I get asked some good questions in the forums and this one deserves some elaboration.  To paraphrase:

Is there a proper stacking order for hi-fi components you have lay on top of each other?

Someone that has never owned a component hi-fi system before, might have difficulty deciding which components to lay overtop of which.  Stacking them is usually inevitable, most people don’t have that many shelves that each has its own slot.  However there are many open shelving units that have a shelf per component and leave all components open to the air.  The basic design flies in the face of the more “entertainment center” conventions that had everybody stuffing their audio gear into a cabinet.  These days it’s a sort of modern addition to design to let your hi-fi gear breathe in the open air and have tea with the rest of the family. 

To answer the question, there are two main considerations.   

Structural integrity and heat dissipation. 

Structural integrity can be determined the old fashioned way, just heft any component in your hands to get an idea if you can get away with laying anything on top.  Even just a few components can add up to 50+ pounds.  Consult the owners manual to see if they have any explicit instructions as to how much capacity if any that it can take.  But even if nothing is read in the manual about it, common sense can go a long way.  A plastic $30 DVD player from Wall Mart isn't the best choice to anchor your system at the bottom. 

Heat dissipation is trickier.  If you look at the box you can usually determine where the manufacturer intended heat to dissipate from.  Vents should be given the opportunity to do their job, so give them plenty of space.  Components usually have legs that raise them from the component below, this is a great design but too often won’t leave enough space or sit too flat on top of the one below.  Spacers (possibly wooden chims) to space component tops from the one bottom of the one above it can help in these cases.  Some components have vents on the back, so it's important not to crowd the back in either, give some space from behind.  If you’re crowding everything into a closed entertainment center, it might be a good idea to invest one or more small fans you switch on for long viewing periods.

Components with moving parts like today’s PVRs including RePlayTV, TiVo or your satellite/cable receiver PVR have built in hard drives that generate a lot of heat.  If your DVR is also an HD receiver, it’ll have processors also creating veritable micro-furnace inside.  A PVR that runs hot all its life will probably have a shortened life expectancy and have more errors.  The thin film magnetic media that makes up the hard drive platter can be susceptible heat damaged.  Bad sectors could mean odd intermittent behaviors like stuttering, sound or image cut outs.

Amplifiers and receivers are components that have amplifiers built in which are VERY temperature sensitive.  It's paramount that you not place anything on top of a receiver.  Amps radiate a lot of heat, keep the top of your amps as clear as possible and if it’s enclosed with scant clearance on top, that's the best place to have a small fan.

I often wish they made small clip on fans that run on AC.  I'd buy about three of them for my system.  The clip is nothing special, just to clip it to the edge of a shelf.   

As a general rule I’d say about an inch between components for heat dissipation is good, depending on the components.  Obviously receivers require more than an inch

If you’re particularly concerned that a component is heating up too much and not being given enough breathing space test it with your hand after it’s been running awhile.  If it feels hot to the touch on the top of the box, it’s probably too hot inside and this could be damaging to semiconductor material and drying out lubricants on any moving parts.  If you have components that don’t pass the hand test you should get a fan in there ASAP.  Light air current passing over a few of your components will make a huge difference.

Outlaw is one of the newest and highly regarded consumer electronics companies today.  They’re one an online exclusive retailer, designer and manufacturer who makes high quality home theater audio at affordable prices.  You won’t find Outlaw equipment at any retail stores, they only deal over the internet through their website.  Outlaw stands among the high end of the mainstream consumer electronics spectrum, comparable to names like NAD, Rotel, Adcom but sold at prices that make you think of big warehouse operations.  Instead of listening to your new Outlaw gear in a store you get your new purchase shipped directly to you from Outlaw and you can test it for 30 days with a complete money back guarantee if you’re not happy.  This online business model and high quality gear at larcenous pricing has made Outlaw a respected name in the industry.

It is to great fanfare Outlaw ships its newest product, the Outlaw 990 a Pre-amp/Processor for Home Theater.  “Pre-Pro” as they’re called aren’t cheap, this unit is only for those who want the highest quality and are willing to collect a system of “separates” (separate components) to get it.   Pre-pro is a receiver that requires external amplification, either a stack of separate amps or a single five to seven channel power amp.  Having a dedicated component for preamp and surround processing duties guarantees the best performance possible.  Leaving amplification to separate components is the best way to achieve audio purity that will make the highest quality speakers sparkle.

