High End 2013

Swiss company Orpheus Lab has impressed in the past with the build and sound quality it presented in Munich. This year the company showed a Heritage-series transport, called simply SACD, which has an Esoteric VMK-5 transport mechanism and a TFT LCD display with a wide range of color and brightness control. More important, it includes dedicated DSD and clock outputs alongside traditional digital connections. The partnering Heritage D/A Converter (right) is a two-box affair with matching DSD and clock inputs and four DACs per channel. These use a scrambling technique to lower noise. FireWire and 192kKz USB inputs are also provided. The €30,000-a-piece pricing of these two products reflects the extremely high build quality -- and the cost of making anything in Switzerland.