Valves don't always solve "problems"; the same(?) unit was in another demo room, with extremely highly regarded speakers, etc, and it wasn't "helping" the situation -- very flat, boring sound, the same sort of thing that can be heard with much SS gear. I've also had valve amps of the highest persuasion rip my eardrums to shreds with aggressive, take no prisoners sound.lampizatorLOL
why am I not surprised
Just because a certain component type is used, doesn't mean that a system is then locked into a certain sound "style" ...
Frank
lampizator
why am I not surprised
haha yes i'm afraid I almost posted the same thing last night, my reservations about his stuff has little to do with being valves, which like anything can have good and bad designs. the lamp really seems to have little idea when it comes to digital. his aversion for and replacement of SMD where its the best format for the job is rather trendy, but ultimately flawed thinking IMO.
Hmmm ... I've only been aware of Lampizator on a couple of other occasions, so curious what his "crimes" are. Mainly it seems to be, having a pretty lousy website, made my Firefox go off to La-La Land for a while, and creating spaghetti constructions of parts, from what I read. Good thing no-one can see inside some of my workings,
. But, on the positive side, he seems to make digital sound work properly, or at least a hell of a lot better, to a lot of people's ears. I think I'm inclined to forgive him, just a bit ...
Frank
Hi, Pheonix ... no, I don't, I've heard good sound from both, for me it's all about the implementation of the digital to analogue circuitry and how the rest of the system helps or hinders the overall process of getting the sound out cleanly. When something is not quite right then the sound will be off, and perhaps multibit devices are more appealing in this situation than S-D units, the latter can sound quite dreary, lacking sparkle and any depth to their sound, when off their tucker, .
In other words, the style of distortion associated with non-optimised in-circuit chips of each variety differ from each other, so then you have to pick your poison. But make no mistake, it is still distortion that shouldn't be there, that's not the fault of the chip in itself, that causing these differences in sound. And something that can be fixed ...
Frank
.In other words, the style of distortion associated with non-optimised in-circuit chips of each variety differ from each other, so then you have to pick your poison. But make no mistake, it is still distortion that shouldn't be there, that's not the fault of the chip in itself, that causing these differences in sound. And something that can be fixed ...
Frank
thats the main one and when talking of clocking and digital circuits what you create is more akin to a radio transmitter and claiming improvements after that....well. Encouraging such messy circuits and mods replacing SMD caps and a ground plane with large film caps connected with long wires, simply because you may prefer a certain dielectric is just bad implementation and flat out dumb....its dumb regardless of whether those who follow his cult like the sound or not.
I find him responsible for a whole raft of DIYers who think its a good idea to use huge NOS Russian film decoupling caps in clock/USB circuits, replacing perfectly suitable caps.
here is a good illustration of what it does and we are talking much higher frequencies in digital and replacing much less inductive caps. I have some very extensive amateur research materials showing scope shots of thousands of combinations of R/C/L decoupling at various frequencies, its very enlightening, let me know if you would like me to email it to you.
if you really believe its all about the implementation, then you should be running a mile from his loosely integrated circuits. but then maybe hes blurred all these digital distortions by the creative use of analogue distortions.
then you have the cheap-*** cases which are not in line with what I would expect in this price-range
Sorry, Phoenix, I haven't got into that side of things, can't help you at all there!
Frank
Well, this might sound bizarre but the tiny Cowon music player of a friend on mine, using a Wolfson DAC, running on battery power easily outdid a highly tweaked low cost TT, and a reasonably tweaked Quad CD player. It was very sensitive to interference effects, but once orientated correctly was capable of generating a mighty big soundstage; taking everything into account it was easily the equal of anything I heard at the recent hifi show.
Obviously, the Wolfson DAC must be a good part of that equation ...
Frank
erin:
In response to your surprise at my comment I was going by what had been said in this thread. I had no other information to go on. The information you now draw my attention to would not have changed anything.
My experience in industry taught me that the fact that someone is paid to do something is not a guarantee that they know what they are doing. I have found (in schools and universities) that the fact that someone is paid to teach something does not guarantee that they properly understand it. In both situations there may sometimes be a negative correlation between apparent career success and ability.
I won't say any more. My comments in the second paragraph are general, not specific, so are not aimed at any particular person. They are meant to explain my approach to 'authority' or 'experience'.
In response to your surprise at my comment I was going by what had been said in this thread. I had no other information to go on. The information you now draw my attention to would not have changed anything.
My experience in industry taught me that the fact that someone is paid to do something is not a guarantee that they know what they are doing. I have found (in schools and universities) that the fact that someone is paid to teach something does not guarantee that they properly understand it. In both situations there may sometimes be a negative correlation between apparent career success and ability.
I won't say any more. My comments in the second paragraph are general, not specific, so are not aimed at any particular person. They are meant to explain my approach to 'authority' or 'experience'.
i've found Diptrace to be very good and you get a lot for your money. easy to pick up, fairly logical flow. i'm a graphic designer and pre-press operator by trade and did a lot of vector layouts, prepress and font design. so its actually been an easier transition than I was expecting at first.
No, not talking about the silly DSP sound manipulation doo-dahs thrown in, but the straight stereo signal fed into a decent amp and speakers. The improved soundstage is due to the fact that low level detail is rendered more clearly, also evidenced by the fact that the volume could be increased quite considerably with no discomfort.
One way of describing it is that the sound is impressive, without sounding if it's trying to be impressive. Many times people don't "get" good sound, because it doesn't come across as being spectacular, it doesn't say, "Look at moiye! Look at moiye!" ...
Frank
I believe Diptrace allows multilayer design witch is critical for digital, you need a good ground plane
Me I use this:
American CADSTAR Bundles | Zuken
the extreme version, which is OK, but any package that allows multi-layer layout and has access to a comprehensive library, will suffice. For SMD footprint use IPC-7351 standards, viewers and such like are available, in fact I'm just doing a library know for a customer.
Me I use this:
American CADSTAR Bundles | Zuken
the extreme version, which is OK, but any package that allows multi-layer layout and has access to a comprehensive library, will suffice. For SMD footprint use IPC-7351 standards, viewers and such like are available, in fact I'm just doing a library know for a customer.
I believe Diptrace allows multilayer design witch is critical for digital, you need a good ground plane
Me I use this:
American CADSTAR Bundles | Zuken
the extreme version, which is OK, but any package that allows multi-layer layout and has access to a comprehensive library, will suffice. For SMD footprint use IPC-7351 standards, viewers and such like are available, in fact I'm just doing a library know for a customer.
it does indeed and in the intermediate licenses (2 layer and 4 layer) you still get full access to the extensive libraries of the full version, error checking etc. and the 2 and 4 layer limit only applies to signal layers, you can have as many ground and power planes as you like; so a 2 layer license for example allows you to have 2 signal layers, 2 ground planes and 2 power planes for a 6 layer PCB (more of course, just an example) comes standard with full viewing of gerbers and drillfiles and a 3D view so you can check placement.
I like it a lot!
we cant all afford Cadstar
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