Been listening to TNT's filter from #1633 for almost a year now. Finally got around to connecting the DAC to the old laptop again and tried #1833. Very interesting! High end sounds more natural/open and less smeared/phasey and midrange a little more uncluttered, but it's also really top end heavy (auditioning on my studio monitors) and more fatiguing. Fast attack midrange stuff (like toms) and certain vocals seem to jump out a little.
Sounds great for orchestral stuff, soundtracks and generally everything that is rather mellow. Original Twin Peaks soundtrack sounds just perfect. ;-) Things like certain 90s pop productions can sound harsh to the point of being unlistenable though.
Whitney Houston's voice on "I will always love you" sounds nice and full with the #1633 filter, but peaky and unnerving with the #1833 filter.
What's the difference between the two filters in terms of frequency, phase and impulse response as well as aliasing?
Thanks for all the great filters TNT!
Sounds great for orchestral stuff, soundtracks and generally everything that is rather mellow. Original Twin Peaks soundtrack sounds just perfect. ;-) Things like certain 90s pop productions can sound harsh to the point of being unlistenable though.
Whitney Houston's voice on "I will always love you" sounds nice and full with the #1633 filter, but peaky and unnerving with the #1833 filter.
What's the difference between the two filters in terms of frequency, phase and impulse response as well as aliasing?
Thanks for all the great filters TNT!
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Hello !
I owm a dam1941, and before that 2x 1021 in balanced. I also own a nc400 amp and a pair of atohm eurus speakers. Very pleased of the sound, so i have to try the different filters.
My favorite, and by far, is the c128dp nyquist. But i am also a metal fan and for that this filters is beyond perfection. As it was said before, this filter is specific, not sure it is good for everything. What i like : the percussion are very good, it reveal some bass frequency like no other without being invasive, also it seems to handle very well fast music.
I also find it well balanced in my system. Before my atohm eurus i had lower quality focal speaker, and i really dislike this filters then, because i found it give a sound that is more "nasal"; voice and guitar appear more grainy. It's far less exaggerated with my eurus, and i like this grainy feeling now.
When i listen all the different filters, soekris 4k or community one, i find that some are a little heartless, like it miss just a little bit of dynamic, and some other are in the contrary, too much dynamic or some frequency are too pronounced, so the music become difficult to listen (tiresome). Also if i remember it was the F5 (or F6, i am not sure now) soekris 4k that give far too much bass, when the linear F4 has a lot less.
From what i can say of the TNT filters, it sound "perfect", very linear indeed and well balanced, probably the best if you want something fully neutral. I guess i'm like these tube amp owner that like the distortion profile of their amp... you know it's not the best but you still go for it because if better to your ear.
I owm a dam1941, and before that 2x 1021 in balanced. I also own a nc400 amp and a pair of atohm eurus speakers. Very pleased of the sound, so i have to try the different filters.
My favorite, and by far, is the c128dp nyquist. But i am also a metal fan and for that this filters is beyond perfection. As it was said before, this filter is specific, not sure it is good for everything. What i like : the percussion are very good, it reveal some bass frequency like no other without being invasive, also it seems to handle very well fast music.
I also find it well balanced in my system. Before my atohm eurus i had lower quality focal speaker, and i really dislike this filters then, because i found it give a sound that is more "nasal"; voice and guitar appear more grainy. It's far less exaggerated with my eurus, and i like this grainy feeling now.
When i listen all the different filters, soekris 4k or community one, i find that some are a little heartless, like it miss just a little bit of dynamic, and some other are in the contrary, too much dynamic or some frequency are too pronounced, so the music become difficult to listen (tiresome). Also if i remember it was the F5 (or F6, i am not sure now) soekris 4k that give far too much bass, when the linear F4 has a lot less.
From what i can say of the TNT filters, it sound "perfect", very linear indeed and well balanced, probably the best if you want something fully neutral. I guess i'm like these tube amp owner that like the distortion profile of their amp... you know it's not the best but you still go for it because if better to your ear.
I do hardly ever listen to metal, but I also prefer the C128DP. The latest TNT is very revealing, but it sounds artificial / stressed (you could call it nasal) in the midrange to my ears.
Dynamics are also clearly better with the C128DP. It is maybe a little thin overall.
All of this is auditioning on different pairs of closed box studio monitors in a treated room. I do not audition via headphones and personally can't recommend it. ;-)
Dynamics are also clearly better with the C128DP. It is maybe a little thin overall.
