By Bill Heck
For many years, assembling a
good two-channel audio system was straightforward. Put together one or a few
sources, a preamplifier, an amplifier, and speakers – done. You might agonize
over brands and choices – this preamp, that amp – but you knew which components
did what.
The sources might have included, depending on your tastes and habits, an LP record player, a CD player, and perhaps an FM tuner. If you were really into audio, you might complicate the record playing device by selecting your own combination of turntable, arm, and cartridge. On the other end, if you were on the less finicky side, you might simplify by combining preamp and amp into an integrated amplifier, or perhaps adding a tuner to the integrated amp in the form of a receiver. But that was it, the lines were clear: sources to preamp to amp to speakers. Done.
The lines are clear no longer. The phono part hasn’t changed much. But the rise of digital sources and processing have made all sorts of combinations possible – and if it’s possible, some manufacturer probably is making it.
It started innocently enough with separating the parts of CD players: a CD transport to spin the disk and extract the digital signal, and a separate digital-to-analog converter (DAC) to – well, that’s obvious. This division of labor appealed to the more tweaking-oriented audiophiles, the same folks who would choose their own turntable/arm/cartridge combinations for LPs. But then things got out of hand.
I blame it on the availability of high-quality music file downloads and the rise of streaming. Of course, we have had MP3s streaming on smartphones for ages, but this was hardly of interest to those with audiophile chops. But then along came high-resolution music files that you could download and store on a hard drive in your home – no CDs needed. More recently, Tidal and Qobuz and Idagio and Primephonic and a bunch of others, now including the 800-pound gorilla, Amazon, came along to stream tons of music at CD or higher quality in real time. No downloaded files needed either.
So, let’s see what happens with your audio system. You already have a DAC in your CD player. You buy a device to store and play downloaded music files, and it not only has a DAC to connect to an analog input on your preamp, but it also might have what amounts to an entire desktop computer inside to index all those files and let you control the action. Then you buy a streaming device and, yes, it also has a DAC. Obviously, having three different DACs doing the same thing is a waste, so perhaps manufacturers should produce streamers and file storage/players without the DAC, assuming you would connect everything to that one central outboard DAC.
Ah! We have it figured out: the new paradigm is sources (CD transport, file storage device, streaming device), all feeding a DAC that in turn connects to a preamp.
But wait! Given that everyone is now using at least one digital source, what if we combine the DAC and the preamp? But wait! If we’re going to do that, we could make the entire preamp (except for the connection to the power amp) digital. This would allow us to do source selection and signal processing in the digital domain, converting to analog only at the end of the chain. But wait! While we’re at it, let’s adapt some features often found in multi-channel receivers, such as subwoofer outputs, to the two-channel world. But wait! We have all that other digital stuff going on, so we could easily add the streaming function to our preamp – all we need is a WiFi or ethernet connection and we’re in business.
But wait! With all this digital processing power lying around, let’s think outside the box, or in this case the boxes, and add room correction to the mix. After all, those who have been around audio for a while know a dirty little secret: one of the most important “components”, some even say the most important, is the room. (Others say that the most important component is between your ears, but we’re not going there today.) Most of us manage to ignore the effect of the room, perhaps because it is simply a part of the background, or maybe because there usually is so little that we can do about it. And really, isn’t it much more fun to think that the next shiny box, the next upgraded component, will work some sonic miracle in that less-than-perfect room?
Swapping components or using gadgets and tweaks may indeed improve some things. (Or, in the gadgets and tweaks case, may make you feel better even if they do nothing to change the sound.) But even if they do, you’re still stuck with the room and its potential – or likely – acoustic problems. Better speakers obviously will upgrade the sound, but even great speakers may continue to struggle in less-than-ideal rooms, which is most rooms. Changing room characteristics in significant ways, in turn, is out of reach for all but the most dedicated, the wealthiest, and those who are willing to put up with truly awful aesthetics – and who live alone or with partners who are similarly oblivious to room appearance.
