All DAC (D/A Converter) Enthusiast Take Note!

Noodle, why is your Wesminster lying down on it's side? Better imaging??? Why don't you invite us over to your place and we will help to put it upright again. Just kidding.

Well Mugen, like I said before, If I receive an image file in 800X600 resolution and I have to do a 10R, I won't do it. Not worth the time. But taking a 12MP file and resampling it for your iPhone4 retina display is still pretty decent ya?

So i'm thinking maybe a legendary 24/48 DAC playing resampled 24/192 might not be that bad afterall. It will definately be better than it's native Redbook. Question is how good??? Or worth the time to try it out or not???

try it with a behringer then ... it can downsample from 96 to 48, yet retaining the 24bits .... lemme know if u want to pinjam mine .. u can have it for the weekend to satisfy your curiosity.

I wonder if you do have a RTA to be pinjam as well. want to do a sound sweep to ensure certain high frequency is filtered.

As usual, the original point is ignored somewhat. Bimmerman is asking a question addressed at a specific constraint. And that constraint is the use of the ML36 which implies a max standard of 24/48. So the original objective is to re-use the somewhat high quality DAC and op-amp stages of the ML36 because the question is raised, that even with a very high res source, if the implementation is below par, which is better ? I would hope that everyone, and definitely me at the minimum, knows very well what is incurred by the re-sampling to a lower resolution from a higher resolution. But we work with realities here, not the ideal world. So I attempted to explain how we do it in the professional I/T world. I would think sometimes the obvious does not need to be over-emphasized as I believe it was clearly explained upfront why the re-sampling is being attempted.

Chua55, u can do search out some software for Mac/PC that also does the RTA stuff.

http://www.etfacoustic.com/
http://www.trueaudio.com/rta_abt1.htm

More super duper mental-masturbations you can do for your hifi/listening room.

Ah, mental masturbation, another terms of 'shiok sendiri', long time never heard this in use already !!

Anyone has the free time and searched for the range of re-sampling softwares that are currently available for consumer use in the market ? One intriguing possibility is a software which can re-sample upwards, say from 16/44.2 to something higher but using more fancy algorithms than simple interpolation. Run this off the downloaded songs from a CD (accepting that they may not be 100% accurate version of the original version on the CD), then let the re-sampling program run on the computer to generate a new re-sampled version on harddisk in the new format, then feed this to the DAC and see the results. This removes the limitation of the need for super high processing power on the DAC or transport itself as we can let the re-sampling program run for days if necessary. In any case, this is logical since we really just need to do the re-sampling once only.

tks to cham for the 'spam'

http://hifi-unlimited.blogspot.com/2010/12/better-way-towards-hi-rez-bryston-bdp-1.html

So this is our Future source?
Media server will better than CD Transport?
Ripped CD File will better than Original CD?

Personally I do -NOT- think the future -have to necessarily- lie in media server -unless- we can get the music materials in the native HDD format. If the music labels decides to distribute in, say, Blu-Ray format, then the best sound would be a Blu-Ray based transport. Despite what the internet says, ripping of disc based contents can be error-prone. However, if he music giants decides to adopt a storage format more compatible with data storage, where there are plenty of parity checks and error recoveries and data re-construction, then only ripping a music track from a Blu-Ray audio (for want of a better term) can be accurate. But not until they do that. The advantage of HDD based music source is the potential to have a far more consistent read-out of the contents versus an optical based system (unless the optical disc reader is placed in a sealed vacumn and clean-room standard enclosure). But bear in mind anything based on computer technology will incur the issue of pollution of the sound due to interference, radiation and so forth.

The best way forward remains the 'brute force' approach - i.e. going to massive sampling rates, and massive data sizes. This means 24bit or even 32bit and at least 192kHz and above. If you consider the micron-level that LPs operates at - and even that is limited by what our technology can do, even so-called 'best sound' analog master tapes are limited by our technology -, then to match the best LPs (half-speed 45rpms, direct to discs, single plating LPs, and so forth), we need to go higher. Again, I tried my best to point out that our human sciences and experiments actually tells us we are not good enough to hear a difference beyond a certain technology, which is actually not much above current redbook CD technology. So I am leaving the arguements aside of whether we are hearing it real or hearing it in our head. This is because if you start to indulge into hi-res digital music reproduction, you -will- run into these sort of debates. So I was trying to do you guys a service. Again, not sure if anyone listened or not.

