But, by that I don’t mean recorded female vocals. I mean live vocals, as evidenced by the soft, involuntary sing along by my wife from the kitchen when I switched software from Pure Music to Audirvana in the living room.
In an earlier, pseudo-formal test I devised a test of three software media players – iTunes, iTunes with Pure Music, and iTunes with Audirvana – labelled them A, B and C and asked my wife, who was patiently reading a book curled up on the sofa, to listen to the same track a few times on each and express her preference.
She didn’t like A – she said it was cold and hard in comparison
She oscillated between B and C, before finally saying she could barely tell a difference and deciding she preferred C (which was Pure Music on this occasion).
Personally, I prefer Audirvana. I was very surprised to be able to detect any difference between it and Pure Music, but it does seem to have an edge in terms of dynamic contrast, tension and naturalness. Pure Music seems smoother, but less interesting and a bit more artificial. But it is shades of gray.
What has convinced me to buy a licence for Audirvana, despite its frustrating inability to track an album or playlist correctly (it ends up playing random tracks if you leave it alone, or just loops two or three tracks, which forces me to leap up from my seat every few minutes to select a new one) is the fact that my wife spontanesouly started to sing along to the music when I had Audirvana playing in another room, and remained mute with Pure Music as the source.
There I was playing around with settings, rebooting and trying options, whilst she was completely absorbed in something unrelated in a different room, and Audirvana achieved a high correlation with her singalongs. It’s just more musical and nicer to listen to.
I have to hope the playlist following bug gets ironed out, because it annoys me, but otherwise I am very happy to be using it. What’s more, I’m even happier to again confirm the odd-but-true fact that my digital transport matters, and consistent improvements lead to a more musical, analogue sound every time it gets better. Forget slam, soundstage, bass depth and detail retrieval – it just sounds more and more like music.
Audirvana is therefore thoroughly recommended.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Sensory pleasure applies to both food and audio - a comparison with the Fat Duck
I am in the fortunate position of having been able to take my wife to one of the world’s best restaurants, the Fat Duck in Bray, for our wedding anniversary. Heston Blumenthal is now famous for his eccentric TV programmes, the theatre of some of his dishes, and the quality and scientific and technical competence of his cuisine. Booking a table required redialling approximately 550 times over 40 minutes on three phones for both of us, just hitting “redial” on various phones the moment we heard the Engaged tone.
We got the last table for two at lunch.
I spent £600 on two tasting menus, two glasses of Champagne and half a bottle of Chateuneuf du Pape, and left feeling impressed but faintly miffed, and at the same time somehow insipired. After much thought I’ve realised what I felt leaving the restaurant is exactly how I’ve felt after leaving a demo of some of the world’s best hifi equipment, and exemplifies why I now blog about the art of the Gentleman audiophile, he (or she) seeking not technical perfection, but a connection between the musician and the audiophile’s heart.
To explain further. The best restaurant I have eaten in was in Eugenie-les-Bains in Southern France, the 3 Michelin-starred restaurant run by Michel Guerard and in an idyllic, countryside setting. There were Ferraris on the driveway and we sipped cocktails on the veranda before lunch in the sunshine, reclining in magnificent wicker chairs and perusing the menu. I was only 12 or 13 at the time, so they had prepared a large fruit cocktail with umbrellas, ice and a straw which amazed me, and I was a fussy eater so, whilst my parents had a complex, multi-course menu I was served a massive piece of Foie Gras and infinite supplies of toasted Brioche, followed by a huge piece of magnificent fillet steak that seemed to dissolve as my knife travelled through it, and finally something chocolatey for dessert.
I think it is here that I learned what an orgasm feels like. It is etched in my memory.
There are other fine restaurants – Gordon Ramsey, Nico Ladenis, Michel Roux, Raymond Blanc – and similar fond memories of complex, delicious food in a great setting.
Heston’s restaurant the Fat Duck is beside the main village road, a converted cottage which has been knocked through in the front two rooms to make a restaurant with low ceiling, a few paintings on the wall and a “Mrs Miggins Tea Shoppe” feel. The curtains on the small windows are drawn to block out the road, the lighting is overhead, illuminating the table so you can see what you will be eating, and tables are close together, as close as possible to fit in as many covers as possible, without (hopefully) inducing claustrophobia or the knocking of chairs as guests shift, arrive or leave. It is not just unprepossessing, but uninspiring, unwelcoming and stark despite the linen and odd luxury item. Perhaps designed to focus on the food and nothing else?
Waiters are polite and charming, but there seem to be more waiters than guests. There is only the tasting menu, with the option of two possible wine menus to accompany your meal, a carefully chosen glass with each course, but I am driving and the cost substantial so we stick to water and Beaucastel for the four hours we have allocated to the experience.
Tiny things come and are eaten in one go. A plate of something layered is presented and we are instructed to slice through it, balance the lot on our fork and eat all at once to get the flavour. I am intimidated by the waiters and the portions – they describe how to eat (“pick it up and eat the whole thing, quickly!” for a nitro-poached G&T mousse whilst they spritz above your head with essence of lemon) – and I am worried I am missing something important, because each dish comprises only a few mouthfuls of something marvellous before it is gone. Did I get it? Did I understand what the chef intended? If it seemed…. A bit boring, or a bit naff…. Was I missing the point and not quite scraping a puddle of special sauce onto my fork at the same time as I was balancing a molecule of grapefruit?
A key dish is “The Sound of the Sea”, a selection of cleverly cooked or not-cooked fishy ingredients arranged to look like the seashore, on a glass plate balanced above a tray of sand, with artificial and edible sand down one side, fish and seaweed in the middle, and fishy foam representing the sea down the other. The key item being a massive seashell placed alongside which contains an iPod on which has been placed a recording of waves breaking on the shore; as you listen and eat, so you are transported to the seaside and flavours are enhanced.
This struck me as where Heston had gone wrong; whilst it worked, if hitting all your senses enhances your experience of the food, why then design your restaurant to focus *only* on the food and imbue it with such a cramped, unluxurious and unappetising ambience? Where I was transported into near ecstasy as a child with both magnificent food and a terrific ambience, here I was merely impressed but left wanting.
Similarly, each course was a minor triumph of technique and capability which left me wanting more, but never achieving that climax of pleasure, either as an individual dish or as an overall experience. It could be argued that this is a flaw in any tasting menu, but somehow I was hoping for more from what was once voted the best restaurant in the world, and is now #2. I was not sated, nor did I want more.
Let’s take the audiophile analogy. I have heard a full Mark Levinson/Revel system, Krell/Wilson, ARC/ Martin Logan, dCS/Nagra and many others. In my own system I’ve owned equipment like dCS Elgar, Jeff Rowland, BAT, ARC, Wilson WATT. Most of these have been technically competent, in some cases practically unsurpassed in their respective ears, and yet…. I sold them and moved on.
Heston did not touch my heart and neither did all that stuff. It seems increasingly hard these days to find manufacturers who are capable of delivering equipment that really gets your emotions rising and your feet tapping and that overall “wow” factor that endures rather than fades with familiarity. It might be a simple gnocci in squid ink at Il Corte Sconta in Venice, or even a salami sandwich with fresh butter in fresh baguette by the side of the ski slope in the French Alps, but something about the gustatory experience has a more enduring and satisfying effect on me than the minuscule millefeullie that was dessert #1.
It’s the science of auditory pleasure that makes us realise an original Koetsu is worth its’ weight in gold. There may well be a reason why the technical competence of those cartridges don’t match modern cartridges capabilities, but that it stirs your heart, and if someone can clone that and sell it I’d be first in the line to buy. It reiterates to me: don’t follow the herd but listen, observe, and follow your heart even if it seems at odds with what the herd are saying. Buy a £200 DacMagic instead of a £5000 Weiss, because it is better at delivering the music. It’s a salami sandwich amongst truffle-infused toasts. I suspect, though, that the Tron DAC is that block of Foie Gras I snuffled all those years ago…..
We got the last table for two at lunch.
I spent £600 on two tasting menus, two glasses of Champagne and half a bottle of Chateuneuf du Pape, and left feeling impressed but faintly miffed, and at the same time somehow insipired. After much thought I’ve realised what I felt leaving the restaurant is exactly how I’ve felt after leaving a demo of some of the world’s best hifi equipment, and exemplifies why I now blog about the art of the Gentleman audiophile, he (or she) seeking not technical perfection, but a connection between the musician and the audiophile’s heart.
To explain further. The best restaurant I have eaten in was in Eugenie-les-Bains in Southern France, the 3 Michelin-starred restaurant run by Michel Guerard and in an idyllic, countryside setting. There were Ferraris on the driveway and we sipped cocktails on the veranda before lunch in the sunshine, reclining in magnificent wicker chairs and perusing the menu. I was only 12 or 13 at the time, so they had prepared a large fruit cocktail with umbrellas, ice and a straw which amazed me, and I was a fussy eater so, whilst my parents had a complex, multi-course menu I was served a massive piece of Foie Gras and infinite supplies of toasted Brioche, followed by a huge piece of magnificent fillet steak that seemed to dissolve as my knife travelled through it, and finally something chocolatey for dessert.
I think it is here that I learned what an orgasm feels like. It is etched in my memory.
There are other fine restaurants – Gordon Ramsey, Nico Ladenis, Michel Roux, Raymond Blanc – and similar fond memories of complex, delicious food in a great setting.
Heston’s restaurant the Fat Duck is beside the main village road, a converted cottage which has been knocked through in the front two rooms to make a restaurant with low ceiling, a few paintings on the wall and a “Mrs Miggins Tea Shoppe” feel. The curtains on the small windows are drawn to block out the road, the lighting is overhead, illuminating the table so you can see what you will be eating, and tables are close together, as close as possible to fit in as many covers as possible, without (hopefully) inducing claustrophobia or the knocking of chairs as guests shift, arrive or leave. It is not just unprepossessing, but uninspiring, unwelcoming and stark despite the linen and odd luxury item. Perhaps designed to focus on the food and nothing else?
Waiters are polite and charming, but there seem to be more waiters than guests. There is only the tasting menu, with the option of two possible wine menus to accompany your meal, a carefully chosen glass with each course, but I am driving and the cost substantial so we stick to water and Beaucastel for the four hours we have allocated to the experience.
Tiny things come and are eaten in one go. A plate of something layered is presented and we are instructed to slice through it, balance the lot on our fork and eat all at once to get the flavour. I am intimidated by the waiters and the portions – they describe how to eat (“pick it up and eat the whole thing, quickly!” for a nitro-poached G&T mousse whilst they spritz above your head with essence of lemon) – and I am worried I am missing something important, because each dish comprises only a few mouthfuls of something marvellous before it is gone. Did I get it? Did I understand what the chef intended? If it seemed…. A bit boring, or a bit naff…. Was I missing the point and not quite scraping a puddle of special sauce onto my fork at the same time as I was balancing a molecule of grapefruit?
A key dish is “The Sound of the Sea”, a selection of cleverly cooked or not-cooked fishy ingredients arranged to look like the seashore, on a glass plate balanced above a tray of sand, with artificial and edible sand down one side, fish and seaweed in the middle, and fishy foam representing the sea down the other. The key item being a massive seashell placed alongside which contains an iPod on which has been placed a recording of waves breaking on the shore; as you listen and eat, so you are transported to the seaside and flavours are enhanced.
This struck me as where Heston had gone wrong; whilst it worked, if hitting all your senses enhances your experience of the food, why then design your restaurant to focus *only* on the food and imbue it with such a cramped, unluxurious and unappetising ambience? Where I was transported into near ecstasy as a child with both magnificent food and a terrific ambience, here I was merely impressed but left wanting.
Similarly, each course was a minor triumph of technique and capability which left me wanting more, but never achieving that climax of pleasure, either as an individual dish or as an overall experience. It could be argued that this is a flaw in any tasting menu, but somehow I was hoping for more from what was once voted the best restaurant in the world, and is now #2. I was not sated, nor did I want more.
Let’s take the audiophile analogy. I have heard a full Mark Levinson/Revel system, Krell/Wilson, ARC/ Martin Logan, dCS/Nagra and many others. In my own system I’ve owned equipment like dCS Elgar, Jeff Rowland, BAT, ARC, Wilson WATT. Most of these have been technically competent, in some cases practically unsurpassed in their respective ears, and yet…. I sold them and moved on.
Heston did not touch my heart and neither did all that stuff. It seems increasingly hard these days to find manufacturers who are capable of delivering equipment that really gets your emotions rising and your feet tapping and that overall “wow” factor that endures rather than fades with familiarity. It might be a simple gnocci in squid ink at Il Corte Sconta in Venice, or even a salami sandwich with fresh butter in fresh baguette by the side of the ski slope in the French Alps, but something about the gustatory experience has a more enduring and satisfying effect on me than the minuscule millefeullie that was dessert #1.
It’s the science of auditory pleasure that makes us realise an original Koetsu is worth its’ weight in gold. There may well be a reason why the technical competence of those cartridges don’t match modern cartridges capabilities, but that it stirs your heart, and if someone can clone that and sell it I’d be first in the line to buy. It reiterates to me: don’t follow the herd but listen, observe, and follow your heart even if it seems at odds with what the herd are saying. Buy a £200 DacMagic instead of a £5000 Weiss, because it is better at delivering the music. It’s a salami sandwich amongst truffle-infused toasts. I suspect, though, that the Tron DAC is that block of Foie Gras I snuffled all those years ago…..
More Tron DAC love
Just a quick post to note that two fellow gentlemen audiophiles heard the Tron DAC and loved it utterly. One has posted his thoughts on Pink Fish, so check it out!
Friday, 2 December 2011
Tron DAC heard and loved
Profuse apologies for not having posted for a fair while. Work and family life have intruded slightly and I’ve not been able to focus on those things I said I would look into, such as power and RFI effects on the system. However, there have been a few changes since my last post.
First, I have sold the Lindemann, a decision I may regret since some lucky soul will now be able to play SACDs and I can no longer – I can play the CD player, of course, but not gain the full sound quality effect of the SACD material itself. It doesn’t bother me much, because whilst the Lindemann was an excellent player, the DacMagic proved to be not far behind and much more accessible when driven by my laptop with Wireworld USB cable, AQVOX low noise USB power supply and Audiophilleo 2 USB to SPDIF converter.
