The Dawn of High Resolution Audio

The recent trend of sound quality enthusiasts are moving forward to high quality digital audio file called High Resolution Audio (Hires).

From Wikipedia:

There is no standard definition for what constitutes high-resolution audio,^[3] but it is generally used to describe audio signals with bandwidth and/or dynamic range greater than that of Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA).^[2] This includes pulse-code modulation (PCM) encoded audio with sampling rates greater than 44100 Hz and with bit-depths greater than 16,^[2] or their equivalents using other encoding techniques such as pulse-density modulation (PDM).^[3]

Although there is no firm definition, Sony describes high-resolution audio devices as those that deliver audio that’s clearer, sharper and more complex than other music sources and closer to the original.^[4]

High-resolution audio file formats include FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF and DSD, the format used by Super Audio Compact Discs(SACD).^[3] It should be noted, however, that audio encoded into one of these file formats is not necessarily high-resolution audio. For example, a WAV file could contain audio sampled at 11,025 Hz and quantized at eight bits, which is lower quality than CD-DA.

What kind of digital file categorize as Hires? 

1. Has higher sampling and or quality beyond usual CD sampling of 44.1 Khz

2. At least the same or much bigger data size than CD for the same song (LossLess Format) 

3. Need decent and modern DAC to play that can play various digital Lossless format (No Philips TDA 1541 could convert Hires files)

Hires has been evolving for about since 90's to Millenium era, but since the market at that moment were fulfilled with low quality lossy compressed mp3 (thanks to the iPod era) a lot of people ignored their existences. But after the dawn of some High Quality Digital Audio Portable and Network Access Storage. The Hires format immediately recognized as better solution to enhance the musical experiences of so called audiophile. Some highend manufacturer sees this as opportunity to provide gears for the purpose.

What makes the Hires format potentially becoming the future format?
1. Higher quality and smooth sound as long as the recording properly taken.
2. Easy to get (you can buy and download the file right into your personal file)
3. Portability (you can listen to it anywhere with the right device).

The very same album can download with various quality and various format

But on the contrary there are some arguments about that
1. Some people can not differentiate the quality with the same song between Hires vs CD
2. Some people prefer physical format (Vinyl Art Work for example)
3. Some copyright issue of file sharing or illegal copying.

So the decision is yours whether or not jump in to the wagon of Hires Audio, because I do...

Asawendo, July 2016

The ATP Cables Amitola and Indian Warrior 3 Review

A. Introduction of The ATP Interconnect Cables

What is the ideal characteristic of  interconnect cables?

It should be transparent and reliable enough to carry signal from one audio equipment into another without loss of information. 

What makes some interconnect cables could sound different to one another? Let us look into their parameter as follow:  

1. Inductance;
Inductance is the property of an electrical conductor by which a change in current through it induces an electromotive force in both the conductor itself and in any nearby conductors (wikipedia)

2. Capacitance;
Capacitance is the ability of conductor to store electrical energy (wikipedia) 

3. Resistance/impedance;
A measure of the difficulty to pass an electric current through that conductor (wikipedia)

The different in  inductance, capacitance, resistance could give us different character in sound quality (for better or  worse).

4. Noise rejection
All good interconnect cables should have been shielded  to avoid interference from any external noise.

5. Build quality;
No one want their interconnect cables easy to break or corroding over the time.  Please do remember sound quality is only as strong as their weakest point, so if we make the weakest point (hence the interconnect cables) stronger, then practically we can achieve higher quality in sound reproduction.

Now please allow me to introduce ATP Amitola and ATP Indian Warrior RCA, the hand made interconnect cables by Indonesian Acoustician Mr Atok Purnomo.The package have been in my sound lab for about a month and I will put my personal review on this post.

  

Here are the specification of ATP Amitola and Indian Warrior 3:

ATP Amitola (Flagship lines of ATP Cables)

PCOCC (Pure Copper by Ohno Continuous Casting) Conductor
Natural Cotton Damping
Double Shielding
Carbon Grade + Teflon Jacket
Flexy Sleeve
Nickel Free Gold Plated Cooper RCA Plugs
Single point grounding
100 Hours factory burned in

ATP Indian Warrior 3 (Entry line of ATP Cables)

OFC (Oxygen Free Copper) Conductor
Copper Spiral Shielding
Cross Linked PE and Teflon Jacket
Nickel Free Gold Plated Cooper RCA Plugs
Single point grounding

100 Hours factory burned in

The size comparison of the cables (normal cables were put for the references only)

I received both of them about a months ago. I immediately connecting them into passive attenuator and have been playing analog signal transfer for 24 hours a day in consecutive 21 days (approximately 500 hours). Just to make sure all the interconnect cables were completely burned in.

