The popularity of theater loudspeakers among audiophiles began to wane in the mid 1950s with the ascension of the Acoustic Research/Janszen dynamic/electrostatic hybrid, which ushered in the era of the Boston Reticent (also called Boston blah) sound, with its sucked-out midrange and emphasis on delicacy and transparency at the expense of tonal accuracy (footnote 1). Horn-loaded speakers (like all of Altec's) gained a reputation for stridency and midrange coloration, and the consumer demand for them had practically dried up by the mid-1970s. In 1983, Altec gave up trying to court the consumer market, but continued to supply installations for professional users even after the company's sale to Gulton Industries in '84.

In 1985, autosound manufacturer Sparkomatic bought the rights to market consumer loudspeakers under the Altec Lansing name (footnote 2). They put together a line of moderately-priced systems and unveiled them at the '86 Summer CES, where I heard a pair of the Model 301s for long enough to want to hear them again.

The 301 ($750/pair)
The 301 is the middle of Altec's consumer line. Completely undistinguished in appearance (a box is a box is a box) and construction (½ chipboard, with minimal internal bracing), the 301 is almost a prototypical mid-fi box system, with a 10" woofer and a couple of domes for the middle and upper ranges. There's more to it than meets the eye, though.

The woofer cone is made of a carbon-fiber compound, which combines light weight with a remarkable degree of rigidity in pursuit of the woofer-cone ideal: true pistonic action (footnote 3). The carbon-fiber construction is claimed to "eliminate breakup, flexing and distortion in woofer cones," which is probably being overly optimistic. "Minimize" would be a more appropriate term here, though hyperbole is the soul of PR . . .

The midrange and tweeter cones are made of a thermosetting plastic called Polyimide, claimed to be resistant to temperatures of up to 600°F. On the surface of this plastic is a vacuum-deposited, 4µm-thick layer of titanium, one of the most rigid, lightweight metals known. In addition, each upper-range driver's voice-coil operates in a ferrofluid environment, which provides both damping and efficient transfer of heat from the voice-coil to the surrounding magnet structure. In other words, the speakers are made to absorb the kind of abuse (ie, gross overloading) they are likely to be subjected to by your average iggerant consumer.

My samples of the 301 were supplied without instructions. Fair enough, assuming that it is safe to assume there is nothing unusual about their setup requirements. But the moment I went to install them, I discovered what strikes me as a very dumb design "feature." The input connectors are 5-way binding posts, spaced apart by the ¾" standard for receiving dual banana plugs. That's a good start. Unfortunately, the receptacles are mounted vertically, in a small recess at the back of the enclosure, and there is no way of getting even single banana plugs into them, let alone a dual plug. There is only an inch of clearance between the tops of the posts and the top of the recess, and a banana plug requires almost 1½ inches of clearance. This might have been available were it possible to remove the screwdown tops from the posts, but you can't. They will unscrew just so far and no farther. Thus, the posts will accept only a bared wire end or one tine of a spade lug. And to attach either of these, you must screw down the post covers, a task complicated by the fact that there is barely enough room in the recess for your fingers. Even plain-vanilla screw terminals, flush with the back, would have made connection much easier than this much more costly ~misuse of 5-way binding posts. This is such a simple, fundamental botch that I wonder just what Altec was thinking when they did it, if indeed they thought at all.

So much for the human engineering.
I can now report, on the basis of the 301 and the JBL 250ti (Vol.8 No.6), that metal upper-range diaphragms are no longer any guarantee of a metallic-sounding high end. These are smoooth! Yet the speakers are not at all your typical audiophile system.

To say that the Altec 301 has a distinctive sound is like saying water is damp. One might think, listening to these, that "high-end" audio had never happened—their tonal balance is almost a mirror-image of that which perfectionists now take for granted. It's not that these Altecs are a throwback to audio primitivism; it's just that they are shockingly different in sound from what we consider to be acceptable today. You'll hear none of the familiar, laid-back ~politeness or "richness" from the 301s. To the contrary, they sound very forward, almost aggressively punchy, and startlingly alive.

In fact, the 301s' forwardness is remarkably like that of the big horn systems that made Altec's reputation in the movie-theater field. But that's their only resemblance to theater horn systems—they have neither the honky midrange raucousness of the typical horn system, nor a trace of their shrillness. Instead, they produce some of the smoothest, most open treble I have heard from any speakers, with a degree of transparency and detail that is almost electrostatic-like. (The tweeter sounds very much like JBL's new Ti (titanium) model.)

Sheffield Lab's Doug Sax coined the term "jump factor" to describe the kind of aliveness and realism that, when reproducing something like a squeaky chair, sounds so real and in-the-room that it elicits a startle reaction—the "jump." It is a quality I have heard many times from large horn-loaded systems whose other sonic qualities you'd rather not contemplate. Well, the 301s have that jump factor, in spades. And to hear the positive qualities of a horn system—without the negatives—is a revelation!

I have long felt that, if you wanted the last word in detail, it was necessary to opt for a wide-range electrostatic speaker system. I had assumed that it was the quickness of the electrostatic's extremely light diaphragm that accounted for its detail, and had believed that the attendant exaggerated highs were simply one of the prices one had to pay (until I heard the Sound Lab A3 system—Vol.9 No.6). The Altec 301 has prompted me to reconsider that view. Here is a system with the kind of high-end sweetness and openness that I hear from real, live music, yet with truly astonishing inner detail through most of the audio range.

Since I fired up the 301s I have been hearing more going on in old, familiar recordings than I ever have ever heard before. Melodic lines are easier to follow, instrumental sections are suddenly resolved into many individual instruments rather than a mass of instruments, and extra-musical sounds like page turnings, chair squeakings, and clothing rustlings are as clearly audible as they would be were I standing right on the stage with the performers.

But there's a price to pay for this super-detailing. Just as the 301s are capable of reproducing a chair squeak as well as any system I have heard, they also do an equally splendid job of reproducing analog disc surface noise and mistracking. A single momentary loss of stylus/groove contact during a loud orchestral passage is clearly audible through the musical racket as a single, sharp click. Of course, surface noise and mistracking are not a problem with CDs or tape sources, but the amount of detail the 301s have could actually be a real liability, because their $750/pair price means they are not likely to be partnered with the cleanest associated components in the world. Mediocre preamps, in particular, have a nasty habit of exaggerating disc mistracking, and when that happens detail is the last thing you want in a loudspeaker. (I used the Audio Research SP-11 preamp, Threshold SA-1 power amps, and a variety of ~topnotch signal sources for my auditions. which only seems to be overkill because it was.)

Perhaps because of their forwardness, the 301s give the ~impression of having tremendous dynamic range. An ~orchestral crescendo through the 301s can raise the hairs on your neck. (That's the essence of my goosebump criterion.) Yet they handle small-scale programs, like chamber works and spoken word, with truly amazing realism and intimacy.

Another thing I found quite surprising about the Altecs is their soundstaging capability. Despite their forwardness (which can put a closely miked voice several feet in front of the speakers), they reproduce depth and perspective amazingly well. The reason I found this surprising is that I had long ago concluded that a very deep soundstage and a sucked-out middle range tended to go together. There goes yet another cherished belief!

Soundstage breadth and hall ambience are very well reproduced by the 301s, as is, unfortunately, the "phasiness" or ear pressure one sometimes gets from noisy disc pressings. With a well-miked recording, these speakers seem to disappear, and the image extends all the way between and for some distance beyond them. Specificity, too, is very good; mono signals produce a tightly bunched center image with virtually no positional wander with changing pitch, and moving from the center of the listening seat causes no sudden side-to-side hopping of the image; just a smooth soundstage shift towards the closest speaker.

Unfortunately, the 301s don't do everything right, which is what you would expect from a $750 product. Although the quality of the low end is amazingly good considering the flimsy enclosure, there is not enough of it. The system puts out a clean 28Hz (at much reduced level), but the entire low end is rather weak, producing a sound which can only be described as very lean. Recordings having strong bass content sound okay, but those with average bass heft sound rather thin. Bass detail is, however, excellent; pitch is clearly delineated, and kick drum is reproduced with great impact.

Two issues ago, I described the warmth and richness of the Sound Lab A3 as "my kind of sound." The Altec 301s are the antithesis of that kind of sound, yet I find many things about them very attractive. They have passed my goosebump test many times during listening tests, and I am going to miss that tremendous inner detailing when I have to go back to listening to what I know to be objectively better systems. The 301 is almost the quintessential rock speaker, having the punch and power missing from more respectable systems. It is also by far the best system I have found for use with projection video systems on film presentations, even though it requires substantial low-end boost to give blockbuster films the impact they have in a theater. But the 301's detailing has allowed me to at last decipher many background conversations and muttered snippets of dialog that have never before been intelligible!

Summing Up
In short, I am very much impressed with much of what these modestly sized speakers can do. Would I recommend them to my best friend? Not without strong reservations. While the Altec 301s do some things better than any audiophile speakers I have heard, they have such a strong personality (okay, call it coloration if you like) that a music listener will either love them or hate them. Like Vietnamese fish sauce and oysters on the half shell, no one will feel indifferent about the 301s. If you're shopping for speakers in this price class, my advice is to try a pair of them at home, listen carefully to what they do right, and decide for yourself whether these things are more important than what they do wrong. Give them serious consideration: the areas where they excel contribute strongly to the emotional impact you can get from reproduced music.

Footnote 2: In 2005, Altec Lansing Technologies was purchased by Plantronics.—Ed.

Footnote 3: This refers to the desideratum that a woofer cone should move uniformly over its entire area, like the cylinder face of a piston in an internal-combustion engine.

I was originally going to do a review comparing the Spectrum 108A ($200/pair) and the Boston Acoustics A40. On first listen, I was mightily impressed by the A40. But after Stereophile's Larry Archibald schlepped me out a pair of the 108As, I didn't much want to listen to the A40s. In all fairness, the A40s are probably the best $150/pair speakers and they are not bad in video installations, kids' systems, college dorm rooms, and the like. The problem is that the Spectrum 108A is a lot better for just 50 bucks more per pair. The A40's crossover may be the problem. It occurs at 3.5kHz—and 3.5kHz is about where I hear the problems.

However, the A40s are often discounted to as little as $120/pair and the 108As tend to sell at list price. So if you're trying to put together a system on a reallyI rock-bottom budget, the Boston A40s could be just the right speakers at just the right price. Just remembe—you could do a lot worse for $120–$150! In fact, I bought a pair of A40s—for my 15 year-old daughter.—Sam Tellig

Alvin Gold wrote about the A40 in November 1986 (Vol.9 No.7):

Acoustic Research isn't the only US maker who successfully ship low-cost loudspeakers in the UK. Boston Acoustics manages to sell their A40 quite successfully as far as I can make out, and again this model seems to be pretty well in tune with British tastes in loudspeakers. The A40 makes no pretence at ladling out oodles of bass from its matchbox-like dimensions, nor is there any evidence of an attempt by the loudspeaker's designers to make it sound as smooth as possible, regardless of cost to the sound as a whole.

This isn't the case with other American designs, which seem to put all effort into a doomed attempt at going deeper in bass than the next. They're not doomed because the extra bass can't be had—it's always possible to get more bass. They're doomed because the cost in other areas tends to be severe. A boosted upper-bass region is one expedient for making a loudspeaker sound physically larger, but the effect is nearly always as obvious as it is amusical. Midrange resolution and sensitivity are almost always adversely affected as well.—Alvin Gold

On the contrary, the arrival of each new Music Streamer is cause for celebration by those of us who want to know: How much more performance—and for how small a price—can we have today? HRT's answer for 2013 is their new Music Streamer HD ($449.95), which promises also to keep pace with the industry's growing library of high-resolution downloads.

Description
The Music Streamer HD is built into a lightweight aluminum extrusion 5.5" long and 3.5" wide, with plastic endcaps molded to suggest the same texture as the case's finish. One end is devoted to analog connections, with RCA jacks for single-ended signals, and a pair of XLR sockets for people whose systems can accept fully balanced signals: one of the new DAC's calling cards. The other end is home to a USB type B input jack, a bee-stinger–sized switch for selecting from USB 2.0 to 1.0, for those with older computers, and two groupings of indicator lights: a six-light bank for the common sampling rates from 44.1 to 192kHz, and three lights indicating 16 bits, 24 bits, and mute.

Like the Music Streamers II and II+, which I reviewed in the December 2010 issue, the Music Streamer HD is built on a single printed-circuit board, held in place by ribbing inside the case; the HD's roomier chassis, compared to that of its predecessors, seems necessary only inasmuch as its XLR sockets require a larger mounting area than RCAs. Analog output circuitry occupies the end of the PCB nearest the line-level audio jacks, while place of honor at the center of the board is given to a Burr-Brown PCM1794—a 24-bit/192kHz processor with its own 8x-oversampling digital filter—with current-to-voltage conversion handled by a differential stage outside the D/A chip. An XMOS microcontroller, supplemented with a Winbond flash memory, handles USB communications: The Music Streamer HD is an asynchronous device, using proprietary software written for that purpose by designer Kevin Halverson.

Also in common with Music Streamers past, the HD omits an outboard power supply, depending instead on the kindness of the USB bus and the voltage available thereby. Here the HD enlists the help of a CUI integrated DC-to-DC converter, which converts 5V DC into separate positive and negative swings, thus making a total of 10V available for distribution throughout the board.

Installation and setup
These days I expect few difficulties installing computer-audio products, in which regard the Music Streamer HD proved blessedly unexceptional. With the HRT connected to my Apple iMac by means of an AudioQuest Carbon USB cable, I simply clicked on System Preferences, then Sound, noting from the latter that the HRT identified itself as, simply, "USB 2.0 Audio Out." Throughout the review period, my computer never failed to detect and correctly identify the Music Streamer HD.

Because my Shindo Masseto preamplifier isn't designed for balanced sources, I relied mostly on the Music Streamer HD's single-ended outputs. Those jacks are installed quite close to one another—about 0.56" apart, measured on-center—but there was enough room for two RCA plugs of reasonable bulk. That said, I noted that the HD's jacks were mounted on the softish plastic endcaps rather less than rigidly, and thus were not immune to wiggling when I used bulky plugs and cables.

During the review period I had the good fortune to receive an integrated amplifier designed for fully balanced throughput—the new and very interesting Ayre Acoustics AX-5—thus providing the chance to try the HD's solidly nice XLR sockets; I used a 1m pair of Nordost Tyr interconnects I'd borrowed a while back, to review Ayre's own QB9 processor. (Before dropping entirely the subject of Ayre Acoustics, I'll mention also that their otherwise useful Myrtle Block isolation devices did not come into play during this review: Like most relatively inexpensive USB DACs, the Music Streamer HD seemed too light in weight to benefit from the use of those or other such things. I contented myself with keeping the review sample on a small pinewood table.)

