GUIDE to DIGITAL SOURCE COMPONENTS STEREO • MUSIC Turn Up the Fun! Enjoy the full e ect of your music, video and movies. BEAUTIFUL SOUND FROM ANY COMPUTER, ANYWHERE • USB Stick-Size Digital-Audio Converter • Plays All Music Files: MP3 to High-Res • Drives Headphones Directly • Variable Output Drives Powered Speakers or Power Amp • Fixed Output Feeds Preamp or Receiver • Asynchronous Transfer Ensures Digital Timing Integrity • Dual Fixed-Frequency Master Clocks Enable Optimal ‘Clocking’ (Digital Timing) for All Sample Rates Actual Size USB DAC + Preamp + Headphone Amp Now $199 AudioQuest also o ers truly exceptional cables which carry the subtlety and nuance of your favorite music from all your sources. www.AudioQuest.com Go to: Contents | on the Horizon | Feature | Disc Players | DACs | Music Servers & Accessories | Integrated Amps with USB DACs | Music Download Reviews | Buyer's Guide CONTENTS Disc Music Servers Integrated amps Features Players DACs SPoNSoRED BY: and Accessories with USB DACs • On the • Esoteric K-01 • EAR-Yoshino 192 DACute DAC • AudioQuest Diamond USB cable • Micromega AS-400 integrated with Horizon: New • Oppo BDP-105 • AURALiC VEGA digital processor • NAD C 446 Digital Media Tuner wireless DAC Digital Source • dCS Vivaldi • MSB Analog DAC • Pure Music software • NuForce DDA-100 Components System • Simaudio Moon 100D USB DAC • Naim SuperUniti • Peachtree Grand Prix X1 from RMAF 2013 • Bryston BDA-2 • Audivana music playback software • Peachtree Nova125 • Turn your • Berkeley Alpha DAC Series 2 • PS Audio Perfect Wave • Hegel H300 Macintosh into a • dCS Debussy DAC • Bel Canto USB Links Music Server • AudioQuest DragonFly • Plinius Tiki server Music Reviews • Micromega MyDAC • Astell & Kern AK100/AK120 • Four USB DACs compared: Models from • 3beez Waxbox server • High Resolution Digital Download Channel Islands, Lindemann, NuForce, Roundup and Synergistic • Wadia 121 Decoding Computer Buyer's Guide • iFi iCAN, iDAC, iUSB Power • Meridian Explorer • CD/SACD Players • 3-DAC survey: Models from Mytek, • DACs Benchmark, and Lynx • Music Servers & Peripheral Products Click on one of the links above to jump to that section, feature or review. 3 Digital Source Components www.theabsolutesound.com pREvIOUS pagE NEXT pagE Go to: Contents | on the Horizon | Feature | Disc Players | DACs | Music Servers & Accessories | Integrated Amps with USB DACs | Music Download Reviews | Buyer's Guide GUIDE to STEREO • MUSIC DIGITAL SOURCE COMPONENTS publisher. Jim. Hannon senior writers. Anthony H. nextscreen, LLC editor-in-chief . Robert Harley Cordesmann chairman and ceo . Tom Martin Wayne Garcia executive editor . Jonathan Valin vp/group publisher. Jim Hannon Dick Olsher buyer's guide editor. Chris Martens Steven Stone advertising reps . Cheryl Smith acquisitions manager Alan Taffel (512) 891-7775 and associate editor . Neil Gader Andrew Quint music editor. Mark Lehman reviewers & Scott Constantine contributing writers. Vade Forrester (609) 275-3534 Jacob Heilbrunn creative director. Torquil Dewar Karl Schuster Marvin Lewis art director. Shelley Lai MTM Sales (718) 225-8803 To sign up for Buyer’s Guides alerts, click here Address letters to the Editor: The Absolute Sound, 8868 Research Blvd., Austin, TX 78758 or [email protected] ©2013 NextScreen, LLC 4 Digital Source Components www.theabsolutesound.com pREvIOUS pagE NEXT pagE Go to: Contents | on the Horizon | Feature | Disc Players | DACs | Music Servers & Accessories | Integrated Amps with USB DACs | Music Download Reviews | Buyer's Guide FROM THE Editor Welcome to our latest Buyer’s guide, this one covering digital audio source components. The Music Delivery and Storage Systems: Once we thought either in guide includes full reviews of: terms of acquiring music content either in the form of optical discs or of downloaded files stored on our computers, but now our range of options • 19 standalone DaCs, has grown. Entire music libraries can, for example, live on portable, • 3 combination disc player/DaCs, high-capacity USB drives or memory sticks, or they could reside on • 5 combination integrated amplifier/DaCs, and NAS (network attached storage) devices, elsewhere on network or in the • 10 Music Servers and related digital audio accessories. cloud. Further, music delivery models are evolving, so that rather that buying copies of content to own some listeners are instead subscribing to We also bring you our editorial team’s Buyer’s guide recommendations for digital source high-res music services that charge monthly fees for access to high-res components, plus reviews of high-resolution digital music downloads. Finally, we include an material on demand (why own when you can stream?). illustrated report showing 26 of today’s most innovative new digital audio products as seen at Digital audio Technology: Digital audio playback technologies never the recent Rocky Mountain audio Fest 2013. stand still for long, so that over time we see equipment offering improved DACs, more powerful upsampling options, hyper-precise digital clocks, We are experiencing