April 2008

Think of me in May
Montreal High End Show
Upcoming look at compression
HRx recordings
Apple update
New ad

Think of me in May
On May 10th I turn old. Yup, not just a little old, not just sort of old, but honestly, genuinely old. I turn 60.

Yeah, yeah, I think I've heard them all: '60 is the new 50!' and then there's the one 'you're only as old as you feel' and they go on and on. Truth is I feel the same as I did when I was 20, but 20 I ain't!

No, let's face it – anything 60 or over is simply old by definition. Senior citizen territory, you get asked to join AARP, people hold the door open for you (not really), Medicare looms (really).

Now, on the bright side, I feel terrific. I jump out of bed each day ready for what adventure lies ahead. I ski every weekend of the winter and hike for miles every weekend in the summer.

In point of fact, I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be in place, time, age or occupation. I don't want to be younger (been there done that), I am looking forward to seeing how active I can be as I get older and I am having a blast in my life which is full of color and great people. What more could anyone want? Oh, and I get to play with the latest audio and video toys and even help create some of them. That's cool!

Still, I will shortly turn old. Just a matter of fact and there, I've said it.

For my birthday, the entire McGowan clan is going on a vacation to lay on a beach in Mexico and get older. Ola! So, if I am slow to respond on the week of my birthday, you'll know it's probably from having too many Coronas or Terri throwing me off the computer.

Montreal High End Show
Dave Kakenmaster and I traveled to Montreal Canada for the High End Show and to meet our newest PS distributor, Emmanuel Le Quere from Dimexs. Here's a shot of Emmanuel explaining the new PWT prototype to a customer. Ignore the 'Borg' looking implant in his ear - certainly we wouldn't want Emmanuel to look like a geek. :)

As many of you living in the great north probably know, PS has always sold direct to our Canadian

dealers. This has been both good and bad: good because the pricing is slightly lower, bad because to get service you had to send it back to the States.

The advantages of a distributor are many for PS and its customers including: service in country, dealer training, someone local to call and get info and help, one line of communication between PS and the entire country and the list goes on.

If you're in Canada and would like to find your local retailer, please visit Dimexs website at www.dimexs.com or call them at 514-333-5444.

At the show, PS featured our terrific Trio line of audio products fed by the Perfect Wave Transport (PWT) prototype transport. The transport fed the DLIII DAC while the output of the DAC went into the P200 preamp and finally out to the A100 amplifier.

It was great seeing the grins on people's faces when they heard this setup for the first time.

Trio audio products have done nothing but grow in popularity over the few years they've been out – with their biggest fans in Europe and Asia. Why more Americans haven't jumped on the Trio bandwagon I'll never know – maybe we still think bigger is better? In my home setup I use the C100 integrated amplifier fed from the DLIII and it's just a pleasure to listen to.

At the show there weren't a great number of new things to get excited about but I did get a chance to see and listen to the new KEF Muon loudspeakers. These, if you'll recall, are a cool looking aluminum sculptured loudspeaker that sets owners back about $140K. For that kind of money they really need to do more than look cool.

We spent a few minutes auditioning them and I can tell you they sound quite good. I was impressed. Are they the best over $100K pair of loudspeakers? Who the heck knows? I have heard terrific reports of the Magico loudspeakers (but have never heard them) as well as the old standards in expensive loudspeakers

Wilsons and Avalons. I'll bet they are all in great company.

However, the KEF product leaves all of these in the dust from a sculptured looks standpoint. It's one of those love it or hate it things. Terri probably wouldn't let the speakers into our home and I'd love a pair. Go figure.

I had seen these in pictures but never up close and they truly are a work of art. As many of you know, I am a great fan of industrial design and this is really some of the best I've seen.

Upcoming look at compression
In the upcoming May issue of Playback, we've added some interesting content. Three articles in fact: a review of Shelby Lynn's knockout concert by Barrows Worm, 'Confessions of an AC quality skeptic' by our Mike Smith and the one I want to write a bit about, 'How different is compressed music?' by our Dave Kakenmaster.

I don't want to steal Dave's thunder, as you will be able to read the entire article in the upcoming May Playback magazine we'll send you, but I wanted to give you a sneak peak at this interesting subject.

The heart of the matter is compression and audibility. In the reference system here at PS, compressed music is rarely ever played unless we're testing something to do with a computer – and then it's rare we would use anything other than raw or lossless.

However, as you may know, I have been using the Apple TV as a music server in the home. I play it through our home theater setup in stereo through a pair of Genesis 700 loudspeakers and the big Genesis servo sub (the 900) and it sounds really good.

For music, I've loaded some of my lossless files as well as my kid's MP3 selections. Now the lossless sounds terrific and, frankly, on cursory listening so do the MP3's that were encoded with 320kbps data rates. I wind up listening to my kid's music selections more than my own simply because they pick better music than their (soon to be) old man. But over time, I can start to spot the MP3's even just with background music situations.

But why? Am I just fooling myself? Can we really hear the differences in, say, low loss MP3 compression when we go to 192kbps or even 320kpbs? There are many that would tell you the differences are subtle and only on a really good system can you hear them. Others would tell you they can spot it in a minute.
Another question: can we measure the differences? How big are they?

Well you can measure them and the differences are quite big by anyone's standards.

What Dave did (and he will tell you all about it in the upcoming issue) was to compare the output of the original vs. the compressed piece on a perfectly matched bit-for-bit basis and see if there were differences he could measure.