Again I have -tried very hard- to explain that the analog medium has no theoretical limits, at least to what our limited technology can see but that our science and technology enforces a re-construction into a discrete format which -has- a limit. We may think that we are looking at quarks or actually nowadays we talk about stranglets, no longer quarks, we 'know it all' but there are already discussions of whether all these are simply 'ripples' in the continous 'fabric' of the space-time continuum (note : continuum, a continuous entity). So I wasn't trying to bring theoretical physics and quantum physics into our discussion for no reason, I don't like doing 'shiok sendiri' stuff la (referring to myself only, don't read anything extra into this comment).

I am not sure think many actually read it. Well, it is up to the individual. Bear in mind that due to our limited technology, we are approaching the limits of chip fabrication. Actually we were looking at the limits many years ago. I first learned about it, then as an arrogant 'know it all' fresh graduate at MIMOS where we deal with computer chip technology. It was from a very senior R&D engineer seconded by Japan's NEC to help our government kick-start MIMOS. That was a quarter of a century ago ! Incidentally that R&D engineer was one of the key people who taught me lessons about humility and how tiny little I knew. Everytime I dig deeper, he has more to share. First I realised that I was barely scratching at the surface of what he knew. Then the real blow to my ego was I discovered he was actually SIMPLIFYING tremendous, a lot of the things he was trying to explain to me and he HAD to simplify because my level of knowledge is simply not there yet to talk at the same level as what he knew !!

Anyway, we got some reprive due to work in nano-technology. But in terms of chip fabrication, we are approaching the fundamental limits of our knowledge and technology - i.e. our microchip devices and tracks are approaching the atomic limit and we are fighting a losing war against heat and transmission delay (believe it or not, eventhough electrons travels at around the speed of light, the time it takes to travel from one end to the other of a super ULSI chip has become a limit to how fast we can run a processor or a memory chip at). There is no coincidence that Intel has to resort to multi-processor CPUs like dual or quad-core nowadays. It is partially because Windows is multi-tasking BUT also because of the limit of processor fabrication technology. In the end, the current state of the art in computer programming still relies heavily on sequential processing, rather than parallel processing. My own employer itself spends trillions of US dollars in R&D in this area. Of course I am sure there will be lots of rebuttals and/or statements about this in later posts. So again it is up to the individual what to believe la.

Because of running into this limit, there are -real- physical limits on how large a solid-state memory chip is. I think it should be a few hundred GBs, maybe even a couple of hundred only but beyond that, the basic chip itself will probably start to get too big and or require some fancy cooling technology. The law of diminishing returns works everywhere and even more in computer technology because we are starting to push the physical limits. I.e. it is nice to talk about how a thumb drive capacity has been doubling once every ?? period but I sure hope no one is naive enough to believe that there is no limit to this doubling progress. Why do the human athlete, with training, is able to steadily improve their 100metre sprint times, from 11s to 10+ seconds, to 9+ seonds but suddenly we start to hit a limit at slightly above 9.5seconds and even the best athletes are tempted by steroids or else they can improve any longer ? Physical limits. Why talk about physical limits and solid state memory chips ? Try to calculate how large a 24 bit / 192Khz music track is, for say a 72 minute Beethoven Symphony No. 9..... This will apply to all sort of memory devices, including HDDs.

By the same token, processor technology will start to hit the limits. In terms of processing, for stereo (i.e. 2-channel) music production, we can do a dual-stream parallel DSP. I.e. we can process the two channels separately. But beyond that, we cannot do much parallel processing within each channel. So the moment we start to consider super high sampling rates like 192kHz and above, and especially super large bit sizes like 24 or even 32 bits, we start to hit the basic limits of processor technology. I know many of you guys are PC users and you have read about the massive MIPS rating of your dual or quad core processor PCs or even servers but in the -real- I/T world, these processors or servers are not even able to support a tiny fraction of the processing power needed by a large bank in Malaysia (what more the world). So our PC based processor technology, which by necessity will be what our consumer music devices will be based on, is still not 'up there yet'. But to get the kind of processing needed, like those for banks, we need to start considering cooling, air or water cooled, and other things. Plus those computers are huge and needs raised flooring and very powerful cooling (real computer rooms, even server farms, are extremely cold, if you ever have a chance to visit one). This then is the world of the 'mainframe' computer. Once again, one can talk it but it would be naive to really believe that there is no limits to what we can push our current silicon based computer technology to. So processor technology will probably start to 'have a say' on how much we can push the envelope in terms of massive word sizes (sorry, techno-babble, it means how large a sample size is; 16bit, 24bit, 32it, 48bit, and so forth) and how high sampling rate we go, simply because our processor might not be fast enough to process the data for 'real-time' music. Bear in mind that there is no 'real-time' issues with reading a computer data file from the harddisk. We simply see the hourglass icon for the mouse pointer and we curse 'WHY SO SLOW AR ?' !! So you cannot transpose your PC directly into the task of playing music