Using my test equipment which is consisting of Marantz 7300 CD Player as a source, Cayin Vaccum Tube A50T Integrated Power Amplifier and "The Django" DIY Loudspeaker with Accuton drivers. 

B. The Review

I began my first track with the album of UB 40 Labor of love  the track "Red Red Wine. This track is an example how drum beat, vocal and bass should timely sound together and harmonic. The Amitola and Indian Warrior 3 passed this test with good result. The sound is clear, timely and sweet. Amitola has better definition and transparency and the Indian Warrior 3 has a little bit warm on this song.

The second track was Take Dake "Japanese Roots". Again with the Amitola interconnect the sound is very clear, the micro and macro detail also transient were top notch. On the other hand, The  Indian Warrior 3 has smoother detail but I felt the high range is a little bit roll off on the top end. Later research showed me that Indian Warrior 3 has higher capacitance than Amitola. So the answer of warm kind of sound is because of this.

The third track was  Nils Lofgren "Keith Don't Go" both of them capable to deliver pace, rhythm, and timing so the guitar and vocals of Nils sound as if he is in front of me. System with amitola interconnect gave me grand and involving sound with extra atmosphere and transparency. The System with Indian Warrior 3 gave me softer sound compared to Amitola

The fourth track was George Benson "In Your Eyes" On this mellow song both Amitola and Indian Warrior 3 deliver sweet sound and liquid sound (as it should be with this track). Both of them gave me almost the very same feeling and experiences.

The fifth track was Chris Botti and Lisa Fischer "The Very Thought of You" On Amitola the sound of Lisa voice is as spacious and the detail notes of Chris Botti trumpet is definitely there. On Indian Warrior 3 the sound of Lisa voice is smoother and the Chris Botti trumpet is more pleasant to listen to.

C. Summary

The Pro's
ATP Amitola
1. Very transparent in analog signal transfer, clean and clear sound all the way
2. Outstanding build quality. 
3. More recommended for analytical and critical listening situation.

ATP Indian Warrior 3
1. Clean analog signal transfer and pleasant sound characteristic
2. Very nice build quality. 
3. More recommended for everyday and relaxing listening situation.  

The Con's 
1. Amitola might be too analytical for some people.
2. Indian Warrior 3 is a little bit roll off in high range frequency. 

Both of them are high quality RCA interconnect.

Asawendo, June  2016

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The Categories of Audio Equipment

Home Audio equipment refers to devices that reproduce sound or music in our home. Regarding the complexity to set it up and the sound quality reproduction one can produce, there are three categories of  audio equipment listed as follow:

1. Consumer Home Audio
Mostly the audio equipment on this category falls into fancy audio equipment and people can have them for low price in any electronic store.  The purpose is for everyday use that doesn't need any serious listening. Such example are mini compo, home theater in the box, active multi media speaker etc. They are simple to set up and don't need critical adjustment (almost plug and play). The sound reproduction is low to medium sound quality.

2. Hifi Home Audio
This is the category which people are getting more serious about the choice of their audio equipment. The hifi audio system often using separate equipment such as  CD/DVD/Blu Ray/Network Player, Stereo/Surround Sound Speaker or Sub Woofer, Stereo Integrated/Pre Power Amplifier/Surround Sound Receiver, etc. The price is getting (much) higher than consumer home audio and the system is no longer plug and play. They definitely need critical setup and adjustment. The result is medium to high quality sound reproduction.

3. Highend Home Audio
For sure this category simply falls into the most exotic, price is no object, state of the art quality audio equipment. People are very meticulous to set it up, by matching between one into another component,  then tweaking and fine tuning it continuously. Sometimes it took a long times and effort in doing the procedure. The result is best sound quality reproduction among others categories. 

Asawendo, June 2016

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High Quality Digital to Analog Converter (DAC)

Digital to Analog Converter, also known as DAC is the heart and soul of any exquisite digital music player such as Compact Disc (CD) Player, Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) Player, Blu Ray Disc (BD) Player and the Digital Audio Player (DAP).

There are some manufacturer which consistently makes excellent DAC Chip. From the legendary great sound of Texas Instrument BurrBrown 1704U-K, the grand images of Asahi Kasei Microdevices AK 4497EQ, the smoothness of Wolfson WM8741, the sweet sound Cirrus Logic 4398,  the lush sound of Analog Devices 1955, and the ultra detail  of 32 Bit ESS Sabre Reference 9018.

