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everywhere! Volume 27 No. 2 February-March 2014 sound.image@nextmedia.com.au Editor Jez Ford jford@nextmedia.com.au
Cloud versus attic...
B
oth Apple and Google have new music services up and running, so I’ve put my toe into the waters of each stream. I allowed Google Play to go through my digital collection and match or upload a massive 20,000 songs under its free service, and I can now stream these songs using Google’s beautiful graphics to any computer browser or using the app for iOS or Android. All this is for free (though you must have a Google Wallet), with no apparent downside except a potentially massive bout of initial uploading — watch your data limits, especially if you have a separate upload quota! Otherwise very nice. Apple already has the similar ‘iTunes Match’ as a paid cloud service, but has just gone live in Australia with ‘iTunes Radio’, which is more like Pandora, with themed stations and occasional ads (or ad-free if you pay $34.99 for iTunes Match). It’s been going a few month in the States and doing very well, with a billion songs streamed in the first month. We found that it was available from Australia if you could sign into iTunes Store with a US account. Which I could, so we did, on both iOS and desktop iTunes. Interestingly, Apple has applied its Sound Check volume-levelling system to iTunes Radio by default, and it can’t be switched out. Sound Check is an option within normal iTunes as well, but I’ve always left it ‘off ’, since it checks and corrects every track you play, and I prefer my files to exit the computer to my DAC in as pristine a form as possible. But there has been some fascinating debate about Sound Check, led by US music producer Bob Katz. He points out that Sound Check and other algorithms like it could curtail the ‘Loudness Wars’ which have seen music producers and mastering engineers in recent years pushing up average sound levels of CDs (and downloads) by taming any peaks that might clip and so reducing dynamic range. Tracks can then sound louder than others when played side by side, although they can sound dull and lifeless if played at the same perceived volume — and that’s exactly what Sound Check does. Says Katz, “The way to turn the loudness race around right now is for every producer and mastering engineer to ask their clients if they have heard iTunes Radio. When they respond in the affirmative, the engineer/producer tells them they need to turn down the level of their songs to the standard level or iTunes Radio will do it for them — and not always in a pleasing way.” 8
Here’s a funny thing, though — I’ve found another new source of music, even better profiled to my personal tastes, and all available at CD quality. It’s called the CD. I have boxes and boxes of these little silver discs, still stored away from the last time we moved house eight years ago. That’s OK, because they were long ago ripped to computer and since shunted and copied from NAS drive to NAS drive, and most recently to a Thunderbolt drive slaved to my Mac Mini, which is pretty much a dedicated music system. (Despite our focus on NAS drives this issue, I myself have moved my music off NAS to an attached drive after too many iTunes rebuilds! The collection is shared across my network in various ways, including through iTunes’ own Home Sharing.) To these early rips have been added thousands more tracks purchased, acquired and ripped in the years since, the quality rising steadily from early 192k AAC rips to my now standard AIFF rips and up to the fair smattering of 24-bit 96kHz files from the likes of HDTracks.com, NaimLabel and HighResAudio, three of the earlier high-res providers among a growing number now that mainstream labels such as Universal Music and Sony Music are realising there’s little to lose and possibly money to be made by releasing music at a quality they have anyway but have never put into the market before. Recently I realised I was missing a particular Wendy Matthews album, and I pulled out one of my CD boxes rather optimistically, and as happens with surely non-coincidental regularity, the disc was right at the top of the box I exhumed. As I went through the discs, I found CD after CD which I knew and loved but had never, apparently, ripped: Holly Palmer, ALT, one and a half Crowded House albums (Temple of the Low Men and the non-hit half of Woodface). There turned out to be literally hundreds more, either missing from my digital collection, or ripped at 192k in the early digital days. I am currently spending happy days re-ripping everything as AIFF, and I’ve barely scratched this new, wonderful source of music. It’s been like inheriting a music collection from a younger version of myself who has died. So while you leap online to try the expanding worldwide web of music now available, I’d suggest also checking your attic. It may just contain the best music collection you never knew you had. Jez Ford, Editor www.twitter.com/jezford
Art Director Kristian Hagen Reviews Editor Edgar Kramer Contributing Editor Greg Borrowman Contributors: Greg Borrowman, Stephen Dawson, Jez Ford, Edgar Kramer, John Murt, Derek Powell Advertising Sales Manager Lewis Preece Advertising Traffic Di Preece dpreece@nextmedia.com.au Divisional Manager & National Advertising Sales Manager Jim Preece jpreece@nextmedia.com.au Production Manager Peter Ryman Circulation Director Carole Jones
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Locked Bag 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590 Ph: 02 9901 6100 Fax: 02 9901 6198 www.nextmedia.com.au Chief Executive Officer David Gardiner Commercial Director Bruce Duncan Sound+Image is published six times a year by nextmedia Pty Ltd ACN: 128 805 970 Building A, 207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 © 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the publisher. Printed by Webstar Sydney, distributed in Australia by Network Services. The publisher will not accept responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed in the publication. All material submitted is at the owner’s risk and, while every care will be taken, nextmedia does not accept liability for loss or damage, nor for loss or damage to material or products submitted for editorial review, advertising or any other purpose. Equipment or material supplied to this company should be covered by an insurance policy for the period that the item/s may be in transit to us, in our possession and in transit back to you or your warehouse. One of our new rules for 2014 is that we no longer accept equipment delivered in blue boxes. The submission of product or material for editorial inclusion in this publication signifies acceptance of the above mentioned conditions. While articles & advertisements on recording and/or downloading techniques may appear in Sound+Image, readers should not construe this as authorising or inciting them to make recordings of downloads of copyright material. In all cases we suggest you contact the manufacturer and/or supplier of the recording to request permission to record material. Privacy Policy: We value the integrity of your personal information. If you provide personal information through your participation in any competitions, surveys or offers featured in this issue of Sound+Image, this will be used to provide the products or services that you have requested and to improve the content of our magazines. Your details may be provided to third parties who assist us in this purpose. In the event of organisations providing prizes or offers to our readers, we may pass your details on to them. From time to time, we may use the information you provide us to inform you of other products, services and events our company has to offer. We may also give your information to other organisations which may use it to inform you about their products, services and events, unless you tell us not to do so. You are welcome to access the information that we hold about you by getting in touch with our Privacy Officer, who can be contacted at nextmedia, Locked Bay 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590.
