Whether you use SACD or not, this is a brilliant CD player which incorporates a lot of Marantz’s high-tech specialist audio componentry. Your system can only sound as good as the source allows, so getting the best from your discs is essential.

See full details at the Product page here. Our End Of Year Clearance list can still be found here, but check with us re stock remaining.

Marantzs' AirPlay enabled NA7004 streamer.

AktiMate Mico - award winning, and at $385pr excellent value.

NAD Viso 1 - NAD's challenge 'Find a better smart music streaming dock.'

Focals' stunning Little Bird shelf system.

Finally – while on the subject of wireless devices there is a tremendous amount of press coming from overseas regarding Focals’ Bird system. This is in reality a simple inexpensive shelf system comprising of speakers (which is what Focal is famous for), amplifier, a built-in (and ingenious) subwoofer and a tuner. It has both digital and analogue inputs, and streams wirelessly from you computer or iDevice.
There are three variations and the least expensive sells for $1,199, so I was surprised to see a review in this industries bible, The Absolute Sound (they usually confine themselves to products we can only dream about.) Even more surprising was their comment ‘To hear the Bird system is to experience a certain amount of audiophile-grade shock and awe’.
While the Focal Bird system may not be a hi-end audiophile product (despite the lavish praise offered by The Absolute Sound) it really does set a very high bar for anyone looking for a small, compact, affordable system.

Marantz PM11S1

1) PM11S1 Integrated amplifier. This amplifier has just been superseded; although it is still on the Marantz price list at $5,999. The newer version is the SA11S2 which will sell for $6,490.

This is part of their Premium Series, and the range is appropriately named. It is meticulously constructed, the kind of build and feel that you will cherish for years to come. It is also an excellent sounding amplifier, and has been touted in some quarters as the finest integrated amplifier built (while not taking anything away for the SA11 I think this is a bit of an ambitious statement.) The SA11S1 is rated at 100 watts per channel RMS.

We are offering the PM11S1 for $3,999.

Marantz SA15S1

 

2) SA15S1 SACD Player. Also part of their Premium Series this unit has also just superseded, again by the ‘S2’ version – which sells for $2,780. This is a substantial Super Audio CD player. If you think SACD is going to disappear quietly thank again. I just went to the Birdland Records site and searched for SACD, and came up with almost 500 discs.

Keep in mind that this player will also do a superb job of non-SACD discs as well.

We are offering the SA15S1 SACD player for $1,999.

Marantz SA8003

 

3) SA8003 SACD Player. This is part of their conventional range, and like the previous models it has been superseded. The SA8003 had an RRP of $1,699. In this case the replacement has been a substantial upgrade in the form of the $2,299 KI Pearl Lite. Not only are we offering the SA8003 for less than half the price of the KI Pearl Lite, but it is $200 cheaper than the model below it.

We are offering the SA8003 for $999.

This player won the ‘Audio Source of the Year’ from the European industry body EISA. The judges comments summed this unit up perfectly.

“Modern audio players face many challenges and Marantz’s SA8003 meets them all. It plays CDs and the stereo tracks of SACDs. It handles MP3, AAC or WMA files via an advanced USB port, which can even control an iPod directly. Based on the successful SA7003, the SA8003 benefits from the work of Marantz’s ‘tuning wizard” Ken Ishiwata, who pushed the quality up to audiophile standards. This has been achieved through various technical and mechanical upgrades, including the use of Marantz’s trademark copper-plated chassis. You will find lots of other familiar Marantz ingredients in this player, such as the powerful HDAM output stages and low noise disc drive. So it’s top among the players in its class”

When Tom Moon from ‘Good Sound’ reviewed this unit he stated “It may be the best CD player I have ever heard, given its excellent rendition of detail without sounding strident, the depth and width of soundstage, and the relative “blackness” of the background.”

Stock is limited for all these models.

We will offer free shipping anywhere in Australia on each of these products. Please note that all models are available in Silver finish only.

2011 marks my 40 years in this industry. Without doubt this industry is witnessing greater changes than we have seen during those 40 years. The danger is that at times like these we tend to concentrate on the changes taking place and lose focus on the more important aspects – including quality.

