Funny how one's mind works. As certain age may have been reached, thinking becomes an even more mysterious science. Being one of the (increasingly so) senior citizens still frequenting this planet, I find it difficult to escape certain routes of deduction - often with, seemingly, less sense than they actually make.

Please do not be fooled by this, potentially nonsensical and unrelated to the world of music and audio, introductory paragraph. I will do my very utmost to put (some) sense in what I would like to share with kind readers in not too many words.

One of the very first 'well recorded' LPs I bought after having chosen to declare myself a pursuer of high-fidelity reproduction of sound, was Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No.9 op.79 A Philips recording with Seiji Ozawa conducting his beloved Boston Symphony Orchestra. A symphony nicknamed "From The New World". How appropriate - it was so much of a very new world for me...a world that, almost 50 years later, remains "new" virtually every day. Even if the element of novelty does not always reflect something better, more valuable or more advanced by any adopted standards. And, when I say that, I am predominantly addressing the "human being factor" - people - who are now the main driving force of both mainstream and high-end audio industry at all planes. To start with, those we should all be here for (and who we mercilessly depend on) are called consumers (I would rather give them the etiquette of music lovers and audio enthusiasts). Followed by the, no less in any way, the rest of us constituting the audio industry. The industry that is meant to be providing the consumers with all the ingredients they should be keen to savour and absorb with utter (musical?) delight.

It is easy for someone old(er) to criticise and moan about everything and anything contemporary. I am not going to do that as I know well enough how much 'safer' it is to live in the past than accept the present and look forward to the future. But, I will say it makes me sad and disenchanted to see how so much of what used to reflect true standards, ethically solid principles and values, has vanished into oblivion. No usual finger pointing required - all of us in the mix have made our contribution to today's harsh reality. It would be good to remember how, not so long ago, music lovers and audiophiles did not use to "buy the deal", but a bespoke product of their discriminate choice instead. A human creation which gives years of musical joy and pleasure before being left behind for something truly and genuinely superior. Within such a process, very best brands retained the well-deserved primacy and acclaim, while residual values remained healthy and respectable up to the 3rd or 4th hand ownership. Today? All comprehensively different...apart from a tiny number of people and small number of brands still command justifying respect, the rest is pretty much a seasonal, short-term commodity of daily eroded meaning.

Incidentally, Ozawa's interpretation of Dvorak's "From The New World" symphony still maintains its musical panache and qualifies as a very good recording. Art is, thankfully, eternal, and unperturbed by audio components or humans making them.

Audiobyte's HYDRA range of digital playback components enjoyed several years of respectable global success, both for excellent sound quality, but also quite a few original and ingenious design solutions. If the preceding HYDRA 'stack" had a practical limitation, it would have been the dependence of the VOX dac and HUB streamer/renderer/bridge on the ZAP power supply unit they had to be connected with  to operate.

Enter the new SUPER generation of Audiobyte products which, strangely enough, came into life in a completely reverse order, starting with the SUPER HUB that was launched and started shipping in February 2024. Defined by the manufacturer as a Native I2S Multifunctional Streamer, the new SUPER HUB is a totally independent component with its own power supply, and is compatible with any DAC having a coaxial SPDIF or an I2S interface as digital inputs. USB input option will also be available soon.

It goes without saying that the new SUPER HUB is fully compatible with Roon, as well as all other leading streaming methods and services (UpnP, Air Play, DLNA, Roon Ready, Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, etc.), while Android and iOS application facilitate simple and effective remote controlling of all vital functions.

Please visit https://www.audiobyte.net/products/superhub for detailed description of the design and full specification of the new Audiobyte SUPER HUB. The product is available in either black or silver finish and the UK list price has been set at £2990 incl. VAT.

The story to follow is, well...one of those things...You feel you simply have to tell the world about something unusual, unique and very, very special. At the same time, it feels like  one of the "Area 51" stories - talking about something so very real while, rationally, not even existing! After many months of agonising, I am about to let out what, arguably, could be deemed as one of the better kept secrets within the present high-end audio world.

In order to understand the story, you need to be familiar with the leitmotiv behind the project called JUMA (read: Yuma) AUDIO CD PLAYER. As the label on the back panel of this device clearly states, the designer was inspired (and, no more than that!) by a number of renowned and eclectic high-end audio artisans - individually brilliant in their respective domains, having created some of the best commercial high-end components of modern times.