Selling the Lindemann is an investment in the future since I’m now committed to the computer/DAC mechanism for delivering music, and the money can be put down against a replacement DAC. Speaking of which …
I was fortunate enough to have a demo of a pre-production Tron Seven DAC in my system at home. Everyone should save for one. I am not sure it could be possible to find a more musically satisfying piece of digital audiophile equipment than this. Yes, I am biased because I know GT personally, have two Tron amps already and plainly like the sound and the service. Even so… I recall hearing an EMM labs DAC at one of the shows many years ago and thinking “this is it!” – even in the noisy, harsh and unwelcoming atmosphere of a hotel demo room crammed with people. Something about that equipment sounded right, regardless of tonal balance, separation, bass response, soundstage and so on and so forth, none of which matters but more importantly none of which could be reliably judged at the time. But, it sounded like music.
The Tron feels the same; my memory of the positive elements of the >£10k EMM are how it sounded natural and like music – a real musician not a facsimile, a flow rather than a staccato peppering of audio imagery. In that respect the Tron is identical and possibly superior.
Let me backtrack a bit to the technology. This is a non-oversampling, filterless DAC with valves and transformers inside an unprepossessing black box. There is a discreet red LED and a Tron logo on the front, and some simple SPDIF connections on the back, into which the Audiophilleo plugs without incident. There is nothing else to see and it will tuck away nicely into my AV cabinet and never be seen again – just the way I like my equipment! Not flashy, just a musical instrument that makes me happy.
The preproduction DAC I heard had been completed the night before and was not run in. Therefore, it sounded a bit bland and colourless from switch on. Four hours later it had transformed, and I understand continues to grow in weight, depth, scale and surprising dynamics since being taken away.
I have read that non-oversampling, filterless DACs can sound like they have rolled off the treble in order to make themselves less digital. On hearing the Tron I understood that statement; I feared that it was missing some element of high frequency reproduction that had been engineered to make it sound ‘nice’. But, as it warmed up and burned it, I realised that wasn’t the case at all. It sounded like the music, like the recorded ambience, and didn’t add any treble lift or accentuate any highs to make itself sound exciting. It was dead quiet and (if this isn’t an odd adjective to use) sounded ‘black’ – but missed nothing. Midrange was clear, bass deep, tunefull and extremely well defined. Instruments startled with lifelike emergence and no forewarning, just like real music. Woody tones sounded woody, brass instruments like brass. Just music.
With due respect to the need for system synergy, I’d be surprised if this couldn’t compete – musically, at least - with any DAC from any vendor. I have owned the dCS Elgar/Purcell, Sony SCD1 and Lindemann, heard the EMM, Esotetic, Devialet and top Audio Note and Audio Research DACs, and I can only recall the EMM for the reaction it engendered in me. The Audiphilleo proved to be a marvellous conduit for digital data and nothing missed a beat as the same “rightness” I heard with each small upgrade to my digital front end came through the Tron in spades. Going back to the DacMagic showed it to still have a tiny edge in terms of tension, but of course much less capable overall. I can live with it in place because it is an amazing bargain for the price, and makes great music with the tweaks I’ve been able to install, but the Lindemann sale is clearly part of an overall Tron DAC fund now.
Downsides? It only plays 16/44 or below. I have almost no high res music so I don’t care, and GT may release a different chipset in a later model (this one is yet to reach full production anyway) that supports the full 24/192 monty should you need it. So the DAC is next and then I’ll look at doing a Roy Riches on the mains!
Thursday, 29 September 2011
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!
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!
Monday, 26 September 2011
Channel D's 'Pure Music' and other trials
Just a quick update to state that I've downloaded the trial version of Channel D's 'pure music' player to see whether or not it has an effect and is distinguishable from either iTunes or Decibel. The answer so far seems to be Yes, if only in the context of an increased sense of ease and musicality. My wife, sat outside in the kitchen, just called out to me 'Who is that singing? It's beautiful' - Eva Cassidy of course.
I will keep testing just to remove that expectation bias and the influence of other changes I have wrought - all at the same time due to time pressures, rather than carefully changing and testing in sequence I'm afraid - including some new silver wired interconnects, and the removal and re-addition of a number of mains plug 'clamps' from either Russ Andrews or another manufacturer. The former is another entirely positive move, the latter is something over which I'm still undecided; I'm struggling to tell the difference.
So: whilst Pure Music is working well compared to iTunes, I've yet to test it against Decibel.
I will keep testing just to remove that expectation bias and the influence of other changes I have wrought - all at the same time due to time pressures, rather than carefully changing and testing in sequence I'm afraid - including some new silver wired interconnects, and the removal and re-addition of a number of mains plug 'clamps' from either Russ Andrews or another manufacturer. The former is another entirely positive move, the latter is something over which I'm still undecided; I'm struggling to tell the difference.
So: whilst Pure Music is working well compared to iTunes, I've yet to test it against Decibel.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Inspired by Osteria L'Intrepido
So, one of my delights of the modern age is the Podcast. I should do one for the Gentleman Audiophile, although I doubt I’ll achieve the degree of professionalism and insight of my current second favourite, the Freakonomics Radio podcast (my favourite is the justifiably popular Friday Night Comedy on Radio 4, which is not technically a Podcast rather a downloadable recording of the show broadcast conventionally on a Friday night in the UK).
Freakonomics is a book by a couple of economists which has enjoyed bestseller status for a few years and a staple of many an airport departure lounge bookstore. I’ve enjoyed reading it. It describes a number of elements of modern society in terms of what the data tells us, what the underlying mechanisms are to shopping and politics and risk taking, some of which is unexpected and some of which is a little bit “so what? I knew that!” but applied in an unfamiliar context. I have a maths degree and work in the City, so this stuff appeals to me.
There are a variety of podcasts presented with wry humour and a nice flow, interrupted only by the inevitable advertising which is usually discreet enough to be ignored. So, to my point: the podcast entitled “Do more expensive wines taste better?”
In short, the answer is “maybe”…. but, crucially, even the most educated, the most decorated and the most respected palates in the world can be fooled into believing that an inexpensive wine is worthy of the best accolades, if the wine reviewer is led to believe the wine under blind test is expensive. It is expectation bias pure and simple, about which I have written in other posts.
So, in the main elements of the podcast, our pet economist describes a number of experiments in which a mix of expensive and inexpensive wines are presented, either in anonymous carafe or in paper-wrapped bottles, with the crucial addition that the drinkers are told what wines they will be drinking - in terms of ‘one expensive, three cheap’ or some equivalent mix – and the experienced and expert drinkers clearly prefer the wine they believe is more expensive, even rating the same wine differently under blind conditions on believing one of the identical samples is more expensive than the other.
Whilst the occasional reviewer asks “Is this the same wine?” on being told ‘write what you think you’re tasting’ just go ahead and rate them differently anyway. Wine and hifi have a lot in common. As we all know, expectation bias tells us the new cable on which we splurged much Sterling must be good, the DAC whose output is 384KHz instead of a puny 44.1KHz with no oversampling has to offer a smoother and more expansive and musical sound, and so on and so forth. They may be different, but are they *better* and are they better because they are expensive?
The most telling conclusion of all being that the packaging, the label and shape and lustre of the bottle or the presentation of the wine in its’ brilliant crystal decanter, matters more to people’s perception of quality, and by inference enjoyment, than the actual cost of the wine itself. No wonder so many manufacturers use blue LEDs and Perspex chimneys to adorn their equipment – it works! At least, it makes for happy customers even if it doesn’t actually make the equipment sound any better. And having happy customers who enjoy their systems because the feet light up blue is as valid as having drinkers enjoy their oaked, new world Chardonnay at £15 a pop – it may be a moose in a mink coat, but a happy customer is a happy customer regardless. If that makes sense…
I suggest now as I have before that the Gentleman Audiophile must resist the temptation to attribute expectation bias to true progress. It is, after all, a definitive part of the audiophile’s art to perfect the reproduction of the musical event, just as a future Master of Wine should seek to improve their ability to differentiate a Bordeaux from a Beaujolais. My insight here is to state that, despite the clear evidence that anyone can be fooled and most of the general public clearly are, we as Gentlemen Audiophiles wouldn’t deny them the satisfaction of their own systems regardless of component cost just as we can sip a light Frascati and enjoy the swing of a dinner party in Essex. It might be technically inferior, but we’re having fun, right? If it touches your heart, it’s music and it’s what makes hifi as interesting as wine consumption. Blessed indeed are those whose heart is touched without resorting to megabucks systems and a position pinioned with millimetre accuracy in their listening chair.
Blessed are the Cheesemakers! Or indeed anyone involved in the production of dairy products (<-- if you get this reference you get a gold star)
There is more. Whither “Osteria L’Intrepido”.....?
The story, as described in the podcast and also available on Wikipedia and in other internet sources, is fairly simple; a wine economist, suspecting that a prestigious US Wine magazine wasn’t in fact rating wines and restaurant wine lists based on how good they were, but rather on how much the wineries and restaurants were prepared to pay directly or in advertising for their awards, set up a dummy restaurant - “Osteria L’Intrepido” – in Milan.
Technically, it was an answer phone machine in a friend’s apartment in Milan which, when rung, spoke a message in Italian stating ‘the restaurant is closed for summer holidays, please leave a message’. A dummy website was set up with a dummy wine list, containing a number of wines the US wine magazine themselves had rated as fair to awful, and real postal order for the entry fee to be ‘considered for review’ by the magazines reviewers sent to sample the restaurant. And our economist friends sat back and waited.
A few weeks later and the phone call came through from the prestigious US wine mag – yes, you’ve been chosen for our Italian section as a recommendation for a great restaurant with a fantastic wine list, and would you like to promote your restaurant through more advertising in our magazine? Clearly, not only had nobody from the magazine bothered to attempt to review the restaurant in person themselves (noting that, after publishing the sting in the global press and harming the US wine magazine’s reputation, they pointed out that they only have time to spot check a few restaurants a year and the majority of their recommendations are based on a remote review of the website to see if the menu and the wine list look good), but they hadn’t even checked the wine list for the howlers secreted within they themselves had previously rated as awful.
When I heard this story I immediately thought of the hifi press. Here is another review or recommendation industry, driven by advertising revenue and almost entirely subjective, upon which many thousands of readers depend for information and guidance. Of necessity subjective, because as we now know there is no accurate measure of performance other than our ears; RMS watts, for example, mean nothing to me or else I’d be distraught that my expensive Tron power amp only manages 8 and I could have bought several kilowatt amps for similar money.
I’m fed up reading these magazines. They are littered with examples of bias so blatant it’s one step away from complete falsehood and a libel suit. They do offer plenty of background reading, information the GA can absorb and understand and cogitate upon, but honestly the number of times I’ve read about something amazing, which just happens to carry full page advertising, and which I’ve subsequently heard and, at best, to which I’ve attributed the label ‘bland’. If the Gentleman will read these magazines, or spend time trawling internet forums (as I’ve done myself) for recommendations then please do so with a firm focus on making sure your excitement at some potential product improvement is tempered with a realisation of who is trying to sell you something and how they’re doing it. Hifi magazines need to sell magazines, and equipment manufacturers need to sell equipment. Reviewers need to write something and eat and drink (cheap Chardonnay, most likely). At least a local, knowledgeable dealer is obviously trying to sell kit, not selling stuff surreptitiously and underhandedly.
I like 6moons. At least here the reviewer’s interests are published for all to see, and you can (if you had the wherewithal) check some of these and complain if they weren’t accurate and missed some element of bias. Srajan is opinionated, but backs it up with being consistent in his opinions, which means they’re cogent and believable as his own, probably not revenue generating whether or not you agree. And the rich, picture-driven format helps you see just how equipment is made and whether or not it looks like a pigs ear turned into a silk purse; most good equipment is well made, and most of the dodgy stuff reviewed elsewhere does not, for some reason, make it onto 6moons to be opened, inspected and photographed.
At the end of the day…. being a Gentleman Audiophile, I’m seeking pleasure in stuff that works, wine that is either complex and exciting, or inexpensive and fun, with a view that everything can deliver pleasure to everyone regardless of cost or kudos. Polite discrimination of the hyped product from the truly pleasurable is key.
Next step: determine the effect of drinking wine on the pleasure of listening to music. I have a hypothesis that the first glass and every subsequent glass up until the fourth or fifth (small) glass result in a small improvement in system quality, and system quality decreases thereafter with every glass until you can’t hear any more because you are asleep. This hypothesis needs proving!
Freakonomics is a book by a couple of economists which has enjoyed bestseller status for a few years and a staple of many an airport departure lounge bookstore. I’ve enjoyed reading it. It describes a number of elements of modern society in terms of what the data tells us, what the underlying mechanisms are to shopping and politics and risk taking, some of which is unexpected and some of which is a little bit “so what? I knew that!” but applied in an unfamiliar context. I have a maths degree and work in the City, so this stuff appeals to me.
There are a variety of podcasts presented with wry humour and a nice flow, interrupted only by the inevitable advertising which is usually discreet enough to be ignored. So, to my point: the podcast entitled “Do more expensive wines taste better?”
In short, the answer is “maybe”…. but, crucially, even the most educated, the most decorated and the most respected palates in the world can be fooled into believing that an inexpensive wine is worthy of the best accolades, if the wine reviewer is led to believe the wine under blind test is expensive. It is expectation bias pure and simple, about which I have written in other posts.
So, in the main elements of the podcast, our pet economist describes a number of experiments in which a mix of expensive and inexpensive wines are presented, either in anonymous carafe or in paper-wrapped bottles, with the crucial addition that the drinkers are told what wines they will be drinking - in terms of ‘one expensive, three cheap’ or some equivalent mix – and the experienced and expert drinkers clearly prefer the wine they believe is more expensive, even rating the same wine differently under blind conditions on believing one of the identical samples is more expensive than the other.
Whilst the occasional reviewer asks “Is this the same wine?” on being told ‘write what you think you’re tasting’ just go ahead and rate them differently anyway. Wine and hifi have a lot in common. As we all know, expectation bias tells us the new cable on which we splurged much Sterling must be good, the DAC whose output is 384KHz instead of a puny 44.1KHz with no oversampling has to offer a smoother and more expansive and musical sound, and so on and so forth. They may be different, but are they *better* and are they better because they are expensive?