Earlier today I was reflecting on the success of Peachtree amplifiers and I realised that this was due in part to the fact that this product offers the best of both worlds. It is firmly entrenched in the ‘new world’ of audio, being designed to work effortlessly with the new digital music delivery systems that are rapidly emerging. At the same time its analogue inputs allows it to also handshake with more traditional music delivery systems. However, and most importantly, the Peachtree is a very good sounding amplifier. In recent times many consumers have tended to take amplifiers for granted, yet they have a very definite impact on the performance of your system.

This is not a new observation – it is just that it has been forgotten. The following is an adaptation of an article that I wrote almost three decades ago. It is as relevant today as it was then.

The Amplifier:

The most common view is that the more ‘watts of power’ an amplifier has the better it will sound. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact the majority of good sounding amplifiers are low to medium power, i.e. 30 to 100 watts per channel. There are exceptions but they are generally very expensive. A high powered amplifier is more complicated to build than a smaller unit and therefore should cost more. So when you come across two equivalently priced units, one low powered and one high powered you have to ask yourself why. How can the supposedly more powerful and complex unit be produced for the same price? Conversely why should the smaller powered unit be more expensive than the larger one?

In our experience the lower powered alternative is usually much better constructed, using higher quality components.

Manufacturers such as NAD, Musical Fidelity, Marantz, Plessis and Peachtree are prime examples of the quality over quantity approach.

Quality aside, it seems that the other point of confusion is how much power is actually needed. This is going to depend on your listening habits. The vast majority of us only use a few watts of power when we listen to our systems. However the demands on our amplifier increase at an extraordinary rate as we crank it up. The common misconception among users is that there is a linear relationship between the rated power of our amplifier and the amount of noise that it can make. This is not the case. In order to increase the volume of sound two-fold you must multiply the amount of power (watts) by a factor of 10. I.e. if you have a 30 watt amplifier and you want to play your music twice as loud you will been to invest in a 300 watt amplifier. So in purely ‘volume’ terms the difference between a 30 watt and a 100 watt amplifier is fairly small.

The type of music will also have an impact. An instrument like the piano can really test the limits of an amplifier. It is a percussive and very dynamic instrument. If you are drawing (lets say) 5 watts of power from your amp and a note is struck which is twice as loud as the previous one in that instance the amplifier is looking for 50 watts to correctly reproduce that note. Turn the music up and the problem is magnified.

This leads to one of the great misunderstanding in the audio industry. If you turn you music up loud enough, and for long enough, you are going to ‘burn’ the voice coils in your loudspeakers. This can be an expensive problem – which is not covered by warranty. Most people assume that this is due to too much power being put through the speakers. In reality (in the majority of cases) it is because there has been too much distorted power put through the speakers. If you own a 30 watt amplifier and you are playing your music very loud it is looking for more power than it has to reproduce that music. The amplifier will then distort and this distortion will heat up the speaker voice coils until they physically burn. If this sounds familiar you will need to either 1) turn the music down, or 2) buy a substantially bigger amplifier.

How the amplifier and the speaker react with each other is very important. The speaker presents an ever changing load to the amplifier whilst playing music. If the music is of a simple nature, perhaps a single instrument, the amplifiers job is relatively easy. With more complex musical passages such as a full orchestra the speaker becomes more demanding of the amplifier. It may not necessarily demand a lot of power but it does require that the amplifier deliver the music quickly, easily and with authority.

To do this the amplifier must be well designed and engineered. Having lots of power simply for the sake of power does not guarantee a good result.

If an amplifier is correctly designed, engineered and manufactured it should not need to produce more than fifty to one hundreds watts of continuous power in order to drive most good loudspeakers at realistic volume levels in a normal domestic environment. An exception needs to be made if the listening environment is very large, if the speakers are very inefficient, if aural pain is your thing or if you are into do-it-yourself seismic disturbances.

At the end of the day the only thing that matters is the quality of the sound, regardless of the power rating. Don’t be surprised if after some careful auditioning in a relaxed environment you find yourself preferring the pint-sized product over the more macho competition.

