aniwolfe,
I don't intend to given ozzy's experience. :)
I don't intend to given ozzy's experience. :)
78 responses Add your response
While the Lyngdorf 2170 is good in its category of products, it may not be considered to be a true separate dac in the strictest sense of the word. Given the topology of the 2170, it is to be expected that the SM would significantly improve its SQ in spades. :) https://hometheaterreview.com/lyngdorf-audio-tdai-2170-integrated-amplifier-reviewed/ |
@ozzy As we all have different systems, (regarding your post about it degrading your sound) the Synchro-Mesh I bought a few weeks has made a huge improvement in my system. I would not want to listen to my digital playback without one now. Also, Steve’s digital cables are quite over looked. I have compared them to many and few that were much more expensive (Purist Audio Neptune) and his BNC BNC Digital cable was the clear winner. Excellent cable for the money. |
As you know, in my case I’m going Oppo>Yggy via **RCA** coax out from Oppo and in to Yggy. Shame on me perhaps, but other than optical this is my only option. Or is it? :) The other option is to use a BNC-BNC cable with 75 ohm RCA adapters. This is better than a cable terminated with RCA's. Like anything there are cables and then there are great cables. You get what you pay for. Technically I could go RCA coax out from Oppo and terminate with BNC coax in to Yggy. So is RCA>BNC coax "better" than RCA>RCA coax? (same coax and all else equal) Yes, anywhere you can use BNC you should do it. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
RCA obviously. It cannot be terminated properly to any coax. Steve, your opinion (or fact) on this please.... As you know, in my case I’m going Oppo>Yggy via **RCA** coax out from Oppo and in to Yggy. Shame on me perhaps, but other than optical this is my only option. Or is it? :) Question given the aforementioned.... Technically I could go RCA coax out from Oppo and terminate with BNC coax in to Yggy. So is RCA>BNC coax "better" than RCA>RCA coax? (same coax and all else equal) Thanks. |
Actually a neglected part of the audio chain between Syncromesh and DAC is the quality of cable you use. Firstly - always go for BNC. This is unequivocally a superior connector, A friend brought around a Shunyata BNC 75 ohm BNC SIGMA. Now this is a very expensive BNC - $2500 USD. I have to say that the syncro mesh performance has jumped up to a staggering level. The added dimension has a nuance that is hard to explain – truly off the charts. Goes to show how good your unit is. The SIGMA BNC brings additional detail and layers that I have seldom heard on any rig any price. I have a lessloss Cmark power cable (new Litz wire config) feeding a Sbooster which has a Furutech NCF riser EMF/dampening system supporting the SM. Feeder is an Argento Serenity Reference silver SPDIF cable. Youtube HD material rivals my NAGRA CD player now by a comfortable margin. I haven't tried Steve's reference cable nor the Hynes Dynamo power supply. Not sure how it compares to the SBooster but I can say that the Shunyata shows how good this unit really is. Here is the lesson for me - often we look to upgrade equipment to the next level but unless you optimise the chain - you dont know what you really have in your hands. |
audioengr, Steve, First off waiting 3.5 years for speakers is ridiculous and I don’t believe you. Secondly, I read what you just posted and that is still no excuse for ignoring customers emails, phone calls and all the while you took my money up front with no means of communications for months. When I was finally able to talk to you, you were very RUDE like you had no time to deal with the little people. Again I was hoping you have overcome those issues and now provide better customer service than you did for me. But, it looks like you still won’t accept your previous poor customer service, in your mind the customer is at fault. Anyhow, you know how I feel and I hope others who deal with you do so with some skepticism. and lets get back to the OP questions. Transports IMHO are advantages because they specialize in one thing, sort of like having separate components instead of using a intergraded unit. With separation comes better power supply, less jitter, better isolation etc. leemaze, Again sorry I high jacked your posting. ozzy |
Transports are NOT created equal due to differences in quality of the clocking, power supplies, and support circuitry. No argument here. The thing that makes all transports equal is a good reclocker added to the transport. The things that make the jitter different from all of these transports is differences in the oscillators, power supplies, power delivery, implementation and design. It's the jitter that is different for these reasons. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
Transports are NOT created equal due to differences in quality of the clocking, power supplies, and support circuitry. -------> there are BIG differences in SQ amongst different transports 1. DEDICATED SimAudio CDP: excellent, clean clear dynamic sound with punch, fully fleshed out timbres/tones 2. DEDICATED Bel Canto CDT3: similar to the Sim above, but the sound is more like the Bel Canto house sound: clean and clear but slightly warm though highly resolving. just as dynamic as the Sim, but in a different way. 3. NON-DEDICATED Oppo 95: is the jack of all trades for $1000. IOWs, the transport electronics, power supply, clocks are much inferior to the Sim and Bel Canto above, who have DEDICATED electronics to do 1-2 things very well, rather than do several things .... mediocre like the Oppo. I have owned all these transports, fyi |
