We tested any streamers/separate dacs this year. It doesn't matter which dac you use, you will lose an important part in the middle freq.
The diversity in the middle freqencies are a lot less. Even with the Aurender W20 and DCS dac you can hear it.
USB is not a good thing to be used for audio. Many technical people who develope dacs agreed on this.
Streamers with an inbuild dac can easily win from streamer/dac combination.
We use shootouts and use numbers who make it very easy to understand what it does when the diversity in the middle freq. is a lot less.
I think when people would have more knowledge and insight in real music that we would have less of these silly demos with streamer/dac combo's. |
One of the Best front ends I've ever heard is the Modwrighted Sony XA5400ES WITH FULL TRUTH MOD! Vinyl like qualities with tremendous palpability! |
BigKidz,
BigKidz,
I noticed you’re on a lot of threads marketing your DHT Dac and you claim yours will blow the rest out of the water. What are you actually selling?
I am familiar with all MSB Products, I was a dealer for them. I am very familiar with Lampizator Golden Gate and Big 7, they are all very good Dacs. I find the Lampi not real sounding, its like the tube bloom is overemphasized. It is Musical until you realize the amount of digital data being lost during playback. I think they are good dacs and it will appeal to some crowds. Personally I prefer a Tubeless Dac and then mate it with a Tube Pre-amp and Power Amp. This gives the best of both worlds.
Lampizator will never reach the MSB level for transparency. It seems to mask the Digital hardness by using many Tubes to my opinion.
I have had all the MSB Dacs in my shop ( Was a dealer for MSB) and surprisingly the best MSB dac for long term listening was the Analog DAC, with the Analog Power supply. It was the cheapest and the best sounding out of the bunch. The Diamond were going into the realms of fatigue and the highs just seemed over tipped or too forward. |
Outboard DAC's have always presented there own unique problems...after all, what you hook them up to and how can be severely detrimental to the sound. |
It has arrived! My DHT DAC will have more soul than most high priced analog set-ups. No comparison.
Happy Listening. |
Robpriore-bravo! We can only keep telling the unknowing mass of music loving listeners. It is no longer a secret. Absolute isolation will give anyone at least an "enormous" improvement in their digital listening. Why else is isolation and scrupulously clean power emphasized by the best manufactures? I wish some observers of this post would check it out and post their findings. Just try out an Equitech 2Q and let us know. |
You need clean power for digital to sound right. If you implement digital properly it will sound like vinyl - I know exactly what you mean by the soul of music, it's about the right timing. With digital you can go beyond vinyl to get a spectral sound. Spectral is soulful plus absence of noise, the full experience of the spaces between musical notes.
Check out some of my other posts on clean power and you can read more about how to get the best sound from digital. With digital the implementation is more important than the cost of any one component.
There's more on usbdisruptor . com as well. |
It has Soul. It all goes back to mastering. I have owned LP's 1st pressings and 1200 CD's some of the LP's sound better others times CD's sound better. Digital you need a low noise floor, kill the noise from RF by terminating unused inputs and out puts. Well made units like Esoteric, Marantz reference, and others of that quality and well mastered CD's you will feel like tapping your foot and dancing just like LP's can do. I've heard later pressing of a vinyl sound like a transistor radio and as bad as a bad CD mastering. The rap digital as is not fair, when it 1st came out in was the dark ages, where vinyl had 40 years to get it right. Listen to old 78's and you will see how far mastering came by the mid 50,s.
More myth than fact in the tireless debate. Buy good gear, look for well recorded music and sit back and enjoy. Don't be fooled, they got everyone on downloading to get sales back, vinyl back for the boomers who grew up with it. Me don't starting over and rebuy again.
My system sounds good and I enjoy the
Music either way, both are not like you hear in the studio, choose your coloration and enjoy. To say a turntable is colorless is a joke, it puts up feed back from the music your playing which is nice to the ear, but choose your stylus by the sound you like, and that can very from brighter to warmer. |
Milpai,
So you accuse before reading the article? Unhelpful. The article is self-explanatory and fits PERECTLY with this thread.
As does this article:
http://lautsprecherdesign.de/en/reviews/high-end-2015-soundgalleries-en.html
The other reference was on Matt's thread and we have a running discussion on certain Dacs there, including the Big7. Matt responded that he finally heard it at AXPONA. |
05-26-15: Milpai
Wisnon,
Are you a Lampi dealer? I saw the same link on another thread today. He's Audiolabyrinth TWIN brother. LOL! |
Wisnon,
I wondered about that because you simply posted a link and did not say anything about the original topic. |
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No, I am in Pharma. When you see you good thing, is it wrong to share it. I posted about Dartzeel too...does that make me a dealer for them?
