Pro gear = digital nirvana

[cfmsp]

 

""How about musical?"

Nahhh ... thats how everyone describes their iPod!"

 

Besides, didn't Anthony co-opt that word?

 

 

Clay

 

PS, my first 'audiophile' amp was the original A1, called British Fidelity in the US at the time, as Musical Fidelity was in use by a tonearm service/retipping firm (as I recall)

 

[cfmsp]

 

Thanks Barrows

 

understood and agreed.

 

clay

 

 

 

[barrows]

RE: SMPS in pro devices, I have not commented directly about the SMPS used in MH, Prism, Apogee, products specifically because I do not know the facts of their origin. In the case of Linn and Chord I do know that the SMPS are in house designed, and their design is taken very seriously.

Do you know anything about the design of the SMPS used for MH gear? Is it a stock supply produced by a third party vendor from China, or an in house design engineered by MH? I have read comments from BJ (MH designer) somewhere about how much attention is paid to power supplies internally in the MH products, to reduce possible negative effects of the DC/DC switching regulators, but have not heard anything about the external supplies. The popular Apogee Mini uses a standard chinese external switcher, but this product is really a lower level device compared to what is being discussed in this thread-I know nothing about the origin of the supplies in the Prism or higher level Apogee products.

 

 

[cfmsp]

 

"Do you know anything about the design of the SMPS used for MH gear? Is it a stock supply produced by a third party vendor from China, or an in house design engineered by MH?"

 

I'm not sure, and since I trust BJ's considerable design expertise, I don't really care, except to eliminate the possibility of people generating gratuitous FUD with respect to the Metric Halo boxes (as has been occurring in the thread on Mac Mini PS & elsewhere).

 

I guess we're on different wavelengths. I assume (nee believe) that the great sound achievable by the Prism Orpheus and the MH LIO-8 (et al) even with their use of SMPS should be enough to gain an exception from the generalized comments such as "SMPS, yes, they are evil" and "With a few exceptions (Chord and Linn as examples) audiophiles are well advised to avoid products with SMPS, or to replace SMPS with high quality linear supplies."

 

That you apparently need to know the 'origin' of the SMPS in order to grant such an exception points to your having a different view of the world than I. Actual sonic results trumps design principles, IMO. [NOTE: AFAICT, most (if not all) tests of linear power supplies are yielding no improvement with the '8 series boxes, as I would expect].

 

It's one thing NOT to want to purchase a product because it doesn't meet your design standards and/or principles.

 

It's quite another to claim that SMPS is evil and warn audiophiles to steer clear of all devices using SMPS (unless a Linear PS is employed) in the face of contrary evidence, i.e., the great sound of these two devices (while employing SMPS), and possibly others.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

 

respectfully,

clay

 

 

 

 

 

[fahadm]

@ clay: Just to reinforce your excellent point. I have a Monarchy M24 dac with all the ingredients/features for 'flawless' sound. Those include:

 

a) Two separate power supplies for digital and analog

b) Fully discrete analog output (no op-amps)

c) Vintage matched 1974 NOS tubes: Amprex 6922 for ALL output stages

d) Arguably the finest (and most expensive) DAC chips ever made: TI Burr Brown PCM63K multibit (non sigma-delta)

e) Optimized PCB layout

f) Fancy cables

g) Isolation transformer

h) Reviews darling (e.g. compared favorably against $15k rivals)

 

Guess what: the Orpheus with its op-amps, inferior power supply, delta-sigma chip, jack-of-all-trades master-of-none functionality, and all other characteristics/impurities 'frowned' upon by purists...DESTROYS the M24 when it comes to sound quality (in terms of instrumental and vocal realism).

 

Bottom line: Don't judge on purist 'features'; trust your ears instead.

 

Here's the M24:

 

 

[earflappin]

Barrows, the 24V/2A SMPS for the LIO-8 is a pretty pedestrian looking external brick. I'll take a look at the manufacturer and post it. I think, as has been postulated elsewhere, the key to the success of the design is the downstream regulation, filtering, etc. I have to hand it to B.J., it sounds fantastic.

