Reporting by Jameson Mourafetis

This holistic experience also extends to the sound. It can only be described as emotive. Are they dead neutral or technically focused? Nope, but the moment you put their headphones on and listen to a familiar track, you. don’t. care. The grade 5 titanium framed, isobaric loaded twin-pulse, dynamic driver Valkyria is full bodied, fleshed out, and textured.

Pulsar, whose driver is identical to the Valkyria but housed in an aluminum frame, sounds surprisingly different. It evokes the same level of emotional involvement with a lighter, less weighty touch. The Centauri headphone, Spirit Torino’s first foray into planar-magnetic driver design and newest addition to their lineup, offers a more neutral, technical, airy headphone experience without sacrificing dynamics and may appeal more to the traditional high-end headphone buyer.

Between the lacquered wood finish, the large, Pulsar cap volume knob, and the engraved side panels depicting an ancient map of the Italian City, Turin (Torino in Italian), Spirit Torino’s gorgeous Sigfrid hybrid amplifier exudes high-end Italian design. It was clearly designed with Valkyria and Pulsar in mind, does an excellent job extending the Spirit Torino experience through to the high-end electronics space. I highly recommend giving these pairings a listen, as they’re unlike anything else you’ll find with other headphones.

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Also on active display, the dCS Lina headphone stack (consisting of the Lina DAC+streamer, Lina Clock, and Lina headphone amp).

Reporting by Jameson Mourafestis

I’ve been eager to compare dCS’ newest headphone focused products, and for this in-the-field comparison, I chose a supremely capable and enjoyable headphone that I’m intimately familiar with, the Meze Elite (link). I was surprised to find that each system/suite of dCS electronics is tuned quite differently.

Many of you are familiar with the gorgeously designed Meze Empyrean; it’s easy to drive and its sound is hyper-smooth, laid back, warm, and very comforting, but Meze Elite is a different animal. While it keeps (and improves on) the Empyrean’s wonderful spatial qualities, efficiency, supreme wearer comfort, and looks, it’s far more neutral and resolving with more precise, not at all smoothed over transients making it a much more serious and insightful reviewer’s tool.

This was my first listen to the new made-for-headphones dCS Lina stack, and thinking back to their first headphone-oriented product, the non-Apex Bartok which I’m extremely familiar with, I was immediately impressed and surprised to find that the tuning and overall presentation are almost completely different. The Lina system has more heft and authority. The Lina system sounded like a much more powerful amplifier than its specs and desk-friendly size would imply. Despite being easy to drive, the Meze Elite certainly scales well with more and higher quality power. I have no doubt the Lina would drive notoriously hard to drive headphones like the Abyss AB-1266 Phi TC or Hifiman Susvara. It’s has a very bottom-up sound with strong, solid low end performance and a very pleasant midrange that didn’t leave me wanting for more resolution, that is until I tried the Meze Elite with dCS’ new Bartok Apex.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the dCS Bartok Apex make an appearance given that it was just announced a few weeks before the Florida Audio Expo, but I should’ve expected nothing less from Drew. Getting right into the sound, the Bartok Apex’ tuning is very similar to its previous, non-Apex version: neutral and very even, very resolving, great spatial qualities, not wanting for power with the Elite, but not as authoritative as the very best headphone amplifiers. The Apex variant steps up the resolution significantly, enough so that I preferred it with the Elite to the plenty resolving Lina stack. It’s a more refined experience with a more speaker-like spatial presentation, but it does lack the drive and authority of the Lina stack, and I’m left wondering if using the Lina headphone amplifier with the Bartok Apex DAC would give the best of both worlds.

Both the Lina stack and Bartok Apex ooze minimalistic, high end appeal. The touch points are as smooth as glass, and the machined aluminum case is simple and perfectly executed. Lina’s footprint is fantastically small for such a high-end system, and I suspect it’ll only grow dCS’ popularity in the ultra high-end headphone world.

The post Moon Audio, Meze Audio, dCS | FLAX 2023 appeared first on INDULGR.

Reporting by Jameson Mourafetis

MSB Technology’s machine-finished chassis fits equally as well in a lab setting as they do in an ultramodern, lavish home and work perfectly with also-state-of-the-art loudspeaker manufacturer Magico’s very apartment friendly machine-finished aluminum baffle, carbon fiber monocoque chassis, graphene coated plain weave carbon fiber driver M2 loudspeakers.

When it comes to high-tech signal-to-audio mechanical conversion devices, it doesn’t get much better than the MSB/Magico pairing; think the perfectly crisp ticks of the Grand Seiko Kodo’s Constant-Force Tourbillon or the Johannes Kallinich one-off Meisterwerk‘s spring tightened center-second train. and not unlike these masterpiece timepieces, both MSB and Magico’s internals are just as carefully executed, beautiful, and clean as their external designs.

