Challenging hiend cd player/transport result

[Marcin_gps]

OK, $1M system wouldn't necessary be better than $200k system, you are aware of that? You're talking about hi-end industry, where price has no transposition to quality - at least not linear as you may think.

[Telstar]

You're talking about hi-end industry, where price has no transposition to quality - at least not linear as you may think.

 

[Flecko]

I use RME-AES32 in my main system and I believe it's better than your NOS DAC as your XXHighend is like immature framework against jplay using WASAPI. I tested with INT202 just to compare between "my system" and "properly optimized XXHighend like marcin said" as XXHighend owner firmly believe INT202 is his best approach.

I have a RME-9632 and I know how cr*py it sounds. Sorry but... LOL

[PeterSt]

Windows X ...

I had a nice reply for you, but didn't post it because all is just too childish. Remember, from my mouth just as well.
Instead I sent you my post per PM.

My suggestion : be more open to things, or maybe even more honest.
Act as if you know it all better and you will know nothing.

Over and out from my side.
Peter

[manisandher]

Mani, recording is very much different process, so can't be compared.

Marcin, yes recording and playback are different processes. I said that the computer SHOULD be able to play the recording back to the same level of quality that it was recorded. Here's a thought experiment. You are in the studio with Keith Johnson who has just made a new RR recording using Pro Tools (or Pyramix, or Sonic Studio, or whatever) and which sounds stunning. He has the pristine digital file on his hard drive. So, you're going to tell him that he can't play it back on the equipment on which it was recorded because actually, althought this equipment is good enough to make some of the best recordings on the planet, it's not good enough to play these recordings back?

(Of course, Windows X would suggest that he creates a redbook CD of the recording and play it back on a $$$ Esoteric CD player in order to hear it in it's full glory.)

I think most of us here are all too familiar with the foibles of computer playback. But my point is that computer recording is no less easy. If you can get a computer to record well, then there SHOULD be no reason why you can't get the same computer to play back well also... IMHO of course.

Mani.

[Jack]

Do people still use those cheap little plastic disks that were called CD's?
Far out!
I'm with Mani. Apples in - Apples out
Jack

[Windows X]

OK, $1M system wouldn't necessary be better than $200k system, you are aware of that? You're talking about hi-end industry, where price has no transposition to quality - at least not linear as you may think.

Indeed. I firmly put this in mind before posting that's why I always stated about being properly setup. Most $100k system may not sound particularly better than my $50k system but highly optimized ones is a big difference.

[Windows X]

I use RME-AES32 in my main system and I believe it's better than your NOS DAC as your XXHighend is like immature framework against jplay using WASAPI. I tested with INT202 just to compare between "my system" and "properly optimized XXHighend like marcin said" as XXHighend owner firmly believe INT202 is his best approach.

I have a RME-9632 and I know how cr*py it sounds. Sorry but... LOL

How can cr*ppy RME-9632 make AES32 being cr*p too? It's best digital transport for PCI/PCIe next to Mykerinos, you know?

[Windows X]

Windows X ...

I had a nice reply for you, but didn't post it because all is just too childish. Remember, from my mouth just as well.
Instead I sent you my post per PM.

My suggestion : be more open to things, or maybe even more honest.
Act as if you know it all better and you will know nothing.

Over and out from my side.
Peter

As I'm not childish enough to judge things good or bad without actual listening experiences, I'm not also childish enough to approve something without knowing either how it sounds to my ears or how it's constructed to determine its potentials. If you stated that you compared this to most $10-20k CD Player/Transport-DAC in various $100-200k systems or so then I may give some consideration that it might be possible and ask for its construction inside like how well clock recovery is/quality of I/V convertor/its specifications like SNR THD and so on.

And you said this is world's first NOS DAC for computer and it should sound better than everything in this world? Sorry Peter but that can't buy me. At least show me your reference system to make me believe that you actually use this in hiend speakers with properly powered equipments.

