Home Theater/Personal audio thread...

[Clipdat]

Those Sony cans look great! I'm sure they sound a lot better than my super clinical and sterile sounding MDR-V900HD.

In other news, I'm currently demoing this DAC:

[krayzie]

Interesting this North Star Design brand is Italian?

From their website:

We use on all our unit Sabre DAC:
on Intenso and Impulso ES9016
on the Excelsio and Supremo the ES9018.
On Excelsio and Supremo the analog and digital supply are derived from different toroidal
transformers.
On the Impulso, Excelsio and Supremo the analog output is available on
balanced and unbalanced connectors.
On the Supremo DAC the analog stage is designed with discrete components only, using very low noise matched Jfet.


Dang! That means you really need to go for the Supremo.

The Sony PHA-3 headphone amp uses Sabre ES9018 desktop version. Supposedly ESS also makes a pro version. On the Sony Walkman itself it doesn't even use a traditional DAC setup, but with a proprietary digital amp called S-Master HX.

[Clipdat]

Yep, Italian brand.

I didn't care for the DAC hooked up to my PC via USB. It felt like it made all my music slow. Like dragging a stick through the mud. I did not care for it's pace/rhythm in that setup.

For certain types of electronic music with fast driving synthesizer leads and pounding drum beats, it sounds too polite and flat. It's not doing justice to the aggressive nature of the song. For "KMFDM - Ultra " the song sounded downright like it was dragging along slowly. It wasn't musically exciting and making me want to rock out or tap my foot. Everything just felt slow and sluggish. I hooked up the Topping D10 back up and almost immediately my wife and I were nodding our heads and tapping our feet. Interesting

Then on Sunday I put the Intenso into the bedroom setup, being fed from my Rotel RCD-1072 via a MIT coax. I didn't notice any of the slow/sluggish sound I was noticing on the PC setup.

I listened to it for 4 or 5 hours. Things sounded pretty good. I still think it sounds a little friendly/polite for my tastes, but it's very "easy" to listen to without a hint of harshness. It even does an admirable job with stuff that wasn't recorded/mastered that well. It's very relaxing to listen to. I think that's the best way I can describe it's sound. Relaxing and unoffensive.

I noticed it had a real palpable stereo image. Very nice imaging indeed.

I'm going to enjoy listening to it for as long as I have it, but would I spend $1k on it? No. Although, it does make me curious about their higher end DACs like the Supremo in terms of what they could do when not trying to design for a $1k budget.

Originally Posted by krayzie

Interesting this North Star Design brand is Italian?

[krayzie]

Originally Posted by Clipdat

it does make me curious about their higher end DACs like the Supremo in terms of what they could do when not trying to design for a $1k budget.

Well if the DAC can handle native DSD then I would say the circuit probably has a super accurate clock and high processing capability. But the PC is not a sole dedicated music source like a standalone music player so it probably has an effect on the sound.

Not sure about USB but coax digital out will always pass on a better signal than toslink, well unless the DAC can feed the clock line back to the CD Player to sync like this:





CDP-R1 and DAS-R1 combo went for $8000USD back in 1989.

I know Esoteric gets even more hardcore with a separate box called a Master Clock Generator.

[Clipdat]

Yeah, honestly there's just too many variables with PC audio over USB. I also noticed there were dropouts/static pops with the Intenso. But I get 100% perfect performance with the $90 Topping D10. So, I'm happy to have found a DAC that works out well for me on the PC.

That oldschool Sony stuff is crazy. Crazy awesome!

[Vracer111]

Originally Posted by Clipdat

Yep, Italian brand.

I didn't care for the DAC hooked up to my PC via USB. It felt like it made all my music slow. Like dragging a stick through the mud. I did not care for it's pace/rhythm in that setup.

For certain types of electronic music with fast driving synthesizer leads and pounding drum beats, it sounds too polite and flat. It's not doing justice to the aggressive nature of the song. For "KMFDM - Ultra " the song sounded downright like it was dragging along slowly. It wasn't musically exciting and making me want to rock out or tap my foot. Everything just felt slow and sluggish. I hooked up the Topping D10 back up and almost immediately my wife and I were nodding our heads and tapping our feet. Interesting

Then on Sunday I put the Intenso into the bedroom setup, being fed from my Rotel RCD-1072 via a MIT coax. I didn't notice any of the slow/sluggish sound I was noticing on the PC setup.

I listened to it for 4 or 5 hours. Things sounded pretty good. I still think it sounds a little friendly/polite for my tastes, but it's very "easy" to listen to without a hint of harshness. It even does an admirable job with stuff that wasn't recorded/mastered that well. It's very relaxing to listen to. I think that's the best way I can describe it's sound. Relaxing and unoffensive.

I noticed it had a real palpable stereo image. Very nice imaging indeed.

