If you believe that it’s possible for good things to come in small packages, then mini-monitors are right up your alley.  These little fellas warm the hearts and ears of space-constrained audiophiles everywhere.  Besides having room-friendly sizes, mini-monitors simply disappear once you toss in decent amplifiers, cables and stands.  Montreal’s Totem Acoustics has been building great compact loudspeakers for two decades.  CEO Vince Bruzzese seems to have applied Native American spirits, or some such supernatural force, to his speakers, which should not come as a surprise to the Totem true believers who have always known that Bruzzese and company were on to something.  I bought my first-edition Mani-2s in 1996 and they have graced my smaller listening room ever since.  More than a decade later, Totem has completely rethought this speaker, with the new Signature version.

House Spirits

The exteriors of the Sigs resemble those of their predecessors, but these speakers are all new on the inside, from internal bracing to crossovers and drivers.  There are two new distinctive aesthetic features: a little blue dot above the tweeter and a plaque on the rear.  Similar to the original Mani-2s, these are 4-ohm speakers that measure 16.4 inches tall, 8.5 inches wide and 12 inches deep, and they weigh 23 pounds apiece.

Each speaker features a 1-inch aluminum tweeter and two 6.5-inch woofers in an Isobarik formation—meaning that one driver faces into the cabinet and the other faces the outside world.  Each rear panel is ported and has two sets of terminals for bi-wiring.  Totem offers an optional grille, but the company openly prefers that you listen to the Sigs in their birthday suits.

After easing the Blu Tack off of my Mani-2 originals, I place the new speakers on the same lead-filled Target stands.  My room dimensions being on the small side (15 by 10 by 8 feet), I locate the speakers 3 feet from the short wall and 2 feet from the sidewalls, with 5 feet of space between each speaker.  My listening distance was 8 feet.  As the sensitivity of the Sigs is relatively low (85 dB), Totem recommends amplifiers for them that can crank out at least 40 watts per channel.  Advice notwithstanding, I have zero trouble driving them to satisfactorily clean listening levels with two different integrated amps, rated at 30 and 35 watts.

Man, Oh Mani-2

Totem suggests a minimum 200-hour break-in period and I willingly comply.  Two relatively low-powered integrated amplifiers, the PrimaLuna Premium Prologue (35 wpc) and the Pass Labs INT-30A (30 wpc) provide the juice.  A PS Audio PerfectWave Transport with MKII DAC and a Logitech Squeezebox Touch, armed with a USB drive, serve up the music.  Since extended low bass was an original Mani-2 “calling card,” I go straight to Patricia Barber’s “Constantinople” from Modern Cool (Premonition Records).  Midway through this jam session, Michael Arnopol cuts loose on his acoustic bass in jazzy yet articulate fashion.  The Sigs give a true-to-form account of this solo, right down to the resonances of the bass’s soundboard.  Continuing the low-frequency session, I go to the Pipes Rhode Island CD (Riago) for Stephen Martorella’s masterful handling of the Widor Adagio.  The low pedals on this piece prove little problem for the Sigs, whose little woofers move considerable air in my listening room.

From my perspective, voice reproduction separates loudspeaker contenders from pretenders, so I toss the Sigs Tony Bennett, in an XRCD2 remastering of The Tony Bennett Bill Evans Album (JVC).  Bennett’s slightly raspy voice has a remarkable way of drawing you into each song.  One listen to “Some Other Time” reassures me that the Sigs can really do vocals.  To add more fuel to this fire, I play Isaac Freeman and the Blueblood’s “Beautiful Stars” (Lost Highway Records).  Freeman’s deep-bass vocals resonate like the voice of God, a quality captured by the Sigs, minus the mid-range coloration often found from small speakers.

Ultimately, speakers get their cardio workouts from large-scale orchestral works.  I administer this last treadmill test with a 24-bit/96-kHz download of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite turned in by Japanese conductor Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra (Reference Recordings).  This piece’s no-holds-barred finale has all the forces wailing away at fortissimo levels.  The next best thing to the players actually leading a frontal assault into my room is having the Sigs give me a good wallop, and they do so without a hint of strain.