[Klinnilk]

Hello WindowsX,
it is interesting to follow your argumentation, but some facts it seems you didn`t have understood. First of all reading DATA out from a CD Player is completely different from ripping DATA from a CD Computer Transport. CD PLayer does in time reading, this means it only gets the DATA when the Laser is on its position, it has no chance to get all the DATA off. Even the cheapest Computer drive can retrieve all the DATA from an Audio Disc, because it has all the time in the world to get the information because it is not time dependent.  So one of the biggest advantages of Hard Disk reproduced Music is, that you have all the Music on your Hard drive and you never have the chance listening to all the bits and bytes onto a CD Player whatever price range it is.
That you love the sound of your High End combination over your experimental set up is something i do respect but it is your individual judgement and has nothing to do with accurate reproduction of music, because you don´t have all the original DATA.
This seems to be a general problem when people judge systems; simple question, what is better sound?
Talk to a professional musicians and tell him about spacing, placing of the musicians on the soundstage, smooth bass and fine treble. He will laugh at your argumentation because all this parameters have nothing to do with music reproduction. So again, when you wanna listen to what the musician "wrote in his story" a CD Player is the wrong instrument. Reading a book where letters and words are missing and then judging it is somewhat difficult 
Andreas

[Windows X]

You can also try comparing between mastering hires files to conventional cd disc. It seems plastic still works better than memory. I could set something wrong though.

[Telstar]

You can also try comparing between mastering hires files to conventional cd disc. It seems plastic still works better than memory. I could set something wrong though.

Try a DXD file.

Edit: ah sorry you cant.

[Flecko]

As I'm not childish enough to judge things good or bad without actual listening experiences, I'm not also childish enough to approve something without knowing either how it sounds to my ears or how it's constructed to determine its potentials

Yes, you are. See...

I use RME-AES32 in my main system and I believe it's better than your NOS DAC as your XXHighend is like immature framework against jplay using WASAPI.

How can cr*ppy RME-9632 make AES32 being cr*p too? It's best digital transport for PCI/PCIe next to Mykerinos, you know?

Because it is the same technique involved. And how do you know it is the best digital transfer? I mean "Jitter: < 1 ns". That is cr*py in my opinion. You should go for a device that has "Jitter: <10 ps".

You can also try comparing between mastering hires files to conventional cd disc. It seems plastic still works better than memory. I could set something wrong though

The problem with hires is, that often the hires material was mastered different than the cd. This can cause different and foremost bad sound because of compression used and so on. Take yourself some time, get lost of your predjudice and start to think about it for a minute. What does your higend transport do different than your pc? It is digital data. If the pc could not read/handle it 100% correct we would not talk with each other over the internet. There are differents in CD reading software but that problem is realy solved. I can show you bit by bit, that I will get the exact same data reading the same cd by two complete different pc's. The main problem in pc playback is to get the data out of the pc, and that is where peter made his approach (xx and the NOS). If you have so much money, why don't you give the NOS a try? Losing 200$ could not hurt you.

[Nick]

It's an interesting debate leading edge cd transport vs computer transport.

I have only an academic interest in which is "best" as this judgment is always only a subjective one. In the real world given the price tags of high end transports (not to mention relative convenience of use) I am not too worried as I cannot afford the sort of transport hi-fi needed to possibly out perform a computer transport.

For my part I got rid of a $15k transport 3 years ago to concentrate on computer transports. I did a lot of work on the transport before it left my system, but in the end a cd player is an electromechanical servo system trying to recover time critical data in real time from a disc with no ability to recover when data is missed (other than algorythmic error correction in real time).

For both types of transport system the aim is simple, just deliver the data stream unchanged to the DAC with each bit arriving exactly on "time". Much easier to say than do....

Both approaches to this have their merit. With the right amounts of R&D, I guess challenges of spinning a disc correcting any lost data, clocking the data and transmission of data to a DAC can be made to work extremely well. The same is true for computer audio where accurate data recovery is not such a problem but sequencing data flow into and out of memory, through output device software and hardware to a DAC is the challenge.

It's interesting to consider that after 25 years of CD transport development it has taken computer audio only 6 years or so to get so close to "the state of the art" that this conversation is already happening. With the extream speed and accuracy available from PC hardware its only a matter of time before the right combination of OS and replay software are coupled with the right data transmission hardware to deliver perfectly timed bit perfect data to the DAC. I think that this is the aim of all on this forum. 
 
IMHO Peter is raising the game of computer audio significantly by adopting an end to end system approach in the computer transport space that addresses; algorythimic data processing, OS, replay software, transmission hardware and the DAC together. I hope to hear the results quite soon.

