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Reviews

Naim Audio DAC

Rick Schmidt

A Naim DAC. Oh how long we have waited. Naim Audio is hi-fi company with its own ideas. For years they held steadfastly to their claim that the only by keeping the spinning CD in the same box as the DAC could jitter be controlled and high fidelity playback be produced. While other hifi companies made similar claims most would relent at least occasionally and offer up a DAC or two.

DACs

Anthony Gallo Acoustics Reference Strada Speakers and TR3 Subwoofer

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Anthony Gallo Acoustics has been known for many years to make very unique, high performance loudspeakers that can deliver world-class performance at reasonable prices and in everyday rooms. I was so impressed with their Reference 3.1 speakers when I reviewed them in 2007 that I bought the review pair. In the past several months, Gallo has significantly upgraded their reference line. The Reference 3.1 has just been replaced with the much more expensive Reference 3.5, but a new speaker system has taken up a new position in the Gallo line at a price point very close to the old Reference 3.1.

Bookshelf Speakers

Marantz SA-KI Pearl SACD player

Robert Kozel

The Marantz tradition has always been about enjoying music. The Marantz SA-KI Pearl is a limited-edition SACD player from the Marantz Reference Series product line. The "KI" in the product name refers to Ken Ishiwata, who is the actual designer of the SA-KI Pearl. Ken Ishiwata has an impressive biography. He fell in love with music as a young man. He pursued a career in fashion photography following in the footsteps of his father. In the late 1970's, Mr. Ishiwata started his career with Marantz. Today, he is an accomplished violinist, audio engineer, electronics engineer, and brand ambassador for Marantz in Europe.

SACD Players

Mystere pa21 Stereo Tube Power Amplifier

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Durob Audio is a company in the Netherlands that markets PrimaLuna tubed audio components, including integrated amplifiers, power amplifiers, and a CD player that has a tube-based clock. It also has a discrete output stage with triodes running in pure Class A. Conventional CD players use op-amps in the output stage. Although the tube output stage and op-amp output stage sound different, one doesn't necessarily sound "better" than the other, although tubeophiles would all opt for the "better". We reviewed the PrimaLuna DiaLogue Two integrated amplifier in December, 2009.

With the introduction of Durob Audio's Mysterè line, we now review the Mysterè pa21, which is a 55 watt per channel stereo tube power amplifier. The Mysterè line goes beyond the PrimaLuna line with larger transformers, more power supply capacitance, and an auto-bias circuit that lets the consumer choose between using KT88's or EL34's as the output tubes.

Power Amplifiers

Neko Audio D100 Mk 2 Stereo DAC

Rick Schmidt

DACs are taking over. I've been waiting for this day ever since the CD format came out because DACs provide an upgrade path. Upgrading is fun. And because DACs are cool. The conversion from digital to analog is of course crucial and for electrical engineers holds more than a little fascination as the music is (we hope) recreated from simple ones and zeroes. In this review, we take a look at the Neko Audio Mk 2 stereo DAC.

DACs

Sherwood Newcastle R-972 7.1 A/V Receiver with Trinnov Room Optimizer Technology

Robert Kozel

The Sherwood Newcastle R-972 A/V Receiver is the latest high-end receiver in the Sherwood product lineup. The Newcastle brand is Sherwood's premier product line. The R-972 A/V receiver boasts some impressive features including 7 channels of amplification at 100 watts per channel, 4 HDMI 1.3 inputs, on-board decoding of DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD high-resolution audio formats, XM satellite, and a Silicon Optix Reon video processor supporting upscaling to 1080p. In addition to all this functionality, the R-972 is the first product to offer a consumer version of the Trinnov Room Optimizer technology.

Receivers

NuForce Icon HDP USB DAC

Chris Heinonen

In the past couple of years, the market for DAC's with USB inputs has really taken off. As people move their whole music library over to a music server, and lossless and high resolution downloads of albums starts to become a reality, getting that audio from your PC to your stereo has become increasingly important. NuForce made a splash with their original Icon DAC, which featured a USB DAC, a couple analog inputs, a 12W amp for a stereo speaker setup, and a headphone output. They have come back and improved upon that by releasing the new HDP model.

DACs

Kordz EVO, EVS, and EVX HDMI Cables

John E. Johnson, Jr.

HDMI cables have two basic issues that are somewhat different than with audio cables, namely that they tend to be much longer, and also, the HDMI connector has turned out not to be very robust. So, if the HDMI cable that came with your new HDTV or DVD player is not doing the job for you, Kordz makes cables that will deliver the goods under any conditions. We review here their pure copper model, the EVO, as well as the EVS which has a thin coating of pure silver, and the EVX, which has a thicker coating of silver.

Audio Cables

JVC GZ-HM550 High Definition Video Camera

John E. Johnson, Jr.

JVC's new GZ-HM550 has full 1920 x 1080 resolution, records up to 2 hours, 57 minutes in its highest quality mode, has a built-in 32 GB SD card, and is the smallest high definition video camera we have ever tested. At $799.95 MSRP, it will not only fit in your shirt pocket, but won't strain the wallet in your hip pocket.

Video Accessories Misc

Paradigm SE Series Home Theater Speakers

Brian Florian

Forever it seems here at Secrets (and everywhere really) people come asking for a home theater gear shopping list, hoping there is some inside knowledge to be unearthed which will get them world class audio for a ridiculously low price. More sympathetic to the notion of "limited funds" I could not possibly be, but fact is, with speakers at least, it is quite literally impossible in that unlike electronics and "digital" stuff which gets smaller and cheaper by the minute, speakers are inherently analogue, physical, mechanical devices. Top shelf quality IS going to cost you something.

Surround Sound Speaker Systems

Argentum Audio Cables: The Mythos Analog Interconnect, Argento Digital Interconnect, Aureus Speaker Cable, and Proteus Power Cable

Jason Victor Serinus

Sometime in ancient history, when snakes freely roamed the earth without fear that their oil would be disparaged, John Johnson asked me if I wanted to review the complete line of Ultralink/XLO Argentum audio cables. Since I thrive on comparisons, be they of cabling, amplifiers, or sopranos, I welcomed the assignment. (The Argentum power cable is not necessarily just for audio, but we include it as such here.)

Audio Cables

HD Micromega AirStream Wireless DAC

Steven Hornbrook

At this year's CES in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to attend an event for an unusual little device being dubbed a "Wireless DAC." Upon arriving, I saw a box of the plainest kind, about the size of a CD player, with one blue LED in the center. After introductions and some chit chat, I did what any of us would do, looked at the back of the unit. The rear panel was about as plain as the front! A protruding half-circle piece I presumed to be the antenna, a couple of analog RCA outs, digital out, and power cable. That was it. What is this strange box and what is it doing at a high end audio show? Well, it's the HD Micromega AirStream WHi-Fi wireless DAC and it's at a high end audio show, because it delivers high end sound.

DACs

Emotiva UPA-5 Five-Channel Power Amplifier

Chris Heinonen

Over the past decade, a lot has changed on receivers that we buy for home. We've gone from S-Video to Component to HDMI for video, replaced 6 RCA cables for 5.1 audio with a single digital cable, to having it integrated in the HDMI signal along with video. Receivers have added all sorts of new functions with better on screen menus, room correction, Ethernet ports for streaming media and firmware upgrades, and we have also moved from 5.1 channel audio, to 6.1, then 7.1, and now all the way to 9.1 or greater when using Dolby ProLogic IIz or Audyssey DSX. However, one thing on receivers has barely changed when I look back over the spec sheets: weight.

Power Amplifiers