USB audio cracked... finally!

[kennyb123]

8 hours ago, tipunch said:

@kennyb123 and Doak and all others

 

Have you try the Lush alone?

(Direct to DAC and without ISORegen and USPCB)

 

No, I didn't. I'll try that after I get it back.  I've loaned it out. 

[austinpop]

8 hours ago, tipunch said:

Have you try the Lush alone?

(Direct to DAC and without ISORegen and USPCB)

 

My chain has the Lush going from the ISO-Regen to the DAC. Removing the ISO-Regen definitely removes some SQ.

 

The Lush cable, good as it is, does not negate the benefit of the ISO-R.

[rickca]

8 minutes ago, austinpop said:

The Lush cable, good as it is, does not negate the benefit of the ISO-R.

Your Lush cable is singing along with Arethra

But I found out I'm just a link in your chain

[Superdad]

Barrows Impressions line up precisely with what I hear.  (Curious vs. Lush, compared alone and with the ISO REGEN before or after.).   

 

Importantly, when I stop focusing on the sound, and just let the music flow in the background (while, say typing at my desk), I frequently get drawn back in by the "groove" and "rightness"/"realness" of what is playing.  My system is quite good, so improvements in the "sucks you in/vividness" area are hard to come by.

The Lush is a winner for me on that front. 

[Guidof]

20 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

 

Importantly, when I stop focusing on the sound, and just let the music flow in the background (while, say typing at my desk), I frequently get drawn back in by the "groove" and "rightness"/"realness" of what is playing.  My system is quite good, so improvements in the "sucks you in/vividness" area are hard to come by.

The Lush is a winner for me on that front. 

 

Same here. With the Lush, the music presentation is just more "right" and more involving. Yes, a winner in my book, too.

[manisandher]

36 minutes ago, Superdad said:

The Lush is a winner for me on that front. 

 

Alex, this is with a Holo Spring Level 3 DAC, right? (I just want to ensure my DAC list remains up to date.)

 

Mani.

[Speed Racer]

You might as well put every DAC on your list. EVERYONE says this cable is the second coming. If Alex's ISO Regen did all he claimed there is no way this cable could make the difference he hears.

[k-man]

2 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

If Alex's ISO Regen did all he claimed there is no way this cable could make the difference he hears.

Unless Alex has the Lush AFTER the Iso Regen. 

 

Was the Iso Regen marketed as being cable immune, or immune to noise from (computer) source?

[Jud]

4 hours ago, barrows said:

I will be testing at least a couple more USB cables before Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, as I am attempting to find a couple of really good options for Sonora's Demo system there, anyone attending, please remember to come by and say hello, and perhaps listen a bit.

 

Wish I could be there, but will be moving to a new home most likely in November, so time and budget will have to be concentrated there.  Next year....

[Guidof]

15 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

A couple friends dropped by today for some listening and to hear how the Lush compared to the USPCB.  For the comparison, we played the first track from "Art Pepper meets the Rhythm Section".

 

Thank you for sharing this great comparison. Also for your impressions while DJeing for your friends. The latter I find quite interesting, as in my experience, any differences (and hopefully improvements) resulting from a change in system components are more easily perceived when listening to a wide variety of music -- good and mediocre performances, good or bad recordings, different genres, and so on. As mentioned in my reply to @Superdad's post above, when a component passes this test, i.e., when I feel I hate to remove it from the chain, then for me it's a keeper.

[k-man]

8 minutes ago, Guidof said:

The latter I find quite interesting, as in my experience, any differences (and hopefully improvements) resulting from a change in system components are more easily perceived when listening to a wide variety of music -- good an mediocre performances, good or bad recordings, different genres, and so on.

+1 to that! A great component should help determine if you listen to more of your music collection (both Lush and Iso Regen score on that). Previous 'bad' recordings may end up being 'good' after all. 'Stress' testing components in shoot out fashion, even in sighted mode, with 'great' recordings is difficult to know what is an improvement, and wrong conclusions can follow.