The Ancestral Voices Have Spoken

In the past decade and a half following the arrival of my original pair of Mani-2s, there have been three Washington administrations, two foreign wars, and, in case you missed it, a massive market tanking.  Surprisingly, the high-end audio industry has managed to rock on.  Some companies, like Totem Acoustic, have actually flourished and expanded their loudspeaker lines.  Each generation of Totem speakers has drawn from the wisdom of its ancestors.  This makes the company’s decision to issue a second Mani-2 generation an interesting one, since many of the newer Totem speakers have been larger floorstanders.

Comparing the Sigs to their forebears shows how much the Totem design team has invested in product reinvention.  The sonic strengths of the originals, such as good imaging and bass extension, have been further improved.  The soundstage is noticeably broader, deeper and taller.  The bass is better articulated, while highs sound more natural, courtesy of the new tweeter.  Most importantly, midrange clarity, not a strength of the original Mani-2s, is dramatically better.

Midway through my review, I noted that Totem offers an accessory that, for obvious visual reasons, is called the “Beak.”  This is a custom-milled 2-inch-high aluminum cone with “micro-ribs.”  According to the product literature, Beaks are meant to “control parasitic vibrations that occur on top of a speaker cabinet.”  Totem further suggests that Beaks help produce better imaging and high-frequency performance.  They can be placed atop each enclosure, either singly or in pairs.

While I am not a big-time tweaker, I did experiment with these curious devices.  Having the Beaks on and diagonally aligned from front to back produced smoother highs and a more coherent soundstage—maybe not to a shattering degree, since the Sigs are already so good, but the result was certainly noticeable and could be reproduced on repeated listenings.

Conclusions: Is the Mani-2 for you?

So what does $5,295 (plus an additional $300 to $400 for high-quality speaker stands) get you?  It won’t get you the huge soundstage of large panels or the subterranean bass of a separate subwoofer.  It will get you compact speakers that fit easily into most listening rooms.  It will get you intensely musical sound from all the sources at your disposal.  As a bonus, you will not need monster amps to drive these guys.  In a modest-sized listening room with two integrated amps, each rated at less than 40 watts per side, I got great sound aplenty from the Sigs, although their bass response seemed slightly plumper with the Pass than the PrimaLuna.

The jungle of $5,000-plus speakers is the natural habitat for many species of widely differing designs.  Most speakers in this price range will provide pleasurable listening if mated with proper electronics, cables and, most critically, a room with the appropriate dimensions.  When it comes to getting the most sound in a modest-sized room, the Mani-2 Sigs will give you just about as much as you can hope for in terms of imaging, smooth highs, clear mids and extended bass that has to be heard to be believed.  If this is not enough to sell you, you should note that my 15-year-old Mani-2s, while clearly bettered by the Sigs, still sound pretty darn good (i.e. I’m not throwing them away), which is a testimony to the build quality of Totem speakers.

Totem Acoustic Mani-2 Signature Speaker

MSRP: $5,295 (USD)

www.totemacoustic.com

Peripherals

Digital Source	Logitech Squeezebox Touch    PS Audio PerfectWave Transport and DAC MKII
Integrated Amplifier	Pass Labs INT-30A    PrimaLuna Prologue Premium
Power Conditioner	Running Springs Audio Elgar\
Cables	Nordost Valhalla and Frey
Power Cords	Nordost Valhalla, Brahma and Vishnu

Spoiler alert:  The Paradigm Reference Signature S8s are amazing speakers that don’t cost a small fortune.  They offer performance way beyond what you’d expect for $8,998 a pair.  Many of us know the Canadian company for its smaller speakers and great home-theater systems, but the Signature S8s have major audiophile cred.

