I wish I could see what is going on inside my equipment

The art of the audiophile is in absorbing information about what works and what might work, information about technology and capability, and establishing whether the putative enhancements offered by the likes of an Audiophilleo or an AQVOX device, whilst carrying the weight of technical argument behind them, actually have an audible and beneficial effect.  

Obviously, based on my previous posts, they do indeed have a positive effect for me. But I wish I could see inside my equipment and work out what is going on, specifically because I’m surprised that, even despite ultra low jitter and an enhanced power supply, it’s still possible to do better merely with a software change wrought by the introduction of Pure Music from channel D.  

What is going on? Every time I introduced a new element to a purely digital front end – first the Audiphilleo, then the AQVOX and finally Pure Music – something has improved. Each improvement brings similar rewards, most notably in a sense of ease, naturalness and musicality; it seems as if improving the digital part of the system affects those attributes specifically and others – soundstaging, bass depth, detail, etc – with less consistency. There be *an* effect in these attributes, but quite what effect you get isn’t as consistent as simply noting the improvement in ease, naturalness and musicality for the introduction of each new change.  

So I wish I could see what is happening, because there is plainly improvement to be had over and above simply plugging in an ultra-low jitter converter like the Audiophilleo; it works, but it’s part of a system of components from the laptop itself to the pulses of SPDIF voltage going into the DacMagic, and it is clearly influenced by what happens upstream of it. By implication, each incremental but audible improvement hasn’t taken me to the ultimate transport, the very best that digital can offer; there is more to come. How? What can be improved, in what capability and with what technical reason?

As a GA, I want to know so I can spend my money wisely; at least these components are relatively inexpensive compared with the juggernaught CD transports you can get for massive outlay, and at least they (for the most part) come with some kind of money back guarantee.

I had this argument with my fellow GAs yesterday. So far I am out on a limb compared to my audiophile chums; we only agree that great vinyl always sounds better than the best digital, but we don’t agree that computers either work, or can be made to work. Luddites! I get the argument that there is romance and pleasure to be had in cueing a record and listening to the soft ‘pop’ of a Kotesu’s needle as it caresses a groove. I don’t get the parallel with loading a CD and hitting ‘play’ on a remote; it makes no sense to me to seek to enjoy the act of loading a digital disc when I’m now offered a format that offers such an incredibly easy way to access my music. If the argument is based purely on sound quality alone, then stick with vinyl and put in the additional effort to select your records, clean and destatic them, cue them up and dart back to your listening position to enjoy the mellifluous sound washing over you. I do this too, sometimes.  

It seems the argument against using a MacBook transport is one of ‘it will never be any good’, or possibly ‘it will never be as good’ as a CD spinning a disc. This doesn’t wash with me; just because vinyl is better doesn’t mean digital will be bad. My GA chums cite their own experiences trying computers as sources, and universally preferring a CD spinner, sometimes of quite a lowly origin. Which is fair enough, with one caveat; they haven’t tried any solution targeted at what we know can bring sound quality down. Surprisingly, it all seems to fall into the ‘too hard’ bucket, even for those who work in IT and for whom the installation of some software might be easy.  

An analogy given to me was that I should use a lawn mower to cut a lawn, and a hedge trimmer to cut a hedge, and a strimmer to trim borders, but using a multifunction device simply does each of those jobs badly. Which I can understand, except that the solutions out there aimed at better CD transport seem to be the metaphorical equivalent of strapping a massive V8 engine to your lawnmower and polishing it so vigorously that it is visible from space. It might mow the lawn quicker, but is that the clever solution? I’d rather work out how to cut the lawn more effectively, perhaps automatically and by remote control, watching the automatic lawn mower do the job for me as I sip from the bottle of Petrus I was able to afford by not buying the V8.  

Computers are noisy, suffer from jitter and latency, and not dedicated to being CD devices – but all these are solvable, technical issues. I’ll continue to try and reduce the noise and inherent jitter being presented to the Audiophilleo as much as possible – running the laptop from battery is my next target as the current battery expired just as I upgraded to Snow Leopard, and I may speculatively invest in a superior USB cable if I can find a recommended one with a money-back guarantee – and I’m going to try my best to arrange a direct home comparison of a dedicated CD transport against what I have at the moment, if only to assure myself that this is the right course of action. Alas, my pal with the dedicated Audio Note transport has taken a new position overseas and I can’t access that in time to compare, but I may be able to organise something else.  

Meanwhile, I’m comforted that my wife, who is politely interested mostly from the perspective of being able to box up piles of CDs and move them into the loft, nevertheless sang along to most of what we were playing last night and the night before, with Pure Music running instead of native iTunes. I could hear the slight improvement in musicality, and she just reacted subconsciously to the increased ease. I can’t think of a better recommendation!