Phisolator & Lush

[manisandher]

Yesterday evening I tried something that I can't remember trying before. I by-passed the Phisolator and connected the Lush directly to the NOS1. I definitely tried this when I first received the NOS1 back after its upgrade... but I then only had the Clarixa USB cable, and not the Lush.

The sound is much cleaner with the Phisolator by-passed. Ordinarily, I think it might be tad too lean, and probably why I decided to stick with the Phisolator before. But with the Lush, I think it sounds marvelous. The Phisolator seems to smear the sound. Transients seem deadened. By-passed, the sound is crystal clear and very 'sweet'. There seems to be a longer and more natural decay to instruments. Just generally more musical.

The bottom end has tightened up a lot, and again comes across as more musical.

Of course, our systems are different and perhaps what I'm getting won't work in yours. But I thought I'd share nevertheless.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Hey Mani,

Interesting !
Of course, me too has used the Phisolator input from the start ... using the Clairixa. Never looked back at that when the Lush came about - just like you.

Going to try that tonight and will report !
Best regards,
Peter

[arvind]

Hi Mani,

Interesting. To bypass the Phisolator, do you just remove the short usb cable & leave the Lush connected in its existing position?

Best regards,

Arvind

[PeterSt]

Hi Arvind,

- Pull the short cable from the U input;
- Move the Lush from the I input to the U input.

You can leave the short USB cable be as it is at the other end (no need to completely remove it - it does totally nothing now).

Kind regards,
Peter

[Nick]

Hi Mani,
Is this with DAC and Audio PC both moved onto to the same mains / PE now ?
Nick.

[manisandher]

Is this with DAC and Audio PC both moved onto to the same mains / PE now ?

Yes definitely Nick. It's what prompted me to try it.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Hi Mani,

Regardless of same mains/PE (but it is),

Right from the first second (seriously) this reminds me of a poor USB interface; too much bass and hardly any highs. The bass is annoying in the end (which is after 5 minutes ) because not sufficiently delineated (it's messy) and whether you perceive the "highs" thing fully depends on what you have squeezed out of highs in the first place. On this matter it already starts with the extra-extra I have here because of the Stealth III. And that extra-extra (highs) just completely disappears. Of course this can be good to you or anyone's ears and the "sweetness" as you describe it could be a thing to like, but by now such sweetness means deafness because of the stuffed ears feeling coming from it, your brain knowing there is more.

Apart from this explanation, for me it is just a most clear exhibit of poor USB. It is also the most tricky matter because everybody would be inclined to think it is better. I talked about this in the very same realm when the NOS1-USB was about to be born and back at the time it was a pitfall for me too.
On another matter it is nice (for me) to experience that something (the Phisolator) which was worked out in theory and actually was never audibly tested for its merits really (no A-B comparison) works out so well. OK, in this system with these ears.

I sure think that others should try it too. It's a night and day's difference.

Transients seem deadened.

(with Phisolator in)

Net, I think it is the other way around, but this could be a tricky thing to observe rightfully. If anything, the transients are completely different - or work out completely different (this is why I just said "net"). If you'd play music with a lot of tingles and bells and crackle, then this is just not there. It almost lacks completely. This tells me that transients are too much softened. That this in itself may let work out e.g. a snare drum "better" is something else, and if so indeed, it should be something else which can not follow really. Hard to see this really "deadens" but the sound will become dead as such (not enough life in it).
Nice semantec word games ...

Kind regards,
Peter

[manisandher]

Hey Peter, what I'm hearing is exactly the opposite to what you're hearing!

I really was expecting you to say something like, "No way. Too forward. Bass is too lean. Sounds like ultra-low SFS."

There must be something fundamentally different happening between both of us. Due to your using the the Mach III and my using the Mach II perhaps? It'd be interesting to hear others' experiences.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

It'd be interesting to hear others' experiences.

Mani, agreed !

Maybe there's something in my tuning of the Mach III which I obviously did with Lush and Phisolator. And to keep (in the back of your) mind : the Mach II is really showing a completely different sound; ultimately different. And as you may recall, this exhibits mostly in the highs. And now it is there where the difference occurs with the Phisolator in or out. Maybe no coincidence.

Nobody dares to try it ?

Regards,
Peter

[juanpmar]

Hi Mani, first impression here with my Audio Pc which is not a Stealh Pc.
The sound instead of clearer seems to be brighter without the Phisolator, therefore the Phisolator / Lush combination makes a sweeter sound (without losing clarity).
For now I prefer this combination although I will continue listening.

Best regards,
Juan

[Nick]

Hi,

I have been trying direct vs Phisolator occasionally going some time back. The Phisolator was best when I tried however these listening experiances were with an intermitent connection problem with my NOS's 10 cm usb link which was really impacting sq without my knowing at the time. The sort usb lead is fixed now.

