Prana-Bindu

I haven't taken the plunge, and I've never heard the new formats, but I have a suspicion that neither format will ever get off the esoteric ground on which they both seem to reside currently. Mass market will decide which new format, if any, will replace CD's. The benefits of SACD and DVD-A, as measured against CD's, just aren't enough to prompt Joe-consumer to start buying SACD's and stop with the CD's. Most people don't listen to music in settings that take advantage of the sonic benefits of either format: boomboxes, computer speakers, mid-fi stereos, etc. I believe both formats will fail and CD's will be replaced by a format with a smaller form-factor. The quality of the sonics won't do it; it will take miniaturization to topple the CD. Take it easy on me, please.

I'm not so sure you want to toe in the speakers more to get a bigger sweet spot. I'd aim the speakers 20 or so inches behind your head (more if you want to experiment with the size of the sweet spot). Any adjustment one way will emphasize one thing and compromise another. You'll just have to play around with the position of the speakers. A fellow from Singapore who used to frequent this forum had his RF-3's out from the wall behind the speakers by about 3 feet and flush to the side walls. He found this placement best for his goals (classical music in a concert hall). You might try this, but I think the horns need to be aimed at your head. I would figure out what off-axis response you'd be comfortable with and toe them out as much as still fits within that comfort zone. Toeing them out will give a bigger sweet spot, I think.... I have played with speaker positioning with my RF-3's, but the room is probably such an important factor that my experienced will be of little use to you. Those horns are finicky about toe-in, though: the slightest adjustment will produce quite audible differences. As such, experiment! To address reflections and bass problems, I'd look into absorptive panels and bass traps. You can learn about easy DIY recipes for these treatments at the Tweaker's Asylum at www.audioasylum.com Good luck!

Try this experiment, and also do it with your power conditioning equipment installed: pick a track of music with which you are intimately familiar; play it during the day on a weekday several times (over several weekdays?) and really get to know how it sounds; then play it late at night a few times (3:00 or 4:00 in the AM). Notice a difference? I did.

Mr. Bungle - California

When I did the comparison I described above (Theta Jade vs. Onkyo Integra), I was expecting the difference to be almost impossible to hear. The difference was clear and it was worth the money I had put into the new transport and cable. As both units were feeding the same digital processors, and the only difference was in cables, transport mechanisms and the addition of a jitter filter to the Onkyo, the differece in sound HAD to come from jitter and/or the transports' reading errors. You shouldn't judge without hearing it for yourself, so all I can do is encourage you to audition gear for yourself (if it's worth the time, effort and cash to you). The difference was like upgrading from $500 speakers to $5000 speakers; not much to people who don't listen to music like some of us do, but a world to those of us who enjoy the texture, presence and charm of well-reproduced tunes. I'm skeptical about many audio tweaks claimed to be stark improvements (I still can't tell whether that Auric Illuminator goop actually improves the sound or just helps read scratched discs), but I've been surprised too many times to rule anything out before trying it out myself. Here's a great way to get you started down the hopeless path of insecurity about your system's abilities: pick out a well-produced recording of a piece with which you are very familiar. Listen to it a few times over a few weekdays in the middle of the day. Then listen to it at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning (at the same volume, ideally). The claim is that the power is cleaner late at night because it is not being used as much by other users. If you can tell a difference with THAT, imagine what different equipment will do. You'll be building isolation platforms, suspending your cables on sorbothane feet, installing dedicated AC lines, building bass traps and quadratic diffusors, and listening to test cd's....

marksdad: I sent you an e-mail. I just want a simple home theater, and I don't really have the room for another pair of rf-3's, so a pair of rs-3's would likely suit me just fine. I also want to minimize the expense, as I'd like to keep my spending money flowing into the 2-channel system. Thanks for the beta!

