES.
Posted by Malcolm Sunday, 13th of December 2009 at 02:42:17 AM
As I noted on Twitter on 29 November, Naim’s MD, Paul Stephenson called by and brought with him the DAC that had had my name on it ever since I heard the early pre-production samples.
To say it came as a surprise after auditioning and being terribly enthusiastic about the review sample is quite some understatement. The ‘real’ DAC performed stunningly well straight out of its box – although I suspect that it might have seen a couple of week’s warm-up in his home before it was handed over – and I remarked to Paul that it might be a good idea if we were to listen to it without the XPS2 connected. I was taken aback when he said that the power supply was not connected, and waved the Burndy at me to demonstrate the fact. The sound of the review sample did not have anything like the body and solidity of the production example without the bolstering effects of the XPS2/PowerLine.
 Naim DAC internals When the system was configured as I had had it when I wrote the review, i.e. HDX–Chord Indigo Digital–DAC/XPS2/PowerLine–Chord Solstice, most music was little short of mind-blowing. The didgeridoo on Vivid Curve’s Live at Edgefield CD was doing stuff that I have never heard a didgeridoo do with such clarity and transparency before. At this juncture I ought point out that the superlative Chord Company Solstice interconnect I was/still am using costs nearly as bloody much as the DAC but in the context of my system, it isn’t really that much. [I find it hard to believe that I can consider a metre of wire to be honestly worth £1500 but my ears tell me it is.]
You can read in detail about my experiences with the Naim DAC in the next issue of HIFICRITIC and an upcoming Hi-Fi Plus, and, I guess, on the e-zine we are launching – details here very soon because the publisher was talking to the coders this week – as well as here at some time in the future.
Suffice it to say that my search for a truly great DAC is currently satisfied. The Naim DAC sounds superb and, as if that were not sufficient, is such a well considered design that I cannot imagine it becoming redundant for quite some time… decades maybe, on past experience.
Posted by Malcolm Thursday, 3rd of December 2009 at 05:38:36 PM
I never thought that I would ever find myself in agreement with Rupert Murdoch but he has gone on record saying something with which I concur wholeheartedly.
 Rupert Murdoch As he struggles to figure out how his papers, such as The Times, The Sun and the New York Post, can start charging users for online content, he has realised that unless other publishers follow his lead, his empire might well be scuppered.
Murdoch made his comments at a two-day American workshop, run by the Federal Trade Commission, called ‘How will journalism survive the internet age?’
He said: “We need to do a better job of persuading consumers that high-quality reliable news and information does not come for free… Good journalism is an expensive commodity.”
“Good journalism is an expensive commodity.”
One can only hope that his remarks alert a few editors and publishers in the printed hi-fi press, parts of which seem to have a ‘use anybody so long as they cost next to nothing’ attitude. This flawed notion probably works wonders as far as the accounts department is concerned but it ignores the fact that the magazine reader is having to put up with abyssmal, uninformed writing. It truly is no wonder that their circulations are about as small and safe as a fire-walking daschund’s testicles.
I fear for the specialised print media, altrhough it only has itself to blame for its predicament. It lost sight of the fact that people who buy car titles, hi-fi titles, and ther like are enthusiasts. They appreciate the informed, well crafted journalism of professional writers – who should also be enthusiasts. Without them the publishers face only one way out. And there are no prizes for guessing what I mean by that.
Posted by Malcolm Wednesday, 2nd of December 2009 at 02:23:11 AM
The above two entities really ought to be kept away from each other. I write this having just destroyed yet another frightfully expensive, high performance interconnect cable.
You see the trouble is that high performance and robustness do not always go hand-in-hand. Or, at least, the sort of robustness that is necessary to withstand use in the hands of a reviewer does not.