The most telling conclusion of all being that the packaging, the label and shape and lustre of the bottle or the presentation of the wine in its’ brilliant crystal decanter, matters more to people’s perception of quality, and by inference enjoyment, than the actual cost of the wine itself. No wonder so many manufacturers use blue LEDs and Perspex chimneys to adorn their equipment – it works! At least, it makes for happy customers even if it doesn’t actually make the equipment sound any better. And having happy customers who enjoy their systems because the feet light up blue is as valid as having drinkers enjoy their oaked, new world Chardonnay at £15 a pop – it may be a moose in a mink coat, but a happy customer is a happy customer regardless. If that makes sense…
I suggest now as I have before that the Gentleman Audiophile must resist the temptation to attribute expectation bias to true progress. It is, after all, a definitive part of the audiophile’s art to perfect the reproduction of the musical event, just as a future Master of Wine should seek to improve their ability to differentiate a Bordeaux from a Beaujolais. My insight here is to state that, despite the clear evidence that anyone can be fooled and most of the general public clearly are, we as Gentlemen Audiophiles wouldn’t deny them the satisfaction of their own systems regardless of component cost just as we can sip a light Frascati and enjoy the swing of a dinner party in Essex. It might be technically inferior, but we’re having fun, right? If it touches your heart, it’s music and it’s what makes hifi as interesting as wine consumption. Blessed indeed are those whose heart is touched without resorting to megabucks systems and a position pinioned with millimetre accuracy in their listening chair.
Blessed are the Cheesemakers! Or indeed anyone involved in the production of dairy products (<-- if you get this reference you get a gold star)
There is more. Whither “Osteria L’Intrepido”.....?
The story, as described in the podcast and also available on Wikipedia and in other internet sources, is fairly simple; a wine economist, suspecting that a prestigious US Wine magazine wasn’t in fact rating wines and restaurant wine lists based on how good they were, but rather on how much the wineries and restaurants were prepared to pay directly or in advertising for their awards, set up a dummy restaurant - “Osteria L’Intrepido” – in Milan.
Technically, it was an answer phone machine in a friend’s apartment in Milan which, when rung, spoke a message in Italian stating ‘the restaurant is closed for summer holidays, please leave a message’. A dummy website was set up with a dummy wine list, containing a number of wines the US wine magazine themselves had rated as fair to awful, and real postal order for the entry fee to be ‘considered for review’ by the magazines reviewers sent to sample the restaurant. And our economist friends sat back and waited.
A few weeks later and the phone call came through from the prestigious US wine mag – yes, you’ve been chosen for our Italian section as a recommendation for a great restaurant with a fantastic wine list, and would you like to promote your restaurant through more advertising in our magazine? Clearly, not only had nobody from the magazine bothered to attempt to review the restaurant in person themselves (noting that, after publishing the sting in the global press and harming the US wine magazine’s reputation, they pointed out that they only have time to spot check a few restaurants a year and the majority of their recommendations are based on a remote review of the website to see if the menu and the wine list look good), but they hadn’t even checked the wine list for the howlers secreted within they themselves had previously rated as awful.
When I heard this story I immediately thought of the hifi press. Here is another review or recommendation industry, driven by advertising revenue and almost entirely subjective, upon which many thousands of readers depend for information and guidance. Of necessity subjective, because as we now know there is no accurate measure of performance other than our ears; RMS watts, for example, mean nothing to me or else I’d be distraught that my expensive Tron power amp only manages 8 and I could have bought several kilowatt amps for similar money.
I’m fed up reading these magazines. They are littered with examples of bias so blatant it’s one step away from complete falsehood and a libel suit. They do offer plenty of background reading, information the GA can absorb and understand and cogitate upon, but honestly the number of times I’ve read about something amazing, which just happens to carry full page advertising, and which I’ve subsequently heard and, at best, to which I’ve attributed the label ‘bland’. If the Gentleman will read these magazines, or spend time trawling internet forums (as I’ve done myself) for recommendations then please do so with a firm focus on making sure your excitement at some potential product improvement is tempered with a realisation of who is trying to sell you something and how they’re doing it. Hifi magazines need to sell magazines, and equipment manufacturers need to sell equipment. Reviewers need to write something and eat and drink (cheap Chardonnay, most likely). At least a local, knowledgeable dealer is obviously trying to sell kit, not selling stuff surreptitiously and underhandedly.
I like 6moons. At least here the reviewer’s interests are published for all to see, and you can (if you had the wherewithal) check some of these and complain if they weren’t accurate and missed some element of bias. Srajan is opinionated, but backs it up with being consistent in his opinions, which means they’re cogent and believable as his own, probably not revenue generating whether or not you agree. And the rich, picture-driven format helps you see just how equipment is made and whether or not it looks like a pigs ear turned into a silk purse; most good equipment is well made, and most of the dodgy stuff reviewed elsewhere does not, for some reason, make it onto 6moons to be opened, inspected and photographed.
At the end of the day…. being a Gentleman Audiophile, I’m seeking pleasure in stuff that works, wine that is either complex and exciting, or inexpensive and fun, with a view that everything can deliver pleasure to everyone regardless of cost or kudos. Polite discrimination of the hyped product from the truly pleasurable is key.
Next step: determine the effect of drinking wine on the pleasure of listening to music. I have a hypothesis that the first glass and every subsequent glass up until the fourth or fifth (small) glass result in a small improvement in system quality, and system quality decreases thereafter with every glass until you can’t hear any more because you are asleep. This hypothesis needs proving!
Thursday, 8 September 2011
RFI, mains.... Whatever!
So I’m worried about EMF, electrical and magnetic fields, indeed any kind of invisible radiation that might affect me, personally, as well as my system. It’s clear to me that the system sounds better at night.. but then that’s less likely to be due to a reduction in background radiation, and more down to the fact that the power supply is less strained by kettles and cookers and televisions and washing machines and a million other devices all drawing current, fluctuating the mains voltage and its’ power factor, and shovelling plenty of noise back down the wire once again.
I’ve tried both mains filters and regenerators, in a different location. The latter was one of the original PS Audio PS300 designs, which was bulky, hot, hummed and drew twice as much power from the wall as it was able to deliver to my components of the era. For safety and electricity’s sake, I used to keep them and it switched off until I wanted to listen, which generally meant they stayed cold for a long time and were not performing at their best. The Lindemann, which I didn’t own at the time, I know for a fact takes over a day of ‘full on’ operation instead of being on standby before I starts to really sing. It needs to be hot. Notwithstanding that the PS300 was, indeed, quite effective at reducing noise and keeping the system on song, those limitations of heat and power and buzzing meant I sold it and switched to battery powered amps from Jeff Rowland for my tenure in the apartment I had at the time.
A long-winded way of saying: mains power matters. I’m not sure *what* I can do about RFI ingress into my home and my hifi short of throwing away all radiating bits of kit and encasing the house in multiple Faraday cages, but I’m not quite that paranoid yet! The Less EMF site is full of strange bits of kit which may work, may do nothing, and are certainly quite expensive. What price good health? Not enough to deploy the aforementioned Faraday cage, perhaps enough to invest in one or two things from Less EMF or similar company just to see what effect there might be on my system. It’s subjective, but to my mind much less subjective that how I ‘feel’. I’ve written about expectation bias, but how about the Placebo effect? A Schumann generator could work on my health by simply buying one, giving me the idea that it’s doing something positive which then engenders positive results.
Time to think again. I’ll concentrate on stuff which has an effect on my hifi, assume it works for health too, and deploy for both. If a Schumann generator makes for a wider and deeper soundstage, a more relaxed and musical presentation, let’s do it; I may feel so good about that my headaches could disappear.
Separately, introducing a better mains power supply is a no-brainer. A fellow GA has a full Roy Riches installation of hospital-grade incomer, dedicated mains spur per piece of equipment, specialist fuse box… the cost being more cosmetic than financial, the effect profound, immediate and very noticeable. It’s as if all those important things you lust after – space, detail, tangibility, musicality, naturalness, transparency – simultaneously improve in a leap, and retain all their ability to work together and deliver a great sound. There is no real down side that I could hear the first time I listened to the transformation, and just the hassle of thick cables and ugly junction boxes to conceal as sympathetically as possible.
Interestingly, I once heard a demo by the good guys at Isotek, with a selection of improvements to a Rega-based system – CD player, amp and speakers all by Rega if I recall correctly. It played with good pace and rhythm and was really enjoyable to listen to. Then, we introduced a selection of Isotek mains filtration products to the mix, ranging from low-end mains filter blocks to those plus audiophile cables that cost more than the CD player, until finally each component had its own mains filter, the amp sitting off a massive 2KW isolation transformer.
In each case the *quality* of the system improved. Vocals became more clear, detail improved, soundstage width and depth increased. The technical aspects of the presentation blossomed and the easy musicality slowly vanished. Until, crucially, the introduction of the massive 2KW isolation transformer on the amp. Suddenly, all the technical attributes remained whilst the system leapt forwards in musicality, rhythm and pace. It was the same system we had initially heard, but everything was better.
At the time I baulked at spending a few thousand on a similar setup, but I did borrow the isolation strip for home trial and found the same thing; yes, it as clearer and darker and more detailed and so on and so forth, but inevitably it slightly compressed dynamics and made it less musical. This took a while to tune into, and on persuasion from two fellow GAs I returned it.
There seems to be an element of mains filtration which removes hash but contrives to remove excitement and dynamics too. I am not sure why, but have avoided them as has my massive-incomer-system GA chum, to good effect. Over the next few weeks I’ll be adjusting the power properties of my system to try and get some of the benefits with none of the losses; more depth and detail, no loss of dynamics and musicality. Sadly, after my recent house move everything is plugged into one ring main and I’ve used an isolation transformer just to segregate digital components from analogue. Does this really matter? It seemed to make sense at the time, but I haven’t tested it for myself.
Similarly, the house is littered with noise suppressors from Audioquest and Russ Andrews, some of which buzz alarmingly for no reason whatsoever, and then stop; it’s something someone somewhere in my street has switched on and off. A Microwave? Do I need these in place, do they really make a difference? I’ll let you know dear reader :)
I’ve tried both mains filters and regenerators, in a different location. The latter was one of the original PS Audio PS300 designs, which was bulky, hot, hummed and drew twice as much power from the wall as it was able to deliver to my components of the era. For safety and electricity’s sake, I used to keep them and it switched off until I wanted to listen, which generally meant they stayed cold for a long time and were not performing at their best. The Lindemann, which I didn’t own at the time, I know for a fact takes over a day of ‘full on’ operation instead of being on standby before I starts to really sing. It needs to be hot. Notwithstanding that the PS300 was, indeed, quite effective at reducing noise and keeping the system on song, those limitations of heat and power and buzzing meant I sold it and switched to battery powered amps from Jeff Rowland for my tenure in the apartment I had at the time.
A long-winded way of saying: mains power matters. I’m not sure *what* I can do about RFI ingress into my home and my hifi short of throwing away all radiating bits of kit and encasing the house in multiple Faraday cages, but I’m not quite that paranoid yet! The Less EMF site is full of strange bits of kit which may work, may do nothing, and are certainly quite expensive. What price good health? Not enough to deploy the aforementioned Faraday cage, perhaps enough to invest in one or two things from Less EMF or similar company just to see what effect there might be on my system. It’s subjective, but to my mind much less subjective that how I ‘feel’. I’ve written about expectation bias, but how about the Placebo effect? A Schumann generator could work on my health by simply buying one, giving me the idea that it’s doing something positive which then engenders positive results.
Time to think again. I’ll concentrate on stuff which has an effect on my hifi, assume it works for health too, and deploy for both. If a Schumann generator makes for a wider and deeper soundstage, a more relaxed and musical presentation, let’s do it; I may feel so good about that my headaches could disappear.
Separately, introducing a better mains power supply is a no-brainer. A fellow GA has a full Roy Riches installation of hospital-grade incomer, dedicated mains spur per piece of equipment, specialist fuse box… the cost being more cosmetic than financial, the effect profound, immediate and very noticeable. It’s as if all those important things you lust after – space, detail, tangibility, musicality, naturalness, transparency – simultaneously improve in a leap, and retain all their ability to work together and deliver a great sound. There is no real down side that I could hear the first time I listened to the transformation, and just the hassle of thick cables and ugly junction boxes to conceal as sympathetically as possible.
Interestingly, I once heard a demo by the good guys at Isotek, with a selection of improvements to a Rega-based system – CD player, amp and speakers all by Rega if I recall correctly. It played with good pace and rhythm and was really enjoyable to listen to. Then, we introduced a selection of Isotek mains filtration products to the mix, ranging from low-end mains filter blocks to those plus audiophile cables that cost more than the CD player, until finally each component had its own mains filter, the amp sitting off a massive 2KW isolation transformer.
In each case the *quality* of the system improved. Vocals became more clear, detail improved, soundstage width and depth increased. The technical aspects of the presentation blossomed and the easy musicality slowly vanished. Until, crucially, the introduction of the massive 2KW isolation transformer on the amp. Suddenly, all the technical attributes remained whilst the system leapt forwards in musicality, rhythm and pace. It was the same system we had initially heard, but everything was better.
At the time I baulked at spending a few thousand on a similar setup, but I did borrow the isolation strip for home trial and found the same thing; yes, it as clearer and darker and more detailed and so on and so forth, but inevitably it slightly compressed dynamics and made it less musical. This took a while to tune into, and on persuasion from two fellow GAs I returned it.
There seems to be an element of mains filtration which removes hash but contrives to remove excitement and dynamics too. I am not sure why, but have avoided them as has my massive-incomer-system GA chum, to good effect. Over the next few weeks I’ll be adjusting the power properties of my system to try and get some of the benefits with none of the losses; more depth and detail, no loss of dynamics and musicality. Sadly, after my recent house move everything is plugged into one ring main and I’ve used an isolation transformer just to segregate digital components from analogue. Does this really matter? It seemed to make sense at the time, but I haven’t tested it for myself.
Similarly, the house is littered with noise suppressors from Audioquest and Russ Andrews, some of which buzz alarmingly for no reason whatsoever, and then stop; it’s something someone somewhere in my street has switched on and off. A Microwave? Do I need these in place, do they really make a difference? I’ll let you know dear reader :)
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
A letter to Srajan at 6moons
I was motivated to pen the following note to Srajan after the review of Less EMF shielding he published from Steve Marsh. Enjoy!
Hi Srajan
Thanks for publishing the review of the Less EMF shielding by Steve Marsh on your site recently. I was especially interested in this review for two reasons, firstly because I’m fascinated by the influence of radiated electromagnetic fields on both the sound quality of my system, and on our general health and well being, and secondly because I am also an owner of Tron equipment and therefore fascinated by Steve’s findings.