ESS Sabre in Sennheiser Orpheus

The implementation of high quality DAC Chip in any highend digital player is very important. Beside DAC chip we  need to pay attention to build better power supply and better analog preamp stage.

Lampizator Design

So we can summary in order to make decent DAC we need:

1. High quality DAC Chip 

(they must have high signal to noise ratio, very low jitter and accurate clock)

2. High quality Power Supply 

(they must have reliability and stability to power)

3. High quality Analog Preamp Output 

(they must have good design and good implementation) 

Audio GD DAC

Theta DAC

Many highend manufacturer (in alphabetical order) such as Apogee, Antelope, Audio GD, DCS, Esoteric, Gryphon, Lampizator, Linn, McIntosh, Naim, Meridien, Synaestec, Theta, Wadia, etc have their own proprietary design for their line up.  Some are using specific DAC chip, the others using specific tubes or specific transistor for analog preamp section. The sound quality result from the great DAC sometimes gave us goosebumps about the feeling of being right there at the concert!

 

Asawendo 

May, 2016 All rights reserved

The Zellaton Loudspeaker Review (Studio Reference One)

A. The Beginning

Regardless of language, religion, culture and origin, music definitely is a universal language which most people do understand and enjoy it very much. However, there is a big question that most people asked, what sort of equipment to reproduce it faithfully? Most are believed need a good or decent system. Well that is no doubt about it, but how we define a good system? People who are often to see a classical concert, live acoustic or many unplug performance found the experience is less convincing, involving and satisfaction to reproduce it with audio system. This phenomena is very common, thus it makes very long and sometimes lost journey to find the right one.

I have been looking for the holy grail system since long years back, this has been through many ways, such as auditioned many systems from different manufactured and visiting high end audio show for years. Along with the journey, some interesting things finally showed up, i.e, the loudspeaker, which intriguing me the most, why? Because it contains one or more electro acoustic transducers that is convert an electrical audio signal into corresponding sound. The sound characteristic among loudspeakers are clearly audible; such as warmer, tender, detailed, analytic, smooth, etc. 

Since the measurement of loudspeaker is clearly shown that they are the most distorted equipment in every audio chain, therefore choosing the right loudspeaker is one of the most critical decision.

Many technical and non technical factors need to be consider in order to choose the loudspeakers,  such as:

1.  Wife acceptance factors vs Husband insisting factors; 

2.  Speaker size vs room size;

3.  Budget Allocation for the purpose.

Let  say, the aforementioned problems are solved, are we done yet? Well, not as simple as we thought, there is one crucial factor, which is very important namely sound quality (SQ). SQ is the most difficult to measure as this implies frequency response, Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), group delay, etc and further some subjective personal parameters, such as:

1.  Is the loudspeaker able to reproduce clear and articulated human voice?

2.  Is the loudspeaker able to reproduce proportional and coherence tonal balance?

3.  Is the loudspeaker able to give decent, solid staging and 3D imaging?

4.  Is the loudspeaker able to give PRAT (Pace, Rhythm and Timing) and  dynamic of the live performance?

5.  Is the loudspeaker able to give involving and immersing music?

Based on those parameters, I feel blessed that able to audition some of the most known and popular loudspeakers,  whether it is bookshelf, floor standing, also tower one. Here is the list of my personal favorite in alphabetical order:

1.   Altec Voice Of Theater (grand and classy sound);

2.   B8W Matrix 801 (decent sound quality and sweet tonal balance);

3.   Ensemble PA-1 Silver (clear sound and unbelievable imaging and staging);

4.   Infinity IRS V (full spectrum and grand sound);

5.   JBL Paragon (Big sound, very involving one);

6.   Kharma Ceramique 1.0 (very fast transient and top notch dynamic sound);

7.   KEF Reference 104/2 (sweet vocal and decent bass and sparkling highs);

8.   Quad ESL 63 (coherency and transparency, 3D imaging);

9.   Rogers LS3/5a (great vocal and imaging);

     10. Yamaha NS 1000 (sweet and delicate sound quality)

Please note all loudspeakers that I have mentioned and auditioned above were decent one. Each one has its own sound characteristic.

B. The History

In pursuit to find another sonic excellence loudspeaker, I found Zellaton loudspeakers. The first encounter happened in one big international audio show in 2013. That was shockingly experiences, because that was the first time I have heard very organic and very lifelike sound reproduction from loudspeakers. They are very different in its sound reproduction from loudspeakers that I’ve ever heard before. Choir music was presented as if they were there singing directly for me!

