We are very pleased to announce dCS has joined as a sponsor on What's Best Forum. A highly respected high end manufacturer from England making some of the worlds best digital audio systems and at the leading edge of digital to analogue conversion for many years. Below and linked to the thread on WBF is an exclusive featurette for WBF directly from dCS:

"dCS was founded in Cambridge, England in 1987 by Oxford University graduate Mike Story and a group of engineers from Cambridge Consultants. The company started out working with clients in the aerospace, telecommunications and aviation sectors, and soon became known as a leading expert in signal conversion."

"Its work in this field led to collaborations with Britain’s Ministry of Defence, including a commission to design a radar system for the Royal Navy’s Sea Harrier FA 2 jets.

In the late 1980s, Mike and his colleagues began to explore how their technologies and expertise could be applied to the nascent digital audio market. This led them to develop the the world’s first 24-bit analogue to digital converter, the dCS 900, in 1989."

"The device was the first to feature the Ring DAC, a novel invention that allowed dCS to capture audio with greater detail and precision than most devices available at the time. Thanks to its clarity, accuracy, and unique ability to record 24-bit files, it became a popular tool in recording studios, and was used by leading professionals including Bob Ludwig and Mercury Living Presence producer Wilma Cozart Fine."

"After releasing the 900, dCS went on to develop a succession of ADCs, DACs and master clocks for recording professionals before turning its focus towards developing high-end audio systems for the home. In 1996, the company launched the dCS Elgar, the first 24-bit DAC designed for home use, and it has since released numerous DACs, upsamplers, CD/SACD transports, master clocks and music players for audiophiles and music enthusiasts around the world. It has also played a significant role in the development of new audio formats and technologies, including DSD over PCM, which transformed streaming."

"Today, dCS has one mission: to develop world-leading audio products and technologies that bring people closer to the music and artists they love. It achieves this through meticulous craftsmanship and continuous innovation. The company’s products are created using proprietary technologies developed by dCS engineers, and each one is designed, hand-assembled and tested in-house at dCS’s Cambridgeshire headquarters.

Its products have become renowned their sonic and technical performance, as well as their exceptional build quality, and in 2019, the company was awarded a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise - Innovation, in recognition of its advancements in digital audio and technologies developed for the dCS Vivaldi series."

"Alongside developing new products and technologies, dCS is committed to continual product development. This means regularly assessing the performance of existing systems, and exploring how innovations from the Ring DAC to the dCS Digital Processing Platform can be further improved. In March this year, the company launched APEX: a new, enhanced version of the dCS Ring DAC™, which delivers a range of sonic and measured benefits. The new hardware was made available with the launch of new, APEX editions of the dCS Vivaldi DAC, Rossini DAC, and Rossini Player, plus an upgrade programme open to existing Vivaldi and Rossini owners.

On April 28, dCS announced the launch of the Vivaldi One APEX - a new, enhanced edition version of the Vivaldi One Player originally created to mark dCS’s 30th anniversary."

Prana Distribution has just joined What's Best Forum as a sponsor. Fred Crane is a principal. Fred comes from a family of professional musicians and worked in the pro-audio world and has been a dealer and a distributor in high end 2 channel audio for 12 years. He is a tube and horn speaker enthusiast, being the world-wide distributor for Destination Audio and the North American Distributor for Trafomatic Audio. Over the years he has dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy sourcing the most inspired audio products he could find. Here is a reduced version of that story, I highly recommend checking out the WBF thread for the full story!

"I'm Fred Crane of Prana Distribution. We’re headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a small format salon in West Medford and a large format showroom in Gloucester. We opened our Gloucester showroom after a year of preparation, the same week that Massachusetts closed public venues to curtail the spread of Covid 19. Like most, we battened down the hatches and prepared for what lay ahead. Unlike most, we had lots of tubes, horns, vinyl, a cold press juicer, an espresso machine and a fully stocked bar to help us endure. Okay, we have solid state gear and traditional 2 ways as well, but you won’t see much in the form of a traditional cone 3 way loudspeaker on our floor. You’ll have to settle for horns, coaxial midranges, full range drivers, OB’s, dipoles, panels, bending wave drivers, etc.