To me, the question of optical disc based, or HDD based (it is more a question of that, rather than transport versus server), totally lies on the hands of the music labels. Again. It is nice to listen to an amateur musical group from Norway play Mozart and all that. But for lots of people, me included, we are really more interested in high res re-issues of Furtwangler conducting Beethoven Symphony No. 9 done back in 1942, 1951, and so forth, and comparing against Karajan or Toscanni's more modern interpretation, etc. And the rights and master copies of those recordings are in the hands of the music labels, EMI, CBS, DG, Decca, and so forth. It is virtually as forumer 'the good archer' once tried to argue, that in the end, it is the music which matters most.

Sorry for the long post. I thought I wanted to put in one last post summarizing everything I have been trying to explain and then leave it at that.

WongKN
Thanks for the extremely informative post.

i hv just heard the bryston combo that impressed jo ki very much - the bdp-1 digital player via aes/ebu to bda-1 dac.

i hv also heard the bryston digital player paired with the rega dac and the benchmark dac1 pre.

my view? the bryston bdp-1 digital player is a very good component and the bryston combo creates some of the best music from digital sources that i have ever heard - organic, full, rich and smooth.

i hv also been spending much time spinning vinyl on my old rega planar 3 with rb300 arm fitted with michael lim's counterweight and stub with a creek phono preamp. cartridge is the rega exact.

so i think i am in a pretty good position at this moment to comment on digital vs analogue.

digital has improved very much and the best like the bryston combo sounds very, very good.

but there is still some - i don't know what exactly - un-natural quality. it sounds very good, but it also sounds processed.

analogue with a good system - mine is surely not the best - is still better sounding in terms of 'naturalness'.

every sound in this world is analogue - when you talk, sing, shout, play a musical instrument, the sound of the wind rustlling the leaves, the noise of cars, aeroplanes, the birds chirping, the sound of thunder, waves crashing on shore, etc. these are all analogue sounds.

thus vinyl sounds natural. cds, hi-res files, dacs, digital streamers - they sound digital.

there is a difference, but i do not know what it is.

maybe it's because our ears have been tuned over time to prefer analogue sounds....

okay, the barricades are open now ...

So I was trying to do you guys a service. Again, not sure if anyone listened or not.

You are always trying to educate others but not listen.

To explore a new frontier, you first have to empty your full glass so that new information can flow into it.

Sorry for being blunt. You sound like a spokesman for Sony/BMG trying to keep CD sales alive.

Any comment on Roksan DAC?

VS126 wrote:So I was trying to do you guys a service. Again, not sure if anyone listened or not.

You are always trying to educate others but not listen.

To explore a new frontier, you first have to empty your full glass so that new information can flow into it.

Sorry for being blunt. You sound like a spokesman for Sony/BMG trying to keep CD sales alive.

And thus proven EXACTLY what I have been trying to say. You yourself is sadly glass overfilling. If you have even taken a tiny bit of time to read what I am trying to explain, you would know what I am trying to say. What was it ? Why not go RE-READ them and then come back and we talk again ?

Sorry, I guess my Englisg ain't that good. (Must be the beer).

Somehow, I prefer to listen, that is why I gotten into this hobby.

And forget all the technobabble and enjoy the music.

On another note, if you start to measure the size of breast and rest of anatomy of a women that you are going to have sex with, I do not think you will enjoy it.

The same goes with hifi....

Cheers

sflam wrote:i hv just heard the bryston combo that impressed jo ki very much - the bdp-1 digital player via aes/ebu to bda-1 dac.

i hv also heard the bryston digital player paired with the rega dac and the benchmark dac1 pre.

my view? the bryston bdp-1 digital player is a very good component and the bryston combo creates some of the best music from digital sources that i have ever heard - organic, full, rich and smooth.

How does the Bryston BDP-1/BDA-1 compare with the Bryston BDP-1/Rega DAC and Bryston BDP-1/Benchmark DAC-1? Forget about all the adjectives used to describe sound. How do you rank these three in giving you the most enjoyment? Lastly, what were the amps and speakers?

Thanks in advance.

Yesterday night, someone told me about his experience. That he saw it with his own eyes several time, that people are not able to correctly identify which is MP3 and which is not. As we discussed, again I pointed out that the original theory of MP3 is that whille the encoding and decoding is not 'lossless', the anount of 'distortion' is supposed to be below the threshold of human hearing. Similarly, MP3 goes up to (if I remember correctly) 14kHz only. But remember one forumer who posted up a 'dare' to us to test our hearing ? How many of you actually tested ? How many of you actually heard above 14kHz ?

