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Shanling T100 to the T200 shootout

I got a chance to listen to these two players today and was wondering what others think about these. First these are both really good players. I was listening to them on a really high end Krell (not sure the models .. really big monoblocks) and B&W signature 800 system. For me, I did not hear any memorable difference between the two for redbook CD. Some people have stated the T100 sounds better but I liked them both. SACD was quit interesting... I used the following disks: Chick Corea Rendezvous in NY, Moussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (telarc), and Monty meets Sly and Robbie (telarc). The last disc showed very little difference between CD and SACD I think do to the heavy bass like that dominates the recording. The CC showed little difference in instruments like the vibraphone and vocals (which surprised me) but a significant difference in the Piano. In CD mode the Piano seemed to be almost secondary to vocals and the vibes. In SACD mode the piano really stood out. It became really obvious that he was playing really fine grand piano and not something smaller. looking back at the liner notes it turns out to have been a 9 ft Yamaha concert grand. You could really hear the hammer hit. On the Moussorgsky the whole orchestra was bigger, more dynamic, and cleaner..

The one thing that did not really change was the imaging, both imaged well. The soundstage was not much bigger or wider it was just cleaner somehow. I'm thinking about picking up the T200 but I can get the T100 at a great price.

I only spent a couple of hours and would like to hear from someone that has spent some time with these players...
Thanks
Bruce
btrvalik

Showing 4 responses by bluefin

bluefin
111 posts
 
In the beginning, I try to A/B same versin of SACD and CD. Not impressed by remastered recording from 10 or 20 years ago. Then, try DSD recording Mahler symphony by TELARC. Don't even need to bother A/B, that's something I can only hear from LP. Since then, I have been trying to convince people to give SACD chances.

As far as some people has very advanced CD player upsampling like crazy or adding tube to the output. Some companies try to push the sound quality based on existing CD source people have. However, I think, you can have the same or better quality at SACD at lower lost.
Using tube preamp and a mid priced SACD player would be cheaper at this point, although I agree we need more software. "Tube" is still the same "dirty trick" by many CD player makers now. It smooth out the sound, I am not surprized by the comment of "not much difference between CD v.s. SACD on tube based machines", especially on Krell/B&W type of setup(these things usually need tube somewhere in the link to warm things up). It is the "tube" dominate most of sound. Besides the magic of "tube", my ears told me that SACD is better format than CD. All those CD machines upsampling to high frequency, aren't they trying to design a CD player sound like a "more true&honest" SACD?
bluefin
111 posts
 
Add two more facts:
(1)
Some high-end redbook machines converts PCM(CD) to DSD(used in SACD) and have good result simply because coding/decoding/tranmission on DSD is simply better.
(2)
New high end CD players tend to play games on upsampling to smooth out the sound and increase the dynamic. Some upsamples at almost 5 to 10 times than orignal data. SACD used higher sampling and bits in original as is.

Today's CD machine maker is borrowing the technology from a newer SACD format. You tell me why! Are those engineers nuts?
bluefin
111 posts
 
Again, people are arguing their horses running faster than cars because of emotion. Any one think their PC's 386 running better than P4 here? Because your horse running faster than a crappy car, does not mean any car will lose to your horse. Get a newly released symphony SACD recorded in DSD, and hear them yourself. New technology like SACD is invented 20 years after Mile's. Do you really want to use this thing to judge a new format? ?? ???
Even you have Leica, it is hard for it to have a reprint from a picture taken 20 years ago. Go out and shoot today. Don't keep claiming your picture taken by old Kodak 20 years ago is better than today's Leica. The reason of so so picture is because even a 100% perfect copy machine can't convert old picture to new ones. Free yourself to take new pictures today and tell other people what you see. The real limitation is short of new SACD recording, but we can boost it. If audiophile don't, who will?
I also have more LP and CD than SACD, but to tell you from my heart, accoustically SACD is better than CD and it is easier to use and keep than LP. (I also agree with Trelja that LP still sounds best to me so far.)
bluefin
111 posts
 
In a church, lots of echo (but phase is random due to many reflections) and we love it. In a samll room with mirrors, echo is too strong and coherent, we hate it. Tube add some distortion, we may like the extra harmonics. You are right about these except upsampling.

Upsampling or true higher sampling like SACD allows DSP to operate at lower noise and DAC is easier to achieve good result compared to original CD. But it means to be "more accurate", not like privous bad things turning out to be good. Even though it is less noisy does not mean it has no distortion. Processing DSP and DAC in real CKT is not distortion free, so different methods of upsampling still carry it's own charactor(from different distortion) on the sound. That's why different upsampling machine still has its own flavor. You may like the flavor. Yet don't forget that upsampling has more added flavor than SACD because upsampling is still engineering added iteration v.s. bit by bit real SACD. And engineers have the freedom to sweat it more on upsampling trying differnt iterations but there is no game on SACD(not needed anyway).

There is a negative side on upsampling. Some musician or recording engineer may protest the upsampling because it use the same method to DSP process all CD's. In the end, it will make all CD's sound more or less the same(or say close). And it might be smoother than real live one is, even the performer intends to make it rough. There is a dangerous thing, good or bad singers all sound pretty smooth, you can't tell good v.s. bad singers and recording engineers any more. Keep adding the same sugar to every cake can be "unwanted" at some point. You can't tell its blueberry or redberry, all you got are sweat cakes.

The nice thing is that you still can use all your CD collections.

"Tube" is kind of doing the same thing, so it all depends customer's choice. Enjoy the music.

BTW don't forget that you like upsampled one because its DSP/DAC operating at higher rate like SACD. New CD machines take the idea and try to improve the sound. Does it tell you which format is better technology?
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