What's Best Forum Newsletter February 2023

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We are delighted to announce the commencement of What's Best Forum's exclusive Masters & Makers Interview Series.

We have created a dedicated page on WBF for the videos for all members to watch. Our aim is to record a video interview twice per month with the leading designers in high-end audio. ...Stay tuned for our second interview with Karen Sumner from Transparent Audio shortly...

The industry of high-end audio chronicles the passion for emotionally-engaging sound, the pursuit of engineering perfection and the love of music. The designers of our components come to audio from many different fields, but each designer wants to fill our ears and our souls with joy from the sound of extraordinarily reproduced music.

We are an unusual industry, comprised of a few relatively large companies, and many small companies. Many high-end audio manufacturers start as one person efforts, literally in their garages.

Some designers have the engineering talent to create a breakthrough component which could bring us closer to the sound of live music in our homes, but not the business acumen to succeed. Other people have marketing prowess, but not a sufficiently differentiated or sonically accomplished product. Still other people have both the engineering ability and the business ability, but never achieve the profitability necessary to sustain a successful high-end audio enterprise. A few companies are so successful that they become enduring engineering, manufacturing and marketing audio dynasties.

Masters & Makers will showcase these talented and creative designers, and bring them into your homes. Together, we will learn what drives them to dedicate their lives to the pursuit of high-end audio. We will understand how their love of music fuels their passion to achieve believable sound.

dCS announce the launch of the new Bartok Apex
An article by John Giolas at dCS

Bartók began with a singular vision: to combine dCS’s past, present, and future, distilling 30 years of innovation into a beautiful, flexible, and future-proof design. Combining a network DAC, Music Streamer, Upsampler, Pre-amp, and (optional) Headphone Amplifier offers a remarkable experience for both headphone and stereo listeners.

Designed and hand-assembled at dCS’s headquarters in Cambridgeshire, England, the Bartók 2.0 is born from meticulous craft, exhaustive development, and obsessive attention to detail. The physical manifestation of the relentless pursuit of musical purity, the Bartòk 2.0 project inspired us to re-imagine the limits of sound reproduction for single-chassis network DACs.

In many ways, the Bartòk represented an unusual and difficult challenge for dCS engineers. With the larger multi-chassis platforms, there is more space and freedom to optimize each function. Because dCS approaches each project with an eye toward maximizing performance, the design and engineering team is averse to compromise. Thus, the challenge became to create a product that possessed all of dCS's hallmark qualities—musicality, transparency, low-level detail, dimensionality, and tonal beauty - in a simple, single-chassis form factor.

Sharing the same electronics as dCS’s Vivaldi and Rossini systems, it features the latest generations of dCS’s pioneering Ring DAC™, clocking architecture, and digital processing platform—a unique combination of hardware and software that is unrivaled in its sonic and technical performance.

Like all dCS products, the Bartòk’s digital platform is powered by FPGAs—Field Programmable Gate Arrays. The dCS digital platform is the heart of dCS’s conversion process. It provides the “instructions" and control of the fully discrete, analog, digital-to-analog converter. When the software engineers' research leads to better ways to manage the D to A process, they can offer these improvements to existing owners in the form of a software update.

Unlike nearly all other digital products, which are typically defined by a short shelf life and planned obsolescence, a dCS purchase is the beginning of a journey that includes significant advances in performance and features along the way. As the dCS team advances technology, we invite dCS owners to participate in those improvements, the latest of which is the Bartòk 2.0. The Bartók 2.0 includes performance upgrades, which, until now, were exclusive to the Vivaldi and Rossini platforms. 2.0 is a significant update to the mapping algorithm that controls the dCS Ring DAC.

The New Bartòk 2.0 Further Elevates the Listening Experience

The Bartòk 2.0 adds two advanced mappers, includes improvements to DSD upsampling, and adds new filter options. dCS Mappers originally designed for Vivaldi 2.0 and Rossini 2.0 are now available in the 2.0 update to Bartók. The dCS Mapper controls the way in which data is presented to the Ring DAC™ core. Bartók now includes three Mapper settings instead of just one. MAP 1 is the new default mapper. MAP 2 is the classic mapper design used on version 1 dCS products; this mapper drives the Ring DAC™ core at either 2.822 or 3.07MHz. MAP 3 is an alternative design, which focuses on eliminating odd-order nonlinearities. It also operates the Ring DAC™ core at either 5.644 or 6.14MHz. Users access the three different mapper settings using dCS Mosaic or via the front panel.

Bartòk 2.0 also includes DSD128 and an additional filter setting for DSD. Set to DXDx2, Bartók now engages a DSDx2 upsampling stage towards the end of the PCM oversampling sequence before conversion to analog. DSD upsampling settings can be accessed using dCS Mosaic or the front panel. Related to the new DSD upsampling features, Bartòk 2.0 now includes an additional filter setting—Filter 5, which has a relaxed roll-off and smoother phase response. Filter 5 helps to remove much of the out-of-band noise. DSD Filter settings can be accessed using dCS Mosaic or the front panel.

The 2.0 retains the original's powerful, dynamic and versatile soundscape of the original Bartòk and adds elements of resolution and refinement, achievable only with the Rossini or Vivaldi. The Bartók 2.0 is designed to inform and inspire. Its transparent and highly resolved playback renders even the finest details in sharp focus, uncovering textures and subtleties that most systems fail to notice. From the broadest dynamic swings in volume to the subtlest shifts in tone, it presents each aspect of a recording with a sense of effortless refinement and control.

Combining precision engineering with an elegant and timeless aesthetic, Bartòk 2.0 is built to withstand even the most intensive use and deliver a compelling musical experience at all levels and outputs and for any system type. With its flexible, future-proof hardware and software, it’s a system that can grow and evolve, delivering a state-of-the-art listening experience for years to come.

www.dcsaudio.com

Tobian Sound Systems are very excited to announce the ultimate
Horn System - the 12 Signature

The 12 Signature has the incredible ability to deliver the tiniest dynamic changes, the most beautiful tone and transparency, independent of musical style and loudness.

This speaker is able to recreate the emotions that usually only live music can give you. Sounds like you never heard before. Music that goes deep into your body and soul...a tonal magic....the new 12 Signature.

12 Signature key features

• Handcrafted 14.5 inch CD-horn from aluminum/magnesium alloy.
• New ultra light 4 inch diaphragm shellac vaporized 2.0 inch exit throat.
• Pure titanium compression driver Neo magnet Bl 22 T.
• 12 inch woofer, pure paper cone Alnico magnet Bl 25.5 T.
• Minimal crossover for woofer only (level matching between the mid-high range compression driver and woofer out of signal path).
• Frequency range: 20Hz - 20kHz.
• 8 ohm.
• Handcrafted horn loaded wooden cabinet with 4 different types of wood
(example musical instrument construction).
• Resonance free height adjustable feet.
• Handpicked veneer exclusively for the customer.
• Exclusively build for customer (built to order).