 Naim Hi-Line Take, for example, the stunning Naim Hi-Line DIN to DIN cable. What makes this cable such an outstanding performer is the delicate mechanical coupling that prevents spurious vibrational energy finding its way into an amplifier through the mechanical bond between the cable, the plug and the socket to which it connects. This needs to be minimal except for the signal-carrying components within the plug. The ‘fragile’ components dissipate or reject energy before it is transmitted through these into the amplifier PCB. The trouble is that while this works swimmingly for a normal end-user who fits his interconnect then does not think about remaking its connection for, perhaps, six months, a year or longer, it is not ideal for the reviewer who might connect and dress the cable and then disconnect it 20, 30, or more times a day.
Thankfully, the more switched-on PRs appreciate this fact and convey it to their employers, which saves me the embarassment every time I have a £500+ cable fall apart in my hands, which happens all too regularly.
It is a real dilemma, especially when my favourite cable at the moment has a retail price of £1500 for a metre length. No, I have not vaped one of these just yet… I suppose because it is left pretty much permanently in the same place in my system and does not suffer the swapping about that my Chord Company Indigos have to endure day in day out. And the latter, while I would recommend them to anyone look rather fragile to my eyes because of the number and construction of the wires entering the plugs. It makes me nervous just to look at them. But they do sound bloody magnificent.
 Chord Company Indigo Digital Plus I guess it is one of the contradictions/problems that one has to accept when using a system that is capable of being frighteningly revealing. That level of insight can be compromised by poor cables so one has to use the best. Unfortunately that often means cables that need to be handled with kid gloves… or, preferably, cables that never need to be handled at all. My system currently occupies more floor space than most would deem necessary merely so that I can dress the interconnects ands other cables such that contact with anything else – other leads, the wall and my Quadraspire Sunoko Vent stands – is eliminated. It appals me when I think of how much floor space I am paying for to leave deliberately unnoccupied just so my music sounds better.
Regardless, the best things in life certainly are not free; and they are not even always cost-effective if truth be told.
Posted by Malcolm Tuesday, 3rd of November 2009 at 11:16:40 PM
At the end of this month – provided the publisher keeps cracking the whip over the team that is doing the coding and development – there will be an exciting new source of information on the web for hi-fi enthusiasts.
The new e-zine will be stereo hi-fi through and through, and there will, unlike so many other titles, be no dilution of its content with TV, AV and gaming distractions. We may let the iPod and its brethren sneak a look-in now and then as the pint sized devices play an important part these days in getting music to potential hi-fi fans. Computer audio – servers, streamers and the like – will definitely be covered because the editor values and enjoys their role in contemporary music systems. Did I mention that I will be the editor? Naturally, we will also be covering CD players, amps, speakers, turntables, tone-arms and cartridges along with accessories such as tables, cables and stands.
In terms of editorial content there will be news, honest equipment reviews, music reviews and a mystery shopper feature, along with columns and the occasional interview. The site will also host databases listing every manufacturer and retailer in the land enabling viewers easily to request information about products from their makers or arrange a demonstration at a convenient store. Updates will happen on a regular basis, and we plan to be giving away some terrific hi-fi through regular competitions.
Once the website is fully up and running I will post the URL so you can come and take a look around but right now we’d prefer not to have people seeing the site in a state of disarray. We look forward to having you visit us at the end of November.
Posted by Malcolm Monday, 2nd of November 2009 at 02:15:08 AM
John Burns – of Pear Audio – called by this past weekend with the latest iteration of the Well Tempered Amadeus. It is a cool sounding turntable that we enjoyed until 03:30 Saturdary, which was highly irresponsibe as I had a hospital appontment that morning that meant getting up four hours later so my wife could ferry me to Guildford – they had advised me not to drive, and, given the way my eyes reacted to whatever odious liquid they squirted into them prior to the test, I am truly glad I did not. It was painful enough being a pasenger on the 15 or so mile ride home.
