My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!

I fully believe u. The holy grail would be to make them comparable and to level the modem/router/networking playing field for all users given the current infinite combination of upstream streaming configurations. Taiko has a plan for this, from what i understand.  Hundreds of pages about this on other forums. Really looking forward to the interview!

I just finished doing a very extensive listening test comparing CD spinning, streaming and local files ripped into my Innuos Zenith server. There are no absolutes across all systems and digital front ends.

One thing became clear to me. Everything matters in digital front ends. If you are using Roon you may be hearing its effect on sound quality. Innuos Sense 2.08 sounds better than Roon on my Innuos server. It alone closed the gap substantially between CD spinning and streaming/local files. Roon is simply not as real sounding nor is it as dimensional. It sounds good, but a tad flat compared to Sense. So what music management/playback software are you using? It plays a major sonic role.

Are you using ethernet filtering and high quality ethernet cabling? Network Acoustics makes the ENO filter and Ethernet cables and they make a tremendous difference. Are you using a great switch such as English Electric Switch 8? It makes a difference. Are you powering your high end switches and modem with a nice LPS? It matters. Are you using upgraded DC power cables on your LPS’s? They matter. You get the point.

In my system Qobuz HD files sound very, very close to my local files. Very close. It just depends on the Qobuz recording and it’s particular sound quality. I cannot say local files always sound better, centainly not much better.

So perhaps Jay’s local files sound much better, but that speaks more about his particular front end and far less about comparative absolutes in digital. This space is changing almost monthly right now as Roon, Innuos and others update software. Each update sounds better than the last and it will continue in this direction. Great strides are being made in switches, filters, cabling and other digital tweaks. Servers are getting better and better, but so are spinning transports like the Pro-Ject  Box. Great time to be into digital.

Well I think I know which one is which I'm gonna send you a private message and tell you why I think so, but it is really hard to tell I think most people would agree that you almost have to be there in your room to tell the difference

Personally, i find Qobuz a bit more fleshed out than Tidal, would probably be a better comparison.

Don

@ron17

And this year Stereophile’s speaker of the year is Magico’s A5, while last year’s speaker of the year was Magico’s M2...starting to see a pattern here.

Too bad he sold his Magico, he could have used a good speaker now, finally, that he improved his front-end.

Take 2:

@henry201

Not sure what you mean by "now that i finally have a good front end" as if i haven’t had a good one before 😂

@jays_audio_lab 

Exactly.

You mentioned in a recent video you had the N20. Is that correct? What did you think of it Jay?

It was great. If you don't own a music server and have been using a laptop or something like it, i highly recommend it. There's no doubt that the improvements will be substantial. 

@jays_audio_lab

Not sure what you mean by "now that i finally have a good front end" as if i haven’t had a good one before

Yet you only now discover that local files sound better then streaming🙄

I didn't know there was a timeline for things? 

In my current state, with my equipment and maybe due to the taiko's transparent sound, i am hearing the big difference between both formats. Also, it has been quite a while since i revisited my local music collection. 

It's all a learning process. It doesn't matter how long it took. What matters is the fact that we all learn. 

@jays_audio_lab 

I guess you've just maybe forgotten my setup, but I do have an N10 and use Supra Cat 8+ with an ER and Paul Hynes LPS; the rest of my system is very high resolution, so I'm sure a better server would yield excellent results. Anyway, just a friendly reminder. **I've heard the N20 is quite a bit better than the N10, but have not had the chance to demo the N20 or do a shoot out with the two. My dealer does not support Aurender anymore but I sure wish he did. The Taiko is probably out of my budget, but really wanting to learn all I can about it - thanks for sharing with us all.

Yes, if you can upgrade to the n20, it will be a marked improvement. It's almost impossible to go back once you've owned a music server. 

Elephant in the room for me, and I am sure many others...

You were just at a big audio show with a lot of turntables.  What are your observations of analog playback vs digital?  You are pretty outspoken on a lot of audio quality observations.  I have not heard your vew on analog vs digital.  How about getting a $10-15,000 turntable setup and run it against your new no-cost-barred digital rig in a shootout?

I just don't have the bandwidth to sustain all the work i do here plus doing the tweaking/ fine tuning needed with Vinyl but i might do that some day. I like the convenience of streaming and that is really the main reason why i am still doing it. Imagine doing all the work i already do with my digital front end and then having to buy vinyl and change cartridges, tone arms, etc etc...i would never finish...

Understood, but you seem willing to explore and comment on other shiny objects so I suggest you check out the format which outlasted CD's and SACD's.and see why this is the case.

