John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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It's more just to "prove" to oneself that the CD medium isn't a problem in itself - if even just one system gets it right, then it means that everything else is just getting it wrong to some degree. For myself, I use finicky tweaking to get there - costs far less money!!

A cheaper way would be to rip to computer storage, and then use one of the really well thought out USB DACs - the new DAC from Shiitt, using very different ideas, sounds very promising at a much more reasonable price.
 
It's more just to "prove" to oneself that the CD medium isn't a problem in itself - if even just one system gets it right, then it means that everything else is just getting it wrong to some degree. For myself, I use finicky tweaking to get there - costs far less money!!

A cheaper way would be to rip to computer storage, and then use one of the really well thought out USB DACs - the new DAC from Shiitt, using very different ideas, sounds very promising at a much more reasonable price.

Frank, frankly your input here on "getting it right' for the last few months has not hinged on $37,000 CD players. What happened to the Aldi TV and the s**t computer speakers? Shiitt Dac ironic.
 
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All still in place, :). What I have been doing since day 1 of getting sound that nailed it, for me, was checking "what everyone else was doing" - the obvious thought was that other people would have realised what was possible, and would have their own versions and variations of such in action.

But it was a lost cause in the early years - no-one else had "got it" ... I was all alone, ;). But there is always progress, via some method or another, and the CH Precision unit ticked the boxes I was asking of it. If one checks out this unit it uses extremely pedestrian electrical technology, eg. a boring Wolfson DAC, same as in a cheap media player - but has heroic engineering in the power supplies, vibration mitigation, shielding - it's a "Blowtorch CD player". The manufacturers have already done the type of the tweaking that I would consider worthwhile, but they did it in a very sharp, everything included, Swiss box - hence you pay big money for it ...

Again, there are multiple ways - CH Precision is one of those, I'm interested in exploring the various other ways of making it happen ...
 
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This is what gets to me:
I have a few CD players, and my latest is the OPPO 105, that does Blue Ray extremely well, but CD pretty much the same as any other player that I have used. Now, I know what is in the analog section, as I was hired as a consultant to potentially improve it. It's not bad, but it 'could' be better, in my opinion. No OBVIOUS mistakes. Good parts, etc.
Now, WHY should I need more for CD reproduction? I thought that CD was supposed to be 'error proof'?
Why am I still disappointed?
 
Unfortunately, with digital, "no obvious mistakes, good parts" is often not good enough - we're back to the "devil's in the details" thing.

'Error proof' only relates to the digital side - once the signals hit the digital to analogue conversion area then all bets are off. "Disappointing" sound from CD is a classic distortion artifact, that's how the ears hear the sound not being quite right, what it comes across, subjectively, while listening to it - it's like the focus of a microscope just being a tiny bit out, what you're looking at has an overall blur to it, the image lacks clarity in the fine detail. Something needs to be done, to just nudge the adjustment a tiny bit in the right direction - and then the tremendous complexity of what's there, almost miraculously, snaps out at you.
 
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Who is Cold Play BTW?
I was asking myself the exact same question.
I don't know if the quality of the "digital" or "analog" typography is equal, but, one thing is for sure, the only thing which matters is the content of the book.
Does the term Wifi was not invented for of systems designed to reproduce 'music' ?
 
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Why do people here feel obliged to take pot shots at Frank (Fas42)?

Ever since the "invention" of the High End, and the appearance of new companies like SAE and Phase Linear, later on Mark Levinson, people in it have talked about system synergy. It's a simple ackonweldement of the fact that not everything performes as well on everything else. The same CD player will do differently in different systems. Not to even mention TTs and cartridges and phono eq stages. If it all sounded the same, John would be out of work.

I agree Frank sometimes goes overboard, like in claiming true audio performance from cheap plastic speakers, a claim I support only to a small extent, insofar tht there are many such speakers around and they do not sound all the same, so a few are palatable in view of the low price, but I have yet to hear such a pair of speakers equal "proper" audio gear, but then those "proper" audio spekers do cost a lot more.

