Ok, after a week of playing with the DAC (I still don't think is is burned in sufficiently), I want to express some feelings about it :
I think I said it before : For a longer time I regard my own system as a whole to be the best I ever heard. Of course this doesn't say much, and a chance exists that many of you just have it better. Only statistics of me being around at other places tell that the chance is little.
Small conclusion : whether or not I have this "best system" or not, it should be better than average, and this is my reference.
The above was with my old 18/96 nos DAC.
Now, with the 24/192 in NOS non filterless mode, and if I had to apply a mathematical figure to it, I'd say it is 10 times better. Whoops, that's a lot.
I don't think that I, right now, can find commonly known wordings for it. I mean, there's nothing like spatiousness, wider stage, instrument positioning. That is, I don't recognize this or can't as off yet. You could also say : this was good already before, and improvements must be in other areas (at talking about "10 times better"
). But I'll try a few expressions as far as I can recognize them;
First of all, I think I can now at last hear the benefits of higher sample rate recordings. Remember, I could not do this before because of lacking bits 18 only) at 96Khz, and not being able to play 192Khz at all. Of course I could use my oversampling sigma delta (Fireface), but this is apples and oranges to begin with, and btw nothing good at all. So :
There appears to be a phenomenon to my judgement, which is related to being able to differentiate in voices singing in parallel. Remember, I'm talking about the higher samplerates, and how to hear they are better.
It doesn't matter where I'm in the room, as soon as background voices (male or female) start to sing, you can kind of count with how many they are. I don't talk about where they are, but with how many. So, a matter of being able to hear person A, B and C separately.
Maybe this is nothing new (for you), but so far I couldn't manage to find the absolute difference because of the apples and oranges thing.
In other areas I don't perceive a difference. Or not yet.
Back to normal 44100 playback;
The longer I play with the DAC, and the better album examples I can find for it, the more amazing the bass becomes. I have no words for it, but the sheer difference of hearing beautiful bass before (which already was a tough job for me, and is much related to XXHighEnd versions), with complete life-like basses from now ... I can't express it differently. I think earlier I already talked about the ability to hear the wood of a bass, but right now I'd say that someone with knowledge should easily be able to tell the "manufacturer" of the bass instrument. I could also say : before I was very happy when I could hear the strings of low bass vibrate (good resolution in that area), but now each (double) bass and cello just sound different. Give me a few months and I will be able to tell the artist by listening to the bass only ! (and I don't mean the means of how it's played, just the sound of it).
There are also strange things going on;
My last tweak being the SSD with the OS on it, already brought the clear vibration of strings being pulled too loudly. So, the metal itself makes the sound in this case, and while this is a very profound sound (dzziinnggg) I never heard it before from a speaker. I checked it with others to be sure, but it really is so. Why ? I'm puzzled, just because the sound is so profound, and by the way so very naturally. But, I never missed it before, so how the hell could I tell those strings were pulled so hard on the specific recordings ?
Now, with this DAC, it appears that it will be very hard for those musicians *not* to pull those strings too hard. They just do, and they do it always. Man man man, I get tears in my eyes at writing this, because it is really a complete new dimension in audio playback.
I don't care anymore whether there's a stupid clarinet showing off as often with jazz albums, it's the bass man (and often woman) making the sound !
A few days ago I bumped into James Cotton and his album "Deep in The Blues", and besides I seem to be able to clearly hear he is playing an acoustic bass guitar throughout the album, he is playing that guitar "toggling" (5 individual fingers) like a spanish guitar would be played without chords. But now imagine the deep sound of a bass guitar, and that those fast individual bass notes just work out as intended (instead of a smeared bassy sound). Man man man.
I think I said earlier that everything seems to be supported by bass. This is literal;
This works so much throughout, that it merely looks like an anomaly. I kept on paying attention to it though, and the only conclusion I can draw is that - like the wood from the bass - it is the recording room/space I am hearing. Think of a room and bass measurement, and the knowlegde that the room adds bass to your sub woofer, just like the cabinet the bass driver is in does. Now I hear the same throughout, and this wasn't there before *at all*. It is strange though, because you are not used to it. Even voices can express some sub low which sure can't come from the voice itself, but with some hall and reverberation it just sounds natural.
