Goldmund Proteus
Take two - from 2-channel to Media Room
Aug 30, 2010

Proteus software is developed for multi-channel audio/video in what Goldmund calls The Media Room. Goldmund recognizes the Media Room customer is first and foremost, a discerning audiophile, hence Goldmund has taken the next step – to integrate both 2-channel and multi-channel into one software. Effectively creating the next generation software where a customer with a high end stereo Goldmund Epilogue system can upgrade progressively into a full fledge Goldmund Media Room. Is this the final link in the audio chain?

We have Mr Goldmund, Michel Revechon to tell us more about Proteus in coming issue 11 of MOD AV magazine!

Goldmund Proteus
Apr 3, 2010

The future of audio, is in software and not just the hardware.

Digital technology is well nigh perfect, it can be stored in a variety of means – on optical discs, flash memory or hard disk, it can be delivered with 100% accuracy wired or wirelessly, the digital to analogue decoding engine is perfected even at mass market consumer grade playback devices.

Amplification design has come a long way since the early days of the vacuum tube. If it is not deemed ‘perfect’ as it is today, it is close enough to perfection to qualify. Ditto loudspeakers technology – we have flat panels of all kinds, plasma gas and so on, yet the moving coil loudspeaker is the dominant loudspeaker technology that is used in 99% of loudspeakers – from small speakers in your mobile phone to the largest drive units in public address systems. The best moving coil loudspeakers exhibit astonishing low distortion, high in fidelity and practically beyond reproach as a transducer.

So why isn’t our hifi ‘almost perfect’??

Because the room where the hifi playback in isn’t.

Standby for the interview with Michel Revechon on Goldmund's solution - Proteus in the coming Issue 9 of MOD AudioVideo magazine!

A Clear Statement
Mar 27, 2010

Setting up the Clearaudio Statement turntable

When cost is no object, you can expect designers to go all the way to make their dreams on paper a reality – nothing is further from the truth! In this instance, Clearaudio’s reference turntable, the Statement, would probably stand as one of the simplest turntable design ever – solidly grounded in the same design principles of its lesser turntables but an all out assault on the execution of this design.

So rather than spend my time writing a 10,000 word thesis on the turntable, recently we sold a Statement and as we arrange for the delivery to setup the turntable, we thought you might like to see how we put the turntable together, so a photo shoot session was arranged to showcase the setup process as well as figure what makes it, ermm go round…

Please click on this link to view the slide show (you will need a flash player). You can download one here if you don’t have the player installed in your computer.

Sonus faber Luito Wood
Feb 25, 2010

The Luito series stands between the entry Toy series and the Cremona series loudspeakers. The tower Luito gives a fine balance between its room filling ability and a well priced high end loudspeaker. There is only one problem – it looks too much like most other loudspeakers, ie in a single glance, it does not resemble a Sonus faber. True, the lute shaped cabinet is there but has been copied by so many speaker manufacturers that it is silly to say only Sonus who has it.

Still, a ‘real’ Sonus should be solid walnut and leather. Hence the new Luito Wood – this metre tall beauty can now be had in real walnut wood cabinet with real leather covering the top plinth and front baffle. Now that’s more like it!! Now you have a tough decision – to choose the ‘traditional’ look of a Sonus faber or a high tech glossy black? As always, it’s nice to have a choice.

Goldmund Telos 250
Feb 21, 2010

The Goldmund Telos 250 is the new mono amplifier of the Goldmund "High-End" line. The Telos 250 replaces the Telos 200. It features a new larger chassis with better Mechanical Grounding, offers higher power and uses the new capacitors developed from the Telos 5000 to considerably improve its 'Driver Control'. It includes a Telos circuit and built in digital input, a built in D/A Alize 5 converter. The good news is that in spite of all the improvements made, the Telos 250 is sold at the same price as the Telos 200, and will be available soon.