Two final setup notes: Following USB connection to my computer, the Music Streamer HD became slightly—almost imperceptibly—warm to the touch, though not as warm as earlier HRT DACs. (I would imagine that this, too, is a function of the HD's roomier chassis.) And throughout my time with the HD, regardless of the music file being played, the processor's 24-bit indicator remained illuminated, its 16-bit indicator dark, even when I played a 16-bit file. (The Mute light at the bottom of the same bank of indicators could be toggled on and off with my iMac's F10 key—which did effectively mute and reactivate the HD.)

Listening
After a break-in period during which the Music Streamer HD suffered the indignity of supplying party music—highlights included some of the weaker selections by my heroes Ian and Sylvia, along with about three quarters of Sinead O'Connor's Am I Not Your Girl? (the three-quarter mark signaling the very end of my patience with that recording's extravagantly hokey instrumentation)—the new HRT processor went to work in my reference system.

While I was entirely impressed by the system's sound, I was slightly disappointed by the Marimba's appearance: Its boxy, black cabinet gives it an undeniably humble, completely unpretentious look, and though I can appreciate that, I want a little more style—something to set the Marimba apart from the countless hi-fi phonies lining the shelves of big-box stores and plastered all over Amazon.com. In terms of appearance, the Marimba is only slightly more attractive than the Dayton Audio B652, which I reviewed in January; and, while the Dayton, too, has a rather anonymous, generic look, that's something I can more easily accept in a speaker that costs only $40/pair.

Whatever. One evening, while Ms. Little was out, I replaced my beloved PSB Alpha B1s ($299/pair) with the Music Hall Marimbas, setting them exactly where the PSBs had been. After Ms. Little had gotten home, I asked her if she'd noticed the new speakers. Her eyes went wide. Her gaze drew an arc from left speaker to right. Her face expressed complete bewilderment, as if to say, "What new speakers?" As far as she was concerned, the Marimbas were the Alpha B1s; so while the PSBs strike me as being far more attractive, it stands to reason that most normal people wouldn't notice a difference.

Roy Hall, Music Hall's founder and "president for life," is responsible for both the Marimba's visual and acoustic designs—a fact that will keep certain audiophiles (those especially old and joyless ones again) from ever listening to the thing. Hall's got a reputation for being a bit of a potty-mouth. And he likes Scotch. Audiophiles who are afraid of obscenities and alcohol are therefore afraid of Roy Hall, but I've had the pleasure of speaking with the man on a number of occasions, and he strikes me as warm, intelligent, and reasonable—frank when it comes to business, and rather romantic when it comes to life.

Why, after nearly 30 years as a manufacturer and distributor, has Hall decided to introduce his own affordable loudspeaker?

"Basically, to fuck the competition," he says.

While I'm sure that's true, there's more to the story. Music Hall is the North American distributor for Epos loudspeakers, many of which have found great success in the US. One of Epos's most affordable designs, the ELS-3 ($299/pair), was reviewed by Robert J. Reina in our January 2004 issue and held a place in Class C (Restricted LF) of our "Recommended Components" until it was discontinued, in 2009.

Had he entered the speaker market sooner, Hall would have been competing against himself—something that smart businessmen try to avoid. With the popular ELS-3 gone for good, and Epos making a turn up market, Hall sensed an opportunity.

On the face of it, Music Hall's strategy makes sense, but I've been told by several leading loudspeaker manufacturers that the time has passed for affordable passive bookshelf models, and that audiophiles now shopping for a sub-$500/pair speaker are more interested in powered desktop designs. What would Roy Hall say to those manufacturers?

"They may be right," he admits, "but as I never talk to them, I wouldn't know. I make decisions based on what I like to do. I've always loved two-way speakers. They fuck up the sound much less than more complex designs."

Hall fell in love with small, stand-mounted loudspeakers some 25 years ago, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, when he first heard a pair of Linn Kans.

"Alex Montenegro from [Linn's erstwhile importer] Audiophile Systems had set them up using a Naim [NAP] 250 [power amplifier] and a Linn Sondek [turntable]. The speakers were hard up against the wall and seemed to be peeking out of a curtain. They sounded unbelievable. I wished then that I could create something that sounded that good."

He pauses.

"I finally did."

The passion of old-timers
It seems there are some advantages to growing old after all—the realization of dreams, for example, a notion that strikes me as being both invigorating and daunting. How much growing can be expected of a person? Are we never done?

While Roy Hall spent four years in the late 1970s employed by Linn, building their famed Isobarik loudspeaker, the Marimba is the first speaker he's actually designed. He makes the process sound like something akin to grocery shopping, selecting drive-units and other materials as though they were cans of soup.

"I went to the factory with a mandate to make this speaker within a very tight budget. I used standard cabinets and off-the-shelf components to save money. I started at 9:30 in the morning, and finalized the design by lunchtime: I was hungry, and the boss was taking me to his favorite restaurant. I didn't want to miss it. I do love Chinese food."

Though its rear panel proudly states "DESIGNED AND DEVELOPED IN THE USA," the Marimba is made in Shenzhen, China, by "a company that's run by an audiophile the same age as me," Hall continues. "We bonded when he told me it was great to find someone his own age that was still enthusiastic about hi-fi, and we agreed that very few young people in the industry have the passion of us old-timers."

The Marimba has a 5.25" polypropylene-cone woofer and a 1" silk-dome tweeter, measures 10.9" (279mm) high by 6.5" (167mm) wide by 8.6" (221mm) deep, and weighs 8.6 lbs (3.9kg). Music Hall's specifications include a sensitivity of 87dB/W/m, a nominal impedance of 6 ohms, and a frequency range of 50Hz–35kHz. Although the Marimba's MDF cabinet is modest in appearance, Hall insists that his greater ambitions are hidden beneath the surface: "The cabinet is incredibly well braced, both laterally and vertically. This is unheard of in a box [of its] price, and accounts for most of the [Marimba's] deep bass and distortion-free sound." Still, knocking on the speaker's side panel produced a clearly audible, hollow-sounding resonance—not unlike that of a marimba, in fact, and more or less typical of a $350/pair speaker.

The Marimba's Web page boasts that all final tuning was done by ear, with real music. "I think I used James Last, Led Zeppelin, and Andy Williams," says Hall. "Frankly, it was whatever crap they had in the factory."

Only twice have I gotten a series of negative letters. The first was from readers complaining that, instead of comparing the Spendor S3/5R² loudspeaker to other modern designs, as I did in my March 2013 review, I should have compared it to John Atkinson's pair of the Spendor's ancestor, the original BBC LS3/5A. Point taken, but I think a review is more useful when it compares a component with similarly priced products that are still available, and that the reviewer has listened to extensively in his own reference system.

The other batch of negative letters came from readers who'd tried to buy a pair of Pioneer SP-BS41-LR speakers ($149.99/pair), a bookshelf model I'd raved about in the September 2011 Stereophile. They couldn't find them. One was even from a friend, a wealthy investment banker. I suggested he consider a number of other speakers at slightly higher prices. "No," he said, "I want to spend under $200." (This guy could afford any loudspeaker ever reviewed in Stereophile.) I did some digging at Pioneer USA, and found out that the SP-BS41-LR was being discontinued; designer Andrew Jones was working on an entire new line of affordable models.

For the record: Before reviewing any component for Stereophile, I verify that 1) the manufacturer has at least five US dealers, 2) the model is currently in production, and 3) the company does not plan to discontinue it in the near future. Typically, if a model change is afoot, the manufacturer gives me a heads up—something like, "in six to nine months the product is being replaced with a new model. I suggest you hold off and wait for the new one." In this case, however, it seems that Jones's design team was a step ahead of Pioneer's marketing arm. Pioneer told me that they'd let me know when the new models were available. So, when they informed me of the launch of their new SP-BS22-LR bookshelf model ($159.99/pair, street price of $129.99/pair), I asked for review samples.

Design
Though very close in price to the SP-BS41-LR speaker I reviewed two years ago, the SP-BS22-LR doesn't actually replace it. Rather, it replaces the SP-BS41-LR's little brother, the SP-BS21-LR ($129.99/pair), which had a smaller woofer (4") and cabinet than the 'BS41. Like its predecessor, the SP-B22-LR is a bass-reflex speaker with a 1" soft-dome tweeter and a 4" woofer, neither magnetically shielded—but both drivers are new. The new woofer's cone is made of textured polypropylene, to strengthen it for better bass dynamics while smoothing the frequency response. It also has a rigid dustcap to stiffen the voice coil, and a vented pole-piece to release the air pressure that builds up under the cap. The tweeter has a dome made of a new proprietary material, a new custom waveguide, and a larger magnet, for improved high-frequency response, better off-axis response, and higher efficiency. The SP-BS22-LR uses a sophisticated, six-element crossover network comprising a single film capacitor and an air-core inductor in the tweeter feed, and a laminated steel-core inductor and an electrolytic capacitor in the woofer feed.

The Pioneer's enclosure has gently curved sidewalls. While the 'B21 and the 'B44 had unremovable metal grilles, the SP-B22-LR's grilles are removable. Andrew Jones says that he wanted buyers to see the drivers and that customer response to the earlier speakers indicated that not everyone liked the fixed grilles. However, I found the original metal grilles rather distinctive. The SP-B22-LR looks much more ordinary, a bit like a cross between Mission and Wharfedale bookshelf models. I slightly preferred the sound with the grilles on—with the SP-BS22-LRs sitting on my Celestion Si stands, the grilles provided better integration of the midrange and high frequencies.

Listening
The SP-BS22-LR's rich midrange made it an excellent match for well-recorded voices. In "Ordinary Love," from Sade's Love Deluxe (CD, Epic EK 53178), the singer's melodic lines were mellifluous and dimensional. Through the Pioneer there was plenty of detail and subtle vocal inflections, but no trace of coloration. There was a subtle bit of chestiness in the speaker's lower midrange, but I'd call that more of a character than a coloration, and it never interfered with male voices or woodwinds in that frequency range. In fact, the male vocal ensemble in "Chan Chan," from Buena Vista Social Club (CD, World Circuit/Elektra Nonesuch 79478-2), was clean, clear, and coherent, with a great sense of bloom. Even the lower range of dramatic baritone Patrick Mason in Spanish Songbook 1: The Ghosts of Alhambra, from George Crumb's The Complete Crumb Edition, Vol.15 (CD, Bridge 9335), was forceful, vibrant, and dynamic, with no hint of coloration throughout the singer's wide range.

I found the Pioneer's reproduction of the highs quite interesting. It didn't have the most extended highs, as inexpensive bookshelf speakers go, but its integration of the lower and upper highs was so perfect, and its rolloff of the extreme highs so gradual, that never did any high-frequency instrument lose any sense of realism. Even in the most demanding passages of Tom Chiu's performance of David Chesky's Violin Concerto, with Anthony Aibel conducting Area 31 (SACD/CD, Chesky SACD288), I could pick out the extended harmonics of his violin; the SP-BS22-LR captured all of the dynamics in Chiu's unique phrasing.

Ten years later, while the current top-model iPod features a 160GB hard drive, it still can play only files with sample rates of 48kHz and below and a maximum bit depth of 16. Those of us with a growing library of high-resolution files are therefore restricted to playing them in our big rigs at home.

Enter Astell&Kern. At the beginning of 2013, this brand from iRiver, a Korean portable media company, introduced its AK100, a portable player costing a dollar short of $700 and capable of handling 24-bit files with sample rates of up to 192kHz. (A&K calls hi-rez music Mastering Quality Sound or MQS.) All the usual file types are supported—WAV, FLAC, Ogg, APE, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, MP3—but when it was first introduced, the AK100 couldn't play Apple-format files, including those encoded with Apple's Lossless (ALAC) codec. This was a major problem for someone like me, whose iTunes library consists almost entirely of ALAC files. This shortcoming was addressed with an early 2013 firmware update (v.1.30), so I arranged for a review sample. Now I could take my hi-rez files on the road!

The AK100 . . .
. . . is a small and elegant-looking device, its electronics housed in a case of black-anodized aluminum with a hairline finish. A 2.4" color touchscreen grants access to the usual transport controls, as well as the ability to navigate the player's folders and files. The playback volume can be controlled with the touchscreen, but there's also a small volume wheel mounted on the side, to the right of the screen. On the left side, three pushbuttons duplicate the onscreen transport controls, while on the bottom are a micro USB port for connecting the AK100 to a PC and, under a slide cover, two Micro-SD memory-card slots.

A long push of the top-mounted button boots up the AK100. This button also wakes up the display when music is playing; a second push and hold turns the player off. (A cute "SEE YOU SOON" message appears on the display.) Also on the top panel is a 3.5mm stereo jack for connecting headphones, which will also, with an adapter (not included), accept a TosLink optical datalink, so that the AK100 can stream S/PDIF data to an external D/A processor. A second 3.5mm jack is used to send optical S/PDIF data to the AK100, again via an adapter, so it can operate as a standalone DAC.

When music is playing, touching a hexagonal bolt-head icon on the bottom right of the screen brings up a menu. The Info icon shows you the filename and type, the bit and sample rates, and the file size. The Equalizer icon brings up an On/Off button for the equalizer; pressing it on brings up 5 EQ bands that can be boosted or cut with a simple swipe of the finger; pressing on each band brings up a submenu that lets you choose that band's center frequency—the choices are 62Hz, 250Hz, 1kHz, 4kHz, and 16kHz—and further adjust the boost or cut in 1dB steps from –10dB to +10dB . A + icon allows you to add files to a new playlist. And with two more icons, you can select loop or shuffle play.

The AK100 comes with 32GB of internal flash memory. While this may sound like a lot of storage, remember that hi-rez files are large. Whereas a lossless-compressed CD album in ALAC and FLAC formats needs 200–300MB of space, its 24/96 equivalent will need 800–900MB, its 24/192 version 1.2–1.5GB. Fortunately, the AK100's internal storage can be supplemented with one or two 32GB Micro-SD memory cards (the SanDisk and Transcend brands are recommended by Astell&Kern), to give a maximum possible storage of 96GB. Each card appears as a separate drive when you connect the AK100 to your computer and you drag'n'drop music files to it in the usual manner.

The AK100 is said to be the first portable audio device to use Wolfson's WM8740 DAC chip. The WM8740 is a two-channel sigma-delta part that supports data input word lengths from 16 to 24 bits and sampling rates up to 192kHz, and includes digitally controllable mute and attenuator functions. According to its datasheet, the WM8740 offers a reconstruction filter with sharp or slow rolloffs, but Astell&Kern don't specify which they use in the AK100.