Note 1: At the time of writing most manufacturers were fairly honest about their power ratings. Today this is a joke – some manufacturers are close to the truth, most are fairly wide of the mark, and many claims bear no resemblance to reality at all. This makes your job all that much more difficult.

Note 2: If you are looking for a very good, very well built, amplifier we have just purchased a limited number of Marantz PM11S1 amps. Rated at a genuine 100 watts per channel this is regarded in some quarters as one of the finest integrated amplifiers built. They retailed for $5,999, and we are selling the available stock for $3,999.

I was impressed to read in the latest Stereophile magazine (December 2011) that their ‘Budget component of the Year’ was a dead heat between the Oppo BDP-95 Universal Blu-ray player and the Peachtree iDecco D/A integrated amplifier.

This gong resonated on a few levels. Firstly they are both products that we have a lot of respect for. Secondly it shows the shifting sands of this industry. Stereophile (as the name implies) is a die hard hi-end Hi-Fi publication. To give this award to a Blu-ray player (admittedly one that does a damn fine job of playing CD’s) and an amplifier designed to get the best out of your digital sources (and admittedly one that also does a sterling job of replaying information from analogue sources) it gives some idea of where this industry is headed.

This award coincided with a question raised by Hometheatreequipment.com whether Universal Players such as the Oppo BDP-95 has killed the audiophile source component. It was not long ago that the industry rightly preached that while your stock standard DVD or Blu-ray player had the ability to play CD’s, they did such a poor job of doing so you also needed a dedicated CD player. Products like Oppo and the Marantz ‘UD’ (Universal Disc) players have changed this. While the CD performance may not reach the lofty heights of the more expensive Krell, Meridian, Musical Fidelity or even Marantz offerings they do perform as well as any comparably priced CD player. Plus you get Blu-ray, DVD etc thrown in.

The Oppo has created its own industry with various modifications being released on the market. We have not had the opportunity to test the new NuForce mod on the cheaper BDP-93 which is reported to be excellent, but we hope to do so soon.

The Peachtree really points us to the future of audio. While this amplifier uses an ‘old school’ valve pre-amplifier pre-driver stage and has traditional analogue inputs (for CD, Tuner etc) it incorporates a high quality Digital-to-Analogue converter for the burgeoning number of digital sources. It also features a high quality headphone amplifier for all those headphone devotees out there.

Its been a good time for Peachtree. Their iDac D/A converter was a runner up in the above ‘Budget Component of the Year awards’, and the iDecco was also listed in The Absolute Sounds (considered by many as the bible of hi-end audio) ‘High-End Audios Buyers Guide.’

At the same time the unheralded Peachtree product has to be their Design 5 speakers. These small bookshelf speakers are nothing short of amazing. Team these with a good amp and source and they are capable of reproducing gorgeous music. At $995 a pair these are one of the bargains of our industry.

The success of our Sennheiser HD650 Headphone promotion ($499 down from $949) has been such as success that it looks like remaining as a permanent part of our product line-up. These headphones offer exceptional value at the price.

Another popular headphone for us is another Sennheiser offering, at a completely different price point – the HD800 which sells for $1,999. Despite the price this model has been very well received, with many people considering the HD800’s to offer very good value.

The value is about to get a whole lot better. From November 1 we will be selling the HD800’s for $1,499 a pair, with free shipping anywhere in Australia. If you are into the type of quality performance great headphones can offer you will need to spend a considerable amount more on a pair of Stax Electrostatics to get better.

Peachtree's iDecco, a perfect fusion of analogue and digital.

Did you realize that it is now a full ten years since the first iPod was revealed quietly at a presentation by the late Steve Jobs. This all happened in late October 2001 and within a month is was in the stores. As we now have come to expect the design had the trademark flare of simplicity and ease of use. Back then it could store about one thousand songs, had a battery that lasted ten hours, and could easily fit in your pocket.
The mention of sound quality was conspicuously missing given the cost of storage back then so convenience was the winner here.