 

I liked @PeterSt recent post on the 'wow' effect of cable changes. What matters is enjoying your music collection in a non-fatiguing way, yet each track draws you in for longer and longer.

[Ralf11]

6 hours ago, k-man said:

Those veils were imaginary. 

 

imaginary??

 

well, if you find yore-self 

riding the range

in the complex plane

git yore-self a Lyapunov function

and lasso up them lil' doggies of functionals

before they blow up in yer face

 

(copyright 2012)

[barrows]

1 hour ago, Speed Racer said:

You might as well put every DAC on your list. EVERYONE says this cable is the second coming. If Alex's ISO Regen did all he claimed there is no way this cable could make the difference he hears.

Please stop posting uniformed opinions with no basis in reality here.  When you actually have some experience with the components under discussion, I would welcome your input, but at this time all you are doing is wasting everyone's time. 

[barrows]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Wish I could be there, but will be moving to a new home most likely in November, so time and budget will have to be concentrated there.  Next year....

Cool, BTW Sonore owes you a dinner, perhaps at RMAF 2018.

[Johnseye]

53 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

imaginary??

 

well, if you find yore-self 

riding the range

in the complex plane

git yore-self a Lyapunov function

and lasso up them lil' doggies of functionals

before they blow up in yer face

 

(copyright 2012)

 

Is that haiku?

[Johnseye]

1 hour ago, Guidof said:

 

Thank you for sharing this great comparison. Also for your impressions while DJeing for your friends. The latter I find quite interesting, as in my experience, any differences (and hopefully improvements) resulting from a change in system components are more easily perceived when listening to a wide variety of music -- good and mediocre performances, good or bad recordings, different genres, and so on. As mentioned in my reply to @Superdad's post above, when a component passes this test, i.e., when I feel I hate to remove it from the chain, then for me it's a keeper.

 

If I have to question whether I hear a difference or not, as more commonly happens with cables, server tweaks, upsampling and some devices, then it's not worth my investment.  I consider those micro changes which can carry dependencies.  There are some things which make me want to listen to my entire music collection again.  Those macro changes are often found in devices like speakers, preamps, DACs and amps.  More to less in that order.

 

What I find happens in this hobby, at least for myself, is that those macro changes are expensive and to get a better sound from what I have already requires a big chunk of change.  So, I am constantly looking for and trying new toys to tweak the sound hoping for a macro change in a micro, affordable device.  I have a wide selection of music I'll use to help flush out whether the sound is actually changing for the better, or if it's just changing.  I agree with your point.  I'll know when I don't want it removed from the chain that it's a keeper.

[kennyb123]

8 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

What I find happens in this hobby, at least for myself, is that those macro changes are expensive and to get a better sound from what I have already requires a big chunk of change.  So, I am constantly looking for and trying new toys to tweak the sound hoping for a macro change in a micro, affordable device.  I have a wide selection of music I'll use to help flush out whether the sound is actually changing for the better, or if it's just changing.  I agree with your point.  I'll know when I don't want it removed from the chain that it's a keeper.

 

 

Products like the Lush and USPCB that deliver such a great bang for the buck put me and my wallet back on speaking terms.  Selling my former USB cable covered the cost of both and even put funds back into my wallet.  

 

Of course speaking terms will be short lived as I'm already eyeing up my next move.  LOL

 

Sort of kidding as with the USPCB back in place I'm hearing the best sound yet from digital in my system.  That was true to with the Lush.  Nice to have two affordable options (though obviously a big deal that the far less expensive USPCB can stand shoulder to shoulder to the Lush in my system).

[fas42]

2 hours ago, k-man said:

+1 to that! A great component should help determine if you listen to more of your music collection (both Lush and Iso Regen score on that). Previous 'bad' recordings may end up being 'good' after all. 'Stress' testing components in shoot out fashion, even in sighted mode, with 'great' recordings is difficult to know what is an improvement, and wrong conclusions can follow.

 

I liked @PeterSt recent post on the 'wow' effect of cable changes. What matters is enjoying your music collection in a non-fatiguing way, yet each track draws you in for longer and longer.

 

On the mark. "Bad" recordings are the huge giveaway, because they strongly highlight every tiny thing that the playback system is doing wrong - same concept as a vehicle manufacturer driving his new model over special sections of poor quality roadwork, to assess the competence of the engineering; a prestige car is such because it can treat that type of surface with disdain ... would you buy a Mercedes that 'accurately' responds to every imperfection in the bitumen, and transfers the sense of that to your backside? And would you value being made aware of the 'whole truth' of the road's surface ... ?

[Speed Racer]

8 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

On the mark. "Bad" recordings are the huge giveaway, because they strongly highlight every tiny thing that the playback system is doing wrong - same concept as a vehicle manufacturer driving his new model over special sections of poor quality roadwork, to assess the competence of the engineering; a prestige car is such because it can treat that type of surface with disdain ... would you buy a Mercedes that 'accurately' responds to every imperfection in the bitumen, and transfers the sense of that to your backside? And would you value being made aware of the 'whole truth' of the road's surface ... ?

 

Oh, so we don't want our needles tracking the groove perfectly. We want it smoothed out?

 

I want my audio equipment to play whatever is their as accurate as possible...regardless how well or poorly it was recorded. I don't want my equipment adding qualities that aren't there nor subtracting "qualities" that don't sound good.

 

I think your analogy is a rather poor one.

[fas42]

2 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

 

Oh, so we don't want our needles tracking the groove perfectly. We want it smoothed out?

 

I want my audio equipment to play whatever is their as accurate as possible...regardless how well or poorly it was recorded. I don't want my equipment adding qualities that aren't there nor subtracting "qualities" that don't sound good.

 

I think your analogy is a rather poor one.

 

In my analogy the road is the groove in the record - and the vehicle should track it perfectly in terms of the road being a means of "getting somewhere" and seeing the sights on the way - if most of my time is spent on making sure I don't come to grief in the travelling, and I'm having an uncomfortable time throughout then it's a poor vehicle. A competent vehicle fully follows every undulation; it doesn't ignore anything - but the engineering transfers what's important to the driver, and discards what's irrelevant.

 

All sound captures are recorded "well" - that is, all the information which conveys what the musical experience was about to the people who created it is fully there - but, lots of "crap" - road imperfections - can also be present; we want the sense of the latter to be as low as possible, and the information about the musical event to register as strongly as originally captured, by contrast. This is what a high quality audio system presents when traversing a 'difficult' recording - the motto I use is that there is no such thing as a bad recording: you might think the musical ideas stink, but you are 100% aware of all the intent of the creators of that journey.

[kennyb123]

22 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

I want my audio equipment to play whatever is their as accurate as possible...regardless how well or poorly it was recorded. I don't want my equipment adding qualities that aren't there nor subtracting "qualities" that don't sound good.

 

I largely agree with you.  What I've noticed though is that the rising tide does tend to lift all boats.  The better my system gets, the more enjoyable all my music has gotten - even the bad recordings.  The recent digital improvements in particular have made it possible to even enjoy the most compressed and hard-sounding recordings in my library.  So from that perspective, I get where fas42 is coming from with his Mercedes analogy.

[esldude]

3 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

 

I largely agree with you.  What I've noticed though is that the rising tide does tend to lift all boats.  The better my system gets, the more enjoyable all my music has gotten - even the bad recordings.  The recent digital improvements in particular have made it possible to even enjoy the most compressed and hard-sounding recordings in my library.  So from that perspective, I get where fas42 is coming from with his Mercedes analogy.

Following that to its logical conclusion, good recordings are unnecessary.  Good luck with that.

[elcorso]

14 minutes ago, esldude said:

Following that to its logical conclusion, good recordings are unnecessary.  Good luck with that.

 

+1,000,000

 

"Repair" the source....   Discouraging for good recording engineers !!!

 

Roch

[Ralf11]

6 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

Is that haiku?

 

no, it's from a complex analysis math class I took one summer

[barrows]

I would suggest that good music is necessary, and good recordings are rare, and appreciated when they happen to be of good music.