Music lovers can easily jack their PC or iPod into their stereo system to hear their music collection on something with a little more oomph than earbuds.
But if they are serious music lovers — audiophiles, that is — they probably fancy one of the new digital music servers, like the Yamaha MusicCast 1000. A digital music server is a jukebox for digital music files, a hard drive to store the files and some software to pump it through your existing stereo system. And it costs about $1,000.
PCs and iPods are essentially the same thing, but we are talking about music for audiophiles here. If they tried running the audio output of a computer into their sound system, even on the most expensive sound system, they would be sorely disappointed. PC sound cuts the high and low frequencies. And because a single chip on the motherboard has to handle all the digital and analog chores of converting bits into Beethoven, the noise generated by the computer’s own circuitry is also reproduced.
Among audiophiles there are two schools of thought regarding vacuum tubes, that pioneering voltage-controlling device invented well over a century ago. One says audio components using tubes capture an ineffable depth and dimension that somehow escapes even the best solid state equipment. The other camp says that tubes wash the signal in a euphonic bath of harmonic distortion that may be pleasing, but is hardly accurate.
Wavelength offers other U.S.B.-DAC’s with more tubes, more features and more elaborate packaging than Brick’s unadorned black aluminum box, priced up to $15,000. Says Gordon Rankin, Wavelength’s founder and chief designer, “It’s not for everyone.???
