Hi Guys

A guy out my way in the Gold Coast area in Australia got a hold of a Phasure DAC and we heard it compared to a very well respected DAC, the PDX, with its maker at the manufacturers factory on the Gold Coast.

It was written up on our local forum and people here may be interested:
http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/index.php?/topic/55227-phasure-dac/

It was with some new VERY transparent speakers one of the guys present had ordered from the maker and it was also to hear them.  They are wild - each speaker alone weighs 43kg's and sits on stands that weigh about 55kg's each for a total weight of each speaker nearly 100kg.  They are made out of HD3, lined internally with 1/4 inch copper, use Duelund Cast Copper Capacitors, 10 gauge air coil inductors and have Bybees bonded to the terminals of the drivers.  It, and variants, are by a long shot the best speaker I have heard - I have a variant on order myself as well as one being burnt in awaiting final tuning going to a friend in Canberra.

For convenience I will re-post the first 3 posts

I just returned from Mike Lenehan's where a group of us congregated to hear Doggihowser's new Limited and a new DAC (the Phasure DAC) Acg (Anthony) had taken delivery of.
 
I will let Doggie comment on his speakers - but like all the Limited I have heard it sounded fantastic - this will be about the Phasure.
 
Anthony popped it on and immediately I noticed it was just very very clean, clear, pure, and pristine.  Everyone liked it straight off.  I described it like when you flick a crystal goblet - a beautiful, refreshing clear sound.  Next it was compared to the PDX.  Generally to me the PDX has a real character - it doesn't sound valvey with dripping honey - if its adding anything it's subtle and most certainly its not what anyone would describe as euphonic.  But against the Phasure it was clearly euphonic - still sounding great mind you - but clearly and obviously it was adding something to the sound that was absent with the Phasure.  To my ears the Phasure was simply more accurate - and obviously so. 
 
Another interesting thing I noticed was the treble sounded a bit recessed and muted to the point you thought it was self effacing - was it lacking in detail?  No - listen carefully and its there - just not obviously so.  I kept on thinking it was like being at live events which has a generally muted treble compared to many hi fi systems that create false detail.  This DAC was like that - nothing false, unnatural or accentuated - simply accurate - very very accurate - in an understated and perhaps under whelming way.
 
We played a number of tracks but Dianna Krall - Case Of You was a particular standout - the piano was just so accurate - free of any kind of nasties or distortion - to me the PDX was clearly colored.  This is the first time I have heard that.  The best rendition of this track I have yet heard.
 
A very very impressive DAC.
 
Do I want to get one?  I chatted to Anthony and he is more than happy to bring it along to the DAC GTG with the PDX, Killer, and Playback Designs.  I will make up my mind then.  Again a very very impressive super accurate DAC.

The purity of the Phasure Nos1 sound was delicious to me and I must say that Doggies ML2 Limiteds sounded fantastic even with a couple of hours on them as they were this afternoon. The NOS1 is also brand new and only halfway through its recommended burn in time, but the sound seems to have stabilised a little so I brought it on down for an early impression.

This afternoon was the first time that I have listened to it from cold and I must say that I was underwhelmed by the first couple of hours of listening but the longer it warmed up the better it sounded, and boy the Diana Krall track right at the end was STUNNING. In particular the reproduction of that piano was extraordinary. I would love to been able to get the dac down to
Mike yesterday so that it was hot to trot because every time we pressed play it sounded better.

I have been listening to it for about two weeks now and am quite familiar with what it brings to the table, and I do think you were onto some of its traits from the getgo Bill. Another couple of weeks of burn in and some tweaking of the playback software and I will be ready for this dac GTG. In preparation I think I will need to get the NOS1 down to Mike a day or two early to get it all warmed up. I know my Offramp sounds much better after a few days of being left on and I suspect the Phasure will also be at its peak if it is never turned off (it is recommended to leave it on 24/7).

I was really quite intrigued by this DAC a couple of years ago. Stacked PCM1704 R2R (georgehifi shd love that!) and customisable using the XXXHighend software.
 
But I never had the balls to take a gamble. Looks like I really lost out. It's a superb sounding system.
 
I'm still not sure I am that keen to much around with a PC system again and the playback process which took a while to start seemed a bit too much work for me but the sound quality is top notch.
 