The designer of the Juma Audio CD player did not copy or plagiarize anything from anyone. Why? Not just because he would not, he also could not. All invaluable solutions were patent protected and, consequently, not within the realms of public knowledge. Instead, he spent years learning to understand the core and essence of what mattered in areas of digital-to-analogue conversion and analogue output stage execution as found in the very best DACs or CD players.

My interest in this CD player had a very specific root - one of the alumni mentioned was Kazutoshi Yamada of Zanden Audio Systems (Japan). Audiofreaks has been working with Yamada-san and Zanden since 2006 and his fabulous designs of valve da/processors and CD transports have remained one of the very few absolute references of their kind ever since.

So, what could a talented engineer, music lover and audiophile from Ljubljana (Slovenia) by the name of Matjaz Sket do that so many before him have tried and comprehensively failed? For starters, he chose very old Rotel RCD-855 and RCD-955 CD players (from the early 1990s) as capital organ (Philips TDA1541A d/a chipset) donors. Then he executed the complete signal handling after the d/a conversion (clock oscillator and associated circuits + much more). Lastly, Mr Sket designed a valve analogue output stage with its own very generous and elaborated power supply. In short, this became a "wannabe Zanden"  CD player of 2023 vintage!  A  CD player that has grown to almost 9kg of net weight and still looking like like a 30 years old Rotel, except for the top cover adopting many small holes for ventilation, an IEC socket replacing the captive mains cable, and high grade RCA output sockets on the back panel.

I will never forget the day when Juma Audio CD Player arrived and my Zanden M2000P/M5000MkIV Signature CD transport/DAC were in full swing within the reference audio system. Pushing away all the prejudices as best as I could, I connected the ancient black box and let it warm up for a while. My three long-standing "torture and crucify" CD albums waited in anticipation to do what they did best...

As I am telling a story here about a non-existent product (in commercial sense), I will not expand more than I need to. It suffices to be said that the Juma Audio CD Player performed in a (musically) heavenly manner beyond my wildest expectations! Thankfully, it was NOT as good as my stellar 4-box Zanden package, but...every element of the legendary, so analogue-like Zanden CD sound from  the CD format, WAS correctly and completely present and easy to hear! Huge musicality, glorious 3D staging, transient speed, natural dynamics without any compression - the full works!!!! Unbelievably excellent and remarkable!

Crude awakening post-experience left aside, common sense and reality have to prevail. The scarcity of specific Rotel CD players still alive and well in the real world (and one would be prudent to have a spare one in case of mechanical failure) presents an immediate hurdle hard to bypass. The cost of the Juma Audio 'creative conversion' is not insignificant, especially relative to the cost of the donor player. The fact Matjaz Sket cannot avoid long lead times while runing a business as his daily (pre)occupation, does not help. He pleaded with me not to make this fruit of his passion publicly known - both out of modesty and inability to provide. But - I simply had to. I had to because what he has achieved is so special to me in so many ways. And, I am confident, it would be to many others still cherishing a practically dead format of recorded music (CD) with such a natural, analogue and lifelike sonic signature.

More curious among you are welcome to call or email and I will assist as best as I can under the practical circumstances surrounding this, monumentally successful high-end audio achievement.

One of the very first (if not the first) members of the British audio press I have ever met in the mid/late 1980s, was Paul Messenger. Everlasting memory brings his, somewhat larger than life, presence at the offices of Hi-Fi Choice in Central London as a clear picture. There was Paul behind an ancient Apple Mac computer welcoming me as a new distributor on the scene to discuss what and when to review out of my miniscule initial brand portfolio. Always kind, mannered, quiet and encouraging, he remained a frequent and welcome visitor to Audiofreaks exhibition suites at autumnal annual London Heathrow shows, later at the Whittlebury Hall. Always an attentive listener with kind and gratifying words about what he would have experienced. Even when health was no longer at its best, Paul continued to work, write and travel in and out of UK to audio events, no matter how big or small.

It is with great sadness I am reporting a loss of a true gentleman, accomplished audio scholar, and, above all, a precious colleague and Friend. RIP.