Thanks for your thoughts Nick.


Yep, I'm chuffed to bits. I'll take quite a hit on selling my two-year-old Quads, but that's fine.


The noise is constant, irrespective of whether music is playing or not, or indeed whether the NOS1 is even connected to the Sauermann amps. It doesn't seem to be affected by in-built gainclone bass amps either.


I strongly suspect my simple anti-cable LS cables are playing their part here. They are not tightly twisted pairs (yet) and must be pretty good at picking up RFI.


Between -30dB and -40dB, depending on recording level and time of day.

Cheers, Mani.

Yesterday I collected a used-but-mint pair of Bert's Swing speakers. I bought them last week from eBay for a ridiculously low price - the seller desperately needed to make space in his living room. They're playing right now and I can say they sound absolutely wonderful with my Sauermann monoblocks fed directly by the NOS1 (no preamp) connected via anti-cable balanced ICs.

But there is background noise coming out of the horns whenever the amps are switched on, at a level that is just audible in the listening position. The noise sounds mainly like hiss, with a slight amount of AC mains hum. However, I've tried running the whole system from the PurePower's battery supply, with nothing at all connected to the AC mains, and even then the noise remains exactly the same.

I have no experience with high-efficiency speakers, let alone 115dB/W@1m like the Swings! So a question for the rest of you with high efficiency speakers. What have you found that works to keep the noise down?

Any ideas most appreciated.

Mani.

To be clear, my problem is different to Eric's. I cannot play HDCDs, period.

They play fine with HDCD deactivated in XX. But I get the error message when HDCD is activated in XX.

Mani.

I'm having problems playing HDCDs too. But I think it's only with HDCDs that have the 'real' Peak Extension HDCD processing encoded into them.

BTW, it doesn't matter if PE is switched on or off in XX - the error message still appears.

Mani.

So, you're just going to leave it at this? Come on. Which room are you talking about? Which DAC did they use with XX?

It's actually my birthday today (46 and counting...) and I thought I'd have sort of a semi day off. Was doing some searching and came across a thread in Whatsbestforum that mentioned the NOS1 almost in passing. But what caught my attention were a few posts on page 5 of the thread:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?7832-Can-someone-recommend-a-DAC-for-my-system/page5

Here, a poster claims the following:

"I can't see any good technical reason for running multibit DACs at 768kHz sample rate. I can see one important reason not to - glitches always increase as DAC chips are run faster. The PCM1704 datasheet demonstrates with hard numbers that the chip's performance degrades at higher rates - its performance is poorer than the previous generation (PCM63) which ran at half the speed (384k). TI/BB has managed to disguise this fact rather nicely by swapping over from dB to % measurements in their tables but its only necessary to do a bit of math to reveal the truth

What's even more interesting is that the PCM63 was characterized at -60dBFS level, the PCM1704 datasheet omits this measurement entirely. The enquiring mind wishes to know what they're hiding."

So I'm wondering: is there any validity to this guy's claim?

Mani.

Yes, I agree. Maybe the PTFE in the 'regular' cables is actually acting as some sort of filter, which is reducing the effects of the distortion.

However, I really do think anti-cables are special. There is a clarity to them that I've just never heard from any other cables.


My anti-cables' perceived extra 'clarity' could be down to a number of reasons:

1. reduced 'inter-strand' distortion (no idea if this even exists) because there is only one strand for +ve and one for -ve; and in any event, even if they were multi-stranded (like Paul's), the individual strands are insulated from each other by the lacquer
2. reduced time smearing due to very thin dielectric (as claimed in anti-cable marketing)
3. increased EMI/RFI due to very primitive screen (not sure of the exact mechanism here though)
4. increased micro vibrations due to lack of damping in dielectric (not sure of exact mechanism here either)

Anyway, I'm pretty close to starting my vinyl digitization project. I contemplating installing a Faraday cage in my basement in which to set up a mini studio to do this. I will certainly be experimenting with various cables. If I go ahead with my plan, I should be able to eliminate 3 (due to Faraday cage) and 4 (will use headphones for monitoring).

Mani.

Hey Paul, you may as well change 'PA' to 'PE' while you're at it

Mani.

And we're long-term XX users - can you just imagine what it must be like for someone coming across XX for the first time?

I was referring to PE *OFF* being Paul's default setting as it seems he likes the more 'alive' sound.

For me, as I said, it's just too 'forward' and 'sharp'. Changing ICs has helped to calm things down, but I'm not really happy with this. I think I'll use my cheap 'anti-cable' ICs (I love 'em) and revert back to a default setting of PE *ON*.

Mani.

Hey Paul, surely you mean *OFF*... no?

Mani.

Fa, blue-eyed Paul gets all the credit.

Waaaaaaaay back (OK, on Monday), I wrote:


But I agree with everything Paul says about the change in SQ.

Mani.

Hey Peter, delete this post afterwards.

They are spelt (EDIT: And I need to improve my own spelling! I mean 'spelled' of course) 'Pacific Microsonics'...

Maybe correct this so that this thread is included in any online search for them.

Mani.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable having my good name associated with a post titled 'suggestive talk'. Mind you, Satty refers to you all as my 'boy friends', so maybe it's apt.

Paul's a nice guy and I'd buy him a beer any time. A pair of Bert's Waves? He's got a lot of scrubbing up to do and I've got to start the lotto...

Mani.

A while ago, I switched all my ICs to 'cheap' anti-cables (http://www.anticables.com/anti-ic.html). And I have to say the results were remarkable. There was a clarity with these cables that my other cables (ranging from cheap 'n' cheerful to pretty expensive) just couldn't match.

And this has been the situation right up until 0.9z-7-4.

In the release notes for 0.9z-7-4, Peter says:


[The highlight is mine.]

I have to say that ever since I stopped using Peak Extension, I started finding the sound way too 'forward' and 'sharp'. But I've found it hard reverting back to PE, for psychological reasons more than anything else, I think. So just yesterday, I decided to try some of my old ICs again. And overall, I prefer the sound of the pair of silver ICs that Gerd gave me with the Sauermann amps and PE disengaged. I'm certainly not saying that these ICs are better than the anti-cables, but just that with my current set-up they seem to give a more balanced sound.

Interested in other people's experiences/thoughts.

Mani.

Paul, PM sent.

I've started the charm offensive on Satty already - but that's for buying Bert's Waves, not for visiting him. Quite frankly I think it'll be a losing battle until I actually have them installed and all up and running. I just know the second she hears them she'll be won over - especially if I play Massive Attack or something that she loves. But I've got to be 100% sure that the Waves are my speakers for life - there is no way she will ever allow me to buy another pair... ever.

Mani.

Bert, how close to the walls can you place the Waves? Peter mentioned 50cm for the rear wall. What are your thoughts (rear and side)?

Mani.