Eddie Jobson’s Theme of Secrets paints an enormous sonic landscape in all directions, with low-level detail and spatial cues galore.  It’s a fantastic yet obscure audiophile freak-out record that, in a great system, feels like a surround-sound mix from two channels, which is a test that the Ref Sig.S8s pass handily.  The beryllium tweeter and line-array-type configuration give the speakers a high degree of coherence, which is a major contributor to their ability to reproduce vocals—male or female—with such lifelike ease.

The ’80s club classic “Sex (I’m a…)” from Berlin encourages twisting the volume control.  The Ref Sig.S8s keep the driving disco beat firmly anchored without losing track of the seductive lead vocals, while also keeping all of the backup vocals sorted, as they pop in from all over the soundscape, mildly suggesting what our lead vocalist might be.  The cranky, out-of-phase lead vocals in Sheep on Drugs’ version of “Waiting for the Man” takes a similar turn, with a great mix of vocal layers and spacey electronic effects zooming all over the listening room—further showcasing the fact that these speakers possess extraordinary imaging abilities.

Those with more traditional tastes, take notice:  The Paradigms perform equally well rendering the delicate shadings of Anne Bisson’s “Dragonfly” or Annie Lenox’s strong lead vocals in “No More I Love You’s.”  Tracks like these reveal that the integration of the tweeter and midrange driver directly below it is fantastic.

Thanks to their 92-dB sensitivity, the speakers barely budge the power meters of the 200-watt-per-channel D’Agostino Momentum stereo amplifier that I’m currently enjoying.  The Momentum really grips the Ref Sig.S8s’ four 7-inch woofers, proving that you won’t likely need to pair these speakers with one of Paradigm’s massive subwoofers.  Justin Timberlake’s “Let the Groove Get In” is the only track with which I can actually push the multiple woofers to their boundaries, with the Momentum’s needles moving in earnest to the song’s opening bass riff.

Taking further advantage of the powerful low-frequency abilities of the Ref Sig.S8s, I demo some Aphex Twin—and there’s loads of low-end rumble, but everything else is smooth sailing.  If you really need to rattle the foundation of your house, or love your movies loud, ­by all means peruse the Paradigm catalog.  However, most of us will be thrilled with the bass response that these speakers deliver.

Best of all, the high sensitivity of these speakers allows a wide range of compatible amplification, making them a fantastic anchor for your system.  We can continue the tired chicken/egg argument of whether one should prioritize the speakers or source components—but I suggest building around a pair of speakers that you love, because they ultimately require more effort to interface with your environment, visually and audibly.  And what’s not to love here?

Quality is Key

The Ref Sig.S8s may have a relatively small footprint—about 4 feet tall, with a base measuring 8.5 inches by 20.5 inches—but they are massive on quality.  Paradigm creates such high-value speakers by designing and building all of its drivers in house at its factory near Toronto in Canada.  Unlike many lesser speaker companies, which are often forced to work with off-the-shelf drive units—and sometimes make up for a driver’s inadequacies by tweaking the crossover network, and thus produce a substandard result—Paradigm builds it all from the ground up.

Visiting Paradigm last year revealed what a large proportion of its factory is devoted to research and design.  Paradigm is one of a very small group of speaker companies that not only builds their own drivers, but also only builds drivers specifically to meet the needs of a speaker, once that speaker’s objectives are finalized.  And because the company has such a large operation—the factory is almost 260,000 square feet—there are tremendous economies of scale in terms of the raw materials they can purchase.

Even Paradigm’s tiniest Atom mini-monitors ($398 per pair) feature these same levels of design and engineering excellence and attention to construction detail.  I’m sure that a company outsourcing all of these components would have to charge twice as much for a similar speaker—and many do.

The Cradle Will Rock

Near the end of this review, HDtracks announced the release of the first six Van Halen albums on 24-bit/192-kHz download.  What better way to evaluate the performance limits of the Ref Sig.S8s than to crank Van Halen for an afternoon?

I start slow, with David Lee Roth on “Ice Cream Man,” and the speakers illuminate the delicate vocal stylings of this track, which is full of echo and reverb, with S8s reproducing Eddie Van Halen’s acoustic guitar flawlessly.  Midway through the track, as the rest of the band chimes in, the Ref Sig.S8s have no problem accommodating the driving bass line and the drums.  The amount of clean, undistorted sound these speakers produce is as impressive as the finesse with which they deliver it.

