The new Samsung DA-E750 speaker dock does two things that other docks don’t. First, it plays with both your iOS devices or your Galaxy S. The dock has also been outfitted with a hybrid vacuum tube system that Samsung says will put some audiophile muster behind your tunes.
This new shiny 2.1 channel Samsung dock is a rare thing indeed. Docks that support anything besides iOS devices are hard to find but the dual support for iOS devices and Samsung’s own Galaxy S line of phones is definitely a first. But what’s even more surprising is the vacuum tubes — old, analogue technology that’s only used in specialty audio products these days. Audiophiles like tubes because they produce warmer sound than the solid state audio gear most of us use these days. Many of them would probably also argue that unless you’ve got your audio files ripped at high resolution, the vacuum tubes might not make much of a difference.
In addition to the actual dock, the system has inputs for USB and composite cables as well as support for wireless playback via both Apple’s AirPlay and Samsung’s AllShare for Samsung Galaxy devices. [Businesswire]
Pres
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 12:59 PMtubes will not make an mp3 sound better. It’s like serving McDonalds on fine china, your still eating maccas.
Dan
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 8:58 AMDon’t judge before you listen to it. You don’t know how much it will make sound richer. Don’t mistake you know everything, boy.
Thruppence
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 1:38 PMCue the tedious audio-snobs.
“Ooooh, MP3 is cr@p. iTunes is crap. iPods are crap. Etc. etc. etc….”
Well folks, here’s the skinny; MP3 files (320kbps) sound great. Even iTunes 256kbps sounds perfectly good on most equipment. And I should know; I listen to a mixture of lossless, MP3 and 256kbps either on my iPod through my Etymotics or via my Yamaha micro system and guess what? It’s all good. And we’re talking classical and jazz for the most part.
Just enjoy your music and ignore the clever @rse know-alls who just lurve to get their c#cks out on these sites.
Simon Reidy
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 12:25 AMThere’s nothing snobbish about liking high quality audio, as long you aren’t arrogant, stuck in the past, think power cables can alter sound, or use ridiculous wanky wine-tasting-style terms to describe audio (or blindly follow specs, over-priced cables, or the many other hi-fi placebo snake oil products with no merit.. ) .. Ok so maybe Hi-Fi enthusiasts can be a bit snobbish (and mildly insane) after all, but I like to thnk of myself as more of a new age digital music enthusiast :)
I tend to agree with you though that 320kbps mps sound fine for most material. Particularly as these days record companies produce material with such limited dynamic range and compressed sound stage (to ironically cater for mp3 players and crappy earphones).
However there are some types of music that clearly benefit from lossless audio codecs. Particularly older analogue recording with much greater dynamic range, but sometimes with a lot of background noise. Think if it like like older Blu-Rays often requiring a higher bit-rate to render film grain properly without digital artefacts. They have the choice of smoothing it out (and crushing sharpness and detail) or giving the material room to breathe by decreasing the compression ratio. The good thing is formats like Flac or even AAC+ can provide this, so digital audio “can” on occasion benefits from higher sampling rates, frequency range and lack of compression.
Personally I think tube amps themselves are fast becoming the “Dr Dre style” marketing fluff for the 10′s. Flashy pseudo-analogue products for people with too much money to spend, who have heard tubes are better but haven’t don’t much listening to them.. They can make music have a perceivablely warmer sound, but at the cost of clarity, reliability and power draw and for thr vast majority of music there will be no difference. I use to work in a Hi-Fi store for a few years so I’ve had the chance to listen to quite a few tube amps (and not all were good).
High quality transistor based amps with a good quality power supply, DACS and other internal components, when coupled with the latest sound processing of top end audio formats, means an expensive “all digital” setup has the potential to sound “warmer” than a cheap tube system any day. Like anything its isn’t as black and white as some people would have you beleive.
For people with nothing but lossless older analogue recordings on their phones (all two of you) these tube system might be sightly worthwhile, but personally I just don’t think these products will be much use to people other than looking fancy. And call me crazy but I just dont equate Samsung with high end audio in general (great screens and phones though! :).)
BlackRat
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 9:50 PMwill a Samsung Galaxy Nexus work on this?