ISSN 1032-3899 © 2014
NEWS NEWS IN BRIEF AUSTRALIAN AUDIO & AV SHOW DATES
The dates have been confirmed as 17-19 October for the 2014 Australian Audio & AV Show, which will return to the Melbourne Intercontinental The Rialto. NextMedia is again delighted to be the Media Partner. Ticket announcements will be made in due course at www.chestergroup.org
DRAGONFLY REBORN
2014 – THE YEAR OF HIGH-RES AUDIO? It’s two-and-a-half years since our October 2011 cover declared 24-bit music files to be “The New Hi-fi”, so we’re delighted that manufacturers both minor and major have become similarly enthused and are now preparing a profusion of high-res audio equipment for 2014 release. On the other side of the chain, ever more music is being made available at high resolution, both from download sites and on Blu-ray Discs using the increasingly widely accepted ‘Pure Music’ standard pioneered by the French division of Universal Music (and already available in your local record store). Most visible at CES were portable players. We review the already-available Fiio X3 in this issue (see p107), and we’ve previously celebrated the Astell & Kern AK120 (made by iRiver). Both companies have new players on the way. Fiio was showing the Fiio X5 (top right), a model that sits above the X3 and supports DSD in addition to FLAC, ALAC, WMA, WAV and APE high-res formats up to 24-bit/192kHz. It introduces twin micro-SD card slots in addition to its internal memory and, as with the X3, you can use it as a standalone USB DAC. The company has also leaked on forums that it is working on a Fiio X1, with a target price of US$100 and playback abilities “almost same as X3/X5, but it can’t support DSD playback and work as USB DAC”. Meanwhile Astell & Kern showed that its luxurious AK120 was a mere stepping stone to the new AK240 (pictured below), which raises the bar still further to include 256GB internal storage plus microSD expansion, and using dual Cirrus Logic 4398 DACs chipsets to achieve native DSD support in addition to all the other main high-res formats. Another first is the inclusion of Wi-Fi, giving the ability to connect direct to high-res download sites to import new music, though this depends on availability by country of sale, and many sites (such as HDTracks.com) still do not officially serve Australia. Also from Korea is newcomer Calyx with the Calyx M player (top centre), the specs for which are still being adjusted only two months from its estimated delivery — the promised Wi-Fi has now been removed, while an SD card slot will join a microSD slot and 64GB of internal memory on this neat player that doubles as a USB DAC. Its target price is US$999. Sony also has a high-res player — we saw the NWZ-ZX1 “high-resolution audio Walkman” (top left) at IFA in Berlin last September, but were told it wouldn’t be coming to Australia. Since then, however, the company has cemented high-res playback as a key plank in its global audio strategy, and we now have confirmation that the ZX1 is indeed coming to Oz, in addition to the HAPS1 500GB HDD audio player and UDA1 high-res audio DAC. Hoorah!
Audioquest’s DragonFly, the USB-sized DAC which amazed the world a couple of years ago, has been updated to a new 1.2 model, the US company promising “even smoother and more open sound” thanks to refining of the circuitry between DAC chip and analogue output stage, plus a “fortified power stage”. It keeps the 24-bit ESS Sabre DAC for conversion and handles files up to 24-bit 96kHz. The RRP here is expected to be $199.
THREAT TO INTERNET RADIO
Nearly 200 Australian radio stations disappeared from the internet at midnight on 31 January. According to Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), the switch-off was at the insistence of record companies as represented by the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA), with new rules that radio stations must pay additional music royalties — once for free-to-air broadcasts, and again for internet radio. The stations departing our digital airwaves are all local commercial regional radio stations, but CRA suggests that metropolitan radio stations may switch off in the future, telling Sound+Image also that “the legal battle goes on... CRA and PPCA were sent to the Copyright Tribunal. If they get what they want, it will affect community radio, ABC and SBS as well.” The switch-off became inevitable in August last year after the High Court of Australia rejected a leave application by CRA and cemented an earlier ruling that internet simulcasts fall outside the definition of a “broadcast” under the Copyright Act. The CRA’s CEO Joan Warner says this is effectively charging stations for how their listeners choose to listen.“Record companies now want radio stations to pay for how our listeners tune in,” says Warner. “We don’t pay an extra fee when people listen on a car radio, via an FM chip in a mobile phone or via a radio chip in a clock radio or hi-fi system.” The arguments are complex here, but might this not prove another attempt by copyright representatives to stifle new technologies that ends not only in failure, but in reduced royalties for those they claim to represent? If local stations disappear, those listening to internet radio will retune to non-Australian stations, reducing the exposure and the potential revenue for Australian artists — and the organisations that profess to represent them.
