Reply With QuoteMy favourite audiophile experience to date was listening to Dark Side of the Moon on the day of release through my parents Dansette Viva.
Originally Posted by simon-c
Indeed , data is data , DACs are either transparent or coloured.
Best source I ever used was a PC with a high end Asus sound card with an analogue stage using Burr Brown dacs into an Arcam amp in power amp mode.
Ripped disc images.
I reckon these days you can build a better source for under 100 quid than most high end manufacturers sell for 10k .
My favourite audiophile experience to date was listening to Dark Side of the Moon on the day of release through my parents Dansette Viva.
Nah its all in the dac. Solid state device , perfect digital copy .
Its no different to using an offboard dac with a cd transport except in the case of the solid state source arguably its better than any optical based transport at any price.
You could build a pc based source for about £300 that would outperform £10k and up cd players.
I beg to differ.
Speaking as someone who worked as a sound mixer in a professional studio for two years.
I’ve been building PC based sources since about 2001 using decent sound cards with good dacs and clean non resampling data paths.
So much nonsense in hifi land. Reminds me of a “discussion” I had with one enthusiast who insisted on using overpriced cables. Ironic considering the studio responsible for some of his albums used non-exotic but decent cabling that was a fraction of the price.
For a few years I got in to the habit of only listening to compressed music (mp3, 256 or 320kbps).
However a couple of years ago I started listening to CDs again and the difference really is night and day, which is not to say I don't still enjoy mp3s when that is more convenient.
I listen on one of three setups, none particularly pricey.
Cyrus CD6, Cyrus One & JR1 speakers
Cambridge Audio CD player, A1 mk3 amp and some small Gale speakers.
A Denon mini system through any number of head/ear phones non of which cost more £30.
WTF, is that actually real, seriously. Do people actually buy these for £530 thinking it will improve what they hear.Nah, I'm reasonably sane.
I did have a huge laugh years ago at the power cable nonsense.
Like this:
http://petertyson.co.uk/index.php/na...yABEgLWGfD_BwE
Yep. That's a kettle lead.
If you buy it on finance it's £629.28.
Yes it is but you don’t need to use compressed files just because you use a solid state playback system.
In fact you can get better than CD quality a lot easier that route than pretty much any other.
. I really hope no one buys this junk. Its bordering on immoral to sell this.WTF, is that actually real, seriously. Do people actually buy these for £530 thinking it will improve what they hear.
If you buy it on finance it's £629.28.
But isn't selling stuff like this selling what is in effect a shared delusion. I.e. People choose to buy into it, like a form of (self-)hypnosis.
See my comments on this subject above about the various articles on the pwbelectronics.co.uk website.
Why do you assume I had a budget CD player? I actually chopped in very nice meridian and naim CD players to move to a good streamer, CD are not like vinyl, they are just 0 and 1’s, and I constantly got the boxes and discs mixed up
Indeed, whether the digital data source is digital data stored on CD or digital data stored in some other format, it's all the same 1's and 0's.
This issue is separate to the way that some digital storage formats use lossy compression but there's nothing about digital streaming data that requires or mandates lossy compression, although I recognise that many people still incorrectly conflate streamed data with lossy compression.
But if you have ripped the CD onto a data store using a lossless file format, then it follows that the "musical nuances, holographic imagery, dynamics and scale" in the streamer's data stream MUST be identical to the data stream coming directly off the CD. This is because it would be the SAME 1' and 0's. There physically cannot be any difference, as long as the data storage format is a lossless one.
By the way, what is "holographic imagery" in relation to music?
If you are referring to encoded channels in the data then if it's there in the CD data then it will be there in the stored format data (as long as the format used is designed to encode more channels than just stereo channels). There is nothing special about CD format data that cannot be encoded in suitable digital music formats.
I am pointing out the obvious when I say that signal paths within a computer are digital ones. It is safe to say that they are near-perfect, if the computer is working. If defects were at a level that any human could hear then it is also likely that the computer would not be working.
With PC components, cheap as chips means mass production which generally means operationally as near perfect as you will ever get.
Digital data paths simply do not suffer in the same way from the issues that can apply to analogue data paths. If interference or cross talk is really that bad in a digital system then typically it will most likely not be working at all as the data being carried will have become invalid. The computer will hang or crash due to the invalid data. If the data is still valid then we know it's working near-perfectly.
Went to the Indulgence show at Hammersmith over the weekend. Was shown a nice dac - there were several models with a starting price of around 30K.
(a) I am merely going on what is physically possible with the available technology.
(b) The audiophile community is, how can I put it, well known for believing in physically impossible 'stories', things that are a matter of subjectivity instead of objectively measurable, real world difference.
(c) Have "millions of audiophiles worldwide" really "auditioned Streamer vs CD players"? Millions, really? I'm not saying that millions is impossible but it does seem a bit unlikely that it's really millions.