Which is best today ? I don't know. Where would I place my bet in the short to medium term ? no question the computer, it is only a matter is time. If I were in the business of making or selling very high end transports I would be examining my business plans very carefully right now because the threat is pc audio and it has the the potential to deliver the same audio quality and better useability whilst taking a zero off the price !!


Windows X

I am genuinely very interested, can you say what your high end transport experience is ? You seem to have a lot of knowledge in this area. Are you a well informed private individual or do you work with music equipment ?

Best regards,

Nick.

[Suteetat]

Let me put in my 2 cents worth since I was at the one providing my computer/XXHighend for comparison. The test was done in a local dealer's showroom with quite an impressive system but unfamiliar to me.  I also have to add that in my system, I switched to Weiss INT202 a few weeks ago from Lynx AES16 so I am still experimenting a bit. The test was interesting but unfortunately for me,it was rather poorly handled. First of all, when we first listened to my computer with my Playback Design MPS-5, my PD was just turned on with warm up time of about 1 minute. I always find PD to be rather unbearable until I get a good few hours of warm up time and usually at home, I never turn off the unit unless I am going away for several days.

Then we switched to XWindow's system for a little while with Playback then switched to EMM/Esoteric for comparison to CD (I forgot to bring my PD remote so I could not switch to disc from AES/EBU input so we could not compare playing CD in PD vs computer into PD unfortunately). After that, we turned back to my computer and played 2 tracks with my computer/XXHighend after we listened to CDs for awhile connecting Esoteric DAC. The two tracks were Jazz Variant from Manger's Musik wie von einem anderen Stern and Kent Poon's 24/192 version of YOu've Got a Friend. The local Esoteric dealer was running the whole show so I had no control over selection of sequences of events.

First I have to admit that the CD version of Jazz Variants was certainly better but I don't think that it was all XXHighend/computer's false. I was experimentign with using 12V battery power for Weiss INT202 which gave much cleaner, smoother sound overall in comparison to Weiss's noisy switching power supply . Unfortunately, the bass impact and dynamic could not match the CD. Much false was to blame on the battery as when I burrowed XWindow's 12V linear power supply for his computer and plugged it into Weiss INT202, bass impact and dynamic improved significantly but at a cost of harsher midrange. Vocal became rather unbearable.

The Esoteric dealer kept saying that CD version of Kent Poon's track had more weight and better define bass than the 24/192 version. When I suggest that we ripped the CD to HD and actually compared the same track, there was no response. Actually, I can't even remembered if we even listened to the CD version at all besides hearing the dealer's comment.

However, beside bass impact and dynamic, I heard slightly wider soundstage and depth with CD. How much of that can be fixed via better power supply to Weiss, I don't know. XWindow brought 2 system, his smaller system that was a bit unstable but used the same Weiss's interface. His unit has bigger, weightier bottom end but not as liquid in the midrange. How much of that was the fault of higher latency/buffer, I cannot tell but my experience with Weiss and his linear power supply give me impression that a better linear power supply may improve things quite a bit more for his computer. His main system with RME was very nice. More clarity, very open sound, again much better dynamic and bass impact than my battery operated Weiss INT202. Unfortunately I wished we had more chance to compare other type of music beside the two tracks mentioned, more acoustic music, piano, classical with more variety and not just fixate tracks that only showed mainly bass and dynamic.

I did bring several CDs which I discuss elsewhere with Xwindow and other people who attended the session, some which I preferred CDs over HD and some which I prefered HD over CD unfortunately I never had the opportunity to play those tracks even though I showed them all the the guy running the show initially.

So what I really got from experiment was basically that I need to do more homework with my system and at least part of the weakness that can be improved quite a bit is not the computer nor the software itself (capacitor bank with bigger battery, car battery perhaps!). May be  after all said and done, I still cannot get the computer to perform as well as CD in that respect but I certainly am not as pessimistic about the quality of computer music server.

Also I have to add that Xwindow's may seemed a bit too single minded but I found him very knowledgable and is very sincere in his opinion eventhough sometimes it may rub the wrong way. He is very passionate about the topic but perhaps not the most diplomatic of person but I did really enjoy our meeting.

I hope that once I can sort out the problem with my power supply, we can have another friendly listening session but somewhere a bit more neutral.