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OLED TV TVsTESTs
LG 55EA9800 $7999 • Samsung KA55S9CAM $11,999
They were long in development, but the bright lights of largescreen OLED TVs are now in the shops — with some serious price cuts already. But does OLED risk being sidelined by the rapid growth of 4K?
W
hat is happening with OLED? In the second half of 2013 we finally saw two 55-inch OLED televisions arrive in world markets, including Australia, courtesy of LG and Samsung. We review them in depth over the following pages, and there’s no hiding their merits — remarkable brightness, the blackest of blacks, their speed of response. So is 2014 going to be the year when everyone releases OLED TVs and the competition hots up? That would be a no — although prices are certainly falling already.
OLED – THE DIFFERENCE OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) is a very different panel technology to LCD (or LED-LCD). At the most basic level, OLED is a type of plastic that can emit light when electricity is applied. Panel construction is potentially cheaper than LCD in the long term, since the polymers can be ‘printed’ onto a substrate in a manner not dissimilar from ink-jet printing. For TV OLED, several layers of OLED substrate are sandwiched between anode and cathode layers on a glass substrate. With no LCD-style backlight (LCD pixels either block or pass light, they don’t generate their own), OLED panels can be extremely thin, while with no LCD-style crystals in the way of the light source, the viewing angles for OLED are also excellent.
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The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the great launch platform for the year’s technology, and TVs generally lead the show’s most exciting offerings. Massive booths of OLED TVs for the 2014 show then? Not at all. LG was alone in announcing an expanding range of OLED TVs for 2014, promising more models and even Ultra HD OLED TVs at 55, 65 and 77 inches, all curved. In sharp contrast, Panasonic and Sony backed off OLED significantly, breaking the partnership they’d formed for development, while Samsung, hitherto one of the frontrunners, put all its CES efforts into promotion of 4K (aka Ultra HD), sidelining its OLED screens. So what’s going on? There seem two sides to this story. One is simply that consumers are responding so positively to the promotion of 4K and its higher resolution that OLED is being given a back seat for fear of confusing us all with two new technologies at once. But that strategy has the second benefit of giving OLED a little more time to mature as a large-screen technology (small-screen OLED is a massive and successful market dominated by Samsung). We have been talking since our first OLED reports of the low yields — this time last year the figures were around a mere 10%, so that nine panels had to be junked for every one emerging fault-free. LG has since made a
point of announcing a “major breakthrough in premium OLED manufacturing” (see News p12). They’re quoting no yield percentages, but the recent price slashing of the OLED TV reviewed here (from $11,999 to $7999) is proof enough that something is going right. As LG Australia’s Lambro Skropidis puts it, “I feel like we’ve ‘cracked the code’ on OLED TV production efficiency.” Will the others catch up? Are OLED TVs worth the excitement in the first place? Let’s find out, as we review the two current models.
THE FULL MONTY — LG’s curved 4K OLED panel, first shown at IFA, promised for sale in 2014
Samsung KA55S9CAM OLED television Price: $10,999 $7999 • $11,999
OLED TV
CURVED SPACE
Samsung makes even more of its OLED curve than its rival, and achieves some significant advantages, especially for 3D viewing.
S
o here’s our second OLED TV, made available at pretty much the same time, and released at fairly comparable prices, although the other one (LG’s) has since had a major price cut applied. Both offer 139cm (55-inch) displays. Both are curved. They come from the two competing South Korean consumer electronics giants. But it’s clear that their lineage is very different to each other. The LG model features four sub-pixels — WRGB — while the Samsung KA55S9CAM, which we’re looking at here, uses a more conventional three: RGB.
EQUIPMENT
Before getting too far in, let me note that I conducted my review as best I could in the offices of Samsung’s PR firm, rather than in my office. We don’t like doing this, but Samsung wouldn’t or couldn’t deliver. While we had plenty of time and I took most of my test
goodies with me (including a Blu-ray player), there were limitations, such as an inability to achieve an extremely dark viewing room. So you might consider this slightly less than a proper Sound+Image review, since normally we always endeavour to live with a product as long as possible, to tease out any issues that are not immediately apparent. So that established, back to OLED. These panels consist of a thin layer of organic compounds which emit light when electricity is applied. On the front and back is another thin layer, this time of the semiconductors required to deliver said electricity. When the current flows, the OLED material glows. This panel uses compounds that produce red, green and blue colours. ‘Organic’, incidentally, in this context simply means compounds which are carbonbased, rather than such things as gallium arsenide and indium gallium phosphide,
the materials of conventional LEDs. Also unlike LCD TVs (even those termed ‘LED’ TVs), OLED TV pixels generate their own light. Unlike plasma TVs, their construction is relatively simple (plasmas are made from grids of tiny gas-filled glass cells), with OLED pixels ‘printed’ onto the substrate. Results can be extremely thin and, as this TV demonstrates, panels can even be curved. Aside from thin panels, the main advantages of OLED are that, unlike plasma, each pixel can ramp smoothly all the way to zero output and back up again, and, again unlike LCD, each pixel can go completely black. Unlike both LCD and plasma, they can switch states extremely quickly (plasma cells can switch on quickly, but the phosphors which actually produce the light don’t switch off instantly). The downsides? It’s largely about blue. The blue OLEDs are relatively inefficient, and are said to be more inclined to reduce in output
25
TEST