As for the timing of my product production, you need to understand that I wear a lot of hats. I am essentially a one-man show here. Because of this, my customers deal directly with me and I help them on an ongoing basis. I also offer upgrades to most of my products over time, so they are not obsoleted. My extended family sometimes interferes with my work. Most of 2015 I was in another state remodeling my mother-in-laws house. This was the timeframe of ozzys order, the end of 2015. I had a lot of catch-up to do after 9 months away from the business. I build everything to order, but I have boards in stock. If I have a lot of orders backlogged, they are processed in order and this can cause wait-times for some customers. If you ask about the lead-time, I will give you an honest prediction. The majority of my customers are wiling to wait when I have a big backlog because my products are unique in the industry. If you order a Ferrari, you will wait 2 years. I recently received new speakers myself that I had on order for 3.5 years. I waited 3.5 years for these. I have them now and I'm glad I waited. Sometimes the best things in life take time. I have patience. It's a good virtue to have. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
There are several attributes, including: 1) unfocused instruments and vocalists - wider than natural would be 2) "fill", or echoes between instruments that is not actually present in the recording - some mistake this for ambience or "air" 3) a harder, more brittle sound that tends to be fatiguing over the long term 4) vocalists "S" sounds too hissy to be live 5) inability to distinguish the size and depth of the venue of the recording 6) halos around the instruments and vocalists As for selling, I look at it like helping people understand and I also problem-solve. I also feel it is my job to dispel misinformation for my industry. I don't always recommend my own products, unless I know they are the best solution. I also recommend other products. Just read all of my posts on all of the forums. I spend a lot of time online helping, and as much as I like helping people, I also desire something in return. The alternative is to give thousands each month to advertising and pass this cost on to my customers. Do you really want to pay for advertising? I don't. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
It would be interesting to know whether there are specific attributes in the spectra besides total jitter that correlate with specific qualities; i.e. wide bass vs natural attack and decay of chimes, bells, imaging, etc. The spectra in this particular plot is only jitter amounts at different frequencies. There is very little jitter below 600kHz in any of the plots. Unfortunately, my tool does not allow me to blow up or zoom in on that section of frequencies. Correlation is very difficult. At least there are some differences there. Steve N Empirical Audio |
wig, Thank you for your reply. Perhaps you got one from stock or maybe it was a returned item? I was not so lucky. I stated previously it took 2 months, it was actually closer to 3. And I hate it when you have to pay for an item and keep waiting and waiting for shipment. Yes, I kept emailing him about my order, that is when he commented that his life activities are so busy and important that he won’t be rushed by anyone. As I said before, perhaps the owner has started to treat customers with more respect. That’s a good thing. sardone, I concur. The better the Dac the less important these add on devices are. I did however enjoy the Mutec USB+ unit. https://www.mutec-net.com/product_mc-3-plus-usb.php ozzy |
@ozzy Very interesting. I find that 99% of the comments on Agon by Steve seem to be self-serving. The comments are always ultimately designed to promote his products in some way. For example, Steve maintains that no DAC maker has addressed incoming jitter problems fully - yet he sells products that claim to do exactly that. (Interesting that he is the ONLY person to have solved this common and well recognized problem) On the hand, I have done extensive research and maintain that certain highly reputable DAC makers have implemented highly robust methods to reject the ubiquitous incoming interface jitter.... |
Just saw this post and thought I would give my impression on the service I received from Empirical Audio with no prompting from Steve. I too tried the upgraded SM with the upgraded PS and it really transformed my Modwright Marantz SA 8005 CD Player across the board but didn't work out using a dedicated Dac. My unit was received within a week of ordering and the refund was accomplished within 24-48 hrs from the arrival of the unit back to Steve. A positive experience for me. Wig |
Steve, Yes, it was within the 2 week period. It took about 45 days for you to finally grant me the pleasure of your refund. It also took 2 months for you to make the unit because you said you don’t have much spare time to produce the lower end of your products and that you would not be rushed by anyone. Again, I hope you have changed your attitude with dealing with customers. However, I for one would NEVER try one of your products again based on my experience with you! ozzy |
Steve N. Thank you very much for testing the cables and posting those new data. It seems the spectral plots may be more useful than the jitter distribution (which looked amazingly similar) when trying to correlate with listening impressions. It would be interesting to know whether there are specific attributes in the spectra besides total jitter that correlate with specific qualities; i.e. wide bass vs natural attack and decay of chimes, bells, imaging, etc. All very interesting if one was designing cables but far outside my area of expertise. Thanks again for posting the comparisons with your cables. I apologize to the OP for straying from the original question posed concerning transports! Joe |
ozzy - First, you purchased an older model Synchro-Mesh. Not all DACs respond well because some have internal resampling already. It is also critical to use a good output cable. Second, I always refund within 2 weeks if returned within 30 days. Did you return within 30 days? How long did it take to get the refund? Steve N. Empirical Audio |
erj1953, I totally agree with you about the PS Audio Direct Stream player it is fantastic as a transport for the PS Direct Stream Dac. On the other hand, when I bought (new) the Synchro Mesh it degraded the sound in my system. I sent it back for a refund. And I must say that I was given quite a hard time getting my money back. Perhaps the owner has now seen the errors in his customer relations. ozzy |