Recently I have been looking very carefully at ground loops and transformer coupled mains noise at the dac and pc ends of the usb link (this work is being carried out on my x99 audio pc). The fixes in place make a very significant difference to sq at least in my system, they impact the strength and articulation of bass, high end sweetness, midrange tonal warmth and above all SPEED (the impact is very posertive). My guess is this has a lot to do with reducing noise impacting usb d+ d- signals which are themselves quite low level. I am midmway through measurements of ground currents and coupled mains noise but have had to travel this week so not fully done.

With the above as background I will give direct USB another try later this weekend and see how it sounds, based on past experiance I expect the Phisolator to be preferred but much has changed so it will be interesting to see.

Nick.

 Ps, One point to keep in mind is that Manis USB stream is likley to be of unusual quality his stealth II sq is very different to standard.

[manisandher]

The sound instead of clearer seems to be brighter without the Phisolator, therefore the Phisolator / Lush combination makes a sweeter sound (without losing clarity).

Hi Juan. Yes, the sound is 'brighter' without the Phisolator here too. But it doesn't sound at all like 'fake detail' to me - it really does seem to sound genuinely clearer. Putting the Phisolator back in the chain takes away the sparkle - it sounds smeared and more boring in comparison.

Mani.

[manisandher]

Ps, One point to keep in mind is that Manis USB stream is likley to be of unusual quality his stealth II sq is very different to standard.

Nah, the improvement isn't exclusive to my Mach II with your clock upgrade - there's a similar improvement in my office system, with my standard home-built x99 audio PC (as close to a Mach II as I could get it).

Look forward to hearing your thoughts over the weekend.

Mani.

[Nick]

Ps, One point to keep in mind is that Manis USB stream is likley to be of unusual quality his stealth II sq is very different to standard.

Nah, the improvement isn't exclusive to my Mach II with your clock upgrade - there's a similar improvement in my office system, with my standard home-built x99 audio PC (as close to a Mach II as I could get it).

Look forward to hearing your thoughts over the weekend.

Mani.

I had made an asumtion there 
Very interesting that your other pc give a similar change.
Looking fowards to trying this myself.

Nick.

[PeterSt]

So many options ...

Haha, yesterday I switched to the Mach II because of an issue with the Mach III I could not solve before play time (and I was losing play time already ). At first I used the Mach II "as is" and instead of not liking the sound I thought a. to be lucky to have sound at all (with the III out of order) and b. I was gong to try the direct input (without Phisolator) so I didn't care much.

Something happened which made it an interesting listen for the remainder ...

I fumbled a bit to connect the Lush to the direct input (in the blind - who organized the inputs that way ?) so it was clear that I was doing "something" while it also was clear that I was using the II now because we both together had been working on the issue of the III.

The music was playing no 10 seconds in this no-Phisolator situation and I was thrown a "BRIGHT !!".
Usually in such a situation this is always followed by an "or too loud perhaps" which is the logical conclusion often, as the louder the more harsh when the highs ain't right. My response to that : "well dear, it can't be the too loud because I am 6dB under par at this moment". And FYI, I already did that because the first 30 minutes with Phisolator made me do that (it really sounded to loud).

Ciska kept on being persistent that I played louder than other days and without real intent at first, I started to play music I played the past few days and asked what the actual difference was she heard. I heard only flatness BUT which was lifted a bit because of the brightness and she now kept on being persistent that there wasn't much difference with the past days. But mind you, I played music which should exhibit the sparkle and tinkle I spoke about yesterday and without that exhinit in the same music it is just "music" (in this case it was Yello's last studio album).

Strangely (not at all) enough because she could not espress what was different, she started to tell me what I had been fumbling there : I connected the Clairixa.

Right. And I couldn't have thought of a better way of telling you the exhibit over here because many of you know very well how the Clairixa sounds in comparison to the Lush. So *that* sound comes forward when I use the direct input, with of course the Lush.
It is all a step backwards, unless you like the preciseness of the Clairixa of course.
Don't be confused about the text above; this was about the direct input vs Phisolator input and not about the Mach II vs the Mach III - although the discussion over here went on about that very subject once I told what I had done. But this is for the Stealth III topic (later today).

Let me add explicitly her repeated words : brighter - more clear. There was also something about more layers and better left right movement (not sure whether we should call this left/right separation because the separation as such would be a negative (not integrated)). Fact is that this was about elaborating what she heard for positives (once the music was fairly flat and not about smashing cymbals) while actually she was negative only. "Too bright and too loud ... for sure too loud".

I will continue with hopefully more interesting stuff in the Mach III topic.

Peter