Well Roy, a bit late maybe (no, for sure), but thank you very much for describing your experience "en public" which out of all should be honest (as I asked you to, when doing it anyway).
Its not only about the NOS1 you know, its the whole project by itself that is intriguing.
So much nice people here, sharing all info they can find.
The "you" in the project is really great, "you" can share your opinions, "You" are involved in "your" own project about making it all better.
AND "you" have to do a little work to set things up the right way, that counts here too a little, but anyway.
Then there is XX ofcourse especially the latest version, instead of distortion I get "instrument details" WOW and WOW, still works for me
This IS the next generation of dealing with digital music and the way we bring this in our livingrooms.
Lots of people don't realize this, their wake-up call will come when hearing (about) this "little" project of Peter.
A kind of generation LEAP for me going from CD to XX, just a year ago
Kinda curious what comes from all of this, stories about the NOS1 will be written, compares will be made
I will not be among the first owners of a NOS1 ($), so will keep track of all that will be written here and elsewere.
I know what I hear, will they too?
I am a bit "naked" too here you know, expressing my opinion "en public"
But feel a little obliged to do so, because I feel greatful versus Peter sharing all his inside and time to explaining the hard things going on in the digital domain.
Always keeps us interessed with his nice and (not) always understandable posts,
But don't forget it just starts here, the outcoming of the DAC is not the ending of the project, that is I hope not.\
Really curious to see how you (Peter) give this a nice "spin", releasing the DAC.
I look forward to an "en public listening day" with snacks, beverages and music ofcourse.
Setting up a "Perfect system" just for the dutch people, maybe, hehe !?
But be kind to Peter, he can still decide to just keep the DAC for himself, haha
So please don't piss him off ?!
As you know the final PSU (as per design) came late and you missed that. It is running here now, and partly to my own expectations, but for the largest part now ... hmm ... what to say ...
As known by now, it seems that any "minor" theoretical change has a huge impact on sound quality, but where "SQ" as such has become a wrong description. It seems obsolete. Sound Impact may be more adequate, but that is just what it is these days, when starting off with something which seems "right" at the first place.
Now, this is just a PSU to the DAC itself, and not to the I/V (analogue) stage for those who don't know. It is just a PSU to those tiny microvolt necessities a couple of DAC chips have. It is nothing a whatever PSU can't cope with, you should say. Well, it turns out to be different ...
Funnily enough, and as you know, the Arc Prediction stuff brings "shortness". In fact dryness, but technically this is about nomally perceived longer "sounds" being much shorter, therewith giving room to the other sounds coming right after the initial attack etc. of the before sound(s). Now, with this as a recognizeable phenomenon, it just can be shorter again.
Without hearing this, it becomes a kind of hard to explain (also to myself ! ), but it looks like it is giving room to the "singing" of (parts of) instruments. It might be small vibrato, it might be the sheer singing of cymbals (as a by itself more common phenomenon from analogue I guess), and it even seems to create a more psychological "more distance from subjectivity" ... but after a night full of listening and presenting some tracks here to my confirming ears Ciska, we come to the same conclusion : again the most different from before, but only positives to come up with.
Ok, in any more normal situation I wouldn't be able to explain any further to you all, but with the help of Roy's experience I may (remember, everything is relative to a before known situation, or "reference", and what happens here is challenging those references again and again).
So first to Roy : What we listened to is what we'd say is the most approximazation of reality. Whether this was the most interesting is another matter, and here I refer to my own earlier experiences of "the most interesting", but tyering after a couple of hours. This is sure *not* fatigueing as we all know it from digital, but just tyering because you are not able to cope with all the interesting noises and smashes all over. I am serious here.
Damn, I missed that one completly, did I, I kinda explained this phenomenon referring to use the red Black-Gates (BG) to feed to DAC's. (in a PM to you, I believe)
Many of us know this rather "costly" tweak about using BG as capacitors for power and decoupling of IC's.
This is were I stopped planning my own DAC, but there was "buzz" in the audio-scene about 3 maybe 4 years ago.
The Treads were coming in about the use of shunts, those were rather cheap and simple to build, therefore money left over to use just good parts.
