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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / New USB Cable
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on: December 09, 2012, 03:00:37 am
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I looked for the best forum to post this, and concluded here, where we can all feel free to take things as seriously or unseriously as we like, would be a good spot.
I've just tried the first USB cable from the company that made most of the cables in my main system (Mapleshade Audio is their more affordable line, Omega Mikro the no-holds-barred one). I've been using the Audioquest Coffee for a while. This new cable, at slightly less than half the price, is to my ears quite clearly better. Better transients, clarity, detail, not from any artificial "zing" or tipped-up high end, but being able to resolve individual instrumental lines even if the players are close to each other in the sound stage, and individual notes/beats in those instrumental lines; hearing the words and intonations in vocals better; etc.
While the various tracks I've heard all sound better, that does *not* mean they sound at all similar to each other.
Clearview USB (with Plus option) from Mapleshade Audio, if anyone's curious.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: SFS Sound Quality Experiences
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on: November 06, 2012, 03:00:07 pm
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For me, on my (as you see below) quite inexpensive system:
SFS of 430 or so, too "legato." Everything is too lacking in energy.
Re SFS of 2 and 60 (have not tried settings in between): Both are "competitive," i.e., I cannot instantly dismiss either as obviously bad. But within a very short listening time, it becomes evident to me on a subconscious, instinctive level, no matter what material I am listening to, that an SFS of 2 just lacks something, some final integration of the sound so it all flows correctly and you can hear all the musicians playing together. SFS of 60 achieves this (to my ears, on my system).
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Interesting Music / Testmaterial / Re: Valuable Resource
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on: October 29, 2012, 02:08:32 pm
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Sorry for the brainstorm
Not at all, it was terrific stuff, very understandable and informative.
But (always one of those!) I think, even with the very evident problems with this DR measurement, there are circumstances where it is informative.
The one I always come back to is Nirvana. If you recall their biggest hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," it juxtaposes quiet sections with Cobain singing fairly softly, playing individual notes on the guitar slowly and rather softly with a bit of vibrato, with sudden transitions into Cobain almost screaming (still in tune, though), power chord guitar, bass and drums wailing away at top volume. Those transitions give this song and many other Nirvana songs a lot of their drama.
What the remaster did is raise the volume level of those relatively quiet passages. The transitions aren't as big a change, causing the song to lose a great deal: there you are anticipating the big entry of the screaming vocals, guitar, bass and drums, but the entry is not so big any more. So when DR Database shows the 1991 CDs with a DR of 11 or 12, while the "Super Deluxe" 2011 version and HDT download have a DR of 7, that's what's happening.
I do understand with the DR methodology there will be situations like Crime of the Century (which I'm very familiar with - one year in college it was a couple of my housemates' favorite record) where the initial recording was in effect too quiet. But that's not what is happening with albums like Nevermind.
So is there any way to say whether the Crime of the Century scenario or the Nevermind scenario applies in a given situation? Perhaps there actually may be.
One reason a recording may have been made without utilizing the available headroom is because of the physical limitations of vinyl. It was quite normal before the advent of CDs to limit dynamic range to what the vinyl/stylus system would track at, and what the possible groove width was, for the loudest bass notes of a given track. (Something I noticed on the Beatles remasters is that McCartney's bass is definitely louder.) So there we may have the Crime of the Century scenario, where the CD format has more available headroom. But where previous CD issues have substantially higher DR numbers, especially where (1) the earlier DR numbers are themselves middling, and/or (2) the recording was first issued on CD, then I think it is quite likely we have the Nevermind scenario, where it is not the limitations of the LP that dictate, but the fact that even the softest parts of the song must be made loud enough to be clearly audible over standard issue iPod headphones on a crowded city street or through a car radio.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Interesting Music / Testmaterial / Re: Valuable Resource
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on: October 29, 2012, 02:56:15 am
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I think it still pays to be careful. As you said when you were thinking of how to implement something like a dynamic range measurement in XXHE earlier in the thread, it isn't necessarily as simple as determining what the difference is between the very loudest and very softest milliseconds of the track. Headroom and lack of it, leading to clipping or limiting of the widest swings, is a reasonable factor to consider.
On this Supertramp recording it may give anomalous results. But on the R.E.M. recording I bought recently ("Part Lies..."), it's quite evident that it's just been made too damned loud. And the highly touted Nirvana remasters turn out to be compressed as well, for me removing much of the drama of the groundbreaking "Nevermind" album. The database shows what I hear for these recordings. It's one factor that may be considered, and it's a factor that in some cases at least can be considered (along with other information) *before* purchase. Not that it can't be or shouldn't be improved, though.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Interesting Music / Testmaterial / Re: Valuable Resource
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on: October 26, 2012, 02:11:49 pm
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Though it's fun to see who's at the top (and bottom!) of the dynamic range numbers in the DR Database, and very generally I recognize some artists at the top end whose recordings have good reputations for sound quality (Tord Gustavsen, Rickie Lee Jones, the late Michael Hedges), I think comparisons among artists are subject to all the problems Peter has pointed out.