As I’m sure you’d expect from anyone with a vested interest (Alert! Alert!), I’m motivated to respond to your published opinion on the amp’s design and implicit criticism of the design process, but in fact…. I agree with you. At least, with due consideration to the difficulty in sourcing and shielding a mains transformer for a kilovolt power rail, in general terms I’d like to reduce all radiated fields, in everything, everywhere.
In fact, I’d like you to go further on behalf of Six moons and all your readers and reviewers, if you can support it. In fact… whilst I’m continually mystified at the lack of publicity surrounding the wonderful pre and power amps GT designs for Tron, I’m even more surprised we haven’t started a movement already towards identifying, testing and proving the issue I describe below.
Let me explain.
I was really keen to read Steve’s article on the shielding because of my headache. I’m in an office, surrounded by laptops, desktops, IP phones, second monitors, printers, Blackberrys and iPhones, and bathed in fluorescent light. At home, I have a microwave, DECT phone, the iPhones my wife and I use, the various computers and two Wifi routers, more fluorescents in the form of energy saving bulbs, and THEN tucked away in the corner of my listening room is a very shiny Tron power amp with 300Bs from Emission Labs – how apt! And I get a headache. Although not from the Tron, which is of course utterly brilliant (yes, I would say that).
Do you remember the days before broadband, with our slow and clunky modems whose wail of negotiation is so iconic it has been sampled and captured in pop songs? How about the periodic buzz the Blackberry or iPhone agitates into my Avantgardes? Where do these things go when they’ve been removed to a ‘safe’ distance I wonder, if not into some low level mush despite being far enough away to avoid direct irritation?
I recall the shudder of fear when the letter dropped on my doormat announcing the construction of another mobile phone mast less than 50m from my house, and the sense of relief when my local council rejected the application after howls of protest from the community, not least the family whose house was directly next to it and whose young children’s room it would have beamed directly into. “Perfectly safe”, of course, although the UK government guidelines ‘recommend’ siting mobile phone masts away from schools and nurseries on the balance of probabilities….
I know that, when we use the microwave in the kitchen to defrost or warm something, Wifi stops working unless you’re right next to the router. I know to keep the phones and ‘berries outside the listening room or be driven mad by the buzzing.
In the many pages of your esteemed site there are reviews for power cables and conditioners, from LessLoss for example, which to the sceptic ought to make no difference whatsoever to sound quality, and yet plainly have an audible impact. Your reviewers talk about blacker backgrounds, more depth, detail, and a more ‘relaxed’ sound. What are they doing, if not reducing the impact of radiation and RFI, its ingress into our (otherwise well shielded) audio equipment through some means, its’ obvious effect on how the overall system sounds? Not only that, but products such as the Blackbody on sight of which no end of sceptics would spit out their tea and splutter ‘rubbish!’. And yet, you’re witness to the effect yourself. How is it that a ‘perfectly shielded’ product can nevertheless be improved so substantially by the addition of a funky power cord or being bathed in the rays from a mysterious crystal box?
Our hobby has a long history of – how shall I put it - disproving science, or offering evidence that isn’t proven by science, or perhaps more correctly, providing the basis for fierce argument between subjectivists and sceptics? Namely the use of power cables, audiophile interconnects and speaker cables, equipment supports (“impossible that one solidly designed support can possibly make equipment sound different than another”), power conditioners, Blackbodies and Schumann generators, various 300B tubes whose electrical parameters are almost identical and yet are lush, clinical, detailed, and so on. We are a massive collective of committed hobbyists who, for the most part, are eager to look for any solutions to ‘making our systems sound better’ and willing to experiment and invest regardless of the pseudo-science behind the product. In fact, I’d go so far as to say: if it works, it works and science is still playing catch-up. We’re right there trying and assessing and investing.
Here’s my point.
Srajan, you have a fantastic website. It’s full of really useful information on products, techniques, thoughts, music and everything Audiophile. I love the combination of photographs, text, and (from you I can see) fairly forthright opinion. Clearly there’s a massive global community enjoying what you’ve put together and motivated to listen to what you have to say.
So I’d like you and 6mooons to be a focal point here, drawing the internet Audiophile community towards a common goal, which is: proving the environmental impact of our modern life on our musical enjoyment. By inference, proving the influence of RFI, electromagnetism or whatever on our general health and wellbeing.
Just plugging in a power cable and describing how much better a system sounds is useful, but not what I’m after here. I was really looking for the nitty gritty on the elements of sound that are described as “space”, “depth”, “silence”, “relaxed” and so on, adjectives frequently used to describe the improvement wrought by power cables and conditioners and the like, combined with some physical evidence (great that Steve used a gauss meter to provide empirical evidence to match his findings). Whilst hum reduction is clearly important and necessary with the incompatibility described by Steve in his review, it’s not what I was hoping for; I want to know more about what’s happening in the invisible ether from those other devices that somehow contrive to make a fantastic system sound bland; so much so that we grow used to and accept the sound quality and are amazed when we discover it can be improved through a tweak like a cable or a crystalline Blackbody.
6moons is in a position to start to document the audible impact of methods for reducing electromagnetic interference, collating it and providing reference material just like the reviews you publish. I wish I knew exactly how we could do this, but I have the shape of an idea and I’d love to share it with you.
For starters, there’s reduction by exclusion. We could remove anything nonessential that is known to radiate from our listening environments, and ideally from anywhere nearby as well. We could turn off anything and everything that isn’t absolutely essential to our existence in the home such as central heating (just go cold for a few hours!), ovens and cookers and phones and computers and routers and berries and iPhone and Wifi and Bluetooth. Turn everything off at the distribution board that isn’t part of your hifi, unplug all nonessential wall wart transformers charging your toothbrushes and shavers and Nintendos, physically remove equipment that isn’t an absolutely essential part of the hifi… and sit, and listen.
Is it better? How is it better? Are we getting the effect we’d otherwise get from an expensive Firewall or Blackbody (apologies to your sponsors, but in truth I think they’d see this as entirely positive marketing)? And so on.
Maybe we could do this all together, as readers of 6moons – you pick a “Sixth Moon Day” on, say, Saturday 25th February 2012to give plenty of forewarning, or earlier if you prefer, and invite everyone to do this, and contribute a series of scores as empirical evidence, and written notes as subjective evidence, demonstrating that these things matter. They should absolutely matter! What’s more, they should matter in the subtle and difficult way that a Lessloss power cable corrects and is immeasurable, with an impact to elements of reproduction that are described as relaxation, blackness, depth, detail and so on. We don’t know why it works (well, LessLoss will say they *do* know why, but it’s clearly open to debate even amongst audiophiles exactly how and why it might work) and yet, when it does what it does, it generally lifts the whole system by removing something you didn’t know was there and was impeding your enjoyment, and maybe shortening your lifespan. Measuring hum is easy in the sense that you can clearly hear the hum, move equipment about to reduce it, shield it, and of course a millivolt photo stage above a kilovolt power amp is fairly obvious clue!
In truth, I’m not sure how to make this work, but that’s my Straw Man for input. I’m happy to debate both the merits and the method with you.
Next, I’d suggest your reviewers seek products for review that are specifically aimed at reducing the impact of radiating equipment, much like Steve did for the 211 Tron amp, but more focused on the areas I’ve described that concern me: high frequency digital radiation, microwaves, RFI and so on; high voltage electric fields form a part of this too. If I were able to refer to a review of, say, RFI-shielding wallpaper and curtains, I might invest in those instead of a Lessloss DFC power cable (don’t tell your sponsors!). You can get shielded underpants too, who knows I might just try that for a laugh, but I’m not sure the effect on sound quality will be pronounced :)... But, I’d like my 'bits' to last a fair while yet. Back on topic: maybe, in seeking review products, you could target 6moons at that sort of audiophile product as part of this overall initiative?
Anyway…
Conveniences such as a Wifi connection so I can use my iPad to remote control my music whilst Skyping friends in another country are a part of modern life and I’m unwilling to give them up, especially if I’m curled up in the listening room enjoying some 300B magic. But… what if the sound is being compromised through the simple act of allowing this and other *deliberately* radiating equipment into my home? I might change my mind. I might do something about it, and enjoy better music.
Not only that, but the wider issue exists: everyone knows the debate between those worried about the effects on their health and that of their children of mobile phones and other equipment, and Big Business repeatedly lobbies governments to tell us we’re absolutely fine, it’ll all be OK, and no amount of cancers and skin conditions and headaches is anything but coincidental. But if a few hundred audiophiles conduct an experiment that clearly shows a relationship between radiation and the reproduction of sound, maybe some positive publicity might change that opinion?
Best Wishes
Hi Srajan
Thanks for publishing the review of the Less EMF shielding by Steve Marsh on your site recently. I was especially interested in this review for two reasons, firstly because I’m fascinated by the influence of radiated electromagnetic fields on both the sound quality of my system, and on our general health and well being, and secondly because I am also an owner of Tron equipment and therefore fascinated by Steve’s findings.
As I’m sure you’d expect from anyone with a vested interest (Alert! Alert!), I’m motivated to respond to your published opinion on the amp’s design and implicit criticism of the design process, but in fact…. I agree with you. At least, with due consideration to the difficulty in sourcing and shielding a mains transformer for a kilovolt power rail, in general terms I’d like to reduce all radiated fields, in everything, everywhere.
In fact, I’d like you to go further on behalf of Six moons and all your readers and reviewers, if you can support it. In fact… whilst I’m continually mystified at the lack of publicity surrounding the wonderful pre and power amps GT designs for Tron, I’m even more surprised we haven’t started a movement already towards identifying, testing and proving the issue I describe below.
Let me explain.
I was really keen to read Steve’s article on the shielding because of my headache. I’m in an office, surrounded by laptops, desktops, IP phones, second monitors, printers, Blackberrys and iPhones, and bathed in fluorescent light. At home, I have a microwave, DECT phone, the iPhones my wife and I use, the various computers and two Wifi routers, more fluorescents in the form of energy saving bulbs, and THEN tucked away in the corner of my listening room is a very shiny Tron power amp with 300Bs from Emission Labs – how apt! And I get a headache. Although not from the Tron, which is of course utterly brilliant (yes, I would say that).
Do you remember the days before broadband, with our slow and clunky modems whose wail of negotiation is so iconic it has been sampled and captured in pop songs? How about the periodic buzz the Blackberry or iPhone agitates into my Avantgardes? Where do these things go when they’ve been removed to a ‘safe’ distance I wonder, if not into some low level mush despite being far enough away to avoid direct irritation?
I recall the shudder of fear when the letter dropped on my doormat announcing the construction of another mobile phone mast less than 50m from my house, and the sense of relief when my local council rejected the application after howls of protest from the community, not least the family whose house was directly next to it and whose young children’s room it would have beamed directly into. “Perfectly safe”, of course, although the UK government guidelines ‘recommend’ siting mobile phone masts away from schools and nurseries on the balance of probabilities….
I know that, when we use the microwave in the kitchen to defrost or warm something, Wifi stops working unless you’re right next to the router. I know to keep the phones and ‘berries outside the listening room or be driven mad by the buzzing.
In the many pages of your esteemed site there are reviews for power cables and conditioners, from LessLoss for example, which to the sceptic ought to make no difference whatsoever to sound quality, and yet plainly have an audible impact. Your reviewers talk about blacker backgrounds, more depth, detail, and a more ‘relaxed’ sound. What are they doing, if not reducing the impact of radiation and RFI, its ingress into our (otherwise well shielded) audio equipment through some means, its’ obvious effect on how the overall system sounds? Not only that, but products such as the Blackbody on sight of which no end of sceptics would spit out their tea and splutter ‘rubbish!’. And yet, you’re witness to the effect yourself. How is it that a ‘perfectly shielded’ product can nevertheless be improved so substantially by the addition of a funky power cord or being bathed in the rays from a mysterious crystal box?
Our hobby has a long history of – how shall I put it - disproving science, or offering evidence that isn’t proven by science, or perhaps more correctly, providing the basis for fierce argument between subjectivists and sceptics? Namely the use of power cables, audiophile interconnects and speaker cables, equipment supports (“impossible that one solidly designed support can possibly make equipment sound different than another”), power conditioners, Blackbodies and Schumann generators, various 300B tubes whose electrical parameters are almost identical and yet are lush, clinical, detailed, and so on. We are a massive collective of committed hobbyists who, for the most part, are eager to look for any solutions to ‘making our systems sound better’ and willing to experiment and invest regardless of the pseudo-science behind the product. In fact, I’d go so far as to say: if it works, it works and science is still playing catch-up. We’re right there trying and assessing and investing.
Here’s my point.
Srajan, you have a fantastic website. It’s full of really useful information on products, techniques, thoughts, music and everything Audiophile. I love the combination of photographs, text, and (from you I can see) fairly forthright opinion. Clearly there’s a massive global community enjoying what you’ve put together and motivated to listen to what you have to say.
So I’d like you and 6mooons to be a focal point here, drawing the internet Audiophile community towards a common goal, which is: proving the environmental impact of our modern life on our musical enjoyment. By inference, proving the influence of RFI, electromagnetism or whatever on our general health and wellbeing.
Just plugging in a power cable and describing how much better a system sounds is useful, but not what I’m after here. I was really looking for the nitty gritty on the elements of sound that are described as “space”, “depth”, “silence”, “relaxed” and so on, adjectives frequently used to describe the improvement wrought by power cables and conditioners and the like, combined with some physical evidence (great that Steve used a gauss meter to provide empirical evidence to match his findings). Whilst hum reduction is clearly important and necessary with the incompatibility described by Steve in his review, it’s not what I was hoping for; I want to know more about what’s happening in the invisible ether from those other devices that somehow contrive to make a fantastic system sound bland; so much so that we grow used to and accept the sound quality and are amazed when we discover it can be improved through a tweak like a cable or a crystalline Blackbody.
6moons is in a position to start to document the audible impact of methods for reducing electromagnetic interference, collating it and providing reference material just like the reviews you publish. I wish I knew exactly how we could do this, but I have the shape of an idea and I’d love to share it with you.
For starters, there’s reduction by exclusion. We could remove anything nonessential that is known to radiate from our listening environments, and ideally from anywhere nearby as well. We could turn off anything and everything that isn’t absolutely essential to our existence in the home such as central heating (just go cold for a few hours!), ovens and cookers and phones and computers and routers and berries and iPhone and Wifi and Bluetooth. Turn everything off at the distribution board that isn’t part of your hifi, unplug all nonessential wall wart transformers charging your toothbrushes and shavers and Nintendos, physically remove equipment that isn’t an absolutely essential part of the hifi… and sit, and listen.
