Bonsai,
Many of my music selections are Brazilian jazz and that is something I tend towards, I haven't kept up with much of the newer popular rock and roll for awhile now. I was thinking of some older Steely Dan so I can't comment on anything new. George Benson's guitar is about as good as you could ask for for a test and he can certainly sing.
As far as selection of equipment I would tend to agree with you that critically correct equipment isn't what many want. If you want to hear vinyl then it just goes well with older tube type equipment for that euphonic sound that we grew up with. I still to this day don't understand the SE tube amps with a single or even a pair of output tubes, I just can't fathom driving most speakers with those tone controls as I call those things. I've had older Mac amps that I thought sounded better than many of the SE amplifiers. I never heard many of the Japanese amplifiers from the 70's and 80's that others rave about, I just remember the cheap Japanese amps that were supposed to have little to no distortion that sounded like cr*p. I guess I missed something with the best of the Japanese amps when those were supposed to be so advanced with what are devices that seem to be so sought after today. I have a couple of Parasound amps that actually do nothing for me as far as musicality, they just sound sterile to my ears.
Damned if I could hear any difference between a set of speaker wires from Kimber between the copper and silver set of wires. They sounded identical to me but the insulation color on the silver wires was a nice cool blue, that was about the only real difference!
Many of my music selections are Brazilian jazz and that is something I tend towards, I haven't kept up with much of the newer popular rock and roll for awhile now. I was thinking of some older Steely Dan so I can't comment on anything new. George Benson's guitar is about as good as you could ask for for a test and he can certainly sing.
As far as selection of equipment I would tend to agree with you that critically correct equipment isn't what many want. If you want to hear vinyl then it just goes well with older tube type equipment for that euphonic sound that we grew up with. I still to this day don't understand the SE tube amps with a single or even a pair of output tubes, I just can't fathom driving most speakers with those tone controls as I call those things. I've had older Mac amps that I thought sounded better than many of the SE amplifiers. I never heard many of the Japanese amplifiers from the 70's and 80's that others rave about, I just remember the cheap Japanese amps that were supposed to have little to no distortion that sounded like cr*p. I guess I missed something with the best of the Japanese amps when those were supposed to be so advanced with what are devices that seem to be so sought after today. I have a couple of Parasound amps that actually do nothing for me as far as musicality, they just sound sterile to my ears.
Damned if I could hear any difference between a set of speaker wires from Kimber between the copper and silver set of wires. They sounded identical to me but the insulation color on the silver wires was a nice cool blue, that was about the only real difference!
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DAT IS great. Beats vinyl into a cocked hat. I think Robert is confusing pleasure and fidelity again. It's like this strange cult of inductors in phono stages. Everyone repeats the same things about them which only proves that they can read and Parrot. Funny old world.
If someone's music listening experience is remotely close to reading my blather, I suggest a new hobby. 😀
would that be top end like peanut brittle or toffee brittle? They have very different textures...
For the record, I DO hear differences between my best discrete designs and my best IC designs. In recent years, I directly compared the Parasound JC-3 with my Vendetta Research SCP-2 and heard the difference. The only thing I could do was to optimize the JC-3 with the best sounding op amp on the front end that I could find. I selected from 3 op amps that had essentially the same measured characteristics and picked one. Yes, I could hear the differences between each of them.
This was not the first time that I made such comparisons, in fact about 40 years ago, at a NY AES convention I was given my first 5534 type devices, that had the Phillips number TDA1034 (if I am not mistaken) that were specifically developed for audio, and I was very hopeful. However, to make sure, I made a direct comparison between the 5534 and one of my discrete op amp designs that I used for pro equipment like analog tape recorders and mixers.
Instead of just making a X10 amp, I made a complete phono stage, similar to the Levinson JC-2, with RIAA EQ in the feedback loop, which is a much more stringent test than a simple gain amp. I actually swapped the SAME EQ CAPS and resistors between the IC and the discrete stage to insure that there was little or no EQ error and then I listened. The 5534 was close, closer than any other IC op amp that I had used up to that time, but the discrete was clearer, and the 5534 sound sightly more 'homogenized' (for lack of a better word) so I stuck with discrete design, to make my subsequent award winning designs.