I suspect I'd still prefer the Phasure feeding something like my Audio Research 5SE preamp. The DAC has details in spade but the tubes in the ARC should just infuse a bit more depth and width to the soundstage.

As the write up said the next step is a DAC shootout we will be organizing with the Phasure, PDX, Killer DAC and Playback Designs.  Watch out for that it should be very very interesting.

Thanks
Bill

I want to know that as well.  I asked a few questions trying to get to the bottom of it but never really got a reply - which is quite understandable of course since it probably touches on proprietary information.  But as a potential customer I think we at least should know what we need to do at our end.  With the availability of powerful notebooks that incorporate I5's I have decided against a dedicated PC in favor of a notebook with a long USB cable connecting where I sit (or lie in my case because of my bad arthritis - but that is another story) to the USB dac.  From a convenience point of view this is a real plus and I would need one hell of a good reason to move away from it.

Thanks
Bill

Hi Peter and All

Thanks for looking into it - it is really appreciated.  I believe hi res recordings are the way of the future and 30% is worthwhile.  But I don't think its something of any real urgency.  I suspect doing it during a few spare moments now and then is all that is required.

Thanks
Bill

Hi Peter and All

Yes I agree that the the extra 2% or so you gain on low res recordings simply is not worth it.  However that is not the case for hi res recordings - it is something like 30% or more:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t64933.html

Flac at 8 - 46.2mb - TAK - 31.94mb - thats over a 30% saving which is certainly worthwhile.  I think the conclusion reached in the above link is the right one:
'Well, so it looks that FLAC isn't really well-suited at the moment for low-passed files, thus for 96 and 192 KHz files. Considering the results, I think it will be better for me to stick with FLAC for 16/44 files, but to switch to another format for 24/96 and 24/192 files. I don't like the idea of handling two different lossless formats in my collection, but the gap is huge, and I don't see any reason for losing almost 350 MB of disk space for a single album.'

However right now there is not much hi res material about so it doesn't look like its something worthwhile to do anything about now.  However as time goes by that will change. 

I think the bottom line here is its something not worthwhile doing now but when high res becomes the norm it would probably be worthwhile looking at it again.  I also have to say it looks a like a simple tweak to FLAC to handle hi res material differently would solve the problem anyway - with 30% or more gains possible I don't think the Flac developers will let that go by.

TAK decodes in close to the same time as Flac  That was one of its design goals:
http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html

Still it is a bit longer.  What I suspect however is by the time hi res formats are the norm we will have a lot faster CPU's so the slight increase will be of zero importance.

Just by the by I always recode my flac at 8.  You are right - you usually don't gain much but it doesn't take long and the way I look at it why waste disk space.
 
Thanks
Bill

Scratching my head on that one.  All I can think of is maybe AIFF doesn't get the treatment of writing to SSD first.  But aside from that it has me beat.

I know some people say due to the extra decode time AIFF or WAV is slightly better but the way XX works by decoding it before playing it should make zero difference and I would store them as Flac.  With high res recordings increasingly coming on line even the large amount of storage you have could easily be filled up in no time.  I have recently done a post about perhaps having support for TAK which is a more efficient lossless format than flac for that very reason - to eek out as much as possible from our storage - especially for high res recordings.   

Thanks
Bill

Hi Peter and All

Am unsure exactly what section to post this under but this seemed it was the most appropriate even though it is not about sound quality per se.

At present until I can get XXHighend working I am using Foobar.  But I am not in that much of a hurry because I am simply listening via some cr*ppy speakers connected to my computer until I get my main rig set up.

Of recent times I have been doing some experimentation on lossless compression and found Flac is far form the most efficient around.  I am currently using it because XXHighend supports it but others are much more efficient.  I tried monkeys audio and while it was great its performance on high res material was not that great.  Then I came across TAK:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=TAK

My experimentation shows it encodes faster than Flac 8 even at the insane setting I use.  And it is supposed to decode fast as well but that is hard to tell on my machine because I have an I7 and foobar doesn't really give you an indication how hard it is working - I can say however my CPU usage is practically zero.  On 44.1 material monkey audio has a slight advantage (but it is very small).  However on high res material TAK is way better - something like 20% better than monkey audio and even better again than flac. 

