Category Archives: audio

The UK copyright law is changing in June 2014. The details of the changes are here. There is also a simplified Guidance for Consumers [PDF] document.

One of the reasons for the changes is to allow format-shifting, such as ripping CDs or DVDs to a smartphone, MP3 player, home media server, or cloud storage.

The changes will mean that you will be able to copy a book or film you have purchased for one device onto another without infringing copyright.

says the consumer guidance. However, the law does not allow making copies for friends or family, nor making copies of media acquired illegally.

You will be permitted to make personal copies to any device that you own, or a personal online storage medium, such as a private cloud. However, it will be illegal to give other people access to the copies you have made, including, for example, by allowing a friend to access your personal cloud storage.

Sensible; but note this provision:

Am I able to give away or resell media, such as CDs, that I have made personal copies from?
Yes, but you will infringe copyright if you retain any personal copies that you have made. Therefore, if you wish to give away or sell a CD you should first delete any personal copies you have made from it.

The actual legislation says:

The rights conferred by this Chapter in a recording are infringed if an individual transfers a personal copy of the recording to another person (otherwise than on a private and temporary basis), except where the transfer is authorised by the rights owner.

The intent of the law seems to be that you must keep your physical CDs and DVDs safely in the loft after ripping them, if you want to stay the right side of the law. What about destroying the media (rather than passing it on)? You would think that might be OK but the document does not say.

In the old world you could buy a record, CD or DVD and store it in the living room for everyone at home to enjoy. You could lend a DVD to a friend, during which time she could play it but not you, and then get it back and enjoy it again. Even with the new provisions, it is still hard for the law to cover what is normal in the new digital world.

For example, the focus on the new legislation is on individual rights. I cannot see anything covering the common and normal scenario of a media server in the home accessible by the whole family. If anything, the new law implies that this is not OK: the legislation specifies that the format-shifted copy “is made for the individual’s private use.” The guidance makes a point of including family among those who are not allowed copies:

Creators have a right to be paid for their work, so the law will not allow people to get content for free by copying from friends and family.

Is merely playing content different from copying it? Maybe, maybe not. If you can play it, you do not need to copy it, and you are forbidden from allowing others access to your private media in cloud storage, such as Amazon or Google cloud players.

I am not saying that a shared home iTunes or Squeezebox library is not allowed, as it also seems to me that the intent of the law is to allow normal activities like this, but it looks like a grey area to me.

Another tricky area is copy protection. Copy protection, such as DVD or Blu-ray encryption, is allowed, but only if it is does not prevent the kind of fair use backup and format-shifting described above. If your format-shifting is prevented by copy protection, you can complain to the Secretary of State who will ask the vendor to ensure:

that the owner or exclusive licensee of that copyright work makes available to the complainant or the class of individuals represented by the complainant the means of benefiting from section 28B to the extent necessary to benefit from that section.

where 28B is the clause which gives these new rights. What might be sufficient? What about a downloadable compressed MP4 video or MP3 music, for your copy-protected Blu-ray, would that do? That is not much of a backup for a 4K video.

While it is good to see UK copyright law beginning to catch up with reality, it will continue to be imperfect as well as impossible to enforce. There are now three common forms of private media licensing:

Physical media – the license travels with the media. For example CD, DVD, Blu-Ray
Individual downloads – a personal license to specific files. For example, iTunes, Amazon MP3
All-you-can-eat subscriptions. For example, Spotify.

The third of these makes most sense in the digital era and will I believe come to dominate. Framing legislation that works sensibly for all three cases, while protecting common-sense rights, is all-but impossible.

audio, reviews

Review: Velodyne vLeve on-ear headphones

April 11, 2014 Tim Anderson

Velodyne is best known for its fine range of sub-woofers, but the company also makes a range of headphones, of which the vLeve is towards the bottom of the range.

The headphones are supplied in a smart glossy box with the reassuring words “High performance headphones” on the front. I am not sure what the name signifies though the word Leve means “Live” in some languages so it perhaps hints at enjoying life – what better way than listening to music through high quality cans?

