When is digital going to get the soul of music?
Serus (Ori), I really hoped you can make it over tomorrow at 3PM. At this point I hope your customer Mmakshak makes it over. Since he has visited you in the past, I am sure he can give you a nice report. Please feel free to contact me at any time and schedule e visit. I've heard about your cables. People say they are amazing. I hope Mmakshak will bring your latest tomorrow for A-B test against my ICs. The reason I wanted you to stop by tomorrow is because I still have the re-engineered Esoteric UX-1 Universal Player. This one was supposed to be my own, but the first one I built got stolen in a DHL warehouse in Belgium (another DHL horror story), so I will need to send this one to Europe early next week. I will sure have another one, but I don't really know when. :-(....It really deserves to be heard as it does not have any signs of “Digital”. Regards, Alex |
Robm321, I would agree with you to the extent that the IMPLEMENTATION of Digital is clearly inferior to vinyl. Please believe me when I say that, if you need 5 things to make vinyl sounds best, you need at least 50 to make Digital sound best. A really nice guy and also owner of $100K SOTA vinyl setup visited me at the CES show. I played 88.2KHz/24bit DVD-A for him which I have personally recorded from a $25K vinyl setup. Although the 25K vinyl can not compare with 100K vinyl, the above mentioned gentleman agreed that it was just like the actual vinyl was playing - no sign of digital. We have also A-B-ed this recording with the actual 25K vinyl setup it was recorded from. There is no difference one can hear. I will soon visit the nice gentleman with the 100K vinyl setup and will record 96KHz/24bit DVD-A out of it. There will not be any difference on A-B test, I guarantee it. Bottom line is that whatever vinyl carries as information can be captured and reproduced with Digital without any negative artifact to the ear. Digital offers the resolution and sound quality of vinyl; it’s just that it takes a lot more with it to get it right. Regards, Alex |
Mmakshak, thank you for coming over! I have to say that your (Ori's) cables were among the best Copper cables I've heard, very nice. The Nat King Cole was Steve Hoffman's amazing work (DCC) made from the original Analog Master Tape. It was not Reference Recordings although these are really great as well. I would also agree with you that Analog recordings have "more soul" than all Digital ones, but again, this comes to implementation because everything starts with Analog anyway. :) Keep in touch! May be you can come back here again, this time with Ori. Regards, Alex |
My vote for the most soulfull, emotionally involving player goes to the TRL/Sony 900. Jack, your previous posts indicate that it was the Esoteric DV-50 (which is the best ever and as good as the $30K processor), then it was the Sony 595, then it was Sony 2000ES, then, wait, the best ever and most musical ever is the Marantz SA-14. What I am talking about? The best ever now is the NS900V - the pearl of the CES2006. Any press on that by any chance? Remember this from me Jack, Epoxy can not be upgraded. Regards, Alex |
Well said Albert! Thank God for Reference Recordings HRx! This is probably as good as a mortal can get. :-) I am in total disbelief listening to these converted to LPCM DVD-A on my NWO-M! Amazing! I guess what is not realized on this thread is that the best analog is what the best sound comes from, and if you can get digital to sound close enough, you already have a winner. IMO, of course. Best wishes, Alex Peychev |
Frank, The recording is usually done in the analog domain using high quality Pro tape machines, or direct-to-disc cutting lathe, or at high resolution digital PCM or DSD. So unless if you have a vinyl pressing from the master analog tape or high-res digital master (DSD or PCM 176.4/24 +), there is no way to experience anything that is even close to the original performance. What Albert tied to say is that, even though the original master recording is initially done in the digital domain, it will 99% sound best on vinyl compared to any uncompressed (WAV or AIFF) digital with less than 176.4/24 resolution. I do have recordings that were done on vinyl and also in SACD/DVD-A so I can compare. Not only that, I've experimented with my own digital recordings from my vinyl setup using the industry-standard top-line AKM Analog to Digital Converters. For the record, nothing that is WAV or AIFF and less than 176.4/24 or 192/24 compares to the vinyl on A-B test. The CDs I made from those tests are my “car copies”. So while I am sure you are immensely enjoying the convenience of your digital, it really takes a great deal of effort to approach analog quality with digital. CD can indeed sound very nice but nowhere near vinyl made from the original analog or digital master recording. Just my 2 cents as always! Best, Alex Peychev |
I wish there was a CD player that allowed me to listen without being constantly reminded of it's flaws. Same here but its very difficult creating such beast. :-) That being said I have heard positive things about your players if you're the Alex Peychev that does all the digital work. Yep, same Alex Peychev. :-) Thank you for the nice words! My friend Joe Harley who's behind the Blue Note Jazz Vinyl Reissues at Music Matters was also responsible for the JVC HRCD project. Joe and I have been friends for 30+ years, he has an incredible ear ! I respect Joe Harley, although I don't know him in person. I agree with him because my experience is similar. I think there is a lot going on with digital clock speed, error rate and bit problems that really screw with the sound. Eventually this problem will be solved but I'm not going to wait. Absolutely, clocking and data transfer are very important, but there is more. :-) When digital gets where it should be and for a price I can justify, I'll jump on board. I have digital right now but it's an Oppo. I don't blame you! With analog sources like yours it will be next to impossible not to find digital flaws. The problem is many players that cost $15K, 20K $45K and more beats the stuffings out of the Oppo but still gets creamed by my Studer and turntable. With that much invested in digital I'd be pissed. Sure, but in my experience there are also recordings available on high-res digital media that, for some reason, sound better than the analog release, so I guess good digital is not a bad thing to have around. Hope I live long enough for it to be fixed. I think the technology is there but like I've posted here at Audiogon a dozen times, as long as Apple is making hundreds of millions selling MP3, the guys capable of issuing (true) high resolution digital are not even looking. Maybe you would consider auditioning my NWO-M digital player, and I'd be thrilled if Joe Harley can hear it too!! Best, Alex Peychev |