Jitter: When music is converted into a digital signal to record onto a CD, a vocabulary is used that is specific to the format (CD, SACD, DVD-A, etc.). In other words, the CD format has a set of values that correspond to musical information (tone and and volume, I guess). The more storage capacity in the format, the more values in that format's set. Now, music before digital conversion is made up of an infinite set of values (frequencies and intensities). Conversion into a digital format requires a group of values to be represented by one value in the digital format's vocabulary. When that digitally encoded information is coverted back to analog for your ears to hear, the result is not a waveform made up of infinite values (positions on the wave); the result is a square wave made up of only the values available to the format (a set of tones and volumes that approximate the original values). The source of jitter comes from our imperfect ability to convert the right notes into digital information that is aligned with itself in time in the same way the infinite information in an analog waveform is aligned with itself in time and our imperfect ability to convert the digital signal into a set of approximated values (notes) played at the right time in relation to each other. The right note played at the wrong time is the wrong note.... That is digital jitter. There are several sources of this timing error, but the biggest is the S/PDIF encoding and decoding that occurs when you transfer the digital information from a cd player used as transport to a separate DAC. A CD player that does its own digital to analog coversion does not suffer from THAT source of jitter, because it doesn't need to encode and decode a S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) signal. S/PDIF encoding applies time information into the signal (places the notes in temporal relation to each other) and the subsequent decoding has to reconstruct the time information from the signal with its own clock. That's two clocks that add timing error, because clocks aren't anywhere near perfect. I don't understand how the choice of cable can affect timing errors, unless the timing information that is burned into the signal by S/PDIF encoding is carried not by values in the information but by the actual time it takes for the information to be carried by the cable. If that is so, then perhaps impedence mismatches, power supply fluctuations and other electrical anomalies in coaxial cable and conversion from an electrical signal to a light signal in toslink cable seem to be likely sources of timing error inherent only to the cable qualities. If I have any of this stuff wrong (yes, some of it is conjecture), please advise.

Many people have noticed a marked difference between coaxial and toslink digital interconnects. They both transfer S/PDIF encoded signal, but the interconnects have been isolated as sources of timing error (jitter)-- toslink more so than coaxial. You should experiment with both to hear what you like best, but a good rule to go by is to use the unit with the most recently designed DAC. Newer DAC's tend to do a better job than older ones (nevertheless, you should listen). If the two DAC's are about the same in technology, you should use the DAC on the DVD or CD player, as S/PDIF encoding for tranfering a digital signal to an outside DAC is the biggest source of digital jitter in a digital playback system. Using the DVD's or CD player's DAC will not involve S/PDIF encoding. If you do send the digital signal to an outside DAC (the receiver's, for example), you should seriously consider auditioning a jitter filter between the transporting unit and the DAC. I've never compared coaxial with optical in a way that would isolate the interface as the only difference. I have, however, made a direct A/B comparison between the two following digital systems: 1) Theta Jade transport, via Nordost Silver Shadow XLR, to Perpetual Technologies P-1A/ P-3A combo. 2) Onkyo Integra 6-disc carousel CD player, via Kimber Opt.1 toslink cable, to Audio Alchemy DTI jitter filter, via standard I2S cable to Perpetual Tech. combo. The Theta/XLR combo sounded so much better than the Onkyo/toslink/DTI combo that even my non-audiophool girlfriend could describe the differences: wider, deeper and more stable soundstage; more precise imaging; darker background; more air around the individual components of the music; smoother, less artifical-sounding; tighter, crisper transients. The difference was clear. Of course, this was probably more a function of the different transports.... Someday, I'll connect the Theta and the Onkyo directly to the P-3A using the excellent Kimber toslink, the Nordost XLR and the only coaxial cable I have (cheap-stylie Acoustic Research). Maybe....

I started my 2-channel journey with RF-3's. Now the bad boys are sitting upstairs unused, and I want to proceed to developing a home theater system using them. I plan to get the Outlaw 1050 used or new, unless y'all can recommend something comparably priced and nice-sounding (I don't much care about features or ease of use). I do want to get the remaining speakers used, so I was hoping you folks could give me a good idea of how much the following speakers are going for used and in great condition: RSW-10, RC-3, and RS-3. Thank you for your help!

Roller bearings have received much praise in the recent past as superior to cones and squishy feet. There is a manufacturer that offers such bearings for $99, but I can't remember which. Look on www.audiogon.com at the tweaks section and you'll find such devices (look for the $99 price).

You can find "footers" for spikes at www.audioadvisor.com They are an attractive (read: not so cheap) alternative to pennies or other DIY bases. I've used coins to protect wooden floors, and I learned that they don't stay under the spikes very well, because there are four spikes and the speaker only needs to stand on three. In other words, the coins will slide off. The footers are basically small cups on which the spikes can stand. If you want to go all out, you can build stands for the speakers that attempt to isolate the speakers from floor vibrations. For example: speakers on spikes, spikes on hard shelf (marble, granite, concrete slab, etc.), hard shelf floating on sand, sand in box, box on squishy stuff (racquetball halves or other audiophile vibration dampening material -- sorbothane, e.g.), squishy stuff on floor. It might improve things if you mass load such a contraption by adding weight to the top of the speakers (sand bags, marble or granite slabs, etc.) -- the mass loading would help (load) the above-described suspension system and it would help reduce speaker cabinet vibrations generated by the speakers themselves in their normal operation. Or you could just protect your floor with some hard material under your spikes. How paranoid do you want to get?