Setup
Transferring music to the AK100 is straightforward. PC users can run the iRiver plus4 software, which can manage multiple multimedia files and save them to the AK100, as well as automatically upgrading the player's firmware. Macintosh users connect the Astell&Kern to their Mac with the supplied USB cable and choose "Connect Removable Disk" when that's shown on the touchscreen. ("Charge Battery" is also an option.) The AK100 appears as an external drive on the desktop, and the message "USB Connected" is shown on the touchscreen. Music files can be dragged'n'dropped into the pre-existing "Music" folder. (Unless these are WAV files, the metadata and cover art travel with the audio.) When the AK100 is disconnected, choosing "Settings" on the touchscreen, then pressing "Advanced," then "Auto Library Scan" sorts the files by the associated metadata. Hi-rez files are also added to the MQS playlist during this process.

When you navigate to the Artist folder with the onscreen menu, you can select either each album, in which case the songs will play in the original order, or "All Songs," to play all of the songs on all that artist's albums in alphabetical order. The touchscreen has a little more latency in its response than iPads and iPhones, I found.

As the AK100 isn't supplied with a battery charger, it needs to be connected to the user's PC for its internal battery to be charged. It takes just over five hours for the battery to be completely charged, and the battery life is specified as "up to 16 hours." (A&K say that playing hi-rez files takes more power than CD-quality files.) Playing all sorts of files, I got between 12 and 16 hours per charge.

The AK100 has a Bluetooth function, hwich I assumed would allow it to act as a Bluetooth DAC, though one limited to sample rates of 48kHz and lower. It proved easy to pair with my iPhone 3GS via Bluetooth. However, for some reason, I wasn't able to stream audio to the AK100 from my phone. Astell&Kern subsequently let me know that the Bluetooth function isn't for streaming, but to allow users to hear their phone ringing.

A question of impedance
The Astell&Kern website lists five headphones that they recommend for use with the AK100: the Denon AH-D7100, Audio-Technica ATH-W3000ANV, Beyerdynamic DT1350, and Shure SRH840 and SE425. I don't have any of those, so to assess the AK100 I used the four sets of headphones I regularly use: two over-the-ear models, the Sennheiser HD650 and Sony MDR-7506; and two in-ear monitors, JH Labs' JH16 Pro and Ultimate Ears' 18 Pro. As you can see from the measurements sidebar, the AK100 has an output impedance of 22 ohms. This is significantly higher than iPods and iPhones and will be on the high side for many headphones. With a headphone having an impedance of the same 22 ohms, for example, the output voltage will be halved. And the frequency responses of headphones whose impedance varies with frequency—all of them!—will be modified by the interaction between this high source impedance and those of the headphones.

For example, if you look at the measured impedance of the JH16 Pro, this averages 13 ohms in the lower midrange and bass, rising to 35 ohms at 2kHz, then dropping to 12 ohms at 7kHz. This will modify the headphones' frequency response by –2.6dB in the bass and midrange, +1.8dB in the low treble, then –3dB in the high treble. Similarly, the Ultimate Ears 18 Pro average 18 ohms in the lower midrange and bass, and 11 ohms between 8 and 10kHz, rising to 30 ohms in the low treble. With both of these in-ear monitors, this variation in impedance will shelve down the lower mids and bass compared with the low treble when driven by the AK100—but more so with the JH16 Pro than with the 18 Pro, where the bass and lower midrange will be suppressed by 0.9dB and the low treble emphasized by 1.2dB.

In 1995, I heard that Mike Creek was updating all of his electronics, and became intrigued by his new flagship integrated, the 4240SE, which became the subject of the first review I wrote for Stereophile, for the December 1995 issue. I was amazed at how its performance exceeded that of my beloved 4140s2. I bought the review sample, and moved the 4140s2 to my computer audio system.

A few years later, Mike Creek again launched new, more powerful, more expensive integrated amps, and I again reviewed his new flagship: the 5350SE (March 2001). Again, its performance significantly exceeded that of its predecessor; again, I bought the review sample.

In 2007, I got a call from Creek's US importer, Roy Hall, of Music Hall Audio: "Mike Creek has a new circuit design and a new flagship design." Oh, no—not again. I reviewed it in the January 2007 issue. Once more, the performance of a new Creek—the Destiny this time—exceeded the performance of its predecessor. Once more, I bought the review sample. You'd think I'd be used to this pattern.

But no. Recently, I called Roy Hall to request a review sample of the Epos Elan 10 loudspeaker, recommended to me by a Stereophile reader—it's the replacement model for the M5i, probably my favorite Epos bookshelf model. "Yeah, you can review the speaker," Roy said, "but there's something more exciting you need to review first. Mike Creek has a new integrated amplifier."

Here we go again. "What does it cost this time, Roy?" I braced myself, ready to hear that Mike Creek had broken the $3000 price barrier. After all, his current flagship integrated, the Destiny 2, costs $2795.

"No no no. Creek has developed a new, innovative circuit design that you'll see implemented in all the company's designs in the near future. But this time, he's first introduced the new design in an amplifier that is less expensive than anything he currently makes."

I've known Roy Hall for 25 years. Sure, he's a salesman—but he has great ears, and he's honest. As Roy talked about the sound of the Creek Evolution 50A integrated, his voice expressed an enthusiasm I'd never heard from him before. Then he told me the price: $1195.

The Circuitry Magic
The new circuit, which Mike Creek attributes to his senior engineer, David Gamble, is incorporated in what appears to be a conventional class-A/B amplifier. The maximum output power is specified as >55Wpc into 8 ohms and over 85Wpc into 4 ohms. Two Sanken bipolar power transistors are used for each channel; these incorporate temperature-sensing devices so that the output stage bias current can be adjusted automatically. The 50A's 200W toroidal power transformer has separate windings for its high- and low-current analog and digital circuits. Creek claims that this results in low magnetic interference. The 50A's power supply features several small value, low-impedance capacitors in parallel to effectively create a single high-specification capacitor to smooth DC.

The Evolution 50A's preamplifier circuit provides more flexibility and control than is typical in an amp at this price. The preamp has four single-ended inputs and one balanced input, one of which can accommodate one of three moving-magnet or moving-coil plug-in phono boards, which cost $150–$225 and differ from each other in the amount of gain required. (My sample lacked a phono board.) The 50A has a separate set of preamp out jacks, and one of its line inputs can be set to AV Direct mode, so it can be used for the front left and right channels of a multichannel system in which the volume is controlled by the surround-sound receiver. AV Direct can also be used to slave the Evolution 50A to another 50A, to biamplify a pair of speakers. In the future, the 50A will be available with a plug-in tuner module accessible by one of the line inputs.

In addition to the large input selector and volume knobs, the 50A has buttons for Balance as well as Tone: treble and bass controls that can be assigned, via front-panel pushbuttons, to the volume control knob. The display can be dimmed or turned off. There's also a headphone jack, but I didn't test the headphone amplifier during my listening sessions.

The elaborate, well-laid-out remote control gives the user access to all of these functions, the tuner module when that becomes available, and the CD and DAC functions of Creek's other Evolution 50 and Evolution 100 products. The Evolution 50A is available with a faceplate in attractive brushed silver or black.

The Sound of Magic?
I like to test a new component's midrange by checking out how well it reproduces a woman's voice. I listened to the entirety of Alison Krauss and Union Station's Live (CD, Rounder 11661-0515-2), and was impressed by the lack of coloration but the high level of refinement in the Evolution 50A's reproduction of Krauss's rich, silky voice. I had a similar reaction to woodwinds. I've been giving John Coltrane's Stardust (CD, Prestige PRCD-30168) a lot of play lately—I'm continually drawn in by the writing, the arrangements, the playing, and the seductive sound quality. (I must get me an original vinyl pressing of this baby.) In the title track, Coltrane's tenor saxophone was breathy but liquid and silky, with a sense of low-level dynamic linearity that I'm not used to hearing from electronics in this price range.

The 50A's resolution of high-frequency detail, delicacy, and air enabled me to enjoy every track on Ghost Town, a solo album by guitarist Bill Frisell (CD, Nonesuch 79583-2). He plays pretty much a different axe on each track, but I most loved his shimmering, chiming upper register in his arrangement of an early John McLaughlin composition, "Follow Your Heart." I had a similar reaction to guitarist Marc Ribot's solo-guitar work in his Silent Movies (CD, Pi PI34). I was particularly attracted to those tracks in which Ribot plays in the lower register of his amplified archtop guitar—through the Creek, the instrument had a rich, woody resonance.

From $43,325 to $449. Yowseh!!—the MSB costs almost 100 times as much as the Schiit! Was this even fair?

The Bifrost wasn't warmed up, and it certainly hadn't settled in—but who could resist a little listening? I switched on the Bifrost, selected the S/PDIF input, and tapped the screen of my Sooloos music server to bring up a bunch of Turtles tunes we'd been listening to only moments before. "I really want you, Eleanor, near me. / Your looks intoxicate me, / even though your folks hate me . . ." Hmmm.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Schiit Audio is an interesting company. They've set some limits in how they operate that others might charitably call suicidal. For example, they design and make everything in the US, and claim that the bulk of the materials used in their products are also sourced from US manufacturers. They also claim to not even want to know if overseas suppliers (read: China) could better these costs. They sell direct, keeping their prices low. The build quality of the products I've seen so far lives up to Schiit's stated desire to make "something you can pass down to your children." They also provide a five-year warranty.

Apparently, company founders Mike Moffat (formerly of Theta) and Jason Stoddard (formerly of Sumo) have a sense of humor. On the front cover of the Bifrost's owner's manual is the following: "In Norse legend, Bifrost is the flaming rainbow bridge connecting the land of the gods (Asgard) to the earth (Midgard). Yes, rainbows, ha ha. Tell that to Odin and see what he thinks. I don't think you'll be laughing at him."

'Round the Chassis
Like most Schiit products, the Bifrost is a gray metal box containing the circuit boards, plugs, and switches; smoothly folded in a U shape around this is a slightly lighter sheet of bare, brushed aluminum. On top, to the left, is the silk-screened company logo; to the right, a grid of perforations. If you like, you can affix to the bottom four small rubber feet.

The front panel is simplicity itself: other than the Schiit logo and the Bifrost's name, there are only a single input selector switch (a metal disc about half as big as a dime), and three white LEDs to let you know which input is selected.

On the rear panel, from left to right, are: two RCA L/R output jacks; digital coax, USB, and TosLink inputs; a power switch; and a jack for the detachable AC power cord. Unlike with a lot of other DACs at this price, the power supply is built in, which gives the Bifrost a bit of heft. If feels very solid, and gets warm (but never hot) during operation.

Guts (and Glory)
The Bifrost can handle signals of any resolution up to 24-bit/192kHz at all of its inputs. It can be purchased for $349 without its asynchronous USB board; if you change your mind, Schiit's USB Gen 2 board can be added later. Also worth knowing is that the first-generation USB boards couldn't handle 24/176 data (24/192 was no problem). The USB boards are plug'n'play; if you've got the earlier board, I'm guessing you can replace it yourself; $100 if you do it, $150 if Schiit does it.

Another upgrade option is the new Uber Analog output stage, available for $70 ($100 if Schiit installs it). The Uber board also snaps right in, and sports the "more advanced" discrete analog output stage from Schiit's Gungnir DAC ($749/$849). At present, no Schiit DAC can handle DSD, though the company says that's coming.

I pulled the Bifrost apart, to verify Schiit's claim that they use all discrete components for the analog output stage, standard or Uber, and was impressed with the build quality. (You'll hear that a few times more before I'm done.) Seeing a product designed and constructed so well, and then checking the price again, is a little disorienting. Comparing the Bifrost's innards to those of the similarly priced and nicely built (in China) Peachtree DAC•iT ($449), you'd think the Schiit would have to cost more: The Peachtree's switching power supply is external, it doesn't include asynchronous USB, and it's not upgradable—but it sounded oh, so sweet in my system exactly one year ago. More on the Bifrost's sound in a bit.

The heart of the Bifrost is an AKM4399 chip—a 32-bit, delta-sigma D/A converter—coupled with a fully discrete (no chips) JFET analog section. There's no sample-rate converter, which means that data are not upsampled but are processed at their native rates. Indeed, each time a track was followed by one of different resolution, I heard quiet clicks from the muting relays inside the Bifrost as it made its adjustments.

No upsampling seems to be a point of pride for Schiit—another line they've drawn in the sand and promised never to cross. From their website: "Not just no but hell no. None of our DACs will ever do sample rate conversion. Our goal is to perfectly reproduce the original music samples, not to throw them away and turn everything into a mystery-meat soufflé. . . . We worked hard on a microprocessor-controlled, bit-perfect clock management system to ensure that all the original music samples going into Bifrost are delivered to the D/A converter. . . ."

"Price point" designers (Arcam, Audible Illusions, Audio Alchemy, Creek, Grado) who have built their reputations by placing all of their designs under very stringent cost constraints. The presumption is that they target serious music lovers of modest financial means.

"Trickle-down" designers (eg, Alón, Audio Research, Cary, MIT, VPI) have made their marks by designing breakthrough designs whose cost considerations take a back seat to sound quality, and, in extreme cases, may be ignored entirely. Reputations thus established, these designers seek to expand their markets by applying their fundamental design philosophies—and the magic of their pricey designs—within a more cost-constrained context.

Unlike most equipment reviewers, who begin by reviewing budget gear and go up in price as their experience grows, I've moved in the opposite direction. Although I play with the big-bucks boys, as a reviewer I prefer to seek out inexpensive gear that sets new standards at low price points.

This accomplishes two objectives: It locates components that enable a higher level of performance at any given cost constraint, and it brings more people into the hobby, by sending the message that this is not solely a rich man's sport. (Today, $2500 can buy better sound than $5000 did five years ago, or $10,000 did 10 years ago.) My greatest joy as a reviewer is to put together a modestly priced system for a friend and watch the smile on her face as she plays through her music collection as if hearing the stuff for the first time. Which brings me to...

Creek
Roy Hall of Music Hall in Great Neck, New York, is Creek's US distributor and is also part-owner. Hall's rooms at past Stereophile and CE Shows reveal his strategy of bringing very-low-cost serious British high-end gear into the US. At every show I've attended, Music Hall has achieved some of the best sound using some of the least expensive components. Creek electronics were always in use. (They also make CD players, and for a while sold a cute little bookshelf speaker.)

My first experience with a Mike Creek design was with the 4140s2 integrated amplifier I reviewed in 1990 (Sounds Like... No.8, footnote 1). This $550 40W unit (which included a killer low-output moving-coil phono stage, no less) impressed me so much that I purchased it, and I've used it in my lowest-price reference system ever since.

