I wish I could contribute, but have no machinery to play. Also, can't hear 6KHz, so not a usable result. Thank you very much for your clear and well designed test. Should prove interesting, and possibly surprising!
Much thanks, as always,
Chris
Yes they demanded a programming change after some one heard Beat her with a Rake by the Weasels and all the alternative programming disappeared.
I wanted to do 19+20 KHz IMD tests and some others to replace the Sound Technology 1510A I've been using for 30 years...which still works fine, but needs a fan replacement and the CRT is getting dim. I have (against my better judgement) turned into a Nak MR-1 and Dragon repair center, I have a lot of parts for them and it seems people always need them repaired. The ST is a great tool for analog recorder testing, but long in the tooth.
Maybe I'll have to analyze the test DLLs and see if I can create test plugins myself...anyone else attempt this?
Cheers,
Howie
John,
I don't know anyone here making that claim, just that for many albums there would not be an appreciable difference warranting HiRes treatment and cost.
Cheers!
Howie
For folks unfamiliar with these critters, the ST 1500 series is full of Z-80 processors and UV erasable PROMs. Very early Everything. You're planning to make plug-ins? Can you walk on water too? I could not be more impressed. RESPECT.
If you still have Dragon pinch rollers, I'll send you all future inquiries. Ran out last year and didn't even keep any for my personal ZX-9. Probably just as well.
All the best fortune,
Chris
🙂 😎
We cant, dont need, to wait until there is total absolute proof for everything. If it is not perfect and you can make it better easily, then just do it and move on.
Whether it is BW or phase or GD or SR or THD or noise or sampling freq.... just make it a lot better and the total affect can be stunning. In most cases it costs little or nothing to do.
🙂
THx-RNMarsh
You get my respect for admitting you have a cassette deck here, expect a rain of insults from a few people...especially those who have no experience with a properly adjusted Nak with the Nak dual plane transport like the ZX-9...although the MR-1 was not terrible when the capstans were new. Having already committed audio suicide here I'll state I have a 1000ZXL with one of the select gold repro heads which will record and playback a stable 25 KHz...and is a fine sounding analog recorder...which I never use any more. I'm lazy so I use the Dragon for playback, it is a specially modded ITA '94 Reference deck we used for azimuth checks with an analog azimuth error output. I have transferred over 500 radio show check tapes with it for several stations.
I now hang here by the neck from a loop of magnetic tape...RIP.
Cheers!
Howie
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Maybe not as bad as that, but yeah, antiques are a specialized part of DIYaudio. It's dangerous though to expose your ability to transcribe from antique media to current. Word gets around. Definitely never mention it on the Internet. 'Nuf said.
Always the best fortune,
Chris
When it was clear that music distribution on vinyl can be improved, RIAA published a pre-emphasis standard around the 50s still currently being used.
Today one of the elephants left in the room is driver distortion. It makes little sense why a correction is not being commonly applied on the cases where it is worthwhile.
Hans Polak's test files
Hello Hans,
I listened to your test files in two sessions, and I wasn't able to tell them apart, i.e. they sound the same to me.
At moments, I thought to have heard slight differences, but I could not confirm them in close hearing.
The equipment used was Oppo105D, Bruno's preamp from Linear Audio Vol. 5, and the "Crocodile 2" driving a pair of Sennheiser HD580 headphones.
So now I know not to belong to the "Golden ears" community🙄
Regrads,
Braca
Hello Hans,
I listened to your test files in two sessions, and I wasn't able to tell them apart, i.e. they sound the same to me.
At moments, I thought to have heard slight differences, but I could not confirm them in close hearing.
The equipment used was Oppo105D, Bruno's preamp from Linear Audio Vol. 5, and the "Crocodile 2" driving a pair of Sennheiser HD580 headphones.
So now I know not to belong to the "Golden ears" community🙄
Regrads,
Braca
1000ZXL
Howie, you get cred for having something as overkill as the 1000ZXL. Having a Dragon as well is just greedy though 🙂
Howie, you get cred for having something as overkill as the 1000ZXL. Having a Dragon as well is just greedy though 🙂
Hi Bill,
I've been away for several days and am just catching up. Yes, Dutton has recently released a lot of sacd's. Chandos stays steady with their releases. LSO Live used to release everything in sacd but not anymore, same with Channel. Nevertheless, Bis releases 6 every month, all in sacd because Robert von Bahr the BIS owner, loves mch sacd.
If you have serious thought about a sacd player you should buy NOW. There are very few new players in production, and they are all Japanese marketed, meaning no multichannel. Multichannel audio players went out the window long ago except for Oppo. You'll do better with any Oppo than a DVD player that can do mch sacd, IMO of course. And you have to deal with HDMI out too, no exception.
To me, via my Philips cans and my MacBook pro, I could not say that there where any immediate differences on the 3 tracks A, B and C. But I'm planning to get a dedicated DAC/AMP for my headphones. I do think the laptop sound quite nice I have to admit.
//
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Welcome to the American Century. Oh, wait, that was the previous one? Never mind.
Welcome to the Corporate Century. You're gonna love it here!
Hi Hans,
I find this to be a very interesting post. I presume that in 2002 you were a Philips employee who could have participated in Pentatone and perhaps the earlier buyout that created Polyhymnia Studios.
Until recently Pentatone label has always been dedicated to multichannel sacd. Erdo Groot used to post on forums all the time of how great this was, even in small rooms with home theatre setups.
While multichannel reproduction is the true difference between sacd and rbcd, it didn't really take off in any way other than in the classical music market.
Pentatone continues to produce 5 channel sacd's to this day. The 4 channel discs you mention are licensed reissues from the old Quadraphonic catalogs from Philips Classics and DGG. Those also continue. However I have noticed recently that Pentatone is now releasing some music in just rbcd disc format with the accompanying DXD/DSD file releases on NativDSD.com.
Your comments on multichannel playback are quite consistent with many others who have not really been able to listen to a properly setup multichannel music system. The music never comes from behind you. The rear speakers, music from the ambient mikes, just give a slightly more 3-D presentation.
However, there seem to be different mix standards for mch. One is to have the music out in the middle of the room, which I don't like. The more common just gives a nicer/fuller, as you wish, 3-D presentation than 2 channel.
I suppose it's now back to the regular programming.
I had various high end Teac, Technics and Sony tape decks in the early days.
Nothing could beat the sound of the NAK’s and me and a few hifi nut friends in the day would go around to the high end audio shops and drool. They were 2 or 3x the cost of the stuff we had bought and out of our bracket.