I know that disk space isn't that expensive these days but it is still not free and I don't really feel like wasting it.  Is there any chance of XXHighend supporting TAK in the future?  What do others think?

I know that TAK is not widely used and that is an issue.  Even though musepac leaves mp3 for dead I recently converted my musepac files to mp3 because it looks like it is going thew way of the do do.  For example squeezbox claims it supports it but closer examination showed it only supported earlier versions - later ones simply do not work.  When I asked about it I was told musepac is quit uncommon and they won't be updating their player for such a small number of people.  Pity that the better option lost ground.  I hope the same does not happen to TAK but my gut tells me it probably will.

Thanks
Bill

Fair enough.  But that does still leaves another issue.  XX has an option to select 384/32 as your dac.  My understanding is that the windows drivers doesn't support that high a transfer rate.  How can you use that kind of dac?

Thanks
Bill

Cant wait to hear what you can divulge - it really has piqued my curiosity.

Thanks
Bill

Hi Peter and All

Finished reading the tread.  Wow what a lot of info.  Will need to read it again and maybe again again to fully glean all the stuff it stands.  But right now for me I still don't understand how you get the 384/32 into the DAC?

Thanks
Bill

Although I much prefer a closed box to a ported design even better is transmission line bass of which I have only ever heard a few.  However the guy I plan to get my speakers from is a master at them.  His designs are always hybrid ported/transmission line (that evidentially gets rid of most of the problems with ported designs - I will soon finedout if thats true - but from what other guys tell me it is to a large extent true) or straight TL.  However his TL speakers are supposed to something extra special in the bass department - one guy reports they literally make people swoon when they hear it:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=54021.0

If you are keen Bob can do you a sub-woofer:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=38864.0

Personally though I am not going to bother - at least initially anyway.  I had an Evocatour sub-woofer for many years and ended up leaving it at a friends place when I moved.  He was staying with me at the time and we used to call it our dunny speaker.  When you engaged it you actually didn't hear too much extra stuff but you sure felt it when you went to the dunny.  I may be cajoled though once I get my system fully set up and looking for a little tweak to add that something extra.  But for now I am not too worried about extra low bass.

Thanks
Bill

Thats the view of the guys that like those 400W Cherries:
http://www.digitalamp.com/cherry.htm

But even those guys have tired the minis with the amp I am interested in and its just fine - even at the levels they like to listen at.

Thanks
Bill

Exactly - thats what my math tells me as well.  Indeed there is really no need to go above 90db as well since it is generally recognized listening to even that level for extended periods will damage your ears - let alone about the neighborers, quite rightly IMHO, complaining.  I know I got hoping mad when the guy next door at 2.00 in the morning new years day decided to blast his boom box (I won't call it a stereo) full blast.  I couldn't even shout over it to tell him to turn it down to a sane level.  One person eventually heard me and turned it down but they didn't care and turned it up again.  I rang the police who put a stop to it quick smart.

I generally listen at about 80db if that.  This has another advantage as well.  It is generally recognized it is cheaper to get a good low powered amplifier than a high powered one.  Don't listen over 85 db and a 40 or 50w amp will suffice saving you real money to spend elsewhere. 


Yes - no one agrees with me on that.  But it has served me well for quite a while now.  Although I have had a few nibbles from guys burned with the conventional approach asking exactly how to go about it.  The main thing is to form a direct relationship with the designer, follow exactly what they are doing, and see what others say about it.  I judge it not just on subjective opinions but on technical details as well.