For its price at the time, the 4140s2 was an incredibly detailed, dynamic, and fairly neutral unit whose sonic performance and parts'n'construction quality hinted at a much higher price. The 4140s2's magic was in the way it put the music together (rather than analyzing it or picking it apart) to convey a realistic, involving musical experience. The British mags would call this "following the tune," and the American undergrounds would term it "spectral and temporal coherency." The bass extension and speed on this baby (read: lots of current produced into real speaker loads) was killer. On the minus side, images on the soundstage were rather two-dimensional, with limited stage depth, and the lower high frequencies had a slightly metallic, etched quality—this amp wasn't a good match for speakers with bright tweeters.

In 1989, Creek was sold to TGI (Tannoy/Mordaunt Short); shortly thereafter, Mike Creek left the company. Roy Hall, Creek, and Creek's European distributor bought the company back from TGI in 1993, after which the entire Creek line was revamped. The 4240 integrated amplifier, which replaced the 4140s2 in 1993, was the first Mike Creek design released under the new ownership.

When the 4240's first production unit entered the country, Wes Phillips and I visited Roy Hall's home to compare the new amplifier with the 4140s2 and to meet the designer. During this delightful evening (wherein Roy served a 1988 Tignanello to accompany takeout pizza—the man has his priorities straight), the comparison was enlightening. Although I'm reluctant to comment on comparisons made with unfamiliar systems, this listening session convinced me that the 4240 had achieved new levels of body, palpability, and realism, which the earlier amp had lacked. It also seemed as if the lower high-frequency edge had been scotched.

Enter the 4240
The only way to be sure was to get one of those suckers into my reference system posthaste; I was fortunate to receive one of the early review samples. My listening sessions confirmed a natural and refined quality that I normally associate with expensive tube amplifiers. Rather than the forward, etched quality of its predecessor, the 4240 eased me into the music gently and let its holographic timbres wash over me. Unfortunately, the bass was inferior to the 4140s2, as the midbass on down had a thick, rounded quality—not objectionable, but clearly a step backward.

All in all, however, the new amp was far superior, and the minor bass tradeoff was well worth the integrated result. As I prepared my review (The Abso!ute Sound, Issue 100), I wondered to what extent other reviewers would share my enthusiasm. It turned out my view was in the minority, as both Corey Greenberg (Stereophile, July 1994), and Rob Doorack (Listener, Issue 2, Spring 1995) issued negative press on the 4240, implying that Mike Creek had taken a step backward. To paraphrase these gentlemen, the 4240 lacked the excitement and drive of the earlier unit. It was too laid-back. It was boring.

I can only scratch my head and conclude that these gentlemen like a more exciting than real presentation; one enhanced by the etched lower high frequencies of the 4140s2. But to my ears, naturalness rules; the Creek 4240 presented a much more convincing sonic transcription of the live musical event than did its predecessor.

Which brings us to the matter at hand. Before revamping its lineup, Creek marketed a top-of-the-line integrated amp, the 6060. At nearly double the price of the 4140s2, it basically provided a high-power option for those who liked the sound of the 4140s2, wanted more than 40W, and didn't want to make the jump to separates. I was perplexed, and had begun to think the company was ignoring a key potential market segment, when I learned that Creek's new management had no interest in introducing a replacement for the 6060. In 1995 Creek did introduce the P42 and A42 preamp/amp combo, which offered, at 50Wpc, a higher-powered Creek option.

Don't you deserve something special?
Creek has now finally introduced a higher-power integrated amplifier, the 4240 Special Edition, at a price of $800. Externally, the only difference between the special edition and the standard 4240 is the gold lettering on its faceplate (Creek traditionally uses green). The functions of the two units are identical: five inputs, including an auxiliary input which can be converted to phono by purchasing an additional moving-magnet ($50) or moving-coil board ($95). The simply–laid-out unit sports volume and balance controls, and a headphone jack. For those who wish to complement the amp with additional electronics in a more elaborate system, both preamp-out and amplifier-in jacks are provided.

The Special Edition also includes the most annoying feature I've seen on any piece of electronics, one shared by the entire Creek line: Deltron speaker connections in the back of the amp. These wonderful little jacks mate with Deltron males, which actually seem to provide a better connection than typical five-way binding posts. The problem is, they're incompatible with most American connections. The Deltron jacks do accept banana plugs or "fat bananas"—which I understand Music Hall sells—but are incompatible with the spade lugs and bare wire commonly used in the US low-cost electronics market. Of course, Music Hall dealers will be happy to custom-terminate wires for customers, but then the wires will have compatibility problems with other gear.

I found all this highly annoying: I tried to hook up a new pair of speakers, and found I had three sets of speaker cable custom-terminated with these stupid plugs. They therefore could not be mated with the screw terminals and Edison Price Music Posts on the back of my Audio Research and Cary amps, respectively. You'd think Creek/Music Hall would have realized by now that their segment of the market, more than any other, is driven by convenience.

Open ze box, and the upgrades on the Special Edition are obvious. What Mike Creek has done is replace the output devices and toroidal transformer of the 4240 with those of the 50W A42 basic amplifier. In addition, some minor parts upgrades have been performed on the preamp section, including the addition of a silky high-quality ALPS pot for the volume control. The SE retains the DC-coupled pre- and power-amp sections of the original 4240, as well as the lack of capacitors in the signal path.

Yet more good news comes in the form of Meridian Audio's Explorer ($299), a 4"-long USB digital-to-analog converter from a company that many hobbyists would name as one of the industry's premier digital specialists. That the Explorer is available not only at traditional Meridian dealers but also at a growing number of single-brand Meridian boutiques—locations now including Fort Lauderdale, Moscow, and Kuwait—may be seen as icing on the cake.

Ken Forsythe, Meridian America's director of product development, says his company hasn't turned its back on the high-end audio and video markets. "But if we want to be around 100 years from now, we have to go beyond our core. We think of computer-centric users as the new enthusiasts, so the question becomes: How, over time, can we grow them into core customers?" The answer, Meridian believes, is in the form of this, their first portable processor.

Description
Shaped like a Bic disposable lighter and sized like a Pez dispenser, the Explorer is built into a lightweight aluminum alloy tubewith a hard-anodized finish. A plastic cap at one end incorporates a USB mini-B jack—chosen because a full-size B jack would subject the internals to excessive stress—while a similar cap at the other end holds two 3.5mm jacks: one for headphones, the other for line-level audio output. The latter is combined with an optical digital-audio output—rather like the headphone jack on the back of an Apple iMac—to address the TosLink input of any outboard D/A converter. One might see that as an effort on the part of Meridian to emphasize both the Explorer's portability and its usefulness in a domestic system that already contains a high-end processor from Meridian (or anyone else, for that matter).

The Explorer requires only 5VDC, which it gets from the USB bus of the associated computer. It operates in asynchronous mode, using Meridian's proprietary software to reclock the incoming datastream. The converter chip of choice is the 24-bit/192kHz PCM5102 from Texas Instruments, followed by an analog section that Meridian describes as containing especially good-quality parts for one so humble. (As I could find no way to crack open the Explorer without destroying its aluminum shell, I didn't go poking around.) The Explorer's 130mW headphone output incorporates a 64-step analog volume control, while the line-output jack itself is fixed in level.

While I wasn't able to see for myself the Explorer's build quality, I can nonetheless comment on the whereabouts of its construction: Meridian's least expensive product is, like the rest of their line, made in England. Ken Forsythe relates this, too, to the company's efforts at "building their brand," so that new customers might someday step up to Meridian's more expensive gear: "We couldn't build products overseas and still be able to look our new customers in the eye and say, 'This is built in the same place as our finest products.'"

Installation and setup
In addition to a black-velvet travel pouch—another inducement to portability!—the Meridian processor is supplied with a very flexible 6" cable, used to connect the USB-A socket of the associated computer with the mini USB-B socket of the Explorer. As far as I can tell, there exist no aftermarket, perfectionist-quality versions of this digital cable; I'm keeping my fingers crossed that, if and when that day comes, the industry will keep stiffness, expense, and speculative fiction to an absolute minimum.

There do, however, exist aftermarket cables for use with the audio-out jack at the Explorer's other end: a genre in which AudioQuest has recently become a major player, owing to the use of a 3.5mm output jack on their own DragonFly DAC. For the Meridian converter, I used the same 5m length of AudioQuest Yosemite—a three-conductor interconnect with RCA plugs on one end and a 3.5mm mini-plug on the other—that I used when I reviewed the DragonFly in October 2012.

As with most contemporary USB DACs, getting the Meridian Explorer and an Apple iMac computer to play nicely with one another was as easy as losing one's health insurance. After connecting the USB cable and opening the Sound window of my G5's System Preferences menu, I found the review sample listed as "Meridian Explorer USB DAC Out"; once I'd selected it, neither the Explorer nor my iMac ever seemed to forget the other. Explorer owners who wish to use their new converter with a Windows operating system must first visit the Meridian website and download and install the appropriate driver file. (The OS specs for PCs listed on Meridian's website are "Windows XP SP3, Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.")

Once the Explorer is powered up, three small, white LEDs on its upper surface light up; after data streaming begins, the pattern of lights changes to inform the user of the resolution of the incoming music file: one light for 44.1 or 48kHz files, two for 88.2 or 96kHz, and three lights for 176.4 or 192kHz. This is in marked contrast to those processors on which a single light is likely to correlate with mathematically related combinations of frequencies; eg, 48 and 96kHz.

Because the Meridian Explorer weighs just slightly more than a cookie, placing it atop any sort of "isolation" accessory seemed even more ridiculous than usual. So I didn't.

Listening
A few days after my review sample of the Meridian Explorer arrived, I set about running it in. In retrospect, given how little this changed its sound, the new converter didn't particularly need it, but I nevertheless enjoyed the time I spent using it to hear my favorite Internet radio stations, during which casual listening the Explorer's tonal balance and spatial presentation were almost indistinguishable from those of the similarly priced and sized AudioQuest DragonFly. (I was helped to that early conclusion by the fact that the two devices are also very similar in apparent output voltage.)

The first serious listening I did with the Explorer was to the classic bluegrass album Appalachian Swing!, by the Kentucky Colonels, featuring Clarence and Roland White on guitar and mandolin, respectively (AIFF ripped from CD, Rounder SS31). The Meridian was instantly impressive, with a sense of scale that was pleasantly big but still appropriate to the ensemble and their setting. The original recording is a bit light, but the Meridian Explorer retrieved from it almost as much timbral color as one might hope for. The same was true with the weight and color of Roger Bush's double bass—the Explorer was clear and unambiguous in portraying the pitches of individual bass notes, down to being coldly candid about Bush's dodgy intonation.

Subtle differences were apparent between the Explorer and the DragonFly, the former having considerably better channel separation. Although not as severely "two-channel mono" as, say, those early Beatles albums, Appalachian Swing! doesn't have a lot of center fill, a characteristic made all the more plain by the Meridian. Comparisons between the Explorer and the Halide DAC HD showed the latter to be a little meatier in the timbral sense—though one could, I suppose, turn that around and describe the Explorer as "airier." That said, I did prefer the richness of the Halide—which costs almost twice as much. All three products got across the essence of the White brothers' highly charged musical interplay, yet I dare say the Meridian was the most explicit, being clearly upfront about such subtle musical—not merely sonic—details as the bass lines that guitarist Clarence sneaks in behind brother Roland's mandolin solos.

Far be it from me to tell the players on Buena Vista Social Club (AIFF ripped from CD, World Circuit/Elektra Nonesuch 79478-2) that there's an overabundance of trebly percussion instruments in the opening measures of "Amor de Loca Juventud." That said, there was something in the sound of the Explorer that brought that quality to the fore. The Meridian wasn't bright, wasn't etched, and didn't lack bass, but there was a lightness—or a responsiveness to a lightness in the music, if you will—that highlighted those high-frequency overtones. The difference between the Meridian and AudioQuest processors was exceedingly slight in this regard: Even through the DragonFly, I found those opening bars a bit too mosquitoey, but the effect was ever-so-slightly more pronounced through the Explorer.

And yet—listening through the Meridian Explorer to Lee Feldman's brilliant "Do You Want to Dance?," from his Album No.4: Trying to Put the Things Together that Never Been Together Before (AIFF ripped from CD, Bonafide UM-130-2), I again heard a sound with a more silvery, more detailed treble range than through the DragonFly. Here, however, the slight distinction definitely favored the Meridian: The British converter made clearer the descending figure in the tremoloed electric bass, revealing a greater frisson of feeling.

Speaking of bass, the Explorer proved capable of communicating low-frequency tones with appropriately generous weight and power. The Meridian allowed just the right amount of force and purr to the double bass and bass drum in "Polly Come Home," from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's Raising Sand (AIFF from CD, Rounder 11661-9075-2). The timpani that open the third movement of Mahler's Symphony 2, performed by Gilbert Kaplan and the London Symphony Orchestra (AIFF from CD, MCA Classics MCAD 2-11011), had fine attack and a degree of timbral richness in their decay that, while not the best I've heard from a USB DAC, was satisfying. Later in the same recording, the Meridian was more than satisfying in the way it communicated the sheer, monstrous weight of the assembled instrumental forces, organ and carillon included. Heard in concert, the ending of that symphony should leave one, if not in tears, then at least slightly misty; heard in my home, the Meridian did the job—which, at the end of the day, is the most important thing I could ask of it.

A brief mention is due of the Explorer's performance with headphones: a style of listening with which I'm less than experienced. My feelings belong in the file folder labeled "Musically Satisfying and Free from Gross Distortions, Although the Sound Was A Little More Opaque Than I Expected."

Conclusions
When it comes to inheriting the Earth, or at least that portion of it that wants perfectionist-quality sound from music files stored on computers, I think The Small are doing a damn good job of things this time around. Fonder though I am of analog playback, I take heart at digital audio's recent efforts in making products that normal people desire and can afford—a trend of which there is no finer example than the Meridian Explorer. It is robustly competitive in its price range, and although bettered by the considerably more expensive Halide, the Meridian is not embarrassed by it. And the choice between it and the similarly fine AudioQuest DragonFly may, for some, come down to nothing more mysterious than aesthetics, ergonomics, and the question of whether one wants a headphone jack or not.

Also as with the US-made DragonFly, I can't deny being impressed that the people who assemble the Explorer live and work in the same country as those who stand to profit from its sale.

A remarkably good addition to a burgeoning field—and an excellent value. Very highly recommended.