These are far from just being rock-and-roll, brain-damage speakers.  They do finesse as well as they do loud, making them a fit for whatever music you enjoy.  Bill Bruford’s The Sound of Surprise, for example, is an album that bridges classic jazz patterns with some great prog rock riffs.  On the track “Half Life,” piano floats amidst Bruford’s slower interludes, but the Ref Sig.S8s can instantly accelerate when the program material dictates.  Playing acoustic fare also underlines the speakers’ worthiness of great amplification.  The beryllium tweeter strikes a perfect balance of resolution, clarity and timbre that benefits from being fed thusly.  These speakers easily reveal the subtle differences between the megabucks power amplifiers we had in for issue 53.

Having used these speakers with a wide range of amplification, I’d suggest going the tube route if you have to compromise your amplifier budget.  The slight softness of a modestly powered tube amplifier will provide a more musical result overall than an inexpensive solid-state amplifier.  For those of you closed to the idea of a metal-domed speaker, I submit that it was probably the amplification used that ruined the experience for you, not the speaker.

The Rega Brio-R integrated amplifier proves an excellent low-price, high-performance partner for the Ref Sig.S8s, as does the PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium integrated tube amp.  And it just gets better as you go up the food chain.  The new 200-watts-per-channel Plinius Hautonga integrated amplifier that we are currently auditioning is a brilliant combination with these speakers, offering wonderfully lifelike sound and limitless dynamics.  With these speakers, those with amplification in the $5,000-to-$10,000 range might even be scratching their heads, wondering why their more well-heeled audio buddies bothered spending more.

Under the Hood

Beneath the veneered cabinets, which are available in beautifully finished cherry or gloss black, lurks the best technology that Paradigm has to offer (though the company has just released a 30th anniversary model that looks very intriguing…).  The 1-inch pure-beryllium dome tweeter of the Ref Sig.S8 is coupled to a 7-inch cobalt-infused aluminum midrange, which utilizes a dual-layer voice coil and an enormous die-cast basket that acts as a heat sink—critical for a driver that takes the bulk of the bandwidth in this three-way speaker system.

Four 7-inch woofers round out the package, with an on-axis spec of −2 dB at 39 Hz, and a typical −3 dB at 24 Hz in an average room.  Our trusty Stereophile Test CD confirms that the speakers can deliver on a strong 30-Hz track, with a dip at 25 Hz and then quickly fading off after this point, even with the massive Pass Xs 300s driving them.  This is very impressive performance for a pair of $8,998 speakers.

Don’t let the compact footprint fool you:  These slim speakers weigh 100 pounds each, so unless you turn green when someone makes you mad, get some help to unpack and move them into place.  The Ref Sig.S8s come with small rubber feet, and a full set of spikes.

Paradigm suggests that you use the speakers with grilles on, as this is the way they were voiced.  Always one to follow directions, I go this route and concur that this is a slightly smoother sound, though it makes the high-frequency response slightly more pronounced if you remove them, especially when using a tube amp.  Plus, there’s so much craftsmanship here that it just seems a pity to hide it all beneath those grilles!

Setup is straightforward, beginning with the speakers about 9 feet apart on the 15-foot short wall of my main listening room, with a slight toe-in to make the listening position about 10 feet back.  As with any speaker, I like to key in on the bass response first—going for the best combination of power and locking them into the room, and then making slight adjustments for imaging later.  The Ref Sig.S8s are not terribly fussy speakers to work with, thanks to their great power response and wide dispersion, so even those with modest skills will be happy with the results.  But, if you’re so inclined, 30 minutes of serious geeking out will reward you with a more three-dimensional soundstage.

If you’re looking for a pair of speakers that offers serious five-figure performance without a five-figure pricetag, consider the Paradigm Reference Signature S8s.  In the scheme of today’s wacky audio world, where $100k speakers are no longer rare, these are refreshingly great—and we are happy to give them one of our Exceptional Value Awards for 2013.

