Gary Beard
For my 2018 Writer's Choice Awards, I've chosen two very deserving audio components which I've reviewed this past year.
Pass Labs XP-17 Phono Stage $4300
Well, well... I chose the Pass Labs XP-15 for a 2016 award, so what now? Conundrum? No, not in the least. The XP-17 is a worthy successor to the 15, and that means that not nominating it for an award would be disingenuous at best. The XP-17 retails for $500 more, but the enjoyment factor is so much higher that the additional cost only means we must save more, or simply keep enjoying the 2016 award winner. What the hell is wrong with those two options?
Read more HERE
Volti Rival Loudspeakers $12,300
Greg Roberts' Volti Rivals are terrific. I think my review makes it plain that I loved listening to them. Although more expensive than gear I normally review, the Rivals are loudspeakers that could be an endgame for many with a smaller room. Not only do the Rivals provide a sonic trifecta of explosive dynamics, solid soundstaging, and high resolution, but they are also wonderfully musical.
Certainly deserving of a 2018 Writer's Choice Award.
Read more HERE
Victor Chavira
The Tekton Design Impact Monitor $2000
Rarely does an audio component cause me to completely reevaluate my ideas and experience about our musical hobby. The Tekton Design Impact Monitor is such a product. With its unconventional ring of one-inch dome drivers operating down to 1 kHz, the Impact Monitor projects an open, detailed, and dynamic sound commensurate with speakers of $10,000 or more. The Impact Monitors are near full range stand mount speakers that produce deep, articulate, and balanced bass in my 20' by 13' living room. With its 95 dB sensitivity rating, I found the Impact's exemplary macro and micro dynamic responsiveness highly engaging. My stalwart 60 watts Bel Canto C7R integrated ($3000) paired very well and reinvigorated the listening experience in my home. Furthermore, having recently been connected to an $8000 20-watts tube integrated for several weeks, the Impacts revealed unparalleled harmonic nuance, depth of resolution, and emotional expressiveness. Approached with an open mind, the Tekton Impact Monitors will reward the listener with hours upon hours of musical enjoyment as they have for me during the last six months. Therefore, I positively confer my 2018 Writer's Choice to the Tekton Design Impact Monitor speakers with distinction.
Read more HERE
Michael Corsentino
PS Audio's Snowmass Software free as a download or $29 for the card
Just when you thought your digital front end couldn't sound any better…it does! What if I told you you could upgrade your DAC, achieve demonstrably improved sound, and spend absolutely nothing doing it? Sounds like a great deal doesn't it? Well that's exactly what owners of PS Audio's DirectStream DAC get with the new Smowmass operating system.
With its clever future proof design, PS Audio has given DirectStream DAC owners the ability to perform updates of the unit's operating system in the field. OS updates are free of charge to all DirectStream owners. Updating is done via the SD card slot located on the back of the DAC using the SD card included with each DirectStream. The process is quick and straightforward. Start by downloading the new Snowmass OS via PS Audio's website (HERE), copy the unzipped files onto the DirectStream's SD card, completely power down the DirectStream (that's both front and back power buttons), insert the SD card back into the DirectStream, and power back up. The blue logo power button on the front of the DAC will blink while the new OS installs. That's it, you now essentially have a brand new, better sounding DAC for free! Confirming the update can be done via the gear icon on the LED display. Don't have access to a computer or the internet? No worries, PS Audio will send you an SD card pre-loaded with Snowmass for a nominal fee of $29. Trust me, its more than worth it.
Snowmass is the 12th iteration of DirectStream lead designer and coding maestro Ted Smith's FPGA based operating system, each one surprisingly better than the last! Snowmass continues Ted's winning streak. Here's what he had to say about the new OS: "For Snowmass, I rewrote the FPGA code that upsampled lower rates of PCM to 352.8kHz (or 394kHz, depending). I wanted to get better control of the times at which things happened, in order to have more control of noise generated, and of the jitter generated by the FPGA. I could also get a better balance of FPGA resources needed to do the filtering. In the old upsampler, I got about 144dB S/N in the upsampling, in the new code I have about 156dB S/N. Lowering noise and jitter makes everything better – 352.8kHz PCM and DSD will also have a quieter background and essentially everything else mentioned, but perhaps not with the magnitude of improvement heard with CD."
Translation? Snowmass takes a major sonic leap forward over its predecessor OS Redcloud with across the board improvements. Lets break it down: quieter backgrounds, increased transparency, wider soundstage, more clarity, detail, dimension, and cleaner midrange vocals and highs. Authority and weight are improved, particularly evident in the presentation of bass. Imaging, texture, air and extension all see improved performance. Overall a less digital, more natural "musical" sound. All of this is 100% free! I was expecting improvements with this update but the way Snowmass transformed my DirectStream DAC left me happily gob smacked. Giving Snowmass a 2018 Positive Feedback Writers Award is a no brainer. My advice? DirectStream DAC owners, run don't walk to install Snowmass. You can always revert to Redcloud if it's not your cup of tea, but I'm confident you'll be as blown away by what Snowmass does as I am.
Larry Cox
If I wrote about it this year, consider it recommended. When I read other reviewers' recommendations, I'm looking to avoid buying or listening to a turd. I heard no turds this year, in fact, I liked and could recommend any item with my name in the byline—but PF restrictions being what they are, I'm disallowed from writing about everything.
To me, the central issue in recommending gear is communicating the subtleties that separate something that is a joy and merely good—what a ridiculous qualifier to be worried that something is merely good. "Runners up" for me are MrSpeakers Aeon Flow—really delightful headphone. Prism Sound's Callia—it sounded better, being richer, warmer, and more human in my system than in show conditions. Show conditions have sounded more analytical or emotionally distant sounding on ATC's larger, and ironically sweeter sounding, SCM40A speakers. Gold Note's PH10 phono stage is a wonder at its price for both the performance and feature set.
Pass Labs XP12 Preamp $5800
Pass' "entry level" preamp is a high first step into the Pass Labs fold, but oh is it nice. Grainless, effortless and quite invisible—I remain unsure how much of a signature to ascribe to the Pass or its dance partners in my system. My powered speakers come in quite neutral if a bit lean—a lean character is presented, I think, because they are a small speaker in a large room with reverberant surfaces. With a warm sounding DAC (Schiit Gumby, Oppo BDP105 or—in my system—Prism Callia) the XP12 sounded... warm. With a leaner sounding DAC like the LampizatOr Euforia (again in my system) the Pass sounded leaner. Never, however, did it sound threadbare or colorless. The XP12 and its progenitor, the XP10, both played well with my powered ATCs which can be unkind dance partners. To work well with my speakers, coupled to a very adaptable sound, you are also not going to hear a thick, saturated sound with the XP12 unless your source components bring that to the dance.
Read more HERE
Schiit Gungnir MultiBit DAC $1295
I only had this DAC for a short time, with unrelated stressors affecting my experience, but I liked it very much. It is not a characterless DAC, but its character makes a genre's "imprint" clearer rather than showing off the sound of the Gungnir MB. ("Gumby"). I read that Schiit's Jason Stoddard prefers the Gumby to Schiit's twice the cost Yggdrasil. Reading that before hearing the Gumby (I've not heard the Yggdrasil) I thought the comment disingenuous. In my system, with the Pass noted above, the sound was rich, detailed and propulsive, but not propulsive in an unrelenting way. Older Naim products can sound unrelenting in the wrong system, for example. That's not what I mean here. I did not feel deprived of detail with the Gumby and it was certainly a good and perhaps exciting match with my ATC speakers. The Gumby and Prism Callia were meatier and tonally richer (saturated) than my LampizatOr Euforia and so a better match for my system. I really liked the sound and thought it no less than competitive with the other DACs, despite a lower price. Perhaps it performed better than the other DACs I mention here.
