Couple Question

[Harpy]

Been listening to a lot of computer audio and am pretty happy with my setup. Just had a couple basic questions. I mainly listen to rock. On Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do" his guitar solo sounds stunning, keyboard solo good, but when the whole band kicks in everything sounds a bit muddy and lost. Playback is uncompressed .Wav format. Is this just compression of the recording or is there an audio cure? Speakers are restored Dahlquist-10, but I noticed the same effect on Spica TC-50's. Rotel 1098 does the preamp and dac functions and a Robertson 4010 kicks out the jams.

 

I've been shooting everything over at 96kbs to my DAC and like the sound. I understand that the sound card does the conversion. Would all sound cards do this the same quality wise?

 

Thanks,

Jim

 

 

 

[Mr.C]

Not all sound cards upsample the same. There is quite a bit of math involved and processing power necessary to do it on the fly.

 

I was just auditioning amps today and I found that the rotel power amp I was considering was muddy while the simaudio amp was much better separated. The brands don't matter, but just that yes the amp can make the difference when it comes to that factor.

 

[bmckenney]

If you notice that on both speakers and whenever the music gets busy it sounds like an acoustics problem to me. If you have the ability to put the speakers wherever you want, and can add room treatment, I recommend using the Cardas speaker placement math, and acoustic room treatment with bass trap absorbers to start with. Ideal speaker placement will open the sound right up and give you the foundation for a wall of dynamic 3-d and open sound. And then bass traps will clean up frequency response (and other issues) which is more dramatic than upgrading your electronics.

 

[bdiament]

Hi Jim,

 

If you notice the effect on different systems, it could just be the recording itself. DQ-10s are certainly good at letting you hear their input.

 

Particularly in most pop recordings, when things get "busy", a large part of the sound is the dynamic compression involved. If it is a relatively recent mastering, the effects will be even more pronounced.

 

There could be something else at play as well of course, e.g. room issues if the room is acoustically untreated, speaker and listening position placement issues, associated gear, etc. Still, in my experience, most of the sound we hear in playback is a function of the recording itself.

 

You can investigate further by trying some uncompressed recordings (Keith Johnson's work for Reference Recordings provides many examples). If things still get bad during the "big" moments, something else is contributing to this.

 

I don't know your room set up but perhaps this article will be of interest:

www.barrydiamentaudio.com/monitoring.htm

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com