MHA100 - HiFiClube
Transcription
MHA100 - HiFiClube
WWW.HIFICRITIC.COM ISSN 1759-7919 HIFICRITIC AUDIO REVIEW MAGAZINE £17 Vol9/No2 JUL - SEPT 2015 CABINET RESPONSIBILITY Keith Howard looks at the thorny question of loudspeaker cabinets, and investigates some interesting new Dutch software ARCAM A49 Chris Bryant is very impressed by the sound quality of Arcam’s new ‘Class G’ integrated amplifier NAIM STATEMENT ENCORE Ten weeks on and Naim’s remarkable Statement amplification continues to improve, as Martin Colloms explains THREE BLOGS Everard, Kennedy and Rigby summarise their recent web-blogs on a very diverse collection of components MEETING THE SONDUCTOR Ole Lund Christiansen discusses the techniques he uses when designing a purpose-built listening room PART METAL JACKET Newcomer MBA’s loudspeakers use metal enclosures to very good effect, as Paul Messenger discovers MUSIC & MORE REVIEWED THIS ISSUE Arcam A49 Linn Klimax Solo Linn Klimax DSM MBA Progression MBA Pulse Naim Statement Spendor A5R HIFIMAN HE400S HIFIMAN HE1000 McIntosh MHA100 Goodmans Triaxiom 212c Existence Euphoric HIFICRITIC JUL | AUG | SEPT 2015 1 HIFICRITIC Vol9 | No3 Jul | Aug | Sept 2015 I ’d like to ask readers to spare a thought for Malcolm Steward, a regular contributor to these pages and the dear husband of our makeup artist and designer Philippa, who suffered a very serious road accident back in July. Malcolm is still in intensive care, and the prognosis at the time of writing remains uncertain. Editor | Paul Messenger Writers Colin Anderson Chris Bryant Martin Colloms Stan Curtis Greg Drygala Andrew Everard Nigel Finn Chris Frankland Steve Harris Jose Victor Henriques Keith Howard Jason Kennedy Paul Messenger Paul Rigby Publisher | Martin Colloms Design | Philippa Steward Published by HIFICRITIC Ltd. 29 Flask Walk London NW3 1HH info@hificritic.com www.hificritic.com Printed in the UK by Premier Print, London Cover photo: AG Studio, Margate HIFICRITIC is a printed publication available by subscription only. © HIFICRITIC Ltd 2015. All rights reserved. Any unauthorised editing, copying, reselling or distribution of the whole or part of this publication is prohibited. The views expressed in any articles in this magazine should be taken as those of the author or the person quoted unless indicated to the contrary. While HIFICRITIC endeavours to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, its accuracy cannot be guaranteed and HIFICRITIC.COM accepts no liability for any use of, reliance on or the accuracy of such information. 2 HIFICRITIC wants some feedback from readers, on the sort of content that would be most valued. I’ll continue to try and include worthwhile features to counterbalance the inevitable hardware reviews, but am particularly interested in finding out whether readers want to read more about analogue or digital sources, and if digital whether it’s about DACs, servers, downloading or streaming services. The hi-fi world has become fragmented, and the dividing line seems to be related to the prime music source being used. That in turn seems to vary according to the age of the individual reader and customer. Those born before the mid-1960s will probably have accumulated a fair amount of vinyl before CD became the dominant carrier in the late-1980s. (It might have started in 1983, but took some years to get going.) Barely a decade later, file-sharing began to erode the primacy of CD as the most universal music storage medium, even though the widespread use of MP3-coded material was well short of hi-fi (or for that matter CD) quality. However, MP3 filesharing helped home computers get their foot in the music door, which has had huge implications. The continuing development of both computers and the internet constantly increases the range of possibilities. But this constant change can also be a problem, albeit one that seems to be a characteristic of a 21st century, where nothing has to be right first time, as it can always be fixed by a subsequent update. Although Paul Rigby’s piece on page 48 did give me pause for thought, it’s undeniable that a vinyl disc made more than 50 years ago is still playable today. One reason why the guys who invented vinyl got it right first time (apart from the mono-to-stereo change) was maybe because they didn’t have the option to go back and change it later. In contrast, digital media in general seems to be in a constant state of flux today, always changing from one day to the next via further software upgrades. This ability to download updates from the internet may perhaps bring improvements, but the negatives are no less valid. Indeed, a neighbour who works at the very sharp end of computer technologies recently told me that he never installs updates on his computer because they simply slow it down and clog it up. (This view is not generally accepted due to the need for up to date virus protection.) Furthermore, despite the considerable growth of new digital prospects and techniques, the last few years have also seen a significant revival in enthusiasm for analogue vinyl for music storage and replay. The reasons are numerous and various, but among the more significant observations are that the customers for new vinyl replay equipment are not merely ‘old fogeys’ resuscitating their record collections, but cover a wide range of ages. Whether analogue vinyl simply sounds more natural and musical than digitally processed material will doubtless remain a bone of contention for the foreseeable future. Paul Messenger Editor HIFICRITIC JUL | AUG | SEPT 2015 Contents 4 STAN’S SAFARI No31 42 Stan puts together a ‘bucket list’ for his ultimate loudspeaker 6 PART METAL JACKET These planar headphones from China set a very high standard indeed 44 Newcomers MBA adopts a modular approach to its metal-cabinet loudspeakers 8 MCINTOSH MHA100 CABINET RESPONSIBILITY Keith Howard investigates loudspeaker enclosures, and tries some new Dutch software for analysing problems 15 TRIAXIOM REVISITED 46 SPENDOR A5R 48 EXISTENCE EUPHORIC 50 NAIM STATEMENT ENCORE Ten weeks after switch-on, Naim’s Statement amplifier continues to improve 28 THE ENGINEERING BOYS Arcam’s John Dawson talks to Chris Frankland 31 VERTEX AQ ALETHEIA DAC-1.5 REVISITED 51 LINN KLIMAX DSM & SOLO 52 MEET THE SONDUCTOR Steve Harris meets listening room specialist Ole Lund Christiansen 41 HIFIMAN HE400S BITS & PIECES Arcam’s irDAC can handle numerous digital sources, and Sonority Design’s unique isolation platforms 53 NAIM’S SOFTWARE UPDATE Naim has updated its streamer software, but has this also upgraded the sound? 54 JAZZ PICKS Greg Drygala’s Jazz reviews tend to focus mainly on the ACT Music label this time 56 Existence Euphoric: page 20 THE BEST OF CLASSICAL Colin Anderson picks a new selection of recent classical recordings 58 Jason Kennedy tries out Linn’s top-of-theline Klimax DSM and Solo components 36 MBA adopts a modular approach on page 6 A planar headphone that really delivers the goods, and at a budget price to boot Changing a capacitor has substantially improved this DAC 32 JASON’S WEB-BLOG JK discusses the Czech Remton phono stage, and Ken Ishiwata’s Eindhoven listening room. This Finnish speaker combines dreamy woodwork with a single full-range driver 22 A MONO OBSESSION Paul Rigby – aka The Audiophile Man – gets serious over mono LP playback and tip sizes Martin Colloms tries out a compact sealedbox floorstander 20 WORDS & MUSIC Andrew Everard muses on copyright issues, Astell & Kern’s AK Jr, and a Gramofon Paul Messenger wall-mounts a fifty year old 12-incher 16 ARCAM A49 Chris Bryant is very impressed by Arcam’s new Class G integrated amplifier Can a headphone amplifier really be worth £5,000? Jose Victor Henriques bought his! 10 HIFIMAN HE1000 ROCK, POP & OTHER NICE MUSIC Nigel Finn from the Chord Company reviews six recent rock and folk releases 60 SUBJECTIVE SOUNDS The significant role played by loudspeaker enclosures looms large in this HIFICRITIC MIYAJIMA MADAKE Paul Messenger is seduced by a Japanese cartridge with a bamboo cantilever HIFICRITIC JUL | AUG | SEPT 2015 Arcam’s John Dawson talks to Chris Frankland on page 28 3 ■ REVIEW McIntosh MHA100 IS THE ALL-AMERICAN MCINTOSH MHA100 HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER THE 26.5LB ELEPHANT IN THE CHINAWARE SHOP? CAN IT REALLY BE WORTH £4955? JOSÉ VICTOR HENRIQUES REPORTS. T he MHA100 is McIntosh’s first headphone amplifier. It’s ‘Proudly made in USA’, at the factory in Binghamton, near New York, where McIntosh has designed and built all of its electronics in-house, since 1949. I visited the factory some 25 years ago and remember well how proud they were to show me the nursery where all those blue eyed babies are born and their autoformers take their beauty bath in the hot tar tub. One of the USA’s most iconic brands, McIntosh is now part of the Fine Sounds Group, along with Sonus Faber, Audio Research and Wadia. The fascia is classic McIntosh with the dark glass plate decorated by bright and conspicuous blue VU meters. The logo and panel letterings are illuminated by fibre optics and an OLED display shows volume, input selection, digital signal resolution and programmable functions. Remote control is provided, but hands-on volume and other control adjustments are made by large multi-task rotary/pull buttons. A small red toggle switch applies power, although the unit also switches off automatically after a few minutes of idle. A smooth volume control with a digitally controlled attenuator has 0.5dB steps. The analogue section has single-ended and balanced inputs and outputs, and the heavy duty gold-plated loudspeaker terminals are fed from a 50W/channel