Listening Session - Dacs/CDPs

[tony]

The summary so far would be that all of the DACs/CDP's I've listened to this past few weeks all sound very fine but not all that different from one another. Perhaps the Lampi and dCS stand out in their own way from the pack.

Best bang for the buck would be to stick with the Arcam and waste my money on a flashy TT and new cart. But in a way I do like the toys and a nice rack of equipment really floats my boat so I'm likely to buy one of the above for that reason. No shame. :-)

Half the battle is admitting you like collecting toys" It is going to be much easier now going forward!

You posted elsewhere what probably needs to happen before you jump. The speaker position and maybe bass traps behind them
are needed to get the full potential of the Quads. You have the room. Ivor was telling me today when I was in buying some edible and drinkable toys that you have a set of cerubals under the Quads. They with the traps and careful positioning should get you a tighter sound. Also GoldLion KT88's or try and get Steve over to try his KT120's(just check with Jadis that they will work I am nearly 100% certain no issue there but be safe/sure)

This has been said many times especially by the bodies who have lost lots of money on CA! You need to get a proper pc setup to take full advantage of these dacs.

Kinda surprised the Wadia was not met with more glowing views and wonder is it the speaker positioning that is clouding the virtues of the Wadia. When it hits the price of a Meridian 596 I would be very happy to buy one!

[Adrian]

Well done Dave on a very insightful report on the progress of Round 2.

I would definetly concur about speakers being a very big influence on the sound. Very interesting event on having to reboot the Purcell unit, strange eh!! But now that it is in the running.. it would appear the dCs is getting a much better crack of the whip this time... and is well able to keep up with the Meitner and Lampi. I´m not sure I follow the comment about the Jadis + Quads not being revealing enough? There are quiet a few threads on Jadis amplifiers on this forum over the last number of years.... all of them highly praising Jadis for it's sonic ability.

Also curious is the DAC on the Arcam!!!! That is a very nice surprise indeed.

I think a prolonged and extended listening session is required.... before making any decision. You ears will be the best judge.

Looking forward to the next update!!!

[howlindawg]

Also curious is the DAC on the Arcam!!!! That is a very nice surprise indeed.

Not too much of a surprise, the Arcam DAC uses licenced dCS technology, albeit a budget implementation.
In fact, the dCS that Dave has at the moment originally belonged to the head of development at Arcam.

The biggest differences would be the quality of the output stages and the configurability that the Purcell offers.

[howlindawg]

A few texts to Martin and a read of the troubleshooting section of the Purcell manual resulted in a factory reset and turning off a word clock setting.

This was very odd. According to the manual the factory reset does not change the clock option, so it would have had to have been specifically set to the external clock option. Not something that I've ever used so very odd that it had been set into that mode.

The strength of the Purcell is that it allows you to make your own choices on the processing that's implemented. Of course the downside is that there's a steep learning curve as you try all the options and find your own preferences. I found that I spent about a month playing with options, listening for differences and tuning the sound to my taste and then ended up mostly only using two configurations depending on what I was listening to.

As you've already noted Dave, I found the most obvious differences in classical and orchestral works, particularly at the frequency extremes. If you have a copy of Yo Yo Ma playing Ennio Morricone, Ecstasy of Gold, give it a try when comparing the dCS and Lampi. They have a very different presentation (soundstage and top end) but both will make the hairs on your neck stand up.

[DaveF]

This has been said many times especially by the bodies who have lost lots of money on CA! You need to get a proper pc setup to take full advantage of these dacs.

Kinda surprised the Wadia was not met with more glowing views and wonder is it the speaker positioning that is clouding the virtues of the Wadia. When it hits the price of a Meridian 596 I would be very happy to buy one!

I could be wrong but I doubt that speaker positioning would be clouding the virtues of any of the DACs, not in detail retrieval anyway. Soundstaging, depth would be affected by positioning more I'd say.

I'm still not convinced about the advantages of PC playback and I've dabbled in it a little, albeit with a PC that was build for very high end graphics work. Still I'll keep the door open on that one.

