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In Reply to: RE: Sorry about that, John. posted by John Elison on March 11, 2014 at 17:22:22
... such is life. Just to clarify, I WAS impressed by mine, out of the box. But after a trial listen, I put it on endless repeat playing a break-in disk with the amps off and didn't hear it again for quite a few days.
Since you've now played the "resolving system card," I just have to say I demur about our respective sonic wonderfulness. I mean, good grief, man, you're listening to solid state AND Thiel speakers :-)
Follow Ups:
> I put it on endless repeat playing a break-in disk with the amps off and didn't hear it again for quite a few days.
What disc did you use?
I've got a disc I've never played called "Irrational, But Efficacious!" I can copy it to a USB flash memory using Exact Audio Copy so as not to wear out the disc drive. It has white noise, pink noise, brown noise, etc. What would you recommend?
Thanks,
John Elison
It's 12 minutes long. Probably hard to find now and I would think any burn-in disk or any complex orchestral music would work pretty much as well. In fact, the notes to the Sheffield/XLO disc say you could use the entire disc rather than simply repeating track 8, but that burn-in would take longer. I kinda doubt that, but there it is.
I'd use that Ayre disk you have.
It has white noise, pink noise, and brown noise. I was planning to use pink noise unless you would recommend something else.
Thanks,
John Elison
I'm really not familiar with it so I can't be much help. Sorry. I thought it was just something you played all the way through that would somehow improve the sound of your system. And that no one seems to know how it works.
"I mean, good grief, man, you're listening to solid state AND Thiel speakers :-)"
Hey wait a minute, I resemble that remark! I run solid-state through my Thiels and couldn't be happier. I've also run a few tube amps through the Thiels with excellent results, too.
systems differ, moods differ.
John pretty much is disappointed. Dave likes it with a $2500 premium thrown in.
There is no 'end all, be all' solution out there that acts as a 'one size fits all.'
Unless a piece of gear is behaving bizarrely and making strange noises, or is woefully out of spec in a carefully done test, it pretty much comes down to 'personal preferences,' as the final arbiter of what 'we' call good and bad.
I've looked at John's system and he's got some nice gear, although I don't recall the DAC and transport company that he's running (and using as his litmus test,) but he's not happy with what he's hearing.
I agree with Mel, I think it is, that (an arbitrary) 200 hours would be sufficient, before making a judgement. I remember having the Sony SCD-1 in the beginning and this was before 'break-in' became an 'excuse' bandied about to cover short comings in gear, but it did take a good 200 hours and I remember listening one day and hearing things gel right in front of my ears.
Can't explain it scientifically, but it was there.
I know John's a vinyl guy and I'm sure that he'd give a phono cartridge a good length of time (50-100 hrs?) before proclaiming things A, B or C.
Then again, the Oppo isn't the greatest disc player on planet Earth, either. Some people may never warm up to its sonic signature.
Chris
> Then again, the Oppo isn't the greatest disc player on planet Earth, either. Some people may never warm up to its sonic signature.
I guess I didn't expect it to have a sonic signature per se. I was expecting it to be accurate and transparent like my Alesis Masterlink and also like my Eximus DP1 DAC. I've been listening exclusively to a computer music server for more than a year. All my CDs have been ripped to my hard drive. I was just surprised and disappointed when the Oppo sounded rather soft and unemotional instead of detailed and transparent like my other digital components. I don't think there is anything wrong with the Oppo, but I think you might be right about it having a definite sonic signature. I'm not really interested in that sort of thing in a digital component, though. I like my music to present the sonic signature and my digital components to reproduce whatever sonic signature the music presents. However, I fully intend to give the Oppo an adequate break-in period before making a final decision to either keep it or send it back.
Best regards,
John Elison
everything has a sonic signature. You should know that.
That's why posting our systems and expressing our biases makes a big difference and somebody that only owns an X, Y or Z player, might not be the best guy to go to for advise in the long run.
I haven't bought a piece of gear since I bought my Masterlink back in '02, so I'm out of the loop and that's why I'm not posting much here, but from '99-'04 (maybe) I had a group of friends that bought some top notch gear and had really good ears. They had their biases like everybody else, but it was like hanging out at a few different stereo shops, multiple days a week.
I learned a lot and what I think might be neutral, is another man's warm, or sterile.
This stuff is all a crap shoot and sometimes we gamble and lose.
Best to just move on and chalk it up to experience.
If I had back every dollar that I lost on a component switch, I could buy a nice set of speakers.
Buy right, buy once, cry once, as we say.
Chris
I was participating in audio newsgroups as far back as the early to mid 1990s. I got started in the Audio Asylum in December 2000.> everything has a sonic signature. You should know that.
Well, I understand what you're implying, but some digital components do not have sonic signatures to my ears. The word "sonic" has to do with sound and hearing. As I stated in my post above, I cannot hear any difference between my 24/96 digital copies of a vinyl records and the records themselves. In that sense, my Masterlink digital recorder does not present any kind of sonic signature to my ears. Furthermore, when I play a 24/96 copy of a vinyl record from the hard drive into my Eximus DP1 DAC, it also sounds the same as the vinyl record to me. However, when I play the same 24/96 digital recording with the Oppo BDP-105, it sounds noticeably different. I didn't expect it to sound different and I'm disappointed.
Now, I have to decide whether I'm willing to live with the difference or whether I will return the Oppo for a refund. I'll make that decision in a couple of weeks after I complete a break-in period.
> This stuff is all a crap shoot and sometimes we gamble and lose.
>
> Best to just move on and chalk it up to experience.Very true! But, I don't intend to lose $1300 if I don't have to. I've never returned a component because I didn't like the way it sounded, but there's always a first time. Oppo instituted the return policy for a reason and I might have to take advantage of it. I'll know more later.
Best regards,
John Elison
Edits: 03/12/14
"I mean, good grief, man, you're listening to solid state AND Thiel speakers" :-)
All kidding aside John - Did you really think the Oppo was going to replace the $3K Eximus DP-1?
Gerry
> Did you really think the Oppo was going to replace the $3K Eximus DP-1?Yeah, I'm pretty stupid sometimes. I guess I've had really excellent DACs for the past 20-years because I didn't feel the Eximus DP1 was necessarily an upgrade in sound quality -- only an upgrade in digital resolution. I guess I should have known that a good analog output stage makes all the difference. ;-)
However, maybe the Oppo can be modified to sound good for a reasonable price by EVS. In the interim, at least I still have my April Music Eximus DP1 to connect to the Oppo.
Best regards,
John Elison
Edits: 03/11/14
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