Three tiny LEDs in a horizontal row indicate power on, phase invert and de-emphasis (automatic). The black acrylic front panel (optional silver anodised aluminium) is understated. One selects input, the other inverts phase. The black acrylic back panel hosts a switched IEC mains socket, a pair of silver single-ended outputs, a pair of silver balanced outputs, a 75-Ohm digital input and an AES/EBU input, plus two switches. Audio Note says output is around 3 Volts. Whereas the single-ended DAC uses copper foil/paper in oil signal coupling capacitors, the balanced version uses a honking great pair of Audio Note’s own 600-Ohm transformers. At its heart, the 3.1 Balanced is essentially the same animal as the 3.1 Signature, combining a Crystal CS8414CS receiver chip and an Analogue Devices 1865 18 Bit converter chip with Audio Note’s own transformers and analogue filters, and Philips USA ECC88 valves in the output stage. The digital and analogue stages of the converter live next door, physically separated from the power supply by a metal wall.Īll circuit boards are seriously thick and are supported clear of the chassis by multiple pillars. There is a hefty valve rectified choke power supply. Remove the lid and you discover why it’s so big. I guess it only looks large to neophytes used to solid-state electronics. The Audio Note DAC 3.1 Balanced is a black folded metal box approximately 17” wide by 16” deep and 5” high. But I always intended to upgrade to the balanced version when it finally became available. I lived with the 3.1 Signature from November last year until last week and it never failed to enliven our enjoyment of an eclectic mix of music from choral through chamber to be-bop and fusion. That’s how the Musical Fidelity player came to go back from whence it came, and I ended up buying a single-ended 3.1 Signature DAC (remember, no balanced version then in production) from Audio Note. There was indeed more presence and apparent fluidity than the straight over sampled output from my Meridian combo.įrankly, I was not expecting the prototype Audio Note DAC to excite, but it simply blew the Musical Fidelity away, giving an organic, euphonic, open and astonishingly revealing presentation with pace, rhythm and timing that exposed the up sampled output from the Musical Fidelity box as (comparatively) confused, mechanical and harsh.Īs it was, lidless and without a faceplate, the Audio Note had all the visual allure of a trashcan. Playing first the Musical Fidelity, I heard all the effects that Sam Tellig, Michael Fremer and others in the audio press have raved about. Put it in your car and take it away.” There was no faceplate, no lid – just a chassis with all boards and tubes exposed, wrapped up in a big plastic bag.Īt home, back-to-back comparison was instructive. It is perhaps a measure of the degree of confidence that Audio Note owner Peter Qvortrup has in the rightness of his product that, with a balanced version still some months from production, he simply gave me the pre-production prototype to play with: “There it is. I borrowed a burned-in Musical Fidelity 3D CD from a local dealer and contacted Audio Note to ask if I could try one of their balanced DACs at the same time. I concluded that a DAC capable of provoking such passion just had to be auditioned. In addition to being different, Audio Note’s approach seems to trigger a spectrum of responses ranging from huge enthusiasm through carefully studied indifference to outright derision. You’ll find various postings and reviews here and on AA about how that technology contrasts with the mainstream. The Musical Fidelity 3D CD up sampling CD player was then launched and unlike the US-made DACs it was readily available for audition here in Britain.Ībout this time, trawling the ‘net in an effort to understand how up sampling works, I stumbled over Audio Note’s UK site (and the company’s iconoclastic approach to DAC design. It proved too much like hard work due to the distribution arrangements both companies then had in place here in the UK (I do not know whether things have subsequently changed). Up sampling seemed to get a good press (it gets an even better one now) and I initially settled on trying to audition an MSB Link DAC III and the Perpetual Technologies’ P3 combo modified by Wright. Last year, dissatisfied with CD reproduction from a Meridian 500 transport and 24-bit DAC front-end, I was casting around for a replacement D to A converter. I have no commercial link, or connection of any other kind, with Audio Note UK
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