Sony XB940 SACD
On SACD, sometimes it's in the same league as my analog. Plus I have nearly 1000x the number of LPs.
SOTA digital is such a moving target, and still not that great to my ears (what I've heard anyway), that I haven't bothered with throwing a lot of money at something I might not even be able to get spares for in a few years. I also find the difference between pvarious players, DACs and transports to be much smaller than eqivalent money spent in similar analog products.
On SACD, sometimes it's in the same league as my analog. Plus I have nearly 1000x the number of LPs.
SOTA digital is such a moving target, and still not that great to my ears (what I've heard anyway), that I haven't bothered with throwing a lot of money at something I might not even be able to get spares for in a few years. I also find the difference between pvarious players, DACs and transports to be much smaller than eqivalent money spent in similar analog products.
For those of you not familiar with my biases.......
Those that are can ignore this..............
Outboard DACs have jitter problems. Can be overcome. S/PDIF is dumb, but AES/EBU is much worse.
Non- o/s is a joke. But if you use lousy filter chips, and noisy clocks, it might work fine for you.
24-bits is the way to go, but you need to pay close atention to the clocks, and I think op-amps stink for I/V stages.
Resistors do work for I/Vs, but require amplification, which adds noise. And most DAC chips do not like DC on their output. Most will tolerate some, but sound better with none.
Jocko
Those that are can ignore this..............
Outboard DACs have jitter problems. Can be overcome. S/PDIF is dumb, but AES/EBU is much worse.
Non- o/s is a joke. But if you use lousy filter chips, and noisy clocks, it might work fine for you.
24-bits is the way to go, but you need to pay close atention to the clocks, and I think op-amps stink for I/V stages.
Resistors do work for I/Vs, but require amplification, which adds noise. And most DAC chips do not like DC on their output. Most will tolerate some, but sound better with none.
Jocko
Actually i was inquiring as to what is the current state of digital play back in terms of sound quality, not technology. I am looking for opinions on what individuals like and dont like and why. Hopefully with this information and listening i can make an informed decision on the direction of my next digital front end.
Ray.
Ray.
Progress… u don’t have to be mad to understand it, but if u are, sometimes it helps
Yet 1985 all CDPs were os. A bit earlier there were non-os machines, but all of them had horrible analog filters. Stacking of enormous quantity of the poles is not anything I would think about if I have plans to have a good sound. But, as always, engineers followed theories they accessed. Finally, that’s why they are paid for.
Can? Yes, probably, but why would we?
So I know your biases, now I’ll tell you mine.
Os can sound good, but the same level of quality (and with more music) can be achieved with ridiculously small amount of money invested to non-os. Assuming DIY. And assuming decent rest of the system.
Jocko, really, did you listen…? And wadaya say? I mean, how about the sound?
Pedja
Yet 1985 all CDPs were os. A bit earlier there were non-os machines, but all of them had horrible analog filters. Stacking of enormous quantity of the poles is not anything I would think about if I have plans to have a good sound. But, as always, engineers followed theories they accessed. Finally, that’s why they are paid for.
Jocko Homo said:
Can? Yes, probably, but why would we?
So I know your biases, now I’ll tell you mine.
Os can sound good, but the same level of quality (and with more music) can be achieved with ridiculously small amount of money invested to non-os. Assuming DIY. And assuming decent rest of the system.
Jocko, really, did you listen…? And wadaya say? I mean, how about the sound?
Pedja
Oh look, we have digressed into another non-os/os discussion.
GO JOCKO, GO!
Sorry to stamp on any non-os DAC proponents, but oversampling is a perfect mathematical process. Done properly, it does not add anything....but wait, pre-ringing (well really just bandwidth limiting from a non-causal filter)..... well if you want to do your own oversampling, you could still do an IIR filter and have no pre-ringing and still get all the benefits of OS-DACS.