 

[cfmsp]

David,

 

I checked since my post, it's made by Fairway, it's Chinese, yeah, it looks pedestrian.

 

clay

 

 

 

[barrows]

My feeling was that MH attempts to overcome the limitations of the cheap external supply through sophisticated onboard regulation and filtering. As we have discussed before (assuming the internal fixes are "perfectly" implemented, which seems to be the case) there is still a problem with using a cheap external supply: the supply itself will pollute the mains, and the surrounding space, with RFI, which if not paid careful attention to can hurt the performance of components of the system.

RE the Monarchy: not sure what makes you think the PCM63 is SOTA? My understanding is that SOTA for multibit DAC ICs is the 1704, and from your satisfaction with the Prism Orpheus, I would suggest that you likely prefer the lower distortion/noise of Delta Sigma DACs. Anyone know what DAC(s) are in the Orpheus (just curious) I would guess V out DAC chip(s) like the AKMs in the MH/Sonic products.

BTW: just from a quick glance at the interior photo of the Monarchy, a significant upgrade could be made by upgrading the Wima output coupling caps to some trick teflon films-this would result in a significant jump in transparency. Opamp IC circuits have the advantage of being easy to design for low/no DC offset, hence no need for expensive and/or signal degrading output coupling caps.

 

[lowprofile]

Ted, you've touched on a few points that I feel are essential when interpreting both pro reviewers and forum folks. Context is critical. Context of the listener's ability (though, really, how is that qualified?), the music material, and the environment. This is often left out of gear descriptions. I usually try to add it to my comments.

 

I feel that neutral means not adding or subtracting to the source material. But the problem is of course, what do we use as a baseline. And I am not taiking about measuring signals. If we could hear the studio mix in the studio then on a home system then we could better know what is different.

 

[f1eng]

I quite agree with both. Having "golden" or "bogey" features in a component and using them to judge the quality of an audio component smacks of too much reading pundits and not enough listening.

 

I have heard both superb and awful sounding amplifiers, whether thermionic or solid state, including some with op-amps.

 

I have heard superb DACs using both linear and SMPS.

 

I have got fabulous and awful recordings, both LP and CD, the recording quality is a hundred times more important than the medium in my experience.

 

"LP is better than CD", "valves are better than transistor", and "linear PS is better than SMPS" are just magazine (and now net) reader opinions which are strongly held by many, but which do not stand up to the test of listening to recorded music...

 

I do not doubt that mastering each technology requires lots of skill and experience, and anything new leaves existing, particularly artisan, designers unable to quickly respond with a well engineered version of the new technology. This may well result in new products from existing well regarded companies being underwhelming, leading to, IMO, unfair criticism of the technology rather than its implementation.

 

OTOH attributing evil pseudo-scientific explanations for what is heard is my personal hate! (we've all read it "delayed resonance" and "non-resonant" being particularly annoying)

 

cheers,

Frank

 

[Nikola Krivorov]

It's funny that we always try to find a simple answer or ask simple questions - like this thread - does the Pro audio gear have something that we all didn't know about? Could it be that it is cheaper and better because Pro audio engineers know more and we have missed it? The creeping suspicion that there is something more there will get us all crazy, will it not?

 

My experience with the mentioned Benchmark was kind of surprising-I read all the reviews, how it is jitter immune, how it is almost as good as the Mark Levinson and stuff and I really thought that this is the audio miracle - a pro audio company comes up with something so great that it will save my life and let me enjoy highest quality for less than a thousand!!! And I was sure that this was the case as I had heard it in one of the best mastering labs in the world and it was fantastic, the most stunning musical experience in my life. I brought it home and it was terrible- thin, analytical and I could not listen to it for more than an hour. So I sent it back because I didn't have another pro company that had the equivalent of the EMM source for less than a grand and I did not have a 200 sq. meter mastering lab with acoustic treatment and a separate power line to the house and some other small details of that type to make it sound the same...