The iPod wasn’t the first, or the biggest, or the cheapest digital music player, but it hooked up to the now iconic iTunes music software, itself only launched in January 2001. iTunes meant that it was relatively easy to get music on and off your iPod, creating a seamless experience that other digital music players around at the time struggled to match. This was the key and Apple knew it, it was not about quality or even quantity it was about everyone on the planet being able to use it.

As we know it wasn’t long before Apples white ear buds became a status symbol. It became a desirable item and one that would change the music industry forever.

But if anyone in the music industry did spot the potential of the iPod, it was with a less than flattering muttering under the breath. Fear was starting to spread like wildfire and a change was coming, everyone knew this but what they didn’t know was to what extent.

Lawsuits became the norm and in October 1998, the RIAA claimed that the Rio, a similar less successful product ion the market then was a music-piracy device and asked the courts to prevent its release. Seemed they were happy to try and sue the small guys but no one made a move on Apple. Luckily the lawsuit failed, but this was a clear indication of the approach the industry would take over the next decade. It appears that the industry still hasn’t entirely grown out of this given the geographical restrictions put on a lot of Music Services now.

Back then there were really only two ways to get digital music. The infamous file sharing site Napster or ripping your own CDs. Napster launched in 1999 and was famously sued into oblivion with a number of high profile artists making their feelings known and alienating hundreds of thousands of fans by doing so.

The issue with ripping CDs could be a slow and tedious process. Many disaster stories came from failed ripping attempts and most average struggled if they tried any of this outside of iTunes.

The key to iTunes success was that it made it easier to digitize your collection, but for the law-abiding music fan, and the industry, it would be another two years before buying digital music became easy. That moment eventually came in early 2003 with the official opening of the iTunes Music Store. At that time it launched with just under a quarter of a million tracks. Again it became apparent that even if it didn’t always sell the songs you wanted, it was a huge success because it was fun and offered instant gratification.

The music industry reacted not by examining the successes of Napster and iTunes and working on their own digital music platform, but with something called DRM, Digital Rights Management is an encryption that stops people copying music.

Once again this just fueled piracy and it became fun to actually get a CD and then rip it off and give it to friends. Everyone had this perception that the record companies and artists already had too much money anyway. A multitude of free software flooded the internet and quick type into Google revealed many easy ways to remove DRM.

Put an obstacle in the way and watch millions of people figure out a way around it.

In recent years it has become clear that it made sense for Apple to drop DRM from the vast majority of their music, not least because of competition from the likes of other companies in the market place. Take Amazon for example who started selling unencumbered music in 2008. Kids now had a choice and choice is always good.

Apple now claim to have a selection of nearly twenty million songs and have, to date, sold over fifteen billion tracks and growing by a phenomenal number daily.
It is by far the biggest digital music vendor, claiming seventy percent of the market not because it’s the cheapest but because it has still managed to maintain that desirable item feel to it. If only they could bottle the enthusiasm that people have for Apple products and sell it they would become very rich – oh wait they are already very rich!!!.

Changes continue to happen, of course, with the music streaming services becoming very popular. Why pay per track when you can pay a flat fee per month and have unlimited access to anything you want? Australia’s own Anubis has recently started to stream in near CD quality which is a great step forward. We have to remember there is a whole generation of kids out there that have no idea that music actually can sound better than MP3. At the very least we have a duty to educate and more importantly get people excited about better quality high resolution recording.

So what does the future hold, well the good news for those that care is that at last the music companies are taking the need for high resolution music seriously. We are seeing numerous websites that are offering HD resolution downloads and the good news is that they are now taking into account main-stream music as well as the traditional jazz and classical titles which personally I can take or leave. For me it’s much more fun listening to a Rolling Stones album in 24bit 192 kHz compared to the generic old non re-mastered CD version.

The iPhone and iPad have become very viable devices in the Hifi world and coupled with the right accessories such as a dock that takes the digital feed from the product then fed to an external Digital-To-Analogue converter and you have a sound that can well keep up with many of the CD players on the market (depending on the resolution of the download!).