All of this is auditioning on different pairs of closed box studio monitors in a treated room. I do not audition via headphones and personally can't recommend it. ;-)
Yes - what is evident is that a sound system is the sum of it's components. There are many ways and strategies to build one. I seek the least points of "compensation" so personally, I go for what I judge as the most neutral and technically correct when it comes to electronics (inc DAC) and turn towards the speaker and room when it comes to get the sound I strive for - a recreated symphony orchestra. Thats my priority and if Opeth would sound a bit strange I'll live with that 
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I also use the C128DP. Should probably try TNT's latest, but his first release was intolerable in my system.
The debate about what constitutes the most neutral and technically correct is still ongoing, especially regarding what the relevant metrics are from a psychoacoustic perspective. For instance, if it were as simple as THD and frequency response measured by sinewaves, currently availible SD converters would all sound great. To mine and many other people's ears they obviously don't.
Ultimately, the ears must be the judge.
My filter of choice, *really* brings out the guitar grittiness in the heaviest of metal with tons of depth perception, beautiful.
#1633 sounds very good, but I currently prefer the C128DP, too. I can listen for hours without fatigue with either.
C128DP really opened up bigtime for metal genre when I swapped my NC400 for a Modulus-286. The first time I heard Chevelle/Closure after that upgrade my heart literally melted in awe, dynamics and detail are downright ridiculous.
Wishing there was a way to crossfeed a pair of dam1021's as the separation is so good that music simply sounds so unnatural on headphones to the point that it fatigues you pretty quickly, everything becomes so obvious that headphones aren't the intended listening device for many mixes. This quickly becomes an issue when detail is so high that it doesn't typically hide behind the mush you get from typical earbuds.
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IIRC currently there are only 2K tap filters out there, are there any dac1541 compatible, 4K tap filter available to try?
Since I am very new to filter brewing, trying to learn here. Is the filter brewing approach mainly about where to begin the rolloff, steepness of rolloff, phase behaviour, and impulse response? Therefore no EQ of any sort in the main audio band (20-19k)?
Since I am very new to filter brewing, trying to learn here. Is the filter brewing approach mainly about where to begin the rolloff, steepness of rolloff, phase behaviour, and impulse response? Therefore no EQ of any sort in the main audio band (20-19k)?
All filters discussed here are liner FR. The might differ in extension 19,20,22Khz at high attenuations. But we also see some that don't attenuate hard before 22,05 and that is violating the Nyquesit/Shannon theorem with some, at least technical drawbacks.
I suppose there are 4k filters from Soekris with the latest firmware upgrade packages that supported 4k filters or if you got one recently, they came with the product. Check out Soekris Audio ApS, R-2R Sign Magnitude Audio DAC
My guess is that: http://www.soekris.dk/download/dac1541/1541_full_121.skr
contains 4k filter for your DAC. I dont own that one but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
So, if you run 1.21 FW, chances is that you are using 4k filters... check that up
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I suppose there are 4k filters from Soekris with the latest firmware upgrade packages that supported 4k filters or if you got one recently, they came with the product. Check out Soekris Audio ApS, R-2R Sign Magnitude Audio DAC
My guess is that: http://www.soekris.dk/download/dac1541/1541_full_121.skr
contains 4k filter for your DAC. I dont own that one but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
So, if you run 1.21 FW, chances is that you are using 4k filters... check that up
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Very interesting. I have always found your posts useful, yet we clearly listen to very different genres and perceive sound differently. I like the DAM because of timbral fidelity, impulse reproduction, microdynamics. The sore points for me are dynamics and image specificity. Both addressed in the 1941, but still lacking imho compared to top dacs.
Did not get the amp importance well. Did you mean the Modulus only became useful with metal once you installed the C128DP?
Yes. A combination of nC400 and DAM with my filters is extremely revealing and transparent. This is my current rig that I use to try my filter adventures. If the speakers (and room) are not in shape to convey this level of transparency, it hurts. But if you have a grip on diffraction and reflektions and dial in a linear FR with a suitable downward tilt (aka house curve), you will be richly rewarded. I find that as the filters improve, you can allow for less tilt. My goal for a filter is to allow for almost linear FR in listening position. This will not only be about filter however. As usual
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My guess is that: http://www.soekris.dk/download/dac1541/1541_full_121.skr
contains 4k filter for your DAC. I dont own that one but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
So, if you run 1.21 FW, chances is that you are using 4k filters... check that up
//
Yup, I already updated my unit to 1.20 FW about a year ago, and as you've pointed out, came with 4K filters.
