YES I can hardly believe it, my B'ASS upgraded DAC (actually B'ASS + Phisolator + "secret" upgrade i.e. the full G3 upgrade) arrived back today. And probably for the first time ever I seem to be the first to get the upgrade. What a privilege!.

With high anticipation I unpacked the DAC and plugged it in. It has been running for only a short time so these are first impressions.

Straight away the difference is totally obvious. In my room I have always been very fortunate to have low subterranean bass. This is clear on tracks like Dave Brubeck "Charles Matthew Halleluja" where you can hear what I am sure is the stage moving not in time to the music. Before the upgrade it was easy to hear but you had to concentrate. Now it is totally clear and easy to follow a band on a stage where the stage clearly is part of the set. And some of the sounds are very very deep indeed. The difference now is that they do not roll off you can hear them WAY WAY down easily. There is more snap and it is easier to hear "tunes" in the bass.

Then onto some Dance music "Chase and Status - International ( Dimension Remix )" plums the depths WOW it sends shivers down the back of the neck. It was there before but NOW oh boy!! you can hear it in spades.

But that is the WOW factor stuff - B'ASS sounds to impress your friends and neighbours. It does not stop there though. All through the frequency spectrum sounds are "rounder" more natural and more detailed. They seem to start and stop better. Synth sounds are more clearly delineated, more natural & rounder.

Moving onto Bach the Cello Sonata's played by Anner Bijlsma the Cello sounds superb the tone of the instrument is richer the strings more detailed and more relaxed a very natural presentation.

I could go on but hopefully you get the idea. It is not perfect just yet after all the DAC has been parked in some cold depot over the Easter weekend and then bounced around in a van today. Poor DAC she has not had much time to settle with a nice warming current flowing through her circuits. Also new caps for sure they need to be burned in.

What is really great is that I know it is going to get even better over the coming days.

Great work Peter it was most definitely worth the wait.

Cheers

Paul

 

There is a saying in English that most older mothers would know when choosing colour schemes in fashion or in the home and that is "Blue and Green Should Never be Seen".  MMmm ah well Coen has the answer that we will have to keep the lid on. Or maybe it is time to paint the NOS1!!

Maybe

Paul

Peter you deserve a medal for staying with this one 

AArrgghh   no I missed that. I did a quick os restore and started again running RunThisFirst first. All seems OK so far.

Note to self - "read the instructions first next time".

Cheers

Paul

Hi Peter,

I am trying to install 2.07 on my laptop under W10. The message "After this a Reboot is required to put through changed User Account Control Setting ........ Reboot?" comes up correctly and I click "Yes". The laptop reboots but the UAC settings are not changed and each time I click the XX icon I get the same message again. I have manually changed the UAC settings down to the lowest but still XX will not commence past the above message.

Note this is a dual boot laptop with XX installed on the default partition.

Cheers

Paul

Happy Christmas to everyone and looking forward to a great hifi 2017

P

I am definitely in for that upgrade, I wonder what it is ha ha!!!

Cheers

Paul

Specs look very nice Peter!!

I have been there and spent a serious amount of time and money to get what I thought a SET system could deliver but ultimately it just didn't. Having said that I remain completely open minded and look forward to hearing your system.

Paul

Hey Mani


So is what we are aiming for is a system that provides a "Visceral Massage" well maybe but I suspect that the two are mutually exclusive  .

It would be easy to get the impression that I only ever listen to music at silly high levels - that is not the case - my listening is mostly at very modest levels (really......... !!)

P

I just wanted to give my impressions of Mani's sound with Orelo's as I have heard his system many times.  The sound of Mani's Orelo system was almost diametrically opposite to mine (essentially the same system as Mani's). In fact if blind folded anyone listening would have said they were totally different systems with maybe some very small similarities. Not only was the bass completely and totally different (that has been discussed many times) but just about every other aspect was different. The dynamics and "alive" quality of the sound here is similar to a live performance. Bass is simply amazing on live recordings, you can "feel" the stage moving on some recordings (Brubeck Time Further Out for example). From bass through mid range to top end totally different sound. It is inconceivable that it would have been possible to have made tweaks or even radical changes to Mani's system to have made the sound anything like mine.

This is absolutely not a boast, it is simply an observation and I regularly thank the almighty for gifting me the acoustics in my room. BUT I am sure that it was an accident and I am equally sure the almighty did not intend to do any such thing. That is because my room is an ABSOLUTE DOG and would be written off by any self respecting sound engineer as a ridiculous place to even attempt to reproduce music.

As an example with music playing walk the length of my room away from speakers toward the listening position and you will hear cancellations and reinforcements in the bass as you walk. Not just trivial small changes but wapping great big changes.

I have also heard Peter's system and it just does not happen at his which is in a very big room with lots of space between the outer edges of the speakers and the side walls. No such luck here there are lots of side wall reflections because so close.

So here are some quotes from Mani's and Peter's posts above: -




Peter is (of course) absolutely right the Orelo's reduce rear firing bass. And I have measured that here - over much of the bass frequencies. But certainly not all. Lets take 50hz, in this room a very strange thing happens. Measured inside the throat close to the speakers of the Orelino's the response is very even measured 20 to 200 Hz. But move the microphone out of the throat of the speaker to the interface where the sound leaves the speaker and hits the room and a very strange thing happens. There is an almost total cancellation at 50hz. In the measured response there is a deep notch at 50Hz all around the listening space. If I play a test tone of 50hz and then walk all the way to the listening position you virtually cannot hear it at all. So where does the 50hz go? well the answer is that because it is not being cancelled by the forward going 50hz wave it travels backwards into the conservatory that is behind my speakers. If you stand in the conservatory right at the back whilst the speakers are playing you will find it almost painful to hear. You would not guess it by listening but it does appear to be a small range around 50hz.  There is a lot of sound energy travelling backwards from my speakers IN THIS PARTICULAR ROOM and that is proved by measurement and from the fact no one wants to sit in the conservatory while the speakers are playing  .

So the acoustics in my room are very far from ideal but you would never think it when you listen. The sound quality according to every one who has listened to them is simply astonishing. I really cannot imagine what it will sound like when the B'ASS and Phisolator mods are applied - my mouth waters in anticipation.

But no matter how good my system sounds at the end of the day the room acoustics have a massive impact on sound quality. And that applies even when the speakers minimise those problems as the Orelo's are designed to do.


Paul

Yea and it would have been worth it (for sure I would bought you a beer!!!). The Blockheads are great musicians though, it is always a great gig'

There is a guy who sings with the Blockheads who used to be a great friend of Ian Dury but he is (by his own admission) a very poor replacement. But once he steps aside and the Blockheads get going they are very special.

I first came across the Blockheads when they were the Loving Awareness Band (before Ian Dury) and closely associated with Radio Caroline when it started life.

Happy days!!!

P

Or at least one member of .................

Back in the eighties a new squash member joined our local club. He played a bit and wanted to improve. At that time my playing mate and doubles partner was available during the day so took him "under his wing" to give him some coaching and encouragement. And so they had a coaching session once a week. After a couple of months my mate was walking out of the club car park when a Ferrari appeared, the driver stopped and waved him over the road with a big grin on his face.

Next coaching session my mate said he was impressed with the car and asked him what he did for a living. "I play in a band" came the answer. So my mate asked which band to which the reply (yes you guessed) was Pink Floyd. My mate looked blank and said "oh that's nice" basically because he had not heard of Pink Floyd before.

"What?  not heard of Pink Floyd" I hear you say and sadly yes because my mate lead a very sheltered life - in fact I think he was probably brought up on the dark side of the moon.

But anyway it did happen Nick Mason was a member of our squash club.

Just wondered if anyone out there is going along to see the Blockheads (as in Ian Dury and the ...........) on 17 Dec in Islington. If so let me know it would be great to meet you there.

Paul

No not at all, its great to see discussion about music after all that's what this forum is really all about.

P