1000 HOURS ON THE PHASURE NOS1

[juanpmar]

1000 HOURS ON THE PHASURE NOS1


After 1000 hours on the Phasure NOS1, I´d  like to share my impressions with you all.

I wouldn´t like to compare the NOS1 to my previous dac, the EMM Labs CDSD SE/DCC2 SE, for various reasons, some even sentimental reasons, I have a special affection for the EMM Labs for all the satisfactions it has given me over the last years . The experience as a music lover, or in this case as an audiophile, tells me that reached a certain level I shouldn´t use the comparative expression "better than".  I know that all I can say is that something makes me more or less satisfied or that I get more or less pleasure in listening.

Suffice it to say in this regard that for the moment I have not returned to listen again the EMM Labs, simply, and although I find strange to say it, because I don´t miss it.

These opinions are not intended to be a technical examination, for which I am not the most capable,  there are others in the forum doing an excellent job on this regard fighting against one or another parameter to get a little better sound every time. We take advantage of all their efforts. Rather to give you the point of view of someone who likes to make everything sound well, even till the exasperation, I´d like to give you this time the view of someone who feel the need of being touched by the music to be moved, to be accompanied, to live with it.

I have to say that the first word that comes to my mind when I´m listening the NOS1 is SUFFICIENT, it isn´t a technical word, nor a poetic one, it´s a word that expresses in a simple way two things at once, limitation and conformity (that´s not exactly the same as resignation). Nothing is perfect, we know it, but there is a point where you can "be" quietly  enjoying it. By that I mean what others say with " I could live with it",  even more, I have not the concerns, the need, of changing urgently this or that to reach the last grade of excellence that never ends to achieve. That happened to me too many times in the past.

Of course throughout this time I realized that changing some parameter, (Juli @ latency, clock resolution or SFS, to name just a few) the sound changes, but I have to say that the changes occur within an environment of excellence that no longer provokes anxiety. In my opinion, with the NOS1 you're there, not in the absolute perfection, but in the emotional state where simply you enjoy the music.

 
NOS1 PROS

I wouldn´t like to repeat what others have said so I will list the features that impressed me most of NOS1, perhaps, as I mentioned earlier, in a more emotional than a technical way:

- There is more music than in any other source that I have tried before, including turntables. When I say more music I mean not only more information, more sounds, but more information in the form of music. More wealth of music. At the end more emotion.

- This information is an information with quality. Each sound has the right personality at the frequency at which it plays. The highs are musical highs, like the bass or the mids. I find no lack of intensity or distortion at any frequency.

- It's a natural sound, a sound that sounds like "true", the instruments and voices seem to sound like in reality.

- The sounds are interrelated in a coherent way, interlinked with each other in a higher unity but showing their individual personalities.

- The soundstage is superb in all dimensions, height, width and depth and the instruments and the performers are well delineated. The scene has no empty spaces, it´s “full” of music. It seems like there is a feeling of material relief.


In summary, as I said before, the sound is so good, so SUFFICIENTLY good that the body asks for listening, not to change this or that to improve it. At least with the current parameters and hardware I´m using now.
I have to say that I have not used too many variations on the parameters that have been used by others (Peter and someone else) and that this time with the NOS1 has been used mostly to breaking it. Yet I can say that the sound reached at the present is of a quality, of a level, unknown to this day for me.

Another thing I would like to emphasize is that the NOS1 is a unity with the XXHighEnd but also with the PC, in this sense I think that the quality of both, the dac and the software, deserve a "transport" (PC) fully optimized to work together with them and with an exclusive dedication.


NOS1 CONS

The cons I can find in the NOS1 are mainly physical and do not refer to the sound it produces.

- The i/o cables have a rare configuration  and could even have some interference problems between the power cable, the interconnects and the DVI cable. If that happens or not I really don´t know. In this sense we can avoid interferences using an L-shaped adapter for the power cord and moving it away from the other cables as much as possible. Nevertheless it is a strange and uncomfortable configuration.

- The case does not have any antivibration treatment. I personally use weights and spikes to minimize vibrations.

- It´s still unknown for me if the quality of the DVI cable has any sound influence.


To conclude, I want to make some reference to XXHighEnd.

- Reaching this stage of XXHighEnd evolution the sound quality is first class, especially if combined with NOS1. Using a high resolution system the variation of volume shows a great influence in the quality of sound. I think it should be possible to vary the volume in steps of 0.5 db or at a maximum of 1db.  To achieve the optimum volume requires smaller steps than the current 1.5dB.

- Using an HDCD (eg Mike Garsons Jazz-Hat, HDTracks ) requires a volume increase of at least 1.5dB and even  to 3dB to reach the level of sound of the same track without enabling the HDCD. Furthermore, the HDCD sound seems lacking vitality and is more opaque and compressed than the same track without HDCD. For all of this I think that HDCD has not yet achieved the quality in XXHighEnd that have the HDCD disks. On the other hand I don´t care very much about it due to the shortage of this kind of format (relatively speaking).

- The superior quality of sound  at 384 bits is evident compared to other resolutions (eg. Ron Carter HDTracks, 96/384 bits).