But of course everyone of us here are super confident we know MP3 is such a deficient and inferior medium. Do we know ? Or is it in the implementation once again ?

Do not worry, I wasn't angry or trying to attack you VS126. I supposed my style of writing has been to sarcastic. My apologies to you. We must all be mindful that english is not ANY of our primary language.

Let me put things into perspective.

I was there when CD's 'perfect sound forever' was first thrusted into my world, despite me and my friends kicking and protesting and pushing it away at every single opportunity. I was there and we laughed when the first over-sampling implementation came out. "WUAHAHAHAHA. Like that they dare to call "Perfect Sound" ka?" Then I was there when I was taught a lesson about how a direct to list LP sounds really sounds like. And so forth. There were countless instances where I was taught a humiliating lesson about how little I know and that what I think I know, actually I don't. I believe this has shaped me into what I am now.

Cryptic isn't it ? Just bear in mind. We -think- we know a lot of things but the fact is in our science and our research, what we have actually found out is only according to our science and measurements which are all very limited when compared to reality. Consider this case. According to our science and measurements, the human animal is pretty sad and disgraceful in terms of comparing against our mighty inventions and machines. The guiness book of records once calculated that the human brain is pitiful in terms of processing power because in terms of our measurements, our brains can only processing 30bits per seconds. Contrast this to your cheapest lowest end laptop which processes several million instructions a second. But then why is it that in the professional world, in a recent I/T conference, a very respected IBM researcher once made a simple joke. "Anyone wants to touch the MOST POWERFUL computer in existence ?". Almost everyone put their hands up. "OK, use your hand and touch your head. Inside there is a computer we have totally NO CLUE how our current knowledge can ever challenge".

This ties to what I have been trying to say. That sometimes we have grown ARROGANT about the 'superiority' of our science, to the extent that we no longer respect nature. We look down on nature's creation, our own body and even the creation (isn't it going around that we have gotten so clever that we have discovered the building blocks of reality - the so-called quarks. Unfortunately very recently quantum physicists discovered that quarks are made up of 'stranglets'. What more is there for us to discover ? Apparently stranglets may well be 'ripples' or distortions in the continous fabric of the space-time continium. Yes, I am a science freak as well)

Digital technology is an offshoot of I/T technology. It is but a small area of specialised study. Put it into perspective. Today we talk about the 'latest' in connectivity. Wow, USB 2.0, firewire, HDMI. You think these are high tech yah ? Yesterday in a meeting, I discovered that the latest in mainframe technology is a 10Gbite LAN. So, we think 70+Mb/s firewire is super fast ?....

Back when I was studying in university, one lecturer in the education faculty put together a fancy 'workstation', a high end PC with lots of fancy peripherals and he experimented with lots of (at that time) state of the art gadgets. And he started introducing I/T courses into his faculty. Then he made the statement "wow I know so much about computers, I believe I know more than those people in the computer science faculty". I am not sure if it really happened or not. There were stories of how some computer science lecturers went over and they had an intellectual debate and that education lecturer was humiliated by his lack of knowledge, the reality that he knows nuts about the 'leading edge' or 'new frontier'. Because I remember the lecturer publicly retracted this statement later.

So, I hope you can understand what I am trying to say. That I do NOT adopt the latest trend as 'the best thing since sliced bread'. Because as a seasoned professional I/T guy, I am cynical of anything that is branded "latest and greatest" new fancy technology. Because actually what we have been talking about are all OLD technology in the professional I/T world. To me anyway, vinyl still rules. And at the extreme, I think we can never ever re-create the live sound because live sound is analog and our science is discrete so it will always be an approximation.

But at the same time, I am mindful of the fact that IF I am to be challenged to a blind test, I am NOT 100% sure that I dare to be so arrogant as to say I can ALWAYS identify if a music track being played is even simple MP3 or not ! Or that I can conclusively demonstrate I can ALWAYS and CONCIOUSLY hear and clearly IDENTIFY the limitations of even the standard 16bit/44.1kHz redbook CD standard.

So, my humble opinion and my message is "be mindful and don't get so carried way or overconfident". That fancy new technology may not be as good as you think. And the other sadder truth, how sure are you that what you are hearing is not all in the mind ?

Scary isn't it ? Spending thousands of hard-earned money on something that only exists in our mind ? Sure, I myself has been a happy victim of it for decades !!!