I wouldn't put up with such a complex setup today. For my own purchases, my biases now lean toward simple, three-way, dynamic floorstanding designs for cost-no-object speakers, and two-way, dynamic bookshelf models for affordable speakers. These simpler designs have simpler crossovers, and there's much to be said for minimizing crossover complexity. The ideal speaker would have no crossover at all—just a single driver that could produce full-range sound. However, finding a single-driver speaker that can accurately reproduce the entire audioband is a tall order. The most satisfying one I can think of is Quad's ESL-63 electrostatic. I've enjoyed many hours of listening to a broad range of music through the ESL-63s over the last 30 years, especially when they're driven by first-rate tubed electronics. (See J. Gordon Holt's excellent review of the ESL-63 from 1983 here.)

So when Audience asked if I had any interest in reviewing their ClairAudient The One ($995/pair) which has only a single dynamic driver and no crossover, and which they claim is a full-range loudspeaker . . . well, I jumped.

Description
The ClairAudient The One is a "bookshelf" speaker that measures only 7" high by 5.5" wide by 7" deep and sports a single 3" full-range, dynamic driver. The driver's cone is made of a titanium alloy, has a moving mass of only 2.5gm, and is capable of 12mm excursion. This A3-S driver is the same one found in Audience's flagship model, the ClairAudient 16+16 ($72,000/pair), which uses 32 of them. According to Audience, the elimination of the inherent sonic compromises of a crossover and dissimilar drivers eliminates phase distortions and transient response degradation, and results in improved resolution. The One loads its single driver with a rear-facing, circular passive radiator. This occupies most of the speaker's rear panel and is mounted above a pair of binding posts. The One is wired internally with Audience's Ohno continuous casting (OCC) monocrystal wire. Audience also sent me a pair of the One's optional desktop stands ($75/pair) and a sample of their Ohno speaker cable ($199/3' pair, $249/5' pair, footnote 1).

The One is currently available in high-gloss black, but I was supplied with four samples, one pair each in blue and black; both looked sexy, rugged, and unimposing. On spying the blue pair, my 12-year-old daughter, Caitlin, remarked, "What a cool speaker! How much are those?" Caitlin has seen dozens of speakers enter and leave my house. This is the first one she's commented on.

I tested the Ones with and without their attractive, magnetically attached cloth grilles. They sounded nearly identical in both configurations; leaving the grilles off resulted in slightly improved detail.

All the lonely speakers . . .
Audience claims that the One is capable of full-range sound when placed on a desk or near a wall, but that "a subwoofer is required for full-frequency response when The One is situated away from a wall." I tried them in two configurations, both without a subwoofer: 1) , driven by Audio Valve and Audio Research electronics, and sitting on my 24" Celestion Si stands (loaded with sand and lead shot) about 4' from the front wall of my large (15' by 35') listening room; and 2) on a console table, the Ones at about the same height as when sitting on the Celestion stands, approximately 6" from the front wall, driven by a Creek Evolution 50A integrated amplifier (reviewed in the August 2013 issue).

With setup 1, I expected to hear a bass-shy sound, but I was proven wrong with the very first track I listened to. Bill Evans's piano, on his Live at the Village Vanguard Featuring Scott LaFaro (CD, JVC JVCXR-0051-2), was rich, deep, and involving in the instrument's lower-midrange register. Throughout the recording, the piano never sounded thin, and the trio's sound filled the entire room—I felt I was listening to much larger speakers. Jack DeJohnette's Dancing with Nature Spirits (CD, ECM 1558), includes interesting interplay between the drummer and pianist Michael Cain that's full of transient subtleties and great dramatic swings. Every minute detail of the musicians' phrasing was perfectly captured, each piano note and drum stroke followed by a long decay. Even the high-level passages bloomed with no trace of compression or strain—bloomed so much that the Ones triggered the Ellen Test: my wife told me to turn the music down.

The One resolved so much inner detail that the wide variety of acoustic and electric guitars played by Bill Frisell on the various tracks of his solo album Ghost Town (CD, Nonesuch 79583-2) were clearly differentiated. The One's resolution also ruthlessly revealed differences among recordings. Unfortunately, its reproduction of an early CD edition of Herbie Hancock's Cantaloupe Island (Blue Note CDP 8 29331 2) was uninvolving, two-dimensional, and dead, with very little color or liveliness to Hancock's piano or Tony Williams's drums.

I'd wondered if the One had been optimized for the midrange, and if it was capable of extended, detailed, uncolored reproduction of the high frequencies. With every recording I tried, the highs were natural and shimmering, without a trace of coloration and no curtailment of upper harmonics. The massed string tone in Paul Paray's recording of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, with the Detroit Symphony (CD, Mercury Living Presence 434 328-2), was silky, airy, and never strident, even in the violins' upper registers. And every plunk and pling of Derek Bailey's extended guitar technique on his Improvisation (CD, Ampersand Ampere 2) was perfectly reproduced. The One's excellent articulations of transients, combined with its high-frequency extension and purity, made it a showcase for dynamic and complex percussion recordings. With each track of Chick Corea's The Ultimate Adventure (CD, Stretch/Concord SCP-9045-2), I was able to follow every nuance of the dramatically explosive and syncopated textures created by drummers Steve Gadd and Vinnie Colaiuta.

It's true that the TAD bears the more mellifluous model name, but only the Pioneer comes with Jones's signature on the rear panel—a significant selling point, I would think, and perhaps an indicator of the depth of Jones's affection for it. Do you remember The Joy of Painting? It ran on PBS from 1983 to 1994 and starred the gentle-voiced landscape artist Bob Ross. Bob signed only the paintings he most loved.

It's not especially unusual to find two products designed by the same person reviewed in a single issue of Stereophile—just ask Musical Fidelity's Antony Michaelson or Rega's Roy Gandy—but I can't recall another instance when those two products were so far apart in price.

I wondered how Andrew Jones felt about that.

"I feel great about that!" he said via e-mail. "To design [the SP-BS22-LR] at the same time as designing almost-cost-no-object speakers is particularly satisfying."

I tried to get him to tell me which kid he loves more.

"Each has its own design challenges and subsequent satisfaction when completed, but the great thing is that lots of people can afford the entry-level Pioneers, and don't have to feel disenfranchised because hi-fi has become too expensive."

Just as I suspected—Jones prefers the Pioneer! I asked for more detail.

"In truth, even a cost-no-object speaker has some cost objective; otherwise, as an engineer, you would never stop, and never get the design to market! It's just that the cost objectives are different, and so, the design decisions are different. In an affordable speaker, every cent spent has to be evaluated in terms of its contribution to sound quality."

Fear not: We can still find plenty of affordable speakers that entirely sacrifice sound quality to convenience or appearance. Jones is talking about affordable high-end speakers. Only with the true high-end loudspeaker is sound quality the first priority.

"In particular," Jones continued, "one is looking at what decisions can be made that have no cost implication."

Take, for instance, the surround profile of the bass cone. Decisions made here may have little effect on the speaker's retail price, but can greatly affect the speaker's sound. The surround profile of the bass cone will determine, to some extent, the speaker's crossover network, which dictates how successfully integrated are the outputs of the woofer and tweeter (and midrange, if any). This, in turn, will affect the overall smoothness of the speaker's frequency response, both on and off axis. You want a successful integration of the woofer and tweeter outputs; you want a smooth frequency response.

Listening to the Pioneer SP-BS22-LR . . . [cough, cough, cough] Excuse me, but what's up with that model name? Is it as annoying to read as it is to type? And have you tried saying it out loud? You'd probably tell your friends to buy this speaker, if only you could remember its name. I can understand skimping on a speaker's looks, but were times so tough that Pioneer couldn't afford a vowel? Please, Pioneer: Give the next version a decent name—something we can remember and enjoy. Perhaps you can follow the example of the new crop of domestic hipster dads in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Call it Oliver or Cormac or Miles. I'm telling you, this stuff works. Watch sales soar.

Anyway. Listening to the Pioneer, I could hear no bumps or dips in the transition between woofer and tweeter. Music sounded seamless and true. I tend to listen while sitting precisely equidistant from each of a pair of speakers, which are toed in so that their tweeters point directly at my ears. Music through the Pioneers was detailed and clean, with a precision and physicality of image focus that often exceeded my expectations and deceived my senses. Apparently living, breathing musicians seemed suspended in the air above my living-room floor. Our cats, Avon and Stringer, were especially confounded, darting after invisible maracas and running into the kitchen at the pop of certain rimshots. Sitting off to one side dulled the effect, but not to the detriment of the music's tonal qualities: No matter where in the room I roamed, violins sounded like violins, cellos like cellos, guitars like guitars, R. Kelly like R. Kelly.

Pretty things
Compared to the Music Hall Marimba that I reviewed in June ($349/pair), the Pioneer SP-BS-blah-blah-blah lacked some soundstage width and didn't startle so much as delight. The Marimbas, though never fatiguing, are more about speed, clarity, and impact; the Pioneers gave a bit more body to their images and produced smoother, gentler high frequencies. My PSB Alpha B1s ($299/pair), though now long in the tooth, sound bigger and fleshier than either the Music Hall or the Pioneer, and their bass is a bit looser. I like big bass.

The three speakers offer three different perspectives. The Music Halls are more enveloping, creating an almost three-dimensional listening experience. With them, I hear music in front of me, way off to the sides, almost around me. The Pioneers created a carefully focused, remarkably stable stage that remained always just aft of the plane described by the speaker baffles, inviting me to "watch" as realistically re-created performances nearly materialized before my eyes. The PSBs have a way of thrusting aspects of the music toward the listener, calling attention to guitar solos or vocal harmonies, for instance, but also to themselves. Of the three, the Pioneers were the most transparent. Did they "disappear"? In their black cabinets and grillecloths, they had the stealth of ninjas.

They're not much to look at, the Pioneers. Does this matter? It does to me. I struggle daily to overcome my superficial biases, but without success. Sue me, scold me, write letters to the editor: I remain fond of beautiful things. Nothing, not even their brilliant sound, can fool me into thinking the Pioneers beautiful. I would never call them sexy. On the other hand, unlike some much more expensive speakers, they are far from hideous. The Pioneers look fine, if nondescript. Visitors to our apartment never commented on the Pioneers' appearance. Perhaps they didn't notice them; perhaps, out of politeness, they avoided the topic altogether. This was nothing like the experience of having the Wharfedale Diamond 10.1s ($349/pair) in our system. (I'm working on a "Follow-Up.") The Wharfedales are sexy. Everyone noticed. "Are those the same speakers you had here last time?" wondered Ginger Pete. "They're gorgeous," Natalie said. "They are," Kristen agreed.

"They're called Diamonds," I said with pride.

I enjoy looking at the Wharfedale Diamond 10.1s as much as I enjoy listening to them. That is, I admire the Wharfedales even when they're not playing music. Isn't that important? When the Wharfedales are playing music, I enjoy them more than I would if they were ugly. Sound isn't everything. Shoot me!

I may be superficial, but I'm far from alone. It seems to me that most people like pretty things. Again, I'm talking about normal people, the general public—those who may have little or no interest in hi-fi but for whom the enjoyment of music nevertheless remains a worthwhile pursuit. If, for you, sound is the only thing that matters in an audio component, remember that there is at least one significant benefit to a pleasant appearance: It gets other people interested.

After seeing loudspeakers as visually attractive as the Wharfedales, most normal people will want to know how they sound. But even if they sound great, will most normal people be impressed enough to spend $349 on them? Probably not. Not immediately, at least—$349 is still more than most people my age (35) and younger want to spend on traditional passive loudspeakers. As far as I know, no published statistics support this claim. I'm just making this stuff up as I go.

But $130 is a different story. Most people my age spend that much money on a week's groceries—or, on a weekend, at the bar. (Yeah, I like beer, too.)

The costing process
Why so cheap? It helps that Pioneer has such exceptional buying power. The company is able to produce their speakers in very high numbers, and can get them into many, many stores. The SP-BS22-LR has well over 50 US dealers. I wouldn't be terribly surprised—or upset—to find them at Walgreens. Compare that with, say, YG Acoustics' Sonja 1.3, which graced the cover of our July issue. Carried by 15 US dealers, it costs $106,800/pair. If you want to know who near you sells the Sonja, you must contact YGA and ask. Of course, if you're shopping in that price category, you can probably ride your private jet to Arvada, Colorado, and audition a pair at the factory.

Back then, in the early 1970s, the stores in our area pushed either Dahlquist DQ-10s or Bose 901s. My epiphany came when Long Island's Audio Breakthroughs announced the new Dahlquist DQ-1W subwoofer to partner with their DQ-10s. Gary and I attended a demo at the store, and I was smitten by the coherent, open, uncolored sound of the DQ-10s with DQ-1W, particularly the way the speakers articulated transients in the midrange. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and some guy handed me a crude little metal box. "We're coming out with this soon, which will let you drive the new subwoofer with its own separate amplifier," he said. The metal box was the only prototype of the DQLP-1 crossover, designed by Carl Marchisotto. The guy who'd tapped me on the shoulder was Saul Marantz.

Although it would be five years before I'd have the money and the space for my first Dahlquist-based system, Gary was ready to pull the trigger on a new pair of speakers that night. He ended up with a pair of ESS Laboratories AMT-1s, which featured the Air Motion Transformer ribbon tweeter designed by Dr. Oskar Heil. This tweeter moved air in a semi-perpendicular motion using a folded sheet supported by a series of aluminum struts positioned and immersed in a magnetic field. The diaphragm was expands and contracts in a motion similar to that of an accordion's bellows. Because such a folded tweeter "spits" out air in a way similar to the action of shooting a seed from between one's thumb and forefinger, the tweeters were known in their day as "cherry-pit squeezers."

At the time, Gary and I co-led the Hauppauge Avant-Garde Ensemble, an original jazz-rock and comedy music group. However, as I then owned no serious sound system—I played my records on a General Electric portable, complete with ceramic cartridge—we used his ESS AMT-1s to listen to and analyze our master tapes, and I got to know their sound intimately. I remember that the AMT-1s sounded dynamic, coherent, and uncolored, with crystal-clear, extended highs that had no trace of harshness.

Four decades later, while shopping for a TV for my grad-school roommate at a local audio store—Audio Breakthroughs again—I was taken by the sound coming from a pair of unassuming bookshelf speakers. "What are those?" I asked the owner.

"Oh, those are the GoldenEar Technology Aon 2s. Do you remember the Heil Air Motion ribbon tweeters on the old ESS speakers? The Aons feature a ribbon tweeter that's the direct descendant of that design."

I had to get a pair of Aon 2s in for review.

Design
In addition to its GoldenEar High-Velocity Folded Ribbon Tweeter (HVFR), each Aon 2 has a 6" woofer coupled to two 6.5" low-frequency radiators, one on each side panel. The woofer, too, is designed by GoldenEar, and has a polypropylene cone and a cast "spiderleg" basket with many thin radial struts, to present as little reflective area as possible to the back of the cone. This drive-unit also incorporates a "multi-vaned phase plug" designed to reduce interference near the apex of the radiated cone of energy. The passive radiators load the woofer in a similar manner to a reflex port, and extend the speaker's bass response.

