Home Trial offer of modified Hiface USB devices

[Derek]

Cool, let's pencil in next Sunday. Do you want me to see if Fran, Derek are interested, too?

Sorry guys I won’t be able to make it this weekend, but I’m still very interested. so keep me on the list John

[jkeny]

Thanks Ivor, for having myself & Fran in your house for an audition. Thanks Fran for bringing yourself & your ears along :) BTW, I discovered the Naim test CD in my drive when I got home - I will get it back to you, Ivor.

Ivor, has a Lector CDP7, Air Tight amplifier & Quad Electrostatic loudspeakers - I'm sure he will fill in the models & details. What I brought was a laptop & modified Hiface + ESS Sabre DAC integrated into an aluminium box that I posted a shot of before. I can fill in some technical info - the Lector is based on a PCM1704 (the last manufactured multi-bit DAC) & the ESS Sabre chip is a ES9022 sigma-delta DAC. The Lector has a Tube based output stage - the ES9022 is voltage out & no need for an output stage.

Remember, I may be biased in my opinions expressed here so although I'm trying to give an honest opinion, I'll look to the other guys to correct or modify my comments.

I connected up my laptop & USB cable to the Hiface DAC. An external PS is no longer needed for playback, only for battery re-charge (we listened all afternoon without any external PS plugged in). I plugged in my Superlux headphones directly into the analog outs of the Hiface DAC to check all was working OK & let Ivor have a listen - he liked what he heard. This Hiface DAC will directly drive most headphones without the need for a headphone amp.

After connecting the Hiface DAC analogue outs to the Airtight, we listened to a range of music, mostly focussing on 16/44 format although we did delve into some Steely Dan 24/96 Babylon Sisters from Gaucho & this did reveal more detail & maybe more presence than the same CD played on the Lector.

The main listening at 16/44 was to the Dali CD which I copied to hard drive when I arrived. The first track, John Campbell - Down In The Hole, sounded like it had slightly more bass when played through the Lector. I said at the time that I thought the Hiface had more stop/start bass - I'm not sure if this is a faster bass or how it would be described in audiophile speak - whereas the Lector was more fluid bass.

We were able to use both inputs to the Air Tight amp & have the Lector on one & the Hiface Dac on the other - this allowed us the ability to A/B switch instantly between the two. When the same track was queued up on both systems & switched between the two sources, I'm not sure if this difference in the bass disappeared? I was doing the switching so I'll let Ivor & Fran say. One problem with this A/Bing was that the Lector had slightly higher volume. This meant that the A/B wasn't blind & also that it brought the Lector forward more - an old trick used by HiFi snake oil salesmen in the past but unavoidable in our set-up, unfortunately.

One thing that Fran noticed, god bless his young ears :), was a tiny bit of sibilance on the Lector playback which wasn't on the Hiface. Again, I'll let them say what differences were heard in the HF range.

In conclusion, I think we all agreed that these two systems sounded very similar in all areas - sound stage, dynamics, etc. Any differences were very minor & we could live with either system, long term - a great result, as far as I'm concerned. Next, I will be comparing this Hiface DAC to the Young DAC that Claus is getting on home trial but I'm also interested in a Wadia & dCs source comparison.

All in all, a very interesting & enjoyable afternoon, thank you Ivor & Katherine for your hospitality.

Edit: By the way we were all listening this afternoon to the illusion that we call audio - I mentioned something this afternoon & wanted to post a link here - it points up our brains involvement in what we hear - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypd5txtGdGw

[Fran]

Yes, it was a good afternoon alright. As John said, thanks to Ivor and Catriona for their hosting.


John hiface has come a looong way since I first heard it - sonically and cosmetically!!! But then that wouldn't be hard as when I first saw it it was essentially a tangle of wires in a box. The unit John had with him today was housed in a nice, clean and simple aluminium box, OK, not jewellery level stuff, but very presentable.

The DAC is essentially a combination of the hiface USB>I2S adaptor and an ESS dac chip all with battery supply and a charger circuit to keep the battery topped up. Since it runs from batteries, the dac is essentially portable - maybe John could chip in with how long the batteries last?

So basically what John describes above is more or less what I heard. When we first started listening, the DAC had an unfair advantage over the CDP - the CDP was playing back well, CD, while the DAC was playing back a 24/96 hi-res track from the laptop. To me, the DAC sounded better, but it was a more clean, leaner sound than the CDP - but there are so many variables that you couldn't base an opinion on that. A fairer test would have been to burn a CD copy from the 24/96 files and then convert the hi-res files to 16/44. Anyway, none of that happened because we moved on to the Dali CD.

We chose that because its a fairly well recognised good recording that has tracks many will know, and that we knew too. We cued up both CDP and laptop to synchronise, and could switch back and forth. It was pretty amazing, there was little enough difference between the 2. Initially, I thought that the CDP had a deeper bass, but looking back now, I reckon we should have paid much more attention to the levels from each. The bass may have seemed fuller on the CDP as it was slightly louder. There were other differences too - the DAC had a more open spaced out (resolved?) soundstage I thought. Its kind of hard to explain..... both had very good soundstage, but its like each instrument was more defined in space from the DAC. I've heard the Lector a good few times now, and its a more analogue sounding player - very musical, teenchy bit warmer, and I could imagine would be kinder to the less well recorded stuff. Thinking back now, when I sat over to one side of the room, I could perceive no difference between the 2 - which leads me to believe that a lot of what was going on was down to soundstage and the sweet spot in the room.

All things considered, it would come down to personal preference I think in the end. There is a lot of ease in just dropping a CD into the drawer and pressing play! If you go the laptop route, you need to put in more work I think - ripping CDs, having a backup regime, tagging (a big hassle for classical lovers I think). On the other hand, it opens up the world of hi-res recordings - of which there are more and more now available. Also, your entire library is available at your fingertips, plus the ability to search for say, more from the same composer, or band or genre etc etc. It does make your entire collection more accessible ("where did I put that CD?" anyone?)At the end of the day though, the DAC is quite the piece of kit. Truthfully, you can now easily get very high quality sounds out of a computer - in the same league as a CDP as good as the lector.

I was saying to John that it probably needs now to go up against a different type of system... different CDP, amp and maybe more conventional (box) speakers. That would give a whole other perspective. Another thing I think would be to try it in a very much mid-fi system and see how it fared out where the rest of the playback chain maybe isn't as resolving.

I think if I was John, I would be very pleased with the DAC. Its not often that something like this crops up - very impressive!


Fran

[jkeny]

Yes, Fran, thanks for your kind words, I am very pleased with the Hiface DAC.
I haven't yet tested the longevity of a single charge on the batteries & the playback time afforded. This Hiface DAC wasn't used much before today - it gave us 4 hours non-stop playback. I will play it again & record the time.
I get 4-5 days with the other modified Hiface but this is not comparable so a real world test will have to be performed.

[Ivor]

yep, I'd broadly agree with the lad's comments above. Very similar sound when we switched between sources. The fuller more forward bass of the Lector was real I think, we listened to the modified hiface first and, being so familiar with that track on that CD player, I was knew before even hearing the CDP that was the case. John thought the bass a little tighter via the laptop, which it was, but as neither of us know which is accurate we agreed we were debating "angels on the head of a pin".
There's no doubt that the laptop had cleaner definition thus giving better separation but... the whole reason I chose the Lector was that it didn't have that 'digital' clarity and gave a more analogue sound. A more traditional CD player might well have matched the laptop but we'll see in further 'home trials'.

The sibilance Fran mentions was noticeable between the Steely Dan tracks where the laptop was playing high res 24/96 and the Lector playing the standard red book CD. As you'd expect from the higher resolution there was a lot more space around sounds. I didn't remember any more detail from the hi-res files but what details the hi-res files had were clearer and more defined.

Notwithstanding the Modified Hiface's ability to play hi-res files what was startling was the similarity in sound quality between the two sources. Given that the CD player is circa €2,500, on Black Ravioli, on a solid oak dedicated rack, that's bloody impressive!

For anyone considering using a PC or laptop as a source the modified hi-face has to be seriously considered. A decent screen with a wireless keyboard & mouse means browsing your entire digital music collection from your armchair is possible and easily affordable.

In answer to John's question the exact equipment used was
Lector CDP7
Airtight ATM1s
Quad 989 speakers.
Both sources simultaneously used identical Music Strada #201 Nano 3 interconnects.

[Ciaran]

All things considered, it would come down to personal preference I think in the end. There is a lot of ease in just dropping a CD into the drawer and pressing play! If you go the laptop route, you need to put in more work I think - ripping CDs, having a backup regime, tagging (a big hassle for classical lovers I think). On the other hand, it opens up the world of hi-res recordings - of which there are more and more now available. Also, your entire library is available at your fingertips, plus the ability to search for say, more from the same composer, or band or genre etc etc. It does make your entire collection more accessible ("where did I put that CD?" anyone?)

Very interesting. The tagging issue is a big pain for classical listeners like myself. A friend recently bought a Squeezebox Touch on my recommendation. He's delighted with it, not least for access to the many classical radio stations available on the internet, but the tagging issue is getting him down: he has a huge amount of music on his hard drive and he's having trouble getting the Touch to present it to him in an acceptable way.

From my point of view the best source of Hi-Rez music is SACDs: classical SACDs are still being released fairly plentifully, whereas hi-rez classical downloads are pretty thin on the ground. My system plays SACDs as it stands, so I don't have to do anything at all to be able to use them. It means that I don't have much motivation to take on the whole computer thing for the time being.

I have a six-year-old laptop I might be retiring: I wonder would that be a suitable starting point for getting involved in computer audio before spending serious money? Then, as I use a dCS system, a Puccini u-clock (with USB (asynchronous isochronous) input) would be an obvious, though very expensive toy to consider. Sorry, just thinking aloud... or online...

[jkeny]

Thanks Ivor, much appreciated!
Ciaran, sure computer audio isn't for everyone! It would be interesting to compare the dCS to the modified Hiface, at some point :)

[Ciaran]

Ciaran, sure computer audio isn't for everyone! It would be interesting to compare the dCS to the modified Hiface, at some point :)

I'm sure we could arrange that, though you'd need to take on board that I'm a strictly classical listener.

[jkeny]

Ciaran, sure computer audio isn't for everyone! It would be interesting to compare the dCS to the modified Hiface, at some point :)

I'm sure we could arrange that, though you'd need to take on board that I'm a strictly classical listener.

Excellent, in fact I was looking for some complex, multi-layered orchestral music to challenge the Hiface! What dCs system do you have?

[Ciaran]

Verdi la Scala/Scarlatti DAC/Verona