cawgijoe
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"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra
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Post by cawgijoe on Jan 25, 2022 8:20:56 GMT -5
Well the XMC-2 is a pre/pro costing $3000 so of course it won't sound as good as something that costs $8000, $9000, $10,000 or even $35,000 dollars but where does it actually end. I would love to hear something like that Bat preamp but I have nowhere even remotely close to the funds to buy it myself, and I have been into actual Audio shops and it's rare someone would ever even acknowledge my presence let alone let me listen to anything haha, if anyone has a Bat VK33se they would sen my way to audition in my room I would accept  I've heard some expensive stuff that did not sound as good as less expensive gear. I think the higher price sounds better theory does not always ring true. At least that has been my experience. Just my .02 for what its' worth. |
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Post by audiobill on Jan 25, 2022 8:28:49 GMT -5
But don’t overlook parts quality, longevity, provenance, aesthetics, support , resale and overall pride of ownership. All of great value to many.
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cawgijoe
Emo VIPs
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra
Posts: 5,033
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Post by cawgijoe on Jan 25, 2022 8:36:48 GMT -5
But don’t overlook parts quality, longevity, aesthetics, support , resale and overall pride of ownership. All of great value to many. Quite true. I have a Mcintosh 1900 receiver that I bought used last year and with the help of an EE friend who is into Mcintosh, did a restoration (caps/resistors/bulbs, etc.). Love it. Sounds great for such an old product that was well built. |
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Post by brutiarti on Jan 25, 2022 8:49:01 GMT -5
I don’t like to change equipment after I found the sound that I like. So reliability for me is number one priority. The XPR-1’s sounded fantastic but after one amp failed I was forced to look other brands. Now they cannot even repair the XPR line.
I own severa Emo components but not for my main system unfortunately.
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ttocs
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I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whomever I'm with. (Elwood P Dowd)
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Post by ttocs on Jan 25, 2022 9:43:42 GMT -5
I find this thread fascinating and very informative. The original questions mainly being XMC-2 vs high end preamp and/or DAC?
This thread came at an opportune time for me being that I have been thinking about these things lately and in a more serious way. I'm interested in discovering what it takes to improve digital two channel and, this year, find out where this leads.
I myself am not particularly interested in coloration. I'm more about wanting to discover if the realism, sound stage, presentation, dynamics, clarity, detail, impact, etc, can be improved upon and actually realized in my non-dedicated room. Going in, my bias is to say that I'm certain some things can improve, and that it would be fun to find out which aspects and by how much.
Starting point: System sounds great!
Goal: Improve some aspects of the sound via outboard DAC and/or preamp.
End point: I don't think there is an end to this as long as it's fun to think and tinker.
Thanks to all contributing!
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Post by creimes on Jan 25, 2022 9:50:21 GMT -5
That's something I was always curious about, does it actually cost that much money to make something that sounds good, I understand that at any cost something can achieve great results but when I see say a preamp ranging in costs from $500 to anywhere of the likes of 10's of thousands of dollars, is it actually parts that cost that much that a company sells something for say $50,000. I guess I'm just not understanding the logic that one system can cost more than my house and thinking that is just mainly a very vast markup in product lol
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Post by marcl on Jan 25, 2022 10:09:40 GMT -5
I find this thread fascinating and very informative. The original questions mainly being XMC-2 vs high end preamp and/or DAC? This thread came at an opportune time for me being that I have been thinking about these things lately and in a more serious way. I'm interested in discovering what it takes to improve digital two channel and, this year, find out where this leads. I myself am not particularly interested in coloration. I'm more about wanting to discover if the realism, sound stage, presentation, dynamics, clarity, detail, impact, etc, can be improved upon and actually realized in my non-dedicated room. Going in, my bias is to say that I'm certain some things can improve, and that it would be fun to find out which aspects and by how much. Starting point: System sounds great! Goal: Improve some aspects of the sound via outboard DAC and/or preamp. End point: I don't think there is an end to this as long as it's fun to think and tinker. Thanks to all contributing! It's an interesting topic, and the term "coloration" is interesting especially ... since there is rarely a known reference point for the lack thereof. Do we call it coloration if the DAC is cheap, and "purity" if the DAC is expensive?  If we use a recording as reference, the provenance of the audio signal from microphone to mix, master, and means of digital delivery is unknown. And then Toole contends that once you have a good pair of speakers, room treatment far exceeds any potential improvement that is to be had by the sum of all expensive electronics. |
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Jan 25, 2022 10:31:14 GMT -5
That's something I was always curious about, does it actually cost that much money to make something that sounds good, I understand that at any cost something can achieve great results but when I see say a preamp ranging in costs from $500 to anywhere of the likes of 10's of thousands of dollars, is it actually parts that cost that much that a company sells something for say $50,000. I guess I'm just not understanding the logic that one system can cost more than my house and thinking that is just mainly a very vast markup in product lol I have a hard time justifying paying a lot of money for electronics so I really try to get the best bang for my buck - but the product still needs to perform above a certain level. |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Jan 25, 2022 11:23:13 GMT -5
I absolutely agree...