a period of almost unprecedented growth and innovation in digital audio expanding network and storage connectivity options, the ability to handle and as a result music lovers can now access and enjoy their favorite music in ways that might ever higher resolution music files, and better analog output sections. In have seemed like science fiction only a few years ago. Just stop for a moment and think about the short, digital audio source components sound great now and continue to magnitude of the changes unfolding all around us. get even better. The Music: We once bought our digital music primarily in the form of MP3 files or Compact Discs. We hope this Guide helps you better navigate the brave new world of But those days have given way to a modern era where anyone with a passion for sound quality can modern digital audio source components as you pursue The Absolute readily access extremely high-resolution digital audio files from a growing number of sources. CD- Sound. resolution files, once considered a sonic “Holy Grail” of sorts, are now just the starting points from which to explore even higher-quality file formats promising far greater resolution and sonic finesse. Chris Martens Click here to turn the page. 5 Digital Source Components www.theabsolutesound.com pREvIOUS pagE NEXT pagE Go to: Contents | on the Horizon | Feature | Disc Players | DACs | Music Servers & Accessories | Integrated Amps with USB DACs | Music Download Reviews | Buyer's Guide oN tHE HoRIZoN New Digital Source Components from RMaF 2013 Steven Stone MSB Forward: The article below is an excerpt from, but also a more lavishly illustrated version of, a blog prepared Universal Media by Steven Stone to report on digital source components recenty seen at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Transport 2013, which was held just weeks before publication of this Guide. Enjoy. –Chris Martens www.msbtech.com MSB unveiled their latest transport, the Universal RMaF 2013 provided enough new digital products to fill a show Media Transport Plus ($5995). It is based on the Oppo BDP-103, report several times over. Rather than a comprehensive report with and plays all disc-based media, including DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, abbreviated descriptions that have more in common with a laundry list USB thumb drives, and even Kodak picture CDs. The Universal than a show report, I’ve concentrated on the products I felt were the Media Transport Plus works with a variety of power supplies, most important and will have the most impact on our audio future. beginning with the MSB outboard desktop supply ($595) and going up to their Diamond Transport Power Base ($3495). CD Players anD TransPorTs Marantz SA-14S1 SACD player www.us.marantz.com Marantz SA-14S1 Super Audio CD player ($2495) includes two digital inputs, two digital outputs, and one USB input which allows it to function as both a transport and a DAC. It even has a USB-B port on the back that allows the SA-14S1 to support DSD over PCM. The SA-12S1 utilizes Marantz’ proprietary HDAM (Hyper Dynamic Amplifier Module), newly developed center-mounted disc drive mechanism, and torroidal power transformer made with oxygen- free copper secondary windings. 6 Digital Source Components www.theabsolutesound.com pREvIOUS pagE NEXT pagE Go to: Contents | on the Horizon | Feature | Disc Players | DACs | Music Servers & Accessories | Integrated Amps with USB DACs | Music Download Reviews | Buyer's Guide oN tHE HoRIZoN CD Players anD TransPorTs Rega Saturn-R DAC + CD transport www.rega.co.uk For most part, the stand-alone CD player is dead, but some manufacturers have revised the “CD player” into a DAC that can also read discs. One example of this is the Rega Saturn-R DAC + CD transport ($2995). The Saturn-R includes one asynchronous USB and four S/ PDIF inputs as well as a top-loading CD transport. It uses a Wolfson WM872 DAC that can handle PCM up to 192/24, and it comes with a dedicated remote control. Simaudio Neo 260D CD transport www.simaudio.com Simaudio added the Neo 260D CD transport ($2000) to their Moon series. Using Simaudio’s proprietary CD drive mounted on a four-point floating suspension system, the NEO 260D has both S/PDIF and AES/EBU digital outputs plus both balanced and single-ended analog outputs. You can add a digital-to-analog converter ($1000) that delivers true 32-bit asynchronous processing along with one USB, two S/PDIF, and two Toslink inputs. 7 Digital Source Components www.theabsolutesound.com pREvIOUS pagE NEXT pagE Go to: Contents | on the Horizon | Feature | Disc Players | DACs | Music Servers & Accessories | Integrated Amps with USB DACs | Music Download Reviews | Buyer's Guide oN tHE HoRIZoN ExaSound E20 DAC and E28 DSD DAC www.exasound.com Building on the technology of their E20 DAC ($2899), ExaSound’s new E28 DAC ($3299) is the Antelope Audio Zodiac Platinum DSD DAC/ world’s first multi-channel DSD DAC. It supports preamp/headphone amp DSD up to 12.28 MHz, DXD up to 352.8 kHz/ 32- www.antelopeaudio.com bit, and PCM up to 384/32.