XXHighEnd

I have lived with NOS1 for a few months now and what I really really love about it is not what I was expecting. Yes sure the performance of it is special really special plenty have reported that - all those good recordings well they sound great - really special. BUT I have to say I was kinda expecting that.

But what I REALLY was NOT expecting is this. All those OLD and really BAD recordings - they obviously were not going to sound good were they?. I mean NOS1 with its XRay dissection of the musical detail - those old recordings did not stand a chance they were going to sound dreadful really awful weren't they?. Well no - most emphatically NO. They just sound great great great. Old recordings with no dynamics, hard sounding I have been going through my bad recordings collection and almost without exception they sound great. NOS1 digs out a level of detail that I have never heard before. I just love listening to all recordings they all sound great (within reason of course). This aspect of NOS1 above any other is the number 1 reason why this piece of hifi kit is the best I have ever owned.

P

Yes Paul. I know, agree, etc., and maybe you could have expected it afterall because I have been "raving" about it myself quite some times. But at the time, for me too it was unexpected. As a matter of fact I was trying to tell Chris in the other topic yesterday, and tried that again just today (before reading your post about this btw) : Re: Peter's best Classic Rock recordings/cds/remasters (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1732.msg17408#msg17408)

But it is just so.

I am not sure how it works myself, with by now so many strange examples at hand. And I mean, including examples that won't change a thing to the sound with the NOS1. Or at least not in the same realm. Maybe this is about those albums not containing the higher frequency information to begin with (many stop at 8KHz or so). This, while those which excell at higher frequencies just don't workout on "normal DACs" exactly because of that. I don't know (yet), and it may take another year of experience to find the common line in it all.

Also it is too far away to make clear or to be understood well, I'm afraid. See Chris's example. He interprets it as plain bad quality sound, while it is exactly the other way around. "What is and what shouldn't be" or something, to quote a lyrics line from Led Zeppelin. Ever back I referred to Pictures at an Exhibition from Emerson Lake and Palmer as something they never heard themselves so good. A bit of a strange remark, but the sound can change so drastically that I'm really tempted to say something like that.


In the mean time things got worse here. Better *again* to a degree you were just trying to describe Paul. Yes, that sounds unbelieveable, but I always try not to lie. It really is so, and I'm listening myself open mouthed to what's all in there. I must say (talking in riddles) that things also start to backfire somewhat. Listenable recordings from before, "start to be" not so anymore. To much detail comes forward to let a mediocre recording be allright. But careful, because thus far I wasn't able to point at the recording itself. Merely to what they did to it. The example is again in that link I referred to, where Houses of the Holy from Led Zeppelin has undergone a flanger effect meant to be in guitars, but in the mean time has been applied to cymbals as well. Small error from the mastering engineer ? I don't know. But it disturbs because "what is and shouldn't be", but merely the digital effect of it has become audible; we can't apply processors over music without it being discovered ... today.

I am in the process of learning (just play more) myself, but I already see a line in strangenessess I knew a longer time. Take the example I was referring to more often : "Who do we think we are" from Deep Purple. I always said this was the best example of rock and fairly heavy cymbals which came out right, and it was the only Deep Purple album showing that. Mind you, this was my idea about this with the DAC you listen to, Paul. Today, at having obtained that again giant leap for the better, this album does not sound right at all. The cymbals irritate, and I hear "processing" to them.
This will not be a coincidence, and earlier this album has been tuned on sounding right through equipment the mastering engineer used to check the result. Most probably fine equipment, but today we are superceeding that ...

Peter