nice a5 article

[rumonkey2]

Anybody have any experience w/ this???
http://www.musicdirect.com/product/85434

[Mike_TX]

No, but when I was looking at it I noticed the S/N ratio wasn't that great compared to the "plus" or to other DACs.

Specifications for Music Streamer :
Electrical: Full Scale output 2.25 Volts RMS
Frequency Response: (20 Hz/20 kHz) -.3 dB / -1.8 dB
Noise Floor: (DC to 30 kHz) 174 uV RMS
Noise Floor: (A-weighted) 110 uV RMS
S/N Ratio: (DC to 30 kHz) 82 dB
S/N Ratio: (A-weighted) 86 dB
THD+N: (1 kHz FS) 0.06%
USB to Audio output isolation: > 20M Ohm
Interface Data Rate: 48kS/s
Bit Depth: 16 bit
USB type: 1.1
Power Requirements (USB buss): 250 mA
Dimensions: (L x W x H) 4.1" x 2.1" x 1.2"


Mike

[Mike_TX]

Other DAC S/N ratios

Other DAC S/N ratios:

S/N - Device
112 - Cambridge Audio DAC Magic
>100 - Creative Labs SB10190 USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1
82/86 - HRT Music Streamer
100/107 - HRT Music Streamer+
116 - Music Fidelity 116
>100 - Music Hall DAC
118/122 - Peachtree Nova
140 - PT P-3A


Mike

[Mike_TX]

Anybody have any experience w/ this???
http://www.musicdirect.com/product/85434

Rumonkey2 -

Get anything yet?
:poke:

Mike

[Mike_TX]

Emotiva DAC update - end of 2009 (?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike_WI
Hmmm...

Just saw this thread on a planned Emotiva DAC.



Hmmm...


Mike


Addendums:
- estimated cost - $300 - link
- 1 RU high

------- UPDATE ----------

Per Dann G. @ Emotiva:
LINK

"We are hoping to have it by the end of the year, but that is not a promise."

So, I think I'll see what they offer before purchasing a DAC.
Very cool.

Mike

[dvenardos]

Oh man, they are as bad as another company we all love when it comes to production time frames. :dizzy:

[Mike_TX]

High Resolution Technologies (HRT) Music Streamer (MS) and MS+

Anybody have any experience w/ this???
http://www.musicdirect.com/product/85434

Just got my Stereophile Nov 2009 in the mail today.
(I believe the electronic version is embargoed for a month or two after the print version is out.)

There is an article you might be interested in:

"HRT Music Strearmer+: USB D/A Converter" by Art Dudley
pp. 109-121.


MS vs. MS+
MS = $99, S/N: 86 dB, A-weighted
MS+ = $299, S/N: 107 dB, A-weighted
p. 120
"In a general way, the Music Steamer sounded smaller, less grand, and decidely less refined."

Conclusions
p. 121
"Now for an unabashedly subjective conclusion. Buy it."


Measurements" comments:
by John Atkinson
p. 119
- "...high levels of jitter..." 700 ps peak-peak for MS+ and 720 ps for MS
- "The noise floor [in the MS]...is about 8dB higher than that of the Music Streamer+..."
- "...neither offers outstanding measured performance...low prices...intended to offer enough of what is possible from computer-based audio to act as high end starting points."
- "...it is possible that playing back 24-bit files will result in worse sound than from 16-bit files."


Mike

PS - Parenthetically, I wonder if the TCA DAC-MAN prototype ever had any of the testing such as in the measurements section of that Stereophile article for the HRT MS+?



HRT MS


HRT MS+

[SnowmaNick]

Conclusions
p. 121
"Now for an unabashedly subjective conclusion. Buy it."


Measurements" comments:
by John Atkinson
p. 119
- "...high levels of jitter..." 700 ps peak-peak for MS+ and 720 ps for MS
- "The noise floor [in the MS]...is about 8dB higher than that of the Music Streamer+..."
- "...neither offers outstanding measured performance...low prices...intended to offer enough of what is possible from computer-based audio to act as high end starting points."
- "...it is possible that playing back 24-bit files will result in worse sound than from 16-bit files."