Having said that, I welcome all these new technologies and sincerely hope the hype will go away very soon and the 'dust settles' and we can start to properly check out the latest advances in our attempt to re-create live sound. Because the OTHER thing I have been trying very hard to explain is this. Vinyl is very good. But my music taste includes a lot of this :

-> http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Symphony-Furtw%C3%A4ngler-Schwarzkopf-Recordings/dp/B00000GCA7

Yes, 24/192 is good. BUT as long as companies like EMI still issue these things in CD, unless you like listening to amateur musicians play, then like me, you really have no choice but to adopt CD technology. The HOPE is that people like EMI will change in the near future.

Now hopefully you fully understand.

Sflam,

Where did u get the rega DaC? I thought it was still under pre order status even in the UK.

Guys, apparently the Bryston combo can be auditioned at AV Designs which is near Life Center/Shangri-La hotel. One of the coming days very soon, when I next have to visit my client near that area, I plan to drop by and look up my good buddy who is working there and ask to listen to the combo. But first, I have to practice not to wince when talking about the price. It's very near RM20k ......

Thanks for yr loooong explanation. The trouble is, we usually do not read thru' it. It is too long. There is also too much irrelevant material related to music server.

Take for example, the Bryston music server.
Everyone who has heard it says that it is good, (heard someone mentioned that somebody actually said "better than sex").
Do you know that the Bryston unit is actually a very basic system, using a mother board that is actually inferior to the atom computer. And there you are talking about tens of thousands gigabytes and all those big techno words that 90% of the readers proprobly do not understand.
It is the implementation! Good power supply, fanless etc. In computer audio, the simpler, the better....less heat, less noise, less computer power etc etc.
We don't need no mainframe which sits on specially designed raised platform and super air controlled rooms.
All we need is something like the Bryston media server which is very basic and costs probably few hundred bucks to built.

I believe you are very knowledgeable in computer and hifi and truly believe that you own an excellent system. You seems to know your stuff well based on advise provided to forummers. I would love to listen to it one day to experience the "out of this world experience".

Thanks

Can't be near 20K.

Check the USD price. Be a smart consumer.

WongKN wrote:Guys, apparently the Bryston combo can be auditioned at AV Designs which is near Life Center/Shangri-La hotel. One of the coming days very soon, when I next have to visit my client near that area, I plan to drop by and look up my good buddy who is working there and ask to listen to the combo. But first, I have to practice not to wince when talking about the price. It's very near RM20k ......

WongKN,

My office is in the same building with AV Design. The building is called Rohas Perkasa. If you are going to go and demo, give me a shout. Maybe I can tag along.

I did demo PMC there a few months back and wanted to demo Sonos but the dealer could not figure why it didnt want to stream music on that day hahaha. Maybe he thinks I could not afford it hahaha.

VS126,

I understand how sometimes I can get carried away with writing.

Let me try to state things clearer here.

For e.g. you yourself wrote, very good sentence I believe

On another note, if you start to measure the size of breast and rest of anatomy of a women that you are going to have sex with, I do not think you will enjoy it.

This is an analogy EXACTLY what I was trying to say. Our science of beauty says the women body should be 34 26 34 or something like that. The organisers of the Beijing Olympics had a 'perfect asian face' ratio, width to height, to choose those beauties to parade in the opening ceremony. Our plastic surgeons apparently have ratios of perfect body - leg how long, to body how long, to exact height of the perfect girl.

All these things are similar to saying "mother board of Bryston is simple. mother board of XXX DAC is high tech, superior". 16bit inferior to 24bit. Wow, 24bit by 192kHz, the best technology (dis-regarding other parameters).

In real life, how many of us actually chooses our wife using science ? Let me put it in another way. My wife is a normal everyday girl. Not only me, I think if any one of us married men here is to measure our wives using the 'scientific rules', I am pretty sure almost all will fail. Yet for me, my wife complements me in character and emotionally. That's why I married her. If you ask me how to measure this complement-ness, I will fail because there is nothing in our science which allows us to measure 'emotions'.

Vinyl is such a basic medium of music playback. The human listening facility (ears and brain) according to our science is such limited. Yet a respected reviewer like SFlam admits that after listening to the latest and greatest digital playback technology, he somehow prefers his simple yet effective Rega TT. All of the compoenents are not THE high-end. Yet he admits to having a sense of 'ease' with the sound from the Rega, and 'something is not totally right' with the digital playback (to the extent Sujesh predicts yet another war coming). But challenge him to identify EXACTLY what it is that differentiates the Rega from the Bryston and I believe he will fail. Because he can't. Because that 'ease' which the music flows from the Rega, our science does not know a way to measure it.

THIS is one of the key points I am trying to make.