Preamp-Processors like Sunfire’s Grand line or Arcam’s AV8 will set you back thousands.  Along comes Outlaw’s 990 for just $1099.

Check out these features:

• DTS-ES Discrete and Matrix, DTS-96/24, DTS NEO-6
• Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Pro Logic IIx fully adjustable, Dolby Virtual Speaker, Dolby Headphone Layers 1,  2, 3
• 5 Optical and 2 Coaxial Digital Inputs
• Automatic Speaker Set-up
• 7.1 RCA pre-amp outputs with dual sub out 7.1
• Balanced Audio Outputs
• Room 2 A/V Output with fixed/variable audio level, S-Video and coaxial digital
• Dedicated Room 2 Remote
• 2 DVI Inputs 1 DVI Output

That’s right, two DVI in/outs for HDCP video compliance.  Outlaw would love to have included HDMI.  Outlaw says that since the technology was still in some transition during the design phase of this unit they wanted to go with something they considered upgradeable.  My assumption is that lack of HDMI goes a long way in making this unit more affordable, HDMI based receivers are several thousand more than this unit.  Components that use HDMI only can easily be converted with adapters and voila, back to DVI.  It’s an affordable yet uncompromising way to make your receiver the audio/video control center again since you upgraded to an HDTV monitor.

Flush with love for the new headphones I just reviewed in the last entry I wanted to pit the Grado SR60s against some other really nice headphones.  I connected them to a special headphone amp component that runs on AC.  A headphone amp will provide much more power to the headphones than the iPod can provide, but still allows you to listen to music from the iPod.  For my testing I used an Antique Audio tube amp with a headphone jack, this renowned hi-fi headphone amp is used by true audio snobs.  Using the iPod to its RCA stereo input I hooked up my SR60s and got just a little more of everything the iPod alone gave.  The sound clearly held together more cleanly at slightly higher volumes.  The bass had more oomph, the mids and highs did sound noticeably clearer but only slightly.  That’s a big compliment to the iPod’s ability, that it’s almost in the same league as a high end headphone amp is astounding.

In the Left corner Grado Labs 325

On the Right corner Sennheisser's HD 650

It was time to test “real” high end headphones that the iPod alone couldn’t hope to run properly.  A couple of high end players in the headphone industry were the basis of my testing namely, Grado’s own SR325 their top of the “Prestiege” (show on the left corner) line and the Sennheiser HD 650s (in the right corner) often referred to in the cans community as simply the finest headphone made. 

Both Grado SR325 and Sennheiser HD 650 were noticeably better sounding than the Grado SR60, the SR60s were humbled and my perception of what headphones can really sound like has been forever altered.  Headphones in league with two I tested offer true hi-fi quality sound.  Make no mistake, these are pricey headphones, both cost around $300 - $400.  But for the money you get perfect sound quality that rivals a component home audio system that people might spend their lives putting together.  I know, it’s a bold claim, but this is a different medium for music listening.  There are no room acoustics to consider, no merging of speakers or idiosyncrasies with matching components.  Even with so-called “open” headphone designs you’re sealed into your own listening environment, the experience takes hi-fi into a slightly different direction, brings you up close and very personal.  The music I chose for this listening experience was the Beatles Let It Be Naked album (the Beatles Let it be with the extra instrumtation digitally removed, it sounds perfect!) and Aimee Mann’s music from the Magnolia soundtrack.  I ripped high quality MP3s at 320bit rate for as close to CD quality as you can get.  The selected tracks had an intimate quality about them and the headphone medium only perfected that quality.  I’d strongly advise the uninitiated to try the headphone experience for any nightclub listening, it’s well suited for jazz, folk, country, classical guitar and chamber music.  While big band, hard rock drum and bass music do sound nice through good cans I think those musical styles are better suited to a full room hi-fi system, imperfect acoustic reflections and all, warts only add to the experience.