Odd, is it just me or do the "subjective conclusions" not jive well with the objective measurements comments? :no clue: Thanks for sharing the info, i was looking at them earlier today as a possible small USB DAC.

OT, but I gotta tip my hat to Stereophile, of late they have been testing a ton of gear that I think is important to keeping the hobby relevant and is just plain cool in my eyes (Peachtree Decco, the aforementioned HRT DAC's, Kal Rubison has been burning though sub EQ's so fast I can barely keep up with his reviews). It's refreshing after a few dozen $10k+ speaker reviews to read about stuff I may actually buy in my lifetime.

[Mike_TX]

Odd, is it just me or do the "subjective conclusions" not jive well with the objective measurements comments? :no clue: Thanks for sharing the info, i was looking at them earlier today as a possible small USB DAC.

OT, but I gotta tip my hat to Stereophile, of late they have been testing a ton of gear that I think is important to keeping the hobby relevant and is just plain cool in my eyes (Peachtree Decco, the aforementioned HRT DAC's, Kal Rubison has been burning though sub EQ's so fast I can barely keep up with his reviews). It's refreshing after a few dozen $10k+ speaker reviews to read about stuff I may actually buy in my lifetime.

My gestalt, on reading the whole article is that if you don't have a DAC this has a high value, but compared to a $1K+ DAC the $99 and $299 DACs mentioned have some problems.
So, I think the subjective review IS a little more glowing than the objective review, but that is useful.
It may turn out that while some of the measured characteristics -- eg jitter level -- isn't as good as for instance the asynchronous DACs, it does improve the sound.

I would have liked to have seen a comparison to a laptop internal audio out and/or a Creative labs external $50 DAC to look at that .

I would also be very interested to see how graphs for the (not in production) TCA DAC-MAN.

I'll probably hold out for an EMOTIVA DAC as the $99 MS seems to have a low S/N ratio and 14 or 16 bit truncation, so then you are looking at the $299 MS+ which has more competition from other better known DACs.

I agree with you that this attention to computer audio is a good turn for Stereophile. This is what people are interested in and where good subjective and objective comparisons are needed.

Mike

[smiji]

nice a5 article

If you haven't seen it, there is a very complimentary review of the a5 towers recently posted on HTS. Great review of them in a stereo setup specifically.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/home-audio-speakers/72317-arx-a5-initiation-listening-party.html

[Chane M&C]

A nice review - like most work from HTS - because it shows interest and insight into the music, not the specs, measurements, rooms, or preconceptions. Reading between the lines it seems that this team hears what we hear in the A5, which is to say, how and why we designed it.

I especially liked "they make loud sound like the new soft." This is exactly right, and it's part of the impression we mean to convey when we talk about all the blackness in the A5s sound. This is confirmed in the remark, "...the A5’s with their tight control of the soundstage kept those spaces empty..."

Love that. The most important thing a speaker must do is not interfere. It's what we take out - not what we put in - that reveals the music.

Note again from that review that measured responses are irrelevant to listener experience per se. (I'm tempted to put that into even stronger terms...)

Obsessing over a flat measured response is something we do as much as the next guy, but what governs what we put into production and actually listen to is what sounds right. Every single time this involves going through a number of crossovers and literally tens of thousands of response iterations from within that family of possibilities.

Incremental changes in the final network regularly challenge 10% and even 5% value change tables for capacitors and resistors. They're audible, they matter ... and you can't directly correlate them sufficiently by measurement. It's tempting to put that into stronger terms too. :wink:

On that note, another "rx-c" prototype is nearly done, hopefully to arrive available in about 120 days. Just as the 3rd gen tweeter complemented the A2rx-c and A3rx-c, it is this model too. Happy stuff.