over time. The competing TV has dealt with this by adding to the usual RGB subpixels a fourth: white. That allows the brightness in the blues to be boosted and takes some of the load off the blue subpixels. Samsung’s approach is different. It is RGB only, but the different coloured subpixels are different in size. Peering through my magnifying glass it seemed that blue was the biggest by far, around twice as large as each of the other two colours. Green also looked to be very slightly bigger than red. The twin advantages of larger blue subpixels are that it provides a larger area for light output (overcoming the relatively weaker output density) while reducing the amount of current that runs through it (reducing ‘wear and tear’). The inefficiency remains. This TV is rated at 2.5 stars on the new energy rating labels. The competing model scores 4.5. Samsung’s TV is certainly striking in appearance. The panel itself is a fairly consistent 12mm thick, across its sides and right to its edges. Surrounding the panel is a rectangular frame with clear air between it and the panel, several centimetres on each side. Best to look at the pictures to get a sense of what’s going on here. The panel is fixed — no wall mounting options here. And it has only two connections: a power socket and a proprietary universal
communications socket. This carries video signals to the TV from a separate box of electronics, and provides power back to it along with commands interpreted from the RF remote control. Said box has the usual connections. It’s not particularly pretty, so you might want to put it out of sight… but keep it reasonably handy if you want to plug in USB devices. As with Samsung’s ‘Evolution Kit’ upgrades for its high-end TVs, this unit ought to be able to be replaced in the future if there are significant upgrades available in TV smarts. That smart stuff is identical to that provided in Samsung’s other high end models. A brief run through of the internet stuff revealed Samsung’s nicely organised ‘Smart Hub’ pages, in which an extremely wide range of very good facilities are grouped sensibly. You get such excellent features as Foxtel on Internet (subscription required, but unmetered streaming if you’re on BigPond) and plenty of nifty other sources of streamed video, including ABC iView, Yahoo Plus7!, YouTube and so on. There are games for the kiddies and various apps. You can control the TV via motion and voice. Samsung’s systems for these are the most advanced of any of the brands at this point, but are still only so-so. The camera is mounted in the top frame and can be more usefully used with the Skype facility. The voice control works better if, rather than shouting at the TV, you use the microphone built into the Smart Controller, which also has an effective touch pad to assist on-screen navigation through the various selection panels. There is a premium IR remote provided as well. Plus, of course, there are the usual apps for phones and tablets for controlling the TV. To assist you with your TV viewing the TV can learn from your viewing habits and offer One screen, two shows — Samsung’s MultiView uses 3D glasses additional recommendations. with built-in earphones to deliver two different shows at once 26
PERFORMANCE
As usual I did a full factory reset on the TV and set it up anew. The network was wired, although of course wireless is available on the Samsung. There was nothing remarkable about the process. It was just like any other Samsung TV. And, of course, just like any other Samsung TV the picture looked terrible, but was easily fixed. The default ‘50’ on the Sharpness control was creating a nasty ringing around all the hard edges on the picture, and also a degree of posterisation on what should have been gentle colour graduations on human faces. Ten seconds with the remote control had Sharpness at ‘0’. One additional change: the TV defaults leave overscan on, even when receiving a 1080p/24 external signal, so they don’t display 1:1 pixel mapping. To fix this choose ‘Screen Fit’ as the aspect ratio. With those changes made, it became apparent that this TV could deliver a truly excellent picture. The colours were rich, but I’m not one to carry on too much about those. There are plenty of controls for tweaking these to your heart’s (or instrumentation’s, if you’re so equipped) content. Nonetheless they were nicely and naturally balanced by default, and there was clearly no lack of ability for them to go to whatever levels you might individually require. These colours were laid on a bed of, as far as I could ascertain, perfect black. I turned the TV’s back to the light source and cupped my hands around my face up against the glass, and with a bright part in one part of the screen, the black part seemed to be completely devoid of any light production whatsoever. Having since had the opportunity of examining the second brand of OLED under more controlled conditions, I feel confident in saying that my impressions were right: this TV goes completely black. Looking at a number of test images, I’d further say that each pixel is capable of going completely black regardless of its neighbours, subject only to a little diffusion through the screen
OLED TV glass of any light produced by those neighbours. Those black capabilities (which clearly surpass both plasma and LED-LCD), are vitally important foundations for achieving a high quality image. Another is pixel switching speed. I have no way of measuring this, but a reasonable sense of speed can be gained by a TV’s 3D performance, if the TV uses an ‘Active’ 3D system, as this one does. Visible crosstalk or ghosting, in which the content intended for one eye leaks through to the other, seems to be closely related to the ability of the display to switch pixels on and off quickly. That’s why DLP projectors work well for 3D, while LCD ones don’t (unless they employ crosstalk cancellation techniques). This TV produced 3D at least as good as any I have experienced, and possibly even better. Using scenes with which I am utterly familiar, having examined them on tens of 3D displays, I’d say there was no crosstalk at all, regardless of colour, regardless of whether the picture was showing white objects on black or black objects on white, regardless of the physical left and right eye separation. I used the Werner Bloos crosstalk test and the results showed that if there was any ghosting at all, it was below the level the test was capable of resolving. You want a 3D TV? This is the best 3D TV on the market! The eyewear is lightweight and comfortable to wear (you get two sets). And they sync via RF to the TV, and each has a set of earbud phones built in. Why? Because the signal separation on this TV in 3D mode is so good it can be used for other purposes. Samsung calls this MultiView mode. Basically, you tune in both a TV station and an external input and have them both displayed on the screen at the same time. Without the glasses they look like a double exposure. But two people can don glasses and select which they want to watch. The sound can be sent to the earbuds — two performances simultaneously on the one physical TV. Which is very clever, though we’d imagine it would be a strange experience sitting next to your partner isolated from each other visually and aurally. Still, better than watching in the next room at least — and you can both enjoy full OLED quality, since this system would not be very satisfying were it not for the magnificent crosstalk performance of this TV.