Muralman1, The 47 Lab Flatfish transport is house made. It is a top loader rigidly supported. The sound feeding my DAC is as pure as the driven snow. I share your thought on simplicity. Sure, the metal transport housing pieces are house-made, not the actual CD transport. CD transport is the laser/tracking/spindle motor assembly and associated Digital Signal Processing and Servo. That cannot be house-made so it is either Philips or Sony. Best, Alex Peychev |
Muralman1, One of my all-time favorites and system test disc is the Reference Recordings "Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances". If you hear the difference between this excellent CD and the RR 176.4Khz/24bit HRx disc made from the original analog master, you will change your mind, forever! :-) Simply, half of the info is missing on the CD and there is no transport or DAC available to make up for it! Best, Alex Peychev |
Muralman1, It is clear how much in-love you are with your transport, and I appreciate that, but have you seen how a top-line Esoteric VRDS-NEO compares to the "outsourced" transports you are talking about? Take a close look at this here. The "outsourced transports" are on the left. Please note that the shiny disk you see on the picture is a Magnesium clamper that is not only a clamper but the actual spindle motor. In other words, it clamps and spins the disc at the same time. Good luck, Alex Peychev |
There was a hope during the pinnacle of ladder DACs such as PCM63P-K and AD1865. Hi-end industry ruined it with the race for higher sampling rates. The soul was lost in translation. Sure, but those cannot process DSD which, to my ears, has the ability of providing the "soul of the music", just like pure analog, and unlike any other digital format currently available. At least this is my experience after dealing with digital for quite some time now. Best wishes, Alex Peychev |
Guido, I am not trying to defend my product or the fact that Mmaksahk is a beginner (we all started learning at some point in time) but will have to say that, according to the "Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy", Earth MKII was much better. :) So there is “a lot more and even better fish”. :) Nilthepill, there is no upsampling in this particular design based on Denon 3910. This cheaper all-solid-state re-design was intended to be more affordable due to many requests that Brent Rainwater (APL Hi-Fi CSM) and I have received. Mmakshak, it is very good to hear how much you like this Denon 3910 version, especially compared to your vinyl rig. To be honest, I have never been a big vinyl fan, but you're perfectly correct - besides all of its imperfections, the vinyl offers audio quality reference comparable to the original master tape. Why? Well, vinyl is pure analog. :) Sadly, just like digital, we are still limited to the actual vinyl recording quality (regardless of the year it was released). Regards, Alex |
Tbg, Last night I compared Frank Sinatra and Count Basie at the Sands using the original vinyl release and the server with the source disc being a SHM release to the hard drive. While I am sure that Sinatra/Basie at the Sands is a good sounding recording, I'd suggest evaluating Analog vs. Digital using something like this: Bassface Trio Plays Gershwin Best, Alex Peychev |
Muralman1, I think we have a misunderstanding; I am talking about digital not analog. Here is a description of the Reference Recordings HRx discs And here is the Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances HRx disc I have converted this to Linear PCM 176.4/24 DVD-A using HD-Audio Solo Ultra by Cirlinca so I can play it in my NWO-M. As nice as the CD is, the HRx/DVD-A is light years better. Both came from the same master tape. Best, Alex Peychev |
Frank, When it comes to top-quality, there are only several CD transport manufacturers in the world of which Sony, Philips and Pioneer are used the most for building audiophile equipment. There are some manufacturers building their own mechanisms, but the Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) used are still Sony, Philips or Pioneer (and strangely enough, some recent Sony and Denon products use Panasonic). This being said, I have extensive in-depth experience with all of the above that includes pure CD, CD/SACD and CD/SACD/DVD transports. You are correct that it is much easier to obtain best results with a regular CD transport, but there are limitations to it. The processors are old, noisy and 16 bit (no headroom). The disc spins at x1 speed so there is not much room for large size memory buffering (only 512KB of FIFO memory is used), and the so called "read until right" is impossible, so you hit it and it skips. On the other hand, most CD/SACD/DVD universal transports are built with newer, faster and quieter DSPs with at least 24 bit resolution (lots of headroom for CD data processing). The DSPs have built-in memory controllers and large SDRAM memory devices attached to them (16, 32 or even 64MB). The disc spins at x4 filling up the SDRAM memory. The laser pick-up can go back to a problematic passage and re-read it until the best information is retrieved, all while you are enjoying uninterrupted audio data coming from the memory buffer. The transport jitter is greatly reduced. But what is the problem with such transport then? Unlike CD-only transport, the “universal beast” needs multiple clocks produced by a PLL-based multi-clock generator, usually locked to a 27MHz video clock reference. The PLLs used are very jittery thus decreasing the entire transport performance. But what if the original PLLs and VCOs are replaced with a single PLL solution that is so advanced that its phase noise is as low as the one of a bare crystal? You have a winner, and there is no regular CD transport capable of competing with it, IMHO! Best, Alex Peychev |