Inside the box are the headphones, a handy bag, and a 3.5mm jack cable. There is no adaptor for a 1/4″ jack socket; a shame though these are easily optainable elsewhere. The headphones fold for portability.

The vLeve is lightweight and feels even a little flimsy though it seems well made. The design is the on-ear type. I found that careful positioning of the pads on your ears is essential for the best sound; it is surprising how much difference is made by a small change in position.

Velodyne is keen to sell you add-on skins to give a more colourful appearance.

Since you may well be out and about wearing these the appearance is important and a matter of taste; personally I am happy without a skin as I care mainly about the sound, but these distinctive skins will appeal to many.

So how is the sound? It seems too obvious: but as you would expect from a sub-woofer company, the bass is exemplary. At first I thought the sound was a little bass-heavy, but comparison with other headphones does not bear this out. Rather, the bass is particularly tight and tuneful so you pay it more attention.

I played the excellent SACD We Get Requests by the Oscar Peterson Trio and the sound of Ray Brown’s double bass is a delight with a clean and natural sound.

The sound is relaxed, even slightly recessed, and may not appeal if you prefer a more analytical or exciting presentation. Swapping to my reference Sennheiser HD600s showed that the vLeve is not the last word in clarity or openness, but it was not disgraced and its compromises are easy to live with.

I did find the sound substantially better when using a headphone amplifier rather than an iPad or Nexus tablet (two that I tried). While this is not surprising in one sense, others are more tolerant of lesser amplification.

One annoyance: the cord at 130mm or just over 4 feet was too short for my liking, but again you can easily get a replacement if needed.

Note that Velodyne also make a similar wireless model, the vFree, which is reviewed separately.

A good choice especially for acoustic music and for use with high quality sources.

Price is $219 though available from around $130 if you scout around. UK prices to follow.

Published specifications:

Driver size: 34mm
Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20 kHz
Sensitivity: 98 dB/1Khz/1mW
Impedance: 32 Ω

audio, music industry

Neil Young’s Pono: an advance in digital music?

March 11, 2014 Tim Anderson

Thanks to the just-launched Kickstarter project, there are now firm technical details for Neil Young’s curious Pono project, which aims to solve what the musician sees as the loss of audio quality caused by the transition to digital music:

“Pono” is Hawaiian for righteous. What righteous means to our founder Neil Young is honoring the artist’s intention, and the soul of music. That’s why he’s been on a quest, for a few years now, to revive the magic that has been squeezed out of digital music. In the process of making music more convenient – easier to download, and more portable – we have sacrificed the emotional impact that only higher quality music can deliver.

There is a lot about emotion and the spirit of music in the pitch; but ultimately while music is art, audio is technology. What is the technology in Pono and can it deliver something markedly better than we have already?

Pono has several components. The first is a portable player:

64GB on-board storage and 64GB SD card
8 hour rechargeable battery
Software for PC and Mac to transfer songs
Two stereo output jack sockets, one for headphones, and one a line-out for connection to a home hi-fi system
Ability to play FLAC, ALAC, WAV, MP3, AIFF and AAC at resolutions (at least for FLAC) of up to 192Khz/24-bit.

The Pono player will cost around $400.00, though early Kickstarter backers can pre-order for $200 (all sold now) or $300.00.

There will also be a Pono music store “supported by all major labels and their growing catalogues of high quality digital music”. The record companies will set their own prices, but high-res (24/96 and higher) music is expected to cost between $14.99 and $24.99 per album. Individual songs will also be available.

Here is the key question: will you hear the difference. Here is what the pitch says:

Yes. We are confident that you will hear the difference. We’re even more confident you will feel it. Everyone who’s ever heard PonoMusic will tell you that the difference is surprising and dramatic. Especially when they listen to music that they know well – their favorite music. They’re amazed by how much better the music sounds – and astonished at how much detail they didn’t realize was missing compared to the original. They tell us that not only do they hear the difference; they feel it in their body, in their soul.

