New DAC Fan

[Gerrardasnails]

method man:
so would a wireless like sonos. sent to the adm avi9.1 give as good or better sound than using a cable?

eg, i have found this bundle. which although a real leap in expectations in just 24 hours. would solve a lot of my installation issues.

http://www.sonos-uk.co.uk/products.aspx?s=21026267_0

That's right, at least if not better. I'm not a fan of the AVI actives. I just prefer the seperate amp route and they are supposed to perform a lot better with the matching sub which is another circa £400.

I reckon you can get more for your £1500 than that system. A Beresford DAC at around £150 or DacMagic at £230 leaves you around £1300 for amp and speakers and wireless host. You could get a great system for that.

Creek's website has an ex demo Evo amp in black for £350. Add brand new RS6 speakers from MA or even ex demo GS20s (if you can find them around the £1k mark) and you have a system!

 

[method man]

thanks gerrard. i see ur point. but then we are putting two boxes where their could be none. AND,

this is the suprising bit. some IT guys at my wifes work have reccomened the sonos to her last week. when she mentioned what we were trying to do. and you know how wives love to listen to ANYONE more than thier own husbands.

as it tuens out theirs a Sonos place in sittigbourne, not so far from me. that actually, the one in my link above. so im hoping to take her along and hear it all together.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

method man:
thanks gerrard. i see ur point. but then we are putting two boxes where their could be none. AND,

this is the suprising bit. some IT guys at my wifes work have reccomened the sonos to her last week. when she mentioned what we were trying to do. and you know how wives love to listen to ANYONE more than thier own husbands.

as it tuens out theirs a Sonos place in sittigbourne, not so far from me. that actually, the one in my link above. so im hoping to take her along and hear it all together.

I have no issue with the Sonos - it looks great. And I do see your point about boxes. I just think that having an amp is better as you can upgrade or downgrade it and keep your speakers or change your speakers. With the active speakers, you are kind of stuck. The way I sold my upgrade to the missus was, I will spend all this money but then we don't have to have cd racks on the wall (we have at least 500) and cds and empty cases strewn all over the place. I won!

I also think that (a bit like Bose) when you are shown a Sonos system in a shop it will sound great and look great and be really easy to use. However, and this especially concerns people who are going up a level, you will not hear a comparison. I might be wrong, but I doubt that this shop will have B&W, MA, Kef, Tannoy, AE or whatever speakers with an array of similar priced amps for you to see how it all sounds with the Sonos.

 

[Messiah]

idc:
Was cost not a factor? If you already have a PC for other uses adding a DAC in the £100-200 range including some cables, which could include the old ones you were using with the redundant CDP, is way cheaper than upgrading an already relatively expensive Cyrus which was £600 (if my google search was correct).

The only costs involved at the time was the money to be made by selling the CD player.

 

[Anonymous]

Yup, I went from skeptic to massive fan of a dac. I was listening to my music earlier on and what strikes you most is

1) The separation

2) The natural sound of the music

3) The immediacy and clarity

 

[78finn]

I still think a load of people on here are missing the point....
I think if you stood a laptop/DAC set up VS a good turntable....both running through the same amp/speaker setup....the vinyl would be the clear winner by a long shot, in terms of its musicality. I have loads of mates with laptop/DAC setups....but they all love the vinyl for pure sound quality/detail/warmth.
So what we are really talking about on this thread is convenience isn't it.....???? Or am I missing something? Everyone is talking about getting the most out of their music, but then straight off of the bat compromising it on compression rates, file formats, bit rates etc etc etc.....These are prevalent in all formats...CD,DVD and vinyl.....but has the most impact on digital files such as MP3 etc etc......even the 'lossless' formats....basically the same as a CD.
If you are looking to get the best out of your music buy a good Pro-Ject or Rega....get a great phono stage....and have a listen to your favourite music on that. It costs more, theirs loads more work involved.......certainly not as convenient.....but the sound is so much more musical on every level.
To a certain extent digital music has always been as much about convenience as it has about sound quality......I think it's pretty fair to say that. So MP3, mass storage etc etc......is just the next step in convenience....and sound quality compromises. I think the sound quality is getting better on these formats as they evolve etc. but it's more about having your music everywhere you go and readily available all the time. I guess this is quite a musical idea in itself ; )
But vinyl is still the audiophiles format of choice and I suspect will be for a long time to come.
One thing though.....why has no one bothered to release music on either DVD or BlueRay.......surely with Blueray you could more or less get the original recording on a single disc with no compression/brick wall etc. at all????

 

[Anonymous]

78finn: I think if you stood a laptop/DAC set up VS a good turntable....both running through the same amp/speaker setup....the vinyl would be the clear winner by a long shot, in terms of its musicality.

These may well be stupid questions from someone who doesn't know a thing about vinyl production and playback, but here goes -- (1) Before you produce/press the vinyl, what is the format of the "music", analogue or digital? And (2) When you play back vinyl, the needle picks up the indentations in the grooves and does the cartridge then produce digital signals to be converted by the phono-stage then into the amp?

