New Rowland Criterion 2-chassis battery pre

Remember when you compare hiss, you have to do it at the same gain. Some pre-amps don't have as much gain as others, so when you compare their hiss at full volume it may not be apples to apples.

I didn't know if the PFC's conversion to DC might reduce hiss. Apparently not.

Dave

Here are some more post RMAF notes. . .

Soundings suite top flight system consisted of Vienna Muzick, JRDG 312, JRDG Criterion running on AC (that probably just reached 100 hrs mark by end of show(, brand
spanking new Marantz SA7S1 player with 50 hrs break in by end of show alternated with Dave's well broken in Playback Designs MPS-5.

We tested initially the Marantz SA7S1 in the Soundings store before taking it to the RMAF suite using a well broken in Capri linestage: it was remarkable being still fresh out of the box with
some initial raggedness and congestion that already seemed to abate significantly by end of show on Sunday afternoon. Yet, even on Sunday afternoon I easily preferred MPS-5
for ease, extension, staging, imaging, harmonic content. The entire system in suite 505 on Sat and Sun was simply remarkable when using MPS5.

I expected that initially the JRDG Criterion in 505 would
impart a cold/ragged/congested signature as it was so new and running on AC. . . it definitely did not do that. . . overall there was magnificent extension,
headroom, musicality and clarity which kept increasing throughout the show, particularly when we used my AudioQuest Sky XLR IC between MPS-5 and Criterion.

Spoke to the developer of Criterion control software. . . battery PS control modules should be operational by year end.
Apparently JRDG will not rely on consumer grade NiMH, but may equip Criterion with industrial grade NiMH D cells--probably Saft, which have much greater reliability and durability. He said that he has not yet heard Criterion on batteries but his experience is that electronics on
DC batteries always sounds significantly better than on AC, no matter what line conditioning is being employed on AC.

We did briefly replace Criterion with a brand new Capri out of the box and fresh from the factory. Predictably Criterion was significantly more fleshed out, bolder, grander. . . the comparison however does not mean much as Criterion had perhaps 60 hours on it and Capri had 0 (zero). A meaningful comparison will eventually need to be made with 2 fully broken in units, and with Criterion running on batteries.

Overall, it is difficult to determine where the excellent sound in suite 505 was coming from: Vienna Acoustics Die Muzick, JRDG 312, Criterion, MPS-5, Marantz SA7S1, or the 8 hours that Soundings and Sumiko spent setting up the speakers in the room. . . likely it was a combination of all of them. In the end, while there were several rooms that I found quite enjoyable, Soundings suite 505 was one of my very few most favorite places, together with the Bel Canto / TAD suite in 585, the Synergistic Research in Longs Peak, and to an extent the TEAC Esoteric Room in 445.

Just learned a couple more bits of info about the Criterion at RMAF. . . the device was an engineering model whose internals are still a little away from final production. For one thing it does not have final ceramic multi-layered boards, but it uses downlevel engineering development boards; According to Jeff Rowland, even under AC, the final production version should sound even better than what we heard in Denver.

The display is a prototype as well. . . final production will look somewhat different, should be brighter and should have crisper color. G.

Guido, are we going to see it before year end? I hate to keep asking Jeff every month about it, but we all thought it was just months away from production after seeing it at Jeff's CES exhibit...........Mine's been bought and oapid for from my dealer for 7 months!

Hi Kawika, as far as I know all the hardware is ready and there are a few dozen Criterions almost ready to be shipped. . . control firmware is expected to be completed by year end. . . but, have you ever dealt with software developers? There is always one more module to complete, one more bug to remove, one more test configuration to run. I'll keep you posted. G.