Count me sceptical. There are two ways in which Pono can sound better than what you use at the moment to play music – which for many of us is a smartphone, a CD ripped to a hard drive and played from a PC, Mac or iPod, or streamed to a device like a Sonos or Squeezebox.

One is though superior electronics. Pono is designed by Ayre Acoustics, a high end audio company, and you can expect a Pono to sound good; but there is no reason to think it will sound better than many other DACs and pre-amplifiers available today. As a dedicated audio device it should sound better than the average smartphone; but Apple for one has always cared about audio quality so I would not count on a dramatic improvement.

The second is through higher resolution sources. This is a controversial area, and the Kickstarter pitch is misleading:

On the “low end” of higher resolution music (CD lossless, 16 bit/44.1kHz), PonoMusic files have about 6 times more musical information than a typical mp3. With ultra-high quality resolution recordings (24 bit/192kHz), the difference between a PonoMusic digital file and an mp3 is about 30 times more data from which your player reconstructs the “song”.

We need to examine what is meant by “musical information” in the above. The Pono blurb makes the assumption that more data must mean better sound. However, just because a CD “lossless” file is six times the size of an MP3 file does not mean it sounds six times better. Listening tests show that by the time you get to say 320kbps MP3, most people find it hard to hear the difference, because the lossy formats like MP3 and AAC are designed to discard data that we cannot hear.

What about 24/96 or 24/192 versus CD format (16/44)? Advocates will tell you that they hear a big difference, but the science of this is obscure; see 24/192 downloads and why they make no sense for an explanation, complete with accompanying videos that spell this out. Most listening tests that I am aware of have failed to detect an audible difference from resolutions above CD format. Even so, audio is subtle and complex enough that it would be brave to say there is never any audible improvement above 16/44; but if it exists, it is subtle and not the obvious difference that the Pono folk claim.

The irritation here is that digital music often does sound bad, but not because of limitations in the audio format. Rather, it is the modern engineering trend of whacking up the loudness so that the dynamic range and sense of space in the music is lost – which seems close to what Neil Young is complaining about. The solution to this is not primarily in high resolution formats, but in doing a better job in mastering.

Why then do so many well known names in music praise the Pono sound so highly?

While I would like to think that this is because of a technical breakthough, I suspect it is more to do with comparing excellent mastering from a good source to a typical over-loud CD or MP3 file, than anything revolutionary in Pono itself. If you have a high-resolution track that sounds great, try downsampling it to 16/44 and comparing it to that, before concluding that it is the format itself that provides the superior sound.

The highest distortion in the audio chain is in the transducers, speakers and microphones, and not in the digital storage, conversion and amplification.

The Pono Kickstarter has already raised $550,000 of its $800,000 goal which looks promising. Even if the high resolution aspect makes little sense, it is likely that the Pono music store will offer some great sounding digital music so the project will not be a complete dead loss.

That said, who is going to want Pono when a tiny music player, or just using your smartphone, is so much more convenient? Only a dedicated few. This, combined with the lack of any real technical breakthrough, means that Pono will likely stumble in the market, despite its good intentions.

Within the crazy audiophile world we are also going to hear voices saying, “you should have used DSD”, a alternative way of encoding high-resolution audio, as found in SACD disks.

audio, hifi, retro

Fun with amplifiers: classic Naim versus modern Yamaha integrated

March 9, 2014 Tim Anderson 1 Comment

Every year in an English country hotel near Melton Mowbray a strange but endearing event takes place.

Called variously the HiFi Wigwam Show (after the forum that runs it) or the Scalford HiFi Show (after the hotel where it takes place), this is a show where most of the exhibitors are enthusiasts rather than dealers, and the kit on show includes much that is old, unavailable or home-made – like these stacked Quad 57s from the Sixties.

I turned up at Scalford with a simple experiment in mind. Take a classic pre-power amplifier from thirty years ago and compare it to a modern, budget, integrated amplifier. What kind of differences will be heard?