The solution: room correction. Today’s digital processing power makes it possible to improve the response at the listening position by adjusting the output of the speakers. Oh sure, audiophiles have played with equalizers for years, but equalizers were, by today’s standards, primitive, and using them was excruciatingly difficult. Room correction promises to change all that. As to where it goes in the chain, it works by altering the outgoing music signal, so the room correction processor should come just before the signal is amplified and fed to the speakers.
Hooray! Finally! We’ve figured out which parts go in which components.
Or not. Different manufacturers have different ideas about just what should be combined with what. Indeed, it’s worse than that: different series and models from the very same manufacturers provide different combinations of functions in seemingly similar components.
Examples abound. Multiple digital sources are becoming common, which logically suggests removing the DACs from source components and instead relying on a single, high-quality “central” one. Despite this, most CD players still include DACs, and some include very high-end, expensive DACs at that. Meanwhile, the few transport-only CD spinners still available are super high-end, multi-thousand-dollar items; where are the reasonably priced DAC-less ones? Some DAC-containing CD players, though, now accept digital inputs from other sources (e.g., steaming devices), while others even include streaming capabilities. Are these really preamps in disguise? Meanwhile, some separate DACs now handle streaming, but still require a preamp, while some preamps include DACs but not streaming. And then there are combinations that are more like integrated amps, combining digital inputs and even streaming with preamp/power amp combinations. It turns out to be remarkably difficult to find a single combination of components to handle the whole sequence – all the desired inputs (CD, file playback, streaming, phono), digital to audio conversion, all preamp functions, and power amplification – without duplicating some functionality, be it multiple DACs, multiple streaming capabilities, or something else. Throw in advanced signal processing (subwoofer control, room correction) and the situation is even worse: your poor tired music might go through multiple digital to audio conversions and back again, passing through several sets of cables, before making it to the power amp, much less to the speakers. Oh, did I mention a headphone amp in there somewhere?
So far as I know, no manufacturer has integrated everything from sources to power amp in one box. Some have come close, but with slightly different combinations of functions. True, there may be good reasons for separating some components. For example, CD transports are mechanical devices (and some people want SACD or Blu-ray capabilities), so perhaps they should be kept apart for easy repair or replacement. The requirements for a power amp are more related to the speakers in use than to anything on the front end – and active speakers make a power amp superfluous – so it makes sense to keep that separate. But we still have a rather confusing mess on our hands.
I hesitate to make it all sound even worse, but, well, it is even worse. We also need to consider remote controls, which are morphing into apps.
Before the explosion of digital sources, controlling the components was simple. If you played LPs, you pulled out the record, put in on the table, started it turning, and dropped the needle in the groove: all manual processes, no remote control needed. With CDs, you still loaded the player manually, so the remote control was limited to functions such as starting, pausing, and skipping tracks. Most preamps did not even have remote controls; if yours did, you could select a source, adjust the volume, and maybe manipulate the tone controls. You may have had separate remotes for the CD player and preamp, but you really needed only a few buttons on each. Two remotes might be mildly annoying on occasion, but it all worked out.
But in our new digital world, you need control far beyond what can be accomplished with a small set of buttons. If you download digital files onto a storage device, that device might have hundreds or thousands of tracks; meanwhile, your streaming service has millions. Thus, we need software that communicates with you (to allow you to select and play the music that you want), with the file storage device or streaming service (to show you what music is available and to tell the device or service to send the music to the audio component) and the audio component (to tell the component to receive the music and play it through the system, as well as to control the basic functionality such as source selection and volume control). To make it more complicated, we really would like the software to organize all those downloaded files rather than just displaying you a gigantic random list. And even more complication: each streaming service has a different software interface; the software needs to know how to talk to each of them. Finally, this software will run on your smartphone or tablet, which means that it must work on your platform of choice: Windows, Mac OS, Android, or iPhone iOS.
Now imagine that you have one device to play downloaded files, another for streaming services, and then a regular preamp. You might have three completely different apps with completely different interfaces – and don’t forget the remote control for the CD player. Mind-boggling.