 

The truth is (I do have my simple answer of course, enlightening everybody) is that there are better DACs and Keith is right, you can't compare the Cantata to something that costs 150$, just like with cars. But what I learned in those years of equipment exchange and trying out the next silver bullet is that sometimes, if you really take your time, you can make one DAC (amplifier, source,preamp, name it) sound absolutely different in your system to what was two days ago. If the system is good enough the same DAC will be warm or analytical, detailed or muffled depending on the legs it sits on, the power cord or whatever "tweak" comes in your mind. I used to laugh at people hearing how a power distributor "sounds", not anymore. Please don't ask me to define a "good system" but I welcome anyone who does not believe me I can change the character of my DAC. And one last thing - the way we hear is so magical that you will not believe it, it's way beyond pro versus home, that is where the secret is and why some people like what others call unlistenable. Seriously.

 

[audiozorro]

Glorious midrange, analog sounding, tube like, shimmering or extended highs, extended or thunderous bass, thin, unlistenable, uninvolving, provides PRAT, value, bargain and golden or bogey features.

 

[bdiament]

Hi all,

 

Having the good fortune to have heard a lot of pro and a lot of audiophile gear over the years, I would not say one is categorically “better” than the other. Every device represents its own set of characteristics.

 

My personal favorite DACs tend to all be pro units but I’ve also heard a few pro DACs with what I deem to be some serious design issues. My personal favorite loudspeakers, amplifiers and cables all tend to be from audiophile manufacturers. So my studio/listening room contains a mix of both pro and audiophile gear.

 

On the subject of converters, while many pro units have features of no use to the home listener (e.g. A-D sections, mic preamps and other features designed for recordists), if my purpose is playback for listening pleasure, my only concern will be how a given unit, regardless of what other features it may include, sounds when I play music through it using its D-A function.

 

Regarding parts and/or power supply design, my feeling is that I listen to the whole device. If it does what I want it to do and is reliable, I don’t care what parts it uses. There are plenty of examples of devices with designer parts that don’t achieve what other devices with “lesser” parts do. (In other words, using the best capacitors in the world will not automatically endow a designer with the know-how and creativity to make a great device.).

 

Similarly, I’m wary of blanket statements about things like power supplies. The same conditions exist here as for any other design decision. Using the “best” power supply (whatever one deems that to be) will not automatically make a designer more knowledgeable or more creative. I’ve auditioned a number of third-party supplies for my ULN-8. The results ranged from a clear degradation in sonics to no change at all – either path costing a good amount of money to achieve. Again, if the designer has created what I find to be an extraordinarily transparent device, who am I to second guess how he achieved it?

 

We are fortunate to live in a time when there are a lot of good sounding DACs on the market. What makes one “better” than another is wholly dependent on what the buyer seeks. I would not agree that neutrality is a personal call. What one likes is a personal call. But truth to the input signal either exists (to whatever degree) or it doesn’t.

 

Neither would I differentiate between “neutral” and “musical”, unless one’s definition of “musical” is a departure from truth to the input signal (something I think is totally fine… if that is what one seeks). “Neutral” is not “analytical”, the latter in my view, describing some combination of frequency and/or phase conditions or something to do with an inaccurate attack on transients.

 

There are DACs nowadays that “enhance” transients or add spurious harmonics and some folks hear this as “added detail”. There are DACs nowadays that smooth over any rough edges in the input signal and some folks hear this as a pleasant character. I don’t think there is anything wrong with either as, after all, listening pleasure is in the ear of the listener. Happily, there are products that will satisfy most or all listeners, depending on what a particular listener seeks.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

 

[cfmsp]

 

"As we have discussed before (assuming the internal fixes are "perfectly" implemented, which seems to be the case) there is still a problem with using a cheap external supply: the supply itself will pollute the mains, and the surrounding space, with RFI, which if not paid careful attention to can hurt the performance of components of the system."

