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Dac/streamer - not as involving as vinyl

The Bish said:
I did use REW with a UMIK-1 and get a starter for ten view of filters using the EQ feature, and then tweaked around with them.
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I would keep any correction below a few hundred hertz depending upon the transition region of your room, just knock little by little down the standing wave bass peaks, voices shouldn’t be affected.
Keith
 
Vinny said:
That said, I do not accept that it is impossible that that analogue groove cannot be a better representation of the live event(s) than what many? all? all-digital systems can achieve. At the mind-numbingly simplistic level, if all the steps in making that groove are, in total, "more faithful" to the original live sound, than the steps in producing a CD, with the right replay gear, the record is capable of sounding most like the original live sound.
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The ultimate reference is not the live sound or your memory of it, but the signal coming from the microphones. It is a demonstrable fact that digital can capture the signal more faithfully than any analog system. Preferences are irrelevant in this context.
 
Octavian said:
The ultimate reference is not the live sound or your memory of it, but the signal coming from the microphones
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Really? So "real" music counts for squat? All that matters is the microphones?

Octavian said:
It is a demonstrable fact that digital can capture the signal more faithfully than any analog system.
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Hogwash insofar as things like soundstage are beyond understanding except to the human ear.
 
Vinny said:
Really? So "real" music counts for squat? All that matters is the microphones?
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Real music is transferred via microphones. Digital captures the signal accurately, analog does not.
Hogwash insofar as things like soundstage are beyond understanding except to the human ear.
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Understanding soundstage is irrelevant. It is based on the signal coming from the microphones or some other devices used to create it. Digital captures this signal faithfully, analog does not.
 
Years ago I posted a bunch of similar findings described on this thread bu instead listening to CD versus streaming - at that time it was early days (Squeezebox 1/NOS DACs/ripped CDs, etc). I did a ton of comparisons (I apparently had nothing better to do with my time) and always preferred the CD. It wasn't anything fancy- CD was/is a Naim CD5/HiCap versus various Squeezebox iterations and many DACs. So many variables: DACs, ripping formats, error checkers, optical versus coax, ethernet versus wireless, etc. All totally useless but it was a hobby. The bottom line- I ended up listening to CDs, because that was most of my content and the ability to make your playlists from my CDs wasn't all that compelling, because all the streaming was driven from own rips, with the exception of the Apple store as it grew.

15 years later- I almost only listen to Tidal and Spotify, switching back and forth driven only by content. I am convinced that I don't like the Tidal MQA but that it comes down to mastering almost 100%. I only started into Hifi stuff because I listen to music constantly and wanted it to sound good. And it was a fun hobby when the kids were young. But now they are gone, and I still listen to music all day- I just have an enormously expanded selection that includes expanded selections of things that that I know and love. and many more things I would never had even heard previously.

I will get a new streamer soon because I'm fed up with messing with software for the unsupported Squeezebox Touch (now with a Chord 2Qute), but I won't spend I ton of time comparing them. I'm almost afraid to ask for suggestions (but I will take them!).
 
Gervais Cote said:
Obviously, no consensus here.........
To make it beneficial for all of us, can the non-turntable guys tell us what they use as a source and DAC and think they sound great ?
This way, we will be able to give it a try and see if it’s good enough for our personal taste.
I actually use a Marantz CD 6006 as transport and a SMSL M500 as a DAC and the sound is very good but the high notes of cymbals sounds too digital/non organic for my taste.
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My post on the first page after yours. Chord QBD76.

No CD for me too.
 
Looking purely at the numbers digital recording and playback provides higher fidelity to the signal coming out of the microphones.

Timing acuity, wow and flutter of tape vs jitter in digital, at least 100x in digital favour.

Snr, at least 20db in digital favour.

And its the same all the way through.

One may prefer an analogue production pipeline over a digital one for whatever reason, but it absolutely is not capable of higher fidelity to the signal coming from the microphones.
 
Vinny said:
To the original what? Original (master?) recording, or original live sound?

There is an awful lot to understand to understand what is happening in all of the steps involved, and I don't understand that much at all, but, a record carries an analogue track, irrespective of what steps were involved between the live event(s) and that record groove.

That said, I do not accept that it is impossible that that analogue groove cannot be a better representation of the live event(s) than what many? all? all-digital systems can achieve. At the mind-numbingly simplistic level, if all the steps in making that groove are, in total, "more faithful" to the original live sound, than the steps in producing a CD, with the right replay gear, the record is capable of sounding most like the original live sound.

Not well explained, but hopefully well enough to make sense?
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Maybe I should have been clearer. By original, I mean the original recording, or, to put it another way, the final mix as signed off by the producer. I would agree that no recording/reproduction chain is able to fully reproduce the original live sound.