The new Amadeus sounded damned fine but is not, IMHO, a million miles from the review sample with which I have been co-habiting for some months now, despite some mechanical differences. The plinth is aluminum – or aliminum, as the Americans insist upon calling aluminium – and the bearing is now a round peg in a traingular – as opposed to square – hole. Oh, and there is no longer any sub-plinth: that has been ousted by taller, and presumably more compliant feet. And the motor pulley has a slightly differrent profile. [One flicks the belt in the opposite dorection to change from 45 to 33 RPM]
Regardless of these minor changes the deck still performs absolutely magnificently, as indeed it did playing some wonderful religious and classical music – Palestrina and Vaughn Williams – while John, my wife, youngest son and I enjoyed a superb Chinese from our local village take-away along with a rather pleasant Valpolicella that had accompanied Señor Burns down from The North in his Alfa. I found Palestrina’s Miserere to be a sublime accompaniment to Szechuan Pork and noodles – or vice versa – by the way.
After dinner we retired to the music/listening room and took advantage of John’s arm-damping reduction activities by listening to a catholic variety of very loud and dynamic tunes from the likes of Scritti Politti, Jello Biafra, and the Jesus and Mary Chain among others before acting our age and enjoying some fabulous sounds from Art Pepper and the young, Exprapolation-era John McLaughlin.
JB had, after my Hi-Fi Plus review of the WTA was published, suggested that I reduce the amount of golf-ball [the tone-arm damping appendage] that is immersed in the damping trough to 1/3 rather than the original 1/2 in order to inject a little more vitality into the Devil’s music. He, however, had his demonstrator deck’s ball far more slightly immersed in the trough than mine and the effect was interesting, to say the least. This is one of those tweaks that you are going to have to try for yourself, see what you think to the results and act accordingly. It seems to me that the viscous fluid/ball contact area can be reduced dramatically and the turntable will still retain its grip on operatic sopranos while letting rockers rock as they rockingwell ought.
Hey, it’s thirty seconds work with an allen key: try it. You might like it! Adjust your ball until about 3/8 of it is under the fluid’s meniscus and then tighten the nut on the trough. If you want a little more ‘vitality’, slacken the trough securing nut and let the trough fall until less of the ball is immersed in the sticky stuff. If you want greater ’security’ raise the trough and immerse more of your ball.
Have fun dunking your balls lightly in viscous fluid. Perhaps you will discover, as I did, that less is definitely more in this respect.
Posted by Malcolm Sunday, 25th of October 2009 at 12:56:39 AM
Earlier this week my review sample of the Naim DAC arrived so I could do some preliminary listening for my Hi-Fi Plus and HIFICRITIC articles about it.
 Naim DAC As I am now enjoying my first weekend with the unit things are looking great and I, and several others who have called by for a listen – because this is the only review sample Naim DAC in circulation at the moment – are thoroughly enjoying life. Things were not quite so clever when the beast first landed, though.
Before plugging it into my system we decided to upgrade the software on my HDX and add some more music – about 6,500 songs – onto a new SAN drive, which was duly connected to the network. (And I do mean SAN and not NAS.) We power-cycled the HDX, SAN and network, and settled down to a glass of Merlot and dinner. Suitably nourished we returned to my listening room, picked a track from the HDX and hit “play”. Oh dear. Disappointing hardly sums up the way the system sounded. The DAC was consigned to the boot of the PR’s car… but the system was still sounding poor. I decided I might have to strip and rebuild it the following day.
Two days later the PR returned, DAC clenched under his arm and a grin on his bewhiskered chops. He had played the DAC on his system at home and found it to be just as good as the first time we heard it in my system, when it was slightly on the far side of fantastic. So we plugged it in and tidied up the cabling behind the system, which I had already begun to do, having repositioned all the Sunoko Vents – not an easy job to do single-handed when they are fairly fully loaded. We settled down for a listen and it seemed that normality had been restored. Thank God!
It transpired that we should not have listened to the HDX quite so quickly after updating it… and we should not have plugged in the SAN at the same time. Apparently its processor had had its work cut out coping with the significant software update along with the additional songs to enumerate and had had insufficient cycles left to do a proper job of dealing with the music we were attempting to play. Ah well, I always was impatient so I guess I need to learn to apply the old “more haste, less speed” adage. Apparently Naim will be alerting HDX owners to this probability, which seems a sensible and responsible move.