I think you will be shocked when you hear it in your system.  I am sure VAC has an excellent phono stage available...

Either way, congratulations on an entertaining and enduring thread!

Now that you have the Taiko, you might have to resurrect some of your old amps.

I gather that just playing CD's is better sounding than streaming or local files of the same recording.  Is that the experience of people here?

dbarger,

Comparing my CD's and LP's of the same recording, here is my experience over many years.  With my young Denon 305 MC cartridge with ultradetailed Belles phono stage (a Pass XP15 phono stage was a veiled dog by comparison), detailed Alphason HR100S tonearm on Goldmund Studio TT, the LP was far more detailed with especially HF openness.  As my Denon 305 cartridge aged, the CD is now better.  I have a refurbished Denon 305 which I haven't mounted yet, but the old 305 is still satisfactory.

Euphonic cartridges like Koetsu and many TT's make analog merely euphonic, so any decent digital system is far more revealing than these analog systems, so I think Jay is on the right track with digital.  Analog isn't worth the hassle, unless you like forgiving sound.

It's not just the vinyl rig cost and setup - it's the PITA to find good vinyl and the 000s to buy your first 100 titles. There aren't $1 vinyls at garage sales anymore. And the audiophile stuff is $40-$50 per record. Unless I had a record collection given to me or something similar, MSB digital is so good now I don't find analog necessary. Especially if you listen to modern recordings.

Although a AAA remastered recording on vinyl is a special experience and keeps me from selling the Brinkmann rig. 

@keithr +1,

I have a pretty basic Linn LP12 rig with 1000+ records with a wet vac cleaner. And much as I appreciate great vinyl--and it does rival or exceed digital in some areas, I have made the decision to forgo seriously upgrading my analogue capabilities. I will enjoy and keep what I have even though I know there are much better upgrades available and focus on improving digital and the rest of my system.

If I was starting from scratch, I would not recommend going vinyl unless a person feels absolutely compelled to do so. It is lots of work, both in set up and maintenance as well in execution; i.e. shopping for records, properly cleaning and preparing a record plus the work to the physical work to play and change from one record to another... and I am a person who often listens to complete records! Jay, listens to songs and has over a million at his finger tips with streaming from the comfort of his listening chair. I’m not saying he is lazy. I think he just likes to change music often and values convenience. 99% of my listening is digital, even though the way I listen is far more conducive to the 5 minutes it takes to put on a new slab!

Long live vinyl! But I think Jay is the wrong candidate to launch into vinyl this late in his audiophile journey.

viber6,

I have found that playing music locally stored on an SSD yields the best digital sound.  I have a 4 TB drive on an Innuos ZenMini with external power supply and around 2TB of music installed (both Red Book and high resolution).  Convenience is A+ and sound quality exceeds both spinning discs and streaming although the differences with streaming vs local have been greatly reduced.  

I still give a slight edge to locally stored vs. streamed for audio quality and have retired my dedicated transport and just use my Oppo BluRay player in the rare instance that I am spinning a physical disc (normally only for HD CD's that I can't or don't know how to rip).  At 10x the price of my ZenMini, I would expect these differences to be even greater with Jay's Taeko as I know that even within the Innuos line, the Statement and the Zenith are both much better than ZenMini. 

We could have a technical discussion of why a ripped cd will play better than the original disc but hopefully it is sufficient to say that mechanical controls that constantly are adjusting the speed of the CD during playback (linear speed is constant which dictates that rotational speed of the disc must constantly be adjusted--slowed down as you move from beginning (inner disc) to end (outer disc)introduce a ton of jitter.  Additionally, I have found that crazy things like green paint and less crazy things like vibration isolation and absorption all seriously impact playback.  Playing from a digitally identical copy while eliminating the playback mechanism makes it far less difficult to reduce the jitter and other distortions of a transport.

Also, I have found that full, non-compressed files sound better than lossless, compressed files and I am now leaning towards preferring flac to aiff.  Lossy compression should never be considered a viable option with the low cost of disc drives except for portable media (iphones and airplane rides!).  Like zprr, I'm surprised Jay is having such a dropoff in sound quality with streaming, I would expect with the Taeko that differences would be subtle.  I suspect he has something going on with his internet provider, capabilities/speed, modem, router, switches, cables, etc...  I couldn't agree more with the statement... "everything matters". 

@psnyder149  

Great post, I agree with many of your findings. Files played off of SSD sound better to me as well. I also started to rip my CD's to WAV files as they sound better, less processing, just I/O for a shorter path internally.

