0.9u-13 first impression

[pedal]

Work and family has limited my music playing time lately, but today I finally got a chance to a short listen being alone in the house. Here is what I heard today:

In my opinion 0.9u-13 bests all the previous versions. It's more dynamic, tighter, more transparent, more honest.

The bass is better defined. Playing The Weavers Reunion Concert At Carnegie Hall, I hear footsteps and other subsonic stage sounds not noticed before.

Beatles "Yellow Submarine" from the remixed soundtrack is a very "difficult" track to get right, because it is a bussy soundmix done on (probably) first generation SS mixers giving a thick and un-resolved sound. It really takes a good system to enjoy this track on loud levels. With 0.9u-13 it sound better than ever! 

There is for sure more "dynamic energy" in the upper octaves. But not unpleased. I find it more true to the source, than earlier versions. In fact I think the treble now resembles the transient speed of (expensive) vinyl. Up till now I always thought that CD had a softer dynamic character in the treble, compared with vinyl. With 0.9u-13 I think this point has improved a lot. [The "softnes" is more audible with traditonal filter DAC's, and less with filter-less DAC's. I own both kinds. -But with 0.9u-13 a traditional filter DAC like my otherwise excelent Eximus, sounds closer to my filter-less DDDAC, in this regard].

Also I found that Q1 = -2 sounds slightly more transparent than Q1 = 14. [many versions ago, in 2007 with a different DAC, I heard the opposite. So this was a surprise].

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I see that some have objected to the "crazy dynamic" character of 0.9u-13. Of course this will allways be a matter of individual taste and choice. But I just want to add some food for thought, which is: There is a trend towards thinner signal- and loudspeaker cables which gives added focus to the treble and the overtones in the music. Also many loudspeakers are not very time corrected, so the tweeter is slightly closer to the ear than the midrange. These 2 factors works well with the "softend" treble of traditional CD sound...

[PeterSt]

There is a trend towards thinner signal- and loudspeaker cables which gives added focus to the treble and the overtones in the music. Also many loudspeakers are not very time corrected, so the tweeter is slightly closer to the ear than the midrange. These 2 factors works well with the "softend" treble of traditional CD sound...

Hahaha Pedal ... you are this first one shdouting this outloud overhere ... Especially mind your last sentence ...

FYI my loudspeaker cable (ok, to mid/high) is 0,75mm2 flat silver wire. I just got it, like it, and have the idea that this (in silk and oil) flat cable avoids the skinning effect.

Btw, when do *you* show your speakers ... at last !!

[pedal]

Btw, when do *you* show your speakers ... at last !!

Sorry for my delay, but the delay will pay off in the end! My original linesource loudspeaker cabinets are about to be greatly improved. There will be 1 separate very slim tower (damped/open back) for the 220cm (true) ribbontweeter and 1 separate tower for the 12 midrange units. (made of solid blocks of plywood). This 2 sections will play together with my 2 basstowers of each 7x12" woofers, going down flat to below 10Hz. Everything with active X-overs and all elements in parallell and in fase. Will pick up last 2 cabinets from painter tomorrow, and will finish all mounting at carpenters house on Sunday. Then a few days cabling/tweaking. So end next week I will be in the proud position to post some photos to you. I'm excited like a child on x-mas eve...

BTW: The treble ribbon has X-over at 800Hz and has solid silver rails 1x10mm as internal cabling. Same as you. He-he.

[PeterSt]

  Not Duelund I suppose ...

But be honest ... your camera is too small to capture your ghetto blasters !

[PeterSt]

Also many loudspeakers are not very time corrected, so the tweeter is slightly closer to the ear than the midrange. These 2 factors works well with the "softend" treble of traditional CD sound...

A few days now playing with 0.9u-13, makes me think this :

Bass has got it's individual vibes, possibly more than ever before. The latter may not be true, because I recognize it (but it sure must have been a longer time ago).

The buzzing (and I mean fly-like) which may emerge in air, is more there than ever before, it seems. May you have it, try Les Nuits from The Nits. It's all over.

Somehow it very much occurs that drums (I mean toms, but also bongos) got a "dry" reality which I never heard before; At listening to Dead can Dance a whole day long at Mondays I thought it was special to that album (and certainly some tracks), but I recognize this in much more now. It gives the feeling of not all drummers smashing anymore, but just dropping their sticks onto the veil.

Another occurring thing is that the forward sound (which IMO was taken away a little in the latest versions) is as profound as it started with 0.9u-0. Somehow this gives me a feeling that it can't combine with those beautiful drums. But it does ... The explanation to this is more depth ??

Anything else ? well, if anything else must be menstioned, it is my feeling that Double sounds more refined than Normal (mind you, not Upsample). This comes to a kind of surprise to me, but otoh I hardly listened to Double for many months (and now I have to in order to solve that hiccup problem ).


*That* the sound has changed is what I kind of was afraid for because of the rework on the memory management, and using less memory anyway. How this exactly influences I am not sure, but apparently it does, looking at 0.9u-0 and the (e.g.) forwardness getting less and less (while more and more memory was used towards the newer versions!), while now all is back, and the memory useage is back to much less. Coincidence ? probably not. Voodoo ? as usual.