- I´ve noted an improvement in the bass with the last 0,9-z5-2 version (eg. Inch Worm, Patricia Barber´s Café Blue), it´s more sharp and deep, and in some way I noted also what looks as a light improvement in the soundstage and in the general sound. That makes me emphasize that the word SUFFICIENT doesn´t mean in any sense that I don´t enjoy or look for light improvements.


At  the end I can only add that I am proud to be one of the owners of a NOS1 and that I am grateful to Peter and all who collaborate here for giving me the opportunity to enjoy music like never before.

Thanks, Juan

[manisandher]

Hi Juan, this beautiful post requires a more in-depth response than I currently have time for, but for now I'd like to pick up on two points that especially resonated with me.

I have to say that the first word that comes to my mind when I´m listening the NOS1 is SUFFICIENT...

Yes, yes, yes! Like you, I haven't bothered playing around with XX settings since trying 'Special 128' with the NOS1. And like you, my legacy DAC has remained switched totally off (although its ADC will be used this weekend to record from vinyl).

... the HDCD sound seems lacking vitality...

Again, I totally agree - it's something I've alluded to in the past. But this is not due to HDCD per se, it's due to the HDCD decoder that Peter is using in XX, IMO. I believe this because my DAC has a built-in HDCD decoder which is obviously superior in SQ to the one in XX.

At  the end I can only add that I am proud to be one of the owners of a NOS1 and that I am grateful to Peter and all who collaborate here for giving me the opportunity to enjoy music like never before.

Ditto.

Thanks again for a beautiful post.

Mani.

[juanpmar]

Thank you Mani for your kind words!

Juan

[Scroobius]

Hey Juanpmar,

As a fellow "Nosser" I have to say what a GREAT post!!.  I was sitting here penning my experiences of NOS1 after 800 hours when I saw your post and you have taken virtually all the words right out of my well "keyboard" I suppose.

Not much more I can add. Your description as "SUFFICIENT" is absolutely perfect. It just sounds *RIGHT*. Now I just want to listen to music all the time - all day and all night and all day again. Also I just don't care about settings any more. Any time spent fiddling with settings is music time wasted.

The other day I saw a review of a high end DAC (to remain nameless). Glowing in its praise the review concluded saying that "music did not sound good when the source material was anything less than perfect - but the DAC could not blamed for that". Well I had a huge smile on my face because I have been searching out some of the WORST quality recordings I own - with NOS1 they sound so much better - they actually sound good. NOS1 really shows them in their best light. How is that possible? NOS1 has x ray detail resolution probably the best BUT it still sounds great with poor recordings. But then you feed NOS1 with the best (so far for me 24-192 files courtesy of 2L) and WOW the experience is something else. Truly the first time ever with any hifi system that I have heard massed strings sounding --  like - - well -- massed strings. Pure silky smooth and as nature intended - just beautiful. And then there is the bass - well I talked about that before mmmm.

And I have to say I agree with your observations about Jazz Hat and HDCD it does not sound good to me - and I was really surprised because it sounded better with XX driving my old AN DAC - surely not right I will have to check it out again. Jazz Hat really sounds flat and uninteresting - I will check out some other HDCD tracks and see if they have the same problem.

I guess that Mani's Pacific Microsonics would have to sound good with HDCD as they invented it!! but I agree something appears wrong with NOS HDCD!!.

I can't add any more to what you have said - perfect !!

Just listening to "Conversations with My Family" Mike Garsons (not HDCD) and it sounds way way better than the HDCD "Jazz Hat"  -  mmmm Peter any comments?

Paul

[juanpmar]

Thank you Paul. I agree with your description on how the NOS1 illuminates even the worst quality recordings and on the intensity and perfection it reproduces the best ones.

About the HDCD it seems that there´s more than one opinion about some problem with the way XX play it.

Cheers, Juan

[Scroobius]

Hey Juanpmar,

Just listening to "Jazz Hat" now and I turned off the "Decode HDCD" option in the settings area. It sounds much better but I am cautious that it may only be that the volume increased significantly. Well anyway I have no inclination to turn it back on it just sounds much better -more dynamic but as I say it could be that it is just louder. Anyway HDCD will remain turned off. It also explains why (possibly?) with XX driving my old DAC it always sounded a great recording. Maybe it was just that Decode HDCD was switched off - anyway no way of checking now.

Regards

Paul

[praphan]

Hi Juan,

What a post !! Congratulation for the "sufficiency" philosophy. We, the Thai people, have always  been following our King's advice on sufficiency since we encountered the economic crisis in 1997 (similar to what has happened to the US and Europe now).

As you might be aware, my NOS1 has been haunted by "Gigabyte" ghost for months. But I am now settling in with my son's PC which allows me just to concentrate on listening. The sound quality so far is "enough" for me to enjoy listening than playing around with the hardwares.

On the HDCD, I absolutely agreed with you that XXHE is not the best player for it. I usually played back HDCD on transport through Berkeley Alpha DAC (designed by Pacific Microsonic alumni).

