You won’t often see me reviewing—and as such unboxing—standalone DACs here on Access, given that most of the gear I’m likely to review in the appropriate price range already benefits from high-quality built-in digital-to-analog conversion. In fact, I recently wrote an editorial about this very subject.
You could have probably guessed this from my chosen profession, but I’m a sucker for a good story. Put a cool product in front of me that’s competently designed and delivers good performance, and I’m smitten. Put that same product in front of me and talk to me about the creative impulse behind it, the reason for its existence, the hole in the market that it fills, and my tail wags that much harder.
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
NAD’s new C 399 (with or without its BluOS-D expansion module) is a fascinating integrated amp straight out of the box. Fascinating because, despite claiming the top spot in the company’s Classic Series lineup and sharing that family’s aesthetic and naming conventions, it is in a lot of ways a bridge between the Classic and Masters Series, employing as it does the Ncore amplifier technology previously used in the latter, as well as the same 32-bit/384kHz ESS Sabre DAC chip used in the Masters M10 and M33.
Windchild Records WCR001LP
Format: LP
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
In January, my fellow SoundStage! writer and vinyl enthusiast Jason Thorpe wrote an article on sister-site SoundStage! Ultra about Canadian musician and songwriter Harkness. Jason grew up in the same Toronto neighborhood as the artist and went to school with the Harkness family, and his article contains biographical detail about Harkness that I need not repeat here. The article also explains the reasons behind the musician’s public persona and his attire, which includes a visor and lavender-colored robe.
I started collecting LPs and singles back in my blushing youth, about a million years ago. At first, I admit, I didn’t care for them very well. But when the Discwasher first came out in 1972, I took the leap and bought one. While it didn’t deep clean really dirty records, it was great for new purchases and kept them pretty much like new.
A reader recently emailed me to berate me for dwelling too much on packaging materials, and the fact that I seem to be the only audio writer who gives a darn about the distinction between expanded polystyrene and dense polyethylene and the like. To that reader (you know who you are), I present the following photo as justification for why I care. Delivery people these days—at least in my neck of the temperate rainforest—view “fragile” stickers as more of a challenge than a warning.
Read more: Unboxing Rotel's New A12MKII Stereo Integrated Amplifier
If you’re just getting into high-fidelity audio and thinking about building a system—or if you’ve already started that process, but you’re not done just yet—you no doubt have a lot of choices ahead of you in terms of what gear to buy. You’ll need speakers, of course. That’s pretty much non-negotiable. You’ll need amplification, either in the form of an integrated amplifier that combines power, volume control, and source selection; a standalone power amp paired with a preamp; or active speakers with amps built in. And, of course, you’ll need at least one source, whether it be a turntable, a disc player, a media streamer, a PC, a smartphone, what have you.
Note: Measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
What metrics should we use to evaluate the success of a loudspeaker, or even a full speaker lineup? Longevity? Value? Pure sales numbers? Customer satisfaction? Brand recognition? Glowing subjective reviews? Objective measurements? Ultimately, when it comes to Monitor Audio’s Silver series, it sort of doesn’t matter. No matter your preferred criteria, the Silver line has, since its introduction in 1999, represented a Goldilocks zone of performance and price for oodles of audio enthusiasts, largely due to its understated but elegant design, commonsense engineering, attractive MSRP, and overall lack of silliness.
Republic Records B0034978-02
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
John Mellencamp turned 70 this past fall; the years—and cigarettes—have left their mark on his voice. He now sounds almost as raspy and ancient as Bob Dylan. At this point in his life and career, Mellencamp realizes the pop music landscape has changed. “I still make albums,” he told The Wall Street Journal recently, “even though there’s not a lot of demand for albums in today’s singles world.”
I know I’ve broached this subject before, but one of the things I’m constantly grappling with is the simple question of how one determines value, especially in the world of consumer electronics. One of the more fun—but admittedly weirder—tools I rely on is a silly little one-man game of The Price Is Right, usually played while I’m first unboxing a product. (And yeah, the game is kinda spoiled if I already know the price ahead of time, so it’s not always helpful.) At any rate, I thought y’all might like to play along as I dig into the packaging for NAD’s new C 399 Hybrid Digital DAC-amplifier.
Read more: Unboxing the NAD C 399 . . . If the Price Is Right