MSB’s D/A systems somehow combine seemingly endless resolution and perfect timing with a seductive naturalness and realism that’s near impossible to even get a hint of outside of the very best analog chains, and their oh-so-clean amplification adds limitless dynamics, authority, and heft, without ever crossing the line into dry or boring. Combined with Magico M-series hard-to-beat true-to-life in-room staging and presence, what more can you ask for?

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the new MSB Technology Digital Director. With the Digital Director, MSB offloads the digital signal processing and upsampling to much more powerful FPGAs, extending the life of the original DACs dramatically without making changes to the DACs themselves. It also completely electrically isolates the FPGAs (which generate quite a bit of ground plane noise) as well as the digital input boards (which can inherit noise from upstream components such as servers, streamers, and network devices) from the D/A section itself via optical Pro ISL connection.

Having heard this system numerous times without the digital director, I can say without a doubt that it makes a positive change to the sonics, and when MSB’s casework looks this good, more chassis to stack are always a good thing. I’ll be twisting MSB National Sales Director Vince Galbo‘s arm to get a review unit some time in the near future. If you haven’t already, join our mailing list below so you don’t miss it.

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Reporting by Jameson Mourafetis

This year, MBL brought their preconfigured RL-03 Reference Line system consisting of the Radialstrahler 101 E MkII loudspeakers, 9011 Monoblock amplifiers, 1621 A CD transport, 1611 F D/A Converter, and the piece they’re arguably most well-known for in the audiophile world on the electronics side, the 6010 D preamplifier. The system also featured a reel-to-reel player from United Home Audio, a D.C. area based dealer of MBL and manufacturer of high-end reel-to-reel decks.

The MBL 101 E MkII loudspeaker chosen for this year’s exhibit fared even better in this medium sized room than the larger flagship 101 X-Treme based system that was demoed last year in a room that I suspect was significantly smaller than it’d typically be placed in. Last year’s system was a tough act to follow, but MBL North America have accomplished just that, and even placed themselves among the audiophile press as a “best-in-show contender.” While imaging is always more diffusive with omnidirectional speakers such as the Radialstrahler, MBL’s imaging is diffusive in a uniquely pleasant, all-enveloping way which combined with their extreme dynamics makes every listening session feel like a top-notch live performance.

Between the meticulous paint finishes on their electronics that could easily be mistaken as the work of Bentley’s Mulliner division and their unique, omnidirectional, Radialstrahler speakers’ drivers (the shiny petal-like bits) are as eye-catching as a Jacob and Co. gyrotourbillon complication. The overall fit, finish, and design aesthetics of the aforementioned perfectly fit into MBL’s fully comprehensive luxury experience which by the way carries through from the initial ordering process all the way to delivery and setup.

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Look for their also-world-first electrostatic automotive audio systems in soon-to-be-revealed luxury auto brands in the coming years (join our mailing list below to be notified which UK based automakers as soon as we’re allowed to reveal them).

Reporting by Jameson Mourafetis

Warwick brought their flagship Aperio system to FLAX ’23 in its very sleek and stylish Black finish variant (also available in silver and as a limited edition in a gorgeous hand polished 24k gold plated finish, see the latter option here). This streamer/DAC/head-amp/electrostatic-headphone system operates in the rarified air as one of the most, if not the most, resolving audio systems available today in any form. And unlike its smaller brothers the M1 and Bravura, analog input signals are not converted to digital allowing for the use of externally converted digital and primary analog sources at their full potential.

Fit, finish, comfort, and sound  of the Aperio are all top notch here and exactly what you’d expect of a system of this calibre. The built-in streamer, which the smaller M1 and Bravura lack, integrates seamlessly with Roon making for a painless user experience.

Here’s the thing…

I’ve been told by Warwick that the Aperio all-in-one unit also makes for an excellent streamer/DAC/preamp in a two channel system. As the target buyer for a system like the Aperio, particularly for the use case as a headphone amp and analog pre in my two channel system, I have one minor complaint. Despite the volume being controllable through the Roon interface (and other apps), there’s no physical remote and no easy way to control volume remotely that I’m aware of without using the integrated streamer and DAC exclusively. This makes using the Aperio as a strictly analog pre with external sources challenging without the device being in arm’s reach of your listening position, and while this use case is unlikely to be problematic for the vast majority of buyers, I’d like to see a physical remote (or network based solution) offered at some point in the future.

Describing the sound quality of the Aperio system in anything less than a fully comprehensive review would do it a disservice, so I’ll leave that commentary for a later deep-dive review. Whether you’re considering building a top-of-the-line headphone system, or looking for a one-and-done solution, the Warwick Acoustics Aperio absolutely has to be at the top of your audition list.

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