Besides this general phenomenon, I experienced quite some times the whole house started rambling because of sub low output, and this is on recordings I never heard it before.
Added to this that I have a couple of tracks to trim the bass vs. sub woofer output where the subwoofer output should stay normal in all cases, these recordings do not exhibit more sub woofer output. To me this is the most strange, but proves all is still right, and it is not just "more bass output". It merely looks like slow waves with not too much amplitude just being able to express now, where they were killed before.
Where I was keen before on having just directional bass output - knowing that much of that is caused by higher frequencies around that bass fooling you - this is now just "completely directional". And this is the most interesting, because if you now can hear where the man playing the bass really is, or what about two of them, this is just again another dimension. But keep in mind what I said above : when the metal of the strings becomes audible, this is the base of the "guideance" of the directional bass !
About my stories about standing waves disappearing when things are all right : this again vastly improved. But, know in a very understandable way;
As a strange example I want to mention Madonna with the ever accompanying synth bass. I used to know this as "bass" of which was audible it is a synth. Strangely enough now this isn't so much of "bass" as such anymore. The synth now expresses it's short pulsed output, and where things got smeared before, it's now just the pulses you are hearing, and the deep sunding coming from it disappears.
Read the latter again; it is contradictionary to all the other phenomena around the bass. Everywhere we have more bass, and here we have less ?
Well, in fact I just explained it. The waves are less smeared, and the individual vibes are expressed all over, and now the "individual vibes" and the standing waves come into play : the more the vibes can be expressed individually, the less they interact in space, the less anomalies come from that.
That in the mean time bass output itself is "higher" (read : better) is just another phenomenon I think, caused by the dedicated PSU. So, the better bass output seems PSU related, and the better accuracy is DAC related (though the PSU will enable to follow the accuracy).
Talking about accuracy, well, this expresses all over. So, now we're up to the higher frequency regions, and may it be "speed" (slew rate of the DAC) or the better translation of it because of the PSU, there is detail which ... well ... can't be expressed properly either.
This too is strange, because normally I would be able to give examples, talk about hi-hats and cymbals etc., but somehow here too other definitions are needed. I don't think hi-hats and cymbals etc. are better. I do think brushes are far better and it might be the only thing I could reason out why. The other things express in things which can't be told. Not by me, not yet;
Yello is always my example whether the NOS principle acts as intended (because synthesizers in an interesting fashion only). One can't talk about synthesizers and how they should behave and all. One *can* say though, that many more interesting sounds were heard, and the better music reproduction becomes, the more value those two guys put into their music. Might it be some sub low intended (!) reverberation, or a dazzling sound sweeping from left to right, neither is audible when the playback system isn't up to it.
My point is merely that these gagdets (when audible to start with) have less or more fragility. With synthesizers I think you can say that - besides things being audible or not - it is the fragility with which the sounds are expressed, that matter. Just think about some triangle and saw tooth waves interacting with eachother, and what might come of it. You can bet though that the Mini Moog guys from the early days, as well as the modern synth people from today, try to create interesting sounds, as long as they don't try to emulate violins. If you are not into synthesizers I am sure that this is because you never obtained the so much interesting intended sounds coming from them. Try Momita (uhhm, emulating volins) and combine classical with synthesizers, but in the mean time try to imagine how in the world the guy was able to create all those orchestra sounds from his synthesizers, all to be programmed right from the base.
But don't try your PC speakers ...
Lastly for now something commonly known, but happening here just the same :
Look at the picture below. For me this doesn't invite much to sit down and listen to it. Of course I tried, but she sings exactly as she looks like there. Yesterday - at testing various hires albums - I had to try her too (this is 24/88K2). Well ... since I am a man and thus can't cry I, didn't. But it was very hard to keep the tears inside. Whether it is the superbly played bass or just she herself, I imagined a woman with a history all laid in her songs on this album. Before it came to me as some shattering around, but now it just worked (as intended I suppose).
As said, a commonly known phenomenon, but for me in this case a radical change.
Of course, when the bass is not there (as it wasn't before) the "technical" fun has gone already. So, wanting to listen to the next track for the bass already, makes you dive into this album more than before. But still ...
Enough said for now. As you can see I don't have much to talk about, except for that bass. I guess it is too overwhelming to be ready for other merits at this moment. Later ...
Peter
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