The dCS sounds great with classical, particulary with small ensembles and orchectral works. I did some more comparisions with the Arcam and I think the dCS does have the edge at the frequency extremes. Female vocals are a bit darker though and I noticed this with a few Cassandra Wilson tracks. But any CDP/DAC that I consider will be for classical music mainly so I'm concentrating on that aspect more.

[Diapason]

It was indeed a very interesting day, even if it seemed that the hifi gods were continually conspiring against us. I'm slightly raging that the dCS didn't play ball until after I left, because what I heard with the Elgar alone was sufficiently interesting to make me want to hear more. Oh well.

Given that this was the first time I'd heard Dave's system, and given that it takes me quite a while to "tune in" to panels rather than boxes, I'll admit that I struggled to hear any large difference in anything. Now you could view this as a negative, but really I think it's just a testament to the fact that everything we listened to was of very high quality. Besides, in the case of Dave's system I think the sound is really defined by the speakers and the amp. I'm not at all convinced that adding a PC to the mix will suddenly elevate detail levels, etc., but you already know I'm a non-believer so there's no news there!! One way or the other, Dave's in the nice position that he can't really go wrong: no matter what he chooses it will sound pretty damn good. I perhaps thought the dCS was giving a bit more at the end of the session, but the Lampi hadn't really got a good spin on that particular track, and the Meitner wasn't invoked at all, so it's hardly a compelling finding.

I have to say, Saturday really confirmed once again that I just can't be trusted to judge anything outside of my own system (or at the very least, a system and room I know well). My ears are anything but golden, and until I get a handle on what a system sounds like in gross terms, I have no hope of reliably identifying small differences. Panel speakers add a new difficulty to this, as I find even a small move of the seating position (or my head!) leads to a different presentation. I'd love to do this test again sometime on my own system, just to get a better feel for the whole DAC arena.

[Diapason]

Here's the money-shot:

[DaveF]

yeah its a pity that the dCS was acting up. It has been rock solid since though and there is no question that it does have extra detail over the rest. This works perfectly well for all the classical music that I throw at it. As mentioned before, its at frequency extremes where I think the dCS beats the rest. I'm not 100% sure about other genres though especially vocals. Its all accurate alright but perhaps the smallest hint of glare here and there on the odd track. Its a judgement call to make for sure.

One of the charactistics of my system is that at a first listen it might sound unremarkable, not exactly sonic fireworks on show but the whole system presentation slowly washes over you after a few days and it all begins to make sense. I'm very glad of this as I've experienced far too many systems in the past including my own that after a few days it begins to tire me out. This was one of the reasons why I jumped in the Quads when they became available.
The listening position in my room is critical too. I tried all of the other listening positions across the two sofas and outside of the sweet spot there is a distinct lack of coherance in the music, even just a few feet away. It all snaps into focus the min you sit in the centre.

I'm still gonna try firing them down the length of the room from the window, its just that the monstrous TV needs to be moved and given its age it aint exactly light.

As for PC playback, well I'm gonna nail my bollox to the mast on this one. I just cannot see how a PC sending the same data over the same cable to the DAC is going to suddenly elevate detail over that of a normal CD transport. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong but I'd have to hear the difference in my own system. I'd emphasise though that I've been easily fooled and convinced about differences in the past 2 weeks when I wasnt level matched and in one case when I wasnt aware of what DAC was playing. How can one eliminate this yet get a proper feel for a componet over a period of time? I'm not so sure about quick A/B tests anymore.

Thanks to all who made the trip out to Malahide over the last few weeks, its a bit of a trip up for some of you but I really enjoyed the whole experience.

The Meitner and Lampi have departed so its just good ol Arcam and it dCS brother on the rack now. The TT is having a right ol sulk over in the corner.

[Adrian]

Good God Dave..... those black boxes are multiplying like rabbits.............

[Adrian]

"This works perfectly well for all the classical music that I throw at it. As mentioned before, its at frequency extremes where I think the dCS beats the rest. I'm not 100% sure about other genres though especially vocals."

I don't know Dave..... my instinct tells me that if the dCS is better at Classical.... my thoughts would be that it would still maintain the edge with other genres as well.

After all.... it is being fed a digital stream... whether it is a classical digital stream or a Rock / Electronica digital stream.... it is still a digital signal input. However as many have already said... your ears are the best judge.