Is it better? How is it better? Are we getting the effect we’d otherwise get from an expensive Firewall or Blackbody (apologies to your sponsors, but in truth I think they’d see this as entirely positive marketing)? And so on.
Maybe we could do this all together, as readers of 6moons – you pick a “Sixth Moon Day” on, say, Saturday 25th February 2012to give plenty of forewarning, or earlier if you prefer, and invite everyone to do this, and contribute a series of scores as empirical evidence, and written notes as subjective evidence, demonstrating that these things matter. They should absolutely matter! What’s more, they should matter in the subtle and difficult way that a Lessloss power cable corrects and is immeasurable, with an impact to elements of reproduction that are described as relaxation, blackness, depth, detail and so on. We don’t know why it works (well, LessLoss will say they *do* know why, but it’s clearly open to debate even amongst audiophiles exactly how and why it might work) and yet, when it does what it does, it generally lifts the whole system by removing something you didn’t know was there and was impeding your enjoyment, and maybe shortening your lifespan. Measuring hum is easy in the sense that you can clearly hear the hum, move equipment about to reduce it, shield it, and of course a millivolt photo stage above a kilovolt power amp is fairly obvious clue!
In truth, I’m not sure how to make this work, but that’s my Straw Man for input. I’m happy to debate both the merits and the method with you.
Next, I’d suggest your reviewers seek products for review that are specifically aimed at reducing the impact of radiating equipment, much like Steve did for the 211 Tron amp, but more focused on the areas I’ve described that concern me: high frequency digital radiation, microwaves, RFI and so on; high voltage electric fields form a part of this too. If I were able to refer to a review of, say, RFI-shielding wallpaper and curtains, I might invest in those instead of a Lessloss DFC power cable (don’t tell your sponsors!). You can get shielded underpants too, who knows I might just try that for a laugh, but I’m not sure the effect on sound quality will be pronounced :)... But, I’d like my 'bits' to last a fair while yet. Back on topic: maybe, in seeking review products, you could target 6moons at that sort of audiophile product as part of this overall initiative?
Anyway…
Conveniences such as a Wifi connection so I can use my iPad to remote control my music whilst Skyping friends in another country are a part of modern life and I’m unwilling to give them up, especially if I’m curled up in the listening room enjoying some 300B magic. But… what if the sound is being compromised through the simple act of allowing this and other *deliberately* radiating equipment into my home? I might change my mind. I might do something about it, and enjoy better music.
Not only that, but the wider issue exists: everyone knows the debate between those worried about the effects on their health and that of their children of mobile phones and other equipment, and Big Business repeatedly lobbies governments to tell us we’re absolutely fine, it’ll all be OK, and no amount of cancers and skin conditions and headaches is anything but coincidental. But if a few hundred audiophiles conduct an experiment that clearly shows a relationship between radiation and the reproduction of sound, maybe some positive publicity might change that opinion?
Best Wishes
Friday, 2 September 2011
On transparency
What is transparency? I posed myself the question when thinking about the recent changes to my system. On the one hand, it took a while to detect the impact the Audiophilleo was having, and yet now that both the Custom Hifi Cables power supply and the AQVOX USB power supply are in place, the positive benefits of the Audiophilleo are much more clear.
So transparency refers to the ability to detect changes in the system, either a change wrought by the introduction of new equipment, or from repositioning, tweaking and the like. The more transparent your system, the better you should be able to detect the positive impact you can make through simple adjustment and polish. It’s unlikely you’ll go backwards unless you’ve reduced transparency with a change; excellent transparency means easier tweaking.
Transparency in this context is distinct (to my mind) from realism, detail and naturalness. I’ve had a go at building a brief taxonomy below…
Naturalness – does it sound like electronics were involved in reproduction? Caveat: not to confuse naturalness with cloying smoothness
Detail – Can I hear more of the finer points of a performance? Caveat: A brighter system can expose more detail but won’t be satisfying, it is just throwing more ‘edge’ at the brightly lit parts of the sound.
Realism – Does everything – soundstage, detail, tonality, naturalness – combine to give a real sense that the performer is in the room with you, or that you are transported to the venue? The caveat for me here is: a natural system is the only one that stands a chance of making that happen for me; I have heard plenty with excellent soundstage, deep bass, plenty of detail but somehow unable to escape the sense of being a recording.
There is a nice parallel between detail in sonic terms and in photography. Those of you who have Photoshop or an equivalent product may have used the detail slider to tweak their images. Whack it all the way over, and the consequences are something artificial and horrible. It cannot recover a shot that is not in focus to start with.
Detail in this case is enhancing ‘acutance’ or the perception of difference between brighter and less bright edges; a tweak is well worth applying, but major use of the detail functions can ruin an otherwise brilliant image by making it harsh and artificial.
So it is with audiophile sounds – in a compressed, constrained system you might find a more aggressive and bright sound more exciting and more in balance with the system overall, but not in mine nor in many other audiophile’s systems. Detail works in the midrange and bass as well as the treble, and somehow the ‘edge’ of the sound pressure wave from the pluck of a double bass can be enhanced to make the double bass seem more real, but that enhancement has to apply across the frequency range and not just in the treble ‘a la’ detail slider.
Here I fully acknowledge the superiority of Avantgarde Trios over my Duo Omegas; their freer and more dynamic bass simply allows more detail to emerge without any effort with the same electronics. The Duos have an active sub unit that is perfectly fine, in fact extremely good, but lack the excellence you will inevitably gain from horn bass. Ah, well, one can dream….
Back to transparency - With an increasingly sympathetic choice of components, the transparency of my system has improved to the extent that I can more clearly hear elements of the recording as well as of how my changes are affecting its reproduction. It strikes me that the Tron amps are very transparent and completely natural in sound; the Duos are also highly transparent to both dynamics and detail and have a mostly natural tonal balance, and by focusing on the digital front end I’ve been able to push the system towards a coherent overall transparency that lays the groundwork for further change.
Next steps: focus on tonality. I’m looking for more warmth and richness from the overall system, and I’m expecting to achieve this through judicious choice of cabling, possible changes to the front end (new DAC? Different cartridge?) and further tweaks to speaker position and décor. A dedicated mains spur and earth spike is also on the cards in the New Year; I’ve heard the benefits and they are entirely positive, being similar to those wrought by the DacMagic power supply from Custom Hifi Cables, but across the entire system of course. Until the current transparency had been achieved I wasn’t confident I could get the feeling of natural, unforced sound to emerge at the same time as a touch more warmth and tonal richness; it felt like I would probably smother the detail and naturalness I can now hear.
So maybe the lesson is: first make your system transparent, then adjust its’ tone, fiddle with soundstage and detail retrieval and so on.
So transparency refers to the ability to detect changes in the system, either a change wrought by the introduction of new equipment, or from repositioning, tweaking and the like. The more transparent your system, the better you should be able to detect the positive impact you can make through simple adjustment and polish. It’s unlikely you’ll go backwards unless you’ve reduced transparency with a change; excellent transparency means easier tweaking.
Transparency in this context is distinct (to my mind) from realism, detail and naturalness. I’ve had a go at building a brief taxonomy below…
Naturalness – does it sound like electronics were involved in reproduction? Caveat: not to confuse naturalness with cloying smoothness
Detail – Can I hear more of the finer points of a performance? Caveat: A brighter system can expose more detail but won’t be satisfying, it is just throwing more ‘edge’ at the brightly lit parts of the sound.
Realism – Does everything – soundstage, detail, tonality, naturalness – combine to give a real sense that the performer is in the room with you, or that you are transported to the venue? The caveat for me here is: a natural system is the only one that stands a chance of making that happen for me; I have heard plenty with excellent soundstage, deep bass, plenty of detail but somehow unable to escape the sense of being a recording.
There is a nice parallel between detail in sonic terms and in photography. Those of you who have Photoshop or an equivalent product may have used the detail slider to tweak their images. Whack it all the way over, and the consequences are something artificial and horrible. It cannot recover a shot that is not in focus to start with.
Detail in this case is enhancing ‘acutance’ or the perception of difference between brighter and less bright edges; a tweak is well worth applying, but major use of the detail functions can ruin an otherwise brilliant image by making it harsh and artificial.
So it is with audiophile sounds – in a compressed, constrained system you might find a more aggressive and bright sound more exciting and more in balance with the system overall, but not in mine nor in many other audiophile’s systems. Detail works in the midrange and bass as well as the treble, and somehow the ‘edge’ of the sound pressure wave from the pluck of a double bass can be enhanced to make the double bass seem more real, but that enhancement has to apply across the frequency range and not just in the treble ‘a la’ detail slider.
Here I fully acknowledge the superiority of Avantgarde Trios over my Duo Omegas; their freer and more dynamic bass simply allows more detail to emerge without any effort with the same electronics. The Duos have an active sub unit that is perfectly fine, in fact extremely good, but lack the excellence you will inevitably gain from horn bass. Ah, well, one can dream….
Back to transparency - With an increasingly sympathetic choice of components, the transparency of my system has improved to the extent that I can more clearly hear elements of the recording as well as of how my changes are affecting its reproduction. It strikes me that the Tron amps are very transparent and completely natural in sound; the Duos are also highly transparent to both dynamics and detail and have a mostly natural tonal balance, and by focusing on the digital front end I’ve been able to push the system towards a coherent overall transparency that lays the groundwork for further change.
Next steps: focus on tonality. I’m looking for more warmth and richness from the overall system, and I’m expecting to achieve this through judicious choice of cabling, possible changes to the front end (new DAC? Different cartridge?) and further tweaks to speaker position and décor. A dedicated mains spur and earth spike is also on the cards in the New Year; I’ve heard the benefits and they are entirely positive, being similar to those wrought by the DacMagic power supply from Custom Hifi Cables, but across the entire system of course. Until the current transparency had been achieved I wasn’t confident I could get the feeling of natural, unforced sound to emerge at the same time as a touch more warmth and tonal richness; it felt like I would probably smother the detail and naturalness I can now hear.
So maybe the lesson is: first make your system transparent, then adjust its’ tone, fiddle with soundstage and detail retrieval and so on.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Enter the AQVOX!
I am quite excited by the arrival of a new, relatively inexpensive upgrade: an AQVOX 'low noise USB power supply'
This is a unit that powers the USB bus, and devices attached to it such as a USB DAC or the Audiophilleo, and takes over the duty of providing 5 Volts of power to that device in a regulated manner, where the laptop or PC you are using would otherwise have to provide that power.
The theory is: clean, robust power that isn't contaminated by whatever grunge the source computer is spewing out.
I was expecting the effect of this device to be subtle at best, but was unprepared at how it lifted the performance of the system overall. Vocals gained solidity, guitars more bite and more timbre.
It provides a pass-through USB type B plug – you plug it into the back of the Audiophilleo, and plug your USB cable into the back of that adapter, and then just plug it into the mains. Another mains socket consumed by yet another transformer, but hey ho: it works.
I suspect the laptop I'm using, an older generation Core Duo Macbook, isn't providing full power down the USB bus; I know that unpowered hard drives (the kind designed for use with laptops and which are entirely powered off of the USB bus) fail to mount, so it's no surprise that the Audiophilleo has been under performing. I'm now hearing what it can do, and the difference between it and the humble Toslink cable is clear; the latter sounds hard and flat and lacking in detail and timbre in comparison.
Recommended!
Monday, 22 August 2011
How to be a Gentleman
I popped into my local library today, just to browse and pass my lunch hour in search of an interesting and informative read. Better to educate oneself than waste time selecting the right sandwich.
I came upon a book that described the very best way to dress and behave like a true Gentleman. I should have checked it out and taken it home so I could quote the title, but read it fairly quickly and didn’t bother.
What an interesting read! How-to guides for: shaving, cutting and shampooing hair, tying a tie, or bow tie, or cravat, selecting a suit or a short or trousers, indeed what kind of underpants to wear and how to select a supportive model. Followed by what cigars or pipes to select, which was the best umbrella, the perfect loafer, the best hip flask, the sharpest leather briefcase, which handkerchiefs to wear, what after shave or cologne, what to wear on a pheasant shoot and so on and so forth.
A common theme being one of two major elements to each selection – how to select, and from whom to buy.
I would regard the first part as essential to the Gentleman Audiophile. One of the tenets described in this blog is that the GA should be a connoisseur – ‘one who knows’ – and this speaks to that very thing. I found it fascinating to read how to wash and shampoo my hair properly, why select a toupee or choose instead go bald gracefully (noting that this has yet to occur for me), how shirts are made and why this is an important factor in your choice, how to iron your shirts, what the difference is between Eau de Parfum and Eau de Cologne, the major notes in each perfume, and so on.
What irritated me and where the parallel with the Hi Fi industry is sadly marked, is the then promotion of the ‘best place to buy’ – your shirts from Jermyn Street, suits from Saville Row, which barbers do the best wet shave, what is the best make of umbrella or aftershave. Even though those items which are inevitably subjective have to be presented as a choice of a select few - such as the aforementioned aftershave – the implication is clear: pick these to be classed as a gentleman, pick others and fail to become one.
Thus I imagine a cohort of ambitious pseudo-Gentlemen reading this book and dutifully spending their disposable income on a waxed Barbour jacket for the weekend, a selection of Cohiba Robustas with precisely polished humidor, and a suit from Gieves & Hawkes. Noting that, of course, some of these things are nice to have or consume or wear and probably well worth the investment; what I dislike is the assumption that only these things are fit for purpose and anything else, anything not ‘approved’, is unworthy. You are Not A Gentleman unless you Do This and buy everything recommended in the book.
The Gentleman Audiophile is not the same as the Gentleman I read in this book – I would say: take the lessons in the book and apply them to yourself, considering the 'why' a Gieves & Hawkes suit might be well made and well designed but avoiding the trap of thinking ‘If I buy this product from respected retailer X, it will be good / will suit me / will make me a Gentleman by default’.
Clearly not. One day, maybe even Tesco will make a suit that matches a Gieves & Hawkes design (well, one can always hope) but perhaps some lesser brand such as Austin Reed might be just as good? Or even M&S...?
In the Hifi world, we have some well known brands who deservedly maintain an optimum position based on the quality of their products; but other brands who can easily match or exceed their capability, yet are somehow not as sought after nor even as well reviewed. Why is this?
