Musical Fidelity V-Link USB-S/PDIF converter
A computer is not optimized for the uninterrupted streaming of audio data. It has rapidly become established wisdom, therefore, that the optimal means of extracting audio data from a computer's USB...
View ArticleMusical Fidelity M1 DAC
In 1989, Musical Fidelity introduced the Digilog, one of the world's first outboard digital-to-audio converters, or DACs. It was a bold move by a small company. Far larger companies, with more...
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Listening #103
As metaphors go, the silver bullet is somewhat ambiguous, given that it's used to represent both the reliably destructive and the reliably beneficial. (Who would have guessed that an idea from a Lon...
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Wavelength Audio Proton USB D/A converter
I don't remember where I was when the Berlin Wall came down, and I already don't remember what I was doing when Liz Taylor died. (I suppose I was busy not thinking about Liz Taylor.) But I do remember...
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Peachtree iDac D/A converter
Oh boy, another new DAC review. Some folks think DACs, once you get past the features, all sound pretty much the same. I mean, it's just digital. Well, they're right. Pretty much. Just as two new cars...
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Resolution Audio Cantata Music Center
The dual subwoofers were bumping and our pant legs were flapping. Only moments before, we'd been treated to a polite viola da gamba. Not now. Resolution Audio's designer, Jeff Kalt, had brought only...
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Empirical Audio Off-Ramp 4 USB format converter
If an audiophile visiting an audio show in 1991 were to have been transported two decades into the future, at first he would not be aware of any difference: A two-channel system would be playing in a...
View ArticleCEntrance DACmini CX D/A converter
Sure, Stereophile gets letters to the editor. We also get some colorful responses for our "Manufacturers' Comments" section. (Vince Bruzzese and Roy Hall are literary standouts among their...
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The Fifth Element #69
I've been reading a fascinating book, Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (New York: Viking, 1998). Shlain's thesis is that the invention of the...
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Weiss DAC202 FireWire D/A converter
One of the better digital front-ends I've ever heard was demonstrated for me a number of years ago at the house of an audiophile friend: a Weiss Engineering combo of Jason CD transport and Medea...
View ArticleRega DAC D/A processor
"We like to make things," Roy Gandy, Rega's founder and owner, once told me. "It's what we do." Or maybe it was Rega's chairman and chief engineering honcho, Terry Bateman. Rega products are designed...
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Halide Design DAC HD D/A converter
When it comes to getting audio from a PC via its USB port, the buzzword du jour is asynchronous. This cryptic term refers to which device has control over the timing of the audio data being streamed...
View ArticleMusical Fidelity V-DAC II D/A processor
There's so much uncertainty and confusion surrounding computer audio and high-resolution downloads. Which hi-rez formats will win out? How do you store the downloads you've bought? (Easy. Don't buy...
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AudioQuest DragonFly USB D/A converter
"This product is an industry disrupter." Thus spoke AudioQuest's Steve Silberman, VP of development, of their brand-new USB D/A converter, the DragonFly. "There are a lot of very good DACs out there,"...
View ArticleAyre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter
Since its founding in 1993, Colorado-based Ayre Acoustics has made its name with amplifiers and preamplifiers based on truly balanced, solid-state circuitry that didn't use the ubiquitous panacea of...
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iFi Audio iDAC & iUSBPower USB D/A processor & outboard power supply
Bratty, mollycoddled, and altogether spoiled consumers such as you and I have inflicted on computer audio the same injustice that laparoscopic surgery, antilock brakes, mobile telephones, word...
View ArticleHRT Music Streamer HD USB D/A processor
No history of the computer-audio marketplace could be complete without some mention of High Resolution Technologies, the California company whose Music Streamer was, in 2009, the first...
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Meridian Explorer USB D/A processor/headphone amplifier
Those of us who groan at the appearance of every new five-figure digital source component in a massively oversized chassisand who groan in greater torment when the offending manufacturer says his...
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Benchmark ADC1 USB A/D converter
Erick Lichte's review of Benchmark's DAC2 HGC D/A converter in this issue gave me an ideal opportunity to spill some ink on the company's ADC1 USB A/D converter. The ADC1 is housed in the same small...
View ArticleArcam rBlink Bluetooth D/A processor
Am I the only one who values content and convenience over sound quality? 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...
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