Articles, Reviews and Measurements of Audio Products

This is a review and detailed measurements of the ICONOCLAST XLR by Belden (manufactured by Blue Jeans Cable). Tested sample costs US $785 for 6 foot length:

I ordered a pair of XLR and RCA cables from the company. They nicely intercepted my order and asked if intended to review them. When I said yes, they refunded my money and sent me samples of both. You have a choice of cable (copper purity) and I was supplied with the TPC version per below:


Company was very confident of the performance of the cable and suggested that I test the entry level material. I quoted the above text because this cable uses solid conductors that are very inflexible. It especially resists rotation which sadly, is something you need to do with XLR cables to align the socket/plug. Combined with their weight and large...

This is a review and measurements of the (now discontinued) Black Lion Sparrow MKII ADC and Micro Clock external master clock. It is on kind loan from a member.


I kind of like the mechanical controls here although the writing is hard to read. The clock seems to be fixed at 96 kHz and rotate the dial did nothing.


Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard of 4 volts into XLR inputs:


Distortion is the limiting factor, placing it in the "fair" category:


Using the Micro clock made no difference:


Noise floor went up but that is because sample rate changed. I tested it with internal clock at that rate and it did the same thing.

Prior to distortion setting in, noise dominates and there, performance is excellent:


So if you can live with lower input...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Black Lion Audio White Sparrow DAC. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $1,999.


EDIT: while there is one seller for this product, it appears to be a very old model that is discontinued.

This is kind of an old school look which is probably fine for it target market of professionals. I guess lack of USB connection goes along the same lines:


I appreciated the built-in AC power supply.

Black Lion Audio White Sparrow DAC Measurements
I started my testing with S/PDIF connection:



Very surprised to see such a jungle of spikes around our main tone which likely indicates jitter. There is also power supply noise which may...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Polk Signature Elite ES20 bookshelf speaker. I purchased it from Amazon for US $349 a pair including shipping.


I really like the look and finish of this series from Polk. Despite budget pricing, it looks nice and purposeful as you can tell from the unique rear port plate:


Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the 1MORE Quad Driver "THX Certified" IEM. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $150.


I must say this is one excellent work of packaging! The little carrying box has magnetic flap which is nice. Headphone cord seems to be made out of silicon and is a bit longer than what others supply which I appreciated. The organization of the tips with labels is also great. Question: who the heck still uses those airplane 2-plugs as to need this adapter???

1MORE Quad Driver IEM Measurements
As usual, let's start with our frequency response measurement using GRAS 45C fixture:



Both channels were similar with plenty of bass which gave me confidence of a good seal. Alas, there is too much upper bass, and not enough treble. I expect the sound to be boomy and closed. So EQ will be mandatory using relative response graph:

...

This is a review and attempted measurements of the Legacy Audio Wavelet audio pre-amp/processor/DSP/Room EQ. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $4950.


The industrial design is decent with a dot matrix LED panel. I was shocked to see such an expensive processor come with an external power brick:



That was nothing compared to trying to get the unit on the network to configure it. There is an Ethernet port but no documentation on how to use it. Instead they have a horrible way to configure a wifi dongle (see above the unit). You first go to some website and give it your wifi config in addition to serial number of the device. it then creates a text config file which you put on a flash drive. You plug in the flash drive and pray...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL A100 A100 stereo amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. I can't find it on sale anywhere but seems to have cost US 100.

I like the simply but rather elegant/symmetrical design. Same for thoughtful rear connections:



Almost every manufacturer puts both speaker outputs together making it so hard to plug in the banana plugs. Here they are spaced apart which essentially solved that problem.

Inclusion of an AC power supply is unheard of in this price class and nicely declutters your desk.

Oddly the USB input is type A. At first I thought this was for external storage but manual talks about using this with a computer. I didn't have a type A to type A cable so didn't test this and stuck with Aux analog input.

The heart of the unit is...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Pioneer Sp-C22 center home theater speaker designed by the famed Andrew Jones. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $75.

It is amazing how much you get from a branded company at this low price! Sure, there is a bit of glue smear on the right mid-woofer but the rest is nice including color matched black screws. We have the typical MTM configuration which will likely cause problem for horizontal directivity.

Most center speakers of this type are sealed. This one has dual ports:


This should help it with bass but that response will be variable depending on how much you close up the ports.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Arturia Minifuse 2 DAC, ADC, MIDI and headphone amplifier. It was kindly purchased new by a member for $147 and sent to me for testing.

The form factor is similar to other products in the market in this price range. Controls have rubberized paint on them which they feel good. Hopefully they last and don't get sticky. Back panel shows the usual connections:


Arturia Minifuse 2 DAC Measurements
I downloaded the control center which updated the firmware quickly and efficiently. It doesn't have any features other than bar graph for input level and a couple of other controls. ASIO driver was included which was a good thing as I ran into an issue using my ASIO emulation in one test. Here...

Sending audio analog signal over standard Cat 5/6/7 cables over long distance:

Measurements of Thomann SSSnake Cat "Snake" Extenders

Hello

Here is a quick review and some measurements about a... "cable" (kind of).

Actually, this is a full range of accessories Thomann (one of the major music stores in Europe) is saling under its own SSSnake brand.
Here is a link to the range.



I purchased 2 components: A 4 Female XLR "stage box" ("3FB") and a 4 Male XLR "splitter" ("3MC").
Price of those is quite low (below 30€ each)
Connection between the 2 boxes is done through standard RJ45 Category 5/6/7 cable.

I've performed following measurements using a 30m Cat5e UTP cable I had at hand.
This would not allow Phantom power transport (you need a shielded cable for that), but that's enough to...