 

Despite watching with interest, I've not seen any reports here from CA contributors (despite numerous CA audiophiles now using the various incarnations of ULN-8 MH box) of improvements being made (in their own systems) when testing the use of linear supplies against the SMPS, and not for lack of trying by quite a few.

 

Not to completely trivialize the issues of SMPS, but, IN MY OPINION, it seems that a custom linear power supply (which are not inexpensive) is apparently NOT required in a typical implementation (i.e., within the context of a system into which gear of this expense is normally used), and therefore the lack thereof does not seem to be a shortcoming of the MH '8 series products or their design.

 

 

 

Additionally, power conditioning gear seems able to effectively ameliorate any theoretical issues (of SMPS), and has the further advantage of (typically) benefiting other components within the system (as opposed to being component-specific).

 

In my experience, there are effective power conditioning solutions which are cheaper than what folks appear to be paying for custom linear power supplies.

 

YMMV,

clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[f1eng]

I have just listened to a piano recording I know well through the LIO-8 and the Cantata. Level matched the tonal balance is indistinguishable. The most notable differences are in the extra space evident but mainly in the extra intelligibility of the pedal sounds, quite a big improvement in the Cantata over the LIO-8, slightly indistinct on the MH, clear pedal sounds just like the Steinway Model B we have in our music room from the Cantata. I have never heard this level of resolution before on this recording.

For whatever reason.

 

[bdiament]

Hi Clay,

 

I think your post is well said.

 

A lot of folks talk about the parts quality or the power supply in the MH gear but I've not heard from anyone (particularly those whose ears I trust) who has found benefit in changing any of these.

 

I've tried various third-party supplies (SLA and linear) and for my ears, found either significant degradation of the sonics (SLA destroyed the magnificent and unmatched bass response and got worse with use) or no difference whatsoever (linear) other than an extra, large box added to the room at significant expense.

 

When I hear a ULN-8 with custom parts or a different power supply that delivers better sound than what I'm used to with the stock setup, I'll change my mind. Unless and until that happens, I'll very happily stay with the '8 as designed and delivered.

 

And on top of all that, it helps me make what are by far, the best sounding recordings I've ever made. ("Best" meaning true to what I heard at the recording session; true to the mic feed, as opposed to what someone might simply "like".)

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

[kana813]

"Despite watching with interest, I've not seen any reports here from CA contributors (despite numerous CA audiophiles now using the various incarnations of ULN-8 MH box) of improvements being made (in their own systems) when testing the use of linear supplies against the SMPS, and not for lack of trying by quite a few."

 

Clay-

 

Since the MH units have a DC to DC converters inside, this doesn't surprise me.

 

IMO,the same thing applies to putting a linear PSU on a Mac Mini.

 

Audiophiles love to try plug and play outside the box upgrades, that's why they spend so much money on cables and power conditioners in search of that last 10% of performance.

 

$400.-$500. for a external linear PSU is less than a lot people spend on interconnect and power cables.

 

I agree with Barry that- "We are fortunate to live in a time when there are a lot of good sounding DACs on the market."

 

The DAC is just one part of a digital playback system. I'm looking for a DAC that is part of complete digital playback system that includes access to stored music files and has a user friendly control function.

 

Aloha,

 

Dan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

"IMO,the same thing applies to putting a linear PSU on a Mac Mini."

 

yeah, I don't use a linear PSU on either of my Macs, feeling that since they don't benefit themselves from improved PS it's more economical to invest in better filtering - since this is the aspect of the Mini PS that is probably valuable to audiophiles.

 

It seems likely to me that, in the case of the Mac Minis, both the PS AND the computer could potentially be putting crap back onto the AC line.

 

"$400.-$500. for a external linear PSU is less than a lot people spend on interconnect and power cables."

 

Understood, and for this reason, I have a more difficult time than most understanding the angst about SMPS since a call to Paul Hynes (or similar) will alleviate it within typical Audiophile accessory prices.

