The New Audiophile Confusion, Part One

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

Brown: Wild Symphony (Digital review)

Miran Vaupotic, Zagreb Festival Orchestra. PARMA Recordings.

By John J. Puccio
 

Yes, THAT Dan Brown.
 
Who’d have thought Dan Brown, who wrote the best-selling series of Robert Langdon thrillers (Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, Inferno, etc.), would follow them up with a children’s book and a “symphony” to go with it? Seems Mr. Brown considered a career in music working as a composer and lyricist before he became a full-time writer. I guess now that he has conquered the world of adult fiction, he decided to turn to children’s books and children’s music.
 
The music is, in fact, children’s music. Not that adults can’t enjoy it, but it is highly derivative, rather brief and direct, and meant primarily to accompany his book Wild Symphony with sound. The book describes animals, and the music describes the animals. Here’s the way Brown explains it: “My intent with Wild Symphony is to provide a fun, fresh opportunity for families, parents, children, and people of all ages to reconnect with the magical experience of classical music. Wild Symphony is a very wild symphony indeed, and offers a refreshingly real experience for children of all ages.” He goes on to say, “Music is a kind of storytelling, and the orchestral movements in Wild Symphony--combined with their accompanying poems and illustrations--all work together (like a code, of sorts!) to tell a story and reveal a funny or interesting side of an animal’s personality. If you listen carefully, you might be able to find each animal hiding in the music.”
 
I doubt that the music of Wild Symphony not actually being a symphony at all but a medley of very short tone poems will put anybody off. It is what it is, and The Carnival of Animals it ain’t. Brown says his inspirations for the music were Saint-Saens’s Carnival, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Only unlike those composer’s aforementioned music, Brown aimed Wild Symphony squarely at very young children, say three to ten years old.
 
Still, imitative though it may be, there is much an adult can enjoy in the music. It is sprightly and attentive, and Maestro Miran Vaupotic and the Zagreb Festival Orchestra play it with professional aplomb and high good humor. If a few parents don’t already have the Saint-Saens, Prokofiev, and Britten works, Brown’s book and music might persuade them to seek out the longer, more-serious stuff, which is not a bad idea at all.
 
Here’s a rundown of the disc’s twenty-one tracks:
01. Maestro Mouse
02. Woodbird Welcome
03. Bouncing Kangaroo
04. Clumsy Kittens
05. The Ray
06. happy Hippo
07. Frogs in a Bog
08. Anxious Ostrich
09. The Armadillo Shell
10. Dancing Bear
11. Impatient Ponies
12. Wondrous Whale
13. Cheetah Chase
14. Eager Elephant
15. Rat Attack
16. Busy Beetles
17. Spiders on a Web
18. Brilliant Bat
19. Swan in the Mist
20. Cricket Lullaby
21. Maestro Mouse Reprise
 

As you can see from the work’s program, it bears a strong similarity to Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals in a kind of condensed version, which Brown freely admits, right down to the “Swan” toward the end. The main difference is that Brown’s little tone poems are briefer (one to four minutes each) and more obviously suited to the ears of small children than Saint-Saens’s music. Yet, as I say, that’s not a bad thing. My own first love of classical music came when I was about six years old, listening to the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show where host Jon Arthur would play classical clips, and I would whistle or hum along with them. I would hope that Brown’s music and book could do the same for children today.
 
I was reminded throughout Brown’s Wild Symphony of Disney’s Silly Symphonies, those early cartoons with accompanying orchestral music. It’s movie music of a kind. Naturally, things get off to a rousing start with “Maestro Mouse,” a real curtain-raising overture. The rest are appropriately impressionistic or literal as the job requires. I liked the representation of “The Ray” in particular, with its mellifluous, sinuous, gliding tone, as well as “Swan in the Mist” for its sweet agility and “Rat Attack” for its quaint orientalism. Things like “Happy Hippo” and “Frogs in a Bog” are sillier renderings and should delight children of all ages.
 
And so it goes. For parents of younger kids, the book and its accompanying music might be a winning combination.
 
Producers Bob Lord, Kresimir Selerkovic, and Jeff LeRoy and engineer Jan Kosulic recorded the music at Blagoje Bersa Concert Hall at the Music Academy of the University of Zagreb, Croatia in December 2018 and March and June 2019. The music is available via download, streaming, or the PARMA app. As producer Lord puts it, “The app is extraordinary. The effect of simply holding the phone over the book to hear the music, magically jumping from one animal and musical movement to another, is really something.” I listened to a CD that PARMA was kind enough to burn for me so I could hear on my big speakers.
 
