January 2014
In 2013, Sherwood, formerly Sherwood Electronic Laboratories Inc., celebrated its 60th anniversary -- a rare event in the home-audio industry. The company was founded in Chicago in 1953 to manufacture an amplifier designed by Ed Miller. Its first products were tuners, integrated amplifiers, and receivers with enamel front panels and knobs rather than the toggle switches typical of the era. And inside, of course, were vacuum tubes. By the early 1960s, Sherwood was supplying FM broadcasters with stereo multiplex equipment, and in the hi-fi era was responsible for a few “firsts” -- such as the first solid-state receiver (the 1005, in 1967), and the first FM tuner with a digital readout (the SEL-300). Like much of its competition, Sherwood had moved production to the Far East by the late 1970s. The company now makes stereo and audio/video receivers, iPod docks, wireless speakers, sound bars, tuners, turntables, and disc players. I was sent a sample of the newest of their 11 models of 7.1-channel A/V receivers, the R-807 ($450 USD).
Boston Acoustics is known for making good-sounding speakers, and the MC100 Blue Bluetooth speaker ($149 USD) follows in that tradition. For better Bluetooth sound, it supports NFC pairing and the aptX codec, though it’s not, as its box proclaims, a “wireless Bluetooth speaker” -- it must be plugged into AC to function. That’s about the only nit I have to pick with Boston Acoustics, who are not alone in confusing this issue. We need to adopt language in which Bluetooth means the wireless connectivity of that proprietary audio-signal format, and wireless means a battery-powered product that can be used without being tethered to a wall socket.
Hong Kong-based Miniwatt burst onto the hi-fi scene in 2009 with a tiny integrated tube amplifier that produced a mere 2.5Wpc -- hence the company’s name. The next year brought a slightly more powerful (3.5W) model, the n3, which still had a footprint about the size of a CD jewel case. While some might scoff at such low power ratings, a few watts are all that are needed to drive a desktop audio system with speakers of moderate sensitivity. Of course, an amplifier requires a source, and if you’re focusing on a desktop system, a USB DAC is the obvious choice.
I hate wires! I hate buying them, I hate hooking them up, and I hate the restrictions they place on my audio system. No matter how neatly I try to organize and route them, most of the time they can’t be hidden. On the other hand, I understand a wire’s importance. Heck, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on cables because I wanted to improve the sound of my system.
Furutech is best known as a manufacturer of high-quality audio accessories, from power outlets to line conditioners to interconnects to connectors. A few years ago, the Japanese company launched its Alpha Design Labs brand to offer many of their signal-transmission technologies at lower cost. ADL’s products are focused on the desktop-and-headphones environment, and include a few models each of DACs, headphone amplifiers, and connection cables. The H118 is their first headphone model ($269 USD).
Portable audio has pretty much been anathema to me, with the exception of a long stretch in the 1990s when I flew around the country to give guest lectures and poetry readings, accompanied by a Sony Discman and a bulky wallet full of CDs. Even now, I don’t jog to the beat of Bruno Mars from an iPod, nor do I cruise through campus with cables dangling from my ears like strings of white tears. Mainly, I used to just listen at home to my reference system or not at all -- unless I had to fly somewhere. Then, I’d plug a pair of Monster Turbines into my iPhone and listen to uncompressed files for however long the flight took, as much to shut out the jet noise and conversations around me as from any wish to hear music. To me, listening this way was not real listening, but a way to pass the time and to keep the outside world from passing through me. Personal audio was a barrier, a kind of wall shored against my ruin.
One of the equipment reviewer’s jobs is to take gear to extremes: punish it with challenges to see how it performs. So for home-theater speaker systems, we haul out the bad boys of modern film, the action epics with combustible special sound effects, dominant soundtracks, and enough explosions to make Krakatoa seem like a stroll in a sylvan glade. But once in a while you have to remember that most folks have only one system, which also has to play music -- arguably, a more demanding test of any speaker or system. For this review of one of Focal’s Pack 5.1 systems -- this one comprising five Bird satellites and one Sub Air subwoofer -- we’ve split the difference with a couple of movies about music. We’ll see if the Focal system can lift both weights with equal ease.
As soon as I laid eyes on Cardas Audio’s new EM5813 Model 1 Ear Speakers, at T.H.E. Show Newport Beach ’13 this past May, I knew I was in for something special. Cardas’s VP of marketing and sales, Andy Regan, pulled me out into the hall, where he’d set up a demo table outside the Audio Element room, handed me the weighty earbuds, and told me to plug them into my ears and iPhone. I did and, according to report, let out a joyous “Fucking cool!” I can’t remember what track I played, but the sound was gorgeous. I insisted on a review pair on the spot. I had to have them.
Audioengine began as a manufacturer of professional and consumer electronic products for other companies. Eventually they decided to put out audio components under their own name, and in 2005 the company officially introduced their first consumer loudspeaker, the powered Audioengine 5, which was highly regarded and is still available as the 5+. The company’s website currently lists ten consumer-audio products, including desktop and bookshelf loudspeakers, a desktop amplifier, high-performance wired and wireless 24-bit DACs, a powered subwoofer, and the subject of this review, the 16-bit W3 wireless digital-to-analog converter ($149 USD).
I suspect that my initial encounter with Shure’s products was hardly an uncommon one. I’d purchased a third-generation Apple iPod before I began my freshman year in college, and the little guy enjoyed near constant use for the next eight semesters. Also seeing use were Apple’s detestable first-generation earbuds -- three pairs of them, no less. After busting through my third set, I resolved to do better for myself. My junior year saw stratospheric highs and Marianas Trench lows, emotionally speaking, and Shure’s SE210s provided a terrific soundtrack for it all. But for all their sonic strengths, my old SE210s had a weakness -- after a year or two of daily use in all kinds of weather, the insulation around the cord would crack, exposing the bare wire underneath, and signaling that the Shures were nearing the end of their life.