The only real difference is that Frank does it the other way - most will simply change a device they feel doesn't fit in their system, while Frank will try to make it fit better into that and probably other systems. In the last 20 years or so, I have come across only one CD player which fits into more than one system very well, and that's the one I use now, NAD 565 BEE; I haven't studied the service schematics because no matter which system at home (I have 3) I put it in it manages to sound about the same. My other CD player, Yamaha CDX 993, cannot manage that, it fits very well into my system, but not so well into my wife's system. No synergy. Things improve consideraby when I use my outboard "Real Time" DAC, the one with 8 parallel Philips DACs, but it still cannot catch up the NAD, even if by a small margin.

Frank simply finds a pair of speakers which show some promise and proceeds to act to make them still better. How is that really different from any of us, except in that he doesn't run off to swap components, but tries to locate the botlenecks and to do something about them?
 
Well,$37,000+ is outside my budget at the moment.

John, you don't need to spend $37,000+ for a digital playback device to sound pretty good. But you do need to do some serious field research.

If you can, try out the NAD 565 BEE. I think you might be pleasantly surprised for its $500 price tag. It is a bit like the Marantz 63 of old, cost is competetitive, but sound is way better than the average in its price class.
 
Dejan, that's a good term to use, "bottlenecks" - and resolving of these can be absolutely critical to achieving satisfying sound. It was partly accidental that I started down a road of seeing if decent sound could be extracted from "mediocre" gear - a stepson was going to throw his slightly defective Philips home theatre all-in-one - DVDs were not reading well - in the rubbish bin, and I said, well, throw it my way, instead. Turned out it read CDs well enough, sounded typical midfi mediocre - and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to see how far I could lift the sound by fiddling. Turned out to be capable of very solid performance, fully "invisible" speakers, etc - the following escapades with other items just continued the same theme ...

What I'm always chasing is the removing of the "hifi edge" that so many systems, especially the more expensive ones have - if the sound obviously originates from an audio system then that's a failure; "convincing" is all-important, far more than impressive bass, etc.
 
This is what gets to me:
I have a few CD players, and my latest is the OPPO 105, that does Blue Ray extremely well, but CD pretty much the same as any other player that I have used.

AFAIK uses the same ESS DAC's as the Pono, etc. Why don't you team up with one of the DIY groups doing external DAC's using one?

I have tried several times this month to get actual performance numbers on the Pono but can't seem to. The cell phone guys want both the extremely low numbers as well as "the hearing,feeling".
 
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I bother with "cheap" components - and noting that such can still allow the key qualities that I look for to come through. I'm emphasising a certain approach because it works, unlike, say, chasing 24 over 16 bits, :p.
Of course, the prices of components are often not correlated with their quality and final results in a system. (Sorry, J.C. ;-)
And that is true from a single resistance to a complex CD player. By example, you can have a better CD transport, using some computer CD player than some dedicated HIFI ones ;-)
And i agree too it is more fun to have more from less money ;-)

About 24 VS 16 bits, i don't bother too (for correctly mastered contents). And, yes oversampling can address most of the remaining issues. But, in an other way, if we can have 24 for near the same price, why deprive us ?
 
Frank, i don't want to be disagreeable, but don't you think, after all those years repeating endlessly in loop the same thing, that most of us have understood where is your center of interest ?

Excuse me, Christophe, if that's true of Frank, then it's also true of most of us others here as well. We all tend to stick to our individual concepts and objectives, not to even mention what we think of excellent gear.

How many times has John stated his preference of discrete circuitry over op amps, and I for one agreed? Or in this latest exchange about the bits we need and how they sound, how many times has each participant stated his case over and over again?
 
Excuse me, Christophe, if that's true of Frank, then it's also true of most of us others here as well.
Including-me, for sure ;-)
How many times has John stated his preference of discrete circuitry over op amps, and I for one agreed?
You will have to demonstrate-it to me with supporting figures if possible, because my experience do not tend to make me considering this as a law ;-)
 
I keep trying with IC op amps to make them sound 'great'. I am fairly successful too. However, my best designs are discrete, and audio reviewers doing direct comparisons with my IC vs discrete efforts, like the JC-3 evaluation in 'Stereophile' this month, confirms what I already know about the differences.
Another way to compare is one of the Chinese JC-2 clones vs something IC based at the same price point.
 
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