You can always find a pair of the tiny triodes for sale at audiogon.com, though you should be sure to check whether they are the current version or older versions. I once heard the tinies driving Avante Garde Duos. Pretty damned sweet.... I use the VTL IT-85 with Aerial Acoustics 7b's. I intend to upgrade by adding a ST-85 for the lows. I know what you mean about the VTL sound. I fell in love with it listending to a IT-85 driving NHT speakers and Aerial Acoustics 6's.

As I understand the question, you're asking whether the government should have more or less control over the population than it currently has. I don't like the question, because it asks us to quantify the notion of control. The question is either impossible to answer properly, or it is an invitation to discuss specific instances of governance. Nevertheless, I'll take this opportunity to spew about what I want the question to be. The only good thing about democracies and democratic republics is that they offer folks an opportunity to get rid of the leadership and replace it with something else. They don't do a good job of making the replacement reflect anything relevant to the leadership itself, but at least they get people fired and so avoid tyrannies. I propose that we add this neat replacement option to the legislative process itself and not restrict it to only the identity of the leadership. In other words, the citizenry should be given opportunity to negate the decisions of the lawmakers. How often, in what scope and in what manner this should be done are issues about which I cannot even begin to make good recommendations, but I really like the basic idea. For example, these "legislative retention elections" should not override certain commitments made to other nations, there should be stricter rules about changing constitutional law, etc. Very difficult issues to address, but I believe the basic idea could be implemented with success. Of course, since democratic systems are not at all successful in making decisions in any but irrelevant methods, perhaps the idea is bad medicine. Why leave it up to the masses of idiots out here to make important, detailed legislative decisions. There is a level of comfort in knowing that the ignorant, cheap and fickle will of the people is only a coin that is tossed to decide simple things like whether a dude keeps his job as leader. No matter what, we should be given the opportunity to oust the politically active wives/husbands of our leaders. Tipper Gore and that Cheney chick have GOT to go!

Separates are used in high-end digital gear because there are many different-sounding DAC's out there from which to choose. As much as it contradicts the long-standing myths about digital sound being perfect because "it's just 1's and 0's", the variety of sonic characteristics that is presented by digital gear is probably greater than in any other gear category (except maybe speakers?). In my case, the transport and DAC functions were separated because I wanted to take advantage of the resolution enhancement offered by the Perpetual Technologies P-1A. If it wasn't for that unit, I would probably have gone with a one-box player to avoid the jitter problems presented by the S/PDIF encoding used by most separates. There are many manufacturers out there that have addressed the jitter issue quite well with their separates, using units that sync both units' clocks to either the DAC or transport clock and avoiding S/PDIF encoding. This leaves the question open of why use separates to begin with if a one-box unit would not have to deal with the timing errors of separates. I suspect there are sonic benefits to minimizing the functions for which a power supply is responsible. The more a power supply is supposed to feed, the more fluctuations it experiences and manifests in signal errors. This, I believe, is why some transports and players have an option to disable the unit's display. There are multiple places in a digital system (8 maybe?) where jitter can occur. I suspect that most, if not all, such sources of timing error are directly affected by the stability of the power supply. This is just conjecture based on limited understanding of the subject, so take it easy on me. My point is that high-end, non-pro gear has indeed addressed the jitter issue and the solutions presented by a word clock don't address all sources of jitter. If a word clock takes as input an S/PDIF encoded signal, it doesn't even address the biggest source of digital jitter.

If your ears can't tell you which unit's DAC is better, a good indicator may be the age of each unit. Digital to analog conversion technology has made some huge strides in very little time. As such, the younger unit may be the best one to use to convert digital to analog. Another thing to consider, if your system is revealing enough, is the effects of digital jitter caused by sending the digital signal to a separate unit for conversion. Using the coaxial output (and any toslink output as well), requires the CD player to encode the signal in S/PDIF format to send to an offboard DAC. This encoding and the subsequently necessary decoding cause small timing errors that can degrade the sound. Conversion from digital to analog requires the arrangement/placement of the converted units of sound in temporal relationship to each other. Timing error (jitter) basically causes the right note to be played at the wrong time. Of course, this error is usually not very obvious unless you can compare a degraded signal with a less degraded signal with competent equipment. The answer to this source of jitter is to use the CD player's DAC or to use a jitter filter between the CD-player-being-used-as-a-transport and the unit containing the DAC. I love me some jitter talk!