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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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In Reply to: RE: Digital improving -final posted by J. Phelan on April 14, 2016 at 07:20:06:
Now look Mate,
Other than observing the death of optical disks (or rather the progressive disuse of physical objects to store writings, music and video and more and not just in the high end), you are talking utter bollox (as they say on planet anagramia) and spout misinterpreted and misunderstood sales propaganda and buzzwords as science fact.
I mean goodness gracious me, you did not just drink the cool aid, you exhausted their supply and asked for more. Technically speaking your assertions are generally just not sustainable. I am not again going into details, I already did.
Your main gig seems to be that some magic new tech (even if it is the same old wine in new skins or even older spoiled wine in bad skins sold as the latest gimmick) suddenly redeemed CD Standard audio.
It does not do any such thing.
The best playback of the best recordings was always pretty good.
And the worst playback of the worst recordings... Lord have mercy.
I have been exposed (not complete list) to LP, Half track Master Tape, heck, Metal Tape with Dolby HX on my Sony "Buduh Khan" K7 walkman (also had the pro for on site recording, bloody decent on a TDK 60min Metal tape), early PCM on Betamax Tapes, Decca's digital system, true TOTL Flagship early CD Machines, the best early DVD Players on DVD Audio.
Given a good recording - any of them gave musical pleasure and while they all (of course) sound different, preference often was more down to what format the music was available on, rather than the format.
Heck, someone once played me 78 master acetates on a system designed to work with these.
Fuk Mi, I always thought of 78's as "well below No-Fi" until then...
Sure I have favorites, but most if not all of these rule ok.
I own (and occasionally record with) a BBC spec Sony PCM-F1 set, sold to me as "Alan Parson owned this one" with some backing documentation (so he might, or might not have owned/used this unit - I am skeptical but the price was right either way).
That is a "pre CD" digital recording system. The late and great Peter Baxandall declared this device (it is not stock, but modded to final BBC spec which was a diverse set of mods addressing both audio and usability is studio settings) to be "transparent".
It does not oversample, downsample, clocks are generically crystal, the core ADC/DAC Chip is "90dB" only. Yet it is true multibit, filters are analogue (so minimum phase), much of the circuit is discrete (and very clever and by today's High End Doctrine even revolutionary) and does a good job.
I cannot fully agree with Peter Baxandall (read I can hear this mother in a loop - but I actually don't mind it being there, more than I can say for a BBC Studer or K7 or LP).
With a way to get the converted data out of the box and the playback back in (modded with extra SPDIF I/O it rather antedates SPDIF) it is bloody decent and despite predating CD and being "only 15 Bit" it kicks the proverbial out of many of the modern, newlyfangled "High Rez" recording systems.
It is bested handily by a Pacific Microsonic Model 2, but they are so rare and expensive, I cannot justify owning one (if anyone has one going cheap or free - I'll have it - pretty please).
In fact, I have heard nothing looped in between Mic/Mic-Pre & Level Controller/Monitors that betters the PM2 and not a heck of a lot that beats a BBC Spec Sony F1, to my ears and tastes. The Merging Horus also makes a very nice PCM ADC/DAC, never tried the Grimm DSD ADC, supposedly it is also nice in DSD, who knows.
Playback only, CD-Standard material only, the Philips LHH1000/Marantz DA-12 bests Sony F1, as does Sony DAS-R1, Accuphase DP-80 is also very good (that uses a discret-ish current steering DAC).
And of course anything that matches the PMM2 design and is decent (read HDCD Digital filter, Ultra-analogue current-output DAC, good analogue stages ) - think Audio Synthesis DAX UA version - literally matches PMM2 for playback only.
Most later "Flagship" units actually loose out to the early originals and only in the oughties did we see a return to something not miles off the sonic performance of these 20'th century classics in the absolute high end, at (excluing PM) 10 to 100 times the sales price of those original flagship units.
Nothing Delta Sigma comes close to my ears, good hybrids run in PCM do. Some things I worked on in the last decade or so, that dispense with any digital filtering - well, I like them better still.
Never having spend time with it, I think the TotalDAC stuff should be RAD, as should be the top of the line stuff from MSB, but my name is not DeBeers or KruegerRand...
I still f...king miss my heavily modded Shanling CD Player (including SPDIF In) with HDCD Filter, filterless option, dual PCM1704 per channel, passive I/V conversion (shinko Tantalum resistor), non-feedback WE 396A tube analogue (yes, real WE's) with audio note silver coupling cap's, which fed-ex "lost" in the early 2k's.
Sure, insurance paid up, but I could never find another machine of that vintage and those silver caps were Japanese originals, the wire I used too, I really hated to loose this unit. Hope whoever ended up with it enjoys it. Hoping against hope I'll get it back...
Stuff I currently help designing at its best is not that far off that unit, but still.
Of course - different strokes for different blokes. I know which mast I nail my colours to, though.
TL:DR
Thor
At 20 bits, you are on the verge of dynamic range covering fly-farts-at-20-feet to intolerable pain. Really, what more could we need?
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Follow Ups
- RE: Digital improving -final - Thorsten 10:46:06 04/14/16 (1)
- RE: Digital improving -final - Crazy Dave 12:12:52 04/14/16 (0)
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