I suppose that one of the irritants in this book was the needless expense. If you set out to become a Gentleman, that you have to buy all the elements that make you so – the suit and shirts and shoes and after shave and shaving brush and silk ties and so on and so forth – from retailers whose costs are high and margins higher, more often on the basis that it feels good to buy from them rather than that they offer a superior product than someone else using the same tailoring techniques, weight and quality of material and so on.
In the hifi industry, there are some interesting parallels. We have an incestuous suite of review magazines whose constant plugging of certain brands is clearly aligned to the importers in their respective countries, with scant regard to empirical assessment and material cost. Backhanders? Possibly. Their promotion of expensive equipment you ‘have to own’ bears almost no regard to the true cost of manufacture and component use; it more often aligns to the brand identity and how you feel about owning and displaying that brand, with plenty of positive affirmation from an enthusiastic reviewer. How much of the expensive stuff is worth the money? Use your ears and trust your gut instincts – the GA must spot the signs of equipment lust and pride of ownership, set aside that expectation bias, and suppress the desire to ‘signal’ to your fellow GAs just what a Gentleman you are by investing in shiny equipment that does not truly perform.
‘Signalling’ is another term I recently learned when listening to a Freakonomics podcast on ‘being Green’; it refers to the human trait, identified by those in the marketing world, to want to demonstrate to your peers what you value and how you value it. Here’s an example: people who invest in solar panels for the roof of their homes and yet who tell the installers to put them on the street side, not the sunnier side which generates more heat / electricity. They are ‘signalling’ their Green intent to their neighbours. Or, the Japanese factories with windmills mounted on the roof to generate a paltry power input; they have generators that are also turned into motors to keep the rotors turning when there is no wind, because otherwise it ‘signals’ a lack of enterprise.
So I was fascinated to find a book that described the best way to be a gentleman not just from the perspective of technique, but also how to show that off. Personally, I’d say the GA is focused only on the internal aspect of Gentlemanly Audiophillia – how you feel inside, how the music speaks to your heart. Forget the trappings, learn the ‘how to’ and apply it without chasing a brand image. Behave inside like a Gentleman and forget how it looks!
I came upon a book that described the very best way to dress and behave like a true Gentleman. I should have checked it out and taken it home so I could quote the title, but read it fairly quickly and didn’t bother.
What an interesting read! How-to guides for: shaving, cutting and shampooing hair, tying a tie, or bow tie, or cravat, selecting a suit or a short or trousers, indeed what kind of underpants to wear and how to select a supportive model. Followed by what cigars or pipes to select, which was the best umbrella, the perfect loafer, the best hip flask, the sharpest leather briefcase, which handkerchiefs to wear, what after shave or cologne, what to wear on a pheasant shoot and so on and so forth.
A common theme being one of two major elements to each selection – how to select, and from whom to buy.
I would regard the first part as essential to the Gentleman Audiophile. One of the tenets described in this blog is that the GA should be a connoisseur – ‘one who knows’ – and this speaks to that very thing. I found it fascinating to read how to wash and shampoo my hair properly, why select a toupee or choose instead go bald gracefully (noting that this has yet to occur for me), how shirts are made and why this is an important factor in your choice, how to iron your shirts, what the difference is between Eau de Parfum and Eau de Cologne, the major notes in each perfume, and so on.
What irritated me and where the parallel with the Hi Fi industry is sadly marked, is the then promotion of the ‘best place to buy’ – your shirts from Jermyn Street, suits from Saville Row, which barbers do the best wet shave, what is the best make of umbrella or aftershave. Even though those items which are inevitably subjective have to be presented as a choice of a select few - such as the aforementioned aftershave – the implication is clear: pick these to be classed as a gentleman, pick others and fail to become one.
Thus I imagine a cohort of ambitious pseudo-Gentlemen reading this book and dutifully spending their disposable income on a waxed Barbour jacket for the weekend, a selection of Cohiba Robustas with precisely polished humidor, and a suit from Gieves & Hawkes. Noting that, of course, some of these things are nice to have or consume or wear and probably well worth the investment; what I dislike is the assumption that only these things are fit for purpose and anything else, anything not ‘approved’, is unworthy. You are Not A Gentleman unless you Do This and buy everything recommended in the book.
The Gentleman Audiophile is not the same as the Gentleman I read in this book – I would say: take the lessons in the book and apply them to yourself, considering the 'why' a Gieves & Hawkes suit might be well made and well designed but avoiding the trap of thinking ‘If I buy this product from respected retailer X, it will be good / will suit me / will make me a Gentleman by default’.
Clearly not. One day, maybe even Tesco will make a suit that matches a Gieves & Hawkes design (well, one can always hope) but perhaps some lesser brand such as Austin Reed might be just as good? Or even M&S...?
In the Hifi world, we have some well known brands who deservedly maintain an optimum position based on the quality of their products; but other brands who can easily match or exceed their capability, yet are somehow not as sought after nor even as well reviewed. Why is this?
I suppose that one of the irritants in this book was the needless expense. If you set out to become a Gentleman, that you have to buy all the elements that make you so – the suit and shirts and shoes and after shave and shaving brush and silk ties and so on and so forth – from retailers whose costs are high and margins higher, more often on the basis that it feels good to buy from them rather than that they offer a superior product than someone else using the same tailoring techniques, weight and quality of material and so on.
In the hifi industry, there are some interesting parallels. We have an incestuous suite of review magazines whose constant plugging of certain brands is clearly aligned to the importers in their respective countries, with scant regard to empirical assessment and material cost. Backhanders? Possibly. Their promotion of expensive equipment you ‘have to own’ bears almost no regard to the true cost of manufacture and component use; it more often aligns to the brand identity and how you feel about owning and displaying that brand, with plenty of positive affirmation from an enthusiastic reviewer. How much of the expensive stuff is worth the money? Use your ears and trust your gut instincts – the GA must spot the signs of equipment lust and pride of ownership, set aside that expectation bias, and suppress the desire to ‘signal’ to your fellow GAs just what a Gentleman you are by investing in shiny equipment that does not truly perform.
‘Signalling’ is another term I recently learned when listening to a Freakonomics podcast on ‘being Green’; it refers to the human trait, identified by those in the marketing world, to want to demonstrate to your peers what you value and how you value it. Here’s an example: people who invest in solar panels for the roof of their homes and yet who tell the installers to put them on the street side, not the sunnier side which generates more heat / electricity. They are ‘signalling’ their Green intent to their neighbours. Or, the Japanese factories with windmills mounted on the roof to generate a paltry power input; they have generators that are also turned into motors to keep the rotors turning when there is no wind, because otherwise it ‘signals’ a lack of enterprise.
So I was fascinated to find a book that described the best way to be a gentleman not just from the perspective of technique, but also how to show that off. Personally, I’d say the GA is focused only on the internal aspect of Gentlemanly Audiophillia – how you feel inside, how the music speaks to your heart. Forget the trappings, learn the ‘how to’ and apply it without chasing a brand image. Behave inside like a Gentleman and forget how it looks!
Saturday, 20 August 2011
For Sale!
I'm a big fan of Tron equipment and the sound GT ekes from it, so that is probably going to be Tron pure silver interconnects and cables (to match the wiring in the Discovery power amp), silver wiring of the pseudo-Syren preamp, and finally a Tron DAC. I heard the prototype a few times and, once again, it displays that easy musicality and tangible believability that marks out the very best products.
But... *so* expensive! Plus I have ambitions to update the vinyl front end - a new cartridge (Koetsu or Miyajima in all likelihood) and full Sondek set up and maybe Radikal or Sole upgrades; but, given the cost of those, another turntable like a Raven AC or Feickert Woodpecker maybe. We will see...
To fund the next purchases on the list I need to scavenge some of the other stuff! So I have for sale
1. (ON HOLD) Two SAP Relaxa 1 magnetically levitating platforms, one damaged by a drunken guest (in fact a drunken wife of a drunken guest) but which continues to work despite bent retaining pins. £125 for the unbent one, £100 for the bent one
2. SOLD Lindemann D680 SACD player - just google for reviews, it *is* amazing but I think the Tron DAC is better and I'm preemptively selling this. £2500
3. SOLD PHY speaker cable, 5.5m - check out the price on the PHY website and £500 is an absolute bargain for this cotton-wrapped, silver-plated solid core copper cable
More to follow...
But... *so* expensive! Plus I have ambitions to update the vinyl front end - a new cartridge (Koetsu or Miyajima in all likelihood) and full Sondek set up and maybe Radikal or Sole upgrades; but, given the cost of those, another turntable like a Raven AC or Feickert Woodpecker maybe. We will see...
To fund the next purchases on the list I need to scavenge some of the other stuff! So I have for sale
1. (ON HOLD) Two SAP Relaxa 1 magnetically levitating platforms, one damaged by a drunken guest (in fact a drunken wife of a drunken guest) but which continues to work despite bent retaining pins. £125 for the unbent one, £100 for the bent one
2. SOLD Lindemann D680 SACD player - just google for reviews, it *is* amazing but I think the Tron DAC is better and I'm preemptively selling this. £2500
3. SOLD PHY speaker cable, 5.5m - check out the price on the PHY website and £500 is an absolute bargain for this cotton-wrapped, silver-plated solid core copper cable
More to follow...
Friday, 19 August 2011
A second pair of ears
It's nice to have a wife who is politely interested and not overly analytical. I set up three plays of the same track
A was Lindemann
B was Macbook/optical Toslink/DacMagic
C was Macbook/Audiophilleo/DacMagic
A was preferred and cited as 'smoother'. B not liked as much as C, which was a hairs breadth different than A.
Which is nice
A was Lindemann
B was Macbook/optical Toslink/DacMagic
C was Macbook/Audiophilleo/DacMagic
A was preferred and cited as 'smoother'. B not liked as much as C, which was a hairs breadth different than A.
Which is nice
Friday, 12 August 2011
The Audiophilleo is staying
The Audiophilleo is staying, and here’s my thought process
I’ve been busy so I’ve not been able to set up an in-depth listening session to try and empirically assess what I think the Audiophilleo is doing, if it has improved significantly and in what areas, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, the improvements it has wrought have not been as immediately obvious and satisfying as those wrought by the simple inclusion of the DacMagic power supply supplied by custom audio cables.
As a side note, I’ve no doubt this is a fundamental part of the success of a number of DACs produced by independent, and usually quite small, companies, who may be skilled in analogue electronics but not digital, or vice versa. If they have a lot of experience in designing analogue equipment and can get a great sound by simply designing a great power supply and output stage around a digital board brought in from someone else, it’s a much easier endeavour than trying to achieve excellence in both digital and analogue parts of their DAC. Or, they’re great digital designers and get someone else to surround their tech with a power supply and analogue output stage and cabling. So, perhaps 60-70% of the sound of a DAC is in the implementation of the surrounding elements, 25-30% in the digital section (the DAC itself and the input receiver and clock) and 5-10% is ‘polish’ like cabling and casework and component positioning and circuit board material and so on.
The DacMagic is built to a price and comes with a wall-wart, that price gives you a lot of digital technology, so if the external power supply makes (say) a 20% improvement to its performance, primarily impacting the analogue elements of the design, you’ll see a 60%-70% * 20% or 12-14% improvement in the sound from the custom hifi cables power supply, which is entirely noticeable and correlates with what I’m hearing.
Whereas the Audiophilleo makes its’ 20% improvement to a 25% part of the system, the digital section, and now you’re talking about a 25-30% * 20% = 4-6% improvement to the sound, much harder to hear.
This is all conjecture of course. But it seems to make sense!
In any case, I continue to listen to music in the background whilst reading or writing or working, and taking the time to pay attention to what’s going on without being able to more the sofa into its’ prime position and take notes. I don’t feel it’s necessary; a Gentleman Audiophile doesn’t always need to so analytical if he is in tune with his system, and I’ve been listening daily whilst letting it run in.
So I am now sure that the Audiophilleo does no harm compared to the optical cable I had before. It is at least as musical, if not more exciting in a less brash way. The positive aspects include more detail, richness of tone and realism to stringed instruments and piano, and more height and width and depth to the soundstage (not that this is terribly important to me). With performers now spaced slightly further apart and/or further back, and more space and relaxation to how they are performing, it might be possible that they lose their coherence and drive, but that seems not to be happening; I am hearing more of the recording and losing none of the timing.
Importantly, it is smoother and more liquid and real sounding than the optical cable, which sounds brash and hard and ‘glassy’ in comparison. As the Audiophilleo has run in, these traits have become more and more obvious such that it is now clearly a backwards step to switch back to optical.
Is it worth the money? Well, in the context of the Linn Philosophy of ‘garbage in, garbage out’, having a clear improvement in transport quality and thus DAC performance must be a factor in future upgrades. Some history – due to a recent house move, the PHY speaker cable I used to use is no longer long enough to reach the Duos in their current position, which is dictated by their sympathetic integration into the room and the need to see the garden and not have them dominate the available space; in the corners they must go.
The PHY cable is fairly unique and I regret the recent death of Bernard Salibert and how he might have improved his design. They are solid-core OFC copper, silver plated and then wrapped in cotton. They are stiff and unwieldy and, despite this, very transparent, detailed and capable of transmitting a lot of emotion. But, not long enough.
When I moved, I realised I now needed double the length I had available, in order to be able to tuck the cable around the sides of the room and, ultimately, conceal them behind the skirting boards. We were moving house and busy after the move so, to get some sounds without speculatively spending hundreds on an unknown cable I would be unable to home dem (few dealers have a spare 11m stereo pair for demo, and I had no real time to expend trialling) nor willing nor able to splurge the stratospheric sums PHY cable now commands, I just plumped for some ‘722 strand’ no name OFC copper cable at £40 for 30 metres from eBay.
It sounds fine. Not brilliant, fairly musical, but clearly incapable of the delicacy, detail and natural tonality of the PHY. But, at some point, I will need to replace the speaker cable and get some home demos in, somehow, to enable me to replace the eBay stuff and further improve projection, clarity and so on.
Not only that, but Tron also produce speaker cable, made of pure silver in a cotton sheath, and sounding fantastic in GTs demo room; this and their interconnects is the same cable used in the silver wiring of the internals of my Discovery power amp. One must have something to aspire to!
Hence, if cabling will change in future, and transparency leap forwards as a result, I can confidently state the Audiophilleo is the best device to set the computer audio part of my system up to suit, being able to extract the smoothest and most natural sound (by a few degrees, at least) from my current DAC.
