Category Archives: Digital IO

Bel Canto e.One Dac3

belcfront One of my favourite Shakespeare one liners [the better part of a verse, more like] is Juliet’s immortal outburst at Romeo; that had he been the nephew of Sid Vicious himself, he would have still been her one and only fancy… or as she put it: “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. It is obvious that John Stronczer, the chief at Bel Canto, had the core of this quote in mind when naming this DAC. Fortunately they omitted the name from the front – it looks extraordinarily slick in its purist attire.

belcback

Like the [near half priced] Benchmark DAC1 it sports a serious back panel with balanced XLR outputs. Specs tout a a 130dB dynamic range and an optimised and unbroken signal path without capacitors. The actual conversion is done with Burr-Brown PCM1792. The 5 inputs include USB next to the mandatory SPDIF and Toslink.

For an actual review, I strongly suggest you take a look at Stereophile’s article from last November.

Bel Canto Bel Canto

Colorado vNet Vibe Audio System


audio_server-CD_tray This is an awsome implementation of a dead simple concept. The Vibe Audio System consists of a media server with ripping capabilities. Depending on model, the server can handle 3 or 6 concurrent streams and thus serve 3 or 6 independent clients. The clever bit is the peripherals that all connect over ethernet. That includes an iPod dock, an AM/FM radio tuner, an analogue source decoder [complete with IR relaying] and a amplifier with a 7” touchscreen panel. Add to that software that installs on PCs in the network, letting you manage playlists and content, and you have a fairly impressive system.

wiring-diagram-vibe

There is nothing fancy about the specs; suffice to say that streams are uncompressed PCM and the only supported file format is WAV. But it is not specs that should propel this device into legend – it is sheer interconnectivity elegance. It even rack mounts if you so choose.

As for the amplifiers they appear a bit crammed in their wall flush mounts; but man, do I love the appearance.

What I miss most in the specs is not surprisingly Flac support.  It could have helped save a bit of disk space but at least it uses PCM over MP3.

Colorado vNet Colorado vNet

Benchmark DAC1 USB

dac1usb The Benchmark DAC1 is not a streamer; it is a digital to analogue converter – a DAC. All digital sources have a DAC. Some of those mentioned in this blog have Burr-Brown converters or other high-end DACs. But if that is not enough and you really crave a clear signal path from your digital media to your amplifier, you want a DAC that is built with a bit more love and caring. The Benchmark DAC1 is one such external DAC.

Some 5 years ago Benchmark Media Systems made [more of] a name for themselves by releasing the DAC1 with a list price of less than $1,000. It boasted a 24 bit / 96KHz resolution, balanced outputs and generally rave reviews for perfect sound. Half a year ago they went on to release this new model in a line of successors, which as the name implies, offers a USB input port [supporting 24 bit / 96KHz] in addition to the SPDIF and Toslink ports [supporting 24 bit / 192KHz] already there. With the added USB port the DAC1 can now serve as a sound board for your computer as well as replace the built-in DAC in your media streamer; provided, of course, that your streamer has a digital output.

At a little over $1,200 the DAC1 USB is still an affordable option like its predecessor was before, even if it is a lot of money.

Benchmark Benchmark

Arcus DAR300

dar300 Esteemed Arcus has a potent player in the game of CD ripping audio servers. This one can copy CD onto its internal hard drive, back it up onto a network attached storage and play it back in a number of formats, including Flac and Ogg-Vorbis.

Wireless communication is done using a USB Wifi dongle. Not exactly elegant but at least it lets you move the antenna to higher ground for good reception. Identifying itself over uPnP, other streaming clients can take advantage of the device.

Arcus Arcus

Logitech Squeezebox Duet


duethandset This is a clever device, in that it detaches navigation from the device completely and uses only the remote. The remote control has a small color LCD display which shows everything from playlists to album cover artwork. More Squeezeboxes can be linked together between rooms and either play different tracks or in-sync.

Just like with the Transporter, Logitech-owned Slim Devices once more shows true excellence in spec writing. One thing, however, they managed to keep somewhat hidden, is the fact that the Duet [unlike the Transporter] only supports streaming from their own SqueezeCenter server software. You cannot, in other words, stream from just any media enabled NAS disk or directly from a file server.