So what is MY personal approach to digital playback. After fully immersing into it when 'Perfect Sound Forever' was thrusted into my face without my permission (the local record shops practically stopped selling LPs overnight), I have since developed a somewhat cynical approach. To understand this, remember how a short while after being told "PERFECT SOUND Forever". SHUT THE 'F' UP. Your ears are NOT GOOD ENOUGH to hear any limitation with it. Then a very very short time later, 2 times oversampling came out. Then 4 times. The 8 times. Then the industry went cuckoo. Literally. Very soon it went up to 128 times oversampling. Then Denon 'UPPED' everyone by going 128 time oversampling BITSTREAM. Then the hype was 'digital sound very harsh, use a tube output stage to soften and balance out the sound - PERFECT SOUND BALANCE (no more forever lar, people learnt their lessons). Then the introduction of a dedicated transport. Why ar ? Ah, separation of duties, no interference and pollution from the disc tray into the sensitive DAC stages. Then separate power supplies. Then Audio Alchemy introduced yet another 'trend', the reclocker.

So you see, I have been through it all. Initially, each time it came out, I fully embraced it as 'NOW FINALLY, its the perfect sound FOREVER'. Only to come away dissapointed (borrowed back, didn't buy, dealer eventually got fed up with me - NOT audio Image, some other dealers). Eventually I saw the light. All the things are HYPE. IMPLEMENTATION is more imortant than straight forward technology. Simply 24 by 192 cannot guarantee will always be better than even 16 by 44.1. Get beyond the hype.

I believe someone...maybe Mugen prefers the top to be bigger...somewhere at 38?

This proves that hifi is subjective.

When you go hiend, personal preference takes over. And I mean HIEND.

Cheers....Have a Beer. It will make yr digital sounds like Analogue.

Have you ever heard of Beer Goggle? Same analogy.

And my final post (breaking it up so hopefully you can read them).

When I was taught how good vinyl can sound, I went the REVERSE way and ditched my CDs and went only vinyl. But cannot buy LPs easily (that time eBay doesn't exist). So for years, my listening diet was bing-bang-boom 'audiophile' LPs. Amatuer musicians playing solo piano or a group of musicians playing simple pieces. This is what eventually fostered a disdain for 'bing-bang-boom' type music for me.

Eventually of course things got better with the re-issues, eBay, and revival of vinyl. But those 'dark years' taught me one important lesson - I shall never be a slave of 'sound' at the detriment of music. Which is better ? Furtwangler, Karajan, George Solti conducting Beethoven Symphony No 5 & 9, or a group of amatuer musicians playing a slow concerto recorded 'closed mike', 'minimalist mode' ? What if Furtwangler is in mono and CD but the amateur musicians are in 24 bit by 192kHz or direct-to-disc audiophile 200gram LP ?

It was a choice I had to make.

I chose the music.

What I would LOVE to see.

1. Ideal. Those bargers like EMI, Phillips, SONY, Decca, etc, reissue the best musics like Karajan Beethoven 'cycle' for e.g., in high grade half-speed master virgin vinyl LPs.

2. Alternately. They make those music available as downloadable or some or medium in high-res format like 24/96 or even 24/192.

1 & 2, how likely are they to happen ?

Failing which,

3. Since our science do say we IN FACT can't hear the difference, perhaps our understanding of DSP might advance enough to one day have an IMPLEMENTATION, a proper CD transport/DAC playing regular 16/44.1 CDs but sound good enough to give that ubiquitous Rega P3 combo (at the very least) and good run for its money.

I am really hoping/looking forward to 3 above happening and will be commiting to digital again once it is realized.

Since I am HIGHLY sceptical if 1 or even 2 is ever going to happen in the near future.

End of Story.

WongKN wrote:

Guys, apparently the Bryston combo can be auditioned at AV Designs which is near Life Center/Shangri-La hotel. One of the coming days very soon, when I next have to visit my client near that area, I plan to drop by and look up my good buddy who is working there and ask to listen to the combo. But first, I have to practice not to wince when talking about the price. It's very near RM20k ......

VS126 wrote:
Can't be near 20K.

Check the USD price. Be a smart consumer.

each component costs RM8k plus. if u buy the combo, av design may give some more discount.

ryder wrote:
How does the Bryston BDP-1/BDA-1 compare with the Bryston BDP-1/Rega DAC and Bryston BDP-1/Benchmark DAC-1? Forget about all the adjectives used to describe sound. How do you rank these three in giving you the most enjoyment? Lastly, what were the amps and speakers?

1) bryston combo
2) bryston and benchmark
3) bryston and rega

system: benchmark's pre section, bryston 4b sst, atc scm40 speakers, mit and audioquest cables, furutech power distributor, various power cords.