The classic amplifier is a Naim 32.5 preamp powered by a Hi-Cap power supply, and a 250 power amplifier. Price back in 1984 in the region of £3500. The Naim was serviced around five years ago to replace old or failing electrolytic and tantalum capacitors.

The integrated is a Yamaha AS500 80w+80w amplifier currently on sale for around £230.

The source is a Logitech Media Server (Squeezebox Server) with a Squeezebox Touch modified to work with high resolution audio up to 24/192, and a Teac UD-H01 DAC. Speakers were Quad 11L, occasionally substituted with Linn Kans for a traditional Linn/Naim combination. A BK Electronics sub-woofer was on at a low level to supplement the bass.

A QED MA19 switchbox was used to switch instantly between the two amplifiers. Naim NAC A4 cable was used throughout.

Disclaimer: this was not intended as a scientific investigation. Level matching was done by ear, and there were several aspects of the setup that were sub-optimal. The system was in a small hotel bedroom (as you can see by the headrest which forms the backdrop to the system) and thrown together quickly.

Still, the Naim amplifier is both highly regarded by many audiophiles, and also considered somewhat coloured, this failing more than mitigated by its pace and drive. The Yamaha won awards as a good budget amplifier but is not really anything special; however it has the benefit of modern electronics. These two amplifiers are very different both in age and (you would think) character.

A benefit of the setup was that both amplifiers were always on. Unless you knew the position of the switches and how they were wired, you could not tell which was playing. It was irresistible; when visitors asked which was playing I switched between them and said, you tell me.

Again, this was not science, and I have no tally of the results. Some visitors confidently identified the Naim and were correct, and an approximately equal number were incorrect. Some said they simply could not hear a difference, and two or three times I had to prove that the switchbox was working by twiddling the controls. A small boy who probably had the best hearing of all the visitors declared that there was no difference.

Note that I did reveal the identity of the amplifiers at regular intervals, so listeners typically listened sighted after listening blind.

Of those who expressed a preference, the Yamaha and Naim were each preferred equally often. Some said the Yamaha was slightly brighter (I agree with this).

There were two or three who expressed a strong preference for the Naim, but the consensus view was that the amplifiers sounded more alike than had been expected.

The sound was also pretty good. “I would be happy with either” was a common remark. I would have preferred to use high-end speakers, but the Quads proved delightfully transparent. Most visitors who heard both preferred the Quads to the Kans, which sounded thin and boxy in comparison, though I do wonder if after thirty years the crossover electronics in the Kans may need attention. It was easy to hear the difference between high quality and low quality sources. I used some of the high-resolution files which Linn kindly gave away as samples for Christmas 2013, along with other material.

A few reactions:

Tony L: The most amusing room for me was the Naim 32.5 / HiCap / 250 blind-test vs. the Yamaha AS500. That was great fun, and yes, I picked the AS500 as better. Twice. As did another ex-32.5/Hicap/250 owning friend. Ok it was through a nice easy to drive pair of Quad 11Ls, but you’d be amazed by how close they sounded!

YNWOAN: I heard the Yamaha/Naim demo and had no difficulty hearing a difference between the two with the Yamaha sounding rather ‘thin’ – even at the low levels used.

Pete the Feet: How cruel can a man be? Pitching a recently serviced Naim 32.5, Hicap and NAP250 against a paltry Yamaha £250 integrated. Not much difference but the Yamaha had the edge.

Some felt that the Naim was compromised by the stacking of the power supply and pre-amp on the power amp. There was no hum and I am sceptical of the difference moving them apart, or using acoustic tables, might have made; but of course it is possible. Another interesting thing to test would be the impact of the switchbox itself, though again I would be surprised if this is significant.

How much should you spend on an amplifier? Should all competent amplifiers sound the same? These are questions that interest me. I set up this experiment with no particular expectations, but the experience does make me wonder whether we worry too much about amplification, given that other parts of the audio chain introduce far more distortion (particularly transducers: microphones and loudspeakers).