Take a look at the 320kbps graph. What you are seeing is the difference in both frequency and amplitude of the audio results of compression. Everything in this graph is NOT what we want. Int

eresting, eh?

I encourage you to read the entire article when the next issue of Playback is sent to you.

Thanks to Dave for a great job!

High res HRx
…and the opposite of compressed music is just what our Barrows Worm is up to: extracting more than what is available on the CD in the first place.

What's an HRx recording? We're quite confident few, if any of you, have actually heard one. Barrows, our director of customer service, has acquired some samples of HRx recordings and figured out a way to play them back with stunning results.

The HRx recordings are something new (none yet available) from reference Recordings. If you own any Reference Recordings you'll know they are some of the best around: but apparently they are but only a shadow of the real deal.

The HRx are, in effect, exact copies of their master 'tapes'. This, to me, opens up a whole new area of music and enjoyment for our systems and gets me drooling for a music server that can store and playback all these exotic data.

But, isn't a digital master the same as what you get on a CD? Yes, in many cases, but it is certainly not true for a Reference Recording.

According to Keith Johnson who made the recordings, when you apply all the necessary post processing required to bring his recordings into a format accepted by the lowly CD, the data is severely manipulated – and not in a good way. So, Reference came up with a completely experimental data storage method that, so far, requires the use of an external sound card and a computer to make it work. But this is only the beginning and players that can work with this can't be too far behind. :)

I'll let Barrows fill you in.

'Last week I got a RMA Fireface 400, essentially a pro external soundcard that provides a Firewire audio interface.

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_fireface_400.php

This unit is essentially a full featured pro soundcard for recording, and I am only using a small fraction of its features to convert Firewire to SPDIF. The sound is very good so far, which is interesting, because the jitter spec of this unit's own clock is pretty poor by Audiophile standards. This makes me wonder how good a Firewire interface made to audiophile standards like this one would sound:

http://www.designwsound.com/public/vesta.pdf

Unfortunately the Weiss product is not available yet.

I used this with the DL-III to play back various audio files, taking the data out from the computer (MacBook, 2.4 GHz Pentium) via Firewire and going to the DL-III via electrical SPDIF.

The sound was great, even with regular 16/44.1 WAV files. I was also able to import 24/176.4 sample files from Reference Recordings into I-tunes, and play them back with no problems and great sound, both I-tunes, and the soundcard confirmed 24/176.4.

Using the Fireface 400 definitely sounds better than the optical output of the MacBook (with 16/44.1 or 24/96 files) and better than our current USB implementation (with 16/44.1 files), and the Fireface is the only way I have to play back the Reference Recordings HRx samples.

IMO at this point, this computer playback system is at least as good as playback on any CD/DAC combo I have ever heard, including my own hot rodded and tricked out DLIII.'

Thanks Barrows. I love that everyone at PS is so involved in staying ahead of the curve with new technology and new ways to bring music and fun into our lives.

Stay tuned for more info as it comes in.

Apple update
If you'll recall last month’s newsletter we talked about our trip to Apple and figuring out how to turn the Apple TV (ATV) into a high end music server good to go out of the box. I was surprised by the amount of mail I received – perhaps more than any other newsletter has generated.

Seems many of you are into cutting edge digital audio – far more than I ever imagined. It was really gratifying to read all the great letters, sharing of your systems and commitments to go out and buy one for yourself.

One thing I missed (and you let me know it) was the Sony Playstation as a music server. Never thought about it, but it looks like it's worth looking into. Built in Blue Ray player, digital out, cool interface with the game console etc. For my tastes however, I am sticking with the ATV if for the interface value if nothing else.

One point I wanted to make: the iPod is the ONLY Apple product that lacks digital out. Everything else they make has it: just not the iPod.

I got plenty of letters with people jumping up and down about the subject and insisting their device was taking the digital out of the iPod. Sorry, it is not, despite what you may read. There are a number of products out there that take analog data off an iPod – some are even from high end companies. However, none of these takes the digital data off. It's always straight analog out of the iPod DAC. Don't be fooled.

All the other Apple products, including their computers, Airport Express and ATV have digital outputs that plug directly into the DAC of your choice.

If you really want to get digital data off your iPod SPECIFICALLY and don't have the other Apple products that provide this already, then wait for the upcoming Wadia dock. It will be the first product to actually provide the same digital data currently available through other Apple products WITH AN iPod.

In the meantime, I’ve added a whole bunch of MP4 movies to my computer and when we're tired of listening to music, we watch a movie on the ATV. What a cool device and the movies look better than out of my

DVD player with component video out - connecting the ATV via HDMI.

New ad
Signature Audio, our UK distributor contracted an artrist to draw a simple idea explaining the benefits of the Power Plant Premier. We were so taken with this cute ad we are publishing it in both TAS and Stereophile next month.

I thought you might enjoy seeing it. It explains the concept behind the Power Plant Premier so well and in so few words that it's a no-brainer to run.

Premiers (PPP) keep growing in the marketplace. We've now got more Premiers in the field than all other Power Plant models combined, since we invented the category back in 1997.

So, thanks for all the support. There really isn't any other way to get the Power Plant in your city to your home.

Till May
The next time this old man writes to you, it'll be near the end of May. I'll try and have a much more comprehensive report for you on the upcoming audio products including the Lens and the PWT.

Till then, keep well!

Paul McGowan