Although the Aon 2's folded-ribbon tweeter is a direct descendent of the Heil driver, it differs in having a diaphragm of high-temperature–tolerant Kapton rather than the Heil's Mylar, and neodymium magnets, which GoldenEar claims makes possible a smaller diaphragm that's also superior in terms of dispersion and low diffraction. The cabinet, a truncated pyramid, was inspired by some of Dick Sequerra's early designs; its nonparallel sides minimize the production of standing waves inside.

I placed the Aon 2s on my 24" Celestion Si stands. Because of the speaker's unusual side-mounted passive drivers, the wraparound grillecloth is not designed to be removed. I listened with the grilles in place.

Listening
I approached this review with a bit of trepidation and some biases. Although I loved the sound of the original Heil tweeter 40 years ago, speaker design has advanced considerably since then. Even as recently as 10 years ago, some audiophiles would choose moving-coil dome tweeters optimized for tonal neutrality, while others opted for the detail, speed, high-frequency extension, and air of ribbons. Nowadays, a well-designed tweeter of any type should be able to accurately reproduce all aspects of every sort of music without compromise. The speakers I've chosen for my reference systems of recent years have had moving-coil tweeters; I've found that today's best moving-coil tweeters combine all the traditional strengths of ribbons and dynamic drivers and none of their weaknesses.

So as I hooked up the GoldenEars to my reference system, I had questions: How well would a modern folded-ribbon tweeter perform in a cost-constrained bookshelf design? Would it be able to articulate detail without adding its own colorations? And, most important, how well would it integrate with the dynamic woofer?

My sensitivities and biases went out the window right away. With all recordings, the Aon 2 revealed extended, detailed, pristine high frequencies with no trace of coloration. Massed violins in Antal Doráti's recording of Stravinsky's The Firebird, with the London Symphony (CD, Mercury SR 90226), and Pétrouchka, with the Minneapolis Symphony (CD, Mercury 434-331-2), were uncolored, with the requisite vibrant bite and shimmering sparkle intact, but with no sharpness or unnatural metallic edge. Jazz trumpets were also quite natural. Every track of Liam Sillery's Outskirts (CD, OA OA2 22050) showcased his trumpet with the same brassy bite I've heard in his live performances. Moreover, the ratios of the upper harmonics of his upper-register tones to their fundamentals were unaltered, and with none of the upper partials truncated.

On the guitar front, Derek Bailey's unorthodox technique on Improvisation (CD, Ampersand Ampere 2) was revealed in as much detail as I've heard with much more expensive speakers. The ringing, plucked harmonics of the upper strings sang, floating on a bed of air with extended and natural decay. And when I listened to "The Deer and Buffalo God Churches," from my jazz quartet Attention Screen's Takes Flight at Yamaha (CD, Stereophile STPH021-2), Don Fiorino's acoustic 11-string guitar, a Seagull flattop, was delicate and detailed—the Aon 2 perfectly captured the instrument's unique twang.

The GoldenEar's integration of the high and midrange frequencies was seamless—I heard no anomalies with instruments that contribute considerable energy near its mid-treble crossover frequency. On pianist Marilyn Crispell's Circles (CD, Victo CD012), there's some tense, dissonant interplay between alto saxophonist Oliver Lake and tenor saxophonist Peter Buettner. Throughout their horns' entire upper registers, I never felt that the players' melodic gymnastics sounded less than completely fluid, integrated, and uniform.

It was fall 2000. I'd just begun working at Stereophile, and I clearly remember sheepishly, innocently putting this question to former senior editor Jonathan Scull.

I think the question confused him—not because he didn't know the answer, but because the answer seemed so obvious, the question itself should have been unnecessary. How could anyone not know what an integrated amplifier is? I might as well have asked, "What's a song?"

I was 22 years old, and I believe my ignorance of integrateds was in no way unique. Ask most young people what an integrated amplifier is, and, if you're lucky, you'll receive blank stares. But age is beside the point. Ask most older people what an integrated amp is and you'll fare just as well. Only audiophiles are generally familiar with the term, and, for better or worse, audiophiles make up a small percentage of the overall population. We tend to keep to ourselves. Hi-fi isn't as hip as it once was, or as it should be.

J-10 explained that an integrated amplifier is one in which a preamplifier and a power amplifier are built on the same chassis and enclosed in the same case. Now I was confused. You mean we can save space, reduce cost, eliminate a pair of interconnects, and still make music? Then and there, the integrated amplifier took its place as my favorite audio component: smart, efficient, useful, handsome—like some writers I know. Why have separates at all?

Traditional, hardcore audiophiles might tell you that, all else being equal, a properly matched preamplifier and power amplifier will usually outperform an integrated; that, in essence, an integrated amplifier is a compromise that favors convenience over quality. But this viewpoint finds convenience and quality as being necessarily at odds, as if one couldn't possibly coexist with the other—when, in reality, we're just as likely to see the two walk hand in hand. After all, to many, a solution that favors quality over convenience is also a compromise. And so, an industry that craves the mainstream respect it once easily commanded now faces a frustrating irony: It devises a component category that effectively addresses the general public's concerns—affordability, efficiency, simplicity, size, appearance—yet audiophiles dismiss it, and the general public doesn't know it exists.

To be fair, this modest misfortune is mostly confined to North America, where we still like our amplifiers big, heavy, and radiant with blinding blue light. Other parts of the world are different. In the UK, for instance, where homes and hi-fis are generally smaller, mainstream success is nothing new to the integrated amp. The quintessentially British brand Arcam made its name on one.

Amplification & Recording Cambridge
Founded as Amplification & Recording Cambridge, Arcam quickly gained success with its first product, the A60 integrated amplifier, released in 1976. Though Arcam intended to manufacture just 50 units, the A60 remained in production for a decade, serving as the heart of many fine and inexpensive audio systems; eventually, over 36,000 units were sold worldwide. The A60's distinct combination of convenience, sleek appearance, and good sound made it a hi-fi classic.

Through the 1980s and '90s, Arcam found success again with its entry-level Alpha and higher-end Delta series. Stereophile kept a close watch. In 1989, Arcam released the Delta Black Box, the first commercial outboard D/A processor; John Atkinson reviewed it favorably in February of that year. In December 1998, Wes Phillips reviewed Arcam's Alpha 10 integrated, a tidy, forward-looking design whose modular construction allowed it to easily morph into an amp with a moving-magnet/moving-coil phono section, a two-channel A/V receiver with Dolby AC-3 processing, and/or the control center for a four-zone, multiroom music system. In January 1999, Kal Rubinson was mightily impressed by the relatively affordable Alpha 9 CD player ($1600), which used a dedicated-chip version of dCS's famed 24-bit sigma-delta Ring DAC. Audiophiles who criticized the Alpha series' molded-plastic front panels were relieved by Arcam's introduction, in 2000, of their Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) line, whose products feature CNC-machined aluminum front panels and a heftier overall look and feel.

But even while catering to the audiophile, Arcam kept in touch with the common man. In 2005, the company released its most popular product yet, the Solo—a sleek, stylish, one-box component that combined a CD player, integrated amplifier, and tuner. With the addition of the then-radical rLead iPod cable and rDock docking station, the Solo even embraced Apple's ubiquitous iPod. With the additions of speakers and cables, almost anyone could own a true high-end audio system. Art Dudley proved prescient in his July 2005 review, calling the Solo a significant first step in high-end audio's move toward reliable, fairly priced, cleverly packaged products that even non-audiophiles would want to own. And it was Art's review that largely inspired the first true high-end playback system I ever enjoyed at home: DeVore Fidelity Gibbon 3 stand-mounted loudspeakers driven by an Arcam Solo, all tied together with Analysis Plus cables—an awesome little system whose sound and appearance I remember fondly and well.

Most recently, John Atkinson enjoyed time with Arcam's newest full-featured DAC, the FMJ D33, whose choice of three digital filters make it a fine match for just about any system. And, at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, in an environment dominated by audacious, cost-no-object designs, Arcam introduced the relatively humble FMJ A19 integrated amplifier. Along with Arcam's matching CD17 CD player and a pair of small stand-mounted loudspeakers, it made a refreshingly fine-sounding, attractive, and affordable system.

Description
Rated to deliver 50Wpc into 8 ohms, the FMJ A19 ($999) is Arcam's most affordable integrated amplifier. With it, the company strove to honor its classic A60 while delivering higher levels of sound quality and convenience. But what does it mean to honor a classic? Arcam's chief engineer, Nick Clarke, was careful not to make too much of the relationship between the A60 and A19, calling the latter a "clean-sheet design." He explained: "Our job is always to make the best-sounding device for the price in any category, and, to that aim, the basic premise of the A19 is plain old-fashioned good engineering. Over the years, the quality and reliability of components has improved massively while dropping in price, so this has allowed us to include more features at a lower cost."

Like the Alpha 10 before it, the A19 uses modular components to adapt to the user's evolving listening habits and needs. While the A19 gets its 50Wpc from a hefty toroidal transformer, a second internal power supply can deliver a direct, isolated, and regulated 6V to two of Arcam's r-series products, such as the rLink S/PDIF DAC, rPAC USB DAC, or rBlink Bluetooth DAC (reviewed last month by Sam Tellig). On its own, the A19 provides six line-level inputs, tape and preamplifier outputs, and two front-panel mini-jacks: one for driving headphones, the other for connecting an iPod. And, like an increasing number of modern integrated amplifiers, the A19 includes a moving-magnet phono stage. Today's music lover has nearly unlimited access to new music and should not be restricted by format. Arcam acknowledges this. Thank you.

The A19 uses a Texas Instruments PGA2311 volume control—the same one found in Arcam's top-of-the-line FMJ AV888 processor, and claimed to deliver an impressive 120dB signal/noise ratio and very low total harmonic distortion of 0.0004%. According to Clarke, these figures are more commonly found in "highly esoteric and very expensive dedicated preamplifiers." Clarke also noted the A19's high-quality printed-circuit board and the careful layout of its audio circuitry. The amplifier's hood is held in place by seven six-point Torx-head screws in two different sizes; without the proper screwdriver, I was unable to have a look inside. Arcam provides further technical information on its website; John Atkinson's measurements will confirm whether or not the A19 meets its specs. I found the amplifier to be very quiet indeed.

Of the five Epos speakers I've reviewed, I have a soft spot for the M5i bookshelf ($899/pair). Ever since I reviewed it in the February 2011 issue, the M5i has been my benchmark for affordable speakers, has served me well in my evaluations of affordable electronics, and is usually the speaker I grab when I want to throw together a system for impromptu listening.

When I found out that Mike Creek was discontinuing the Mi models and replacing them with the new Elan series, I thought I'd better seek out the Elan model that replaces the trusty M5i. The catalyst was a letter I received from subscriber Richard Fischer, who suggested I review the Elan 10 ($1000/pair). (Fischer had also suggested that I look into Sonus Faber's Venere 1.5, which I reviewed in the January 2014 issue.)

Design
I discussed with Mike Creek his philosophies for the Elan and Mi series. Although the crossover topologies of the two lines are similar, the Elan models are designed to be more efficient and to present a more benign load to the amplifier, the result being higher SPLs with less powerful amplifiers. Creek has accomplished this by using more sensitive woofers, as well as a soft-dome tweeter that's more sensitive than the metal-dome unit used in the Mi models. Creek claims that, all else being equal, the Elan 10 will also play louder than the M5i.

The Elan 10 tweeter's 1" (25mm), doped-fabric dome tweeter has a high-temperature, ferrofluid-cooled voice-coil and a shielded neodymium magnet. Its 5.85" (150mm) woofer is built on an open-frame chassis of cast aluminum alloy and has a vented magnet pole. The mid/woofer is loaded with a port that's flared at both ends to reduce turbulence. The crossover is set to just above 3kHz and uses metal-oxide resistors and polypropylene-foil dielectric capacitors. The tweeter's air-core inductor and the woofer's coil, with a core of laminated-iron, are designed for low distortion at high power. The Elans are biwirable, and that's how I hooked them up.

I tested the Elan 10s using both Epos's ST35 stands (designed for the M5 and M5i) and my Celestion Si stands, the latter loaded with lead shot and sand. Unfortunately, it wasn't until after I'd completed the listening and had sent the speakers on to John Atkinson for measuring that I was contacted by Music Hall's Leland Leard, who, after a discussion with Mike Creek, had realized that I hadn't been told about the new companion speaker stand for the Elan 10, the ST15 ($299/pair). Creek then told me that the ST15 is made using constrained-layer damping, and that the Elan 10 will perform better with the ST15 than with the ST35. Music Hall agreed to send me a pair of ST15s; I'll report in a future Follow-Up on how well the Elan 10 performs with the stand designed for it.

The Elan 10 is available in either cherry or black oak real-wood veneer. I found my black oak sample to be unassuming and non-descript; it should easily blend in with any décor. The Elan 10 also has an innovative grille. Each speaker comes with two front baffles: one with a grillecloth affixed, the other without. The speakers are intended to be used with the clothless "audiophile" baffles (the scare quotes are Epos's); the second set of baffles are for music lovers who are concerned about damage to the speakers from small children and pets. I found that the "audiophile" baffles resolved a hair more detail, but that the two baffles otherwise sounded identical. I conducted most of my listening with the clothless baffles.

Listening
I was immediately struck by the low-level air and room ambience the Elan 10s were capable of resolving. With Gina Bachauer's performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto 1, with Antal Doráti conducting the London Symphony Orchestra (CD, Mercury 434 374-2), the Elans rendered every silky nuance of the orchestra in its deep ambient space. And with "Maracatu," from Egberto Gismonti's Works (CD, ECM 2692), I was struck by the bed of air enveloping each note of Gismonti's piano, Mauro Denise's flute, and Nana Vasconcelos's battery of percussion. And the Epos resolved gobs of detail that enabled me to listen deeply into the mixes of familiar recordings and experience them in a new way. On every track of Björk's Homogenic (CD, Elektra 62061-2), I found myself analyzing the harmonic and dynamic envelope of each of her synthesizer patches.

On the downside, the Elan 10 was ruthless at revealing less-than-well-recorded music. Although I normally enjoy listening to "Sex Kills," from Joni Mitchell's Turbulent Indigo (CD, Reprise 45786-2), even though I recognize that it doesn't sound as natural as her recordings from the 1960s and '70s, through the Elans I was distracted by the track's dynamic compression, the digitally processed acoustic guitar, and the electronic glaze on Mitchell's voice.