The Paradigm Reference S8 Signature Speakers

MSRP: $8,998 per pair (available in cherry or piano black)

www.paradigm.com

Peripherals

Analog Source	AVID Volvere SP turntable    SME V tonearm    Koetsu Urushi Vermillion cartridge
Digital Source	Light Harmonic DAC    Sooloos Control 15 server
Preamplifier	ARC REF 5 SE
Amplifier	ARC REF 150    D’Agostino Momentum stereo    Rega Brio-R integrated   PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium integrated    Plinius Hautonga integrated
Cable	Cardas Clear

Digital audio doesn’t have a sound, per se. What we describe as digital sound is the sound of analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversions. There’s not much we can do about the A-to-Ds used when music you love is recorded, mixed, or mastered, but as for the D-to-A conversions, the MSB Technology Platinum Data CD IV Transport and Platinum Signature DAC IV sound as good as digital gets.

Many analog lovers are certain that vinyl is more musical while digital devotees claim the zeroes and ones approach is by-the-numbers accurate. Vinyl’s sins are mostly additive: analog has higher levels of distortion, speed variability, and noise issues, but digital somehow loses the juicy richness we associate with the sound of the proverbial real thing. Each camp stakes its claim of sonic superiority and often dismisses the opposite side’s formats as non-musical garbage, and I swear the name-calling has been going on since analog was first converted to digital. That’s not to say there aren’t audiophiles that straddle the analog/digital gap. I include myself in that group.

MSB’s Technology Platinum Data CD IV Transport and Platinum Signature DAC IV narrow the analog-digital divide, and again remind me of the source’s role in determining the sound of my hi-fi. It really comes down to this: If musical information is “lost” at the source, it can’t ever be regained with better amps or speakers. The old garbage-in, garbage-out credo still stands, and improvements made at the beginning of the chain—the source—are huge.

Being Discrete

The $3,995 Platinum Data CD IV Transport and $17,489 Platinum Signature DAC IV are available in Matte White (a.k.a. silver) or Satin Black; heat sinks on the chassis sides come in silver, black, or blue. The DAC offers an extensive (and at times, bewildering) range of set-up options. Input switching modes, digital filters, and dither options via the remote. The US-made DAC IV is discrete. It doesn’t utilize Burr-Brown or any off-the-shelf chips to convert digital-to-analog, and that’s a really big deal. MSB rolls its own ultra-high resolution, up to 384-kHz/32-bit DAC modules in-house, achieved straight through with no complicated side operations. The DACs use high-precision aerospace grade resistors, specifically selected and matched for use in the Signature DAC. The modules can be upgraded down the road, so a Platinum can become a Signature and a Signaure can become a Diamond.  The front end of the DAC IV series uses the largest  blank SHARC chipsets available containing four digital filters, input receivers and two upsampler  algorithms  all written in-house. It was designed to be field upgradable with firmware downloads for new digital filters, future formats and many other  pre-conversion functions.  Analog and digital sections are completely isolated from each other.

You can configure your Platinum Signature DAC IV with a range of options, including the Signature volume attenuator for $2,295; the Signature USB 2 384 kHz board for $1,395; a remote control power on/off feature for $485; a second analog input for $995; and an integrated iLink (iPod dock) for $1,995.

After inserting a disc, the Transport starts reading and rereading the disc and puts the data in a memory, like a computer-disc transport would. MSB engineers listened to and tested dozens of drives before selecting the one employed in the Data CD IV. This drive performs just one function—it reads the data from the disc and the Data CD IV’s custom-designed electronics control the drive. This approach is what separates its performance from other transports. Jitter is reduced to the point that MSB had to develop its own measurement system to more accurately monitor the readings.

The Transport requires an outboard 12-volt power supply, and MSB offers two options: a small desktop supply ($595) or a MSB Platinum Power Base that comes with a MSB Platinum DAC. The Data CD IV’s performance is the same with either power supply. The Transport has AES-EBU, RCA coaxial, Toslink optical, and MSB’s proprietary Network digital outputs.