Like its bigger brother it supports Flac and Ogg-Vorbis. Indeed a neat device, even considering its obvious short coming.


Squeezebox Duet Squeezebox Duet

Logitech Transporter


transporter The Slim Devices Transporter followed in the footsteps of the insanely popular Squeezebox that came to appear as pack leader when the first media streamers began popping up. Despite its resemblance with a mid-eighties teenage lamps-are-cool amplifier, it sports some pretty amazing specs, including balanced XLR output and an Asahi-Kasei AK4396 DAC.

On a note aside, Slim Devices must be commended for an outstanding spec-sheet, in terms of writing. Instead of listing all sorts of numbers that mean nothing compared to sitting in front of it and listening, they disclose such little nuggets as physical characteristics of in- and outputs, that remote control commands are discrete and that firmware can be flash updated and many others. Seemingly trivial stuff but fairly interesting if you want to pair the device with what you already own.

Slim Devices Slim Devices

Hifidelio Pro-S

hifidelio The Hifidelio streamer  supports ripping and recording CDs. And not only that. It can rip to Flac format. On the connection side it has the usual analogue and digital audio connections but also boasts a 4 port switch and 2 USB ports. For displaying CD information it connects to FreeDB for artist and track titles.

Hifidelio entertains two lovely ladies called Leonore and Veronica. Leonore is a web based interface to the device that lets you control it remotely as well as edit playlists. Veronica is a VNC based remote control that can run on anything supporting VNC, such as a Windows Mobile based telephone. Just imagine: manage your playlists from your mobile phone! Neat!

One thing that stands out with Hifidelio is an incredibly active user community, discussing everything from music to firmware updates.

Hifidelio Hifidelio

Cambridge Audio Azur 640H Music Server

Actual hi-fi device CD Wifi Digital IO uPnP

cambridge640hskew The Azur 640H carries most of its weight in its ability not only to play CDs but also rip them to the internal 160GB hard drive and record new ones. Add to that Cambridge Audio’s reputation for unadorned clear audio and innovation and you have a truly cool streamer. The 640H can stream wirelessly from internet stations, local network resources or from other 640H devices. Interconnected servers simply share their file lists in what is effectively a distributed system. It supports MP3 and WMA but can not rip to Flac.

cambridge740h Big brother Azur 740H adds a bigger disk, Flac support and the ability to play different playlists in up to 3 different rooms, when connected to Cambridge Audio’s Incognito multi-zone system. Rumour has it that this new addition to digital sound heaven should arrive sometime mid-2008. Well, that is now. Let us have it already!

Cambridge Audio Cambridge Audio

TViX HD M-7000A

tvixm-7000a Korean DVICO has come up with a very nice modular package that supports streaming 1080i HD TV as well as audio, including Flac coded music. The clever thing about the TViX M-7000A is in part that it acts as a network device where you can add or remove media using standard operating system file operations such as Windows Explorer. Another part of the cleverness lies in its modular build. A DVB receiver matching the base of the device can be added in one simple operation in a fashion suggesting future add-on possibilities.

A slick user interface displayed on the attached TV makes for an easy but full fledged means of navigation. In the department for curious features it boasts a connection for an HDV camcorder.

TViX TViX

Linn Klimax DS Digital Stream Player

linn_klimaxds There is no way that you can not have heard the name Linn if you have moved in audiophile circles and whattayouknow? They too have made a media player! I don’t know anyone who has one, nor do I know of anyone in my immediate vicinity who sells them. I can only assume that it sounds wonderful enough to muffle the sound of the bank repossessing the house. It supports Flac but it appears not to support MP3, which is interesting but hardly very surprising. The picture here shows the player with a Samsung touch screen and a Buffalo TeraStation NAS disk.

Linn Linn

Barebone device Barebone device
Cheap good featured Cheap good featured
Actual hi-fi device Actual hi-fi device
High end hi-fi High end hi-fi
Out of this world Out of this world
CD CD drive
Wifi Wifi
Flac Flac audio
Digital IO Digital IO
Ogg-Vorbis Ogg-Vorbis
uPnP support uPnP support
Video Video

Please note that the ratings are not objective in any way nor are they a measure for quality. They are a measure for what I think the target group for the device was intended to be; my expectations if you will.

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