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In Reply to: Re: Very happy with my Burwen Bobcat dac posted by SeVeReD on September 1, 2006 at 23:30:35:
Actually when I bought it, I was very new to the USB and software driven playback game - I firstly thought that the digital EQ was part of the Burwen package, when actually it's part of windows media player - the presence of a digital EQ was one of the things that got me interested.I too was intruiged by the concept of software based playback - much like Bob Carver used to mimic the sound of tube amps with application of certain "algorightms" (albeit hardward based) I wondered if the same couldn't be far better done in software in 2006.
Well, being a Quad owner with an unbelievably open and neutral system (no tone inducing preamp, and a straight no-nonsense ableit midrange accented tube voiced Quad power amp) - I was probably the last person who should have been trying any variations from neutrality - and the variation from neutrality was far more than I'd accept on most any setting with the software - and of course on the "movie" type settings etc it was downright insane, albeit probably meant to play your TV through your stereo with. It also blurred detail and took away the immediacy of the experience - although that was probably more noticable on electrostats than it would otherwise be
So for the 1st month or so I was quite underwhelmed, and thought "hey, wonder what it sounds like if I bypass everything?" - then came the WOW - was this thing meant for my quads or what? Startlingly open, intricately deatailed, massive beyond-speaker-boundaries soundspace, yet nothing overdone - just giving my Quads the food to make them sing - seems totally neutral, never harsh. Not adding anything to the playback mind you - just making the best it could of what's there, that's all I want.
In fact I liked it so much that I stopped buying equipment alltogehter - it was a year (last August till this August) before I decided to buy (just out of having nothing to play with) a Quad 99 CDP-2 (despite the fact that many of them appear to be JUNK). It won't arrive for weeks but because it works as a DAC with digital inputs, and I can feed my PC's output to it as well as my Burwen Bobcat (with the PC's coax soundcard output), and it's sound is so loved by many here, I thought I'd do a head to head - but I expect the Quad to lose for my tastes
If you need something added to your playback, I don't know if the Burwen software is the answer - but if you have an open and revealing system you may like the DAC very much, I sure do. My tube-voiced Quad 303 probably helps even out the whole equation. Even internet radio is roomfilling soundspace wise (128k and higher bitrates) just lacking in tonality - but for latenight listening at ultra-low volumes, it's perfect.
Still, I wouldn't count out software based alterations in playback alltogether - some CD's could use a little dynamic range compression to smooth them out, maybe the burwen software was just too ambitious - or maybe it would work better on other systems, all I can say is it didn't work for me, but the Daniel Hertz dac sure did. If they released an upgrade of the software I'd be interested in trying it, but it would be hard to see how adding something into the chain could do anything but mess with the signal at this point.
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Follow Ups
- Re: Very happy with my Burwen Bobcat dac - longtimequadowner 09:41:31 09/02/06 (1)
- thanks for the reply - SeVeReD 11:58:02 09/03/06 (0)
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