Listening Session - Dacs/CDPs

[nige2000]

What is different in Tony's system is transport and AC Regenerator. Each on its own and especially together making massive difference IMHO (I am talking about yours or Pearse's PC). By lowering the noise floor and removing the grunge they reveal and help assess the differences between the DACs, making the task much easier.

Are we saying now that the noise floor from an Audio PC is lower than that of a standalone CD Player?

The AC Regenerator is something that I've always wanted to try out. I live in an apartment so surely I'd benefit from having one.

you wouldn't even want a pc on the same line especially if its powered by std switching atx
the effect a standard pc would have on the rest of the hifi on the same p-lines would be quite noticeable

so yould might want two regenerators or one regenerator on the hifi and keep the pc off it, but it would be best to test it each way to be sure.

would be unlikely that even a "audio pc" would put less grunge on the mains than a good cd player

but detail retrieval would be another story

[Adrian]

Granted it is well known that switch mode power supplies do cause pollution of the electricity supply. However this pollution seems to become a issue where there are large numbers of computers working i.e. large offices etc.

I would doubt there would be any noticeable difference in audio quality with just 1 laptop running in the house. On the other hand if you are in a building where large amounts of computers are running then it could be a different matter. In that case I would be looking at a special scope meter to measure the quality of your AC supply before embarking on all sorts of exotic equipment.

But I think we have to realize that we are talking about a Hi Fi set up in a domestic environment... if one half of the room is dedicated to speakers + amp... and the second half filled with power factor correction / harmonic filters / star delta transformers then I would be the first to say this hi fi millarkey is not worth it.

Does anybody before engaging in a hi fi listening session... go around the house switching everything off, unplugging laptops, televisions, fridges, central heating, fish tank pumps / heaters etc?

[tony]

Does anybody before engaging in a hi fi listening session... go around the house switching everything off, unplugging laptops, televisions, fridges, central heating, fish tank pumps / heaters etc?

Of course very surprised you do not do this type of stuff already?? The TV stays off the kids come off their pc's and Anne either cooks with the gas cooker or knits a jumper

[Adrian]

Of course very surprised you do not do this type of stuff already?? The TV stays off the kids come off their pc's and Anne either cooks with the gas cooker or knits a jumper

You know... I had a feeling I was doing something wrong.... but I just could not put my finger on it......now I know!!!! ahahahahahahahahahahahaah

[nige2000]

No no no
Everything must be turned off before listening to hifi ;)

Ah it's not life your death but it's interesting to know what's raising your noise floor

I'm lucky here I've got my own mains transformer so my neighbor's antics don't bother me

Grab some smps power bricks and plug em in to your hifi sockets
It's a great experiment

[DaveF]

I think we're getting side tracked here a little. When I mentioned the noise floor above I meant the noise on the signal over the SPDIF or USB cable or the signal to noise ratio. Let's leave the leccy supply out of the equation for now.

The consensus from the CA users seems to be that PC playback is better than a standalone CDP? Is this because the SNR is lower across the cable than it would be from a CDP?

I dont want to go off topic too much as I'm trying to plan another listening session where the Wadia will be there and if possible, the dCS will make a return too.

[sebna]

Yep, when I was writing about noise floor and grunge I was referring directly to sound and not to the effects of the equipment on the quality of power itself (of course pollution of electricity will cause all sort of negative effects on its own but that was not what I meant). By grunge I meant all nasty fuzziness to the sound that highly tuned PC and AC regenerator manages to remove from it.

I did hear only few CDPs in my life but all of which I heard were significantly worse then high end Audio-PCs like Nige or Pearse have.

Cheers
seb

[DaveF]

so, the dCS is arriving back tomorrow afternoon for round 2. This time it will be armed with proper instructions on how to set it up. Should the Lampi/Meither be worried? Are there any other contenders? :-)

[Sligolad]

I would not be too worried Dave as I still struggle to get my head around how anyone would sell a DAC where default setup on power up would be so bad that a few changes would improve it to the degree we are looking for but maybe that was the way things were in the early days of DAC development.
If it was I can only imagine that there were a lot of people let down by listening sessions to DCS as I have seen several HiFi shops over the years who never knew how to setup a piece of equipment properly......
Will be interesting to hear how you get on.

The Big7 is burning in at the moment and should be shipped out of Poland today but I am off on holidays for 2 weeks on Monday so it will arrive in Ireland and sit in the warehouse here at work for at least 2 weeks before it gets its first airing.
Hopefully mid to end of August I should be able to report back.
Cheers, Pearse.

[DaveF]

That dCS has a lot of flexibilty Pearse, compared to a lot of DACs. There are all sorts of inputs, clocks, cable types etc that can be selected between the 2 units and both are designed to operate standalone too. It's only 3 button presses or so that's needed to config it right for a quickstart.

I've heard a properly set up dCS a few times and it has always sounded very fine indeed.

Congrats on the Lampi 7. Looks the business.