Big Sale on Amarra Vinyl now at True Audiophile. Save $100

Instead paying $289.00 for the award winning Amarra Vinyl you pay $239.00 AND you also get Amarra HiFi FREE. That makes the total saving $100.00

Click on this special link and you'll get both for $239.00  Amarra Vinyl rarely goes on sales. Do not miss this chance.

Metrum Acoustic Octave MkII DAC Arrives at True Audiophile

Inside the Metrum Acoustics Octave MkII

Getting a superior DAC at an affordable price is nearly impossible. You can find Chinese DACs all day long that are price driven, feature rich and sonically poor. 384k? Seriously? There's no recordings for that. There's barely 192K recordings to choose from. Going any higher means worthless bits unless the recording is created at an enormously high bit rate. So you're safe for many years to come.

What's special about the Metrum Acoustic Octave MkII DAC is its a no-nonsense dac that works on all the principals that deliver great sound and nothing more. It still has the USB module and unhooked, devoted USB power supply as the Hex. Multiple DAC chips and superior parts selection. Its compact only in its physical form. Its more musical than most everything near its price point except of course for the Human Audio Muto which we carry. For an AC powered DAC this is it at the price or twice the price.

Read more on True Audiophile.

The Munich Audio Show 2013

The Munich show is getting bigger every year and becoming the destination globally. US manufacturers have gotten the message and exhibited this year. We put together a short link list of the reviews we could fine. Enjoy.

Enjoy the Music

Hi-Fi Pig

Analog Planet

Stereophile

What's Best

Post your requests for the True Audiophile Playlist at THE Newport Show

We're getting everything together for the Newport Show. We hope to see many of you there in Room 313 at The Atrium.

We're making a large playlist. If you have requests please let us know.

A Little about True Audiophile

We admit we have been so busy we forget to relate what makes us special. It doesn't come by accident. Its long hard hours and lots and lots of listening. And sometimes getting through the depression of inferior gear while looking for that piece that fulfills our musical requirements.

True Audiophile is is based on the goal of providing audiophiles, new and old, with the best sonic value in every class.

We very carefully select the brands we carry, first as audiophiles, second as retailers. If a product doesn't meet our sonic standards it doesn't matter how popular it is or how many sales we could make.

If we would never consider owning it personally then there is no reason for us to sell it professionally.

You will find stores that offer every audio product under the sun. That's great and sometimes the sound doesn't matter as much as the features. But it matters to us. Anything you find here has to be 'musical' and relate the entire musical spectrum without accentuating any one frequency. Or be fatiguing. Many of our customers are amazed that they've listened to an album for years yet when buying audio from us its like they were hearing it for the first time.

We want the entire tapestry of music. Nothing less.

What you will find at True Audiophile, whether you are local to Portland, or elsewhere in the U.S. is very unique audio products that will please and amaze you.

Since we're based in Portland, Oregon there's no sales tax no matter where you live. Email or call us at (503) 477-7808.

A Technical Tip on Ripping with iTunes

The tip below comes from the Amarra people and its what we recommend. There's a lot of confusion and opinions on best 'uncompressed' format. Many push flac as the best. The issue is while it may have its fans the format demands it uncompresses on the fly. Any extra use of processing power has proved to take its sonic toll.

We recommend AIFF. We've had long discussions with the Amarra people about this and have done a lot of testing of all the formats. We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of digital playback that doesn't sound digital. The following is from Amarra folks.


CD Technical Overview
The audio file on a CD is a single uncompressed, headerless PCM 16-bit file that does not contain individual songs as separate tracks or files. Instead, think of this data as one long continuous file, similar to the way one side of a vinyl record is laid out.
Another data section on a CD, called the 'Table of Contents' or TOC, tells your player or computer where each track within that larger continuous 16-bit file starts and ends.
Recommendations For Bit-Perfect Ripping
1) Use AIFF file format for bit-perfect rip.

• AIFF is the native uncompressed audio file format for the Mac environment. AIFF files are perfect for iTunes and can be played on many Windows PCs too.
• Ripping to compressed formats such as MP3, ALAC, FLAC or AAC may save space, but ripping your files to these formats is not bit perfect! These formats actually remove data from the music stream and resulting file type is different from its uncompressed format; so, this cannot be considered a bit-perfect rip.

2) Apple's iTunes has a perfectly fine CD ripping utility that provides convenient bit-perfect conversion from PCM - just make sure to select the AIFF encoder. We recommend that 'Error Correction' be enabled too.

iTunes Preferences

In the iTunes Preferences window, select 'Import Settings'

Import Using= 'Select AIFF Encoder'

Setting= Automatic

Check 'Use error correction when reading Audio CDs'

3) Also, remember that with Amarra you can play CDs in your Mac's disc player and still have all the benefits of Amarra's digital audio engine. Simply put your CD in the transport, choose your track and hit play. Amarra will take over playback without having to go through the rip process.

Naturally we sell Amarra and have a 15% off sale going on right now on both Amarra and Amarra Symphony.

bel canto e.One C7R - probably the Best deal in Reference Audio.

bel canto e.One C7R

When we first heard the e.One bel canto C7R Integrated at CES we couldn't believe all that music was coming from this small unassuming component. The Bel Canto C7R has an outstanding 115dB dynamic range and bel canto proprietary low-noise D-to-A convertors are based on their award-winning DAC circuit.

The FM section is close to their FM1 in performance and the DAC section has the most of the 2.5 bel canto dac. It has 5 digital inputs, including a high resolution USB input, MM Phono and a Line level input the C7R is a complete core for a high

performance entertainment system. Just add a Mac Mini or other computer, a turntable and pair of high quality loudspeakers and you have a complete entertainment system.

Did we say turntable? Yes, even turntables can be hooked up to the unit. Naturally, if you've read the Stereophile review you'll know its a game changer or as they said, "Re-invents the receiver".

Here's a link to it in our store.