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Looking for a vinylesk sounding DAC

I cannot say I wasn’t satisfied with my system.

Laptop (Quobuz Studio) - > Schiit Bifrost 2 - > Ocellia Reference RCA - > Werner Acoustics, Selene (active tube preamp using two VT-231 from RCA) - > passive preamp - > Ocellia Reference RCA - > First Watt F6 dual mono custom built - > HEDD Audio’s "Heddphone" / Hifiman HE 4

From the beginning I started to built it I had a quite concrete idea of what it should sound like in the end: vinylesk without using vinyl. It took me a while to get there and now I really thought I got it: Due to the F6 the outcome is brutally powerful and incredibly fast while the tube stage adds lots of body, depth and a rich organic undertone. Finally the RCA’s from Ocellia were adding the fine raffinement and a nice holographic soundstage. Nothing smears, in just every situation everything stays transparent, well controlled/articulated and the separation is just excellent.

BUT when listening to streamed vinyl I still feel the need for action - I just want EVERY track from quobuz to sound like this. Please take just some seconds and listen to this:

https://musicandvinyl.blogspot.com/2020/08/haruomi-hosono-from-aegean-sea.html?m=1

There is just MORE elasticity, MORE tonal density, MORE plankton, MORE concentration to the point, MORE light-footedness and MORE palpability (compared to a "disdainful" quobuz stream). Do you know what I mean?

I still think and hope a new dac could be the nirvana-solution. But which one would manage the job to sound just like vinyl (99% would be ok...)?

Happy to hear your suggestions!
barrista0611

Showing 3 responses by audio2design

audio2design
1,351 posts
 
Fake -- Lack of a reconstruction filter in a typical NOS DAC allows high frequencies (aliased images of the original signal from the stair step) to pass which when they hit things like tube amps and speakers with high distortion, they generate frequency components in the audible range that are a mix of aliased images with frequency shift (IMD), random distortion products, and signal modulated noise.  While sounding complex and awful, some people like the way it sounds. The general description is "airy".


"Fake air?" All I hear with my Audio Note Dac is a natural sounding top-end with air and space between instruments.

No, what you think you hear is "natural". It is not, no more than vinyl sounds "natural", no more the analog tape is "natural". They are not natural, they are colored. You just happen to like that coloration and associate that with natural.

Maybe there will come a time when most "audiophiles" will accept that what they like, and hence what they attribute as "natural" and accurate is anything but, at least if they put vinyl or tape on a pinnacle. It is not the pinnacle of accurate sound reproduction. Digital is. Very few audiophiles have heard the difference between a live microphone, a digital loop and a tape loop, let alone the eventual vinyl cut. And that is completely okay. It does not matter if you prefer the vinyl cut. All that matters is you like what you are listening to. However, describing it as natural is wrong because it is not.


Here, have a read:
http://recordinghacks.com/2013/01/26/analog-tape-vs-digital/
I will excerpt a pass from the article,
"It is my belief that much of the pain of switching over to digital recording was due to the tools that engineers had mastered for analog recording. For instance, applying EQ and compression (or no compression) to tape to make up for the color that the tape added didn’t sound so great when recording to digital. Bright FET microphones and harsh transistor preamp tones became rounded off in a pleasing way on tape, and by the 100th mix pass, the high-end was rolled off and the transients smeared so much that the final mix sounded phat, warm and fuzzy. It took experienced engineers a minute (or years) to gather their thoughts, re-examine their tools and learn how to take advantage of the clarity, quiet, and unforgiving purity of digital recording. At that point recordists moved towards super-fast, ultra-clean and high-gain preamps and transparent compression. Low cost digital processors stopped using transformers and tubes, which lowered costs and also lowered THD, while widening frequency bandwidth specs from DC to light. We had finally found it: perfect, clean, sterile audio!

audio2design
1,351 posts
 
Where you hear MORE elasticity, MORE tonal density, MORE plankton, MORE concentration to the point, MORE light-footedness and MORE palpability


... I hear MORE wickedly high noise floor, MORE compression, MORE distortion, MORE loss of low level detail, MORE loss of tonal balance, MORE fake "space" coupled with LESS instrument separation, and more unwanted/unnatural sibilance.

I will give you that the vinyl version has more of a "live" character to it, but I couldn't get past the artifacts to the point of it grating on my ears.

But that's me ... and you are you. When you grow up with that sound, and that becomes "natural" to you, then that is what you are going to gravitate to. I grew up spinning records, but spent too much time listening to what is coming off the microphone, so what sound natural to you, sounds unnatural to me.

The fake air of a NOS DAC running at CD sampling rates, the added distortion of a tube stage, and if you could couple it with George's suggestion for channel mixing to more center the image (gives a sense of immediacy), and you may capture much of what you love about vinyl. Some friends/acquaintance have played around with a bit of compression in the digital domain as well, but not aware of any players intentionally doing that.

BUT when listening to streamed vinyl I still feel the need for action - I just want EVERY track from quobuz to sound like this. Please take just some seconds and listen to this:

https://musicandvinyl.blogspot.com/2020/08/haruomi-hosono-from-aegean-sea.html?m=1

There is just MORE elasticity, MORE tonal density, MORE plankton, MORE concentration to the point, MORE light-footedness and MORE palpability (compared to a "disdainful" quobuz stream). Do you know what I mean?

audio2design
1,351 posts
 
Cleeds,

The quote with Plankton in it was me quoting someone else.


My comment about wicked high noise floor, etc. was in relation to the link the op posted. That is the sound he wants. I stand by my comments the recording at that link. CD is not inherently compressed. If it is, that was a mixing/mastering decisions whereas on vinyl that was often a necessity. 


 Vinyl is a "sound" and it is desired by many audiophiles especially those that grew up with it and young people increasing feeling less involved and a less and less tactile world.  However, you would be hard pressed to find a serious recording engineer who went through the transition from 80's analog to 2000's digital who will not tell you that digital sounds like what comes off the microphone, tape and digital do not.  I mean people who worked in mid-high end studios with access to good quality analog and digital gear.  That does not mean they will like the digital sound better. It just means it is accurate.
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