Actually it is said beer dulls the senses and reaction time. So if you are playing vinyl, prefer not to drink beer because you might accidentally drop your friend's Clearaudio Goldfinger and not only damage the stylus, also scratch his cannot find again, testing pressing of Dire Straits Sultan of Swing. That is a guarantee you will be his worse enemy for life !!

sflam wrote:
....
each component costs RM8k plus. if u buy the combo, av design may give some more discount.
....

8+k plus 8+k, around 17k or more lar. To someone who cannot afford or doesn't want to spend that kind of money, it is really not much difference from 'around RM20k'.

Life would be perfect if we can take the component price in USD, multiply by 3.1 and get to buy them at that value. Life unfortunately is never so fair.

Which is why again, I always encourage to support those dealers with fair pricing.

I just spent a week listening to Tracy Chapman's first album over and over and over again. It was an LP. On the new Rega RP1 (RM1,100, with new RB101 arm and el cheapo Ortofon cartridge). I don't know why exactly. But the whole thing just kept pulling me back and I kept hearing more intangible things each time. Funnily, I don't have a CD of that album! And I don't know what I'm trying to say .....

Someone needs to organise an LP vs CD listening session.

2k analog setup vs 2k digital setup, vinyl will probably win more fans

10k analog setup vs 10k digital setup vinyl will probably win more fans

10k analog setup vs 100k digital setup, would be interesting

Analog vs digital is a perennial debate that is not worth fighting over. Both formats have their own sets of strength and weaknesses, and I presume most if not all seasoned audio enthusiasts would play both formats in their homes. I will not touch on sound quality as the heat is currently building up. I would have to say that despite claims that digital lacks the inherent flow and naturalness of analog that is difficult to describe in words, computer audio does have an edge when it comes to flexibility and convenience.

Mister Wong,

You kept saying amateur musician on 24/196 or 96. That shows how little you are exposed.

Most hiRez are from master tapes of famous albums be it classical/pop /rock etc.

That is why I mention that one shd empty their glasses first.

BTW, when you drink beer, you do not have to play vinyl to get best sound. Just listen to entry level and it will sound like live.
Sound even better with good company.

Cheers

BTW, this thread is not about vinyl VS digital.

To put myself in perspective ... I hugely enjoy my CD-based system. But ever so often, I slip out of the door into the side-room of alternative pleasures ...

VS126 wrote:BTW, this thread is not about vinyl VS digital.

Eh, it isn't? Must have lost my way ....

bassraptor wrote:I just spent a week listening to Tracy Chapman's first album over and over and over again. It was an LP. On the new Rega RP1 (RM1,100, with new RB101 arm and el cheapo Ortofon cartridge). I don't know why exactly. But the whole thing just kept pulling me back and I kept hearing more intangible things each time. Funnily, I don't have a CD of that album! And I don't know what I'm trying to say .....

Sujesh,

You mean the album with 'Fast Car' right ? I have the CD, can lend to you. But I can only get it over the weekend.

It is good if you don't know what you are trying to say. That's because it shows you are being affected emotionally ! Maybe Tracy's 'Fast Car' is hitting a nerve inside you. You know la. That Ferrari Modena is calling out your name. Fast car. Fast car.....

VS126 wrote:Mister Wong,

You kept saying amateur musician on 24/196 or 96. That shows how little you are exposed.

Most hiRez are from master tapes of famous albums be it classical/pop /rock etc.

Not as far as my research have told me. I don't consider the Norway National Symphonic Orchestra as that professional, nor do I want to have them as my staple Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, etc diet.

Is Furtwangler, Karajan, George Solti, Toscanni, etc conducting any of the big Beethoven Symphonies on high-res ? Is Dire Straits on high-res ? Is any of the EMI, Decca, Sony, Universal Music, etc, like Queen, Beatles, Elvis Presley, etc on high res ? How about the not so mainstream like Don McLean, Dan Fogelberg, etc ? Not to mention the classic singers Carole King, Neil Diamond, etc. I will be happy if Shania Twain and Celin Dion are on high-res. Actually they, at least, could be on high-res. Got or not ?

ryder wrote:
computer audio does have an edge when it comes to flexibility and convenience.

agreed. it was a pleasure to plug thumbdrives into the bryston bdp-1 and control it with an iPad wirelessly.