Just want to add, ripping to CD's allows the OS to do CRC & checksuming for bitperfect integrity as well. unlike a transport where most do No error checking or have the ability to reread. 


 

viber, good analog is not euphonic, simply more real. Same as good tubes vs ss.  

But that is not the subject of this thread.  I just think the shoot-out I described would be very interesting...

Yet some A’gon members who have systems that far exceed WC’s (such as Mike Lavigne (sp?)) insist that analog is superior if cost is no object - see some discussions in the analog section.

The reason WC is resisting analog is convenience (or hassle, depending on how you look at it), not based on sound quality.

But I feel like I predicted a couple years ago that 2022 would be the year WC goes vinyl.......prediction not looking so hot as we approach 2022, ha

@kren0006 

I would have taken that bet, then and now!  lol I think your assessment is 100% correct.  It has nothing to do with absolute fidelity, which I feel is getting close to arguable but I still think cost no object vinyl wins by a nose--or maybe even only a nose hair!), and high speed tape by a head (yes, pun intended...!).  25 years ago it was by 1/4 mile!  Vinyl just doesn't suit Jays approach and how he seems to enjoy listening to music.  Nothing wrong with that, but vinyl would disrupt some of Jays commitment to everything else.  Frankly, there are plenty of people focussed on ultra high end vinyl.  Jay has found a really good lane.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

dbarger,

I started audio life around 1978, rapidly improving my vinyl setup reaching a pnnacle around 1985 with the TT/arm/cartridge/phono stage I mentioned above.  But even with friends' low-fi setups, the LP was clearly more detailed and open than the CD of the same recording, around 1985.  Something must have been wrong with those early CD's--I had an LP where side A was from an analog tape recorder, and side B was from a digital recorder with both recorders fed by the same signal.  On this LP, analog side A was lifelike and musical, digital side B had those early digital HF artifacts, but both sides A and B were equally open, unlike how the LP wiped out the CD on other recordings.  So I bought a cheap CD player in the early 90's.  I wasn't happy with CD until the pressings or A/D converters improved.  When I started to do live recordings on DAT in 1995, I found that my recordings sounded more neutral/detailed onto the digital medium of DAT than onto VCR analog tape, although I never had the opportunity to do it onto a good reel-to-reel machine at 15 ips.  

I will be releasing the very first interview that Emile - (Taiko Audio's founder) has ever done on Youtube. I am glad to be the first person to interview him and i hope you all enjoy this. 

I plan to release the video around 215pm Easter Time today. We went over a bunch of interesting topics which include his take on power cords, isolation devices, future plans, and if there will be a new more affordable music server in the future!

Great Part 1 discussion with Emile on the Taiko server. Very much looking forward to Part 2.

+1 @pokey

really enjoyable to hear about his expertise.  Great job Jay.

Jay, perfect work on the ending teaser!

You mentioned welcoming people to visit

and observe cabling differences. This year

I am a traveling ear- Visited several home systems

including Wham/Thor/Spectral sound and would

enjoy visiting with you.

If you were serious about the offer, please PM me 

and we can take it further.

I agree with pokey77 and zprr....what a great interview.  Emile's first video interview and Jay snagged it.  Whoa.

Heads up:

If you own a magico S series and have been thinking about selling it, now is the time to do so. The new S series is releasing next year.  

Here's my new cable system!

https://youtu.be/4g2-__sD1AE

This is a very interesting discussion. You must.watch! 

Interesting points about Jeff Rowland. I agree 100% that the class D models are not his best efforts ( even though he may think so). The model 8 and 9 were where Jeff hit it out of the park, and where, I believe, he should go back to..Class AB. 

To this day, I very very rarely hear a ss amp that can better my JR model 8T that Jeff modded...after all of these years! Even today, if you look inside the model 8 (or 9) you are astounded by the build quality and parts.

Could not ope your cable review

No T&A?

Here are the Shunyata omega PCs for the first time in the system. These have no miles on them. 

https://youtu.be/gYVLEh8Hpck

Shunyata Omega QRs added to the music server

https://youtu.be/us7uYc1B7-g

Jay, sorry, the last several links you posted are not highlighted.

Are we getting ripped off with the ultra high end? Are we overpaying? What is our responsibility as buyers? 

On my next video i plan to talk about certain areas that are often not talked about. Don't miss it 

Are we getting ripped off with the ultra high end? Are we overpaying? What is our responsibility as buyers?

Not a ripoff if someone is willingly paying for it and company stays in business.  Economics 101!

we are about to find out my thoughts on this 2 part video series. 

video will drop in 30 minutes. Do not miss it!

here is the video !!!