The TV can also use this system for games play, peeling off the bottom half of a splitscreen game and blowing it up to full screen size, doing the same for the top half, and then allowing each player to see only their half. Having said that, this is probably not the snappiest games display around with a lag of around 140ms between an image being delivered to its HDMI input and it appearing on the screen. Even with motion smoothing switched off. I couldn’t find a special games mode to test, but it is possible there is a faster display mode buried in there somewhere. On a more mundane picture performance level, the deinterlacing was adequate on 576i/50 and a bit better on 1080i/50 material, mostly correctly detecting the film or video status of the source. In general you’re going to get better results with a high quality Blu-ray player, but for your PVR’s output the TV is quite good enough. In my test the TV consumed slightly more than that suggested by the 550kWh per year on the energy rating label. The figures worked out at 586kWh/year — still 2.5 stars.
CONCLUSION
OLED is a television technology that no longer has merely great promise — now it has great products, and we hope there will be more to follow from Samsung as we wait to discover for sure how much the company intends to expand OLED over the next year (see News). The ideal would be for several companies to press ahead so that in a couple of years hence there can be competition to drive the potential of this technology at ever more affordable prices. Stephen Dawson
VERDICT
Samsung KA55S9CAM OLED TV Price: $10,999 • Black levels as good as it gets • Perfect 3D performance • Samsung’s usual advanced smart features
• Far from inexpensive • Some default picture settings should be improved
TESTED WITH: Firmware T-FXP9NUABC-1002.0,BT-S/G DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY: OLED SCREEN SIZE: 138.8cm NATIVE ASPECT RATIO: 16:9 NATIVE RESOLUTION: 1920 x 1080 CONTRAST RATIO: ‘Infinite’ ENERGY RATING: 2.5 Stars, 550kWh/y INPUTS: 4 x HDMI, 1 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 0 x D-SUB15 RGB, 1 x stereo audio, 2 x USB, 1 x Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 1 x aerial OUTPUTS: 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x IR, 1 x Headphone/3.5mm audio out AUDIO: Stereo, 2 x 10 watts; woofer, 1 x 20 watts INCLUDED ACCESSORIES: Table-top stand, 1 x IR remote control, 1 x Smart Touch control remote, 1 x IR blaster, 2 x 3D glasses, cable adaptors, security straps DIMENSIONS WITH STAND (whd): 1418 x 778 x 360mm WEIGHT WITH STAND: 30.9kg CONTACT: Samsung Electronics Australia TELEPHONE: 1300 369 600 WEB: www.samsung.com.au
27
FEATURE
The home cinema that became a recording studio Wavetrain Cinemas has begun a second life as Wavetrain Studios, with the recording of Mark Wilkinson’s ‘Let The River Run’...
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MUSIC
W
e have featured several designs by Wavetrain Cinemas in the pages of Sound+Image, including one at Wavetrain’s headquarters in Sydney — a dedicated home cinema named ‘The Statement’, built as a demonstration of the company’s command of room acoustics and dedication to the art of audio and video reproduction. There is also a second larger space called the ‘PRO cinema’ (pictured below), which has some special characteristics in keeping with its role as a centre for the company’s training courses in acoustics. But now Wavetrain has turned the room’s purpose entirely on its head by recording music in there, transforming the ‘PRO cinema’ into a recording space and the ‘Statement Cinema’ into a control room. The first results from this new ‘Wavetrain Studios’ were released on CD last year by Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist Mark Wilkinson. The album is called Let the River Run.
Adaptable acoustics One of the elements that made the ‘PRO Cinema’ such an interesting candidate for conversion to recording rather than replay is the room’s adaptable acoustics. This space was designed by Wavetrain Cinemas to teach acoustic design and demonstrate the differences that can be achieved by removing or adding acoustic treatments as required. In cinema mode this teaches custom installers how to best optimise a room for the clearest sound across a range of seating positions. But at the front end of the recording and reproduction chain it allows an artist or producer to consult with Wavetrain’s Director and acoustic guru
David Moseley on the exact nature of sound required, with the acoustics of the room then able to be tuned accordingly, delivering just the desired recording environment. “So depending on the requirements we can lay the timber floor or lift it back up, plus change all the acoustics in about 20 minutes,” says Moseley, who is Director of both Wavetrain Cinemas and Wavetrain Distribution. He says he was keen to be involved when the project was suggested. “The opportunity to apply my knowledge of small room acoustics to a new field was an exciting proposition and one I couldn’t pass up. In our home cinema business we are an appointment-only company and not a retailer, so we usually know in advance what the room is to be used for, and could manage the changes without inconveniencing anyone. It worked well through the recording process.” This level of acoustic flexibility is rare even in major studios overseas and probably unique here in Australia, according to John Mulligan from Studiotech, who services many of Sydney’s top studios and who assisted Wavetrain in the change from replay to recording venue. “Most studios get selected for a specific album based on the sound signature of each recording space. To be able to adapt acoustics to the recording is invaluable.”