The other thing that many people seem to forget is the source material itself...
Audiophiles like to imagine that we have access to "the original" - if only we could find equipment that can reproduce it well enough. Yet the reality is that there are a lot of steps between that original and the recording we have access to... You've got microphones (which sound very different), and microphone preamps (again very different), and mixing consoles... Audiophiles like to obsess about op-amps and fancy cables... But they tend not to think about how many cheap op amps, and how many feet or plain old copper cables, were used in the console the album they're listening to was mastered on...
And, yes, there is a fair argument that all of that comes before the final mix, and so counts as part of "the source which we're trying to accurately reproduce".
But, at the same time, many audiophiles still forget everything that comes AFTER THAT.
One excellent example is audiophiles who insist that VINYL "sounds more like live music".
The reality is that, while this may be true in some philosophical sense, it is not at all true in the technical sense. Devices like record mastering lathes, and phono cartridges, and even phono preamps, all of which are used "after the album is mastered", all make huge differences in the final result. And, yes, even "direct to disc" albums still go through microphone preamps, and cutting lathes, and cutter-head EQ and limiting, and phono cartridges and preamps. (Luckily, since most of cannot literally master our own vinyl, we have no opportunity to compare a vinyl copy of something to the original... so we're spared knowing how much they differ.))
And... sorry guys... A few years ago Mix Magazine interviewed several artists who had recently released albums on both CD and vinyl... And, while several said "they liked the way the vinyl version sounded", ALL OF THEM agreed that the CD "SOUNDED MORE LIKE THEIR MASTER MIX". (In other words they all agreed that the vinyl mastering process itself added significant audible coloration to their original content.)
And... yes... Most of the mixing consoles used to master many of those great sounding classic albums contained literally hundreds of cheap op amps... And very few studios connected it all together using anything fancier than Canare Starquad (which costs less than fifty cents a foot)...
And lets not even think about how awful master tapes are - in terms of virtually every important spec you can name.
As you say... a reasonable goal is to have a system that produces a reasonably accurate reproduction of the recording we have. And, at that point, we can hope that we're hearing more or less what the artist intended. (There's not much to be gained by having a system that is too much better than the gear the album was recorded on in the first place...)
Another equally reasonable goal altogether is to simply have a system that sounds good to you... and not obsess over how close it is to the original. Also keep in mind that, with modern studio recordings, the recording itself may have been "assembled" in that console, so there may in fact not even be an "original" to compare it to. (And, with movie sound tracks, that movie wasn't recorded in Dolby Atmos or DTS:X ... although, if you're lucky, the recording engineer had the strengths and limitations of each in mind... those are all just "output options" on the console.)
By the way... If you've ever tried to record actual live music, especially in a small club, then you KNOW how difficult it is to produce a recording that sounds even remotely like what you heard when you were sitting there... It tends to require an awful lot of careful setup, and post production tweaking and adjusting, to produce a master that sounds like nothing was done to it.
(Just as they say that the most difficult thing to achieve with makeup is to have it look like you aren't wearing any... And, yes, women and makeup artists really DO say that  .)
That's something I was always curious about, does it actually cost that much money to make something that sounds good, I understand that at any cost something can achieve great results but when I see say a preamp ranging in costs from $500 to anywhere of the likes of 10's of thousands of dollars, is it actually parts that cost that much that a company sells something for say $50,000. I guess I'm just not understanding the logic that one system can cost more than my house and thinking that is just mainly a very vast markup in product lol I have a hard time justifying paying a lot of money for electronics so I really try to get the best bang for my buck - but the product still needs to perform above a certain level. |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Jan 25, 2022 11:43:10 GMT -5
In electronic terms we can define coloration pretty easily... Null the output with the input, after making the appropriate level adjustment, and anything that remains is coloration... The tricky part is that we humans perceive different sorts of coloration very differently... We are relatively insensitive to certain types of coloration, but extremely sensitive to others, and each of us finds different types to be more or less noticeable or annoying. For an easy example: - few people are capable of distinguishing a 5% error in frequency response (that would be 0.2 dB) - but most of us can clearly hear 5% THD (and most of us find it annoying) - although most people agree that 5% second harmonic is relatively innocuous while 5% fifth harmonic would be both obvious and annoying - and most of us would clearly notice a 5% noise level (that would be a S/N of less than 20 dB)
The whole thing is even more complex with DACs because there are many more complex ways in which a DAC can alter the sound... (For starters a DAC can have incredibly low distortion with steady state sine wave signals and still cause major changes in the envelopes of transients.) Remember, however, that there's little point in worrying too much about how this works out on your DAC if you have no control over the A/D that was used to make that content in the first place. I always get a laugh about how many people obsess over the presumed benefits of R2R DACs...
But never realize that virtually all modern recordings were produced using Delta-Sigma A/D converters... Of course, Toole is right, and the SINGLE biggest factor in regards to what you hear is the combination of your speakers and room. It's also worth emphasizing that, while automatic room correction can certainly help, sometimes to an impressive degree... Room correction, automatic or manual, CANNOT EVEN THEORETICALLY CORRECT FOR EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE WRONG WITH A ROOM, OR A SPEAKER, OR EVEN SPEAKER PLACEMENT.... (And the more correct your room and speakers are to begin with the better results you can expect from whatever sort of room correction you apply after the fact.)
I find this thread fascinating and very informative. The original questions mainly being XMC-2 vs high end preamp and/or DAC? This thread came at an opportune time for me being that I have been thinking about these things lately and in a more serious way. I'm interested in discovering what it takes to improve digital two channel and, this year, find out where this leads. I myself am not particularly interested in coloration. I'm more about wanting to discover if the realism, sound stage, presentation, dynamics, clarity, detail, impact, etc, can be improved upon and actually realized in my non-dedicated room. Going in, my bias is to say that I'm certain some things can improve, and that it would be fun to find out which aspects and by how much. Starting point: System sounds great! Goal: Improve some aspects of the sound via outboard DAC and/or preamp. End point: I don't think there is an end to this as long as it's fun to think and tinker. Thanks to all contributing! It's an interesting topic, and the term "coloration" is interesting especially ... since there is rarely a known reference point for the lack thereof. Do we call it coloration if the DAC is cheap, and "purity" if the DAC is expensive?  If we use a recording as reference, the provenance of the audio signal from microphone to mix, master, and means of digital delivery is unknown. And then Toole contends that once you have a good pair of speakers, room treatment far exceeds any potential improvement that is to be had by the sum of all expensive electronics. |
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Post by audiobill on Jan 25, 2022 11:43:35 GMT -5
All good arguments for paying great attention to the subjective aspects of this great hobby rather than getting overly hung up solely on “accuracy” as reflected in measurements.
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ttocs
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I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whomever I'm with. (Elwood P Dowd)
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Post by ttocs on Jan 25, 2022 12:30:04 GMT -5
I absolutely agree... The other thing that many people seem to forget is the source material itself... Audiophiles like to imagine that we have access to "the original" - if only we could find equipment that can reproduce it well enough. Yet the reality is that there are a lot of steps between that original and the recording we have access to... You've got microphones (which sound very different), and microphone preamps (again very different), and mixing consoles... Audiophiles like to obsess about op-amps and fancy cables... But they tend not to think about how many cheap op amps, and how many feet or plain old copper cables, were used in the console the album they're listening to was mastered on... And, yes, there is a fair argument that all of that comes before the final mix, and so counts as part of "the source which we're trying to accurately reproduce".
But, at the same time, many audiophiles still forget everything that comes AFTER THAT. My interest begins at the final mixed output. What happens to get to that point is immaterial to me when listening to music. And yes, there's lots of crap which can get into lots of recordings, and for years now on some recordings it's been intentional. Then there's something referred to as the "home mix" sound which comes from the fact that many bands do their own recording and some of the big time recording outfits try to duplicate this "sound" on some albums. When speaking about cables and such, I show photos of the internal wiring of speakers and amps, and also the wires in the wall, to anyone who says any of my speaker or power cables are not good enough or could be improved upon. I just try to take care in how all the cables and wiring are arranged so as not to induce noise/hum and end it there, much like George Costanza was told to do when he double dipped a chip. As you say... a reasonable goal is to have a system that produces a reasonably accurate reproduction of the recording we have.
And, at that point, we can hope that we're hearing more or less what the artist intended. (There's not much to be gained by having a system that is too much better than the gear the album was recorded on in the first place...) One of my brother's partners in music production uses his cell phone to approve some final mixes of songs. My bro was with him one day and a mix came in while they were at lunch in an outdoor cafe, and after they listened to the song this guy sent his approval back immediately. When asked how he could approve something only being heard on cell phone speakers, he said that the intended audience would be listening on their phones, so why use anything better? The artist's song in question here is very well known. By the way... If you've ever tried to record actual live music, especially in a small club, then you KNOW how difficult it is to produce a recording that sounds even remotely like what you heard when you were sitting there... It tends to require an awful lot of careful setup, and post production tweaking and adjusting, to produce a master that sounds like nothing was done to it. (Just as they say that the most difficult thing to achieve with makeup is to have it look like you aren't wearing any... And, yes, women and makeup artists really DO say that  .) I had a friend in high school who brought his 7" reel to reel tape deck to concerts. He would wear a huge trench-coat and strap the deck to his chest and walk into the venue at just the right time with a large group of people to "mask" his condition. Once inside, he'd find an outlet and run an extension cord for power, then two friends would hold microphones up as far apart as possible for a two track recording. Post production was done in his bedroom which was outfitted with a mixer and equalizers. Not great, but not bad considering. One in particular that I wanted to hear was a John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra concert, but after hearing all the nothing going on throughout most of the concert I lost interest in seeing them live. Too much improve, not enough like the albums. |
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Post by marcl on Jan 25, 2022 12:42:31 GMT -5
I absolutely agree...
The other thing that many people seem to forget is the source material itself...
......
I have a hard time justifying paying a lot of money for electronics so I really try to get the best bang for my buck - but the product still needs to perform above a certain level. Here's an illustration that surprised me. A few years ago someone did a full remix - not just a remaster - of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. They got the three-track source tapes - recorded right from the console - and transferred to digital and remixed with the intent of reproducing the mix as faithfully as possible. But what did they listen to as reference? The vinyl, I believe. So I have this high res FLAC version and it sounds great. I also have the Legacy Edition 2-CD set released around 2014. No idea of the provenance of that version. I used Music Scope to look at the first track, So What, from both versions. Here's a screen shot of the analysis, side by side. Of course the high res FLAC file shows bandwidth up to 48KHz vs about 20KHz for the CD version. The original transfer for the high res from the source tapes was done at 192KHz, so was there a down-sample along the way to 96KHz accounting for the 48KHz bandwidth. Of course, the original analog tapes probably had little content above 20KHz. It also seems that the FLAC has more stereo separation. But the biggest difference was dynamic range! The MP3 averaged 13.3 LU vs the FLAC 9.5. Wouldn't we expect the high res transfer to have more dynamic range? Did they compress the high res mix to more closely match the vinyl? Was it a mistake, a fluke? Do they sound different? Honestly I never tried to give it a serious listen to find out ... it would just make my brain hurt, I think  |
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ttocs
Global Moderator
I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whomever I'm with. (Elwood P Dowd)
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Post by ttocs on Jan 25, 2022 13:53:15 GMT -5
I absolutely agree...