The Elan 10's ability to render precise and linear articulation of low-level dynamics from ppp to p made it an excellent showcase for János Starker's recording of J.S. Bach's Suites for Solo Cello (CD, Mercury 432 756-2). On every track, his cello resonated with wood, bow, rosin, and air. Listening to "Chan Chan," from Buena Vista Social Club (LP, World Circuit/Elektra Nonesuch 79478-2), I followed every subtle striking of the congas, bongos, and udu drum, whereas I usually focus on the voices. And when I heard "Sleeping Metronomes Lie," from my jazz quartet Attention Screen's Takes Flight at Yamaha (CD, Stereophile STPH021-2), I focused on my unaccompanied intro. Even though the piano I was playing is fundamentally an electronic instrument, the Epos enabled me to remember just how delicately the Yamaha AvantGrande can re-create the low-level dynamic articulation of an acoustic piano.

There. I've said it. I am not an audiophile; ie, someone who's in love with recorded sound for its own sake. The search for ideal sound can leave a person burned out and broke.

That might be why I love Internet radio via Bluetooth. So much content. So convenient, via smartphone or laptop. As for computer-audio downloads, they're too complicated, chaotic, and costly.

I might pay for streaming high-resolution audio, if the content and convenience are there. More than one computer guru has said that digital subscriptions are the future. Who wants to "own" and store physical media?

I love Musical Fidelity's M1SDAC with aptX Bluetooth (see "Sam's Space" in October), even though my iPhone 4, updated to iOS 7, doesn't support aptX.

The aptX codec is said to automatically optimize the Bluetooth receiving device for the best sound quality possible with each incoming aptX signal. I have it now, with my new (June 2013) Macbook Air.

Is aptX a big deal? Some say it's not. As my colleague Bob Deutsch says, "It depends on the implementation."

AptX is back-compatible with earlier Bluetooth codecs. It streams at up to 380kbps, but it can work with devices that stream at lower bitrates, including 128 and 256kbps.

When my iPhone 4 ran iOS4, Bluetooth streamed at 128kbps, if I'm not mistaken. Now, with iOS7 installed, it streams at 256kbps, with better sound: more resolution, more air, fewer dropouts, more there there. If you have an iPhone 4 or later, it's definitely worth installing iOS7.

I'll pass along a couple of iPhone tips.

If you no longer get a Bluetooth connection, or you keep losing it, you may have a dirty dock. Some folks online have recommended that you brush around the dock's connections with a clean, soft toothbrush. Or flatten the tip of a cotton swab with a pair of pliers, dip it in grain alcohol, and wiggle it around. (I didn't tell you to do this.) This worked for a while.

Then, a genius at a bar told me another secret: Keep fewer programs running in the background. That was like a visit to the dental hygienist. Bluetooth became Cleanteeth: brighter, cleaner, more refreshing, less stale. Now the difference between my iPhone 4 with iOS7 and my Macbook Air with Mountain Lion running aptX Bluetooth was less pronounced. Of course, if you really want aptX on your smartphone or tablet, you can look to Samsung.

The Musical Fidelity MS1DAC sounds very good indeed; it's a DAC, a headphone amp, a line stage, and a headphone amp, all in one. But if all you want is aptX Bluetooth, you might not want to pay $1499 for an MS1DAC. You may already have a DAC you like. There must be a cheaper way to do this.

Ho, ho, ho, there is. At $249.95, the Arcam rBlink seems expensive for a tiny black box measuring only 2.9" (75mm) wide by 1" (26mm) high by 3.9" (100mm) deep and weighing just 12oz (350gm). But it will put Internet radio wirelessly at your fingertips, from laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Arcam describes the rBlink as a "high-performance Bluetooth audio receiver and digital-to-analog converter." It works well, whether or not you already own a DAC. The rBlink has its own digital-to-analog converter and left and right analog outputs. Just connect it to your integrated amplifier or preamp. Arcam even includes interconnects to get you up and running fast. (But consider getting better interconnects.)

Don't dis the rBlink's built-in DAC, which uses Burr-Brown's PCM5102 DAC chip. It's no slouch, as the Brits like to say. Don't feel you need buy a separate DAC.

On the other hand, if you already own a DAC, you can use the rBlink's S/PDIF coaxial output. I used my Musical Fidelity V-DACII, now replaced by the V90-DAC.

I ran the rBlink into the Croft Acoustics Phono Integrated amplifier, first using the rBlink's analog RCA outputs and a decent set of interconnects. I cackled when I heard the sound. Art Dudley and Stephen Mejias are right: The Croft is crazy good in musical rather than in audiophile terms. You can tell from its rich, full-bodied sound that it wasn't designed with test tones in mind.

In the blink of an eye, I had Internet radio in excellent sound, depending on the quality of the stream.

Why are some streams so crummy—and from the same station? Classical New England—now re-rebranded as WCRB in order to show its real share in the ratings—broadcasts live concerts from its Fraser Performance Studio, always in excellent sound. Yet when they broadcast from Boston's Symphony Hall or Tanglewood, the sound deteriorates.

The day after I received the rBlink, John DeVore, of DeVore Fidelity, drove up to my digs with his new beast: the Orangutan O/93 loudspeakers. John groused but didn't growl about the Bluetooth sound, but that was before I got the Macbook Air and upgraded my iPhone 4 to iOS7.

I didn't let on to John, but CDs do sound better than Bluetooth at the moment. But we can expect Bluetooth to evolve and improve. It's one good reason not to plop down more than $249.

I rattled the zookeeper's cage.

"The sound is fine by me," I told John. "I just DeVore it. It's all free. Swiss Radio Jazz. Nostalgie Jazz. BBC 3. Classic FM. France Musique. Symphonycast.com. Radio Dismuke, with music from the 1920s and '30s. If I want Perfect Sound Forever, I'll get off my butt and fetch a CD."

Which brings up a point: I never found the rBlink irritating. Well, I did with a few piss-poor streams, but these are easily avoided. The rBlink seemed to hold on to the signal—fewer dropouts—better with my Macbook Air than with my long-in-the-tooth iPhone, until I installed iOS7.

The rBlink has one oddity: To pair it with a Bluetooth device, you need to push in the pairing button with the tip of a pen. I have no blinking idea why Arcam doesn't provide a simple pushbutton. While pairing, the rBlink changes from steady red to blinking purple. Pairing completed, the purple light glows steadily. When the rBlink is connected to a Bluetooth device, the light glows a steady blue. I love this thing!

Since the Croft's measurements rattled John Atkinson in October, I tried my LFD LE IV integrated amplifier. I got the same excellent results. The aptX codec no longer mattered so much, although you might as well have it, if you can.

If you're looking for a gift idea, and Mom and Dad have Bluetooth devices, put an Arcam rBlink under the tree. While you're at it, get another for yourself. You can bring Bluetooth to just about any audio device, including a kitchen radio.

Highly recommended.

On the mainland across from these isles, in Port Hueneme, is Channel Islands Audio (aka CIAudio), a company of modest size that's been around for 17 years and makes compact power amps, preamplifiers, and digital/analog converters. Like the islands, always sitting quietly off the coast but barely seen, CIAudio had always been in the periphery of my audio world, though I knew little about them. So I was pleased to get the Transient Mk.II USB DAC-preamp and optional VDC•5 Mk.II power supply in my system, to learn firsthand what CIAudio is up to DACwise.

At 4.45" wide by 2.9" high by 5.25" deep, the Transient Mk.II ($699) fits into an open palm and is thus very portable, hence its name. The understated case, made of 1?8"-thick aluminum, is nicely finished, with a 3/16"-thick front panel. All hardware is nonmagnetic stainless steel, and the Transient feels solid and nonresonant.

On the front, starting at the left, is something I love to see on a DAC of any price: a row of six LEDs that indicate the incoming signal's sampling rate, in this case 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, and 192kHz. On the right are stacked two small buttons, with arrows to indicate volume up and down, and next to each of these is another LED. Each volume button's LED flashes as you tap it, then stays lit when you hit its limit. You can also use these buttons to set the DAC to Line Level, if you don't need the volume function.

On the rear panel, starting at the left, are the unbalanced left and right audio outputs (RCA). At the right top is the USB input, and below that the three digital outputs: a 75 ohm BNC connector galvanically isolated for S/PDIF (an RCA-to-BNC adapter is included), a mini-DIN jack for I²S, and an HDMI jack for differential I²S (also used by PS Audio, Wyred4Sound, and others).

With its variety of outputs and 24-bit volume control, the Transient can be used as a USB DAC, a DAC-preamp, or a USB-to-S/PDIF or USB-to-I²S converter. The only thing missing for a desktop system is a headphone jack.

Power that doesn't corrupt
There's one more thing on the Transient's rear panel: to the right of the digital outputs is a DC input, for the optional VDC•5 Mk.II power supply. Although the Transient was designed to be powered by the 5V available from a computer's USB output and still output a full 2V analog signal, and has onboard filtering to clean up that incoming power, CIAudio suggests that if you want the best sound, hook it up to the VDC•5 Mk.II. Housed in a case identical to the Transient's, the VDC•5 costs $329, bringing the total package price to $1028. The VDC•5 is marketed to also replace the power supply that comes with the Squeezebox Touch music server.

CIAudio points out that the quality of DC provided by USB varies quite a bit from computer to computer, and can often contain noise, ripple, or simply not enough current, all of which can affect sound quality. The VDC•5 Mk.II's regulated linear power supply is designed to feed the Transient pure high-current (2.5 amperes) DC with no noise or ripple.

The VDC•5's front panel has only a single power-indicator LED; on the rear are a power switch, an IEC power socket, and a 5V output jack. A short cable is included to connect it to the Transient, the two models together forming a matched set. Both are "handcrafted" in Ventura, California, and come with a five-year warranty on parts and labor.

The Transient's USB input connects to a four-layer custom USB board featuring an XMOS multicore processor and ultraprecise clocks, which CIAudio claims work with the computer to generate a low-jitter I²S signal. The precisely clocked I²S output is then fed to four circuits: a buffer for the I²S DIN output jack, a differential buffer for the HDMI I²S connector, an S/PDIF transmitter for BNC S/PDIF output (based on a Wolfson WM8805 chip), and into the onboard Wolfson DAC chip. Takman resistors and WIMA polypropylene capacitors are used for signal circuits.

CIAudio's Dusty Vawter emphasized to me in an e-mail that they wanted the Transient to be completely portable, which meant that it had to be able to be run from the 5V supply available from a laptop's USB port. "There are very few DAC [integrated circuits] with this capability," Vawter said. "We listened to offerings from ESS, TI, and Wolfson. In the end, we chose the Wolfson due to its superior musicality and benefit of having a built-in 24-bit volume control."

Set-Up
Connected to a Lightning–to–USB Camera Adapter, the Transient didn't power up when connected to my iOS7 iPad Air, iPad mini, or iPhone—not surprising, considering how the DAC's design sucks up every bit of current it can get, and these battery-powered iDevices don't put out much via USB.

But I was surprised to find that, after powering the Transient with the VDC•5 power supply, I still got a warning on the iDevice display that the power draw was too high. Interestingly, this time the warning notice mentioned the CIAudio DAC by name, so more info was getting through, but not enough to include music. Occasionally, the Transient's LEDs would blink. Only a handful of USB DACs have been able to work straight off my iPad, by the way, so this is not a really a criticism, just a note to those who might want to use the Transient this way. To fire it up with an iDevice, you could also try a powered USB hub.

However, when I attached the Transient to my MacBook Pro, everything powered up fine without the VDC•5, and worked right away—no need to reboot or for extra drivers. The DAC also works with Linux and, like all high-resolution converters, requires download and installation of a driver for computers running Windows XP through Windows 8. All of my listening was done with the Transient connected to the battery-powered MacBook.

Music that might corrupt
In honor of the Channel Islands, I felt obligated to throw some California music at the Transient, beginning with the fabulous new 24-bit/192kHz remasterings of the Grateful Dead's studio albums, from HDtracks. These are remastering done to perfection—even less-than-fanatical Deadheads should grab them.

I skipped around a couple albums, then settled down with American Beauty for some extended listening. Everything sounded in the right place, with a beautiful flow from top to bottom. I used the loose, open arrangement of "Sugar Magnolia" to check for any changes in the sound as I switched the external power supply on and off. (The Transient will automatically default to USB power if the VDC•5 is switched off, and automatically default to the VDC•5 when the latter is switched on.)

I was impressed by what I heard from these cards, and concluded in a Follow-Up that "the Xonar Essence STX and its PCI-bus equivalent, the Xonar Essence ST, can be recommended to those on restricted budgets who wish to incorporate a PC into their high-end rigs." So when ASUS announced that it was introducing a version of its standalone Xonar Essence One D/A headphone amplifier fitted with JRC's high-performance Muses op-amps, which I had first experienced when I reviewed the Esoteric D-07 D/A processor in January 2011, I asked for a review sample.

The Muses Edition
The Xonar Essence One is a hefty processor housed in an elegant, black-painted enclosure. The basic Essence One costs $599; the Muses Edition, which can be distinguished by the black color of the stylized lion graphic on the top of its extruded-aluminum sleeve, costs $899. On its front panel are, from left to right: a power button; buttons to select Upsampling, Input, and Mute (the selected input LED turns from blue to red when Mute is selected); a large volume control for the line outputs, to its right an arc of blue LEDs; a smaller volume control for the headphone output; and a single ¼" (6.3mm) stereo headphone jack. Because there are independent volume controls for the line and headphone outputs, the line output doesn't mute when headphones are plugged in. On the rear panel are pairs of RCA and XLR jacks for the single-ended and balanced line outputs, respectively, and input jacks for USB data and S/PDIF data on TosLink and coaxial links.

When the upsampling function is off, the sample rate of the incoming data—44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, or 192kHz—is displayed by the arc of LEDs. When the upsampling button is pressed, data at 44.1kHz are upsampled to 352.8kHz; data at 48kHz and its multiples are upsampled to 384kHz. ASUS calls this "Symmetrical 8x upsampling," because the upsampled frequency is an integer multiple of the incoming rate. None of the LEDs illuminates when upsampling is engaged. However, there is an LED at the top of the arc labeled Bit Perfect; though this never lit up when I used the Xonar processor with my Mac mini or MacBook Pro, it is supposed to do so when the Essence One is connected to a Windows PC and the necessary ASIO driver (supplied on a CD-ROM) is installed. (I couldn't verify this, as all my auditioning and measuring was with Macs.)

Inside the box, the circuitry is neatly laid out on a large printed circuit board, with a cutout in the board for the toroidal power transformer. S/PDIF data are routed to an AKM AK4113 receiver chip; USB data are handled by a C-Media CM6631 USB receiver (the same chip used in the Schiit Bifrost DAC reviewed by Jon Iverson in August 2013). The audio data are passed first to an Analog Devices SHARC ADSP-21261 40-bit floating-point DSP chip, then to a pair of TI's PCM1795 DAC chips.