(d) And, regardless of whether or not it is millions, how were these auditions carried out? Were they double-blind tests? If not, then subjective expectation and imagination will play as big a part as anything objectively real.
(e) I would be more than willing to accept that there is a difference if a statistically significant number of double-blind tests indicate that there is a repeatable, objective difference between the same data streamed from a CD compared to from a hard disk using a file format that exactly duplicates the data on the CD from which it was copied (with the same analogue components in all cases). Has such a study been done?
Last edited by markrlondon; 2nd October 2017 at 16:53.
My Bluesound streamer sounds as good as my DCS Puccini CD player, both run through the same clock
I sincerely hope you enjoy listening to your system, and I'm sure it sounds great
Out of interest I found the DAC used in the Accuphase CD player to see if it was something special, it costs £6.96 plus VAT from RS, the CD player costs about £5k and so maybe the transport is where all the holography comes from
Ha all this time I've been listening to FLACs through a Sabre DAC, I was missing the holography I would have had from a CD player, who knew?!
Surely the lack of realism is more to do with the compression of audio through steamed formats rather than the quality of the playback hardware?
(f) vinyl is still better! To quote the late great John Peel "surface noise? life has surface noise! so there!"
ktmog6uk
marchingontogether!
But any studio recorded tracks in the past forty odd years aren't recorded like that - e.g. as a "live" performance. They are all multi tracked if they use real instruments at all.
So presumably this holography is essentially faked? In which case it really isn't an accurate representation of the source material.
Or am I missing something?
So clever my foot fell off.
Digital data is digital data. You can rip and a CD to FLAC and then burn it back to CD and have an identical result.
Upgrade your usb cable and see if your documents print any better.
I suspect any difference will be in the DAC units or where things go analogue through interconnect or speaker cables.
Anyone tried one of these?
Little Dot Valve amp. Using headphones more due to my study being next to my daughter's bedroom.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...f_rd_i=desktop
Don't worry, I'm sure he'd be easily be able to identify all those nuances and holograms and spooky digital degradations in a blind listening test, since the difference is allegedly so obvious.
Years of motorcycles has left me with low level tinnitus; the rebuilt Linn Sondek still gets a workout, but the general sound degradation prevents me from going much more insane than that!
Could you expand pls, reviews online all seem very positive .
Hehe, quite.
Indeed, some things sounding better than others seems likely (in the absence of objective evidence to the contrary) to be all in the mind and/or differing analogue components. There's nothing wrong with that but I think it's best to admit the truth.
Oh, really? Should be quite trivial to prove me wrong, then. :)
Is the sound as accurate? No. But a reasonable vinyl set up is much more listenable to me, I can listen to vinyl for hours but I tend to find digital media harder to listen to- ear fatigue sets in. About 2006 I sold all my hefty vinyl collection and bought about 2000 cd's, in 2015 a musical mate gave me a one off pressing and started me back on the slippery vinyl slope back to owning 1500 lp's again in two years!
It is intriguing that certain types of data degradation are aesthetically pleasing.
It might be interesting to do some double-blind trials to find out if it is a matter of experience or inate preference? For example, I've listened to very little music on vinyl so I don't have a pre-existing preference for it. Would I prefer the sound of vinyl compared to digitally stored music?
That's an interesting question, as the "qualities" of sound and music are very subjective indeed.
I usually listen to music in my car, from an iPod. I am perfectly happy with this. I rarely listen to CD's these days, but I am aware they do have significantly greater range. A few months ago I was at friends house (a very successful commercial composer, Disney, various movies, global adverts and TV etc) I have worked with in a previous career.
We got listening to some vinyl on his decent (but not ridiculously high-end) system. It did sound wonderful and the sonic range did surprise me by just how different it was.
So clever my foot fell off.
Humans prefer sounds with overtones to pure waveforms hence we prefer flutes to sine waves. I guess we all like them a bit differently, and each audio set-up will have a subtly different emphasis that will appeal to some but not others.
FWIW I mainly listen to streamed music but when I have the time I do like to listen to music on my vintage Thorens, it is a magnificent thing...
Bit of a tangent here but bear with me, I'll get back on track shortly.
A few months ago, someone posted a recording of Katie Price singing. It wasn't bad.
Then I listened to the pre-autotune version. It was absolutely horrendous. I had no idea that autotone was so powerful. I thought it might re-tune a note to perfect pitch but it seems it works absolute miracles.
I was wondering whether there's any software that can interpret the 'sound stage' that What HiFi reviewers used to talk about. I remember the articles on Krell amplifiers and Acoustic Energy AE1s being particularly florid. Could this analysis be identified by software?
That way, it would be possible to remove the subjective element that a reviewer brings with them and we could all understand once and for all whether a certain item of equipment makes a difference.
If we can identify warmth or holographic depth then we can recreate it - perhaps in the same way that some car manufacturers - at a basic level - program an exhaust note?