Using both the Grado 325 and Sennheiser HD 650 I could hear inflections in Aimee Mann’s voice I hadn’t noticed before, her singing seems to convey more emotion on a good set of cans.  Hearing John Lennon sing Across the Universe was simply eerie, I could close my eyes and imagine it was 1971 and I was in a recording studio with headphones on watching John, Paul, George and Ringo through a pane of glass giving them the thumbs up.

It’s difficult to come to a verdict between the Senheisser HD650 and the Grado 325, there is no clear winner.  I guess, technically speaking the Senheisser HD 650s are the better headphone.  The HD650s had a slightly better ability to snap to total silence between guitar strokes then take your ears on a rich journey through the very next strum of the guitar.  Their detailing was excellent across the spectrum.  The Grado Labs 325 didn’t stand out to me in this regard, but somehow I liked them better.  The Grado 325s had a certain warm quality that might actually be a form of distortion.  There was something my ears were attracted to in the Grado sound, perhaps this is because I have been jaded with affection for the sound of the SR60s, the 325s had all the good offered by the SR60s but more of everything.  Where the Grado really stood out is with their ability to crunch with an electric guitar’s effects pedal as in the tunes on the Magnolia soundtrack by Supertramp and the Beatles “I’ve Got a Feeling”.  The pleasant acoustic rhythm of The Beatles “Two of us”’ churned along with a honeyed sweetness that seemed to give acoustic guitars more character than the Sennheisser HD650s.

My own preference for the Grado 325s notwithstanding, both are among the finest headphones you can buy.  If you’re in an apartment or rent a room and you enjoy watching movies all alone in the dark, you should consider high end headphones as an alternative to the full surround sound system.  You’ll be sealed into your own little acoustically perfect world and save a load of money.  The only trouble with cans of this caliber is that they won’t be powered to their best by any mobile playback device.  Thankfully there are mobile amplifiers you can get rather inexpensively if you must have the best headphones money can buy with you on your travels.  Haunt this forum to learn more about portable amps that will power even the best cans on the go.

Comparisons are going to be inevitable between the Xbox 360 and PS3.  And to tell you the truth, there is no comparison.  It seems the two companies are going to switch side in another year, it’ll be the Xbox 360 that offers less performance at a lower price than the coming PS3. 

Sony unveiled technical specifications but not the actual name of the coming PS3 (which will have to serve for now as the unofficial name for the device).  It’ll feature the cutting edge “Cell” processor, made from “learning” microbial tissue that will quickly overtake your simple neuron based consciousness for an unparalleled gaming experience.  Okay, I’m just kidding about that last part but swimming through PS3 specs is a bit daunting, it seems they’ve really pulled out the stops with processing technology.  The “cell” processor is a next generation CPU that will run at 3.2 Ghz giving Playstation 3 almost three full teraflops of floating point processing power.  Graphics power will be brought to us by NVIDIA’s RSX “Reality Synthesizer” capable of 100 Billion shader operations and 51 billion dots per second.  The engineering of the GPU will be truly cutting edge with 300 million individual transistors made with the Moore’s Law driving 90nm process.  Using 90nm process transistors will have a gate oxide that is only five atomic layers thick.  The cost of making this chip today would be $1000 U.S. dollars and that's just the graphics processor alone.  The GPU will be capable of producing images at 1080P and its significant data will race from PS3’s built in HDMI port available to communicate with the rest of your gear.

Sony is going out on its decidedly thick and powerful corporate limbs to promise this in mass production by the release date of next spring.  Naturally Sony’s coming product will stand firmly behind its own Blu-Ray technology as its exclusive optical storage medium.  Blu-Ray is capable of over six times the data storage as DVD.  PS3 will be backward compatible to everything all the way back to Sony’s original Playstation.    The targeted release date is to be spring of 2006, Sony has its work cut out for it to produce this groundbreaking piece of hardware at a viable consumer price in mass production in that short a time.  I’ve never been a fan of Sony or any of its gaming platforms or any other endeavor outside their TVs.  But if Sony can pull this off; in the words of the immortal Mike Tyson, “I take my hand off to you.”

Never underestimate the visual enhancement of ambient lighting for your home theater.  Watching movies in total darkness is a sure way to cause your audience eyestrain and fatigue viewers.  As the video from your movies goes bright, dark then bright again, your iris has to open and close to regulate your vision.  You can minimize this effect with a small amount of ambient lighting in your home theater.  With so many pricey options aimed at getting you to buy expensive sconces that may be stylish but beyond consideration for the average consumer.