I'm going to enjoy listening to it for as long as I have it, but would I spend $1k on it? No. Although, it does make me curious about their higher end DACs like the Supremo in terms of what they could do when not trying to design for a $1k budget.

For $1k you need to go German...

https://headfonics.com/2018/04/rme-adi-2-dac-review/

I actually just got one a month ago and its a phenominal DAC/amp, USB is indistinguishable from coax.... a really awesome USB implementation. Also fully custom configurable with 5 band PEQ, separate bass and treble adjustments, loudness, width, and balance adjustment, crossfeed, etc... Have it connected to the STAX rig which also allows for listening to speakers as well (though the STAX L300LE are my primary listening preference)

Incredibly clear and dynamic sound with BLACK background and solid BASS. Just recently connected my OPPO BDP93 to it and played some DVD-A and Blu-ray Audio albums (OPPO setup to downmix to stereo)....just WOW. Now I'm on the hunt for DVD-A releases.

[Clipdat]

Volume control (let alone advanced EQing) on a DAC just seems wrong to me. I don't want it adjusting anything.

I specifically got a preamp that has no balance or tone control knobs on it.

I'm not a fan of EQing my signal.

[krayzie]

Well to be honest for PCM based playback I cannot tell a difference between high res and properly mastered CDs.

But for native DSD playback (not DoP) it's very obvious with the better imaging and warmth, and native DSD does not allow any EQing/DSP options to begin with.

I also noticed over the years, all the absolute best equipment coming out of Japan usually have copper plated resonance damping chassis construction.

[Vracer111]

Originally Posted by Clipdat

Volume control (let alone advanced EQing) on a DAC just seems wrong to me. I don't want it adjusting anything.

I specifically got a preamp that has no balance or tone control knobs on it.

I'm not a fan of EQing my signal.

I'm kind of the opposite, absolutely want a volume control on the DAC because it needs to function as both my preamp and gain control in a single unit - have no effective control otherwise when using an electrostatic transformer based system with the NAD C275BEE stereo amp. Also need to reinforce the low end presentation of a STAX Lambda and would much rather do it in-unit instead of via computer, like the system to be as stand alone as possible.

The tone controls are fully adjustable for frequency, gain, and Q factor as well, so you can customize where and how they will behave separately from the PEQ. I use the bass knob to add a very slight punch while have a single channel PEQ setting to reinforce and fill out the subbass. Balance adjustment is also kind of necessary for an electrostat as they age...balance can shift and center will not be where it was before.

All in all I treat music like tuning a car... the manufacturer/producer has their idea of how it should be tuned and I have my preferences in changing it to better fit my idea of how it should actually perform. I want bass presence, dynamics, clarity, detail, and richness/liveliness of sound from my music with a certain feel...and will tune as possible to get it close to where I want it.

[krayzie]

Not sure if this was just an 80's/90's thing but the CD Players from that era have RCA or XLR variable output with volume control on the machine (the knob was usually motorized to allow for remote control), and you can skip the preamp and go straight to the fixed input of the power amp.

But if the CD Player is designed purely as a transport and relies on an external DAC, then you would need to control the volume either thru a preamp or a volume control equipped power amp.

The stock system in the BRZ sounds terrible without some EQing.

[Clipdat]

Anyone got a spare $2k? https://orangecounty.craigslist.org/...620432456.html

[krayzie]

Originally Posted by Clipdat

Anyone got a spare $2k? https://orangecounty.craigslist.org/...620432456.html

The laser is notorious for burning out and turning into a 60lbs doorstop. Probably cheaper to just rip DSD files off SACDs and run them on modern equipment.

But when it works it's dam nice! Here's Mike from Head-Fi who seems to have everything.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEOQ1X_1RsM[/ame]


IIRC their most reliable laser heads were the Sony KSS-151A and KSS-190A and KSS-272A. The track insanely fast cuz the head runs on magnetic rails (unlike the super slow CD and SACD players that required a heavy puck sitting on the moving disc over a fixed position laser head). You would usually find them in high end CD Players from the late 80's to early 90's like Sony ES, Kenwood Accuphase, Denon, Teac Esoteric, etc.

I think Philips used some sort of swingarm design instead (usually found in Philips, Marantz, Grundig, etc).

[krayzie]

So my used Sony MDR-Z1R headphones finally got here from Japan. Not sure if I like it more than the MDR-Z7 (where its sonic characteristics is strange enough) as the sound signature is nothing I've ever heard in my life. Maybe I need to replace the Sony/Kimber cables with some real Kimber Axios.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci6fsk2flqo[/ame]


Here's a random How It's Made Video:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnOcdtcAgG8[/ame]

[Clipdat]

How many hours you got on them? I'm guessing they're not going to sound that great right out of the box.