KN: yes, that's the one. talking about a revolution, fast car, etc. i used to have the cd back in the early 1990s ... sold it because i ended up listening to the LP more often! Then, it was on a Michell Gyrodeck ...

sflam wrote:agreed. it was a pleasure to plug thumbdrives into the bryston bdp-1 and control it with an iPad wirelessly.

what are you trying to say?

bassraptor wrote:

sflam wrote:
agreed. it was a pleasure to plug thumbdrives into the bryston bdp-1 and control it with an iPad wirelessly.

what are you trying to say?

i was trying to say that i was innocently inserting a thumbdrive into the bryston and found that it was a pleasant experience.

ryder wrote:

2k analog setup vs 2k digital setup, vinyl will probably win more fans

10k analog setup vs 10k digital setup vinyl will probably win more fans

10k analog setup vs 100k digital setup, would be interesting

A 16k-17k digital system (bryston bdp-1 and bda-1) vs a vpi turntable in the same price range would be interesting.

This bassraptor guy is danjerous. A very hornee old man indeed. I salute !!

Yes indeed, a 16-17k digital system (ala Bryston) versus the VPI Classic TT would be an interesting shoot-out !

Mister Wong,

You keep harping on 2L,

Do some research lah.

VS126 wrote:
Do you know that the Bryston unit is actually a very basic system, using a mother board that is actually inferior to the atom computer.

I suspect they are using the Intel Atom processor. Would be interesting to see what 'modified' sound card is inside the BDP-1.

Well, in case many of you do not know, it was me who said that listening to HiRes music I heard in my system using Bryston BDP-1 and BDA-1 is better than sex. The statement was made in another forum, and it is obvious that would be where this statement come from.

This superlative expressed my emotional state accurately when I was listening to the sound of my system never before scaled, and I am being sincere about this unreservedly. In fact, I was given another chance to listened to the same in my listening room less than a week ago, and I maintain my stance after second meeting.

Perhaps my listening skill is not as good as most of you, which I do beg your pardon. In case you are not aware, the 'hidden agenda' in the posts is quite obvious.

I am not stating that HiRes is better than vinyl, no one did, so there is not need to be so excited about it.

However, I would like to celebrate the big step forward after the 16/44.1.

FYI, I had invested more money in my vinyl playback system as compare to my digital system. So, if HiRes is better, I lost too in financial terms. But in the name of music appreciation, one should not side any format - digital or analogue, and hold no emotional attachment to any format.

All my system are bought to SERVE me. I like to think that I am the master of my equipment and I am always BIGGER than my equipment. Only with such mindset it allows you to manipulate them, turn them upside down and molest them inside out, so that when you would truly know them, they can be at your disposal and command reproducing music for you.

HiRes softwares is limited at this point, this is naturally the case at such infancy stage but it is not fair to run it down because of it.

JoKi

sflam wrote:

ryder wrote:

2k analog setup vs 2k digital setup, vinyl will probably win more fans

10k analog setup vs 10k digital setup vinyl will probably win more fans

10k analog setup vs 100k digital setup, would be interesting

A 16k-17k digital system (bryston bdp-1 and bda-1) vs a vpi turntable in the same price range would be interesting.

IMHO, you need to add the cost of cartridge, tonearm, and phono amp to the VP1 TT to talk about similar price range.

But seriously, it is nearly impossible to be fair about doing this in whichever way possible; HiRes against 180gm remastered, direct-cut, 1st pressing, etc... Are we making any sense at all?

I am not discarting my analogue system for sure, but I am also not letting it hold me back when my heart opens up to let HiRes in because of what it did.

I am not interested in cost of parts used for as long as it sounds good to me. Take my 47 Lab's Flatfish for instance, you can get the parts in China for less than RM400, its Sanyo lense only costs less than RM35 (I stalled away 6 for RM200), and if you are resourceful enough, go and buy JVC mini combo, a brand new unit cost less than RM300 and comes with everything my Flatfish has except the look.

Jo Ki

wrote:

But seriously, it is nearly impossible to be fair about doing this in whichever way possible; HiRes against 180gm remastered, direct-cut, 1st pressing, etc... Are we making any sense at all?

Finally .. someone here starting to MAKE some SENSE after all the merry-go-round...

sflam wrote:

bassraptor wrote:

sflam wrote:
agreed. it was a pleasure to plug thumbdrives into the bryston bdp-1 and control it with an iPad wirelessly.

what are you trying to say?

i was trying to say that i was innocently inserting a thumbdrive into the bryston and found that it was a pleasant experience.

It's the "innocently inserting" part that I would dispute. I can bet you had intentions ....




Actually, I would agree with Jo Ki about a fair vinyl vs CD shootout, too many variable factors involved. Vinyl would always have the edge, at a given price ...

Just a thought - the costliest TT setup I can think of is the Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn Reference ... about US$150,000 before adding cartridge. Is there any digital player, transport or DAC close to that price? Perhaps the dcs system would get close?