 

No one seems to think of USB DACs as being inferior to Firewire DACs even though the former benefit from expensive USB cables, whereas Firewire DACs appear not to.

 

Sometimes I wonder if people don't prefer to spend money on USB cables, and whether they are possibly skeptical of Firewire since fancy audiophile cables are NOT the norm. ;0

 

 

 

"I'm looking for a DAC that is part of complete digital playback system that includes access to stored music files and has a user friendly control function."

 

Still waiting on the Bridge? As I recall, Paul said (online) that it was almost ready a year ago this past May. I hope it's worth the wait.

Given the angst we all suffer trying to engineer our own computer audiophile system for ourselves, I can only imagine what it must be like for a company to try to develope one that will meet the markets' needs.

 

cheers,

clay

 

 

 

 

[barrows]

come on man! It appears you are going a little off here:

 

"Understood, and for this reason, I have a more difficult time than most understanding the angst about SMPS since a call to Paul Hynes (or similar) will alleviate it within typical Audiophile accessory prices."

 

Well, personally I would prefer that a $4000.00 dollar product came with an appropriately well engineered power supply, designed and engineered to offer the best possible performance (switching or linear), rather than a $4.50 chinese wall wart sourced as an afterthought. Perhaps all the DC/DC converters and IC opamps in the MH boxes make it impossible to hear how good it could sound with a better PS? Frank appears to hear a significant difference with his Cantata (the Cantata features four internal isolated linear power supplies with separate transformers).

 

"Sometimes I wonder if people don't prefer to spend money on USB cables, and whether they are possibly skeptical of Firewire since fancy audiophile cables are NOT the norm."

 

According to the Firewire cable thread on this site, plenty of people are hearing differences in performance with different Firewire cables, on both Weiss and Metric Halo converters.

 

"No one seems to think of USB DACs as being inferior to Firewire DACs even though the former benefit from expensive USB cables, whereas Firewire DACs appear not to."

 

OK, I do not think anyone who is well versed in the technical differences between well implemented Firewire interfaces and well implemented USB interfaces think there is any performance difference for two channel audio playback between the two. I do not think that you even honestly believe this-both systems have proven to provide SOTA performance when properly implemented, and poor implementations of either can also suck (as my Firewire Fireface 400, and USB PS Audio DL-III prove).

 

Clay, I know that you are very happy with the high performance that you get out the Metric Halo products, and I think that it is great that you love them so much, and appreciate that you are always willing to bring them to peoples attention that may not know of them, but you do not have any facts to back up your criticism of USB based products. There are quite a few happy users of Wavelength Audio and Ayre DACs, and now there is also the Resolution Audio Cantata with its own async USB solution, that appears to offer excellent sound quality as well. I think the issue of Firewire vs. USB is a non issue, as both interfaces have proven to offer the highest level of performance when properly implemented.

 

[ted_b]

to spend money on USB cables, and whether they are possibly skeptical of Firewire since fancy audiophile cables are NOT the norm.'

 

According to the Firewire cable thread on this site, plenty of people are hearing differences in performance with different Firewire cables, on both Weiss and Metric Halo converters."

 

?? Who, Barrows. No one I've read about..they all pick cheap goldx's, cheap granites, etc. Removing power is the one issue, but that's a simple solution. The $17 Goldx I have is my go-to FW (albeit with $3 adapter to remove power). The Oyaides of the world have failed to impress most of us so far.

 

I only point this out to say that to level the playing field between USB and FW is unfair to FW...it just works....no big deal..no real special implementation or need to understand whether its synch, asynch, unsynch'd, etc.. Even my/our comments about how well the Antelope Zodiac Plus USB implementation turned out is only news cuz it's another USB success story, amid several failed ones. Nothing like that for FW, cuz it just works (name me a DAC with f'd up FW implementation).