 

[Anonymous]

AKL:
78finn: I think if you stood a laptop/DAC set up VS a good turntable....both running through the same amp/speaker setup....the vinyl would be the clear winner by a long shot, in terms of its musicality.

These may well be stupid questions from someone who doesn't know a thing about vinyl production and playback, but here goes -- (1) Before you produce/press the vinyl, what is the format of the "music", analogue or digital? And (2) When you play back vinyl, the needle picks up the indentations in the grooves and does the cartridge then produce digital signals to be converted by the phono-stage then into the amp?

In the old days.....

It was analogue all the way through......digital didnt even exist.......not sure about the manufacture of new vinyl pressings though. Playback will still be analogue

 

[the record spot]

Rest assured, some of the best recordings out there are still analogue, with digital mastering.

 

[idc]

78finn:I still think a load of people on here are missing the point....
I think if you stood a laptop/DAC set up VS a good turntable....both running through the same amp/speaker setup....the vinyl would be the clear winner by a long shot, in terms of its musicality. I have loads of mates with laptop/DAC setups....but they all love the vinyl for pure sound quality/detail/warmth.

There are loads of people who would disagree with that. A cheap rubbish DAC will be trounced by a 'good turntable', but versus a good DAC, well then the competition becomes a bit more equal. In anycase there is a lot of evidence that the preference, especially of the young is now towards to the digital and compressed digital sound.

 

[idc]

AKL:

(1) Before you produce/press the vinyl, what is the format of the "music", analogue or digital?

Either, or a bit of both. But the record itself is analogue.

AKL:

(2) When you play back vinyl, the needle picks up the indentations in the grooves and does the cartridge then produce digital signals to be converted by the phono-stage then into the amp?

It is all in analogue, the phono stage is required to boost the tiny electrical signal generated by the cartridge. An amp with a phono stage is one with the extra amplification needed. If there is no phono stage then an off board one is required. If you plug a record player into an input on an amp with no phono stage you would have to turn the volume up to maximum to hear anything and even then it may not be very loud.

 

[Anonymous]

So if the process of pressing vinyl sometimes starts with a Master Digital recording, then doesn't that negate to a certain extent what 78finn said earlier about vinyl being better than digital? In other words, a vinyl record pressed from a Master Digital copy and played through a phono-stage should sound the same as the Master Digital played through a DAC, shouldn't it? I am not trying to start an argument about analogue vs digital, just interested in the mechanics.

 

[idc]

Which DAC and which phono stage are you talking about? That will be your difference.

 

[Anonymous]

Ah I see your point, it goes back to the analogue vs digital "presentation" differences.

 

[John Duncan]

My digital setup sounds quite a bit better than my (non-trivial) vinyl one...

 

[matengawhat]

i had a project x pack tt with rhondo red cart and it killed my kandy cdp but then i upgraded the cdp to a mf v8 cdp and dac and this in my opinion was far more enjoyable that the tt - think it depends on how good your components are

 

[Alec]

Ooh, fancy! Whats a "non-trivial" vinyl setup?

 

[John Duncan]

Project RPM5.2/2M Red/640P...

 

[the record spot]

You need to upgrade the cartridge and the phono stage mate...

 

[Anonymous]

AKL:
So if the process of pressing vinyl sometimes starts with a Master Digital recording, then doesn't that negate to a certain extent what 78finn said earlier about vinyl being better than digital?ÿ In other words, a vinyl record pressed from a Master Digital copy and played through a phono-stage should sound the same as the Master Digital played through a DAC, shouldn't it?ÿ I am not trying to start an argument about analogue vs digital, just interested in the mechanics.

By far the bulk of vinyl wasn't mastered on digital but on humble tape. Only the later (as in 80s) music made it to digital tape, and you're right, you can tell a difference as the sound is cleaner and there's no tape hiss. Still sounds like vinyl, though. Also, there's far greater difference in sound between cartridges and DACs, even at the basic level of information retrieval. A cartridge with a wide diamond, which is what most cheaper cartridges have, cannot retrieve the detail the finer diamonds can, and these often cost more than a decent DAC.

There's also inherent rumble and surface noise. Rumble is basically the sound of the mechanical components of the turntable finding there way through the cartridge to the speakers. Usually a decent deck such as a P3 minimises this, but it's hard to cut out completely. There's always some level of surface noise, it's a function of dragging a needle around in a groove cut into plastic. Interestingly, many find vinyl more re-assuring than CD, simply because vinyl cannot support absolute silence, and neither, apparently, can we.

The biggest drawback for many is speed variation. Piano and solo violin suffer from the speed variation inherent in vinyl, which went out of the window as a consideration when the first CD players appeared. You'll find many who prefer to listen to classical on CD for just that reason. If you accept this, then it does imply a CD player or streaming to a DAC is the universal format, while vinyl is restricted to non-classical music.

All of which means, getting back to your question, vinyl can't sound the same as digital. It's a deeply flawed format that shouldn't sound as good as it does. There's a reason vinyl isn't dead as a format just yet.ÿ

 

[John Duncan]

the record spot:You need to upgrade the cartridge and the phono stage mate...

Cartridge yes - phono stage, I think not yet.