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FEATURE Mark Wilkinson
Mark’s first release was the Cellophane Life EP, followed by his debut album, Truth Came Running, in 2011. As an independent artist Mark has carved out a career the oldfashioned way — touring, busking, and opening on arena and theatre tours nationally for names including Brian Wilson, Chicago, Peter Frampton and America. He has also entertained deployed troops in the Solomon Islands. For Let The River Run, Wilkinson teamed up with The Cat Empire’s Ollie McGill as producer, and was delighted with the recording venue. “It was a fantastic experience recording this album at Wavetrain,” says Mark Wilkinson. “The state-of-the-art facilities really allowed us to bring the best out of the songs.” Wavetrain’s David Moseley has admired Wilkinson’s work for a while, and this new album was the catalyst for the studio transformation. “Mark is a true artist, and it’s great to see how this album has been received,” says Moseley. “It’s just a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on.” Moseley himself is credited with backing vocals on the album, as part of the “Army Choir” on a song called ‘When The Armies Arrive’. Were these his first recorded vocals? “First and last”, laughs David. “My wife couldn’t believe they let me sing.”
Mastered at Abbey Road After recording at Wavetrain, producer Ollie McGill mixed the Mark Wilkinson album at Ivory Lane Studios in Gosford before handing the final result off to Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road Studios in London. “The engineer, Geoff Pesche, had mastered the latest record for my band The Cat Empire,” says McGill, “and I was really impressed with the results.” Mark Wilkinson adds, “Geoff had also worked on some significant records from the likes of Coldplay, Adele, and Ed Sheeran, that sound fantastic and I thought were fair reference points for what we were trying to achieve. The fact that it was mastered at perhaps the most famous studio in the world was just a bonus.” Since the release of Let the River Run, Wilkinson has climbed to number one on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter chart and spent over a month in the ARIA Australian Singles chart. He has been touring Australia since the album’s release and his website (www.markwilkinsonmusic.com) reveals his biggest tour yet, a hectic schedule through to the end of May. And for Wavetrain? “The studio is constantly in use,” David Moseley tells us. “Mark Wilkinson is working on his next album and experimenting with new sounds. My goal is to support up-and-coming artists and allow them the opportunity to express themselves without the worry of paying for studio time. It’s been an interesting response to what I am doing. The artists, producers and musicians generally are suspicious of my intentions until they realise I have no expectations — 1. Panasonic unveils its first 4K screen, the L65WT600, also the I love involved! Whether they succeed and breakout firstbeing time that the to become major recording artists is irrelevant. All of these company’s rangetopper is LCD not plasma 2. Sonyare stakes a claim aondream, the world’s OLED, Samartists pursuing and first you4K can’t putthough a price on sung and LG also had this ‘ultimate combo’ on show artistic expression. ” more Wavetrain Cinemas (and 3. Samsung was one of atFor least fouron companies Studios), visitSamsung, www.wavetrain.com.au (HiSense, TCL and Vestel) to be showing a 110-inch 92
TOP: Mark Wilkinson records his vocals; CENTRE: adding strings overdubs; ABOVE: mixing tracks with Ollie McGill. RIGHT: our original article on Wavetrain’s Statement theatre in November 2010.
MINI TESTS
ROOM AT THE TOP BOWERS & WILKINS P7 HEADPHONES $499.95
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&W has been expanding its range of prestigious headphones since their first arrivals a few years back. We’ve liked most, though not all — we found the little on-ear P3 too soft in the treble for our liking. But here’s the current range-topper of the family, and beautiful indeed is the P7, a thoroughly luxurious pair of over-ear headphones (the company’s first of this ilk), with earpads made of real leather — and the earpads are easily user replaceable, come that hopefully distant day. B&W has got downright sculptural on the swirls of steel that flow from the adjustable headband (also leather-covered) down to the one-sided joints with the headshells. They’re solid and fixed, with none of the inconvenient swivelling adopted by many designs in order to store flat in a carrycase — the P7s instead hinge inward to store equally compactly in a very plush quilted leather carrycase with a magnetic closing flap. This is 76mm at its widest point, just sliding into our laptop bag without bulging outwards. We always give bonus points for good L/R markings, unmissable yet subtle here! Designwise our only less than delighted observation was that they exert a bit of constant inward pressure, which certainly helps seal these closed designs off from the outside world (there’s no noise-cancelling here), but it sometimes felt a relief to both skull and hairstyle to remove them after extended use, especially on humid Australian days above 25oC when the earpads were prone to invoke sweat (for us, who regard ourselves as only normally sweaty people). There’s none of your Bluetooth here, these are wired headphones made simply to impress with their music as well as their form; they deliver a fine, rich and full sound, with everything in its place and plenty of spaciousness at the top. They’re rhythmically fast and potentially loud, too — Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Perfect Man’ burst from the traps with its big lead bassline portrayed enormously thick and solid, yet not (as so many ‘street’ designs can
