Now I know why I thought Neil Peart didn't sound right the previous go-around.... He sounds better now.....

I think I now know what people mean by "pace, rhythm, and timing"..... The PC playback apparently whacked the rhythmic pulse out of the music.

The HF has a little "hash", but I hear much deeper into the recording. The bass is also more-linear.

Now I think this is a really-good album.....

The sick part is I thought I was getting decent sound from the PC. It definitely sounds better than most PC-based playback I've heard in recent time.

Also explains why opinion of a lot of new albums are all-over-the-place.... I've never encountered such different opinions on music like I do today.

 Your PC is a fountain of RF noise. - Al Sekela 12:58:10 05/06/07 (5)
 Re: Your PC is a fountain of RF noise. - morricab 18:07:42 05/06/07 (1)
 There are the AC power and radiated pathways - Al Sekela 09:16:45 05/07/07 (0)

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Show full thread outline!

 Your PC is a fountain of RF noise. - Al Sekela 12:58:10 05/06/07 (5)
 Re: Your PC is a fountain of RF noise. - morricab 18:07:42 05/06/07 (1)
 There are the AC power and radiated pathways - Al Sekela 09:16:45 05/07/07 (0)
 I Deserve Fifty Lashes..... - Todd Krieger 15:54:18 05/06/07 (2)
 Re: I Deserve Fifty Lashes..... - Dawnrazor 16:19:50 05/06/07 (1)
 Take the VRS Revelation as an example. - Al Sekela 09:27:21 05/07/07 (0)
 I also feel this way - Frihed89 09:32:06 05/06/07 (0)
 Re: This Is Disgusting..... - Dawnrazor 23:35:56 05/05/07 (9)
 Re: This Is Disgusting..... - Todd Krieger 00:08:03 05/06/07 (8)
 Re: This Is Disgusting..... - Dawnrazor 00:24:03 05/06/07 (7)
 Re: This Is Disgusting..... - Todd Krieger 00:46:45 05/06/07 (6)
 Re: This Is Disgusting..... - mls-stl 06:48:05 05/06/07 (0)
 Re: This Is Disgusting..... - Dawnrazor 01:08:36 05/06/07 (4)
 Re: This Is Disgusting..... - Todd Krieger 03:33:56 05/06/07 (3)
 Guess I'm spoiled - Dawnrazor 10:18:56 05/06/07 (2)
 I Tried Installing USB ASIO..... And..... - Todd Krieger 15:45:28 05/06/07 (1)
 Re: I Tried Installing USB ASIO..... And..... - Dawnrazor 16:13:16 05/06/07 (0)
 This is why... - Sean 21:27:14 05/05/07 (18)
 He is sortof right you have to admit... - Yashu 22:18:45 05/11/07 (0)
 so wrong, on so many levels - LousyTourist 14:58:53 05/06/07 (0)
 What are you smoking, dude? - Frihed89 09:27:02 05/06/07 (2)
 Not a thing.... - Sean 11:03:31 05/06/07 (1)
 Where's the fun in that? (nt) - badman 09:38:35 05/08/07 (0)
 Re: This is why... - Ozzy 04:47:07 05/06/07 (1)
 Re: This is why... - Sean 08:15:08 05/06/07 (0)
 Re: This is why... - newyorkp7 00:27:24 05/06/07 (2)
 yes, and on - REL54 06:45:07 05/06/07 (1)
 Re: yes, and on - newyorkp7 12:37:22 05/06/07 (0)
 Re: This is why... - Don T 21:47:13 05/05/07 (4)
 Re: This is why... - Sean 21:51:32 05/05/07 (3)
 Re: This is why... - welly 02:26:41 05/06/07 (0)
 Re: This is why... - Todd Krieger 23:46:04 05/05/07 (0)
 Re: This is why... - Don T 23:04:14 05/05/07 (0)
 Rubbish (nt) - kaaos 21:34:26 05/05/07 (2)
 In what respect? (nt ) - Sean 21:38:54 05/05/07 (1)
 Mistake / wrong thread (nt ) - kaaos 22:12:01 05/05/07 (0)
 Hehe ... hope you've got your asbestos underpants on ... - andyr 19:18:32 05/05/07 (1)
 Very Aware of That...... - Todd Krieger 19:37:19 05/05/07 (0)
 Really? I thought it - bjh 18:46:26 05/05/07 (0)

Of course ... it would sound even better if you were listening to a vinyl copy!! :-)) (if there is one) Bat that's a whole new "religious" argument!! :-))

Regards,

Andy

There is something that has gone ghastly wrong with audio playback. And it's not just Rush. It's George Szell, Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin, and many others.....

And conversely, the crude music today sells because it's the only stuff that sounds interesting through modern audio playback.

Please Sean tell us what is a high fidelity recording?

Give me rhythm or give me death!

Something recorded in analogue with as little processing as possible. This means that there are very few "high fidelity" recordings, hence my comments about us chasing our tails. No matter how good our playback systems our, the recordings are the limiting factors. This is why even a phenomenal system can sound like crapola when fed with a horrible recording. Sean
>

This means that there are very few "high fidelity" recordings,
This I agree with. And because of that such recordings should only count as much in evaluating a system as the listener is expecting them to take up in his listening experiences.

hence my comments about us chasing our tails.
One is only chasing his tail if he gives "high fidelity" recording playback too great priority in component/system evaluations.

No matter how good our playback systems our, the recordings are the limiting factors.
Whatever! IMO the system is the limiting factor - whether one is using idealic recordings or one is trying to maximize his listening enjoyment of a wide range of recordings.

This is why even a phenomenal system can sound like crapola when fed with a horrible recording. Sean
What's the point? A phenomenal system can sound like crapola when fed with a wonderful recording!

