SSI 2010

The Focal Electra 1037 Be that was reviewed">http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/707focal/">reviewed by Michael Fremer a while back has been superseded by the Electra 1038 Be II ($13,500/pair). The major change is the upgrading of the beryllium tweeter to the level of the units used in the Utopia series. There is also the inevitable crossover change, and the manufacturing of the midrange and woofer drivers has been made more precise. Here's Daniel Jacques of Audio Plus/Plurison, the North American Focal importer, with the Electra 1038 Be II.

Simaudio, represented in my photo by Lionel Goodfield (left) and Dynaudio, represented by Mike Manousselis (right) often exhibit together, an arrangement that seems to represent the friendly relationships between people in these companies as well as the synergistic relationships between the products. They certainly sound good together, and both companies seem to be guided by a desire to offer not necessarily the cheapest possible products, but ones that offer high quality combined with good value.

I was immensely impressed by the dCS Puccini SACD player and U-Clock when I reviewed the British combination last">http://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/dcs_puccini_sacd_playback_syste… December. But as the physical discs becomes a legacy source of music, there was obviously a need for a related D/A product. SSI saw the public debut of the dCS Debussy ($10,999 with remote), shown off here by Tempo Marketing's John Quick. The Debussy basically combines the D/A, DSP, and analog board from the Puccini with the true asynchronous USB input topology from the U-Clock in a slim, attractive package. There are two AES/EBU and two S/PDIF inputs, as well as USB, and there is also a word-clock input to allow the Debussy to be controlled by an external master clock unit. Two digital filters are included, one a conventional symmetrical type, the other a variant of the increasingly popular minimum-phase "apodizing" type.