The silver cone of Zellaton has unique similarity to Ensemble PA-1 Silver Reference Monitor (auditioned in 90’s). Later after a bit of research, I have found info that  the drivers of Ensemble PA-1 were also provided by Zellaton. The drivers first discovered and patented by Dr Emil Podszus, (their founding father) back in 1932.  

Zellaton has long history tp make their own drivers and they have several patents for its foam sandwich silver diaphragm. The drivers have special characteristic which are very rigid and very stiff but also very lightweight. Those are ideal characteristic to get linear and accurate motion to reproduce the sound. All of their loudspeaker are painstakingly build in house at their own research and development facility in Munich through a long manufacturing processed (leading by Manuel Podszus).

Another interesting key to this speaker are the extraordinary care being taken in matching the drivers. They are also crossover less in order to minimize phase error.  I think the research and development team of Zellaton (lead by Mr Manuel Podzus) have done extraordinary effort to get their homework with flying color! Low distortion, minimum phase error and minimum coloration, thus coherency and harmonic integrity are what we have in their loudspeaker. In short they are simply gives you honest and very revealing musical presentation without coloring the sound quality. 


C. The Close Encounter of The Third Kind

The first impression that I had when listen to the Zellaton loudspeakers in 2013 simply cannot forgotten for a lifetime. It was capable to deliver very solid 3D imaging an extraordinary tonal balance and completely disappeared. The loudspeakers simply drag all audiences in the room into very high quality music. This capability surely took the sound reproduction from good to glorious one.

Since then, its my dream to know and listen more about Zellaton Loudspeakers. Lucky me during Indonesia Highend Audio Show in October 2015,  I met Mr Michael Schwab as The CEO of Zellaton and Mr Yudistira as their official representative in Indonesia. They gave me opportunity to let me listen to my own CD at their first launching ever in Indonesia. 

All of my CD’s which is Mike Oldfield, Vangelis and Enya passed with sparkling color at that moment. Superb tonal balance and imaging of Enya voices from The Zellaton Reference MK2 Series. Unbelievable clarity with sheer dynamic attack in all of the music I have brought into!

After the show I have made several contact with Mr Yudistira and asked whether it is possible to listen and perhaps do a review for my blog. He did not respond in fact only told to wait for months as the listening demo room is going under renovation. Finally by February 2016, my phone suddenly rang and I got invitation to listen and review the whole Zellaton System. Without thinking any longer, I made an appointment, as this opportunity does not come twice especially to close encounter of the third kind with Zellaton!

D.The Music

Music can be divided into different  in many different ways. The artistic nature of music means that these classifications are often subjective and controversial. That is the reason why the recording  for this review comes in many different types and styles ranging from traditional jazz music to classic, psychedelic rock, easy listening, pop, blues, traditional also world music. Interestingly some genres may overlap into one and another.

I have selected recording with rich background that go far beyond the genres themselves. They are all performed  by some genuine musicians that came from various countries.

Any system capable to give the soul and rhythm from those recording then I can guarantee that system could deliver almost any genres of music easily… 

Note:Several auditioned has taken place and took very long around 6 hours each session before this review show up. 

E. The System Equipment

• Zellaton Studio Reference One

The open cabinet design of Zellaton Studio Reference One is absolutely stellar one. The weight of the loudspeakers is 95Kg and the wooden wall sports about  25-50 mm thickness. This thickness serves to reduce the effects of both internal vibration and external vibrations. Tapping on the cabinet itself indicated some great effort have been done to dampen vibration. 

Specification

·         Full range floorstanders speaker system

·         Multilayered matrix braced, open back design

·         Van den Hull internal wiring

·         1 x 7’ (180MM) Widebander driver

·         1 x 9” (223MM) Woofer driver

·         Nominal Impedance 4 Ohms

·         Frequency Response 24-20Khz

·         Sensitivity 86db/1W/m

·         Handcrafted in Germany

·         Dimension 113,7 x 44 x 64,2 cm or 44,8” x 17,3” x25,3”

• Schnerzinger System Cleaner and Balanced Interconnect and Power Supply            
• Axiom Turntable
• Synastec Audio Origo CD Transport
• Beyond Frontier Audio Tube DAC
• Beyond  Frontier Audio f/b Power Amplifier (2 x 300 watts Power Amplifier

F.The Review

The Zellaton drivers are definitely very unique, as aforementioned before the famous diaphragm is ultra rigid yet extremely light, no dust cap at all and pure geometric. They have some qualities that really set them apart from any other speaker I have known. They are so marvelous at reproducing the fine detail that tells you which instruments are playing, how they are being played, what studio recording/venue they are playing in, and how well or how poorly they have been recorded. The open cabinet design also intriguing me so much because of the good dipole sound of direct/reflected sound they could give.