The sound is recorded somewhat closely, but it still has a pleasantly realistic ambient air about it, and it never hits you in the face. The instruments are nicely rounded without being soft or dull, just natural. The whole might have benefited from a little more orchestral depth, but that’s of little concern. Strong, wide dynamics further enhance a good thing.

To view the world premiere of Wild Symphony live, visit Dan Brown's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=259028005447708&ref=watch_permalink.

JJP
 
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Whitacre: The Sacred Veil (CD Review)

Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon, Artistic Director; Eric Whitacre, conductor; Lisa Edwards, piano; Jeffrey Zeigler, cello. Signum SIGCD630.

Composer Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) is a gifted composer and choral conductor whose work always seems to be bursting with energy, imagination, and beauty. His style is a mixture of the simple and the complex, with melodies that are beguiling and straightforward on the surface but often expressed in harmonies that can stretch, soar, and bedazzle. His energy does not confine itself to his composing, as he also is active as a conductor. With the rise of the internet and technologies for interacting electronically, he has recently been active in assembling “virtual choirs” that feature singers from throughout the world joyfully blending their voices under his direction and stewardship.

Whitacre composed The Sacred Veil in with his friend and frequent collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri, who wrote the lyrics, which revolve around the death from cancer of his late wife, Julia Lawrence Silvestri. As you might surmise from those circumstances, The Sacred Veil is an intensely personal, deeply moving work of art; moreover, this Signum CD is rewarding in many different ways.

One of the interesting qualities of The Sacred Veil is the way it balances intimacy with expression. The lyrics focus on the really private story of Julia’s passing, told from the perspective of her husband, Charles. At the same time, the lyrics are used to evoke Silvestri’s concept of a thin veil that separates the past from the future, the living from the dead, the temporal from the eternal. A simple concept intellectually, but packed with mystery and complexity as a lived experience. Whitacre’s musical setting of the lyrics uses simple melodies played by the piano and the cello to provide a ground for the sometimes straightforward, sometimes soaringly complex choral parts.

Just listen to the opening measures, with a simple melody on the piano soon joined by a tone from the cello, the choir then joining in with some exquisite harmonizing that draws the listener right into the lyrics and thus into the story. By the time the final movements arrive, the vocal harmonies have become more layered, more complex, but the piano and cello still are there to provide a solid foundation for the harmonic structure of the voices. A particularly moving choral device that Whitacre uses to great effect are sliding harmonies in the voices as the lyrics reflect Silvestri’s thoughts and emotions in the immediate aftermath of his wife’s passing in the penultimate movement, “You Rise, I Fall,” an incredibly moving portrait of grief built upon love and hope.

Following the music there is a recorded interview with Silvestri and Whitacre. Such appendices to a musical performance can be annoying, but Silvestri and Whitacre offer an explanation of the meaning of the work and the creative process that the two of them used to bring the piece to fruition. The interview provides insights into The Sacred Veil that makes the listener want to listen to the music again, and again, and again.

Insight into the recording is also provided by the liner notes, which include a brief foreword by Grant Gershon, an introduction to the background story underlying the lyrics by Silvestri, and a movement-by-movement essay on the music by Whitacre. The liner notes also include background information and photographs for not only Whitacre and Silvestri, but also for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, pianist Lisa Edwards, and cellist Jeffrey Ziegler. Seeing information provided for all involved just seems to add to the cooperative, supportive, intimate, indeed loving feeling engendered by both the music and the interview contained in this generously filled (nearly 80 minutes) compact disc. Even the austere but expressive black-and-white cover art feels perfectly appropriate for this release.

Last but not least, the recorded sound is of such excellent quality (Fred Vogler was the recording engineer) that the listener is not likely to really even think about it. The music is just there, sounding utterly natural and unstrained. This is a magnificent CD that I cannot recommend too highly. I hope you find it as moving and inspiring as I do.

Bonus Recommendations: Whitacre has several commercial CD recordings available, notably Light and Gold (2010) and Water Night (2012) on the Decca label. The former is all-choral, while the latter also feature some orchestral compositions. Another fine all-choral collection is Cloudburst and Other Choral Works (2007) on Hyperion. A release easy to overlook but wonderful to hear is The Complete A Cappella Works 1991-2001 (2007) performed by the Brigham Young University Singers on the Arsis label. They may be an amateur group, but both the performances and the engineering are first-class. Finally, a work by Whitacre that is a must-hear is Deep Field, orchestral music that Whitacre composed based on images of deep space from the Hubble space telescope. It is not available on CD as of this writing, but you can find links at Whitacre’s website, ericwhitacre.com.

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below: