AcousticPlan Mudra

The Mudra is a complete two channel music server system, remote controlled from a battery powered wireless 8,4" touchpanel. The main unit consists two hard disks, CD/DVD ROM drive, digital audio interface/processor, D/A converter, analog volume control and a tube output stage.

Mudra uses only reliable industry components which ensure a much longer life time and a much better accuracy in audio processing than consumer components. The non resonant casing of the main unit is made of thick precision machined aluminium plates, while the remote control is CNC machined from one single aluminium block. 

No expense was spared for the tube output stage and its regulated high voltage power supply, both completely realized in pure tube technology. The analog section is fully transformer coupled, equipped with our own high quality double C-core transformers. All of the wiring for the tube output stage is carried out as point to point hand wiring, which is much more costly than using circuit boards and results in superior sonic qualities.

The complete software for the main unit as well as for the remote control is programmed in-house and uses Linux as the operating system.


Analog section:
- pure tube output stage, full transformer coupled
  output: 3V / 200Ohm
- pure tube high voltage regulator and tube rectifier
- 40 steps analog volume control with switching relais
- additional analog input (for using Mudra as a pure tube preamplifier)
  input: 250mV / 50KOhm for 1V output

Digital section:
- 2 hard discs, each with 500MB (RAID 1), optional SSD
- CD/DVD ROM drive (TEAC professional grade)
- industrial grade PC board
- digital audio processor with 192kHz/24bit format
- R2R D/A converter without any oversampling or upsampling
- additional 3 digital inputs: optical, AES/EBU, RCA
- additional 2 digital outputs: AES/EBU, RCA
- all digital interfaces transformer coupled

Remote control:
- 8,4" touch screen with wireless operation
- 10 hours battery runtime
- CNC machined casing from one single aluminium block

General informations:
- fanless operation
- external power supply with 3 conventional transformers

- Mudra is a 100% product of Germany
- operational software Linux
- extensible disk space via Ethernet

- dimensions main unit (W x H x D): 260 x 170 x  350
- dimensions remote control (W x H x D): 222 x 176 x 40
- weight: 23 kg

Davinci Master Reference Virtu tonearm

CHF 10800


These are a few highlights:

1. Invention of a four point fixed gimbal mount magnetical- and ruby bearing
2. New VTA & azimuth adjustment
3. As optional accessories available: Exchangeable tone arm tubes for best matching with your cartridges.

Basis version tube ebony wooden.

Option 1: tone arm tube made of carbon
Option 2: tone arm tube with SME-type adapter


Master's Reference Virtu tone arm, is capable to bring all details of your LP's in a brilliant, blow-by-blow, high musical lightness. 

Vertex AQ Aletheia Dac-1

£11500


The Aletheia brand will be a range of electronics with a fundamentally different approach - the fusion of outstanding electronics design with all the Vertex principles of RFI and microphony control, right down to a component-by-component level (ie each chip, capacitor, resistor and so on.....).

So far our studies have been based around amplification, and DACs. We have looked at the various choices and options for these types of devices, working through all the major permutations. With amplifiers for instance, different classes of amplification, different power supplies, valve and solid state. With DACs we have again looked at power supplies, but also the options of different conversion formats, chip types and so on. Now of course, there is nothing at all unusual in this sort of work, its what you'd expect any design company to do. However, with our work its been a little different, because we include the problems and resulting behaviours of RFI and microphony interactions in every step of our analysis.

We are now at the end of the pre-production stage of the Aletheia dac-1 project. We showed the technology demonstrator DAC at Whittlebury Hall last year, and we were very pleased that everyone thought it sounded great. Since then we have carried out some refinements internally to the design - the main one being an upgrade of the output caps, to a pair of silver/gold Mundorf items. The other main piece of work (as ever) was finishing the casework.

The key features of this design are:

1.   A completely modularised design with very high levels of process separation, with extensive anti-vibration and anti-RFI/EMI techniques throughout.

2.   16-bit d to a conversion with no oversampling or filtering. DAC circuitry housed in EM absorptive box.

3.   Passive I to V output stage using Vishay resistors and Mundorf supreme silver/gold/oil caps.

4.   Ultra-high quality quad-stage power supply topology using mains pre-filtering, fully enclosed (EMI absorptive) 100 VA transformer on decoupling mounts, a discrete component pre-regulator and 4 second-stage discrete component regulators. The regulators are Pauly Hynes Design items, heavily modified with the application of anti-RFI/EMI and anti-microphony techniques.

5.   All wiring downstream of mains transformer is solid-core silver with EMI absorptive tubing.

6.   Digital input - s/pdif BNC, RCA and optical.

7.   Analogue outputs RCA and XLR.

8.   All signal sockets mounted on decoupled sub panels.

All this effort brings huge listening benefits, especially when playing more complex music. Most digital replay gets blurred, confused and harsh with such material, mixing and intermodulating the musical programme as the intensity rises. Conversely with the dac-1, complex threads and intertwining harmonic 'fibers' of dense passages remain rich, detailed, separated and accurate. Once heard, the Aletheia dac-1 is very difficult to ignore.

For a comprehensive description of the Aletheia dac1 please see the Handbook here. Aletheia dac-1 Handbook

Stahl-Tek Vekian-CDT in black

Price - €29000

Krell Cipher SACD/CD player

$12000

Krell Cipher

Engelholm Audio Solo

Price - 500,000 SEK

Orpheus Vanguard Digital Audio Dock

With the convergence of entertainment systems, we at Team Orpheus came to realise that the future of not only audio but also entertainment technology is in all in one solutions, the main concept of which is integration. Since 2010 Team Orpheus has been developing a Digital Audio Dock (DAD). It has been created as an all encompassing solution for digital audio playback. Its aim is to allow any digital audio source to be compatible with S/PDIF and ADAT Lightpipe formats, which are protocols for transferring widely used digital audio data.

The minimalistic avant garde design, designed for simplistic eye pleasing perfection, can trick the beholder, as the Vanguard DAD houses the power and potency unrivalled by any Digital Audio Dock.

Connecting your computer to your DAD has never been simpler as a large number of connection ports are provided in the DAD for complete digital compatibility. The supported digital protocols are USB 2.0, FireWire 400, Bluetooth AD2P, LAN and USB Flash. The DAD is able to work in multichannel mode with the USB, FireWire and ADAT modules.

The DAD also comes with licensed iPod and iPhone compatibility, in a dock which not only enables playback of your iPod/iPhone content but also the recharging of the devices. The most significant aspect of the iPod dock is that it enables better quality data transfer than a normal analog jack, by reading the numerical iPod transcript, the result of which is true representation of the audio. The features don't end here: for ease of use, it is possible to control your mobile device with the DAD itself.

To make listening to music directly from the internet possible, a web interface has been included, whereby it is possible for the user to configure the their desired URL and gain direct access to and high quality playback for their preferred web hosted audio content. 

Exterior

The front panel is equipped with 9 LEDs to indicate the input selection, and two switches with which to control the input source. There is also a switch for the selection of the output sample rate which ranges from 44.1KHz to 192KHz.

To minimise jitter, the clocking information is displayed with two LEDs, to indicate whether the Phase Loop Lock (PLL) is locked and whether the system is clocked with an external signal.

The use of headphones has been made as convenient as possible by placing a headphone jack on the front panel accompanied with a volume control.

The DAD is also equipped with a USB port, located on the front panel, to enable the playback from USB flash keys and an iPod/iPhone dock on the top.

Controlling the DAD has been made as easy as possible with the controls on the front panel, or alternatively with the remote control which is capable of controlling the entire system. 

Vanguard Digital Audio Dock Specifications:

Inputs 
• Word clock IN / OUT (44.1KHz/48KHz/96KHz/192KHz)
• Firewire multichannel: 8 Channels 24Bits @ 192kHz
• USB 2.0 multichannel: 8 Channels 24Bits @ 192kHz
• LAN/Ethernet: UPnP Compliant, Configurable WebRadio 
• iPod and iPhone Dock.
• Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR A2DP (iPhone compliant)
• USB Flash Direct playback 
• HDMI not HDCP Compliant
• Optical ADAT: Up to 8 Channels 24Bits @ 48kHz
• TOSlink: 1 Channel 24Bits @ 192kHz
• Analog Line IN
  Digital Outputs 
• 4 x SPDIF channels
• 1 x ADAT
  Analog Input 
• 1 x Line In over jack
  Analog Output 
• Headphone
• 1 x Line Out over jack
  
  

QNKTC Model 999 cd player

Price 40,000 NOK

The dac is a FIR - Finite Impulse Response, digital processing in FPGA and analog processing using simple analog filters.

The designer - Børge Strand-Bergesen