stereo amplifier. McIntosh’s 8 Power Guard and Sentry Monitor technologies ensure protection against clipping or mismatched headphones and speakers. A Headphone Crossfeed Director (HXD) feature helps headphones to image more like conventional speaker stereo, and a five-step bass boost control (in 2.5dB steps from 0 to 12.5dB) gives further flexibility. Four digital inputs (USB 2.0 asynchronous, AES/EBU, co-ax, and optical) allow the McIntosh digital engine to upsample and decode digital music at up to 32-bit resolution and 192kHz sample rate. This adorable ‘mini-MC302’ shares the unique looks and venerated voice of its bigger brothers, and is also a stereo pre-amplifier with an internal DAC and a 50W/ch amplifier. And the amplifier is not just used for speaker listening. When listening to headphones, it drives the output autoformer that impedance-matches to various headphones. When listening to speakers the autoformer is disconnected; when listening to headphones, the speaker binding posts are disconnected; but the same power amplifier drives each mode. Thermal Trak output transistors help it run cool at idle, the built-in bias diode responding almost instantaneously to changes in transistor temperature to avoid any lag in bias adjustment. I used the MHA100 as my reference amplifier to test HIFIMAN’s fine HE1000 (see my review in this issue). In a time when a few hundred quid can buy a DSD/DXD compatible octo-speed portable DAC, or a couple of thousand can be invested in a balanced class A headphone amp like the Auralic Taurus, the MHA100 might not even be the best you can buy for this kind of money. (It doesn’t even have tubes in it for god’s sake!) So what does the MHA100 do that the others don’t? In short, it allows any headphones to be themselves. That impedance matching and the almost limitless clean power available, supplies high quality headphones drive without imposing any character. Prior to reviewing the HIFIMAN HE1000, I tried all kinds of headphones: planar, electrostatics and dynamic, including the McIntosh MHP1000, and even some top in-ear types. Invariably they all sounded better with the MHA100 than with anything else I tried. HIFICRITIC JUL | AUG | SEPT 2015 REVIEW ■ JOSÉ VICTOR HENRIQUES Sources got the same treatment. Chord Hugo and iFi micro-iDSD were used as a sources for DXD and DSD files, and were allowed wide scope to reveal their innate differences. Hugo is the more ‘organic’, fuller bodied, and really sounds great with DXD 384kHz files. The iFi micro-iDSD is drier with a tighter, faster though less extended bass, and is also compatible with native DSD256/512. And though the internal DAC in the MHA100 is no slouch up to 192kHz, the Hugo DAC/ MHA100 combo sounded reassuring with still higher sampling rate and resolution files and made me feel even more comfortable. With so many variables involved, it’s good to know the MHA100 stands its ground as a reference you can always count on, provided you engage neither the bass ‘tone control’ nor the HXD crossfeed feature. Listen to your ‘blues’ straight. So keeping in mind that the sound of any headphone can only rise up to the level of the source and amplification up stream, my listening impressions follow below Sound Quality For this assessment, the MHA100 was used as a fully fledged headphone amp and DAC. The HIFIMAN HE1000 were my headphones of choice. I also tested it as a pre-amplifier driving a pair of Focal active loudspeakers, and then as a full amplifier driving a pair of Sonus Faber Concertinos – which it did with grace and aplomb. In headphone mode it sounded transparent, did not get in the way of the music, and can deliver 1W of clean, articulate, transparent, dynamic yet sweet power, here in high level headphone mode using the 150-600 ohm impedance. However, I would not regard it as completely neutral. It has a ‘house sound’ that’s somehow reminiscent of the exquisite French oak undertow of a great American Grand Cru red burgundy. To supply a few musical examples, soprano Marianne Mellnäs’ pure and heavenly voice on Proprius’ Cantate Domino remains a powerful test. It was recorded to analogue tape in 1976, but our version was a 24-bit 88.2kHz download from HD Tracks. The choir, brass and organ test the recording equipment to its limits, yet miraculously it never sounds congested, opaque or harsh. To my surprise I now discovered subtle shades of contralto in Mellnäs’ voice, and found a tenor singing the part of a countertenor. The MHA100/HE1000 combination helps one hear and ‘see’ everything, both inside and outside the church. From the beginning of the track, a wuthering low frequency noise seems more and more like traffic noise. I had heard traffic noises HIFICRITIC JUL | AUG | SEPT 2015 AUDIO EXCELLENCE Manufacturer’s Specifications before throughout the whole record, but