The other thing that many people seem to forget is the source material itself...
......
Here's an illustration that surprised me. A few years ago someone did a full remix - not just a remaster - of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. They got the three-track source tapes - recorded right from the console - and transferred to digital and remixed with the intent of reproducing the mix as faithfully as possible. But what did they listen to as reference? The vinyl, I believe. So I have this high res FLAC version and it sounds great. I also have the Legacy Edition 2-CD set released around 2014. No idea of the provenance of that version. I used Music Scope to look at the first track, So What, from both versions. Here's a screen shot of the analysis, side by side. Of course the high res FLAC file shows bandwidth up to 48KHz vs about 20KHz for the CD version. The original transfer for the high res from the source tapes was done at 192KHz, so was there a down-sample along the way to 96KHz accounting for the 48KHz bandwidth. Of course, the original analog tapes probably had little content above 20KHz. It also seems that the FLAC has more stereo separation. But the biggest difference was dynamic range! The MP3 averaged 13.3 LU vs the FLAC 9.5. Wouldn't we expect the high res transfer to have more dynamic range? Did they compress the high res mix to more closely match the vinyl? Was it a mistake, a fluke? Do they sound different? Honestly I never tried to give it a serious listen to find out ... it would just make my brain hurt, I think <button disabled="" class="c-attachment-insert--linked o-btn--sm">Attachment Deleted</button> My guess would be compression, on purpose, because "this way we can hear more of what we are not hearing all the time". When a little is good, why not more of it, so make it all the same. I've never liked the idea of "remaster" because it's someone else's idea of how it should sound, but I already heard the original so that's what I want. In college, I took some TV production courses which were taught by some of the staff from Chicago TV news stations, most of which were in the neighborhood. One of the instructors said that "even though this console has over a hundred different effects doesn't mean you want to use all of them all of the time". Well, I firmly believe that there are many in production media who use all the stuff all the time and still think it's not enough. A case in point is when I quizzed a video director about his usage of shaky-camera/quick-cuts, and how I would've liked to have seen something on-camera for a longer duration of time because I couldn't "see" anything enough to comprehend what it was, he laughed at me for asking and that was more than ten years ago. This is to point out that, especially over time, production methods change and the new folks think they know better. |
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Post by marcl on Jan 25, 2022 14:11:02 GMT -5
Here's an illustration that surprised me. A few years ago someone did a full remix - not just a remaster - of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. They got the three-track source tapes - recorded right from the console - and transferred to digital and remixed with the intent of reproducing the mix as faithfully as possible. But what did they listen to as reference? The vinyl, I believe. So I have this high res FLAC version and it sounds great. I also have the Legacy Edition 2-CD set released around 2014. No idea of the provenance of that version. I used Music Scope to look at the first track, So What, from both versions. Here's a screen shot of the analysis, side by side. Of course the high res FLAC file shows bandwidth up to 48KHz vs about 20KHz for the CD version. The original transfer for the high res from the source tapes was done at 192KHz, so was there a down-sample along the way to 96KHz accounting for the 48KHz bandwidth. Of course, the original analog tapes probably had little content above 20KHz. It also seems that the FLAC has more stereo separation. But the biggest difference was dynamic range! The MP3 averaged 13.3 LU vs the FLAC 9.5. Wouldn't we expect the high res transfer to have more dynamic range? Did they compress the high res mix to more closely match the vinyl? Was it a mistake, a fluke? Do they sound different? Honestly I never tried to give it a serious listen to find out ... it would just make my brain hurt, I think <button disabled="" class="c-attachment-insert--linked o-btn--sm">Attachment Deleted</button> My guess would be compression, on purpose, because "this way we can hear more of what we are not