That all said and done..... I spent about 16 hours listening to equipment over two days at the Montreal Hi-Fi show. The one thought I came away with was just how goog SACD and DVD-Audio was. Let's face it, unless you use the same amplifiers and DACs in all settings, you can't compare amps. The colorization of the speakers and the source, unless the amp is terrible, are going to be far greater than the amp. That all said and done, different speakers obviously sounded different, but what was also readily noticeable in many cases was where an SACD or DVD-Audio source was being used as opposed to a CD player, no matter how good. If one did not want to break the bank, I would consider a mid-end Pioneer player that will do all the formats, and tweak it.
Alvaius
GO JOCKO, GO!
Sorry to stamp on any non-os DAC proponents, but oversampling is a perfect mathematical process. Done properly, it does not add anything....but wait, pre-ringing (well really just bandwidth limiting from a non-causal filter)..... well if you want to do your own oversampling, you could still do an IIR filter and have no pre-ringing and still get all the benefits of OS-DACS.
That all said and done..... I spent about 16 hours listening to equipment over two days at the Montreal Hi-Fi show. The one thought I came away with was just how goog SACD and DVD-Audio was. Let's face it, unless you use the same amplifiers and DACs in all settings, you can't compare amps. The colorization of the speakers and the source, unless the amp is terrible, are going to be far greater than the amp. That all said and done, different speakers obviously sounded different, but what was also readily noticeable in many cases was where an SACD or DVD-Audio source was being used as opposed to a CD player, no matter how good. If one did not want to break the bank, I would consider a mid-end Pioneer player that will do all the formats, and tweak it.
Alvaius
Don't encourage the inmates to act up....
But since you did, for the ??? time:
I have heard non-o/s. It sounds better than it should. It has a euphonic sound that some people might prefer. Those of you who hate digital, and tend to prefer the sound of tubes, might like it. I do not. I have spent great effort the last 16 years trying to get digital to sound accurate, revealing, and musical without making ears bleed. Which I can do.
Non-o/s is easier for some of you because:
1.) It does not use filter chips that I believe, for many reasons, to be inferior.
2.) It is less sensitive to jitter, some of which comes from above mentioned digital filter, as that is where most CDPs get theirs from.
3.) A lot of non-o/s setups use a resistor for the I/V. And then amplify the signal. Op amps make lousy I/V stages, and the effects on negative feedback will have different sonic results depending on the application. Of course, there will be some distortion arising from using a resisitor. (I believe that there are posts showing how much THD different resistors values create for various DACs.)
4.) It is cheap, and uses old lousy parts that are easy to come by.
The first 3 of these problems are overcome with decent technology. Sure, it costs money. And that seems to be the big problem most here have difficulty with.
I do not want to have to 'splain this again. Let's stick to current stuff. Unless, of course, you have no interest in that. There are enough new things out there (that few seem to care about) for us to discuss.
Jocko
But since you did, for the ??? time:
I have heard non-o/s. It sounds better than it should. It has a euphonic sound that some people might prefer. Those of you who hate digital, and tend to prefer the sound of tubes, might like it. I do not. I have spent great effort the last 16 years trying to get digital to sound accurate, revealing, and musical without making ears bleed. Which I can do.
Non-o/s is easier for some of you because:
1.) It does not use filter chips that I believe, for many reasons, to be inferior.
2.) It is less sensitive to jitter, some of which comes from above mentioned digital filter, as that is where most CDPs get theirs from.
3.) A lot of non-o/s setups use a resistor for the I/V. And then amplify the signal. Op amps make lousy I/V stages, and the effects on negative feedback will have different sonic results depending on the application. Of course, there will be some distortion arising from using a resisitor. (I believe that there are posts showing how much THD different resistors values create for various DACs.)
4.) It is cheap, and uses old lousy parts that are easy to come by.
The first 3 of these problems are overcome with decent technology. Sure, it costs money. And that seems to be the big problem most here have difficulty with.