never to this level of detail. Bob Dylan’s Infidels (via Tidal CD streaming) has led many a Dylan fan into infidelity, as they hated the man for it. It’s more up tempo than previous recordings, played with rock gusto with a little help from Mark Knopfler (who produced it) and former Rolling Stones’ guitarist Mick Taylor. I selected this album for comment because I’ve never heard it like this before. Drums that have sounded cheesy and bloated have now some real punch and rhythm, and I can finally understand what Dylan is singing. I mean the lyrics, not that I understand what he means. (Fortunately perhaps, because if Dylan means what I think he means, he must have been under the influence of something more than just religious and political bigotry…) You don’t know the meaning of dynamics (-50dB to -10dB in the wink of an eye) until you listen to a truly exceptional DSD256 recording, like the Rondo-Finale of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, played by the Berlin Philharmonic (Native DSD - DSD256 direct recording). This was recorded live in Budapest, and is the closest thing I’ve heard to an analog direct-cut. It starts ever so softly more as a sonata with fugal elements than a true rondo, until it reaches the climax or apotheosis. That’s when you understand the importance of a reproduction system like this one: the rolling of the timpani blows you away at 4:45 and the brass breathes in pure joy like a clean mountain wind. And what is more, if you are a music student you can use this symphony as a tool to study Mahler’s introduction to Bach’s counterpoint techniques while at the same time following the interaction of the different melodies in the symphony. Headphone Power Output High: 1W/Normal 250mW ____________________________ Headphone Output Impedance 8-40; 40-150; 150-600 Ohms ____________________________ Speaker Power Output 50W/ch ____________________________ Speaker Impedance 8ohms ____________________________ Sensitivity (Single-ended, Balanced) 300mV, 600mV ____________________________ Input Impedance 25kohm ____________________________ Pre-Amp Output 3V (8V max) @ 500ohms ____________________________ DAC 16-24-bit/32-192kHz ____________________________ Size (WxHxD) 29.2x14.1x45.7cm ____________________________ Weight 12kg ____________________________ Price £4,995 Ancillary Equipment Used Headphones: Dynamic: Audioquest Nighthawk, B&O Beoplay H6, Focal Spirit One, Mcintosh HDP1000, PSB PM4U1, Sennheiser H800 Hybrid: Obravo HAMT1 Electrostatic: Koss ESP950, Stax 009, King Sound HS3 Planar Magnetics: Audeze LCD-3, LCD-X, EL-8, HIFIMAN HE1000, HIFIMAN HE560, Oppo PM1, PM3, Ultrasone Edition 8 Headamps & DACs: Asus Essence III, Chord Hugo, iFi Micro-DSD, McIntosh MHA100, Meridian Explorer V1, V2, Director, NAD D3020, Nagra HD DAC, NuForce Micro 3, Oppo HA1. Conclusions I admit my enthusiasm for this McIntosh design and those deep blue eyes, which could have influenced my appreciation. However, since the eyes are the windows of the soul, the MHA100 certainly has a great musical soul. It may be highly recommended, and indeed I was so delighted with it that I bought the review sample for my own enduring pleasure. 9 Subjective Sounds PAUL MESSENGER HIFICRITIC AUDIO AND MUSIC JOURNAL BECAUSE HIFICRITIC IS FUNDED BY ITS READERS THE SUBSCRIPTION COST IS NECESSARILY HIGHER THAN FOR MAGAZINES SUBSIDISED BY ADVERTISING REVENUE, THOUGH CERTAINLY NOT AS HIGH AS PROFESSIONAL SPECIALIST JOURNALS. O ur budget is directed towards obtaining the very best research and writing from the very best freelance authors, whom we encourage to express themselves fully in print, an opportunity not always available via established publishing regimes. Through the use of a virtual office, we aim to be exceptionally cost effective. Subscription management, production, printing, editorial, design, laboratory measurement and journalism are scattered around the world, yet are also efficiently and almost instantaneously linked at the touch of an e-mail send button. Our independence from product advertising allows us to criticise and comment without fear or favour. The HIFICRITIC team scrutinises interesting and internationally important issues and equipment in depth and detail, technically and subjectively, and provides comprehensive investigations into the key issues facing high quality stereo music recording and reproduction today. Martin Colloms, Publisher SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS: Full details are provided on the WWW.HIFICRITIC.COM website, including foreign rates and secure electronic payment. If you prefer to pay direct for the UK please copy this page and send the filled in form, including a cheque payable to HIFICRITIC Ltd and send it to: HIFICRITIC, 29 Flask Walk, London NW3 1HH. Our website supports the day-to-day activities, reports, archive and download material, while the Journal contains the primary contemporary output of our editorial team. The HIFICRITIC audio journal is a full colour print magazine with about 40,000 words of original editorial content per issue. To see what is in our most recent issue, see our current issue page. Name ........................................................................................................................... Address ....................