Here is an alternative.  I took a cheap $10 lamp, the likes of which can be found at any department store and created the effect of some of the new “ambient lighting” plasma TVs by Philips as shown in the image above.  I wanted to create the same effect without the price.

The lamp itself is put together with sections that you have to screw together yourself.  When fully assembled the lamp sat too tall.  The light source was higher than the TV, too distracting for my purposes.  I needed the light to emanate from behind the TV; diffused so the source was not visible.  After cutting the AC line I was able to remove two sections of the lamp and then used electric tape and a few twists of the copper wire to put it back together.  Be careful to observe polarity.  The positive lead is marked with some writing or other print while the negative is just plain black.  As long as you have the like connected to like, you’re okay, it doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative. 

I placed the now short lamp in the middle, behind my TV and put in a high efficiency bulb that uses less wattage than incandescent.  The high efficiency lights not only use less energy, but they’re pretty close to full spectrum like a fluorescent light.  Full spectrum lights place less emphasis on any particular colour or colour temperature.  If you can find a lamp that is close as possible to 65,000 Kelvin all the better, but I wouldn’t go paying too much extra for it.

The end result is diffused ambient lighting behind my monitor, allowing me hours of viewing with a well rested iris that won’t put me to sleep.  Best of all I get the chic yet practical effect found in expensive HT monitors without spending the money.

Tonight at midnight fans will get their first look at the final installment of George Lucas’s Star Wars epic, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.  The release of this final installment shows the public excitement for the franchise hasn’t died down over the decades, we’ve waited a long time for this final conclusion where we get to find out exactly why and how Anakin Skywalker was seduced by the dark side.

The original Star Wars in 1977 stands as my favorite of the bunch.  It was the first, I was the perfect age for it to have blown me away.  This was the film that collectively blew the minds of a generation of moviegoers who would forever become fans of not just Star Wars per se but also fans of film.  You can’t put your finger on any one thing that made Star Wars so successful.  The story was nothing unseen in fairy tales.  Neither the acting nor dialogue was particularly fantastic.  The special effects showed us things we’d never seen before and the innate simplicity and familiarity of the story gave us a point of reference in this strange new universe.  As absorbed as I was at the time with Star Wars (to this day I count among my very favorite movies of all time) I never considered George Lucas to be a particularly good film director.  Ultimately George Lucas’s genius wasn’t being one of the great film directors of our time but his ability to accomplish what must have seemed impossible.  Lucas created a universe, civilizations with a detailed sense of history.  He created colorful characters that must have seemed laughable in meetings with board members to finance the project before it was a success.  With the success of Star Wars, Lucas created the “summer blockbuster” that is still a recognized film feature today.  And best of all he introduced a generation of kids like myself to film.  At a time when the art of film had really reached such a creative high point it was mostly too high brow for a ten year old boy in 1977.  Important film makers like Alan Pakula, Milos Forman, Martin Scorsese were all making movies with artistic value or social commentary, the period was a boon for the art of film but largely lost on someone of my age.  Then Star Wars came on the scene and changed everything.  It was immediately accessible to teens and pre-teens but didn’t talk down to them or make efforts to create some sanitized message.  It was an action adventure film that took generation Xers on a journey much like the westerns had done for the youngsters of a generation before. 

Fueled by 21st century marketing, the commercial behemoth of the Star Wars franchise coasts on the momentum of a creative spark that vacated George Lucas decades ago.  Why else does he primp and preen with his own twenty year old work?  I’ve never been a fan of his updates to the original movies, not because I’m a Star Wars purist, it’s his work and he can do what he wants.  I just have to wonder about a director that hasn’t yet moved on from one great idea pursue more perhaps even greater ideas.  I only hope the rumors are true, that this might try to capture some of the darkness of the Empire Strikes Back.  And hopefully Lucas will give us some of that run of the mill action formula he’s so adept at presenting.  This is to be the first Star Wars movie to receive a rating higher than PG, this one is rated PG-13.  Here we are on the eve of the final installment and I must admit despite my reservations I am excited about seeing this one, but you’ll have to excuse me if my expectations aren’t exactly stellar.

It’s always a treat to go up to the local hi-fi shop (Soundstage in Waterloo Ontario) and listen to exotic hi-fi.  On my latest visit however exotic fare wasn’t so exotic, I got to sample the sweet sounds of speakers made right here in Waterloo Ontario.  Reference 3A was originally a Swiss company started by a legendary French speaker designer named Daniel Dehay.  Reference 3A was later bought by a Canadian company and now they’re hand made in the small city of Waterloo Ontario.

The Reference 3A line of high end bookshelf speakers is simple.  The Dulcet is their budget model you can find for around $1500 US.  Then it’s on to the critically acclaimed MM Decapo I, lastly weighing in at around $5000 US per pair is the Royal Virtuoso, the speakers I had the pleasure of sampling one afternoon.

The first thing that strikes you is the look of the Royal Virtuoso’s, these aren’t normal wooden enclosures, they’re made from Corian, a low resonant and high density material used for industrial desktops and kitchen counters.  Hidden inside the Royal Virtuoso’s as with other designs by Reference 3A is the patented Vibro-Puck, a specially designed wooden disc made from multiple layers to absorb any resonance inside the cabinet.  The cone driver is made from carbon fibers woven together to give it high degrees of sensitivity and strength.  The cone features a front baffle designed to eliminate cross cone frequency cancellations.  The result is only the purest sound from the amplified source filling the room.  These speakers are especially efficient and Reference 3A claims they will run only a handful of watts.

I sat down in front of these speakers with an equally exotic kit powering them and speaker wires that look like industrial power cables, sorry I can’t give any further details of the rest of the kit.  But the musical selection was vinyl, a high end turntable with a Jazz recording, a lady doing up to date Billie Holliday songs.  Being a fan of Billie Holliday’s well made Verve recordings I’m familiar with many of the classics she’s sung.  This might have been the best I’ve ever heard them.  I took particular interest in hearing vinyl again, it’s been years and I’ve always heard the hi-fi snobs speak of how great analog records sound.  Not that I don’t believe it, I just realize it’s so far out of my price range to go analog the way God intended I usually don’t bother indulging in listening sessions as I did on this day.  I must say it was beautiful.  I am not given to exaggerations of sound quality; I heard the expected pops and rustle as the needle hit the record, kind of reminiscent of a bygone era.  The opening punch of the drums that kicked our starting number prompted me to ask if the two speakers were really all we’re listening to with no subwoofer.  Not that the frequency was particularly deep but the impact of the drums seemed more powerful than I imagined you might get from unassisted bookshelf speakers, even as large as the Virtuosos.  The imaging was also amazing, the wide soundstage seemed to envelop me so completely I started to imagine how this could possibly be assisted by pro-logic II.  But there was no pro-logic II digital algorithm involved, there was no optical storage, this was the analog realm, a sort of visit to our acoustic past.  I quickly stopped hearing any evidence of the mechanical source, the needle became invisible as the music got underway.  It became clear this is the way sound was meant to be heard.  All the efforts of every digital recording technology combined exist to simulate old fashioned analog sound.  I take nothing from two channel sources being helped along by Pro Logic II, they produce sound that gets as close as possible to what I heard from the Royal Virtuosos for a fraction of the cost.

I kept listening for placement of individual musicians, indeed I could hear placement very well.  Now, I don’t have a lot of experience with gear at this high end but I can say that the tones were refined compared to the more average stuff I listen to.  I can’t tell you if the sound had any weaknesses, I paid as close attention to the mid, bass and treble and found each frequency range presented in sweetened tones I could sit and listen to all day long.  The most important question to me however; is this listening experience worth the $6K price tag?  For me, at this time I must say no.  That’s no knock on the speakers, they’re fantastic.  But I enjoy my comparatively lower priced NHT speakers at home too.  A high end analog kit offers a different kind of pleasure for those who can afford a taste for it, that doesn’t necessarily replace the effect of a nice 5.1 system.