I do not want to have to 'splain this again. Let's stick to current stuff. Unless, of course, you have no interest in that. There are enough new things out there (that few seem to care about) for us to discuss.
Jocko
Wow, Jocko, for the very first time it seems we have success pushing you to write something serious about the non-os. And looking at what you wrote, that non-os definitely doesn’t seem like a joke.
One more notice. You’ll hardly find anything new in the tube technology in the last 40 years, but in the same tube technology we certainly have something we can call “current stuff”. Or for you tubes by default could not be a current stuff?
“Current stuff” shouldn’t be more-bits-more-fss or “new invention about the D/A process” in which nobody knows what is new…
There are some common points between that what you consider a current stuff and reasons why non-os sounds good. These considers jitter (one does anything to make it better, second makes it less important) and about the clearance of the power supply lines (one assumes uncompromised cleaning, second produces less noise).
So you have a reasons why non-os is current stuff.
Pedja
One more notice. You’ll hardly find anything new in the tube technology in the last 40 years, but in the same tube technology we certainly have something we can call “current stuff”. Or for you tubes by default could not be a current stuff?
“Current stuff” shouldn’t be more-bits-more-fss or “new invention about the D/A process” in which nobody knows what is new…
There are some common points between that what you consider a current stuff and reasons why non-os sounds good. These considers jitter (one does anything to make it better, second makes it less important) and about the clearance of the power supply lines (one assumes uncompromised cleaning, second produces less noise).
So you have a reasons why non-os is current stuff.
Pedja
The first time???????!!!!!!!
How many times do I have to say this stuff???
Current would imply stuff like........SRCs. Someone has thread on that. All the different types of DACs......R-2R vs delta-sigma vs this new "current out" stuff that TI makes that looks a lot like delta-sigma. And whatever Analog Devices is up to. (I stopped paying attention to them after the rep changed.)
About 12 years ago, someone gave me an article out of some magazine about "who is doing digtial right". It was well written. Wish it said the publication name, date, etc., but it didn't. All the stuff I have been complaining about was discussed way back then.
So, no, I don't consider most of this current. Just rehashing the same old battles.
Jocko
How many times do I have to say this stuff???
Current would imply stuff like........SRCs. Someone has thread on that. All the different types of DACs......R-2R vs delta-sigma vs this new "current out" stuff that TI makes that looks a lot like delta-sigma. And whatever Analog Devices is up to. (I stopped paying attention to them after the rep changed.)
About 12 years ago, someone gave me an article out of some magazine about "who is doing digtial right". It was well written. Wish it said the publication name, date, etc., but it didn't. All the stuff I have been complaining about was discussed way back then.
So, no, I don't consider most of this current. Just rehashing the same old battles.
Jocko
os...
"Oversampling is a perfect mathematical process....it just don't add anything..."
Maybe in theory. If is so perfect, all filter chips should sound the same. But if you change the filter in a player/dac guess what? The sound will change accordingly. So all this chips have sonic signatures, which is not desirable. And the ringing, the timing errors, the sensitivity to jitter + sonic signature it's not a matter of pride for os systems.
Of course it can sound good in decent systems, but it just happens that non-os is better most of the time
Of course the industry will push everyday new chips, techniques and technologies. How good they are for us - only our ears will decide, not just assumng that newer is better and the rest could be forgotten.
So, the current and future state of digital audio: trust your ears...
"Oversampling is a perfect mathematical process....it just don't add anything..."
Maybe in theory. If is so perfect, all filter chips should sound the same. But if you change the filter in a player/dac guess what? The sound will change accordingly. So all this chips have sonic signatures, which is not desirable. And the ringing, the timing errors, the sensitivity to jitter + sonic signature it's not a matter of pride for os systems.
Of course it can sound good in decent systems, but it just happens that non-os is better most of the time
Of course the industry will push everyday new chips, techniques and technologies. How good they are for us - only our ears will decide, not just assumng that newer is better and the rest could be forgotten.
So, the current and future state of digital audio: trust your ears...
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