Yter cables
Feb 21, 2010

Why Yter?
The legendary name of Franco Serblin will stir the hearts of many audiophiles who have used his speakers at one time or other. Franco sold the speaker company he built and many of us though he would quit the high end business and enjoy his retirement (if I am not wrong, he is in his seventies). However, like many talented audio designers, there is always so much to be done. In his last speaker design, he experimented with some new cables developed by a company called Laboratorium that were using space age alloys, the results was such a drastic improvement over the high quality cables used previously that he was fascinated enough to keep working to perfect the use of this material.

Using the science of metallurgy, Franco and Laboratorium worked to further develop this cable material. The result is Yter cables – using a pure silver and palladium alloy, cold extruded and mechanical weld with connectors. No heat is applied after the alloy has been fused hence no solder is used. This new cable design has all the ideal properties for conduction of audio signal. In Franco’s words – ‘metallurgical coherence in the path from the source to the speaker drivers.

Yter cables are available as interconnects, balanced interconnects, speaker cables and power cords. We would like to invite you down to our showroom to audition the cables. Are they the world’s best cables? Perhaps not, but it is definitely amongst the best cables available at any price.

A New Definition of Performance vs Value
Jan 21, 2010

The definition of value is perhaps the hardest to define especially for audio products. When Audio Research introduces their new ‘Definition series’, we could hardly contain ourselves! What does the design team at AR have in mind? To find out, we need to take a close look at the DSi200, a solid state ‘hybrid’ integrated amplifier.

Housed in a typical ‘classic’ look of Audio Research amplifiers, this is a ‘line only’ amplifier with a passive preamp stage, an analogue power supply and a new design 200 watt per channel mosfet amplifier stage. A fully balanced design, there are 3 single ended inputs and two balanced inputs, enough for most users. A single set of speaker terminals. Controls are electronic – selector and volume control.

For such a high-powered amplifier, Audio research claims the amplifier runs cool, a consequent of the ‘hybrid’ design – this is no tube preamp/solid state poweramp - there are no tubes in this amplifier. Hybrid refers to the analogue power supply and a high speed ‘switching’ output stage. Audio Research claims a 600-hour break-in period before it performs its best. Ah, all good things in life are worth waiting for, right?

At this point of time, we are still running in the unit. From what I gather on the 'net', there are some owners who had the unit had great results driving some pretty nice speakers. But if you are keen to know more, check out Audio Research website or take a trip down to our store to have an audition.

dCS Puccini U-Clock
Jan 11, 2010

Calling all dCS Puccini owners - the much anticipated U-Clock is in the showroom for demo! Connect the U-Clock to the Puccini SACD player and hear more music from a quieter background, more 3-dimensionality with a wider and deeper soundstage.

The unit is a small slim unit, which your Puccini SACD player can sit on it (see above picture). The U-Clock reduces the level of jitter to insignificance leading to improved performance and sound quality. For fans of PC music aka MP3, Flac, etc the U-Clock comes with a USB to SPDif converter allowing the digital signal to be processed by the dCS Ring DAC. DCS claims its uses asynchronous mode to sync with your PC and the U-Clock takes over to ‘lock’ onto the signal with its buffer, thereby reducing jitter.

So what does this all mean? I had the U-Clock hooked up to a Puccini, with a pair of Pass Lab XA monobloc amplifiers driving a pair of Wilson Sasha. It is quite easy to switch between bypass (the U-Clock) and feed through the Clock – all it takes is one 75 ohm digital cable – you still tap the analogue out from the Puccini player, the clock essentially upgrades the digital signal to help the Ring DAC perform better.

Sonically, the difference is so obvious – the first impression is the sound is so much more dimensional – especially in the bass region, the effect is quick startling. Instruments seem to pop up in a three dimensional space where before things sounded less so. The sound seems quieter, more relax, more real. I can go on but why don’t you pop by the showroom for an audition? Or if you have a Puccini now, give us a call and we can arrange a unit for a home audition before you make up your mind about another investment.

So is the U-Clock meant for the dCS Puccini player only? Of course not! If your player can accept a standard word clock, the U-Clock can do its magic. There are 4 BNC for up to 4 devices. Obviously for a dCS Puccini owner, the U-Clock brings a whole new level of performance to the Puccini.