It seems to me obvious that an analogue groove produced from an original digital recording cannot be as good as that digital original, simply because the process of producing that groove from the original digital file is one that will introduce at least some degree of distortion. However, many vinyl releases have been mastered differently to their digital equivalents and this difference can result in the vinyl version sounding better. For example, many digital files have been over compressed so that everything is at or near to maximum volume, whereas this seems less common on the equivalent vinyl releases.
 
The Bish said:
It's a good point - I have the EQ pretty well calibrated now to have a fairly subtle impact on reducing peaks in the low frequencies and on some types of music it sounds excellent, especially in bringing vocals forward, but then on certain other tracks it can appear to take away a bit of the dynamism of the sound as you describe although this is much reduced now I've been less aggressive with the EQ. I bought the DAC specifically for the EQ but could live without it I think, may well have a look at getting a home demo of one of the other DACs listed upstream to see if I prefer the sound.
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I don't know if it has been mentioned upstream, but the Mytek Manhattan II includes an analogue preamplifier section in addition to the DAC section. Each is fed by a separate linear power supply and the output of the DAC can be routed via this analogue section. When set up this way, the volume is controlled entirely in the analogue domain. I use one of these in my main system and I prefer it to the RME, when configured to employ the analogue preamp in this way. It's not cheap, but it also has analogue inputs for the preamplifier section and, when used via these inputs, makes for a very nice preamp. You might want to consider this option.
 
The last time (and i hope the last time!) I did a CD/vinyl comparison, it was between two BIS versions of the same recording session. I could hear differences but far more striking was how similar and how enjoyable both were.
 
Timcat said:
However, many vinyl releases have been mastered differently to their digital equivalents and this difference can result in the vinyl version sounding better.
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Do you have any evidence for that? I don't mean it in a rude way!:)


Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against Vinyl, I prefer listening to music of the Vinyl-era on Vinyl, because the recording matters the most to me not the type of source.
 
Great to see that from the guy who mastered it. But look at Back to Black, the original vinyl is 6db more dynamic than the cd, and sounds wholly different and is accepted as coming from a different mastering session. So better vinyl than cd does exist, in some cases.

Normally IME they sound almost the same, ie from the same master with minimal replay chain differences, certainly for half of my collection they do.
 
Old Shatterhand said:
Do you have any evidence for that? I don't mean it in a rude way!:)


Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against Vinyl, I prefer listening to music of the Vinyl-era on Vinyl, because the recording matters the most to me not the type of source.
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That is an interesting video! It actually supports the first point I made, which, in summary, was that if the mastering is the same, the vinyl version cannot be as good as the digital file because the vinyl production process must have introduced some distortion.

I was not actually thinking about TT meter data when I made the comment you quoted. The evidence I have is from producers and sleeve notes stating that the vinyl version of a particular album was mastered differently to the CD. An example is the recent vinyl release of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers' Padlock on the Blues album.
 
Old Shatterhand said:
Do you have any evidence for that? I don't mean it in a rude way!:)
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With much modern pop/rock music the vinyl often has to be more dynamic as you simply can not cut the brickwalled ‘always on/no dynamics at all’ sound of the worst of it to vinyl as it throws the needle! An interesting comparison would be say The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles The Giant Robots. Vinyl and CD are very different sounding masterings.

If you have interest in music before the current era then original vinyl is often way, way better as a) the master tape was brand new, and b) the artistic intent was still known and acted on rather than being some later cutting engineer’s opinion. No release would have got out of the door without being signed-off by someone directly involved.
 
Octavian said:
I beg to differ. The cd is still able to preserve the original signal better than vinyl ever could. Blame the mastering, not the medium.
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Its a moot point if whats on the cd is purposefully shit, which is often is. Simply put you stand a better chance of a hifi master on vinyl, than you do on cd with anything vaguely popular
 
I’ve a foot in both camps too.

I’d say ultimately vinyl is my preferred format. Both sound great but there is something about vinyl that just draws me in more. To my mind, it sounds more organic, more natural. It’s less precise/accurate than digital but I guess has a tad more warmth which fundamentally makes it more enjoyable to listen to.

Streaming is great but I don’t know about you folks - I’m far leas likely to listen to a complete album as it’s so easy to flick from track to track or put on a playlist.
 
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I have not yet got a turntable but having listened to one in a good system it was a very soothing sound, accurate and enjoyable. Digital source in the same demo sounded good but not as good. This is with the same speakers and amp.

Any thoughts on whether I should upgrade from an Audiolab M-DAC with electrosound PSU? It sounds really nice to me with my Primare A30.1 but I don't know if I'm missing out. All silver cables...

I have noticed some supposedly high end dacs sound really bad even if they squeeze out a bit more low end. I have a DAC that cost more and sounds worse in my living room system than a humble Micromega MyDAC.
 
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