Without, of course, wishing in any way, shape, or form for the title of his four seminars, “Just How ‘Absolute’ Is Recorded Sound?,” to be misconstrued as referring to a certain publication based on what I personally consider a dubious concept, Stereophile editor John Atkinson used everything from a drumstick to a cowbell, both sounded “live” and played back on the seminar room’s stereo system, to convey the message: “Nothing is real. How the recording art affects what you think you hear!” As John proceeded to point out that the brain combines information from separate left and right loudspeakers into a single stereo image, my own brain began to repeat the refrain, “30 or so more rooms in the hall, 30 or so more rooms, If one of those rooms should end up uncovered, your ass will be plastered far into the wall.” Hence I vamoosed, and now leave it to John to say more about the content of his seminar.

JA explains: Using the master files for some of my own commercially released recordings, played on a MacBook Pro using Pure Music and either Halide’s HD or the AudioQuest DragonFly USB DACs, I showed that it is a fallacy to assume that “the absolute sound of live music in a real acoustic space” resides in the bits, pits, or grooves, even when such a live event existed. Making recordings is an art, not a science and there may only be a coincidental resemblance between what is presented to the listener and the sound of musicians playing live, even when all concerned with making the recording were trying to be as honest as possible. Even the fundamental decision of what microphone to use moves the recorded sound a long way from reality—I played listeners the recording on the original Stereophile Test CD where the late J. Gordon Holt read an essay from a 1960s essay with a different professional microphone used for each sentence—and it is a naïve reviewer who doesn’t realize this fact.

Source : stereophile[dot]com

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In the AudioQuest room, I was treated to a course on the Powers of Network Attached Storage. It wasn’t really a course and it wasn’t really called that, but it could have been. AudioQuest’s Steve Silberman is convincing. And I am now convinced that, when the time comes for me to dive into computer audio and other digital waters, I’ll seriously consider a NAS for my needs.

While Silberman has found success with several different NAS devices, on display in the AQ room was Synology’s powerful DS712+, which Silberman says is highly reliable, has a very friendly user interface, and never compromises the performance of his system.

The system on hand was made of a MacBook playing standard iTunes and sitting on AQ’s stinky but effective QFeet isolation devices; a supercute, supercool AudioQuest DragonFly (see Art Dudley’s review in our October issue); Vandersteen’s similarly cute Treo loudspeakers; and, of course, AudioQuest cables throughout. NAD’s M51 Direct Digital DAC and partnering M50 Digital Music Player were also on hand.

Now, this was a cool system. I noted good imaging, fine bass impact, and an entertaining overall sound.

For more on Network Attached Storage, visit AudioStream.

Source : stereophile[dot]com

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