What is the poor, confused, music-loving-but-frugal audiophile to do? Next time, we’ll look at one solution.
BH
The sources might have included, depending on your tastes and habits, an LP record player, a CD player, and perhaps an FM tuner. If you were really into audio, you might complicate the record playing device by selecting your own combination of turntable, arm, and cartridge. On the other end, if you were on the less finicky side, you might simplify by combining preamp and amp into an integrated amplifier, or perhaps adding a tuner to the integrated amp in the form of a receiver. But that was it, the lines were clear: sources to preamp to amp to speakers. Done.
The lines are clear no longer. The phono part hasn’t changed much. But the rise of digital sources and processing have made all sorts of combinations possible – and if it’s possible, some manufacturer probably is making it.
It started innocently enough with separating the parts of CD players: a CD transport to spin the disk and extract the digital signal, and a separate digital-to-analog converter (DAC) to – well, that’s obvious. This division of labor appealed to the more tweaking-oriented audiophiles, the same folks who would choose their own turntable/arm/cartridge combinations for LPs. But then things got out of hand.
I blame it on the availability of high-quality music file downloads and the rise of streaming. Of course, we have had MP3s streaming on smartphones for ages, but this was hardly of interest to those with audiophile chops. But then along came high-resolution music files that you could download and store on a hard drive in your home – no CDs needed. More recently, Tidal and Qobuz and Idagio and Primephonic and a bunch of others, now including the 800-pound gorilla, Amazon, came along to stream tons of music at CD or higher quality in real time. No downloaded files needed either.
So, let’s see what happens with your audio system. You already have a DAC in your CD player. You buy a device to store and play downloaded music files, and it not only has a DAC to connect to an analog input on your preamp, but it also might have what amounts to an entire desktop computer inside to index all those files and let you control the action. Then you buy a streaming device and, yes, it also has a DAC. Obviously, having three different DACs doing the same thing is a waste, so perhaps manufacturers should produce streamers and file storage/players without the DAC, assuming you would connect everything to that one central outboard DAC.
Ah! We have it figured out: the new paradigm is sources (CD transport, file storage device, streaming device), all feeding a DAC that in turn connects to a preamp.
But wait! Given that everyone is now using at least one digital source, what if we combine the DAC and the preamp? But wait! If we’re going to do that, we could make the entire preamp (except for the connection to the power amp) digital. This would allow us to do source selection and signal processing in the digital domain, converting to analog only at the end of the chain. But wait! While we’re at it, let’s adapt some features often found in multi-channel receivers, such as subwoofer outputs, to the two-channel world. But wait! We have all that other digital stuff going on, so we could easily add the streaming function to our preamp – all we need is a WiFi or ethernet connection and we’re in business.
But wait! With all this digital processing power lying around, let’s think outside the box, or in this case the boxes, and add room correction to the mix. After all, those who have been around audio for a while know a dirty little secret: one of the most important “components”, some even say the most important, is the room. (Others say that the most important component is between your ears, but we’re not going there today.) Most of us manage to ignore the effect of the room, perhaps because it is simply a part of the background, or maybe because there usually is so little that we can do about it. And really, isn’t it much more fun to think that the next shiny box, the next upgraded component, will work some sonic miracle in that less-than-perfect room?
Swapping components or using gadgets and tweaks may indeed improve some things. (Or, in the gadgets and tweaks case, may make you feel better even if they do nothing to change the sound.) But even if they do, you’re still stuck with the room and its potential – or likely – acoustic problems. Better speakers obviously will upgrade the sound, but even great speakers may continue to struggle in less-than-ideal rooms, which is most rooms. Changing room characteristics in significant ways, in turn, is out of reach for all but the most dedicated, the wealthiest, and those who are willing to put up with truly awful aesthetics – and who live alone or with partners who are similarly oblivious to room appearance.