I promised to measure jitter for two cables for jc4659, a Belden and a Canare BNC cable. Here are the results: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154425.msg1669506#msg1669506 Steve N. Empirical Audio |
Actually, the separation of data, control and clocks in I2S bypasses the S/PDIF receiver and any upsampling that might be in the DAC, so the signal goes directly to the D/A without conditioning or synchronizing of clocks. I2S is the native interface for the D/A chip. This does not actually reduce jitter very much, except for this bypassing. The jitter of the source is what you get to hear, so the lower that jitter is, the better the sound quality. I like this approach because as new sources achieve lower jitter, the same DAC sounds better and better. My own Overdrive SX DAC is like this. If you think the PSAudio transport is good, you should hear my Ethernet Renderer, the Interchange, connected with HDMI I2S cable to your DAC. This will deliver signal with ~15psec of jitter. This can play files from any computer running Jriver or Minimserver. I hope you are using a very good silver I2S cable. This makes all the difference. FYI, I sell one of the best on the market. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
Steve N. well said. I have a PS Audio DirectStream DAC and transport, interconnected with an HDMI cable over their I2S interface. From what I understand, they reduce jitter (timing errors) with the separation of the bits from the timing on that interface. Long-story-short, when I replaced my prior transport with the DirectStream...WOW, nice upgrade! |
In my experience, CD Transports can make a big difference in the sound. Having said that, less expensive transports use cheaper mechanisms, which tend to sound the same. You’ll need to spend more to get one with a really good mechanism. Also, you want a dedicated CD mechanism, not a universal one. I have a CEC TL-5, which uses their in-house belt drive system, rather than the standard direct drive. It has an analog-like ease and musical flow, that I really enjoy. I believe it is currently the least expensive way to get a CD Transport with a seriously good mechanism. The current US price is around $2800. Another option is one that uses the long discontinued Phillips CD Pro mechanism, but that will cost you quite a bit more. |
ASRC (asynchronous sample rate conversion) is the mechanism it uses to lower jitter. I’m not a fan of that - but some like the change in the sound. My problem with ASRC is that it resamples the input with a more accurate clock - but tho the output clock may indeed have less jitter than the input, to do that it changes the data (it calculates the values needed on the output to represent the input signal including it’s jitter) - the input jitter is now encoded in the data and can never be removed downstream. Beside any philosophical issues, this breaks bit perfect playback.. Absolutely true. I also used to believe this was an issue. Then I discovered a really good chip and a good way to implement the circuit. The problem in the past was the chip implementations. Not a problem anymore. Telling the difference between a 44.1 native track and the same 44.1 track output from the Synchro-Mesh is almost impossible. This is a very good chip. This is the reason that my customers don't have any issue with the resampling, and the Synchro-Mesh is so popular. The latest version is much better than the previous version BTW, so older feedbacks are likely about a different product. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
Found this on PSA forums if anyone is interested...Reply about the Synchro-Mesh via Ted Smith. https://forum.psaudio.com/t/titan-audio-helen-that-can-be-used-wtih-dmp-and-perhaps-dsd/5060/9 ASRC (asynchronous sample rate conversion) is the mechanism it uses to lower jitter. I’m not a fan of that - but some like the change in the sound. My problem with ASRC is that it resamples the input with a more accurate clock - but tho the output clock may indeed have less jitter than the input, to do that it changes the data (it calculates the values needed on the output to represent the input signal including it’s jitter) - the input jitter is now encoded in the data and can never be removed downstream. Beside any philosophical issues, this breaks bit perfect playback and hence will break DSD playback, etc. |
Perfect, ship them to: http://www.empiricalaudio.com/about-empirical-audio/contact Thanks, Steve N. Empirical Audio |
No interface problem, but you are stuck with this jitter that you can do nothing about: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154408.msg1650944#msg1650944 That is unless you open it up and mod it, and even then, the results will never be as good a an external reclocker. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
Select a DAC that rejects interface jitter and then all that you will hear is the inherent jitter in its own internal asynchronous clock driving the DAC. Absolutely true, and this is precisely the problem. You are trapped with a substandard Master Clock implementation that you cannot improve upon. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
Have you ever directly compared the Canare LV-77s and Belden 8281F coaxial cables for jitter? No, but if you send these, I will be glad to make measurements and post it. Here are the ones I had on-hand and compared: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154425.0 Steve N. Empirical Audio |
Jitter is an interface issue and will always be affected by the data stream no matter what cables you use. The detection of the clock timing embedded in the digital audio is always jitter prone - no matter what device is upstream. The ONLY thorough solution is to accept interface jitter as a fact of life and use a DAC that rejects it. No matter how much jitter is reduced upstream there is still going to be jitter. Select a DAC that rejects interface jitter and then all that you will hear is the inherent jitter in its own internal asynchronous clock driving the DAC. |