It should be noted that both gain amps were op amps, but the open loop gain was somewhat lower in the discrete, with the open loop bandwidth slightly higher in the discrete design, and of course, it was Class A in operation. I was somewhat disappointed that the IC failed in the comparison, because it made a lot of extra work for me. I would have loved to use the 5534 to replace my discrete modules, I could have done so much more in a given space.
It is the same problem today. Some newer IC's are quieter, some faster, but most don't outperform the 5534 very much in listening tests. Discrete still can sound better, and that is why I design with discrete devices when I can.
This was not the first time that I made such comparisons, in fact about 40 years ago, at a NY AES convention I was given my first 5534 type devices, that had the Phillips number TDA1034 (if I am not mistaken) that were specifically developed for audio, and I was very hopeful. However, to make sure, I made a direct comparison between the 5534 and one of my discrete op amp designs that I used for pro equipment like analog tape recorders and mixers.
Instead of just making a X10 amp, I made a complete phono stage, similar to the Levinson JC-2, with RIAA EQ in the feedback loop, which is a much more stringent test than a simple gain amp. I actually swapped the SAME EQ CAPS and resistors between the IC and the discrete stage to insure that there was little or no EQ error and then I listened. The 5534 was close, closer than any other IC op amp that I had used up to that time, but the discrete was clearer, and the 5534 sound sightly more 'homogenized' (for lack of a better word) so I stuck with discrete design, to make my subsequent award winning designs.
It should be noted that both gain amps were op amps, but the open loop gain was somewhat lower in the discrete, with the open loop bandwidth slightly higher in the discrete design, and of course, it was Class A in operation. I was somewhat disappointed that the IC failed in the comparison, because it made a lot of extra work for me. I would have loved to use the 5534 to replace my discrete modules, I could have done so much more in a given space.
It is the same problem today. Some newer IC's are quieter, some faster, but most don't outperform the 5534 very much in listening tests. Discrete still can sound better, and that is why I design with discrete devices when I can.
I'm sure this must have been discussed but just what does Foobar convert files too when you ABX them ?
If I load a WAV and MP3 for comparison, Foobar seems to convert the MP3 into something much larger. Also each file is twice the size of the single WAV.
Big reveal in the next couple of days. It would be great if more of you put down your listening impressions. Its all valuable data whether you here differences or not.
If I load a WAV and MP3 for comparison, Foobar seems to convert the MP3 into something much larger. Also each file is twice the size of the single WAV.
Big reveal in the next couple of days. It would be great if more of you put down your listening impressions. Its all valuable data whether you here differences or not.
Attachments
No, I mean used, dried up, stuck together, ground up coffee beans. Bitter, grainy to chew, unpleasant experience.
After a bit of listening to those comparison files, I picked out one cymbal hit somewhere near the end and just used that. I do hear variation in attack punchiness, noise, and some other things. One almost sounds like drum synth sounds. Another almost like a very small egg shaped percussion shaker. For esmerelda, there is some faint modulation to the cymbal sound as though there is a short delay and reverb added to the sound. Overall there is so much hiss, noise, and distortion on everything, none of it sounds close to real. After listening a while I am already getting fatigued and need to take a break for my hearing to come back. Sheesh.
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That still sounds like instant. Interestingly swapping recipes with someone at work he suggested coffee grounds in chocolate cake to help it keep its shape.
Either way, and having listened to many good many records sourced from DAT I have zero evidence that it gives a crunchy, chewy, bitter unpleasant edge to the HF. But that is just my opinion and my experience on my system which is different from everyone elses. So holds as much validity as Mr Inductors.
Either way, and having listened to many good many records sourced from DAT I have zero evidence that it gives a crunchy, chewy, bitter unpleasant edge to the HF. But that is just my opinion and my experience on my system which is different from everyone elses. So holds as much validity as Mr Inductors.
I have a CD by the 'Cadence Ensemble' Its not jazz but Latin classical music, specifically tango.
Fantastic recording done in London- the musicians are all from Armenia believe it or not. When I first looked at the liner notes before buying it I thought 'this will be terrible. I mean Armenia is on the other side of the world from Argentina. What do they know about that type of music?' Well I was wrong.
Very dynamic recording with great 3D imaging.
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