The PCM1795 is a two-channel, 32-bit–resolution device that is pin-for-pin compatible with the earlier and widely used PCM1792 chip; according to its datasheet, the PCM1795 is DSD-capable, but the Essence One will not decode DSD data. Also according to its datasheet, the PCM1795 is intended to operate up to a sample rate of 200kHz, so I'm not sure how ASUS is able to use it at 352.8 or 384kHz when upsampling is engaged. I wondered, as the chip is a two-channel part, each channel could be fed alternate samples, to give an effective doubling of the sample rate, as was once done by Stan Curtis in a mid-1980s Cambridge Audio CD player. However, my measurements (see Sidebar) suggest this isn't the case.

Unusually, all of the eight-pin op-amp chips, a mix of JRC and Muses devices, are socketed. The six Muses 01 dual op-amps, which follow the DAC chips, are made with advanced fabrication techniques said to reduce crosstalk and produce better-balanced left/right channel symmetry, and use oxygen-free copper leads. The headphone amplifier appears to be based on a pair of TI's LME49720 high-performance op-amp chips and an LME49600 high-current output driver; the line outputs appear to be based on TI's LM4562 ultra-low-distortion, low-noise, high-slew-rate op-amps. Other than the headphone output, all the analog audio circuitry is heavily bypassed with local electrolytic and plastic-film capacitors. Overall, the parts count and the quality of those parts are very high for a relatively inexpensive product.

Sound Quality
I used the Xonar Essence One Muses Edition for all my regular headphone listening during the fall of 2013, as well as during the preparation of my review of the Audeze LCD-X headphones elsewhere in this issue. I also used it in my big rig (see the "Associated Equipment" sidebar). Although the Xonar DAC had already been reviewed by Michael Lavorgna and Dinny FitzPatrick on, respectively, our sister websites AudioStream.com and InnerFidelity.com, I didn't read my colleagues' reviews until I had finished my own auditioning. But my impressions of the Xonar's sound quality to some extent echo theirs.

Used as a DAC without upsampling engaged, the Xonar Essence One didn't resolve recorded details as readily as the NAD M51 and Auralic Vega, though it's fair to note that those DACs cost very much more. There was a smooth, rounded-off quality to the Xonar's line outputs that was a benefit with typically overcooked rock recordings, such as the Pretenders'"Talk of the Town" and "Back on the Chain Gang," from The Singles (ALAC files from CD, Sire/WEA; and yes, I am rediscovering and relishing that delicious sob in Chrissie Hynde's voice).

But this character obscured the fact that my reissue of Richie Havens's 1969 album Richard P. Havens, 1983 (CD, Polydor 835 212-2) had apparently been mastered from an LP rather than from the original master tapes. And the dry acoustic of Yamaha's YASI recital hall in Attention Screen's "13 Trojans of Vundo," from their live recording Takes Flight at Yamaha (16/44.1 master file for CD, Stereophile STPH021-2), also seemed a little suppressed compared with the Auralic Vega's presentation. Chris Jones's fretless Fender Jazz bass guitar also sounded a touch softer, but the Essence One still revealed the hit in sound quality resulting from the lossy audio encoding in the video from the concert that I posted on YouTube, to which I had added the audio mix from the CD.

Sennheiser Momentum on-ear headphones
Last December, I wrote about Sennheiser's excellent Momentum over-the-ear headphones ($349.99), which are designed to look as good as they sound. While I loved their elegant appearance and warm, detailed sound, I found the fit too tight and awkward for extended listening. After about 35 minutes, I'd have to remove the headphones due to sharp pain around my ears.

Sennheiser now makes an on-ear version of the Momentum ($229.95), which, aside from being less luxuriously appointed, $120.04 cheaper, and having smaller earpieces, is nearly identical to the more expensive model. The oval earpieces slide up and down on the same stainless-steel headband, but, rather than boasting hair-sheep leather, the on-ears' earpads are covered in a synthetic material called Alcantara, which looks and feels practically identical to suede. Similarly, where the ridge of the larger version's headband is cushioned and covered in more leather, the on-ear version's cushioned headband is covered in more Alcantara. The over-the-ear version has earpads 2.5" wide by 3.5" long, while the on-ears' pads are only 2.25" wide by 2.875" long. Interestingly, I found the on-ears a bit more comfortable than the larger over-the-ears. Still, to avoid any pain around my ears, I needed to periodically adjust the headphones' placement on my head, and remove them entirely after about 45 minutes of listening.

Though the two models appear to use the same 1.4m cable, the on-ears' cable has a less robust microphone/volume control and a simple, fixed-angle plug. Like its predecessor, the on-ear Momentums come packed with a second cable, a stereo-to-minijack adapter, and a handsome carrying case. Unlike the original, which is currently available in only black or brown, the on-ears lighten things up with several fun options: green, blue, pink, ivory, brown, gloss black, and bright red. My samples, with ivory earpieces and a brown headband, exhibited flawless build quality.

I was immediately impressed by the on-ears' clean, clear, extended highs and spacious, open overall sound. The expert production and awesome panning effects in "Your Body Feels," from Four Tet's Beautiful Rewind (320kbps MP3, Text TEXT025), create the illusion of a propeller-like object that's spinning and whirring, moving from left to right across the stage, while alternately approaching and retreating. The on-ear Momentums opened a wide space and did a surprisingly good job of communicating those senses of movement; the sound was physical, intense, and dramatic—not as crazily dramatic as through the PSB M4U 2 headphones ($399.99), say, but dramatic nonetheless, and more so than I could have hoped from such a compact, affordable design. And in "Palace," from Wild Beasts' beautiful new Present Tense (320kbps MP3, Domino WIG279), the Sennheisers gave drummer Chris Talbot's closed hi-hat just the right amount of sparkle and bite.

Despite these achievements, the on-ear Momentums were, in almost all ways, easily outclassed by their larger siblings. The more expensive, over-the-ear design produced a bigger, more spacious overall sound, with sweeter highs, cleaner attack transients, a richer and more present midrange, and tighter bass. These differences were most readily apparent with files of higher resolution, such as "Sleeping Is the Only Love," from the Silver Jews'Tanglewood Numbers (1037kbps ALAC file ripped from CD, Drag City DC297); and "Levitation," from Pinch & Shackleton's eponymous album (1411kbps WAV file ripped from LP, Honest Jon's HJRLP59). With files of much lower complexity—a 64kbps mono AAC file of my band Lip Action's radical new single, "Bagels and Roses," for instance—differences were much harder to hear. Both models tamed this recording's inherent brashness, making the track easy to listen to and enjoy.

I also compared the on-ear Momentums with another on-ear design, Stereophile's 2013 Accessory of the Year, the B&W P3 ($199). They sounded remarkably different. I'm tempted to say that if one of these headphones is right, the other must be wrong, but I enjoyed listening to music through both of them—really. The Sennheisers' well-extended, natural-sounding highs and more spacious overall sound gave greater drama and physicality to Four Tet's "Your Body Feels," but the B&Ws' more forward midrange made the track's sampled tenor saxophone sound as if it were being played by a living, breathing human. With Wild Beasts'"Palace," the Sennheisers reproduced the snare drum with more rattle and snap, and gave the hi-hat just the right amount of sparkle and bite, but the B&Ws made the analog synth sound absolutely marvelous—large, warm, and colorful. The two headphones sounded nearly identical in the bass. And the B&Ws were much gentler to my head—I could almost forget that I was wearing them.

Ah! Why can't I have the on-ear Sennheisers' high-frequency clarity and the B&Ws' midrange presence? Well, I can—with the over-the-ear Momentums or PSB's M4U 2s, for example. Still, I could live happily ever after with either the smaller, more comfortable on-ear Momentums or the B&W P3s. The Momentums combined clean, accurate highs with a slightly recessed midrange and a slightly overripe bass; the B&Ws took that same bass quality and partnered it with overly polite highs and a weightier, more forward midrange. Neither is perfect. Both are excellent.

AudioQuest DragonFly v1.2
I did all of the above headphone comparisons sitting at my desk, staring at my laptop, and using the latest version of AudioQuest's popular DragonFly USB DAC–headphone amplifier. Aside from some small, tidy certification markings on its backside, the DragonFly v1.2 is identical in size, shape, and functionality to the original model—and, at $149, costs $100 less. Like the original, the v1.2 handles file resolutions up to 24-bit/96kHz, making the device virtually plug-and-play for both PC and Mac users; no additional drivers are required, but you might have to change a few settings in your computer's control panel—the DragonFly's "flight manual" will guide you through the process.

The new DragonFly still has a USB jack at one end, a 3.5mm jack at the other, and a top-panel dragonfly emblem that changes color in accordance with the sample rate of the file being played: green for 44.1kHz, blue for 48kHz, amber for 88.2kHz, and magenta for 96kHz. It still uses Gordon Rankin's Streamlength asynchronous USB protocol and it's still made in the USA. The differences—all improvements, as far as I'm concerned—are found inside, and include a revised power supply and a simplified, more direct signal path between the DAC and headphone module.

The sonic differences between the original and v1.2 DragonFlys were almost as obvious as those between the Sennheiser Momentum and B&W P3 on-ear headphones. Where the original DragonFly excelled in clarity and detail, v1.2 added a richer, more colorful midrange, improved spatial abilities, and a greater sense of ease. Through the DragonFly v1.2, "Sleeping Is the Only Love" sounded thrilling and beautiful, with an awesome amount of space around the drum kit, a solidly focused center image, and overall clarity and tonal accuracy that made following guitar riffs and subtleties of drumwork a total pleasure. Best of all, though, was the v1.2's way with David Berman's simple, familiar voice: Singing "I'd crawl over 50 yards of burning coals just to make it with you," he sounded drunk and restless with desperation and love—just as he should. I believed every word of it.

The making of a preamplifier seems more or less the opposite. You start with a simple volume control and a couple of jacks, then add whatever you think constitutes a preamplifier. Choices might include electronic source switching, line-level gain, phono-level gain and equalization, tone controls, tone-defeat switches, a balance control, a headphone jack, an iPod input, and maybe even a digital-to-analog converter with a USB receiver. The sky is pretty much the limit.

Asked what constitutes a preamplifier, the California-based electronics company Parasound might simply copy the preceding paragraph: The newest preamp in their Taiwanese-built Halo series of products, the Halo P 5 ($1095), incorporates every one of the items mentioned above. And, remarkably, a few more.

Description
Parasound describes the Halo P 5 as a "2.1-channel stereo preamplifier," hinting at its suitabilities for use in both a stereo music system and a home theater. The latter is presented in a number of ways, the most apparent being its home-theater bypass circuit, by means of which one can add the P 5 to a multichannel system with a surround-sound receiver or processor, to optimize two-channel listening (footnote 2). (For this to work, the surround-sound component in question must have line-level outputs.) Usefully, whenever the P 5 is switched off, its home-theater bypass is automatically selected, so that the surround-sound system can still be enjoyed without additional drudgery.

Also of interest to home-theater enthusiasts, the Halo P 5 has line-level outputs for up to three powered subwoofers—the third output is an XLR socket for balanced connection—all of which present the same mono signal and are controllable by means of a front-panel subwoofer level control. Additionally, the P 5 includes an analog crossover comprising a low-pass filter for the sub(s) and a high-pass filter for the main outputs. Both filters are user-controllable by means of small potentiometers on the rear panel, each with a range of 20–140Hz. The crossover's usefulness, of course, is limited to systems whose subwoofers include defeat switches for their own, internal crossovers; perhaps needless to say, the P 5's subwoofer filters are switchable.

Otherwise, the Halo P 5 is optimized for serious music listening, right down to its front-mounted bass and treble tone controls, and a tone-defeat switch for removing them from the signal path. The front panel also sports a nice-feeling rotary switch for source selection, accompanied by a clearly marked row of indicator lights, and an exceedingly smooth, undetented volume control. I was mildly disappointed by the lack of a mono switch but cheered by the presence of a 3.5mm input jack, the latter tailored, by means of an extra gain stage, for use with the analog output of an iPod or similar device. And although I own neither a balanced-out source component nor a balanced-in amplifier, I was impressed that the Halo includes a single pair each of balanced input and output jacks.

The use of a switch-mode power supply—and the consequent absence of a traditional mains transformer—accounts for the P 5's most surprising characteristic: Notwithstanding its abundance of features, its moderately sized case is almost half empty! Beyond that, there's precious little I can tell you about its innards, other than the fact that its seven circuit boards appeared well made. The P 5's casework is nicely done, with a mix of steel and aluminum structures and a textured finish that gives, from a moderate distance, the impression of a high-tech casting. Cosmetics and ergonomics alike were of higher-than-expected quality for this price bracket.

Installation and setup
Owing to a combination of well-labeled controls and a notably clear instruction manual, the Halo P 5 was a breeze to set up. Adding to that ease was the simplicity of this particular installation: I, who own neither a subwoofer nor a surround-sound component—or even a television set that was made in this century—was offered the chance to review the P 5 as a two-channel product in my two-channel system. The remaining 0.1 channel must await another day and another writer.

That said, two aspects of the Halo P 5's operation do require special mention, the first being its built-in D/A converter, which is addressable by means of optical, coaxial, or USB connections. With either of the first two choices, the Parasound DAC functions at word lengths and sample rates up to 24 bits and 192kHz, respectively (the chip at its heart is Burr-Brown's 24-bit, 192kHz-capable PCM1798 DAC), but offers only 24/96 performance when the incoming datastream arrives by USB.

The P 5's converter compensates with an exceptionally easy-to-set-up USB connection: Even Windows users should be able to get up and running in just a few minutes, without having to download a separate device driver. My own iMac installation was simplicity itself: In the Sound window of Apple OS10.7.4's System Preferences, the P 5's built-in DAC appeared with the name "PARASOUND P5"; one click was all it took to get me up and running, after which my computer never ceased to recognize the Parasound converter.

Vinyl lovers will also require an extra minute or two to get going, as the P 5's single pair of phono inputs can be optimized by means of a three-position toggle switch on the rear panel. Two of the three settings are intended for moving-coil cartridges—one provides a load impedance of 100 ohms, the other 47k ohms—while the third setting, for moving-magnet cartridges, also offers the 47k ohm load. Although phono-section gain is not specified in either the P 5's manual or on Parasound's website, I noted that both MC settings provided more than enough gain for my EMT TSD 15 pickup head, which outputs 1.05mV.

Footnote 2: Perhaps some day there will exist a very high-quality mono preamplifier that incorporates a stereo bypass circuit.