So it’s simple, our goal is to educate as many people as we can that stored music does not have to a compromise and that it can be the best thing that has ever happened to the industry.

Kryon Audio's innovative Gaia speaker.

It’s been 18 years since the last one (and I believe this was the first one in Melbourne for decades) but the Australian Hi-Fi Show was held in Melbourne last weekend. Given that the last show was held before the release of the iPod and iTunes, and while CD sales were as still as strong as an Ox there was some reason for trepidation. Just how relevant was a show promoting audio quality over convenience and content (although they still both featured large) going to be in this new convergent musical age?

As it transpired there was no need for the organisers – Next Media in Australia and the Chester Group from the UK – to have been concerned. Very long lines had formed before the show opened, and the crowds kept coming through for the three days. The attendance exceeded expectation, and the good news is that based on the success of this show the rumors are that it will be held in Sydney next year. Let’s hope so!

There was plenty to keep attendees entertained. Interestingly the only TV screen manufacturer who decided there was any value in exhibiting was the up-market brand Loewe, although there were a handful of projectors on display. There was an abundance of turntables and valve electronics, interspersed with DAC’s and digital streaming devices.

There were products to suit everyone. At one end of the scale Audio Marketing was showing Focal Scala Utopia speakers driven with an up-market Krell rig, and they were not on their own showing product of this caliber. Where else could you hear Focal Utopia, Wilson, Kef Blade, Magnepan, Audio Physic, Cabasse L’Ocean, Von Schweikert, Martin Logan, B&W 800 series, Sonus Faber etc speakers all under the one roof? At the other end of the scale I was gob-smacked by the new (yet to be released) NHT SuperZero2.0, a small speaker channeling their famous Super Zero of years gone by, which will sell for $115 each.

Despite my 40 years in the industry there were brands I had never heard of (or in some cases brands I knew of but have never heard). The show suffered from the usual drawbacks of holding it in a hotel – too many people trying to cram into small rooms, and the difficulties in getting your equipment to sound half decent in that environment. Some people succeeded (Bill McLean did a great job of getting the best out of his Magnepans) while most did not.

To me the most interesting product was the product launch from Australian company Kyron Audio. Their Gaia Dipole Loudspeaker System is never going to rate highly in the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) rating. Secondly it is a very different approach to system building with the speakers and the amplifier both coming as part of the system. As you can see from the image above this is hardly a conventional system. It is also a power house, with the amplifier chassis boasting 2 x 200 watt amplifiers for the high frequencies, 2 x 500 watt amps for the mids and 4 x 250 watt amps for the bass drivers.

The result – in my opinion Kyron presented the best sounding system at the show.

We have now received our first shipments of the stunning Peachtree bookshelf loudspeakers. While these could be considered as ‘new’ releases they are in reality not new. It is a couple of years since Era speakers arrived on our shores, and were recognised as one of the finest budget bookshelf speakers on the Australian market. Era was a sister product to Peachtree, the trailblazing electronics company who have successfully merged both the old (analogue) and new (digital) formats into their integrated amplifier range. The original Era speakers have now been re-released under the Peachtree Audio label.

The best news is the price. When it was announced that the Era models were to be discontinued they were re-priced at substantial discounts to help clear stock. The new Peachtree range has been launched at the previous ERA clearance prices. This means that the top of the range Peachtree Audio Design 5 bookshelf speakers still sell for $999 a pair (which coincidently is the same price as they are in the US), instead of the initial release price of $1,699. If you need an indication of the value this speaker offers, I believe that at $1,699 this speaker was a bargain.

AVGuide.com has recently reviewed the Peachtree Design 5’s, and in doing so have referred back to the legendary BBC LS3/5a speakers of decades past. I know the LS3/5a well, and am willing to stick my neck out and say that the Peachtree Audio Design 5 is a better speaker. It shares the detailing and accuracy (particularly thought the midrange and upper registers), it has the same uncanny sound-staging but it has a better bass presence, and overall I find it to be more ‘musical’.

The other model of note is the smaller Design 4, which are selling for $699. There are not many quality speakers on our market at $699 – but set these up with the right electronics and these can really sing.