EMM Labs latest one box player has arrived!
Dec 28, 2009

EMM Labs flagship SACD/CD player have arrived in our showroom. Jim Meitner's latest creation is, for a better word, sublime! The new XDS1 have several first in the Meitner lineup- it uses the Esoteric transport mechanism (considered by many as the finest SACD/CD mechanism available), a new gain stage design which uses only one stage from DAC to output, a new clock module - the MCLK-1 which Meitner claims sub-picosecond jitter.

EMM Labs do not use off the shelf DACs, Meitner developed the MDAT - Meitner Digital Audio Translator - for the XDS1, it has the latest version of this unique conversion device. Typical Converters needs digital filtering after the conversion to overcome time domain errors. However filtering means some of the signal is destroyed in the process - the subtle nuances is lost forever. Better amplifiers and speakers cannot recover what is not there. The MDAT works differently - it is unique in its ability to phase, frequency and dynamic integrity of the waveform bringing a whole new level of musicality and nauances lost in typical CD players.

Another first is MFAST - Meitner Frequency Acquisition Technology. In simple terms it is a high speed asynchronous system that locks into the datastream without introducing jitter. In fact, MFAST is immune to jitter. Get it right to begin with menas not having to resort to band aids after.

Straight out of the box, the XDS1 sounds like analogue. When I say analogue, it means it has none of that digital glare that makes CD tiring to listen to. Once stripped of the noise and distortion, subtle layers of music becomes more apparent. It certainly helps the listener to 'listen in' to the performance. That, is a performance worth listening. If you like to have a listen to the XDS1, do drop by the showroom.

Clearaudio Emotion turntable promotion!
Dec 21, 2009

Clearaudio specializes in analogue – this company may be one of the most prolific makers of all things analogue – turntables, tonearms, cartridges and phono stages. Clearaudio makes one of the most advanced turntables – the Clearaudio Statement. This is one mother of all turntables and priced accordingly too!

Now we all know there are more people buying $1000 turntables than $10,000 turntables and perhaps only a few truly dedicated with deep pockets will be able to afford something like the Statement. But never mind, everyone can afford one of Clearaudio’s cheaper turntables – like this model, the Emotion. Why ‘Emotion’? Because it stirs your heart the minute you listen to it!

And we stir your heart more when we offer this fabulous turntable at a 40%+ discount!

This turntable package consists of the ‘Emotion’ turntable with dust cover, the standard ‘Satisfy’ tonearm, Classic Wood MM cartridge, the ‘Basic’ MM/MC Phono stage and even a pair of ‘Smart wire’ interconnect cable to connect to the line input of any amplifier. Usual price for this package - S$3480, now for a limited period, whilst stocks last – just …..

….. S$1999 only – cash and carry! Head down to High End Research today! Check with the Contact Us page for our address or call us at 6735-1718.

L’Art du Son – the best cleaning fluid ever?

Getting the best from vinyl requires some effort if you demand the sort of results only vinyl can deliver. Keeping records clean is de riguer for collectors and most serious collectors would at some point in their life, invest in a record cleaner. Once you experience what a good record cleaner can do (like the VPI, Loricraft or Clearaudio) , you will never ever want to listen to another dirty record! To enhance the cleaning process, the fluid used need careful attention – it must not react with the compound of the vinyl record, it must not leave any residue and most important it must not attract even more dirt or grime into the grooves.

L'Art du Son is a new and revolutionary record cleaning solution developed after years of research by founder and analogue devotee Martina Schoener. Now High End Research brings you this wonderful product that keeps your vinyl pristine and sounding superior to CD in everyway!

The cleaning fluid is sold as a concentrate fluid – one bottle of this cleaning fluid is diluted with about 5 liters of distilled water, which makes about... 5 liters of cleaning fluid of course, ha ha. It contains no alcohol, and uses environmentally friendly ingredients. It produces a dramatic increase in playback clarity and resolution. Here is a review of L'Art du Son, published in Positive Feedback magazine. The other benefit is that it is virtually odourless and so can be used indoors with no problem.

The L'Art du Son concentrate costs S$110 per bottle and now for a limited period, we offer a special price of S$99 a bottle, which works out at less than S$20 per litre of working strength liquid. So all you vinyl fans, what are you waiting for?