A more rigorous experiment than mine came to similar conclusions:

How can it be possible that a basic system with such a price difference against the reference” one, poorly placed, using the cheapest signal cables found, couldn’t be distinguished from the more expensive one?

And, most of it all, how come the cheap system was chosen by so many people as the best sounding of the two?

Shouldn’t the differences be so evident that it’d be a child’s game to pick the best?

Well, we think that each can reach to its own conclusion…

One further comment though. I love that Naim amplifier, and do not personally find something like the AS500 a satisfactory replacement, despite the convenience of a remote control. Is it just that the classic retro looks, high quality workmanship and solid construction convince my brain into hearing more convincing music reproduction, provided I know that it is playing? Or are there audio subtleties that cannot easily be recognised by quick switching?

Unfortunately the audio industry has such fear of blind testing that these questions are not investigated as often or as thoroughly as some of us would like.

audio, gadgets

Hope for Squeezebox as Raspberry Pi becomes a streaming player

January 29, 2014 Tim Anderson 1 Comment

Now that Logitech has near-abandoned the Squeezebox (the one remaining player is the UE Smart Radio, and even that is not quite a Squeezebox client unless you download different firmware), existing users may be concerned for the future of the system.

Squeezebox consists of free server software which runs on a PC or NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, while the players are supplied by Logitech and controlled by a web app or smartphone/tablet app. Although more fiddly to set up than rivals like Sonos, Squeezebox is a strong choice for multi-room audio at a modest choice, and its community has come up with solutions such as support for high-resolution audio.

The latest community innovation is a project to make a Raspberry Pi into a Squeezebox client. piCorePlayer is delivered as an image file which you can write to an SD card. Pop the card into a Raspberry Pi, supply power, and it is ready to go – meaning that you need no longer worry about getting hold of a Squeezebox player.

The OS is the MicroCore version of Tiny Core Linux, and the player is Triode’s Squeezelite.

I gave this a try. It was almost very easy: my Pi booted successfully from the piCorePlayer image and was immediately recognised by my Logitech Media Server. The player supports output to the built-in audio jack, or HDMI, or a USB DAC, or an add-on DAC for the Raspberry Pi called HifiBerry.

I am using a USB DAC (Teac UD-H01) which requires a little extra configuration. I logged in to the piCorePlayer using Putty, and typed picoreplayer to display the configuration menu:

Configuring a USB DAC is a matter of getting a list of available ALSA devices and setting the output accordingly.

It worked, but oddly I found that FLAC in 16/44.1 format played with crackling and distortion. 24-bit files played perfectly.

The only solution I have found (though it sounds counter-intuitive) is to force output to 16-bit by adding –a 40::16 to the Squeezelite arguments. Everything now plays nicely, though limited to 16-bit – you are unlikely to notice much difference but it is a compromise.

If you try piCorePlayer, here are a few tips.

The Squeezelite executable is stored at:

/mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce

and the settings scripts are in

/usr/local/sbin/settings_menu.sh

If you need to edit the configuration without the script, you can use vi, which is the only pre-installed editor I have found. Quick start with vi:

Type i to enter edit mode
Press ESC to enter command mode
Quit without saving by typing :q!
Save and quit by typing :wq

There are plenty of vi tutorials out there if you need to know more!

Finally, note that this version of Linux runs in RAM. If you make changes they will not persist unless you create a “backup” with

/usr/bin/filetool.sh –b

This is also an option in the picoreplayer menu, and must be used if you want your changes to survive.

audio, gadgets, mobile, smartphones

Review: Om Audio INEARPEACE ear buds. Superb sound

January 24, 2014 Tim Anderson

Ear buds are massively popular, but most do not sound that good. Tinny bass and splashy treble is nothing unusual. They can sound good though. At CES I heard a couple of true high-end in-ear headsets, Shure’s SE 846 ($999) and Audiofly’s AF180 ($549); I especially liked the AF180 and wrote about it here.

But how about Om’s INEARPEACE at a mere $149? No, they are not the equal of the AF180s, but at one third the price they are delightful, musical, smooth, clear and with actual bass.

Om Audio is a company with some personality – “listening to music should be a sacred experience,” says the website, and that is reflected in the packaging, with the ear buds embedded in the side of a foam inner container.

You get a set of ear buds with an inline controller and microphone for a smartphone, a smart zipped bag, and a packet of ear tips in various sizes.

The ear buds themselves have a distinctive design, with a cylindrical body. The cable is flat and supposedly hard to tangle.

Within each ear bud are two drivers, a balanced armature driver for treble and mid-range, and a 10mm coiled driver for bass.

The INEARPEACE ear buds are aimed at those in search of better audio quality than the average in-ear headset, and they deliver. Listen to these and you will not want to go back to the set that came free with your phone. There is adequate treble, but no sign of the shrillness that characterises so many ear buds. The bass is not overpowering, but it is clean and reasonably extended, making music more balanced, rhythmic and enjoyable.

I am not going to get too carried away; these are not the last word in sound quality. There are others to consider in the price range $75 – $150. These are more than decent though, and their musical sound and elegant construction wins them a recommendation.

audio, gadgets, reviews

Review: Audio-Technica SonicFuel ATH-CKX5iS ear buds

January 23, 2014 Tim Anderson

At CES Audio-Technica showed off its new range of ear buds, sorry “in-ear headphones”, including this budget SonicFuel ATH-CKX5iS model, at a recommended price of $49.95 and including an in-line mic, answer button and volume control for use with smartphones. While towards the low-end, it is by no means the cheapest in the Audio-Technica range, which starts at just $14.95 for the ATH-CLR100.

The distinctive feature of the SonicFuel range is the C-tip earpieces which have a short curved arm that fits snugly in the ear. The ear tips also rotate so that they angle themselves to the shape of your ear. The result is an exceptionally snug fit, and ear buds that are less likely to fall out when you are on the go. Three sizes of C-tips and four sizes of ear tips are supplied. It does pay to take some time selecting the right size, and journalists attending CES were fortunate to have assistance from an expert fitter.

The truth is that the sound you hear from ear buds does vary substantially according to how snugly they fit, and while not everyone can get a personal fitting at CES, it is essential to fit them correctly to get the best results. Fitting the tips to the ear buds is slightly fiddly, but you only have to do this once.

The in-line controller has a sliding volume control (a mixed blessing as you can accidentally slide it down and wonder where the volume has gone), a microphone and an answer button.

The headset is supplied with a handy bag for your headset and the spare gels.

So how do they sound? The biggest problem is that bass is lacking and the sound overall is thin. Slight sibilance can be annoying on some material. Tonally they are bright rather than warm, though not unpleasantly so. The best thing I can say is that they are inoffensive.

The specifications show an amazing frequency response of 15-22,000 Hz which is hard to reconcile with the puny bass, but since no +/- dB range is shown I guess this does not mean much.

Summary: I love the C-tips and the snug, strong fit; but the sound is a let-down. Possibly going a little further up the SonifFuel range would be worthwhile, though these are the only ones I have heard.

audio, gadgets

Naim’s Statement: no compromise home audio

January 10, 2014 Tim Anderson 1 Comment

I was fortunate to hear Naim’s Statement amplifier, currently a prototype subject to final tuning before release in July, at the CES exhibition in Las Vegas.

Statement is actually two amplifiers, the NAC S1 pre-amplifer and the NAP S1 mono power amplifiers. In the above picture you can see them standing together as three large vertical boxes, the slimmer pre-amp and the power amps on either side. Each amplifier is also divided horizontally, with the power supply below and the amplifier electronics above.

I do not have confirmation of the price but believe it will be around £150,000 for a set.

My quick comment is this. The sound is huge and has the qualities Naim aficionados love: muscular, etched, authoritative. Naim is often considered to have a house sound dating back to its earliest electronics in the eighties, and the Statement continues that tradition.

I did not think the sound was flawless though. Rhythm and percussion was stunning, but whether it is the most natural sound I am not so sure. Can Statement do sweet and delicate? Bear in mind though that I only had a short listen and that some fine-tuning remains.

Naim says the sound is without compromise, and Statement will only appeal to those who are not only wealthy, but share that attitude, building their living space, or at least their music listening space, around the electronics, rather than having it blend into the furniture Bang & Olufsen style.

android, apple, audio

Bang & Olufsen Essence simplifies home audio – as long as you have the right smartphone

January 9, 2014 Tim Anderson

Bang & Olufsen’s Tue Mantoni shows the new Essence controller

By how much can you simplify home audio? Long-established Danish company Bang & Olufsen reckons that the essentials are play, pause, volume, next and previous. The Essence controller is designed for wall mounting, or there is a tabletop version, and has just these functions. The goal is to make listening to music as easy as turning on the light. The company demonstrated the new system at the 2014 CES in Las Vegas.

Other functions, such as choosing what music to play, are considered “Advanced.”

The brains of the system are in the controller box, which supports Apple AirPlay streaming, DLNA streaming, Spotify, QPlay, and internet radio. DLNA support means you could use it with other systems such as Logitech Media Server (formerly Squeezebox server) .

The rear view shows the connections:

You control the box via an app BeoMusic, which runs on Apple iOS or Google Android. I asked whether you could use a web browser if you happened not to have an iOS or Android device, and was told no. Windows Phone users, this is not for you. Box and remote together cost $995.

Another part of B&O’s drive for simplicity is wireless speaker connections. The company is supporting a standard called WiSA which delivers up to 24/96 digital audio for up to 8 channels. Naturally this only works with powered speakers, so each one still needs a mains cable. You can use speakers that lack WiSA support by purchasing a receiver ($265 or £165) for each one.

The demo system we heard at CES included Beolab 18 active loudspeakers and a Beolab 19 subwoofer, both running wireless with WiSA. At $6,590 for the main pair and $3,395 for the subwoofer, this was not a cheap system.

I thought it looked lovely, but my face fell when the music started playing. The sound was decent but not the most natural I have heard, and I felt there was a trace of harshness at loud volume.

I doubt the sound quality is a limitation of WiSA: I visited the WiSA demonstration later on at CES and it sounded fine. I will add that the demonstration was brief and it is possible that in another room or with some tweaking the system would sound as good as it looks; but first impressions were disappointing.

audio

High end earbuds impress at CES 2014–especially Audiofly’s top model

January 8, 2014 Tim Anderson

I have heard a couple of high-end earbuds here at CES 2014 in Las Vegas. One was Shure’s SE 846. Great sound, but then you would expect that at $999.

I was impressed by the extended bass and clarity of the 846’s and they should be on your shortlist if you are looking for the very best in earbuds. They sport four microdrivers including what Shure calls a “true subwoofer.” Frequency range 15Hz-20kHz.

On the other hand, when I heard Audiofly’s AF180 at a mere $549 I thought, hmm, I wonder if I could afford these?

In other words, the AF180 struck me as exceptional rather than merely excellent. Part of the secret, I suspect, is their close fit into the ear. It is hard to explain, but you fit them with the cable dropping behind your head and over the ear, and the shaped housing fills more of your ear than the average earbud.

The AF180 includes four armature drivers in each earbud. Frequency range 15Hz-25kHz.

I listened briefly to both recent and older recordings. Even the Beach Boys California Girls, which I would not describe as a hi-fi recording, sounded as clear as I have heard it – and I mean clear, not artificially boosted in the treble.

I am researching hi-res audio here at CES, and these earbuds reminded me that for all the fuss about audio resolution and formats, the speaker is the source of most distortion in the audio chain.

Every ear is different and earbuds are a particularly personal area of audio. I head the AF180s the day after the SE 846 so was not able to compare them side by side or on the same musical material; perhaps if I did, I would change my preference.

Nevertheless, I like to post about products that particularly impress me, and the AF180 is one such.

Tim Anderson's IT Writing