The solution: room correction. Today’s digital processing power makes it possible to improve the response at the listening position by adjusting the output of the speakers. Oh sure, audiophiles have played with equalizers for years, but equalizers were, by today’s standards, primitive, and using them was excruciatingly difficult. Room correction promises to change all that. As to where it goes in the chain, it works by altering the outgoing music signal, so the room correction processor should come just before the signal is amplified and fed to the speakers.
Hooray! Finally! We’ve figured out which parts go in which components.
Or not. Different manufacturers have different ideas about just what should be combined with what. Indeed, it’s worse than that: different series and models from the very same manufacturers provide different combinations of functions in seemingly similar components.
Examples abound. Multiple digital sources are becoming common, which logically suggests removing the DACs from source components and instead relying on a single, high-quality “central” one. Despite this, most CD players still include DACs, and some include very high-end, expensive DACs at that. Meanwhile, the few transport-only CD spinners still available are super high-end, multi-thousand-dollar items; where are the reasonably priced DAC-less ones? Some DAC-containing CD players, though, now accept digital inputs from other sources (e.g., steaming devices), while others even include streaming capabilities. Are these really preamps in disguise? Meanwhile, some separate DACs now handle streaming, but still require a preamp, while some preamps include DACs but not streaming. And then there are combinations that are more like integrated amps, combining digital inputs and even streaming with preamp/power amp combinations. It turns out to be remarkably difficult to find a single combination of components to handle the whole sequence – all the desired inputs (CD, file playback, streaming, phono), digital to audio conversion, all preamp functions, and power amplification – without duplicating some functionality, be it multiple DACs, multiple streaming capabilities, or something else. Throw in advanced signal processing (subwoofer control, room correction) and the situation is even worse: your poor tired music might go through multiple digital to audio conversions and back again, passing through several sets of cables, before making it to the power amp, much less to the speakers. Oh, did I mention a headphone amp in there somewhere?
So far as I know, no manufacturer has integrated everything from sources to power amp in one box. Some have come close, but with slightly different combinations of functions. True, there may be good reasons for separating some components. For example, CD transports are mechanical devices (and some people want SACD or Blu-ray capabilities), so perhaps they should be kept apart for easy repair or replacement. The requirements for a power amp are more related to the speakers in use than to anything on the front end – and active speakers make a power amp superfluous – so it makes sense to keep that separate. But we still have a rather confusing mess on our hands.
I hesitate to make it all sound even worse, but, well, it is even worse. We also need to consider remote controls, which are morphing into apps.
Before the explosion of digital sources, controlling the components was simple. If you played LPs, you pulled out the record, put in on the table, started it turning, and dropped the needle in the groove: all manual processes, no remote control needed. With CDs, you still loaded the player manually, so the remote control was limited to functions such as starting, pausing, and skipping tracks. Most preamps did not even have remote controls; if yours did, you could select a source, adjust the volume, and maybe manipulate the tone controls. You may have had separate remotes for the CD player and preamp, but you really needed only a few buttons on each. Two remotes might be mildly annoying on occasion, but it all worked out.
But in our new digital world, you need control far beyond what can be accomplished with a small set of buttons. If you download digital files onto a storage device, that device might have hundreds or thousands of tracks; meanwhile, your streaming service has millions. Thus, we need software that communicates with you (to allow you to select and play the music that you want), with the file storage device or streaming service (to show you what music is available and to tell the device or service to send the music to the audio component) and the audio component (to tell the component to receive the music and play it through the system, as well as to control the basic functionality such as source selection and volume control). To make it more complicated, we really would like the software to organize all those downloaded files rather than just displaying you a gigantic random list. And even more complication: each streaming service has a different software interface; the software needs to know how to talk to each of them. Finally, this software will run on your smartphone or tablet, which means that it must work on your platform of choice: Windows, Mac OS, Android, or iPhone iOS.
Now imagine that you have one device to play downloaded files, another for streaming services, and then a regular preamp. You might have three completely different apps with completely different interfaces – and don’t forget the remote control for the CD player. Mind-boggling.
What is the poor, confused, music-loving-but-frugal audiophile to do? Next time, we’ll look at one solution.
BH