Extreme Overkill?
Dec 10, 2009

Orpheus Lab all new Privilege DAC and Preamp are in the store now!

The nearer unit in the above pic is the preamp while the virtually identical looking unit further back is the DAC.

Now take a closer look - there is no faceplate - that's the whole chunk of a chassis - CNC machined from a solid chunk of aluminum! Starting at about 105Kg and machined down to 30+Kg, and that's before Orpheus put the bits of electronics, transformers, etc into it. Orpheus claims superb sonic benefits with such a solid structure. Finish is impeccable Swiss quality. The clean functional finish is a departure from traditional hifi and distinctive it is with the blue LED volume indicator (for the preamp of course, the DAC selects inputs from the front dial). Single ended and balanced input/output are offered.

Sonically, the Privilege DAC and Preamp combo is remarkably musical. Philip says it sounded analogue. I agree. There is that quiet black background where the music emerge almost three dimensionally which is a little scary on the right recording. You can pick up subtle nuances and musical cues easily and that rock solid stability in the soundstage is awesome. Seems like the claims Orpheus Lab made about the sonic qualities of the one piece chassis may have merit. Haven't got the product price out yet but it should be in the dCS territory.

Tell you what I liked to hear - a full Orpheus Lab Privilege system - DAC, pre and power amplifier driving either the Kharmas or Wilson Sasha to see if which speaker is the better match. Stay tuned!

Goldmund redefines 2-channel
Dec 1, 2009

Michel Reverchon from Goldmund demos an Active Epilogue System at the Sound n Sight Exhibition!

For the thousands who thronged the recent HiFi show, the Goldmund room would have left a lasting impression on the minds of the audiophiles. The Goldmund Epilogue may have been around since 1992, that makes it a 17-year old loudspeaker, but it sure stood the test of time! Designed as a modular system, it enables the owner to slowly progress from the basic Epilogue 1 compact monitor to the Epilogue 1 + 2 which adds a woofer module (the Epilogue 2) and then finally adding a second Epilogue 1 and the Epilogue 3 subwoofers to create the ultimate loudspeaker system. As its name implies, it is the 'Epilogue' of speaker buying - possibly your last loudspeaker because of its modular nature, upgrading is a painless and logical process.

The Epilogue speaker system had its latest update which is very significant - it now run as an active setup - each drive unit is driven by its own dedicated amplifier, fed with its dedicated range of frequencies. This is made possible by the latest Mimesis 32 preamplifier. The Mimesis 32 as its name implies is Goldmund's 'Universal' preamplifier range - it has a built in digital processor with, you guess it, 32 channels. A simpler version with 16 channels is available as the Mimesis 16.

The electronic crossover is achieved in the digital domain, meaning the digital signal is filtered while it remains as '1s' and '0s'. Only after the frequency filtering, then the digital signal is converted into analogue to feed into the amplifier. The Epilogue 1 has a two way crossover while the bass bins gets its own amplifier channel. Hence in this case, you need six channels of amplification to drive the Epilogue 1 and 2 combination. Earlier versions of the passive Epilogue 1 can be upgraded to the active version, at a nominal cost.

The six channels come in the form of 6 units of Goldmund Telos 1000 amplifier. Released early this year, the Telos 1000 strikes a good middle ground between the larger Telos 2500 and the less powerful Telos 600. The Telos 1000 is rated at 1000 watts into 4 ohms, the Telos is a not merely a powerhouse of an amplifier, it is designed to have absolute control over any drive unit. The Telos 1000 will maintain control of the drive unit and running active means the amplifier literally 'locks' onto the voice coil of the Epilogue loudspeakers without the passive crossover getting in the way. The Telos amplifiers like the earlier Goldmund amplifiers are ultra wide bandwidth design and dedicated wide bandwith Goldmund designed interconnects and speaker cables are recommended to work best with the Telos amplifiers.

If you missed the show, we have the very system on demo in our showroom. But it won' t be there forever... already there are interested audiophiles making serious enquiries...