This article in Audiostream is NOT about Lampizator, but rather about a way of implementing digital that cuts the gap to analog and the Regen device and Win10 are 2 huge factors. Did you actually read the article? |
Wisnon, Are you a Lampi dealer? I saw the same link on another thread today. |
http://www.audiostream.com/content/lampizator-hq-player-audiopax-avante-garde-digital-done-right |
Geoff,That's .000441, or 1/100,000 the sampling rate of Redbook CD! |
Geoff wrote.
When a person dies he weighs 0.00044 ounces lighter as measured with an atomic scale. That's the mass of his soul.
Probably the contents of the lungs that was their last breath.
Tom |
Colekat, generally I agree with what you say here.
Your last sentence, "If there was a gathering of all these…." is the subjunctive voice. It should be "If there were a gathering of all these…" I grant that few pay any attention to such now days. |
Notice that none of the original contributors to this thread are still chiming in! Good thing, the spelling and grammar was almost unreadable. Personally, I don't get all the fuss about this. If you read any of these threads long enough, it's apparent people who listen to music and write on threads are very interested in other people's opinions! Even when it starts out helpful, ultimately all these threads turn into pissing wars and the love fades into ego bashing. Or, someone is trying to sell us something that's better than we could imagine on our own. I mean really, what is the "soul" of the music. That's so vague. I think too many people believe they are missing something in thier music experience that's not there unless you believe it's there. And there are so many choices, does someone think they have absolutely put together the ultimate system! At some point, it's time to put the checkbook away and sit down and listen to the music. The soul is in the decision to hear what is satisfying, and it's there as soon as you think it is. It's pretty funny to read through these long threads and try to remember what the hell the original topic is, although this one is still on track, it's tainted with selfish motives and closed mindedness, and there is no soul in that, digital or analog!
As for digital, it is by far a satisifying experience with plenty of " soul" , and obviously it is just getting going. The only problem is there are so many
brilliant people improving the format there has become a gluttanty of pathways to choose. If there was a gathering of all these resources and a consensus of all this brilliance, then the soul would surely shine. |
Now I figured, The soul is in the pickup needle. You can't have that in digital. |
Audioengr, pretty soon all master tapes will be quad DSD digital tapes. We had better hope that this format captures the "soul" of music.
I really don't think that "soul" is the goal. Rather, the emotion of the musicians is there in both vinyl and digital, but the filters and lost resolution best accounts for the deficiency with 44.1 digital versus the best vinyl. |
When a person dies he weighs 0.00044 ounces lighter as measured with an atomic scale. That's the mass of his soul. |
Can I have please one quantum of soul? |
I agree. Digital is getting closer |
I might be a bit biased, but if the question is "When is digital going to get the soul of music?", the answer might just well be the slightly revised/upgraded Vitus SCD-025 spinner which adds a DSD USB board that bypasses the receiver and SRC part & sends DSD, DxD and DoP signals direct to the dacs. This player was already incredibly resolving, rich, pure and analogue sounding, but now raises the bar even higher. |
Steve, different strokes for different folks. If you could hear what I've heard with my ears...
Cheers |
I listened through headphones to master tapes on a pro machine at RMAF 2013. Not impressed frankly. I like my digital better.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Hi, Has any one listened to the new remastered mono Beatles complete compiled set?, My wife is a huge fan, I wanted to know if this is a good high-end recording for her to awe at and enjoy, maybe hear parts of the music that was not exsposed before?, would this be a worth while christmas gift? |
Jwm, if all of the old analog master tapes have deteriorated and saved only in quad DSD, we have to hope the digital is equal to what used to be master tapes. |
The texture and sweetness is all wrong or completely MIA on digital, some are a little better but by and large tape, even the humble cassette, gets this critical part right. Digital is just SO bland. There, now I feel better. |
The texture and sweetness is all wrong or completely MIA on digital, some are a little better but by and large tape, even the humble cassette, gets this critical part right. Digital is just SO bland. There, now I feel better. |
Digital is good now, buy still not master tape quality. Some day maybe. |
"I think digital has the potential now to be the equal of master tapes"
I have not heard it yet, but I agree the potential is there. |
I think this is a dead end thread. I think digital has the potential now to be the equal of master tapes. Sony is supposedly in the process of preserving its master tapes into quad DSD, but using a device with many opamps which are ruining the recording. So soon vinyl will be digital.
