Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 1 - 2023 i Audio Esoterica

Audio-Technica’s newest moving-coil phono cartridge, the AT-MC2022, was released in 2022 to celebrate the famous Japanese company’s 60thAnniversary, hence the model number. We were able to listen to the very first one to arrive in Australia, which landed here down under early this year. It’s a rather special phono cartridge, as it’s built like no other phono cartridge we’ve ever heard of. Rather than the diamond stylus being ‘attached’ to the cantilever, which is the conventional method of building a phono cartridge, the diamond stylus in the MC2022 is not attached to the cantilever at all, but is actually a part of it: the stylus and the cantilever are unified, both formed from a single diamond. Audio-Technica says of this technique: “This unique construction eliminates the distortion caused by conventional…

It’s hard to isolate the invention of the thermionic valve, even who to thank for it. Do we lump it in with the electric filament bulb, so giving the credit to Swan in Britain and Edison in the US (and the others Edison never credited, such as Lewis Latimer)? Do we go forward to John Ambrose Fleming’s diode — patent granted then revoked — or Lee De Forest’s ‘Audion’ triode? Commercial manufacturing of valves ramped up under RCA starting in 1920 (although being American, of course, they called them ‘tubes’). So in reality, valves were masters of the electronic world for a relatively short time before being superseded by transistors. The first transistor was successfully demonstrated in 1947 at Bell Laboratories, and by the 1950s it already felt like good…

Here we are in the rarefied pages of Audio Esoterica magazine, home to high-fidelity equipment of extreme design and extraordinary performance. So we would quite understand if some readers are wondering why we’re in a home cinema. Put simply, it’s because the art of audio reproduction isn’t limited to stereo. Accuracy is accuracy, however many channels you’re running. And if we’re being honest, most of us spend more of our lives watching video screens than we do listening to our music. A global survey in 2021 found that music listening is pleasingly on the rise, averaging 18.4 hours a week per person, something over two-and-a-half hours a day. But similar surveys on TV habits show we watch three or more hours of TV a day. Even that may be an…

Merging Technologies is a latecomer to the consumer audio scene, but the brand has been building state-of-the-art digital components for audio professionals for over 30 years. If you are wondering about the curiously complex heading to this review, it’s because NADAC is not actually the name of the product itself, but an acronym for ‘Network Attached Digital to Analog Converter’, and in addition to being a DAC, it is also a streaming player, meaning you can stream music to it from any computer network. It also requires a separate power supply (+Power). We found Merging Technologies’ product line-up a little confusing. It appears there are two versions of the +NADAC, which is simply a DAC with a network connection that allows you to send music data to it via Ethernet.…

Wow! When you partner Marantz’s new reference 15.4-channel pre-amplifier/processor, the AV 10 — which has Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro, Auro 3D, 8K, IMAX Enhanced and HEOS streaming — with the company’s new flagship power amplifier, the AMP 10 — which has 16 channels (sixteen!), with each of those channels rated at 200 watts into eight ohms (/400 watts into four ohms!) — you’ve opened the door wide to audio/video nirvana. Marantz has poured everything it has learned about audio and video over the 70 years it’s been building electronic components into this handsome pair, cutting no corners. The result is audible, visible, and plainly evidenced by the level of state-of-the-art components and technologies that have been incorporated into the designs. AV 10 PREAMPLIFIER/PROCESSOR Marantz has continued with its ‘porthole’ design…

What is Linn’s Selekt DSM? The easy answer is that it’s a network music streamer: that’s what Linn calls it, after all. But look closer and you find sophistication and versatility beyond such a simple descriptor. Linn loves to reference ‘ecosystem’ when talking about the Selekt DSM and, as pompous as that might sound, it’s a pretty apt description. This is a modular design that can be specified to the performance and features the buyer wishes. Of course, this is also a high-end product, so it costs accordingly. BUILD & DESIGN There are two basic variants of the Selekt DSM: the Edition Hub ($18,995) that is on test here, and the original that was introduced in 2018 but is now renamed the Classic Hub ($8,995). The latter reviewed well upon…

Every history of PSB Speakers starts with an anecdote about the company’s founder and chief designer Paul Barton, who is the P and the B in PSB. The S was added between them for his high-school sweetheart Sue, becoming part of the logo he’d doodled in geography class at school. They ended up marrying, as who could resist being tagged in a loudspeaker brand name! Through his later high-school years Barton had worked part-time at a local hi-fi shop, where despite his youth the owner had allowed him to build and sell speaker kits to local university students. Barton then launched his company PSB straight out of school, co-funding the start-up money with two friends. But the anecdote in question goes back before that, and illustrates Barton’s early connections with…

Electrocompaniet has gone big with its 50th-anniversary celebrations, having re-engineered its legendary, quarter-of-a-century-old AW 600 NEMO power amplifier to produce its latest flagship powerhouse. The new AW 800 M takes the reigns as the company’s most powerful monoblock power amp, though the trick up its sleeve is the ability to switch between mono, stereo and bi-amping operating modes. This allows you to, Electrocompaniet says, “upgrade your system or change your configuration while retaining your initial investment”. The AW 800 M delivers a staggering 800 watts into 8 ohms (in mono), and utilises the company’s direct-coupled, high open-loop bandwidth topology, which has been further enhanced here with higher slew-rate and bandwidth amplifier stages for a “significantly improved” sonic performance. Also flying that particular performance-enhancing flag is an all-new output stage, which…

Yamaha has enjoyed a resurgence in two-channel stereo over the last decade, giving it full respect and full resources ever since a new flagship 5000 Series rolled out in 2016. Back then we reviewed the NS-5000 loudspeakers, large beryllium-toting boxes referencing the glory days, as did the turntable which followed, ‘Giant and Tremendous’ like Yamaha’s turntables of old, along with the 5000 Series high-end power and preamps in classic Yamaha style. Today, as we hopefully begin to exit the trading trials of the pandemic period, we find Yamaha’s stereo range impressively stocked from affordable midrange hi-fi up to the 2000 Series of which this R-N2000A is part, and above to the 3000 Series which includes Yamaha’s flagship integrated amplifier (the $9,999 A-S3200), topped only by the separate amps of that…

Clearaudio is turning 45 this year, for which we proffer our hearty congratulations. The German family-owned company has become a byword for analogue precision in vinyl reproduction, reaching for the musical firmament with products such as the Statement turntable, its linear-tracking tonearms, and the spectacular bling of the ‘Goldfinger’ moving-coil cartridge, but also trickling hard-won expertise down into turntables affordable to new vinyl fans and indeed those who have, like the company, made it through the years of the format’s decline to enjoy today’s glorious resurgence of all things groovy. Among various anniversary activities, Clearaudio has been re-examining its heritage to produce the Reference Jubilee turntable, as pictured on the first three of these pages. Clearaudio says it “marries the best of past, present and future to usher in a…

“I remember when I was in my younger years how I used to get together with friends and listen to a record… so many friendships forged around music,” reminisces George Moraitis, co-founder of Melbourne-based high-end hi-fi distributor and consultor Nirvana Sound. Moraitis ruefully notes that somehow social music listening has been lost in many people’s lives, as listening has become a more private enjoyment. It’s something he wanted to bring back — that feeling of friendship and socialisation around a musical event. After all, he asks, “If we’re happy to congregate around a BBQ, why not around a music system?” That’s why Nirvana Sound, alongside its core business, strives to build a community for likeminded hi-fi enthusiasts by running hi-fi and music-themed events — “product showcases, educational workshops, evenings with…