Where I think the database may be of more value is comparing between recordings/masterings of the same album. There, the consistent march over the last 30 years (or more, since there is vinyl in the database also) to squeeze everything toward the top of the loudness scale is clear.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Interesting Music / Testmaterial / Valuable Resource
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on: October 25, 2012, 04:41:39 pm
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Regarding all the discussions about the sound of RedBook vs. Hi-Res: Have a look at DR (Dynamic Range) Database, which provides dynamic range numbers for tracks/albums through a Foobar plugin. Look particularly at the recordings for a given artist in date order, to see what the Loudness Wars have done over the years. For instance, Peter likes to point to Rolling Stones CDs as exemplars of good RedBook sound. Here's a URL that should take you to a page with the Stones' recordings in date order: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=rolling+stones&sort=year&order=ascJust look at the colors - should tell you all you need to know about the quality of the recordings. Or here's R.E.M., even more dramatic if anything: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=R.E.M.&sort=year&order=ascSo no real puzzle about the sound of hi-res downloads - they're being sourced from the New! Improved! reissues the labels are doing, with all the compression the market supposedly demands these days. Thus we are able to hear in pristine hi-res the squashed dynamics and consequent loss of detail and emotion in the reissues. |
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: 0.9z-7-5, PA on 24-bit: We know it works, now for the sound...
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on: October 20, 2012, 07:32:03 pm
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Tried SFS of 2, 60, and 430, 60 sounds best. Can't point to a specific item of sound quality in this regard, just that the title track to the Blind Boys of Alabama's "Go Tell It On the Mountain" swung even more viciously with that setting.
Read with interest your note, Peter, re the gyrations necessary to make PA work with 24-bit possibly removing PA's sound quality advantages. Anything else you care to say about that? I listened very briefly in Special Mode and that works as well, but did not listen enough to tell whether the SQ with PA is the same, better, or worse. I've got a number of settings to fiddle with and more listening to do before I can tell whether PA retains the sonic advantage over Special Mode it had in the previous version.
PA is clearly better than Special Mode with the Dragonfly. It was obvious from the first notes. (Listening to "Everybody Pays As They Go" and "Something Good This Way Comes" from Jakob Dylan's "Seeing Things.") Listened to SFS=60 and SFS=320. Again, though I cannot point to a specific item of sound quality, 60 was just more right. The instruments and vocals were integrated, the interplay between musicians and the subtleties of the rhythm were evident and correct. So Peter, if you were looking for feedback on whether in version -5 PA is still helpful with DACs that take 24-bit input, based on my listening I would have to say very evidently yes. |
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / 0.9z-7-5, PA on 24-bit: We know it works, now for the sound...
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on: October 19, 2012, 08:01:40 pm
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After activating -5 (sorry Peter, don't know why the previous activation code wouldn't work), tried Phase Alignment with the 24-bit Dragonfly, and no problem (at least if the *~* symbol is a reliable indication).
Tried SFS of 2, 60, and 430, 60 sounds best. Can't point to a specific item of sound quality in this regard, just that the title track to the Blind Boys of Alabama's "Go Tell It On the Mountain" swung even more viciously with that setting. (Everyone must run out and buy this before their Xmas holiday parties, it's absolutely fabulous. Had it for years and still listen to it all the time. Besides the Blind Boys, features Tom Waits, Chrissie Hynde, Aaron Neville and others. Available as a CD from Amazon, as a CD or download from Peter Gabriel's RealWorld/WOMAD.)
Read with interest your note, Peter, re the gyrations necessary to make PA work with 24-bit possibly removing PA's sound quality advantages. Anything else you care to say about that? I listened very briefly in Special Mode and that works as well, but did not listen enough to tell whether the SQ with PA is the same, better, or worse. I've got a number of settings to fiddle with and more listening to do before I can tell whether PA retains the sonic advantage over Special Mode it had in the previous version.
Oh BTW - no more "cracks" on stopping, and no "clicks" or "ticks" anywhere, so all seems good from that standpoint.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: Enjoy The Music article on Hires worth a look
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on: October 16, 2012, 01:23:59 pm
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For me, this is really hitting the nail on the head again, as far as what I wanted to get to with my "bit perfect" thread on CA. With the challenges of decimation on the one hand and interpolation on the other, and *knowing* all the converters will sound different (and therefore none can be ultimately "right," though it is possible to get very, very close), why do this down and up conversion?
There were plainly reasons once upon a time, and to a certain extent these procedures have become set in stone now in the recording industry even though the technology has progressed to the point where we should no longer need them.
A couple of other comments:
- Though Peter has referred to decimation and interpolation as the same sort of process, I wonder if decimation might even be potentially more destructive. With interpolation there may be the possibility of retaining all the original samples, while with decimation you know you will be throwing some away, a higher proportion the higher the sample rate of the original. So is it better to sample in the A/D step at 44.1, or to sample at 176.4 and decimate?