Already I listen to double DSD from sacds and upsampled from SACDs. I am most struck that what I hear from old vinyl differs greatly from that on reissues. Most often the high end is gone reissues.
I have a good vinyl system also but because of the above seldom can I say much about the comparison as they are different mastering. |
Today's digital recordings are much better than they were 10 years ago. In addition, with FLAC becoming available online (see http://tidalhifi.com/sc), one only needs a good DAC that can take USB transfer from a computer and the rest is essentially history. To me, the price and complexity of a turntable, its artificial "warm" sound, lack of details when there is more than 3 instruments, cracking and popping sounds and lack of good quality vinyls are all sufficient reasons for me to stay away from Vinyl.
In my opinion, the very subjective "soul of the music" argument made by vinyl owners seems to be there so that they can justify to themselves that their exorbitant investment was worth it. If you listen to live instruments, good quality digital is much closer to reality than Vinyl, but then again, maybe reality is not as “Soulful” as vinyls… |
Digital compare to a good tape deck is akin to the steak in the movie The Fly that gets teleported from one pod to the other. When the steak is recovered from the second pod it's grilled up and tasted. But it tastes terrible, not like a steak, something happened on the way to the second pod. |
Digital is definitely there; and has been since at least 2005.
With supreme power conditioning-for the digital - clarity, dynamics, detail, delicacy and musicality are available from my rather modest (well, not particularly highly rated) Lexicon RT-20 through my reference Spectral & MIT gear. My reference for this is my Goldmund turntable. More info to follow. |
Very nice albums to have. Pretty hard to notice tape hiss with all that music going on. |
Ptss - I have some old R2R transfers to digital including Sinatra, Take 5, and Ella F. and these have tape hiss. On my system, the brain masks it out pretty fast because it is centered in the image and unmoving.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Even tape hiss is far more audible when you have all aspects of phase in order along with exceptional (I consider this 'just adaquate') isolation and ac power (conditioning) cleaning. Even Rye is better in a clean glass-i.e. no soap residue.(Think of appreciating hi-fi sound as like appreciating exceptional liquor-mix (dirt) don't add value. |
Transfers are done direct to digital now, so no analog tape is involved and older ones were done with Dolby equalization.
Rsf507 - have you heard Empirical Audio Overdrive DAC?
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
Speaking of tape hiss how come one rarely hears it with CDs? I kind like at least to be able to hear it if it's there. I smell a rat. |
I've heard much of the best digital (no need to mention names) but every time I listen to vinyl I hear the soul of the music, never with digital. |
You will hear tape hiss or the effects of Dolby equalization even in a R2R. Not in digital.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
15ips R2R is impossible to challenge even with vinyl. |
"This is only the beginning of better things to come."
Steve,
Last not least thanks to your work, I think you're definitely right on that one.
On the other hand I cannot quite agree with what you say about vinyl. New hardware, from AR to Lamm, just to mention some, show us, that there is more in those grooves than what we thought possible. |
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Vinyl can be excellent, but it has its limitations, including dynamic range and frequency response. These are not limiters for digital. Digital of course has its issues, including jitter, format, sample-rate, digital filtering and I/V conversion. The fortunate thing is that these digital issues can be continuously improved, whereas we have hit the wall on the vinyl limitations. Vinyl is going nowhere and digital continues to improve.
There area few digital systems that now challenge vinyl and even reel-to-reel tape. There will be more in the future. This is only the beginning of better things to come.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
"I think there is a clear difference between the best digital sound and the best vinyl sound. The first is very musical and the second can be very real sounding, as though you are there at the recording."
Tbg,
I really like that. It is certainly worth pondering about. If you equate "musical" with what we might hear at a live concert, especially when the music starts to really draw you into it, I think I must fully agree with your statement.
Happy listening to both sources! |
Having just returned from the RMAF and again heard very musical reproduction of mono records, I think there is a clear difference between the best digital sound and the best vinyl sound. The first is very musical and the second can be very real sounding, as though you are there at the recording.
I bought my first cds in London in 1983. I had no cd player at the time. I can assure you that what I heard when I got my first Dual Audio toaster like cd player has been totally eclipsed today with my present double DSD playback system. Getting the digital filters well beyond 50 kHz has revealed much of the music that they previously obscured. |