In the realm of high end equipment the Reference 3A is not considered particularly over-the top, the cost of some of the very exotic handmade speakers with similar engineering standing behind them gets downright silly by comparison, you could spend many times their amount for similar quality.  So, if you had a taste for well engineered hand crafted speakers with a design that has thought of “everything”, you can’t do much better than the Reference 3A Royal Virtuoso.

The first thing that strikes you when you unpack an ipod for the first time isn’t the cellophane wrapped scent of fresh electronics, and it certainly isn’t any sort of overwhelming presence as if you’d just unsheathed a thing of great power (even though it is a powerful piece).  It’s none of these things, the first thing that strikes you when you unpack your ipod box is how neatly laid out everything is, it’s almost… “cute”.  Compartments symbolized by minimal yet strangely intuitive icons.  You just know where things are and what they do.  The whole unpacking process makes it clear that Apple hasn’t just made an MP3 player, they’ve made a statement.

Let me get one thing perfectly clear off the bat.  I am not a fan of the Mac and I never have been.  The Mac world hordes remind of a cult.  Shining faces promote esthetic integrity only to lull you into the concrete prison that is the Mac OS.  I am no lover of Microsoft, Linux or any other operating system, they’re just tools.  But Mac users seem to project more into their beloved machines and that scares me.  The ipod itself feeds from the same sort of fanaticism, so my view has been skeptical as I take the journey into the ipod.  Researching the ipod I’ve come across many in the “community” who see it as an elitist toy that should remain exclusive to Mac users.

Back to the ipod, right out of the box it’s clear there is some “out of the box” thinking behind its design.  There is a design sense rare in the world of tech toys.  Sure, high end home theater gear has a snobbish exclusiveness, you buy a component made by a special high priced brand name and their packaging is probably unusual, possibly using packaging materials you don’t normally see in your average Pioneer DVD player.  But this was different.  Unpacking the ipod seemed to flow in a logical order, in a way it seemed to try to communicate as your fingertips reached in to caress its white plastic parts.  Packed in the center, nestled between two boxes that open up like a book is the ipod itself the tiny heart of the system.  It seems so small a thing for so much fuss, but you remind yourself that the tiny wafer thin box holds 20Gigs of storage space and includes tiny high efficiency audio playback components packed into something that makes a cigarette box look gigantic by comparison.  The 4th generation unit has a look of simplicity, dominated by two geometric shapes everyone learned in the first grade, a circle and a square.

Having experience with Creative’s Nomad I’m no stranger to MP3 players.  So, after finally installing itunes, the ipod’s control software and familiarizing myself with the basics I was a bit dismayed at what little control you really have with the tiny box when not connected to the computer.  Walking around with the ipod there is no way to create a play list or delete a song from the hardrive.  It took awhile but I had to learn to think in their system, not Creative’s.  Creative is a hardware company that’s been making peripherals for PCs for many years.  It’s no wonder the Creative Nomad’s controls were much like a scaled back PC, menu systems, submenus, tons of control.  This is the way of the PC.  But the ipod is designed to be simple and linear if minimal in its control.  It offers only the basic controls while you carry it around the street, you play music by either queueing up your favorite playlists or using random shuffle options.  To give you some idea of the difference between a 5 year old Nomad Jukebox and the new ipod, the Nomad had a two hour battery charge life at best, the ipod claims a 12 hour charge.  The Nomad had 6 Gigs of hard drive space, huge for its day.  The standard ipod today has 20Gigs.  If you find yourself in the market for a portable Mp3 player, you can’t go wrong with any of the Ipod.  A dedicated following means a high probability of good support well into the future and lots of great information available online.  This is something the Nomad can’t match as I cannot download the starting version of Nomad’s desktop software, not even from Creative.  If I didn’t find it archived on CD I’d be completely without any method of uploading data to the Nomad Jukebox.  I know it’s an old MP3 player but I was astonished to find that Creative doesn’t care to so much as host the older versions of their products desktop software.  I emailed their support and asked where I can download it and they said they don’t host it anywhere.  I was told they had it up on the web long enough now and that I should already have it.  So much for Creative, I’m happy not to provide future business to their line of MP3 players. 

It’s too early to get into much more than the unpacking thoughts right now, but I’ll be sure to give more thoughts in the future of sound quality and all the cool things this baby can do.