- Very interesting comment from praphan that he finds himself preferring the interpolated 44.1 version of a recording to the "native" resolution, though the two are quite close. With something as good as Peter's software, and so customizable, the dividing line between more accurate and more pleasing has got to be *very* difficult to ascertain. My usual test (how different various recordings sound from each other, or to flip it around, how much of its own sound the hardware or software you're listening to imparts to the music) might not be enough in such circumstances.
Really, for such a task one would ultimately like to be able to compare "native" and decimated-then-interpolated versions from a session where one was present for the recording.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: Enjoy The Music article on Hires worth a look
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on: October 15, 2012, 12:56:17 pm
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Point is : Hires should technically be better, but no good masters in Hires exist; I have some 500 under my hands by now and there's just no reason to even start looking for the good ones. Not with the thousands and thousands of Redbook I can choose from.
Current recordings in Hires virtually don't exist, and when they do it's produced by the 2 or 3 annually (by the company concerned) and "obviously" it will not be my genre or otherwise I won't like the artists. And this all in the realm of Redbook not sounding worse than the best Hires in the first place.
This latter won't be true for everyone, but for NOS1 users it sure will. And anyway, I am one of them.
Key will be the Arc Prediction filtering (for Redbook) and as we know that works out for virtually any DAC anyway. So, it's not even really dedicated to the NOS1 although it was designed for that.
You talk about 24/192 (must be DVD-A) which has a chance. Why ? because it should have been a dedicated 24/192 2ch recording back at the time. Not so with any 24/96 which undoubtedly will have been a multi channel recording which today is turned into 2ch of that. And this can't work (needs 12dB of compression). I know, DVD-A's may come with separate 24/96 2ch tracks in the first place, but still it will have been "flawed" in the first place because a 2ch recording requires a totally different set up (in the studio / on stage) compared to multi channel. Only if the take (the recording) itself is from a different version, yes *then* 24/96 has a chance too. Well, be happy to find those.
The story is inifinitely more long and the reasons for Hires in good shape being inexistent are numerous. But, in my view all can be summarized under "back then no means were applied to make that good hires recording". As said, only 24/192 has a chance (because that will never have been multi channel).
The mere point will be that no digital mastering engineers from today seem to know how to ever get it done. So, when there would be master tapes available those engineers all know how to improve on that and next make a mess of it.
* * *
The other day I visited the one and only person in this forum who is keen on Hires and so for once and for all we compared. A few settings in XXHighEnd needed to change according to me, and then we listened to Let it Bleed which is one of the very best recordings ever in my view. Not that you would have guessed that, but it is so when all is arranged for in well fashion. The result ?
No conclusion because the Hires version of Let it Bleed is mixed so much different that no comparison is possible; when you like bassy sound, you'd choose for the Hires. But when you're into definition more you'd go for the Redbook.
Did I say "no conclusion" ? Well of course for me it was clear. Buy to some extend we all listen subjectively and when you're into slam instead of accuracy you could have choosen that mix used for the Hires. So, you choose for a mix and not for Redbook vs Hires ...
Don't we all know that "best" provocer of Hires : Neil Young ? well, listen to his 24/176.4. It is unlistenable. Ear hurting. Okay, for me it is. Now take Greendale - Redbook. So open, so clear, so full of dynamics, so spatious. So gorgeous ... (through my system)
Maybe 3c,
Peter
Well, maybe a couple of other people keen on at least the *potential* of high res; I'd be one of those. You're so right (of course) to focus on the recording/production end of things. I started a thread over at CA about the notion of "bit perfect," but not just into the DAC inputs as most people think of it - all the way through the process from A-D and through the DAC until conversion back to analog. I wonder how a well recorded 24/192 original would sound through the NOS1 with no sample rate conversion applied in the computer; versus the 192 interpolated to 768 with Arc Prediction; versus the 192 decimated to 44.1 by the producer then interpolated to 705.6 with Arc Prediction. |
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Request to Mani
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on: October 10, 2012, 11:10:46 pm
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I imagine these cables share some of the construction and audio characteristics you liked about the lacquered copper and Anti-Cables: http://omegamikro.com/I have been using their cables in various applications for about 20 years and have never been less than very happy, sometimes pretty close to amazed. I've never heard anything close to the price that can touch them. They also offer a less expensive line under the name Mapleshade. Some of you may recognize that name as responsible for some of the best-engineered CDs available. The recordings are done with equipment (including all cables, of course) designed, built, and/or modified by the principals in Omega Mikro. For anyone who would like to save a bit on the price, they offer materials for DIY. |
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Hee hee, they apparently slot albums from lowest to highest DR range within each year when putting them in date order. So there was good stuff (at least from the DR Database viewpoint) in 1994 as well:
