novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 23, 2018 10:52:34 GMT -5
I've just got to chime in here and remind everyone to be especially mindful of distinguishing differences in equipment from differences that are really just differences in the content itself. (There are also some places in the digital signal chain where there is room for doing things better or worse - and others where, while you can either get it right or fail to get it right, you cannot improve it past perfect.)
And, yes, the CD, SACD, and DVD-R versions of a given album, or even the Red Book and DSD layers on the same hybrid SACD, can be quite different.
Many people also forget that different CD reissues are often mastered very differently. Even more surprising, sometimes even CDs that appear the same, with the same date on them, aren't identical. (And it's not uncommon to see different versions of the same CD where some songs are bit-for-bit identical but others are not.)
And, of course, MQA reissues have been completely remastered - so they can be very different - and not always for the better. (Bear in mind that MQA is not just an attempt to directly reproduce the master more accurately - they are applying PROCESSING in an attempt to "improve" it - so it will often be different.)
Also, as a few people have already noted, sometimes we just listen more carefully... and, when you listen more carefully, you often hear things you never noticed before.
(And, once you've noticed something that pleases you, or that annoys you, you tend to continue to notice it.)
[cute picture omitted] Im actually playing the instrumental version of this LP via AIFF 16 bit 44.1 kHz from my hard drive via network. Nope. Its not Christmas but I really love this LP and know it intimately! I can comment about differences in the soun, dynamics and feel of A Charley Brown Christmas if there are any. And there are many in the audible reproduction of these tracks. Piano has an intimate and warm feeling that flows through the music vs troddong along like it sounds playing directly from the Mac Mini to the Mytek Brookly or Emotiva DC-1. A cohesiveness that escapes so many well played songs. I can tell more precisely where the individual instruments are in the room as well. Im hearing the foot peddle and depressing it as the music plays. Im not accustomed to this as I haven’t a clue how to play but I can hear it for the first time so very clearly. Its befuddling that this has occurred to me for the first time. Ive never been a big fan of the drums as a forefront instrument, always just filler and and add on I could usually do without, almost. Ive always enjoyed the upright bass for such duties. But, in the last few days Ive taken more notice and appreciation of them. Not just as a beat or add on but as part of this type of music. Jazz seems to need this drum set for the first time with me. Im going to take a break and listen to the same LP from Tidal in full MQA 192 kHz “Also, as a few people have already noted, sometimes we just listen more carefully... and, when you listen more carefully, you often hear things you never noticed before. (And, once you've noticed something that pleases you, or that annoys you, you tend to continue to notice it.)” I would wholeheartedly agree many years ago but in these past few years ; five or so, Ive taken critical listening very seriously. When I hear a difference or change or whatever I point out, its new to me on my gear in my room. I also agree that many “exact” recordings can be far from the same. Ive experienced that more times then I can count. Thanks for your input @keithl
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 23, 2018 11:28:16 GMT -5
Well don't forget the optional, but additional power supply, the SOtM sPS-500 Power Supply ($500), and the USB isolator/power/reclocker, the SOtM tx-USBultra ($990 - $1200). Again, these are optional. However, the best reviews I have seen of the SOtM seem to suggest that the player, power supply, and the reclocker need to work together for best results, and that's the rub. See this review, for example, which compares the SOtM "Trifecta" with the Sonore Signature Rendu, which is another hunter of "deep pockets" in its own right, at least from my own perspective. www.audiostream.com/content/audiophile-conundrum-sonore-vs-sotmI personally didn’t think that the reclocker was a prudent purchase for the same reason given by @keithl and a few other forum members. The soTm has won numerous awards in its category. After just this short review in my space I can see/hear why!
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Jul 23, 2018 11:37:34 GMT -5
The cost is totally irrelevant. Buy whatever you want and can afford. You can do network audio with $100 hardware with free software or you can buy $50K hardware and pay for Roon. Just like you can pay $500 or $500K for an amp. Whatever floats your boat. People who get hung up on the cost of something have already answered their own question: the expensive gear is not for them. But don't judge those who it IS for - live by your own bank account.
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 23, 2018 17:40:58 GMT -5
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 23, 2018 18:42:50 GMT -5
Hello friends, I’m not an accomplished writer by any stretch of the imagination but I will try to convey what I hear and feel about my experiences with the new gear in my acoustically treated room.
I’ve mentioned many things about specific songs and passages in those songs, but Ive failed to relay more specifics to you. They are things that for me, are hard to convey in the written word. Lets take a ride. On my way to work today I was thinking about my time with the new setup these past few days. Then it came to me, in a twisted kind of way. Please bare with me as I try to communicate my thoughts.
I’m sure all of you have been to an office building, factory or some other extremely large building, perhaps even a theater while it was empty. All the usual power is on in the building, stairwell lights, phone systems and the like. The building has it’s own sense of being. Itself a living entity. Its own static noise of deafening silence. Its presenting its own noise floor. Now, image the same space, office building or factory being void of life. All the power is off and its dead calm. Nothingness all around. The sound of a single step crushes the peace and serenity like darkness having light poured into it. While listening in my space all I hear is the music as the background and noise floor are audibly gone, black and void. Only what is being presented from the speakers is evident in the room. My ears and senses being bathed in the joy of their sound. This may all sound rather absurd but I hope it gave you a sense of what I hear and how I feel while enjoying music that I love.
Nick
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 24, 2018 11:06:46 GMT -5
Ive found a greater appreciation of music that I usually don’t listen to. Ive found a few more classical pieces that have more depth and detail than I ever thought were there. My other setups, which have included the DC-1 and Meridian Explorer 2 as well as the DACs in my Yamaha and XMC-1, have never brought me into the music as much as the soTm sms-200 Ultra and the Mytek Brooklyn. I am a happy listener! And thats what it’s all about!
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Post by garbulky on Jul 24, 2018 11:15:05 GMT -5
I find classical music can really benefit from improved audio.
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 24, 2018 11:26:19 GMT -5
I find classical music can really benefit from improved audio. More then I ever thought possible. I will listen on occasion but lately it’s really grown on me a lot.
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Post by brubacca on Jul 24, 2018 17:15:54 GMT -5
Ive found a greater appreciation of music that I usually don’t listen to. Ive found a few more classical pieces that have more depth and detail than I ever thought were there. My other setups, which have included the DC-1 and Meridian Explorer 2 as well as the DACs in my Yamaha and XMC-1, have never brought me into the music as much as the soTm sms-200 Ultra and the Mytek Brooklyn. I am a happy listener! And thats what it’s all about! My question for you is how would the soTm sound with the DC-1 or the ME2. How much of the improvement is the SoTm and how much is the DAC? I'm not familiar with the Mytek.. Is it a Super-Uber-Mega-Dac? I wish I still had a much older setup of mine (USP-1, XDA-1, UPA-200) as I wonder how good it would sound with the microRendu.
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 24, 2018 17:51:16 GMT -5
Ive found a greater appreciation of music that I usually don’t listen to. Ive found a few more classical pieces that have more depth and detail than I ever thought were there. My other setups, which have included the DC-1 and Meridian Explorer 2 as well as the DACs in my Yamaha and XMC-1, have never brought me into the music as much as the soTm sms-200 Ultra and the Mytek Brooklyn. I am a happy listener! And thats what it’s all about! My question for you is how would the soTm sound with the DC-1 or the ME2. How much of the improvement is the SoTm and how much is the DAC? I'm not familiar with the Mytek.. Is it a Super-Uber-Mega-Dac? I wish I still had a much older setup of mine (USP-1, XDA-1, UPA-200) as I wonder how good it would sound with the microRendu. A very good question. I’ve always loved the sound of the Burr-Brown dac and its implementations, the Yamaha and DC-1 both have Burr-Brown. I don’t believe they are the same chip set but still I like them very much. The Explorer 2 sounds similar, though I’m not sure what chip it’s using, To me they are very pleasing to the ear, one caveat is that the Explorer2 fully decodes MQA which I won’t discuss as thats not what we’re considering at this time. Let me just say this about MQA, I like what it does for most songs encoded by this method. The Meytek Brooklyn sounded about 30% better then these three , if I have to put a number on it. I’ve discussed the many attributes of the Brooklyn throughout my threads. The soTm brought another 25-30% better sound, again if I have to put a number on it. But this gear wasn’t as obvious, it was more about stage depth and darkness of background. Heres where everybody jumps up and down and starts throwing fairy dust around. These are my opinions and I don’t give a Schiit what others say about ones and zeros being just and only that! They are more then that if you listen. Overall I’d say my enjoyment of my two channel digital system has increased a minimum of 50%. I’ve never ever liked headphones. I’ve heard good sets but just never cared for them for many reasons. My sad mid-entry level cans have had me up late at night listening to my new setup. I’m too old to be all excited because it’s new and all that. It’s the sound I’m hearing. It’s the music I cannot get enough of. Old is new again. So I’ve purchased a new better set of headphones and am looking forward to upgrading my late night listening. Daytime listening is glorious as I have the cave to myself and no concerns of bothering others. Was the price I paid worth it to me?In a single word, Yep! Let me add this, the soTm setup combined with the Brooklyn and my associated gear has opened new music to my pallet. That says it all. Thanks for the question, now enjoy the music. Nick
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 24, 2018 18:01:44 GMT -5
I may have overstated percentages in my previous post. Like I said, it’s very hard to put numbers on the improvements. The improvements are real but it’s also like moving half way to a given point with every step. You can never ever actually get to that point as you keep moving half way there. There is an infinite number of steps if your always moving half way to a point.
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Post by mountain on Jul 24, 2018 19:00:36 GMT -5
I may have overstated percentages in my previous post. Like I said, it’s very hard to put numbers on the improvements. The improvements are real but it’s also like moving half way to a given point with every step. You can never ever actually get to that point as you keep moving half way there. There is an infinite number of steps if your always moving half way to a point. I get your point, err, maybe half your point, aaaaaa............never mind. .
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 24, 2018 22:03:33 GMT -5
Headphones via C220 McIntosh tube preamp + soTm + Brooklyn Damn! Good Schiit! Very interesting. Need you to Turn by Elton John live in Australia, a little gravel in his voice Ive not heard before. I can hear his over worked voice for the first time. It led me to read the notes from Roon on the LP. Wow! I just hadn’t had a clue. This is one of my most enjoyable LPs and its new to me now.
How very revealing my new rig is.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Jul 25, 2018 11:42:05 GMT -5
I've got to agree on one level here - but disagree on another.
I absolutely agree that you should buy whatever you want and can afford... Sometimes the more expensive product is better, and you may appreciate the difference, while someone else may not... or may not appreciate it enough to justify the cost to them... And, yes, things like aesthetics are also more important to some people than others. (I once spent several hundred dollars on the "premium" version of a certain preamp because I liked the Volume knob and the looks of the front panel better - even though the internal circuitry was the same.)
HOWEVER, and sadly this is more often true with "audiophile gear" than it is with, say, cars, or cameras... Sometimes the more expensive gear really isn't better... And a lot of it seems to have been developed with only one legitimate goal in mind... separating audiophiles from their money.
And, to me, that's the rub...
If you really find the difference between a $50 bottle of wine and a $500 bottle of wine worthwhile then, by all means, go for it... And, if you want to buy a fancy $100 bottle of wine, even knowing that it's really $20 wine in an $80 bottle, because you really like the feel of the fancy bottle, then that's perfectly OK too... However, if I were to buy a $100 bottle of wine, believing it was better than the $20 bottle, and then find out it was just $20 worth of wine in an $80 bottle, I just might feel cheated... (And I would feel cheated because I was actually mislead about the facts.)
A very apt parallel is in the "health food and nutritional supplements" industry.... Do you actually understand why an antioxidant would make you less likely to get sick?
(Other than that, in the commercial, the little cartoon viruses seem scared of it...)
And, by the way, do you have any idea how an antioxidant might get from your stomach to each individual cell in your body where it might actually do some good?
If not, then you have to suspect that eating that magic pill might be making you feel better just because you believe it will, and not because it does anything real at all.
Likewise, do you actually claim to know why totally inaudible noise, present on a digital signal, would or would not affect the output of your DAC? Or, instead, is it really just biasing your expectations, so you'll be more likely to imagine you hear a difference that isn't there? Or, are you just assuming that, since"noise is bad", getting rid of it just has to make things sound better?
Note that I'm not claiming that this is ALWAYS the case... But I fear that it quite often is...
To be honest, I wouldn't have bothered to bring up this point.... Except that YOU seem to start with the assumption that the expensive gear really is necessarily better....
To some of us, what "floats our boat" is getting the best actual performance we can afford - while avoiding wasting money on things that don't actually deliver improvements.
(Which tends to make us very interested in which things really make a difference and which ones don't.)
The cost is totally irrelevant. Buy whatever you want and can afford. You can do network audio with $100 hardware with free software or you can buy $50K hardware and pay for Roon. Just like you can pay $500 or $500K for an amp. Whatever floats your boat. People who get hung up on the cost of something have already answered their own question: the expensive gear is not for them. But don't judge those who it IS for - live by your own bank account.
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Jul 25, 2018 11:58:01 GMT -5
@keithl: I never said anything about "...expensive gear really is necessarily better". I said that if a person wants to spend their money on it then it is no one else's business, and they should shut up and stop judging them.
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Post by brubacca on Jul 25, 2018 13:56:17 GMT -5
@keithl
I think that what people are saying here is that these network rendered SoTM and Sonore are worth the money in this specific case. Not more expensive is necessarily better.
But I’ll say it in Black and White: A $500ish Sonore mR or SoTM SMS-200 is a better solution than just using a PC for the same job. I haven’t tried a Pi (although I am inclined to) , but my money would be that my opinion wouldn’t change.
It’s not a better solution because it costs more. It is a better solution and coincidentally it costs more. I think Novisnick is also finding this out about the even more premium offerings.
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Jul 25, 2018 14:10:47 GMT -5
Bingo! dyohn and brubacca said what I think. And, I'll add, some things are "better and worth it" despite what others might think is a high price. Other things might be "pricier but not worth it"
Mark
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Jul 25, 2018 16:34:47 GMT -5
So DYohn decided to add to my madness ! Sending me a piece of Schiit via USPS. What was this madman trying to do? Add controversy to this alread fairy tale thread? My friend was gracious enough to ship an Eitr to me. Its a USB to SPDIF converter. A small wall wart powered unit that’s handsome and well built. I’m now giving it the run down. Playing LPs that I’m very familiar with. I will report back later, it may not be expensive enough to actually do anything for the sound of the music but we will see hear.
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Post by brubacca on Jul 25, 2018 16:37:31 GMT -5
You have to get Boomzilla over. He is a nonbeliever and has a discerning enough ear to hear the difference.
I love the Eitr. It is a linear PSU Wall wart.
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Jul 25, 2018 16:39:15 GMT -5
Well give it a try and see if it offers anything to your system. It might, it might not, but it's worth trying. What else is this hobby for if not to experiment?
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