By Parker King

After many months of saving from my rental property in-come, I recently purchased a dCS Puccini, their one-box CD/SACD machine (afford it on just a hifi industry income?…not likely). There is much to be said about this machine, even more than the abso!ute sound review presented re-cently. But first, I must relate how the above title came to mind.

I was out of the hifi industry for 4 years, from 99-03, and during that time I was forced to sell off my Linn Aktiv Kaber system. So, I started rebuilding following being hired by ASL and found that Arcam had dramatically improved in my absence, so I was happy for a long time with a DV139, AVR350 and a Piega surround speaker setup with a REL B2

sub. But, something was miss-ing, I wanted to get back into music more, and after the Puc-cini was released, I just had to have one. Of course, my budget would not allow im-proving more than one com-ponent at a time, so now here I am with a Puccini into an AVR350. As a ‘front-end first’ guy from my days with Linn, this is not too bad. In fact, it’s surprisingly good. Having the AVR350, with its connection and processing flexibil-ity, allowed me to do some compari-sons after enjoying the Ring DAC analog out through my Nordost Frey intercons. One day recently I de-cided to push the ‘direct’ stereo button to off –

OMG!…the sound of the Puc-cini’s analog out, through the Arcam’s ADC and finally through the Arcam’s DAC, was STILL better than the DV139 analog output on ste-reo direct! The output from the Ring DAC is SO-O-O good that it loses little going through all that extra crap! Basically, analog output from the Puccini is incorruptible, you can’t make it bad no mat-ter how hard (cont’d page 2)

dCS Puccini—Incorruptible!

Nordost Pulsar Points not just pointy …and neither are the Quasar Points. Yes, we are all familiar with isolation devices, going back to Mod Squad Tiptoes with the bendy points. Well, let me tell you, the points of the Nordost products won’t be bending any time soon, unless maybe you put a ceiling- high stack of Burmester 909

amps on top of them!

Seriously, the Nordost points DO work. The best demo we’ve experienced is to start with something like an Arcam CD player by itself, playing music with a wide dynamic range and heavy overlay mix,

something like Roger Waters’ Amused to Death, and play 30 seconds. Then pop just 3 of the aluminum Pulsar Points under it (4 takes too much time and is too exacting, with 3 you can put two under the front easy enough, then easily put one under the middle of the back of the (cont’d page 2)

Audiophilia August 15, 2008

Volume 1, Issue 1

ASL beehive 2

Charlie’s column 3

New Burmester 3

Nordost Seminars 4

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Special points of interest:

• Audiophilia is recom-mended for Audiophile Systems dealer/rep reading ONLY!

• Charlie Krone. VP/customer service, wants to warp time! (see page 3)

• Meet Jenny Smith, the hardest-working woman in ASL-biz (see page 2)

SERVICE, SALES...

DID WE SAY SERVICE?

Contact: Editor@aslgroup.com

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1

Jenny facilitates incoming and outgoing product flow, she tries to get vendors to play nice, she assists dealers and reps get what they want, and she’s Cambre’ girl! You got the questions

about Cambre’ and she’s got the answers, and if she doesn’t, she’s a jolly fine guesser, very creative. Finally, Jenny is one of the few people of her generation not to have had the work ethic

molly-coddled right out of her. This lady can work, pick ‘em up and lay ‘em down!!! Call Jenny directly at exten-sion 215.

Meet Jenny Smith, one of the newer ASL employees with 1 1/2 years ser-vice. Jenny brought to ASL a wealth of knowledge in marketing and distribu-tion management, domestic and inter-national business management, AND...she likes mu-sic! (Not only that, she is also a musi-cian, playing guitar and piano, Hoo-ah!)

you try. Now I am listening to music all the time and enjoying every genre even on my bookshelf Piega TP 3. I have been wonderfully stunned by what I’m hearing from my standards – Van Mor-rison’s Moondance, whole album but a special new appreciation for the title track, Bjork’s first album, you know the woodwind track with the prominent bassoon is awesome, heretofore irritat-ing. Sinatra even in mono, so much more going on in the Nelson Riddle backup, surprising amount of acoustic seeping through. Overall, the most noticeable things are, of course, the near analog acoustic space, and the harmonic resonance and richness in group vocal and instrumental works. My next plan is to save for a Burmester power amp, probably the 036 but maybe the 956 Mk2, drive it with the

Puccini as digital preamp, and source in two more digital sources (out of records, sorry), the DV139 for the occasional movie, and the DirecTV box for music videos. Looking forward to getting the max out of my incorruptible Puccini!

the unit). Do another 30 seconds and you’ve made the $120 sale because of the increased resolution. But wait! In a big step, swap out to the Titanium points and play another 30 seconds…greater resolution, much more precise placement, more detail and more com-prehensible vocals. A $450 step up in a couple minutes. And, your customers will love you for it.

Nordost Quasar

Points

ASL Beehive—who’z who heah. Bzzzzzzzz.

dCS Puccini—Incorruptible! (cont’d)

Nordost Pulsar Points not just pointy (cont’d)

“You got the questions about Cambre’ and she’s got the answers, and if she doesn’t, she’s a jolly fine guesser, very creative.”

Page 2

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1

or optional external power supply. Sound quality is reference all the way, US MAP is expected to range from $40-55k depending on power supply.

The 082 classic-line integrated is expected to fill the gap between the $9500 Rondo 051 and the $22,500 Classic Line 032. At a US MAP of about $18k, the 082 is descended from the 035 preamp and 036

power amp. The B30 tower loudspeaker is a con-tinuation of the Burmester tower line-up at about $16k in standard Elsberry,

Burmester Audiosysteme debuted three new products at this year’s Mu-nich Hi End Show: The 077 Reference Line Preamp, the 082 Classic Line Inte-grated Amp, and the B30 tower loud-speaker.

The 077 is offered as a reference alterna-tive to the venerable 808 (scheduled soon for Mk6 incarnation) and offers an internal

Charlie Krone, ASL Vice President for Customer Service, is at the sharp edge of our drive to continue being the best in the industry at taking care of our customers. He recently took some time out of his busy day to respond to questions about customer service-

Audiophilia: “As VP for customer ser-vice, what do you see as your most difficult task?” The Krone: “Temporal customer ser-vice. When I get a call at 2:30pm from John Q. Hifi asking if he can use the dual-AES output of his Lynx soundcard with a dCS Elgar @24/192 (for exam-ple), I can make an educated guess based upon online research and my own knowledge-base. But, seeing as it is 2:30pm, that would make it cocktail hour in Cambridge, and the usual sup-port contacts across the big swimming pool are not at their posts. That means

I have to put a client off until the morning so I can confirm my answer with a Brit. ASL clients have invested in a quality-of-life product. If there is an issue, question, or concern that they need to have addressed, and I cannot address it, I feel personally that the service has not lived up to the prod-uct. I do have a rather unique knowl-edge of our product lines (OW!!!! My arm!), but even the great Charlie sometimes needs to con-sult with the Big Brains who designed the stuff.

Until I can learn to warp time either ahead 19 hours or back 5 hours (remember that movie Fre-quency w/Dennis Quaid?), this re-mains my most troubling and difficult task.”

Audiophilia: “What are the most common operational ques-tions that you see that are not well addressed by the

owner’s manual?”

The Krone: “We represent several lines, so I’ll pick one (cont’d below)

ternal digital sources. For Burmester: Tricky. There is such a wide variety of products, electronic and otherwise, that it would be prohibi-tively time consuming to try to excerpt each handbook. Since Burmester manufactures their products with a ‘system approach’, I do sometimes get questions about how easy it is to inte-grate Burmester products with those of other manufacturers. The short an-swer is that it is a breeze! On this front, it is worth mentioning that the

from each. I’d like to say upfront the documentation is excellent for all of our products. That being said, there is always room for improvement. For dCS: I often get the question, “Do the SPDIF inputs run through the up-sampler in the DAC?”, and most com-monly with respect to the Puccini. The Paganini and Scarlatti DACs have no upsampler built-in, so that would be a rather obvious ‘no’. The Puccini will only upsample redbook discs, not ex-

069 and 001 CD players have a variable analog output that allows them to be hooked directly to power amplifiers. They also feature several digital inputs which effectively make them fantastic preamps for digital sources. All of the CD players sport digital inputs, but I really dig the flexibility of the upper tier of CD players. (But of course, you really should get a preamp or inte-grated amp with that. Why? Because I said so, that’s why!)” (continued in next issue of Audiophilia)

New Burmester Products!

WAY too much information...from Charlie

WAY too much information...from Charlie (cont’d)

“The 077 is offered as a reference alternative to the

venerable 808 (scheduled soon for Mk6 incarnation)”

Charlie graduated from college.

Page 3

Burmester 077

Audiophilia is an occasional publication of Audiophile Systems LTD.

Volume 1, Number 1, August 15, 2008

Executive Editors: Tony Gregory, CEO and Karen Richardson, President

Managing Editor: Parker King

Contributors: Charlie Krone, VP/customer service, Parker King, Jenny Smith, Paula

Harris

All content is the sole property of Audiophile Systems LTD. and is for the sole use

of our dealers and representatives.

Audiophile Systems LTD is a premier importer, distributor and sales company for

high-end audio electronics. Our primary focus is the retrieval and transmission of

all musical information from any music storage medium, including computer files,

digital discs, and vinyl discs. For 35 years, our customers have looked to us for the

ultimate in performance and consumer satisfaction.

Nordost will be conducting two seminars at Audiophile Systems in Indianapolis the week of August 17th. Bjorn Bengtsson, Nordost’s International Sales trainer will be here from Sweden as our presenter. Michael Taylor, Director of North American Sales, and Joe Reynolds, President of Nordost, will be here as well. WE HOPE THAT YOU CAN COME!

A limited number of slots are still available. Travel expenses will be reimbursed. If you’re interested in attending, please con-tact Karen Richardson or Mike Marko.

Nordost seminars week of August 17th

8709 Castle Park Drive Indianapolis, IN 46256

Phone: 317-841-4100 Fax: 317-841-4107

General e-mail: aslgroup@aslgroup.com

Expression transported.

SERVICE, SALES. . . DID WE SAY SERVICE?

Audiophilesystems.com

Bjorn

Bengtsson

Quantum Resonant Technology

QX2

ODIN

Supreme Reference Power Cord