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................... Town.............................................................................................................................. Post Code .................................................................................................................. Country ....................................................................................................................... Email ............................................................................................................................. Please give your choice of issue number for start of subscriptiºon (see above) Issue no. ......... UK SUBSCRIPTION PRICES: (mail included) 1 Year £65, for four, quarterly issues 60 G iven the content of this issue, it’s only right that I use this column to stress the importance that enclosures play in the sound quality of our loudspeakers, in both acoustic and mechanical terms. Keith Howard provides a detailed theoretical analysis of the situation on pp10-14. More subjective approaches may be found in Steve Harris’ interview with Ole Lund Christiansen (pp35-39), and in my own reviews of the metal-jacket MBA speakers (pp6-7) and the wall-mounted vintage Goodmans Triaxiom driver (p15). Stan Curtis even touches on the same general subject in his column this month, at least when it deals with the bass end of things. He plans to go for a wooden enclosure, but one that features Briggs’ classic sand-filled panels – which may well be the most effective technique for using traditional wood panels. In subsequent correspondence I asked Curtis whether he had thought of wall-mounting, but he replied that the only reason he had abandoned that approach was that he was contemplating moving house! All of these articles point towards the undesirable role of the enclosure in distorting the sound we hear from the variety of speakers that we use, and one could certainly add the considerable progress that the young US company Magico has made in this matter, to the point where Martin Colloms felt obliged to purchase an example of the S5 that he reviewed for this journal (Vol7 No4) as a reference (as well as a source of considerable pleasure!) I recently spent quite a bit of quality time with another free-space floorstander called a Kaiser Kawero! Classic, which I was reviewing for another magazine. This is a very costly speaker with an enclosure that’s fabricated from something called ‘panzerholz’ (which roughly translates a ‘tankwood’), an extraordinary material that might well be considered the ultimate in enhanced wood. It’s created by injecting beech ply with resins at high temperature and pressure, and the very dense end result maintains the self-damping advantage of a basically cellular form. Although it wears out tools rapidly, it can be machined accurately, so in several respects it’s an ideal enclosure material, and I understand that it’s also added to the doors of limousines in order to render them bulletproof. Whatever, it certainly represents a fascinating and very effective alternative to the metalwork favoured by brands like MBA, YG Acoustics and Magico. All the above use various techniques to remove some or all of the errors of the traditional wooden enclosure. The ‘soffit’ technique that recording studios have been using to mount their full size monitoring loudspeakers for a number of years also goes at least part of the way down a similar road by effectively eliminating the acoustic effects of positioning loudspeaker enclosures in space. I guess it was just luck that I was in the position to insert a couple of orifices in the structural wall behind the place where I normally locate loudspeakers. It’s a little ironic that the initial stimulus for making these holes was the simultaneous arrival of a number of flush-mount ‘wallspeakers’ from several brands at the beginning of 1993, most of which were seriously handicapped by inadequate mounting arrangements. By-passing the latter and cutting the baffles needed to mount a 165mm KEF Uni-Q driver rigidly provided the clue that led to using the big Tannoy DCs. That said, twenty two years on I still haven’t got around to moving the door to shut the rearward radiation off from the rest of the house. HIFICRITIC JUL | AUG | SEPT 2015
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