[MikeNap]

Another great review Jon… it must be really rewarding to see your work praised so widely… especially by the "audiophile" community who has to be one of the toughest groups to please. (I do a ton of "Giclee" fine art reproduction… fine artist are another ultra challenging group to keep happy… and their mostly starving/poor making things even more fun. Some day I will compose a thread on the similarities of color and sound reproduction. Bass/Mid/Treble are amazingly similar to Shadows/Mids/Highlights… with better equipment capable of producing more "detail" in the lows and highs. That's all for another day.)

In your experience Jon, do you find the new tweeter already in use by the smaller tower a substantial upgrade over the unit in the existing A5? I have not seen any comparisons between the older A5 on the new A3=rxc. (is there a thread here?) My room is apron. 25x25, hardwood floors, and slightly vaulted ceilings. The couch is in the middle of the room facing the wall that would be home to the system, with an open kitchen behind. Would a room of this size be better served by the larger/older speaker, or are the sonic benefits to the new tweeter worth the tradeoff in bass response? I'm a bit of a newbie to the terminology… forgive me if the tech language is incorrect. Thanks for all the passion that goes into your craft.

MIke

[Chane M&C]

Another great review Jon… it must be really rewarding to see your work praised so widely… especially by the "audiophile" community who has to be one of the toughest groups to please. (I do a ton of "Giclee" fine art reproduction… fine artist are another ultra challenging group to keep happy… and their mostly starving/poor making things even more fun. Some day I will compose a thread on the similarities of color and sound reproduction. Bass/Mid/Treble are amazingly similar to Shadows/Mids/Highlights… with better equipment capable of producing more "detail" in the lows and highs. That's all for another day.)

That I would love to see, Mike. (Welcome aboard.)

You could say that any multiway speaker is fundamentally a fullrange driver aided by overtone transducers - the trick is taking on each successive higher frequency driver without harming that foundation. I wonder if what you do has a parallel.

By the way, if you print fine art giclee I'd like to email. I would like a few pieces.

In your experience Jon, do you find the new tweeter already in use by the smaller tower a substantial upgrade over the unit in the existing A5? I have not seen any comparisons between the older A5 on the new A3=rxc. (is there a thread here?) My room is apron. 25x25, hardwood floors, and slightly vaulted ceilings. The couch is in the middle of the room facing the wall that would be home to the system, with an open kitchen behind. Would a room of this size be better served by the larger/older speaker, or are the sonic benefits to the new tweeter worth the tradeoff in bass response? I'm a bit of a newbie to the terminology… forgive me if the tech language is incorrect. Thanks for all the passion that goes into your craft.

Tech language need not apply so you're in the right place. The difference between them as far as the tweeter goes relates to a change in illumination, if you will, and not at all to inherently superior/inferior drivers. How the sound renders shadings and dimensions relates more to altered internal design than to the two tweeter's simple respective responses.

But the A5 and A3rx-c are significantly different platforms and we'd recommend looking at them more in that light rather than for subtler differences in treble balance or definition. The A5 is a winning design of a significantly larger loudspeaker platform, and for a large room like yours, in either two channel or home theater configurations with a bass system like the Chase and upcoming Chane models, will deliver a much louder and more dynamic experience than the acoustically smaller A3rx-c.

If you can outline how the system will be used, what's in it, and what's planned, we can drill down to a better recommendation.

[MikeNap]

I have a small home theater room already set up in another part of the home, that has been really fun. It consists of a 50" Panny plasma, an Energy RC-Micro 5.1 speaker setup, a blue ray player and a decent AV Receiver, so that area is covered satisfactorily, at least for me.

I want to develop a 2.0 music only stereo for my family's great room. I don't have an amp yet, or any speaker cables, but I do have the house set up with Apple TV's and streaming extenders in every room. The 25x25" room is sub divided into a sitting area, the kitchen and the dining room area. The sitting area probably uses 18x12", has couches and a recoiler, and a large through rug on top of the hard wood floors. I would rather not use a sub if I can get away with it, for listening to music. I super imposed the A5's in a photo of the room which is making me even more excited to get the system on-line!

Any feedback on speaker/integrated amp/cd player much appreciated!