Esoteric SACD Player

[Infiniteloop]

There's clearly a lot more to digital than merely 1's and 0's.

What's surprising is that some people cannot hear the difference between great transports and most of the digital dross out there....

Digital is an esoteric format which, although often presented as 1's and 0's due to its abtruseness, is really no more or less than simply 1's and 0's.

I have read scientific studies which have tested and concluded that all transports will extract 100% bit-perfect information from CD's. This is due to their sophisticated and over engineered error detection and correction, which can correct (not interpolate but actually correct) up to 4000 consecutive, missing bits. This I respect and believe to be true. However how that extracted data is presented to the DAC and what is swimming around in the output signal along with that data is where I believe one transport can be "better" than another.

Jitter seems to be the most likely culprit for making the data presentation in some transports better than in others. Poorly isolated power supplies, servos working overtime to read badly stabilised discs (read transport system quality), damaged discs etc. can all introdcue clocking anomalies in the output signal of a transport. To compound issues this signal is then buffered, split, and in the case of an outboard DAC squeezed down a coaxial cable before it reaches the DAC. At this stage the DAC locks on to the transport's clocking signal and produces its own local clock to match the incoming signal. if the incoming clock is compromised then so will be the local clock. DACs have various tricks up their sleeves to deal with incoming clocking errors, but all are a compromise as I understand it and none of them are fool proof or proven to actually work.

Take from this what you will. I firmly believe that a well executed transport and associated circuitry, which deals with jitter at source before it reaches the DAC, will always sound more accurate (ergo better) than a transport which has been allowed to produce jitter on the premise that it is retrieving 100% of the signal so the job is done. It is not done if the transport is producing and presenting avoidable jitter to the DAC for local correction. Simple as that in my opinion.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[emperor's new clothes]

An explanation by Rob Watts of Chord - sorry link download doc

http://chordelectronics.co.uk/files/Hugo-DAC-Technical-Master-Class.pptx

 

[Andrewjvt]

If you take the transport out of the equation and send flac music files to the same dac/amp etc how does the sound quality change from using the transport?

 

[Gazzip]

If you take the transport out of the equation and send flac music files to the same dac/amp etc how does the sound quality change from using the transport?

Hmmmmm... Now I am going to expose myself here to scoffing from some quarters, but the answer is that the FLAC files through my Moon MiND player do not sound as good. They sound somehow flatter, less musical and more confused than music played through the Esoteric. I was reading around this last night and I need to check my iTunes and Foobar ripping settings to ensure that everything is hunky-dory (ripped in secure mode with error correction on etc.). I have ripped about 2000 CD's to Apple Lossless using iTunes and then used Foobar to turn them in to FLAC files. God I hope I haven't screwed this up. It took me months! Hopefully the differences I am hearing are psychoacoustically induced expectation bias...

I did read an article yesterday about some music storage systems (NAS, HDD, SSD etc. etc.) having their own sound signatures, but it wasn't particularily scientific so I will discount that...for now...

I also read something about the way that the FLAC is actually written to and retrieved from hard drives, and the way that those files are reassembled and presented to the renderer. All very interesting but, as above, I would need to see more evidence before ditching my QNAP NAS for a "hifi specific" storage solution like a Melco N1 or Nain HDX.

Anybody else read anything about this stuff and is there any science to it?

 

[Andrewjvt]

If you take the transport out of the equation and send flac music files to the same dac/amp etc how does the sound quality change from using the transport?

Hmmmmm... Now I am going to expose myself here to scoffing from some quarters, but the answer is that the FLAC files through my Moon MiND player do not sound as good. They sound somehow flatter, less musical and more confused than music played through the Esoteric. I was reading around this last night and I need to check my iTunes and Foobar ripping settings to ensure that everything is hunky-dory (ripped in secure mode with error correction on etc.). I have ripped about 2000 CD's to Apple Lossless using iTunes and then used Foobar to turn them in to FLAC files. God I hope I haven't screwed this up. It took me months! Hopefully the differences I am hearing are psychoacoustically induced expectation bias...

I did read an article yesterday about some music storage systems (NAS, HDD, SSD etc. etc.) having their own sound signatures, but it wasn't particularily scientific so I will discount that...for now...