Over the years we’ve accumulated untold air miles, and over 50,000 miles driving, (excluding shows) in search of the best listen from the finest sounds we’ve encountered at shows, in print or from the recommendations of trusted ears. The resultant portfolio has become Prana Distribution and on a local level, the newly named dealership, Boutique Audio Design. It’s a never-ending quest and one that has brought us long lasting relationships with some of the finest makers and engineers in the world."

"After a youth that included daily live music, I left home and lived with my surrogate aunt and jazz singer, Carmen McRae. Later, I was part of the original staff at SXSW. I went on to help open Zanzibar Blue, a jazz club in Philadelphia where I stayed for 4 years. I was a regular attendee at the Philharmonic and taught jazz history. Upon moving to New England, I lived in a house owned by Joel Press (7 years) that featured daily live music and tea."

"As my late thirties commenced, the 5 plus days of live music per week began to scale back to a mere few days and so it has remained with the occasional reprieve for a festival or project. With our recently minted relationship with Fazioli Pianoforti, we aim to boost that average once more."

"The high-end audio business has been the hardest job I’ve ever loved in this, my 12th year. Tess, my wife is my right hand and we have a helpful staff of audio experts that work part time. More pointedly, when they’re not mixing for some of the venerable concert halls in the greater Boston area. Working with some of the finest audio manufacturers in the world has been, and continues to be, a privilege.

It is our pleasure to share our love of audio with you and to join the What’s Best Forum Community. A big thank you to Ron, Steve and Julian for creating a niche out of their own interest and desire. It’s the best of what the world wide web embodies."

Prana Distribution LLC
Frederick Crane
617.669.3275
www.pranadistribution.com

Tobian Sound Systems has been a sponsor on What's Best Forum since September 2021. Since then Günter Tobian has been finalising their biggest horn speaker - the 18FH. Below and linked to the thread on WBF are some words from Günter:

"From a time perspective, the development of the 18FH started in 1986 as my private project and something I was pursuing, to finalize to my liking since then. Sometimes great things need a sufficient time frame and effort to materialize in exceptional form and resulting performance.

When Tobian Soundsystems GmbH was founded 2002, I launched the first 18FH with a coaxial chassis for the mid-high horn and a 15" woofer for the bass horn - which formed a three-way horn system. However, it has always been my wish to develop a true two-way horn speaker, one that avoids the need for a crossover in the crucial mid-high range from 200Hz to 20KHz.

Taking into account the new developments in technologies, materials available, construction and production possibilities in the last few years, there were three construction and development phases for our 18FH project."

"We managed to develop completely new and unique things for this particular speaker, here's a few crucial developments:

• Compression driver that would work down to the magic limit of 200Hz.
• Completely new 20" inch (50cm) CD horn, which is able to reproduce lower cut-off frequencies, required for our measurements.
• 16" woofer, powerful and sensitive enough to support this exceptional horn in the lower octaves down to 20Hz.
• Our goal of a 100% analog crossover for the Woofer, with handmade extreme chokes of up to 13kg which are therefore very resilient and extremely stable and are able to convert any kind of power optimally into force.
• A newly developed back loaded horn chassis made from four different types of wood. The entire construction is made without using any screws and bolts, rather with the use of glues in order to avoid any resonances in the housing. With this technique an enclosure does not have to be overly heavy to control resonances."

"Thus the 18FH speaker project became my passion. A horn speaker capable of sensitively reproducing any style of music, regardless of volume. Listening to music that sweeps you away and touches you emotionally, while offering a live musical experience in your own home, making you addicted for more! This has led Tobian Soundsystems to where we are today, a manufacturer that develops and designs everything in-house. Our suppliers are exclusively Swiss entrepreneurs with the exception of our audio connectors which we source from Germany."