Cheers !
Praphan

[PeterSt]

Dear Juan - Time for a small response from my hand;

and that this time with the NOS1 has been used mostly to breaking it

Let's say I hope you didn't manage. Haha.

Well, after this little joke, what can I say ? I guess all I add to it can only be destroying such a beautiful post. Very well done, beautifully written, and great thanks for the honesty. If only all reviews where to the point like this, they would be useful.

What I like to emphasize from your post is the vast importance of this :

I find no lack of intensity or distortion at any frequency

I can't know whether this is something you were looking for explicitly, or whether this is your general means of judgement from any piece of audio equipment, but at least I think this is the real measure to look for. Btw, it is exactly this which will make all albums sound similar when not 100% right, and which has been the foremost indirect measure for me to get it where it is now. So, this is not only about annoying voices on some albums or jumping out piano notes, but merely -and thus as a derival from the same phenomenon- about the explicit hunt for not finding similarities over albums or even tracks.
That at the same time this will "cause" instruments to sound how they are, is a nice bonus - but still is the same underlaying phenomenon.

Thank you very much for this great enjoyable read.
Peter

[PeterSt]

Well, it is the most clear to me that the HDCD decoding as currently provided is not for the better. But I think I know why this is ...

Back at the time, when it was introduced in XXHighEnd, I made sure it would be as good as the WMP provision. It took some research, especially knowing that HDCD.exe is rather old already (I don't know anymore, but let's say 2008), but with some real deep digging (well, as things can turn out starting at a random place in Google) I found a bit-bit comparison from the WMP output vs. the HDCD.exe output. And it was the same, thus good.
Notice that MS owns the rights the HDCD decoding, so WMP's output should be the reference. Right ?

Well, maybe not;
Although I never checked it (I can, but it is a *very* tedious job), I think what HDCD.exe will do is something similar to, say, AI Filtering in XXHighEnd, or in other words, how normal DACs behave (with their internal means of digital filtering). There is some logic in this too (I think !), because it's upscaling from 16 to 24 bits, and any random means would apply filtering in the mean time. But, it also seems logic to me that whatever was originally in the HDCD decoder chips - like in the Pasific Microsonics D/A part - would anticipate on anything behind that, and although MS will have obtained the (embedded) code from that, they couldn't just 1:1 copy it because the chain with the filtering behind it would not comply. They couldn't ... or they shouldn't have ...
But most probably they did, not knowing what to to otherwise.

What I'm trying to say is that the WMP output already should be wrong, while this has been my reference. And of course there's nothing else for that.
To solve this, I should dig into matters, and find out how all is to work (I know to some extend already) - and make it myself from cratch. I think it is not too difficult, but will take time, and probably the wrong priorities.

In the mean time, it may be better to just switch off HDCD Decoding in XXHighEnd, and listen to such an album like millions of people do or did without HDCD decoding in their CD Player. In addition -but I am not completely sure !- it can very well be that engaging Peak Extension together with Arc Prediction filtering will already do the exact same job. I base this on all just being a "trick" (which I won't explain for reasons to come), and no such thing as HDCD encoding exists (Peter's getting wiiild again ...). The only real thing happening to the source material is that one least siginificant bit being there in some sequence so decoders would recognize it and apply their trickery, that bit being lost for audio and implying noise only. It could even be so that no real noise as such comes from it, because it is applied as a means of dither at the same time. Great within itself ...
So ... when this would be the case and my further assumptions are right it does nothing special with regard to "encoding", the beforementioned setting in XX will be sufficient to let it workout as ever intended by PM, and the sound will be BETTER because no filtering as such is applied (of course Arc Prediction Filtering will be in order now, but this is nothing like destroying).


But I also have a big trick in mind, and if it works we'd laugh ourselves to death ...
I will let you know the results of it, but it may take a while.

Peter

[juanpmar]

Dear Juan - Time for a small response from my hand;

and that this time with the NOS1 has been used mostly to breaking it

Let's say I hope you didn't manage. Haha.

Fortunately it´s still intact and sounds great, it seems that NOS1 doesn´t care much about English

What I like to emphasize from your post is the vast importance of this :

I find no lack of intensity or distortion at any frequency

I can't know whether this is something you were looking for explicitly, or whether this is your general means of judgement from any piece of audio equipment, but at least I think this is the real measure to look for. Btw, it is exactly this which will make all albums sound similar when not 100% right, and which has been the foremost indirect measure for me to get it where it is now. So, this is not only about annoying voices on some albums or jumping out piano notes, but merely -and thus as a derival from the same phenomenon- about the explicit hunt for not finding similarities over albums or even tracks.
That at the same time this will "cause" instruments to sound how they are, is a nice bonus - but still is the same underlaying phenomenon.

Very often I was looking for that lack of distortion but it was mostly when the sound was already distorted. With the NOS1 I wasn´t looking explicitly for intensity or lack of distortion, I was just listening in an enjoyable way and it was because of that that I realized that there wasn´t any distortion and that it was sounding very natural. That´s the gift the NOS1 gave me, relax and the pleasure of music.

I appreciate your words!