do) overwhelming the central vocal, guitar chops and synth parts, and still leaving dynamic room for the chorus to lift the mix still higher without congestion. SImilarly the bonkers heights of Muse’s ‘United States of Eurasia’ soared upwards with enthusiasm from the piano opening, here too the rapid-fire bassline kept tightly on its path and only slightly stepping on the main vocal at times of maximum complexity. More mellow material is even better served — the thrilling a capella harmonies of ‘Our Prayer’ from Brian Wilson’s 2004 recording of ‘Smile’ delicious in their broad reverb, while every inflection of Billie Holiday’s unique vocal on the K2 remaster of ‘Stars Fell on Alabama’ was delivered crisp and clear over piano and slightly overemphasised bass. We noticed this bass to be tightened further when given a high-quality headphone amplifier as opposed to an iPod/Phone/Pod; we reckon it is a full enough sound to please modern bass fans yet without distressing those that like their music presented as nature intended. The strong bass also supports their performance on the road, competing with the rumble of a bus or the roar of a plane; just occasionally we found the P7’s getting maxed on volume when competing with outside noise and playing music not mastered within a dB of its life. Particularly useful on the road is the inline three-button remote, able to control iPhones from the 3GS on (and all iPads and later models of iPod). For us this remote was a
little too far up the cable, a mere 16cm from the earshell, so we could only look at it by straining our eyes to the edge of their sockets, and operation was a little hampered also by the ‘volume down’ button being entirely untactile compared with the other two, making things a little confusing. Otherwise all was good, the central button allowing pause, next or last track (one, two or three presses), and also answering calls — there’s a mike in the inline remote as well, not that you’d know it from B&W’s poor quickstart guide (you get a 40-page colour booklet telling you about the company’s prowess, but a mere four tiny pages of word-less diagrams to tell you about the actual headphones…). A plain connection cable without remote is also provided for non Apple users. Barely a word against, and much praise for the P7s, then, which well represent B&W’s usual combination of luxurious design and sonic prowess. JF More info: www.ehifi.com.au
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everal times in our recent Awards issue, we noted that when it comes to wireless and desktop speakers, products from established hi-fi companies routinely outperform those from brands which have built their businesses on computer accessories. Tech wizardry is all very well, but it counts for little if a product can’t generate good music. Ruark Audio certainly has the history. A British speaker manufacturer of renown, its products remain designed and engineered in the UK. These wireless MR1s aren’t a sudden shrink from floorstander to miniature desktop monitor — Ruark has in recent years come to specialise in what it calls “serious small audio”, and the MR1 takes many of its design cues from the company’s successful R1 radio and its larger one-box R2i and R4i stereo systems; indeed the MR1s can act as extensions for either of those.
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LITTLE BOXES
RUARK AUDIO MR1 WIRELESS AUDIO SPEAKERS $599
But they are more than capable in their own right. They are indeed compact — 17.5cm high including their feet, 13cm wide and 14cm deep including their grilles, which can be removed, just like on a full-sized speaker. Each has a 20mm treated-textile dome tweeter with neodymium magnet system and a “long throw” 75mm bass driver, driven by 20W of Class-AB internal amplification within the righthand unit; the enclosure is ported at the bottom. We reviewed a pair in
walnut finish, though the soft black and white finishes look particularly attractive. The MR1s offer two inputs — an auxiliary analogue minijack (with a useful attentuation switch), and Bluetooth. The Bluetooth spec includes the superior aptX codec, capable of “near-CD” quality if your Bluetooth device supports it (which currently means Android devices, notably from HTC and Samsung; a list of aptX devices is here: bit.ly/aptxphones). Otherwise Apple devices will most likely stream to the Ruarks at 256k AAC, and other Android devices at 128k SBC. We used an iPod touch and iPad 2 for most of our Bluetooth listening — with great results. Pairing was easy and intuitive using the top rotary/push knob on the top of the right speaker — hold to start pairing, tap (or use the mini remote control) to switch inputs. Status is indicated by a colour-changing LED in front of the top knob. Their hi-fi heritage is borne out in their musical performance, which is a league above run-of-the-mill desktop speakers. The flow of music belies their size, as does their particular ability to deliver impressive dynamics for units so small, managing to drive a dominant rhythm line while still clearly rendering the detail of instruments
MINI TESTS
DOUBLE TOP
ATOMIC FLOYD SUPERDARTS +REMOTE EARPHONES $299 providing melody and colour. They have hi-fi qualities of cleanness and clarity (at their maximum via the direct minijack connection), and plenty of level while maintaining low distortion levels. We have heard bigger and deeper sound from speakers at this price — notably the Aktimate Micro with Bluetooth and the Accent Digital Muse, against which the Ruarks sound smaller and just a tad boxy. But both those competitors are significantly larger units, massively so in the case of the Accent. So if it’s capable compact speakers you’re after, the attractions of the MR1s are many. They’re easy to use, a breeze for Bluetooth, and deliver impressive levels of musical sound for their size. You can even option in a battery pack to make the MR1s truly wireless (except the cable linking the two) and completely portable. Smart stuff, then, with plenty of hi-fi wisdom backing things More info: up at the music end. JF www.synergyaudio.com
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tomic Floyd produces only relatively high-end earphones, with these SuperDarts +Remote being the current top of their range. They double up on drivers, each earphone containing both a conventional 9mm diaphragm and a balanced armature transducer. These latter can be highly efficient, balancing a pole piece within a magnet so that very little electrical force is required to jiggle the armature around and move the attached diaphragm. You usually only find such tech in expensive in-ear monitors, and our past experience has been that they can create blindingly fast treble, but bugger all bass. So the principle here of adding a conventional driver for bass seems a good compromise between technologies. Indeed the Atomic Floyd design shows class all the way, from its lovely packaging to the all-metal construction of the shells and the Kevlar-coated cables with gold-plated plug. The L/R indicators are not particularly prominent, but that’s no problem since the inline remote hangs from the left ear, a little too high to catch the eye for us, but able to control volume up/down, pause, next/last track, and answering calls as well, with a mike included. One thing was immediately apparent once we had warmed them up, added the smallest of three eartips and shoved them firmly down our outer-ear orifices — the bass from the SuperDarts can go truly deep. We have a