Review coming
Mezze Audio 99 Neo Headphones $249
I have a preference for an open ear headphone to a closed ear style. MrSpeakers' Aeon Flow ($799) are richer, more detailed and superior sounding to Meze Audio's 99 Neo. Even though it's three times the price of the 99 Neo, the Aeon Flows are a good value, but it makes the 99 Neos even more so. The 99 Neo, despite being a closed ear headphone delivers so much for so little, it's foolish to complain about perceived shortcomings. It is a sonic and stellar bargain.
Tonally and timbrally rich, the musicality of the 99 Neos is undeniable. If your music trades in harmony and melody rather than bedrock scraping deep bass and noise, the 99 Neo delivers in spades. I tend to listen to music that is filled with harmony and melody unlike some of my counterparts. Intimate recordings sound intimate rather than quiet and small, without the loss of tone and timbre as happens with our voices when we whisper. Put on more raucous fare and the 99 Neos remain at home, and perhaps excel even more in this domain. I did not, however, listen to much "aggressive" music this year. These days I'm not listening to much music with deep bass, so I have no comment on the 99 Neo's performance there. The 99 Neo doesn't scale up (show as much potential) as well as the Aeon Flows when coupled to higher end components, but for $249, I can accept that. Goldilocks choices are rare or imaginary in high end audio, but maybe this is one is just right.
My father was in hospice for much of this year before passing. While I cherish music, my ability to engage with it was diminished. I apologize for taking longer with my reviews than normal and thank all the companies and people I worked with this year for their understanding.
Review coming
Pete Davey
Audio Desk Systeme Ultrasonic Vinyl Cleaner PRO $4499
One of the original Ultrasonic Vinyl cleaners. Fully automatic cleaning to drying.
Why: This product really impressed me. There is nothing more tedious about looking over your precious vinyl collection than the cleaning process itself. There have been limitless impostor products released, but none were designed solely around vinyl record cleaning using ultrasonics. Most competitive machines use ultrasonics either in the wrong frequency or in the wrong strength. It doesn't require a ton of effort to remove the gunk, so why resort to a machine used in a medical lab as most other DIY-esque products have done? This is a proper cleaning machine with one purpose only, to preserve your hard earned collection.
Read more HERE
AGD Production Vivace GaNTube Monoblock Amplifiers $15,000/set
I've never been as impressed with a Class-D based topology based amplifier than with these units from AGE Production. Not only does it please the visual senses, it goes several steps farther to please the auditory senses. Gone is the usual grainy / fatiguing atypical Class-D sound where most manufacturers use off the shelf components from either Hypex or Bang Olufsen, this is a ground-up creation using Gallium Nitride Transistors from a madman electrical engineer / designer that is well-versed in the test instrumentation field. If you ever want to go to an amplifier that you can leave on 24/7 w/out causing the cops to show up thinking you own a drug lab at home, and have it actually sound AND look good, look no further. A wise investment indeed.
Read more HERE
Roon $119/year or $499/lifetime
Roon is a one-stop-shop music organization and playback system targeted for both basic users and advanced audio tweakers.
Simply put, Roon changed my life. I have been collecting / playing back digital music for a good 20 years. It started with Windows 3.1 (dating myself here) with singular .WAV files, one at a time, no metadata—out of a sound blaster. That moved on and on with different parts of software (Amarra, Pure Music, Audirvana) with the introduction of USB-based soundcards / or "DACs" but I never took it that serious until Roon was introduced to me by an old friend. Back during its original inception, it was quite impressive on how it played with different iterations of operating systems, DACs, etc, but it's really "grown up" into a fully fledged one-stop-shop digital playback ecosystem. Not only is it super reliable, it makes rediscovering my library a fun task. It now even includes options to DSP your music in real time, send it to several endpoints (uniquely or simultaneously) and so forth. I've even leveraged its API to build a Volume Knob out of a Griffin Powermate via a Raspberry Pi via WiFi. This is the last stop when it comes to playback software. Those not using it are kidding themselves with unreliable or hard to use software. Swallow the purchase price and move on with your life, you won't regret it.
Review coming
