In this week’s first segment (3:28 to13:55), hosts Brent Butterworth and Dennis Burger discuss a story about a new Qobuz playlist featuring songs mixed for THX Spatial Audio. The mixes are designed to make the sound from your headphones seem like it’s coming from within the room rather than right in your ears. Does it work? Is it worth your time? And did Qobuz accomplish something that Apple couldn’t with this?

Next (14:58 to 30:48) they pontificate a bit on a new review of the Nordost QNet network switch and QSource linear power supply in Stereophile, except they really don’t talk much about the review itself. Instead, they use it as a springboard for a discussion about which components make a real difference and which components don’t. They also answer the age-old question: “What’s the all-time best jazz-backed beat poem about critical thinking?”

In this week’s final segment (31:24 to 52:10), our dynamic duo uses SoundStage! editor-in-chief Jeff Fritz's “Europe Tour 2022” series as an excuse to talk about factory tours, the value thereof, and whether or not engineering tools can truly be considered beautiful. 

Sources:

"THX Spatial Audio on Qobuz: Listen with ANY Headphones!" by Jacob Green: https://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/thx-spatial-audio-qobuz

"Playlist: THX Spatial Audio" by Qobuz USA: https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/playlists/thx-spatial-audio-exclusive-tracks/10766496

"NAD C 399 Integrated Amplifier-DAC" by Dennis Burger: https://soundstageaccess.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1179-nad-c-399-integrated-amplifier-dac

"Storm" by Tim Minchin: https://youtu.be/jIWj3tI-DXg

"Giant Steps: A Player's Guide To Coltrane's Harmony for ALL Instrumentalists" by Walt Weiskopf & Ramon Ricker: https://amzn.to/3S6rT7M

“Björk: Sonic Symbolism”: https://pod.link/bjork

"Europe Tour 2022: Arriving in Vicenza and Visiting Sonus Faber" by Jeff Fritz: https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/features-menu/opinion-menu/1136-europe-tour-2022-arriving-in-vicenza-and-visiting-sonus-faber

"Europe Tour 2022: Sonus Faber Speaker Production and Design Lab" by Jeff Fritz: https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/features-menu/opinion-menu/1137-europe-tour-2022-sonus-faber-speaker-production-and-design-lab