number of test tracks for this, some our own recordings, but including Neil Young’s ‘Walk With Me’, the opening of which goes into the 20s of hertz, and the Floyd’s tracked it down impressively; it was sometimes hard to believe the bass was merely in our ears, not coming through the floor towards us. It’s not overwhelmingly loud, mark you — not the bloated bass of ‘street’ designs. It’s strong, deep and tight. Further up the frequency spectrum, we were less enthused. Piano recordings sounded clear but tinny, male vocals and spoken voice were lacking in lower midrange and fizzy up top. Fast and detailed, without doubt, but thin and reedy — those deepest lows were not matched by support in the upper bass and lower mids. The effect on many types of music was to add a shrill top-end over this mid hole. As we went through the brief manual, we noticed a printed sensitivity curve which seems to indicate this is entirely deliberate, or at least accepted as the result of combining armature and conventional driver — it’s 5dB down at 100Hz and a full 17dB lower by 1kHz compared with its peak responses at either end of the spectrum (20-40Hz and up at 5-10kHz). This didn’t work for our ears at all, though we’ve seen less critical reviews, so perhaps audition a pair if you like the sound of this approach. But it was simply too much up www.noisymotel.com.au top for us. JF
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MOVIES
BLU-RAY REVIEWS
Blu Ribbon
by Stephen Dawson
THE BEST OFFER 2013 — Transmission Films Director: Giuseppe Tornatore Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess, Sylvia Hoeks, Donald Sutherland, Philip Jackson, Dermot Crowley, Kiruna Stamell
One of the problems with fine Italian movies is that you have to read the subtitles. Dubbing — still routine for English-language films into the various European languages — is rather passé the other way round these days. Far better to get the original actor’s expression, it seems, even if you can’t get the words. The problem with reading subtitles is that you then miss so much of what’s on the screen. And As beautiful as this film is to the eye, it is
with a movie like this one — ‘La migliore offerta’,
as bits of a valuable 19th century automaton.
from the fine director Giuseppe Tornatore (most
He takes these to his friend, clockmaker genius
verging on more so for the ear. Quite a few movies
famous for ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso’) — there’s so
Jim Sturgess, to rebuild.
are delivered on Blu-ray with 7.1-channel sound.
much to look at.
Then things go in very surprising directions, as
This movie proves that as far as surround goes in
prissy old Rush starts to become something like a
the home, 7.1 can be overkill. Here 5.1 delivers
also known, is an Italian movie without the Italian.
human. And unexpected layers of move
plenty, because this movie is mixed to actually
All the actors with speaking parts are English
and countermove are revealed.
use the surround channels. There are scenes in
Here’s the great news: ‘The Best Offer’, as it is
speakers, led by Geoffrey Rush (Australian), Donald
This movie is filled, end to end, with rich
which gloriously rich violins come almost entirely
Sutherland (Canadian), Jim Sturgess (English) and
textures and beautiful interiors. It is very much
from the surround loudspeakers, and between
Sylvia Hoeks (Dutch, but she speaks English well).
a city-based film, shot in elegantly ruffled display
them and the front speaker. Later, as Rush sits in
rooms and halls, and a crumbling mansion in
his special room, taking in the beauty of his many
and romance set in a lush world of antiques and
which a whole curved interior wall is covered with
acquisitions, female vocalists glide around our
artwork. Not explicitly stated, it pretty much all
a romance painting. There is beauty and detail
heads, turning what might have been a mundane
happens in Italy, with a coda in Vienna. Rush is
everywhere your eye lands. The black levels are
scene into a thing of sensory beauty.
a magnificently successful auctioneer of high-end
sufficiently deep without there being any crushing
works, with a sideline in acquiring a very special
at either end of the brightness range, while the
a real one, ticking from all parts of the room. This
category of undervalued paintings for himself, with
colour and brightness graduations are smoothly
is what surround sound was intended for: to truly
the help of Donald Sutherland. A mysterious and
rendered allowing rounded objects to seem almost
immerse viewers in the world we are watching.
elusive young lady contacts him, wanting him to
three dimensional. With an average video bit-rate
manage the disposal of the cluttered contents of
of nearly 32Mbps using the MPEG4 AVC Codec,
you can watch 24 minutes of the actors and
her deceased parents’ home.
it’s difficult to see how the quality presented on
filmmaker answering questions in 576i/50 video
this disc could ever be surpassed, except perhaps
quality. There are English subtitles for the hard
by some future 4K medium. But perhaps not
of hearing, and a descriptive audio track for the
‘The Best Offer’ is a gentle crime mystery
While grudgingly inspecting the place he comes across some clockwork parts which he recognises
even then. The
Later, in Sturgess’ clock shop, there is, as in
It you want to know more about the movie,
hard of seeing. The disc is region free.
film was shot digitally, mostly with 2.8K equipment, although some sections were in 5K. However the digital intermediate (where the film is finally put together and graded for presentation) was 2K. Aspect ratio is Video bit-rate for ‘The Best Offer’ main feature
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of course 2.35:1.
MOVIE: SOUND:
PICTURE: EXTRAS:
RUNNING TIME: Running time: 131 minutes PICTURE: 2.35:1, 1080p/24, MPEG4 AVC @ 31.98Mbps SOUND: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 24/48 3/2.1 @ 3811kbps (core: DTS 24/48 3/2.1 @ 1509kbps); English Audio Descriptive: Dolby Digital 2/0.0 @ 192kbps SUBTITLES: English FEATURES: Cast and Crew Interviews (576i/50 - 24 mins) RESTRICTIONS: M, Region Free