The Design 4’s can form part of what could be considered to be an ideal starter pack for the modern market when partnered with the Peachtree iDecco integrated amplifier ($1399). The iDecco features 2 analogue and 3 digital inputs – with a high quality Sabre DAC for the digital inputs, a high quality headphone amplifier, a valve pre-amplifier stage and an in-built iPod dock. This makes a compact, high performance, relatively inexpensive system cable of handling both the newer digital and the legacy analogue sources we use today. Not only is this a very flexible system, but it has the performance of a proper Hi-Fi component system, something that id surprisingly rare at these prices.

The rumour that Apple is considering a high resolution version of iTunes has been doing the rounds for some time now. According to a recent article from CNET there is also a possibility that Warner is also considering the same, and will possibility be making an announcement to this effect during the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas next January. This is also getting some support from artists signed to Warner or subsidiary labels. For example the following appears on Neil Young’s website:

“2012 will be the year that record companies release High Resolution Audio. This is huge for our industry. Since the advent of the CD, listeners have been deprived of the full experience of listening. With the introduction of MP3s via online music services, listeners were further deprived.

The spirituality and soul of music is truly found when the sound engulfs you and that is just what 2012 will bring. It is a physical thing, a relief that you feel when you finally hear music the way artists and producers did when they created it in the studio. The sound engulfs you and your senses open up allowing you to truly feel the deep emotion in the music of some of our finest artists. From Frank Sinatra to the Black Keys, the feeling is there. This is what recording companies were born to give you and in 2012 they will deliver.”

If the rumors are true, and the move is successful (which I am sure it will be) it would then encourage other companies to follow suit. I have long maintained that the market place is ripe for high resolution music downloads. There is an entire generation of consumers who are comfortable with the technology (iPod, iTunes etc), who tolerate poor quality for the sake of convenience and who would embrace a higher quality platform once they were exposed to it. I realise that there are sites already in existence, HDTracks and Linn Records being prime examples. Another new, and unexpected, source of high quality tracks is the Boston Symphony Orchestra (which encompasses Boston Pops) who is offering up to 88.2kHz/24bit tracks (in both 2-channel and surround) and even have a subscription streaming service. However none of these sites have an extended offering of contemporary music – something that is necessary if this format is to gain the critical mass that it needs.

Despite my beliefs the question was recently raised (and I must apologise that I cannot recall where I came across this) – would you pay more for high definition downloads (and if so – how much more). To my surprise a large number of respondents replied that no, they would not pay more for higher quality downloads, and that they are happy with what they are receiving today. While I have a suspicion that this is the reaction of an uneducated market – are we talking to people who have never experienced what a truly fine recording can sound like? – I am happy to be proven wrong. If you have an opinion of this we would welcome some feedback.

(If you are new to Hi-Res on-line music and would like to learn more there are many great on-line sites, but as a starter I would suggest this primer from enjoythemusic.com or if you are after something a little more in-depth go to computeraudiophile.com.)

It is obvious that the delivery of entertainment is rapidly changing. Some of the changes are very positive, access to high resolution downloads obviously being one, and convenience is the primary driving force.

Personally I find the subsequent demise of traditional record stores to be the downside of this transition. Like many of my generation (baby boomers) I like to browse, hold and own the physical product (in this case a CD.) It is now becoming very difficult to find good CD outlets. I am a jazz fan, and luckily Birdland Records have survived, even though they only open a few days a week (most of their business is done online) and are well off the beaten path on the forth floor of the Dymocks building in George Street. I was recently speaking with Mick Telling from Phoenix Music in Potts Point and he stated that while business was OK he would still welcome more. It would be a great shame if we lost outlets like Phoenix (Birdland/Michaels Music Room etc). The store is small, but it carries a great range of music (including a limited but quality selection of vinyl), it is well laid out, and they know their business. Browsing the shelves of specialty CD outlets, and talking to like minded people about music is something that I will miss if, as predicted, these stores eventually disappear. Sometimes you just can’t beat human interaction when you are sharing a passion.