Mytek Announces New "Cost No Object" Empire DAC Streamer and Preamplifier

New York-based Mytek Digital revealed the details on its new Empire DAC/Streamer/Preamplifier, supposed to be the flagship of a new Empire series of very high-end audio products. As the company describes, this is an "all out" assault on the state-of-the-art, establishing Mytek as a top echelon player in the high-performance audio arena. The Streamer will be “Powered by Roon OS” and features an internal Roon Core that can drive both the ultra-high performance Empire DAC and external Roon endpoints.

audioXpress July 2020 is now available, and there's a quiet revolution happening in audio amplification. Essentially it is the direct result of strong innovation in Class-D technology, with incremental improvements introduced on multiple fronts. In this month's Market Update, J. Martins details a few of the "Class-D Products Getting Smarter" and then Stuart Yaniger discusses Class-D amplifiers from two of those companies: Purifi Audio and Orchard Audio. Also, Ward Maas details his visit to Purifi Audio. Dimitri Danyuk shares his "Fully Balanced Transconductance Preamplifier" project, Roger Russell is "Hunting the Elusive Transient," and Ed Simon concludes his "Powering Your Circuits" series. And there's much more valuable content in this edition. Download or view your issue online now.

Described as Radial's biggest product announcement in years (certainly since the company's acquisition in January 2018,) the HDI, Radial's new flagship DI Box is now shipping. Shown in prototype form at AES 2019 in NY, and officially announced at NAMM 2020 in January, the HDI is the answer to a question Radial put to in-house engineer "Hutch" Hutchinson: "If you could design any type of DI box you wanted, what would it look and sound like?"

Audio Research (ARC) announce important updates to its highest-performance tube phono stage, the Reference Phono 3 Phono Preamplifier with the launch of the Reference Phono 3SE. Following the launch of the recent Reference (REF) 6SE Line-Stage Preamplifier, ARC’s 50th Anniversary product line continues with a special edition update of the Ref Phono 3 Preamplifier. The REF Phono 3SE ($17,000 USD) replaces the REF Phono 3, introduced in 2016.

Schiit Audio announced the immediate availability of a pair of gaming-focused desktop DAC/Amps, Fulla 3 and Hel. Fulla 3 adds a versatile, high quality microphone input to its existing Fulla 2 DAC, while the retail price remains at $99. Hel adds much higher power output — 4x that of Fulla 3 — a stereo mic input with 24-bit ADC and front panel level control, as well as switchable input and gain, for $189. Two new products for a new class os users: high-end audio gamers!

Luxman’s new flagship control amplifier, the CL-1000 is the spiritual heir to the legendary C-1000, launched in 1975. Yet even as it salutes the past, the new preamp looks forward with an all-new LECUTA volume control system, a nanocrystal core transformer, Luxman’s proprietary oil-impregnated capacitors and more. “The CL-1000 represents everything Luxman knows about vacuum tube audio,” says Jeff Sigmund, president of Luxman America. “It’s not just our newest preamp, it’s our new benchmark.”

Schiit Audio just released the Asgard 3 amp and modular DAC, and the Bifrost2, the company's latest DAC that features a leap forward in USB technology. As Jason Stoddard, the founder and lead designer of Schiit Audio, explains "what do you do when it’s time to replace both of the products that started it all? I mean literally — Asgard was our first product period, Bifrost was our first digital product, and both started out being built in a garage. Well, here’s what we do: rethink everything."

Paradigm and Anthem will offer demonstrations of its Persona Series loudspeakers and Anthem STR electronics during the 2019 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF). Persona Series speakers and STR Series electronics have received a total of twelve prestigious Product of the Year awards from all the major hifi publications. Paradigm will demonstrate its latest flagship Persona 7F speakers and Persona SUB subwoofer alongside Anthem's critically acclaimed STR Preamplifier and STR Power Amplifier.

David Logvin had the privilege to use, measure, and put to the test the Dayton Audio HTA20BT Hybrid Stereo Tube Amplifier. As he could confirm, there's something special in this amplifier that combines a tube preamp and Class-D power stage, which can also be used as a headphone amplifier, and features a digital media player and Bluetooth streaming capabilities. All at a very affordable price and with the build quality of a Dayton Audio product. This article was originally published in audioXpress, July 2019.

More than ever, the act of listening to music is one of life’s simple pleasures. Martin Bell and JAVA Hi-Fi co-founders Shane Inder and Martin Young, set themselves the challenge of creating a range of audio separates that would capture the intangible, soulful essence of music. Following a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016, JAVA Hi-Fi is making its debut appearance at this year's High End Munich 2019 show and will be demonstrating pre-production samples of two new products: The JAVA V2.0 LDR pre-amplifier and the JAVA Integrated amplifier.