The DAC claims the same connectivity options as inputs, plus a 75-ohm BNC digital input an XLR or RCA analog input that passes through the purist volume attenuator, as well as RCA and XLR analog outputs.  Perhaps the highest resolution is available via MSB’s new Pro I2S MSB-Network connection, featuring ground isolation, higher bandwidth and markedly lower jitter.

Visually, the Data CD IV Transport and DAC IV are much prettier than any previous MSB Tech components I’ve seen. The deeply rounded front fascia and low-slung chassis are flanked by gently curved heat sinks. The underside of the chassis’ four corners are stocked with brass pointed feet, and the corresponding top corners are fitted with inserts to accept a stacked MSB component’s pointed feet.

Physically, the Data CD IV feels nice and solid, but the generic plastic disc-loading tray and tiny transport control buttons seem out of place on gear that pushes the state of the art. Granted, they don’t make a whit of difference to the sound, but I’d love to see a machined metal tray for this kind of money. The tray is the primary point of contact with the Transport, and it breaks the high-end spell. The Transport and DAC are also each shipped with a lightweight aluminum-faced remote control. Again, they’re nothing fancy, but the remote works well, and I prefer it to the massive devices that come with some high-end components.

Who Needs Surround?

I’ll quickly concede that higher-than-CD-resolution digital gets closer to analog’s musical nature, but there’s precious little new music coming out on Blu-ray, SACD, DVD-A, or high-resolution download these days. By far, the CD is still the best-sounding widely distributed digital format. I own around 3,000 CDs and buy on average two per week, and I want to hear them at their best. Presto: The MSB components made the little silver discs sound better than ever. So much so I didn’t shed a tear when I discovered the Platinum Data CD IV Transport doesn’t play SACD or DVD-A discs, but spins DVD-ROMs encoded with WAV files with up to 384 kHz sampling rates with 32-bit resolution. If you possess a large SACD/DVD-A collection, check out MSB’s $3,995 Universal Media Transport. (review in process)

Before starting a review of digital gear, I like to exclusively listen to LPs for a few days. The process clears my head. The MSBs acquitted themselves well during the first few plays—not so much that they sounded analog-like, but sounded good. Really good. As I played a stack of CDs, the MSBs connected the dots better than most digital gear I’ve heard.

I spent some time running the Platinum Signature DAC IV straight into my Pass Labs XA100.5 amps, and controlling the volume from the DAC. Sure, this approach is possible with some other DACs, but I’ve never actually preferred this method to using a preamp between DAC and amp. It makes a lot of sense to eliminate the preamp, but too often, dynamics go south and the sound loses too much of its essential mojo. Not this time. Straight-in, the DAC was a smidge more transparent, soundstaging more open, and focus better. Dynamics were better straight-in than with my Parasound JC-2 preamp in the chain. If you don’t have a lot of other analog sources (the DAC can be configured with up to two RCA and XLR analog inputs), you might want to forgo a preamp altogether.  For those already possessing a high quality linestage, the purist attenuator can be switched out completely.

While listening to 176.4 kHz/24-bit hi-res music from Reference Recordings’ HRx Sampler 2011 DVD-ROM disc, the sound was nothing less than astounding. To my ears, high resolution gets you closer to being in the venue as you hear more low-level atmospherics. The illusion of being in a concert hall ranks ahead of what I’ve heard from SACD or DVD-A surround discs. The soundstage on the Reference disc may be strictly two-channel, but it’s so huge, I felt no loss of surround. Uninhibited large-scale dynamics, like the big bass drum that opens Walton’s Crown Imperial finale, just about knocked me over and had me reassessing my Magnepan 3.7 speakers’ dynamic capabilities.