I also read something about the way that the FLAC is actually written to and retrieved from hard drives, and the way that those files are reassembled and presented to the renderer. All very interesting but, as above, I would need to see more evidence before ditching my QNAP NAS for a "hifi specific" storage solution like a Melco N1 or Nain HDX.

Anybody else read anything about this stuff and is there any science to it? 

Im not judging btw either way for now. I need to do my own tests.

I read last night that certain laptops are different also. And dedicated hifi storage pcs sound better but i will have to test for myself.

Personally i hope not or thats another grand min to spend.

Btw do check your settings though as once i put in my collection a while ago and it sounded flat/dull then checked my settings and the dac setting was wrong. Changed it and immediately the sound improved.

 

[Frank Harvey]

We held an event last week for a few regulars comparing the Innuos Zen and Zenith models - their two full size models aimed at the more serious listener. The decision was that the Zenith (which uses a triple linear power supply and SSD storage) was definitely the beter of the two with regards to sound quality. At home, the Zenith definitely sounds much better than my old Zen Mini, which has definitely upped the game for the whole system. Better projection from the speakers, and firmer bass are the two main improvements so far, although my listening has not yet been extensive as I'm ripping my collection at the moment, but got to listen to a few tracks yesterday that I'm very familiar with. Boards Of Canada's Tomorrow's Harvest album sounded much more mean and creepy due to the bass, and two tracks off two different albums I've noticed instruments that I've never noticed before!

So based on my short time with the Zenith so far, I'd definitely say that not all rippers/servers are equal. Nothing scientific of course, just the general feeling I'm getting.

 

[nopiano]

We held an event last week for a few regulars comparing the Innuos Zen and Zenith models - their two full size models aimed at the more serious listener. The decision was that the Zenith (which uses a triple linear power supply and SSD storage) was definitely the beter of the two with regards to sound quality. At home, the Zenith definitely sounds much better than my old Zen Mini, which has definitely upped the game for the whole system. Better projection from the speakers, and firmer bass are the two main improvements so far, although my listening has not yet been extensive as I'm ripping my collection at the moment, but got to listen to a few tracks yesterday that I'm very familiar with. Boards Of Canada's Tomorrow's Harvest album sounded much more mean and creepy due to the bass, and two tracks off two different albums I've noticed instruments that I've never noticed before!

So based on my short time with the Zenith so far, I'd definitely say that not all rippers/servers are equal. Nothing scientific of course, just the general feeling I'm getting.

This is all very interesting. I recall Linn's surprise announcement some years ago to cease making CD players was because they said the same CD ripped and replayed via a DS sounded better. Naim's ripper is reckoned to sound better than the same CD played 'live'. Methinks there is lots we don't yet know about digital music replay!

 

[Infiniteloop]

Where is the usual 'bits are bits' brigade?

I thought they'd be all over where this thread is going like a rash......

 

[expat_mike]

Where is the usual 'bits are bits' brigade?

I thought they'd be all over where this thread is going like a rash......

I think that they must be temporarily distracted, reading posts like these on another forum. *help*

http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/3600#post_12720146

 

[Frank Harvey]

This is all very interesting. I recall Linn's surprise announcement some years ago to cease making CD players was because they said the same CD ripped and replayed via a DS sounded better. Naim's ripper is reckoned to sound better than the same CD played 'live'. Methinks there is lots we don't yet know about digital music replay!

Bear in mind as well that this is using the same DAC, which is in my pre. The only thing that differs is that CD info is sent digitally by an Oppo BDP103 (I don't have room for a second box as a dedicated CD transport, and I use it for DVD-A and SACD), and the Innous is sending info from solid state storage via USB. I'm used to how my system sounds with music, so I have no need to compare the two. As the digital side of my system now sounds so good, I'm actually tempted to see what it will do with the download codes bundled with some records...only temporarily mind, until the CD copy is 'affordable' after spending money on the vinyl copy!

 

[bigfish786]

But since buying my Moon Equinox CD Player, the biggest complement I can pay it is, that the sound quality (musicality)is so good, I forget I'm listening to CD, and think I'm listening to Vinyl.