savoy014

Introduction You got to give it to Hifiman. It takes guts to launch a headphone system with a USD 50,000 price tag. Clearly aimed into Sennheiser Orpheus II territory, the Shangri-La headphone system consists of a fully balanced drive tube amplifier / energizer and a Electrostatic headphone. AV One, the local dealer for Hifiman arranged a private event to showcase the Shangri-La. Dr. Fang Bian, CEO and founder of Hifiman graced the event and answered any questions posed by the audience. Description The Shangri-La headphone amplifier is very large, with four 6SN7 tubes in the input stage, and four 300B tubes in the output stage. The amplifier is designed to offer balanced drive, and the microprocessor controlled volume knob activates a series of relay controlled resistors to set the volume level. Dr. Fang mentioned that they enjoy a very special relationship with TJ Fullmusic, the tube manufacturer, which is located just a short distance away from them in the Chinese city of Tianjin. A ...

Introduction I recently spent a few quality days with the Holo Spring Level 3 DAC, courtesy of Sound Affairs, Singapore distributor for Holo. There is plenty of chatter in various audio forums on the Holo Spring DAC, especially on the high level of performance it delivers for it's price. Description The Holo Spring is a really nice looking DAC (I adore those copper side panels), and is solidly built. It probably has the largest display I've ever seen, and the dot matrix panel is fully legible even from my listening position.  The Spring DAC is a  R2R DAC design. What differentiates the Spring from the rest of it's competition is that fact that DSD is decoded using a R2R circuit too. This is achieved by having two separate R2R circuits - one for PCM and the other for DSD. The front panel has four buttons. The first button puts the DAC in standby mode, while the rest of the buttons control the display intensity, oversampling mode and source. There are four oversampling modes,...

Frankie Pang, representative of Entreq Asia was in town recently to meet up with Entreq users. Frankie spent an afternoon at X-Audio, the Singapore dealer for Entreq, mingling with both Entreq customers and prospective ones. I have been using Entreq products for a while now, having owned and used the Minimus and Tellus grounding box (together with Eartha Silver grounding cables) for a few years now. I did a review on the Olympus Ground Box, Tellus and Eartha Silver grounding cables (click here for the Olympus Review, and here for the Tellus / Eartha review). Frankie shared with me information on some new products, in particular the K2, Everest and Tellus 2. The K2 and Everest are upgrades available to any Entreq grounding box user - you simply need to replace one or more of the binding posts with either the K2 or Everest. Frankie was confident that the use of either could significantly improve the performance of the ground box in question. He suggested that using one or two pieces sh...

Introduction R2R DACs seem to be all the rage nowadays. However, not everyone can afford the DACs from MSB or Totaldac. Luckily we do have some more affordable options now. Soekris Engineering brought discrete resistor R2R to the masses, with an affordable full populated board - just add a suitable power transformer and you were effectively good to go. Wait a minute - can't read a circuit diagram to save your life, and scared of handling potentially lethal voltages ? Have no fear - our very own local company, Vinshine Audio has come up with a ready made product utilising a Soekris board. My review model came with the Rev 3 0.02 % board. To an oldie audiophile like me, the fuss about R2R is quite amusing. When I started out in the hobby, all CD players utilised R2R DACs. A short while later, Philips started extolling the virtues of bitstream DACs. In fact, I secretly lusted after a Marantz CD 10 that used a bitstream DAC. Fast forward to the present, and the DAC in my main setup is ...

Introduction Italian hand-made things are beautiful - artistic, and made with passion and flair. You may not necessarily agree with their aesthetics, but they invariably make a statement ! Neutral Cable are a Rome based company that makes their cables by hand. The cable on test here is the USB Reference I (Improved) and is their flagship USB cable. The conductors used for data are made of teflon insulated 7N purity solid core silver wires. Meanwhile, the power supply conductors are shielded and spaced from the data cables to avoid interference. The new improved version promises better separation between instruments, better dynamics and articulation of low frequencies compared to the USB Reference. My review sample came in a nice velvet case. The 1.2m cable was sheathed in a nice bright yellow jacket and was neatly and well-made with a single USB head (Neutral Cable's website mentions that a double-head type cable can be made upon request).  The USB Reference I is Neutral Cable'...

Introduction It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. ISSE 2016 ran from 25th November to 27th November at Parkroyal Hotel, Kitchener Road.  While there were some notable absentees from this year's event, we had a new contingent of exhibitors from China and Taiwan.  Second Floor - Large Rooms First up is X Audio's lovely Vivid Audio setups. Swee and Ryan had set up a Vivid B1d with Octave amplification. Sources were Aurender's new streamer/DAC, the A10 and a MSB DAC.  Their second setup was anchored around the mighty Vivid Giya G1, with Acustic Arts monoblock amplifiers. The absolutely delectable Phasemation preamplifier and phono amps were also being used, while source equipment included the Aurender N10 streamer, MSB Select DAC (with mono power supplies) and AMG turntable. Cabling was a mixture of Acrolink, AET and Goebel HIgh End. Accessories included power conditioning from Torus, and a ground conditioner from Entreq. I really liked the sound from the Giya...