Next question – does it sound as good as a dedicated CD transport? I can’t yet answer that – I am arranging a comparison between the Audiophilleo into my Macbook Pro, and the Audio Note transport my pal owns which, despite dubious build and susceptibility to electrical interference, has been best so far. With an ‘average’ transport like the Oppo I would say the Audiophilleo was musically on par, and technically slightly superior, so we will see!
I’ve been busy so I’ve not been able to set up an in-depth listening session to try and empirically assess what I think the Audiophilleo is doing, if it has improved significantly and in what areas, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, the improvements it has wrought have not been as immediately obvious and satisfying as those wrought by the simple inclusion of the DacMagic power supply supplied by custom audio cables.
As a side note, I’ve no doubt this is a fundamental part of the success of a number of DACs produced by independent, and usually quite small, companies, who may be skilled in analogue electronics but not digital, or vice versa. If they have a lot of experience in designing analogue equipment and can get a great sound by simply designing a great power supply and output stage around a digital board brought in from someone else, it’s a much easier endeavour than trying to achieve excellence in both digital and analogue parts of their DAC. Or, they’re great digital designers and get someone else to surround their tech with a power supply and analogue output stage and cabling. So, perhaps 60-70% of the sound of a DAC is in the implementation of the surrounding elements, 25-30% in the digital section (the DAC itself and the input receiver and clock) and 5-10% is ‘polish’ like cabling and casework and component positioning and circuit board material and so on.
The DacMagic is built to a price and comes with a wall-wart, that price gives you a lot of digital technology, so if the external power supply makes (say) a 20% improvement to its performance, primarily impacting the analogue elements of the design, you’ll see a 60%-70% * 20% or 12-14% improvement in the sound from the custom hifi cables power supply, which is entirely noticeable and correlates with what I’m hearing.
Whereas the Audiophilleo makes its’ 20% improvement to a 25% part of the system, the digital section, and now you’re talking about a 25-30% * 20% = 4-6% improvement to the sound, much harder to hear.
This is all conjecture of course. But it seems to make sense!
In any case, I continue to listen to music in the background whilst reading or writing or working, and taking the time to pay attention to what’s going on without being able to more the sofa into its’ prime position and take notes. I don’t feel it’s necessary; a Gentleman Audiophile doesn’t always need to so analytical if he is in tune with his system, and I’ve been listening daily whilst letting it run in.
So I am now sure that the Audiophilleo does no harm compared to the optical cable I had before. It is at least as musical, if not more exciting in a less brash way. The positive aspects include more detail, richness of tone and realism to stringed instruments and piano, and more height and width and depth to the soundstage (not that this is terribly important to me). With performers now spaced slightly further apart and/or further back, and more space and relaxation to how they are performing, it might be possible that they lose their coherence and drive, but that seems not to be happening; I am hearing more of the recording and losing none of the timing.
Importantly, it is smoother and more liquid and real sounding than the optical cable, which sounds brash and hard and ‘glassy’ in comparison. As the Audiophilleo has run in, these traits have become more and more obvious such that it is now clearly a backwards step to switch back to optical.
Is it worth the money? Well, in the context of the Linn Philosophy of ‘garbage in, garbage out’, having a clear improvement in transport quality and thus DAC performance must be a factor in future upgrades. Some history – due to a recent house move, the PHY speaker cable I used to use is no longer long enough to reach the Duos in their current position, which is dictated by their sympathetic integration into the room and the need to see the garden and not have them dominate the available space; in the corners they must go.
The PHY cable is fairly unique and I regret the recent death of Bernard Salibert and how he might have improved his design. They are solid-core OFC copper, silver plated and then wrapped in cotton. They are stiff and unwieldy and, despite this, very transparent, detailed and capable of transmitting a lot of emotion. But, not long enough.
When I moved, I realised I now needed double the length I had available, in order to be able to tuck the cable around the sides of the room and, ultimately, conceal them behind the skirting boards. We were moving house and busy after the move so, to get some sounds without speculatively spending hundreds on an unknown cable I would be unable to home dem (few dealers have a spare 11m stereo pair for demo, and I had no real time to expend trialling) nor willing nor able to splurge the stratospheric sums PHY cable now commands, I just plumped for some ‘722 strand’ no name OFC copper cable at £40 for 30 metres from eBay.
It sounds fine. Not brilliant, fairly musical, but clearly incapable of the delicacy, detail and natural tonality of the PHY. But, at some point, I will need to replace the speaker cable and get some home demos in, somehow, to enable me to replace the eBay stuff and further improve projection, clarity and so on.
Not only that, but Tron also produce speaker cable, made of pure silver in a cotton sheath, and sounding fantastic in GTs demo room; this and their interconnects is the same cable used in the silver wiring of the internals of my Discovery power amp. One must have something to aspire to!
Hence, if cabling will change in future, and transparency leap forwards as a result, I can confidently state the Audiophilleo is the best device to set the computer audio part of my system up to suit, being able to extract the smoothest and most natural sound (by a few degrees, at least) from my current DAC.
Next question – does it sound as good as a dedicated CD transport? I can’t yet answer that – I am arranging a comparison between the Audiophilleo into my Macbook Pro, and the Audio Note transport my pal owns which, despite dubious build and susceptibility to electrical interference, has been best so far. With an ‘average’ transport like the Oppo I would say the Audiophilleo was musically on par, and technically slightly superior, so we will see!
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
System pictures
Even though I'm blogging at length about the importance of musical enjoyment over equipment porn, just to set the context, here's some pictures of the equipment I'm using and the overall environment.
The listening room to start with:
As you can see, the sofa isn't actually facing the speakers. This is a choice based on the fact that there is a nice fire on the left outside of shot... if I were seriously listening to music or a system change, it would get rotated into position. The room is nevertheless filled with music!
A closeup of one of the speakers
The Discovery is a SET with 8W of house-shaking power. The Comet/Syren has a fantastic phono stage I barely use due to the Sondek/Origami PU7 being out of sorts at present; of course, I'm busy evaluating digital equipment too.
The listening room to start with:
As you can see, the sofa isn't actually facing the speakers. This is a choice based on the fact that there is a nice fire on the left outside of shot... if I were seriously listening to music or a system change, it would get rotated into position. The room is nevertheless filled with music!
A closeup of one of the speakers
It's a colour called 'Porsche Jade Green metallic' which I'm unlikely to have chosen if I had bought new but, now that I have it, I'm quite used to it! Blessed are those with the courage to buy one in Lamborghini Orange...!
Equipment is all tucked away in a cabinet I had made for me by Blok furniture, with the exception of the Discovery power amp which looks stylish and needs plenty of air.
The Lindemann D680 SACD player is a masterful unit and is usually hidden away because, alas, it is cursed with a blue LED; the separate power supply has one like a beacon of blueness. Ditto for the Dacmagic, although the smaller LEDS are less objectionable. They don't need to be seen and so remain tucked away unless I need to open the CD drawer.
Finally, the piece de resistance is the rather amazing Tron Discovery 300B power amp, with Emission Labs tubes, and the less stylish but possibly even more polished (sonically speaking) Comet preamp with Syren boards and circuit upgrades.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Audiophilleo - still no conclusion
A great big bucket of inconclusive
It’s now day #5 since the Audiophilleo 2 USB->SPDIF converter arrived and I am still unable to conclude whether or not it makes a positive difference in my system.
I have a few theories, and some findings. As a busy man, I’m not sure how much more time I can immediately devote to tackling my indecision on this product, the threat being that I lose the ability to return it under the terms of the 30 day guarantee.
Let’s start with what I have found.
First, aural memory being an imprecise tool which can easily fool you into thinking ‘there is a change’ when in fact you’re just noticing something that was there before through re-listening, I have therefore been careful to listen to a track, listen to it again without change, and then make a change to see what difference I can find.
My Macbook has a selection of losslessly-ripped CDs on its’ local hard disk, all replicated to a network drive using GoodSync in case the laptop expires, and both an optical cable from the headphone socket of the Macbook to input #1 of the Dacmagic, and the supplied USB cable into the Audiophilleo which is directly connected to the back of input #2. Both inputs are set to use the Linear phase filter, and I can quickly switch between outputs in the Mac’s system preferences, to compare the two.
I am using ITunes, but have also used Decibel for a putatively superior upsampling and control of the digital data stream.
With the Audio/MIDI control panel set so that both outputs are constrained to 16-bit and 44.1KHz I am fairly confident I’m comparing apples with apples by playing a track (twice) then switching inputs and playing that track twice again.
The Audiophilleo seems a bit warmer, more detailed, more spacious, richer tone on strings, more detailed and a stage set a tad further back. But I could be wrong as the differences are currently subtle at best.
The optical cable presents a flatter and brighter image, possibly.
In a simple test, I got my wife (who is politely interested but would really just prefer to read her book) to listen to the two as I switched from A to B and back a few times. To my surprise, she ended up preferring the optical cable over the Audiophilleo, although she did say she could hardly tell.
I paid attention to my feet; they tapped with both options.
Interestingly, setting the bit depth on the Audio/MIDI setup panel made for a more-easy-to-identify aural impact – in error I set the sampling frequency to 48KHz at 24 bit and ended up with a compressed, hard soundstage with what felt like all instruments smack in the middle of the speakers, not spread out. Changing to 24/96 smoothed things out a bit, but veiled the performance as well compared with just sticking to 16/44 (which all my test material is anyway).
I concluded iTunes, or Os X core audio, is just not doing a good job at sample rate conversion. The DacMagic has a proprietary chip from Anagram Technologies which upsamples using its own filters, so arguably presenting it with a ready-upsampled data stream is going to sound worse that what it does natively. I could see the sample lock light change to show the 96KHz transmission so I was able to correlate what I was hearing with the tweaks I was making on the Macbook.
Finally, I tried Decibel with the output set to 24/96, but I ran out of time to definitively pin down whether or not that was better or worse than iTunes despite the claims for superior upsampling, memory play and ‘hog mode’ for whichever output device I had selected. It seemed different, perhaps better and more detailed and less veiled, but exactly how I am not sure. More testing required.
Friday night I popped over to visit a fellow GA with some Living Voice horn loudspeakers. Not quite Vox Olympians, but still pretty extraordinary, and very revealing in the midrange. I brought over my second MacBook Pro, a library of Apple-Lossless CDs on external USB hard disk, the Audiophilleo and cables, and the DacMagic power supply from Custom Hifi Cables of which I am a big fan.
We listened to his system – Arc SP8, Quad II performing standby duties during redecoration work and pending the arrival of a Tron pre/power combination that is being serviced, Oppo CD player into DacMagic with Maplins power supply for source, and then plugged in my new power supply.
Even before we sat down to listen properly, we could hear a clear improvement; guitar sounded more real, more detailed and tonally richer without having to listen for the change. Entirely positive, so it stayed in place.
We then oscillated between my laptop/Audiophilleo and his Oppo transport. We started to form fairly clear conclusions which then become less clear as we progressed.
The Audiophilleo once again demonstrated more depth, width, detail and richness to the presentation – but it felt as if there was some kind of veil between you and the music. After going back and forth for a while I realised I was using iTunes and had set the Audio/MIDI panel on this Macbook Pro to 24/96, so with poor upsampling, reset it to 16/44 without telling my GA pal what I had done and just asked him to evaluate again.
At that stage we felt any difference in musicality was slim to inaudible between CD transport and laptop hard drive. Knowing what to listen for I felt as if I could hear a technical improvement with the Audiophilleo over the CD player, the increase in width, depth, detail and tonality, but again it was slim pickings. As fellow Gentlemen Audiophiles should know, whilst we can focus our efforts in improving our reproduction of music, it can’t be at the expense of enjoyment. The positive change is one where you improve an element of something like detail or soundstage depth, but without at the same time removing a link between the GA and the musical message.
Time did not permit further testing so I retrieved my equipment and left, without conclusively deciding whether or not the Audiophilleo was a winner.
I note a few more thoughts. First, I know that it sounds hard and bright from cold; it takes at least an hour to warm up and for that hardness to disappear. Second, it draws its power from the USB bus and the laptop I use as transport in my system, an old white Macbook, has a dead battery and runs entirely from mains. In fact, portable external hard drives which are powered from the USB bus rather than self powered fail to mount onto the desktop reliably, where they mount fine onto my Macbook Pro. I conclude that the Audiophilleo may not be operating at optimal level with the current setup and need to so something about it, either by investing in a powered hub or the AQVOX low-noise power supply, or by substituting the Macbook Pro temporarily to see how that impacts the sound.
Computer Audio is frustratingly un-simple. Persevere we must!
In conclusion, I think there is much that is positive about the Audiophilleo, if we are able to decide it does positively improve the sound. It feels churlish to say ‘I can barely heard a difference’ and actually continue to use a $500 device that seems unable to outperform a $20 optical cable, but I feel it is not operating at its best with the laptops’ USB power output, it is brand new and not run in and frequently I’m running it from cold because the laptop is shut down when not in use and it is unpowered. I need to tackle these issues before making a comprehensive conclusion.
My hope is I will ‘tune in’ to what is good, or not so good, about the setup and enable me to decide. More testing this week…
It’s now day #5 since the Audiophilleo 2 USB->SPDIF converter arrived and I am still unable to conclude whether or not it makes a positive difference in my system.
I have a few theories, and some findings. As a busy man, I’m not sure how much more time I can immediately devote to tackling my indecision on this product, the threat being that I lose the ability to return it under the terms of the 30 day guarantee.
Let’s start with what I have found.
First, aural memory being an imprecise tool which can easily fool you into thinking ‘there is a change’ when in fact you’re just noticing something that was there before through re-listening, I have therefore been careful to listen to a track, listen to it again without change, and then make a change to see what difference I can find.
My Macbook has a selection of losslessly-ripped CDs on its’ local hard disk, all replicated to a network drive using GoodSync in case the laptop expires, and both an optical cable from the headphone socket of the Macbook to input #1 of the Dacmagic, and the supplied USB cable into the Audiophilleo which is directly connected to the back of input #2. Both inputs are set to use the Linear phase filter, and I can quickly switch between outputs in the Mac’s system preferences, to compare the two.
I am using ITunes, but have also used Decibel for a putatively superior upsampling and control of the digital data stream.
With the Audio/MIDI control panel set so that both outputs are constrained to 16-bit and 44.1KHz I am fairly confident I’m comparing apples with apples by playing a track (twice) then switching inputs and playing that track twice again.