Thanks
Bill

High Telstar and All


Thanks for posting that.  This is something that has been subject to a lot of debate over on Aether Audio's forum with a lot of very interesting discussion.  A couple of points first.  The Timepiece Mini I am getting, while audibly virtually identical to the Timepiece (it has 85 db sensitivity which is low) except for a bit less bass extension is actually not too bad in the sensitivity department at 87 db (they actually do one thing better than the Timepieces - since they are smaller there is less refections so they disappear - as their designer says 'thought we were listening to a standard Timepiece that had been tweaked...except that this pair of TPs completely disappeared - poof...gone.   You close your eyes and float away to this enormous soundstage and 3-D image.  Then you open your eyes and the brain just dis-connects.  There is no way on earth such a soundstage and dynamics can come from a speaker that small').  The designer Bob thinks 100W is more than good enough to 'send the willies up you' (his words not mine).  The other thing is the Maya that is Hugh Deans latest amp is 150w - not 100w.  Combine this with the fact I listen at lowish volume levels I think it should be fine.  But to be on the safe side I have corresponded with people who have this speaker and they have checked them out with the Soraya and it is fine with that amp - even at the levels they listen to which is well above what I do.  They like them with 400W Cherry amp monsters.  Thats the thing about Bobs speakers they can take that type of power with zero distortion no problemo - it has to do with the waveguide design he uses (he has to pad down the output of the upper end of the tweeter with the crossover - because of that they can handle god awful amounts of power without blowing them or suffering compression of any kind - I won't use them at that sort of power - but its good to know they can handle it).  Anyway despite the fact the Cherry is a bit cheaper I still prefer Hugh's amps - people whose ears I trust say they work very well together.  Also remember the ear is logarithmic in its response - 100W amp only sounds half as loud as a 1000W monster.

I could write a bit about 'listening' to equipment and I will probably do a much longer post on it one day.  Suffice to say I am not that big a fan of it despite the fact everyone says its what you should do.  One reason is you can be easily fooled - and I have been.  I tend to trust guys who listen to a lot more stuff than I do and who technical skill is beyond reproach.  These are guys like Hugh Dean at Aspen and Bob Smith at Aether Audio.

Thanks
Bill

Hi Peter and All


Thanks very much for posting that.

Although I perceived the sound of oversampling DAC's to be better your point is well taken.  My preference may be for a form of distortion and I have had bad experiences with that in the past.  My first speakers were the legendary Gale 402's which had sealed bass.  When it came time to retire them I bought a pair of LS88's which had ported bass.  Initially I thought the ported bass more full sounding and richer - it had the  more immediate appeal.  But over time I came to realize this was false - it grew tiring.  The sealed bass had a rightness about it which a ported design simply could not match.  The 88's had other qualities I liked a lot that more than compensated, but the bass was definitively a minus.  That's one thing I like about the speaker I am interested in.  It is not ported bass - it is a hybrid transmission line ported  design that its designer claims (and I tend to believe him) gets rid of most of the problems with ported designs.

Anyway another choice of DAC would be Steve Nugents overdrive.  It is more expensive, does not have a remote volume control (which I really like as I have bad arthritis), and does not have a home theater bypass mode.  To me all these are also important.  My gut feeling is I may in the end settle for the DAC2 - at least initially - with the idea of upgrading later.  But I may also just decide on a 'better' dac such as the overdrive or Peters Phasure NOS1 (which right now I don't know too much about but will do a bit more investigation).

Thanks
Bill   

Hi All

There is no way a pre amp can increase dynamics - it can only decrease it.  I can never add anything - only degrade it - with one exception - impedance matching.  However for that you don't need a pre-amp - a Busron Buffer which is utterly transparent will do that no problemo:
http://bursonaudio.com/burson_buffer_160.htm

And it is not just hype either.  Hugh Dean, an amplifier designer here in Aus, whose amplifiers are top notch, and whose opinions I greatly respect, tried the Busron buffer on his amp and it did have a positive benefit

Personally I am a big fan of connecting directly to amplifiers.  Some of the best DAC's around like the overdrive are designed to be used that way.  This can save you quite a bit of money by not requiring a pre amp which can run into many tohusands of dollars.  The pre amp I am interested in (the Burson) for example costs $2200 here in Aus:
http://bursonaudio.com/Burson_pre160.htm

However an excellent DAC with built in digital volume control for direct connection to an a amp can be had for about the same price:
http://www.wyred4sound.com/webapps/site/74030/117839/shopping/shopping-view.html?pid=457975

For me that makes it close to a no brainer.  However I must also add having run the idea by some others one issue is that some of the very best DAC's such as the tranquility dac cant be used that way.  They may exceed the performance of the DAC above (then agian they may not - I am unsure if any dac could appreciably exceed the Wyred for sound Dac but that is a discussion for another time) but I don't think they will exceed the performance of top of the line DAC's that can direct connect like the overdrive.

Thanks
Bill