Give me rhythm or give me death!

My experience with PC audio is very different, especially in the pace and rhythm regards. Especially in the bass as well.

What are you using for a player, for the output of said player, for a dac, etc.

Although I agree with this on most part, there are a lot of recordings that I thought were horrible, and realize now they're at least decent. (A great example is this is the Szell Mahler 6, which I once thought was awful.)

Magnavox CDC 745 changer. 1990s vintage. (The same unit Don Allen modifies, except the one I have in CA is stock.) It beats my laptop rig so bad (the same rig I posted a lot on recently), I may not even think about playing Redbook CD audio though the PC rig, but just watch DVD videos and burn CDs. (The video quality is at least as good as any video player I've encountered.)

The PC rig sounds clean, and mostly similar analytically-speaking, but the music hits me totally different. (I made sure it was not an absolute polarity issue. It turns out both rigs are in agreement here. Full-range driver speakers make this very easy to discern.)

I might try different drivers on the audio side, but I thought I was doing better than it turns out.

What are you using on the COMPUTER side. Player, drivers, dac, etc.

Using Don Allen-modified Sansui TU-717 as a tuner-preamp. Don Allen Cakepan power amp (single-ended pentode), Fritz Audio Hemptone speakers.

I posted the playback software on PC Audio.... See link.....

I use the same playback software on my home PC, but I haven't used it much because I thought the laptop I'm using here in CA sounds better, in its internal system. And better yet with the Fubar. (My mom's PC to me sound better than either of mine, and I have no clue as to why. That thing has whatever it came with. No tweaking at all.)

Who knows, maybe I'll try an audiophile power cord. But I've never heard one make much of a difference with PC-based playback.

• http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/19995.html

NOt ASIO4all, but real asio?

This made a huge difference. Infact, years ago when I got into this PC audio thing, I used a player called ACXO that had asio "built in". Everyone was raving about Foobar, and when I tried it, I was disappointed. ACXO just sounded so much better. A few years went by, and I realized that I had never used foobar with ASIO. I put ASIO in Foobar, and it immediately sounded better and much like the ACXO player. I primarily use Foobar now. I'll play with winamp, but man that thing is slow and my main rig is half as fast as the "regular" computer.

I did notice an improvement with a better power cord, and recommend that you try one.

Also, have you tried a better dac?

I can imagine vinyl adherents freaking out if I bought an entry level turntable and concluded that CDPs were better than vinyl.

Also, get something like the Lynx L22 to try. For the money it is hard to imagine a $600-$700 dac sounding better IMHO. My $1200 dac certainly didn't.

welly

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.

I can also try usb-asio, since it is a USB DAC....

But then again, the difference between my best and worst setup on the PC seemed to have less impact than switching to the dedicated CD player....

But I don't give up easily.....

Oz

For how I listen I am extremely satisfied. If the recording has good stuff to offer, I believe I'm hearing it.

This does not say "ALL" tubed circuits, but "MANY". Having said that, MOST tubed circuits are slow, rounding the rough edges on sharp transients, making digital sound more bearable. They are also high in harmonic distortion, which adds presence, body and dimensionality to thread-bare digital recordings. Obviously, there are exceptions to these generalizations.

This is just as true of SS gear, which typically relies on gobs of negative feedback to produce spec's that appear to be more linear, but create other distortions that are audibly degrading in a different manner.

Like anything else in audio, it is a matter of sorting through the hype, finding qualified gear and then getting them to work together as a whole. What one person thinks sounds "good" may not be the exact preference of someone else, even though they may perform quite similarly. This is due to our limited ability to quantify audible performance via the standardized test procedures that we use within this industry. This makes the entire system building process nothing more than an objective pursuit.

This is why i've always said "one should buy and use what they like, as they are the only ones that have to use and listen to it on a regular basis". It really doesn't matter what you, I or anyone else thinks, so long as the owner(s) enjoy their music and system. Sean
>

The Lynx drivers are solid. They just work, and I have had no problems with ASIO.

If you had the L22 you would be able to experience true ASIO, and either use one of those NOS dacs you love, or the internal ones. Which to my ears are very musical without being veiled.

Are these dedicated units or do they surf the web, etc.?

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell

I guess I had faith in the PC audio bandwagon, and hoping my presumption on RFI might be proven wrong..... And for a while, I thought the Emperor's new clothes were just stunning.....

Then when I slapped in the Magnavox changer, I suddenly realized that the Emperor wasn't wearing anything.....

Try posting on the PC audio site, and I bet someone with USB audio exp can help.

SOunds like you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

As Al metioned RF can be adressed, you just need to be diligent.

FWIW, Try a highend solution before giving up. IME PC audio can be a significant step up from a CDP.

According to Al, it doesn't really matter if you have a PC or not, RF is all over and comes from all the items that have pcs in them and switching powersupplies that are always on even when you turn them off(like Tivos and TVs and Cable boxes, and microwave ovens, refridgerators, etc.)

Every setup is different, and will have different amounts of RF noise from various sources. Experimentation is the best way I know to determine which sources and pathways are the strongest, and which counter-measures are the most effective for reducing them.

It would be nice if we could slap some ERS cloth or TI shield material inside a PC and get good sound, but the reality is that a lot of attention is required to go from something that [usually] works for e-mail and sending photos to Grandma, to something that can take the bits from the hard drive and deliver an analog signal that resolves all the encoded information with spurious tones below the inherent noise level.

• VRS site

Like it or not, tubes add slight coloration, for that matter so does SS. There is no such thing as completely transparent. The audio signal is so complex that we find all sorts of weird non-intuitive tweaks that defy understanding as to why they change the sound...

Lets be honest here... if we were *truly* after a completely flat response and transparent equipment we would all have identical studio monitoring equipment in our houses.