Anyway, normal service has now been resumed chez moi; the HDX/XPS/DAC combo is sounding truly magical; and I’ve realised that the Chord Company Solstice is a real peach of an interconnect – even if it costs nearly as much as the Naim DAC. I currently have the only one available on the planet until some more get built but, trust me, it is not going anywhere without a fight! Quite a few dealers and customers have them but Chord has sold out. The sales have been extraordinarily good and the company is currently waiting for more cable to be manufactured. (It’s a special design for Chord and not an off-the-shelf item.) A 10-second comparison to other options is enough to make one realise that this is a very special length of wire indeed. Cable nay-sayers should listen to the Solstice. At least they ought were they not so closed-minded, though I doubt that would prevent them realising its superiority – even if they would then pooh-pooh it because that is what they feel obliged to do.
Regardless, Naim’s PR did show me how to make the HDX and SAN serve the NaimUniti in my office as a UPnP source. OMG, even more complications in my life: I had just got my ancient brain wrapped around internet radio stations and now he tells me I can listen to the HDX in my office without cranking it up so that it deafens everybody in my village.(The SAN sits in my office not many feet away from the NaimUniti but the HDX is the only UPnP server in my system so music has to take a round-the-houses route to get to it.) Apparently all I need to do now, to make controlling the NaimUniti so simple that even my gray matter can handle the operation as soon as I fall out of bed in the morning, is to set up the remote control so it behaves in a manner to which I can relate. To do that I need to get into the menu on the NaimUniti and reconfigure what functions the remote buttons perform. All it takes is a look at the instruction manual. Does he not realise that I have not looked at a manual since the 1980s? Time to break the habit of a lifetime, I guess.
Posted by Malcolm Friday, 2nd of October 2009 at 05:55:20 PM
If you are obsessive about squeezing the best performance from the NaimUniti here is a real geek tweak I’ve learnt. (Thanks very much, Mr H!)
My favourite internet radio station, Radio Paradise broadcasts at a defaul setting of 128kb/s MP3, which doesn’t sound at all bad. However, you can change that feed to the 128kb/s AAC version, which sounds noticeably better. I’m sure other IR stations offer the same or similar facilities. Here is what you do.
- Visit the station’s web site and view the list of connectionss: in Radio Paradise’s case that is http://www.radioparadise.com/content.php?name=Listen.
- In the section AAC+ Links: (high fidelity at lower bitrates) select the 128k AAC <- truly awesome sound quality link and it will begin playing in your media player.
- The best suited player for this purpose is VLC, which you can download freely from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/.
- In VLC open Tools…Media Information and look at the Location entry at the bottom of the window. Take note of that URL.
- Now point your web browser at http://naim.vtuner.com and log in, or, if you have not visited before, sign up. You will need to know the MAC address of your NaimUniti before you can do anything. You can get that from the NaimUniti menu… Network Settings.
- On the homepage of naim.vtuner.com navigate to the My Added Stations section and add a station. Fill in the data in the form and in the Station URL section type the URL you found in the VLC Tools…Media Information… Location window. [see photo below]
The station has now been added and should appear in the Added Stations section on the Internet Radio screen of the NaimUniti OSD. If it does not, force the device to update by powering it down and up again.
Please forgive me mentioning Radio Paradise at every opportunity but it simply is the best and certainly the most agreeable entertainment source when you spend all day every day sitting at a computer. It has no retards masquerading as DJs and the playlist is very thoughtfully assembled. It is so relaxing to have someone selecting and playing music for one, especially when they appear to share one’s tastes. Furthermore, the station is funded by donations, so there is no intrusive advertising or, as a consequence, the pressure that comes with having to keep the advertisers happy. And do not forget that one lucky Radio Paradise supporter this month (October 09) is going to win a NaimUniti and a pair of Naim n-SAT speakers.
The only downside is that Radio Paradise will cost you an absolute arm and a leg buying new CDs. Which is no bad thing, when you think about it…
|
|