Right, I'm feeling a bit foolish now as I've just typed AE1s into YouTube and it came up with a recording of a system by a rather old Samsung S3 phone.
By any accounts, a fairly awful way of recording the output of a decent system.
However, playing it back on the almost equally awful internal speaker of my Samsung S8 it sounds... well, listen for yourself. Quite good.
Yes, Mark Levinsons Cello company did the sound pallete after his eponymous company was bought by one of the conglomerates, also a company called Lyngdorf (and others probably) does some amps with room correction and all sorts of digital magic built in, there are also plug ins for pc media players that do similar things. Of course the Vinyl, valves, beards and twigs in their beer brigade pooh-pooh this kind of thing but having heard the first generation of Lyngdorfs technology many moons ago I was quite impressed, certainly where you have very difficult rooms to deal with (it can only do so much though).
I've done blind a/b comparisons between vinyl and digital and the only way i can tell the difference is the surface noise so I just go with the best, cheapest option.
My days of 5 figure systems are behind me now but then 99% of my listening is in my home office via spotify.
On the streaming versus CD debate, I have a Naim HDX hard disk player which is capable both of ripping a CD to hard disk and effectively streaming from that, but you can if you want just play the CD just like you would in a normal CD player.
I can't tell any difference between playing the CD as a CD, or streaming it. Paraphrasing one of the posts above, bits are bits. Both routes go through the same DAC.
I also use the HDX as a music store to stream to other systems around the house, the main one of those being a Naim Supernait plugged into a Naim ND5XS Network Player. That sounds pretty good - different from the main system to which the HDX is connected - a Naim NAC252/Supercap DR/NAP300 DR, but perfectly acceptable nonetheless. I suspect if I plugged the HDX into the second system, CD's played as CD's would sound just the same as the CD streamed from the hard disk. I can't be bothered to pull all the systems to bits to find out though
Yes, that's my approach. I would like a vintage but powerful NAD amp and a pair of AE1s when the children are older. Not now though.
I worked with someone who had to choose which pressing plant would be used to make the CDs for a Pink Floyd album. He told me Pink Floyd's sound engineer objected to the cheap Eastern European plant he'd chosen as 'the sound quality is worse'. Nonsense thought my friend and organised a blind test of CDs pressed from different plants, which the sound engineer proceeded to identify with 100% accuracy.
My Physics degree tells me that is impossible. But guess who got to choose the pressing plant.
And don't get me started on my NAD3020 that I lent to my brother in law 20 years ago before I knew what a lowlife he is.
Last edited by alfat33; 3rd October 2017 at 17:09.
Readers/contributors here might enjoy this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfecting-.../dp/1847081401
It's a history of recorded music which my brother - a recovering audiophile and production manager for a big UK label - bought me. Highly recommended and addresses many questions raised here.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I thought this sort of stupidity had gone.
It's a funny story but I don't believe it.
My extremely modest setup-
Q Acoustics 3020's
Cambridge Audio 351a amp (built in DAC)
Laptop plugged into DAC bypassing sound card
Harmon Kardon BTA10 (for connecting phone/iPad)
Google play music subscription!
Certainly low end, but very pleased with this setup for the price.
Fair enough. The bits I know to be true are that my friend did have that job, he did tell me, and their artist contract did allow them to specify the pressing plant.
The rest is part of the rich tapestry of life.
I can believe this one because there are physical reasons why it could be true. A poor quality CD pressing will possibly have a higher error rate than a good quality CD pressing.
It's no different to when a CD or DVD gets dirty; there will be more errors when reading data off a dirty CD/DVD than off a clean one.
Once the data is read (assuming the data is successfully read from the source format), then at the stage it's all the same 1's and 0's.
Last edited by markrlondon; 3rd October 2017 at 18:40.
Sorry but he's right depending on how it was recorded. I've heard a lot of good streamers but many more high end CD players which don't restrict dynamic range (the difference between the loudest and quietest part of the sound).
There's more to just sticking a DAC in a streamer and a CD player. My CD player is better than my NAS drive but the NAS drive is convenient.
I've got the MK1 version although i haven't used it for a while. It's pretty good for the money IMO. A touch of background noise at very high volume but a decent sound and plenty of tube rolling options which can be fun. Has driven every headphone i've tried through it without issue too.
For the money it's worth a punt so will give it a go!
My own experience with both streamers and CD players is that you need 3 basic elements for a decent sound. Bit perfect data, a decent DAC and a properly designed and specced output stage using decent components. Get it right and both can sound sublime. I've also found that where spending more money translates into better electronic design and higher specced components this equals better sound.
I'll give you a lend of mine if you like. Try before you buy and all that.
This thread has exposed my ignorance. That's always good as it means I'm learning new things - an approach to life I'm trying to maintain.
Anyway...
In the Amazon add for that amp, it says it increases harmonic distortion.
Is that good?
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