hearing all the time". When a little is good, why not more of it, so make it all the same. I've never liked the idea of "remaster" because it's someone else's idea of how it should sound, but I already heard the original so that's what I want. In college, I took some TV production courses which were taught by some of the staff from Chicago TV news stations, most of which were in the neighborhood. One of the instructors said that "even though this console has over a hundred different effects doesn't mean you want to use all of them all of the time". Well, I firmly believe that there are many in production media who use all the stuff all the time and still think it's not enough. A case in point is when I quizzed a video director about his usage of shaky-camera/quick-cuts, and how I would've liked to have seen something on-camera for a longer duration of time because I couldn't "see" anything enough to comprehend what it was, he laughed at me for asking and that was more than ten years ago. This is to point out that, especially over time, production methods change and the new folks think they know better. Yeah don't get me started on the "bricking" of music tracks! Fortunately I mostly listen to jazz and classical stuff that the record companies don't care enough about to spend time ruining them. |
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Post by monkumonku on Jan 25, 2022 17:50:50 GMT -5
Question about all these "high quality" dedicated stereo only preamps. How come none of them come with Dirac or other room correction?
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Post by audiobill on Jan 25, 2022 19:03:16 GMT -5
Because you can easily add Lyngdorf, Trinnov. etc as desired.
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Post by fbczar on Jan 25, 2022 21:03:56 GMT -5
Question about all these "high quality" dedicated stereo only preamps. How come none of them come with Dirac or other room correction? I doubt the customer base for ultimate level preamps is into room equalization. They are probably more of the purest type. Room treatments yes. EQ no. |
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Post by monkumonku on Jan 25, 2022 21:09:33 GMT -5
Question about all these "high quality" dedicated stereo only preamps. How come none of them come with Dirac or other room correction? I doubt the customer base for ultimate level preamps is into room equalization. They are probably more of the purest type. Room treatments yes. EQ no. That's what I was thinking, but then why would stereo/music be different from home theater? Wouldn't you want the "purest" or "most accurate" reproduction there, too? And if your room needs treatment, a purist approach would just lump it when it came to trying to correct anything. |
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Post by fbczar on Jan 25, 2022 21:19:02 GMT -5
That's something I was always curious about, does it actually cost that much money to make something that sounds good, I understand that at any cost something can achieve great results but when I see say a preamp ranging in costs from $500 to anywhere of the likes of 10's of thousands of dollars, is it actually parts that cost that much that a company sells something for say $50,000. I guess I'm just not understanding the logic that one system can cost more than my house and thinking that is just mainly a very vast markup in product lol I have a hard time justifying paying a lot of money for electronics so I really try to get the best bang for my buck - but the product still needs to perform above a certain level. Money is the reason I mentioned Rogue preamps. I am not in the market for a $10,000.00 preamp. The Rogue RP-5 can be had for $2500.00,more or less, on the used market. If I don’t miss my guess the Rogue would likely outperform the XMC-2 in stereo and it has an elegant home theater bypass. Then you must evaluate the performance of whatever DAC would be used through the Rogue. The combo could be pretty expensive unless the Denaphrips Aries could do the job. Of course, if the Rogue turned out not to be much better than the XMC-2 you would be left with whether or not the DAC in the XMC-2 can keep up with an external DAC. In my case I want to play DSD over USB so that is another consideration. |
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If we use a recording as reference, the provenance of the audio signal from microphone to mix, master, and means of digital delivery is unknown. 
.)
If we use a recording as reference, the provenance of the audio signal from microphone to mix, master, and means of digital delivery is unknown. 
.)