The Audiophilleo seems a bit warmer, more detailed, more spacious, richer tone on strings, more detailed and a stage set a tad further back. But I could be wrong as the differences are currently subtle at best.
The optical cable presents a flatter and brighter image, possibly.
In a simple test, I got my wife (who is politely interested but would really just prefer to read her book) to listen to the two as I switched from A to B and back a few times. To my surprise, she ended up preferring the optical cable over the Audiophilleo, although she did say she could hardly tell.
I paid attention to my feet; they tapped with both options.
Interestingly, setting the bit depth on the Audio/MIDI setup panel made for a more-easy-to-identify aural impact – in error I set the sampling frequency to 48KHz at 24 bit and ended up with a compressed, hard soundstage with what felt like all instruments smack in the middle of the speakers, not spread out. Changing to 24/96 smoothed things out a bit, but veiled the performance as well compared with just sticking to 16/44 (which all my test material is anyway).
I concluded iTunes, or Os X core audio, is just not doing a good job at sample rate conversion. The DacMagic has a proprietary chip from Anagram Technologies which upsamples using its own filters, so arguably presenting it with a ready-upsampled data stream is going to sound worse that what it does natively. I could see the sample lock light change to show the 96KHz transmission so I was able to correlate what I was hearing with the tweaks I was making on the Macbook.
Finally, I tried Decibel with the output set to 24/96, but I ran out of time to definitively pin down whether or not that was better or worse than iTunes despite the claims for superior upsampling, memory play and ‘hog mode’ for whichever output device I had selected. It seemed different, perhaps better and more detailed and less veiled, but exactly how I am not sure. More testing required.
Friday night I popped over to visit a fellow GA with some Living Voice horn loudspeakers. Not quite Vox Olympians, but still pretty extraordinary, and very revealing in the midrange. I brought over my second MacBook Pro, a library of Apple-Lossless CDs on external USB hard disk, the Audiophilleo and cables, and the DacMagic power supply from Custom Hifi Cables of which I am a big fan.
We listened to his system – Arc SP8, Quad II performing standby duties during redecoration work and pending the arrival of a Tron pre/power combination that is being serviced, Oppo CD player into DacMagic with Maplins power supply for source, and then plugged in my new power supply.
Even before we sat down to listen properly, we could hear a clear improvement; guitar sounded more real, more detailed and tonally richer without having to listen for the change. Entirely positive, so it stayed in place.
We then oscillated between my laptop/Audiophilleo and his Oppo transport. We started to form fairly clear conclusions which then become less clear as we progressed.
The Audiophilleo once again demonstrated more depth, width, detail and richness to the presentation – but it felt as if there was some kind of veil between you and the music. After going back and forth for a while I realised I was using iTunes and had set the Audio/MIDI panel on this Macbook Pro to 24/96, so with poor upsampling, reset it to 16/44 without telling my GA pal what I had done and just asked him to evaluate again.
At that stage we felt any difference in musicality was slim to inaudible between CD transport and laptop hard drive. Knowing what to listen for I felt as if I could hear a technical improvement with the Audiophilleo over the CD player, the increase in width, depth, detail and tonality, but again it was slim pickings. As fellow Gentlemen Audiophiles should know, whilst we can focus our efforts in improving our reproduction of music, it can’t be at the expense of enjoyment. The positive change is one where you improve an element of something like detail or soundstage depth, but without at the same time removing a link between the GA and the musical message.
Time did not permit further testing so I retrieved my equipment and left, without conclusively deciding whether or not the Audiophilleo was a winner.
I note a few more thoughts. First, I know that it sounds hard and bright from cold; it takes at least an hour to warm up and for that hardness to disappear. Second, it draws its power from the USB bus and the laptop I use as transport in my system, an old white Macbook, has a dead battery and runs entirely from mains. In fact, portable external hard drives which are powered from the USB bus rather than self powered fail to mount onto the desktop reliably, where they mount fine onto my Macbook Pro. I conclude that the Audiophilleo may not be operating at optimal level with the current setup and need to so something about it, either by investing in a powered hub or the AQVOX low-noise power supply, or by substituting the Macbook Pro temporarily to see how that impacts the sound.
Computer Audio is frustratingly un-simple. Persevere we must!
In conclusion, I think there is much that is positive about the Audiophilleo, if we are able to decide it does positively improve the sound. It feels churlish to say ‘I can barely heard a difference’ and actually continue to use a $500 device that seems unable to outperform a $20 optical cable, but I feel it is not operating at its best with the laptops’ USB power output, it is brand new and not run in and frequently I’m running it from cold because the laptop is shut down when not in use and it is unpowered. I need to tackle these issues before making a comprehensive conclusion.
My hope is I will ‘tune in’ to what is good, or not so good, about the setup and enable me to decide. More testing this week…
Friday, 5 August 2011
No smoke without fire?
There is no smoke without fire....
I refer to the pervasive discussion on many forums and in hi fi publications about the importance of the digital transport in achieving musical satisfaction; in particular, since digital audio carries the stigma of being musically (if not technically) inferior to analogue, any solution that claims to improve the basic musicality of a digital audio system despite the old adage ‘bits is bits’ must be worthy of investigation.
A few years ago, I found little worthwhile difference between transports. I owned a dCS Elgar which seemed able to make all CD spinners sound pretty much the same. The insertion of a dCS Purcell upsampler, in the days when upsampling was a new art form, further narrowed any perceived gap between various CD players above, say, the most basic with plastic trays and bargain prices.
In short, using an inexpensive Trichord Genesis (rebadged upside-down Pioneer player) as transport was noticeably inferior to a Pioneer DV717 DVD player I still have tucked away somewhere, but any other device I tried just sounded like the Pioneer, which carried the twin advantages of being cheaper than other tried 'audiophile' spinners, and able to play 24/96 DAD and stream 24-bit 96KHz output down the SPDIF cable. I concluded that pretty much ‘good enough’ is all you need for digital data delivery to the DAC.
Since then, I have learned.
For a start I learned to listen with my ears and sold the Purcell/Elgar combination on the basis that it was dull and boring, despite the many plaudits in the hi fi press that had convinced me to buy it.
Subsequently, every time I hear dCS converters in demo, I hear the same traits; fine resolution, space and overall capability, but something slightly flat and unmusical overall. On the positive side, dCS being as good at digital engineering as they plainly were, and first to market with technologies such as Ring DAC and upsampling, they knew how to compensate for and make the SPDIF input work well provided the quality of provided data was above some electronic threshold of capability to be able to lock on. Thus a ‘good enough’ transport seemed OK at the time and spending more mere profilgacy.
Now, it has been proven to me that the digital transport can make a significant difference. The subtle point being that the difference may not be obvious, but, once noticed, never forgotten. A bit like the irritating drum machine on Chris Rea’s “Road to Hell” album, unlistenable once I realised every track starts the same ticking after five seconds of silence.
Back in the days before I was educated, I probably wasn’t as sensitive then as I am now to the sense of musical timing and cohesion that a good transport can provide, over the pure hi fi attributes of spaciousness, bass depth and so on and so forth. My reticence was twofold:
- A reluctance to admit I didn’t know what I was talking about and listening to, combined with equipment angst (having spent so much without achieving my goals)
- Cynicism when the proffered solutions are, in most cases it seems to me, massively over engineered and overpriced, combining an analogue engineering approach (weight, metalwork, belt drive, even valves) to delivering an electrical and entirely digital signal down an SPDIF cable to your DAC. As a previous victim of marketing excess, I am now very, very reluctant to believe spending upwards of £10k extracting bits from spinning disc is worthwhile when a similar, but lighter and uglier, disc-spinner with SPDIF output can be had for £30 at Tesco and it has been proven by many that the data extracted by both is bit perfect.
And yet… I have heard a difference, albeit not with the CEC or Audio Note or Esoteric or Levinson or other high end devices punted at the stupidly wealthy or audiophile obsessive. I would like to hear them but will never make a serious attempt to buy one because it would grate.
Plainly, there is more going on that just getting data from a disc in a reliable form. I have yet to mention the j-word, but that combined with some other electrical attributes must be the cause.
Further, I am convinced at the validity of computer audio and how this can only be of benefit to the Gentleman Audiophile. For a disc to provide bits, or a hard drive, or a stream of data from memory, can only be the same outcome of data delivered to the DAC; but the computer provides a richer experience
Let me sideline for a while, Ronnie Corbett-like, into another scene-setting tale.
Five years ago I bought a small sporty car, the Renaultsport Clio Trophy, and invested in an iPod-connection-capable Pioneer head unit that zoomed out of the dash and became a Europe-wide Sat Nav. Enacting my Corbett-like segue even further, let me state that I was once again suckered by the press with this car, the plaudits heaped on it being many and mighty and the expectations therefore high; the ultimate Hot Hatch. It was a limited edition, buy-one and not test-drive-one option and I was lured into a purchase on the basis of glowing reviews and the urge to buy a practical, but very fast and very interactive, sports car.
Sadly, it was a massive let down, for two reasons; primarily the engine, which felt gutless and entirely unlike a 2 litre 190bhp unit in a lightweight hatchback, and the gearbox, which was rubbery and fairly awful. After about 10k miles I had it chipped and wrought a noticeable improvement in torque, improving drivability significantly, but by then the damage had been done and I sold it feeling hard done by and determined to test drive every potential purchase first and use my own judgement well before those of the odd car reviewer who happened to have a fun day in Wales and wrote about it. Or indeed was presented with a chipped Clio by the manufacturer as a pukka car for serious testing, as if such a thing would every happen…..
Resuming back to digression 1, the Pioneer head unit was a good way to plug in an 80Gb iPod and have music accessible directly from the column stalk which is, I have to admit, a well designed and appreciated addition to almost all Renaults. However, being an early bit of iPod integration software, it couldn’t understand such things as playlists, artists, genres and so on, and I ended up simply flicking from track to track in sequence and just flicking on if something emerged from the speakers which I didn’t like.
This was the genius moment that defined my approach to listening to music from then on. What I found was that I owned hundreds of CDs I almost never listened to, and many I listened to but only the tracks with which I was most familiar. I had a wealth of music at my fingertips and a lot of it was really, really good; not necessarily well recorded or even great material, but enjoyable, interesting and worth retrieving and listening to again.
At home, with racks and racks of CDs, my chances of finding that music again are slim, and of being able to easily and randomly access music with pleasure and without the effort of maintaining a physical catalogue of CDs is overwhelmingly attractive.
Hence computer audio is Go and I have a Macbook plugged into a DacMagic as a starter for 10 system next to my Lindemann for Serious Listening.
And so my segue back to my point about digital audio. The problem is: computers, for some reason, are demonstrably less good at playing music EVEN THOUGH the digits themselves are perfectly ripped and perfectly transmitted to the DAC.
I will cite two examples. #1 is a fellow Gentleman Audiophile with Tron and Audio Note equipment. We switched from his Macbook and an optical connection and either Decibel in memory play mode (worse on his system) or just iTunes to a dedicated Audio Note CD transport for the same music. Whilst the AN transport is, unfortunately, designed to spit out a rattling drawer and ‘glitches’ the signal to the DAC every time someone flicks a light switch in his listening room, it is clearly superior to the Mac sonically. Shame about the build quality, but hurrah for the sound.
Separately, in another GA’s system with multiple DACs on test, including Weiss DAC2 and Naim DAC+XPS, using iTunes and Pure Music or Amarra in memory play mode via firewire and the Weiss… not as good as a Denon Blu-Ray player with its’ long load times.
So, what are the attributes that make the CD spinners ‘better’ in these cases?
- Musicality. I will post separately on my feelings about this as an attribute because it can be conceived as a cop out. For me, the word ‘Musicality’ is a bucket used to describe the multiple attributes of reproduction that combine to make a system either sound enjoyable, or just make noise. It’s a bucket for those, like myself, who sometimes lack the skill and vocabulary to identify and describe what’s not there; or, who prefer not to get dragged down into the minutiae of the audiophile’s vocabulary.
- Hardness and glassiness – an increase in the sense that electronics were involved in the reproduction of the music – worse on optical than coaxial connection
- Coherence – music is in sync with itself, in phase or in rhythm – I’m using words that may mean something in another context like ‘phase’ to try and capture the sense that a well-rehearsed band is ‘tight’ and music flows from each performer whilst making an overall tune that hangs together beautifully, versus a bunch of unrehearsed amateurs that just bash away with enthusiasm and leave your ears feeling battered.
There is no smoke without fire. It is clearly possible to do better, and clearly that means there is an engineering solution waiting for the computer audio providers to develop, if it hasn’t been done already. It’s my task to separate the hype of the megabucks transports – which may, at some point, have had a place in the hi fi world, though I don’t believe it any longer – from the practical and affordable improvements that companies such as Audiophilleo and M2Tech and Wavelength and DIY-cum-manufacturers like Mr Lampizator may have wrought.
I say 'may' - it’s in the listening of course. I have the Audiophilleo now, and am running it in. Does it improve the Macbook to enable it to match or exceed the AN transport? Does it even improve my Macbook over the optical connection I use at the moment?
I am still testing so watch this space. This is a blog, after all.
What attracted me to the Audiophilleo was the technical description of the way the product works, enabling me to make a punt at having it shipped over from the States before having listened to it. There is a money-back guarantee, so I have to work fast!
That technical description covers the dreaded j-word ‘jitter’ – I say dreaded because it is such a tremendously abused marketing label applied to product after product – which is extremely low compared with other equivalent USB->SPDIF converters according to their analyses. It makes claims that seem to correlate technical performance with sonic impact, which plays to the areas I have been seeking. So it should be good, right? We will see; technical excellence is a good sign but no guarantee it will sound good.
Yet I am encouraged that the time has been taken to identify and address areas which might, possibly, contrive to make the SPDIF transmission ‘twixt Mac and DAC less than optimal. If the circuit that drives the connection is well designed, rejects noise, has a high slew rate or whatever, it ought to ‘just work’.
So it plays to something I have been hoping for; a product that looks at the engineering reasons why a pulse of digital information may sound better coming from (for example) a massive CEC transport designed to look like the underwater lair of the chief baddie in “The Spy Who Loved Me” rather than a simple Pioneer DV717, or indeed any other USB/SPDIF converter transcribing data spewed from a Macbooks hard drive. Since it all boils down to that interface, getting the interface right should really be the important part of the conversion..... shouldn't it? All that massive metalwork and considerable expense should be entirely avoidable.
I remain hopeful. The proof of the pudding is in the listening.
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