Tony L
Administrator
Tony> sounds like you’ve had another experience of the importance in digital of how well it’s been implemented, as against the more obvious chip/logic differences.
For a long while now I’ve been convinced (standard res) digital audio has been sorted for a very long time. This being why big heavy Sony ES, high-end Marantz, Naim, Meridian, DPA etc CD players and DACs remain so sought after. I remember listening to a CDS2 that passed through on a commission sale and it was still a stunning sounding thing. You’d not mistake it for a budget player. To be honest I’d have bought it myself if it wasn’t so huge (two big Naim boxes). What’s that, 25 year old technology, maybe older. I’m sure the reason these ancient players sound so good is the no-compromise analogue stages, PSUs etc. Proper solid audio engineering. The DSX fits in this category. It may be a but of a dinosaur as streaming technology moves fairly fast, but within its network envelope or used as a simple DAC it is still clearly a high-end device.
It is also interesting contextualising this in the frame of digital vs. analogue. That ‘60s vintage TD-124 is in no way humiliated by any of this. Give it a genuinely good record and it holds its own or even pulls ahead. I’d be hard put to pick a favourite between say the vinyl and 24/48 of Hania Rani’s Ghosts, with Yello’s Toy the vinyl is ahead (against 24/48), with a typically too long per side modern indie record, say the new English Teacher album I mentioned upthread (which is excellent) the 24/48 is a long way ahead. Get to 25 minutes a side and vinyl is long done for. IIRC anything over 18 minutes costs 1db in dynamic range per additional minute, that’s 7db dynamic range gone. That one should have been cut over three sides or served up as a double-45.
PS I’m leaning towards just buying Firestream. It does exactly what I need and seems to do it neatly and reliably. Plex looks like something I neither want or need, and Minimserver seems to be an annual sub for the full thing (though would add internet radio with a plug-in only available on the paid version). I’m pretty sure Firestream is a one-off payment. Fit and forget. Not something I’ll use that often, but very useful.