HIGH-TECH MEETS OLD SCHOOL
IPods are fine for listening to music on the go, but sometimes people want to cast headsets aside and hear their playlists piped through the living room by a sound system.
Manufacturers offer dozens of devices that do this: The iPod pops into a docking station in an updated version of a boom box and can be flicked on from the sofa by remote control. But the quality of the music will depend in part on the system that amplifies the signal from the iPod.
Now, to create the special rich sound audiophiles love, manufacturers are selling docking stations for iPods and MP3 players with amplifiers based on an old but resilient technology: vacuum tubes.
Roth Audio, a company based in Reading, England, is appealing to the inner audiophile of iPod users with its Music Cocoon MC4, a compact docking station and amplifier topped by four vacuum tubes that glow when the power is on. Pop an iPod into the dock and you have an odd couple: the iPod, apotheosis of the slim, portable and digital, and the flanking vacuum tubes that are fat, stationary and utterly analog.
Despite the retro look of the tubes, their audio characteristics may give iPod-stored music an additional, welcome dimension. That’s because most people store their music in compressed formats rather than in “lossless” formats, where data is not removed. Given these limitations, said Mark Schubin, an engineer and media technology consultant, “a vacuum tube can deal with the degradation in a potentially better and more pleasant way than a non-vacuum-tube amplifier.”
To enjoy a full range of sound, it’s still better to use lossless formats — vacuum tubes can’t restore data that’s been stripped away. But regardless of the storage format, “If you put an iPod into a docking station with good preamplification, it’s going to sound a lot better than putting it into a cheap one,” said David Chesky, a composer and co-owner of Chesky Records in Manhattan, which uses vacuum-tube-based recording equipment.
The Cocoon isn’t cheap: It will sell for $649, said James A. Roth, managing director of Roth Audio. But in the costly world of high-end vacuumtube audio equipment, that’s a relatively modest price.
VACUUM TUBES MAKING A COMEBACK
Most people think of vacuum tubes as relics, long replaced by transistors. But a pocket of enthusiasts still values the tubes’ warm tones. Guitarists favor vacuum-tube amplifiers in their instruments; recording engineers use the equipment in their studios; and some pay thousands for tube-based stereo systems.