The small- and large-scale dynamics on the disc’s solo piano tracks were, again, the most lifelike I’ve heard at home. The studio-recorded jazz tracks’ more intimate soundstage perspective added a degree of presence that made returning to CD an unpleasant option. So I popped in a 96-kHz/24 DVD-ROM of Paul Simon’s recent So Beautiful or So What album. It’s not an audiophile recording and, compared to the Reference Recordings’ discs, it’s dynamically compressed and processed-sounding. But it’s not bad. It’s also Simon’s best effort in years, and the lovely acoustic guitar picking on the instrumental “Amulet” is awfully pretty.

The MSBs let me hear more low-level (quiet) sounds in my CDs. Reverb, whether natural or added in the mix, seemed newly apparent in recordings I’d heard hundreds of times. It’s always been there, but no digital playback system I’ve had at home boasted the resolution to reveal it. Having worked on a number of Chesky Records sessions, including dozens recorded at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in NYC, I can state for certain that the MSB Transport and DAC resurrected more of the 173-year-old building’s sound than I’ve ever heard from the CDs, SACDs, or DVD-As). The CDs never came close to this level of resolution. And, as you hear more deeply into a recording, soundstage focus and dimensionality are also enhanced.

Reconsidering the Analog-Digital Divide

In the great analog-digital divide, for me, engagement remains analog’s key advantage. I feel more connected and involved with music when listening to analog. And yet, the MSBs are distinctly more analog-like on these emotional fronts. Rhythm and pace are better than what I’ve come to expect. Imaging is another key strength: Instruments and voices project sound—if not in a complete 360-degree, omni-directional pattern, then something close to that experience. Of course, it’s rare to reproduce a combination of direct and reflected sound over a hi-fi system. The fact is that information isn’t found on most close mic’d recordings; the “space” is an effect added in the mix.

You’re much more likely to hear these details with so-called audiophile recordings since they take place in acoustically interesting places as opposed to acoustically dead studios. Howard Levy & Miroslav’s The Old Country CD on MA recordings equated to a full-blown, virtual-reality experience. Engineer Todd Garfinkel records with a pair of B&K mics placed above the musicians. Via the MSBs, his mic technique was crystal clear, the spatial relationships between musicians perfectly rendered. No other digital playback gear came close to revealing this kind of accuracy, including my long-standing reference, the Ayre C-5xe mp SACD/DVD-A player. The latter remains a great machine, but blurs the instruments’ outlines and flattens the soundstage. The MSB duo is a much sharper “lens.”

So it came as something of a shock when the MSB worked its magic on less-than-stellar recordings like Trio Beyond’s live Saudades CD. I’ve always enjoyed Jack DeJohnette, Larry Goldings, and John Scofield’s music, but it’s zippy, fuzzy, and nasty-sounding. Yet the MSB somehow toned down the negatives. My Japanese pressing of Jethro Tull’s Bursting Out is another live recording that was previously too aggressively bright and thin to really enjoy, and yet the MSBs fleshed out the sound. That’s good news, because hearing 1978-era Tull blast through “Cross-Eyed Mary,” “Aqualung,” and “Thick as a Brick” is freaking awesome.

Admittedly, the MSB Technology Platinum Data CD IV Transport and Platinum Signature DAC IV are expensive, but the best stuff almost always costs. Then again, the components are also about as future-proof as digital gets, so it’s the sort of digital gear in which you can invest for the long haul. The analog-digital divide has never been smaller.

MSB Technology Data CD IV Transport

MSRP: $3,995

MSB Signature DAC IV with Signature Power Base

MSRP: $17,489

http://www.msbtech.com

Peripherals

Analog Source	VPI Classic turntable with a van den Hul Frog cartridge
Digital Sources	PS Audio PerfectWave DAC    Oppo BDP-83 Special Edition
Electronics	Parasound JC 2 preamp    Pass Labs XP-20    Whest 2.0 phono preamp   Bel Canto REF500S    Pass Labs XA100.5    First Watt J2 power amps
Speakers	Dynaudio C-1    Zu Essence    Mangepan 3.6    Magnepan 3.7
Cable	XLO Signature 3 interconnects    Analysis Plus Silver Oval interconnects and speaker cables    Audioquest Sky interconnects