Best of all, you can feed all IC's seperatly. (but its not always easy to work with pre-build PCB, in my case)
I hope this is what you mean, give all DAC chips their own shunt PSU.
This would be the cherry on top, would love to hear that change.
This brings a lot of realism to instruments, this was my experience with the black-gates.
Really loved the sound of those "red cups", but the use of shunts would be even better.
Never realized, this still had to be done.
PCM1704UK's on steroids, hehe
But beyond "reality" there is another dimension : normal.
This is something in our brains;
Where "interesting" (by now, and as it comes to me) is subjective and in the mean time not good, there is reality as we might like to hear it. It may be about expressed T's at the end of words like mighT or touche(d)T (and mind toucheT does not start with the capital T), which can be perceived as realitiy if we only think the microphone is sensitive. However, this is similar to spitting which can be perceived, which -when heard- of course is reality BUT NOT NORMAL to hear.
There is more going on in the brain as well (hopefully that is!, haha), this I was trying to explain,
do you know the phenomenon were the music is playing really loud (out of a rather anoying cheap cd-player), people talking.
Normally I would get stressed by just this, but when music is preceived the right way, I can easely listen to loud music and do conversation as well.
Then I am more at ease or laidback so to say, this is what its all about, it must bring complete relaxation.
Especially to the brain, if the brain has to cope with all sorts of distraction (distortion), its has to work very hard bringing it back in proportions.
Peter knows this very good, Why? How is your ear Peter! hehe (one ear shut for long time, sorry bringing this up) tiring isn't your mind trying to cope all day.
Not hearing dept and such, your mind trying to cope with this as well, your ears trying to focus by turning your head, even without you wanting it.
Maybe this sounds a bit vague to you, but anyway.
Why do blind people hear better? this is about hearing sounds in 3D, hear objects in a certain space.
Something else going on in the brain too, everybody has this library in his head of his most special albums, how they "should" sound (or the way you remembered it as so)
The harshness as I was refering to in the Original post, try to understand that this harshness is gone, yea strange, but what comes in that place (or space) ??
Yep, another dimention behind it, so not only the harshness is gone but it has openend up gaps that are filled with so much more detail, music really drools out of your speakers.
As is said somewhere before, you have to learn all your albums again, and best of all you can acually do that because all albums DO sound good again.
Mind can go on ease and just relax, this will be a new experience to all of us, I know this for sure.
It must be right, If I preceive "it" as sounding right,
In this latter area things have changed again to a large degree.
Quote
And because its that clean, there is more place for music
This is very true (I think), but because of what I just said -it is more normal now- this leads to again a next dimension of "more music".
Maybe this time the music as such was already there (I mean with the before PSU), but things can distract. If a mighT sounds, it distracts from what's coming next. Thus, it doesn't overvoice as such (as ringing would for sure), but the single fact that it distracts makes you miss something. This seems to be all over, and not only with overexpressed T's. So this is what I meant with "again it is shorter". As a matter of fact I am starting to hear cut counds (I think I said that before with te first impressions on Arc Prediction Upsampling) but funnily enough they give room to beautiful artifacts like ... believe it or not ... half touched hammers on piano strings. And remember, half touched here means they hit twice when meant once, and because of that additional harmonics appears, and it buzzes.
You want buzzing ? try Jan Akkerman (he is dutch) and his "Passion" album. This is one large interaction of buzzing half touched strings on his acoustic guitar. Also, I described "buzzing emerging in mid air" long ago, but it was rare. Now it has become a standard.
Similarly I desribed a long time ago the -as it seemed by then- flageolet (which is a similar half touch of guitar strings making *only* harmonics audible) being a measure for good sound reproduction, and the more it appears, the better the sound reproduction is. Listen now ... they are all over, intended or not (too fast played chords to ever be able to press the string in between te frets imply the same).
This all, again, makes your before played music a kind of totally unreconizeable.
Peter
I have to be honest yes, I felt there was more to come, this will fill the space (dryness), this has to be good.
Midair colliding of sparkles thats wat we want.
Roy