The relationship between direct and reflected sound from this loudspeaker gave some orchestral music such as Titanic Music From Motion Picture and Carlos Kleiber - Beethoven Symphonie Nr.5 delivered with huge and grand sound stage where all the macro and micro detaile are captured perfectly and the sonic impact is really stunning!

Ultimate Santana’s Album  especially the song of “Black Magic Woman” and “Samba Pati” from Ultimate Santana were delivered amazingly rough, raw but also rich. As if the Carlo Santana and his guitar convincingly   present in the listening room with his rhythmic, soulful and also beautiful sound with all the band accompaniying his stellar performance.  I cannot believe as I feel listening to his concert instead of recording. WOW…

In Michael Streans Volcano Album especially the Volcano track I could feel the mountain erupted at close distance and the atmosphere seemed to "push" their 3-D soundstage forward from the plane of the speakers. The entire room is shacking and you can feel how the low frequency is moving circular toward the listener. It is an incredible thing from stereo speakers without subwoofers or surround speakers!

Chris Botty trumpet and Paula Cole silky voice really gave me some goose bumps on this system. Very involving and almost mystical one. As if I were there with pure sonic nirvana!

Then Lucky Octavian as one of bright young singer in my country singing a song from another great singer named Broery Marantika. If the system capable to reproduce his warm and tender voice I could say that system is involving one!

Indra Lesmana midi sound were delivered as it is. Full of modern synthesizer and acoustic instrument. The album was one of the interesting Indonesian fusion and sing beautifully in this system.With rhythm and pace that keep your heartbeat dancing together with music.

I love timing and pace that gave me a big big smile when listening to the duet of Eric Bibb’s guiar and Habib Koite Banjo singing Timbuktu. Both of their voice was handled with enviable authority.

Enya Dark Sky Island gave me both micro and macro detail and her music also her depth sopranos voice was one of the best I’ve ever heard from reproduction on any system to date.  Besides her vocal, acoustic instruments such as piano, wood wind and strings are also delicious and liquid.

Tracy Chapman and Jennifer Warnes are well known female singer and both of them are great distinctive female singer that have unique voices that can makes me cry. Just try Tracy Chapman “Baby Can I Hold You” and Jennifer Warnes “The Ballads of Runaway Horse” and you will know what I mean.

Take Dake from Asian Roots and Mamba Percussion. This is the album that I recommending for everyone who like bamboo and percussion instrument. Fast and furious sound with full of weight and power I might said. And Zellaton bites it with accurate timing from song to song!

 

The honest and top notch linearity of Zellaton speakers allow listening any kind of difficult music without any compression. This can be found in De Pan Flute. You can play the volume up and down without losing the musical integrity or sound compressed.

If you want 3D enveloping and immersing sound, then this system is the right one. Roger Waters Amused to Death, Pink Floyd Dark side of the moon and The Wall were fine example of decent recording being played in decent audio system. It was jaw dropping experience to listen to, very involving and immersing music  

 

Piano is one of the most difficult instrument to reproduce on any audio system because of its full spectrum frequency response. But  this is not the difficult task with Zellaton. With its ringing piano chords and the gorgeous sweep of pedal and knock on the floor, Keith Jarred The Koln concert and the soulful performance of Manhattan Hifi Jazz Quintet simply amazed me and made me floored. It simply incredible pace, atmosphere and stellar performance.

 

G. The Epiloque

The Pro’s 

     1.       High resolution sound, articulated vocal;

2.       Harmonic integrity and coherence tonal balance;

3.       3D Sound with incredibly staging and imaging;

4.       Lightning fast transient and dynamic;

5.       Very involving in musical reproduction.

The Con’s 
     1.       Zellaton will reveal anything in the recording including the bad one.

     2.       Its natural and organic sound might not suitable for everyone taste.

After several long auditioned, I can clearly stated that Zellaton loudspeakers have some quality that set them apart from any other loudspeaker I have known. They are so marvelous at reproducing the fine detail that able to tell which instrument are playing, where the recording takes place and show how good or bad the recording are.  

To sum it up Zellaton are made for accurate music reproduction as pure as it is...
Asawendo, April 2016