I did not update to 1.21 FW since it was a minor FW fix with the same set of 4K filters as 1.20.
I was just hoping to try other home brewed flavors of 4K filters...I guess there are none out there...
Beginning to understand this now. My amps are probably mellower than even your Modulus and completely lack the laser burning highs of the Ncore. This may be a significant factor for the filter preference.
Well i will give you what i feel, maybe it's wrong.
From my experience, when you listen to metal, their is 2 different path.
The first is 70's rock, and you go deeper and deeper in the extreme to lead you to metal, but even then your preference is always in these 70's sound. This is not for nothing that 70's music is comming back these day, most metal muscians start with 70's music, and the last few years there is some kind of rebirth... It makes me lagh when TNT talk of opeth, that move from death metal to progressive 70's rock. But others musician did that, for exemple steven wilson from porcupine tree and some other metal prog muciain. Personnaly i dislike their work and prefer what some doom musician did, because of their true understanding of what 70's music is.
Anyaway... the other way is to start with **** for teenarger like korn etc... And these people usually missed so much. When i saw some 70's band that stilled make live performance (wishbone ash, ten years after, john mayall, etc...) , i always liked to talk to some metal heads that finish the concert in their *** saying "i'm just just blown away, it was impossible for me to believe these old rock could sound so good".
The thing is, if you listen to some blues music or bluesy hard rock, you need that grainy sound. Stevie ray vaughan played with hot overwounded strat pickup to get this grainy sound,...and how many hard rock players plays with these old paf 50's les paul pickup etc. Vintage metal like doom is also the same with it's fat, grainy and saturated riff...
All that the c128dp seems to do better than the others, for the reason that was expressed before.
Modern metal is a little bit differant and lot colder (emg 81/85 often did their work here...). More effect like reverb etc... But even then the c128dp seems better because of the clarity in percussion (tempo if fastest especially in the drum) and increased dynamic do a perfect job.
Linear filters seems to me better in music that require clarity. Classical or even rock / metal with a lot of keyboard and effect that leads to ethereal sound.
I remember a metal song, i just don't ear the bass with the TNT filters, but with c128dp it's just sol good
Anyway, spikestabber talk of switching from the nc400 to the modulus. I am very interested to ear more, i never eared the modulus especially with metal
From my experience, when you listen to metal, their is 2 different path.
The first is 70's rock, and you go deeper and deeper in the extreme to lead you to metal, but even then your preference is always in these 70's sound. This is not for nothing that 70's music is comming back these day, most metal muscians start with 70's music, and the last few years there is some kind of rebirth... It makes me lagh when TNT talk of opeth, that move from death metal to progressive 70's rock. But others musician did that, for exemple steven wilson from porcupine tree and some other metal prog muciain. Personnaly i dislike their work and prefer what some doom musician did, because of their true understanding of what 70's music is.
Anyaway... the other way is to start with **** for teenarger like korn etc... And these people usually missed so much. When i saw some 70's band that stilled make live performance (wishbone ash, ten years after, john mayall, etc...) , i always liked to talk to some metal heads that finish the concert in their *** saying "i'm just just blown away, it was impossible for me to believe these old rock could sound so good".
The thing is, if you listen to some blues music or bluesy hard rock, you need that grainy sound. Stevie ray vaughan played with hot overwounded strat pickup to get this grainy sound,...and how many hard rock players plays with these old paf 50's les paul pickup etc. Vintage metal like doom is also the same with it's fat, grainy and saturated riff...
All that the c128dp seems to do better than the others, for the reason that was expressed before.
Modern metal is a little bit differant and lot colder (emg 81/85 often did their work here...). More effect like reverb etc... But even then the c128dp seems better because of the clarity in percussion (tempo if fastest especially in the drum) and increased dynamic do a perfect job.
Linear filters seems to me better in music that require clarity. Classical or even rock / metal with a lot of keyboard and effect that leads to ethereal sound.
I remember a metal song, i just don't ear the bass with the TNT filters, but with c128dp it's just sol good
Anyway, spikestabber talk of switching from the nc400 to the modulus. I am very interested to ear more, i never eared the modulus especially with metal