 

[bdiament]

Hi barrows,

 

"...Well, personally I would prefer that a $4000.00 dollar product came with an appropriately well engineered power supply, designed and engineered to offer the best possible performance (switching or linear), rather than a $4.50 chinese wall wart sourced as an afterthought. Perhaps all the DC/DC converters and IC opamps in the MH boxes make it impossible to hear how good it could sound with a better PS?..."

 

I wouldn't argue with anyone's personal preferences.

Neither do I know if you've ever spent any time auditioning a ULN(or LIO)-8.

 

To refer to the power supply as "an afterthought" suggests a knowledge of B.J.'s design approach. If you are not privy to his approach and not familiar with his designs, I submit (as someone who is familiar with the designs and who knows the man) his decisions are deliberate. And the results speak for themselves.

 

You ask, "the MH boxes make it impossible to hear how good it could sound with a better PS?". I must say, for boxes that represent the very first time in my experience that digital doesn't sound "digital" and that allow me to feel like I'm hearing my microphones directly and that provide reproduction (particularly in the bass) unlike I have experienced from any other recording or playback electronics, regardless of price or format, I would tend to doubt they are hiding what the PS is doing.

 

In fact, my ULN-8 quite clearly revealed the degradation caused by an SLA supply I tried with it. It is also quite good at revealing how colored the other converters I've put up against it are.

 

Put another way, if the MH boxes are making it impossible to hear how good they might sound with a better power supply, I absolutely love how they're "distorting" the sound. They distort every recording I make in a way that sounds just like what I heard at the microphone position; in a way no other recording device in my experience has approached, much less matched.

 

Now we all know that different folks have different sensitivities to different aspects of audio. And that if you ask three audio folks a question, you'll get at least four answers. So, there will inevitably be folks who are not as smitten by the MH gear as I am. (There will also be some who favor a particular sound that is not necessarily a neutral sound. Not unrelated, I know folks who like the color intensity on their TVs turned up just a bit.)

 

All the above to say, whatever brings you listening pleasure is something I'm all for. But to criticize a component of a design without seeing (or having a good amount of experience with) the whole is, in my view, missing the audio boat.

 

Just my own perspective, of course.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

[bdiament]

Hi Ted,

 

"...I only point this out to say that to level the playing field between USB and FW is unfair to FW...it just works....no big deal..no real special implementation or need to understand whether its synch, asynch, unsynch'd, etc...."

 

Well put.

It would be interesting to hear from folks who are into surround (i.e. multichannel) high res playback. I wonder how many USB DACs can handle multiple channels of 24/192 (heck, let's make it easy: 24/96).

 

Perhaps they will. Someday.

Firewire has been doing it for years.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

[kana813]

"But to criticize a component of a design without seeing (or having a good amount of experience with) the whole is, in my view, missing the audio boat."

 

Barry-

 

How about posting a picture of the inside of your ULN-8?

 

Love to see B.J.'s workmanship.

 

Aloha,

 

Dan

 

 

[barrows]

I respect your opinion, no reason not to. And I stand by exactly what I said, and what I referred to, OK, so perhaps BJ's implementation of a cheap Chinese switching supply was deliberate-as a deliberate means to save on COGs.

USB 2 high speed does have adequate bandwidth to handle multichannel applications-but that is not the issue here: I specifically stated for two channel audio in my post, as that is what we are discussing here.

Ted: Re Firewire cabling, I referenced the specific Firewire cable thread at computer audiophile, on this thread you can find the experiences of many people on sonic differences between firewire cables. To say that Firewire implementations always offer great sound is in error: my experience with the RME Fireface 400 was entirely dissapointing, it offered terrible sound through its analog outputs, and when used solely to convert Firewire to SPDIF the performance was also very dissapointing. Firewire is subject to the same limitations as USB: it needs to be properly implemented to offer excellent performance.

I have nothing against Firewire, I think it can be a great way to go, I just am pointing out that Firewire offers no performance advantage over USB as a two channel audio interface between computer and DAC, given proper implementation of both.

 

[audiozorro]

or perhaps we need to have Regional Computer Audiophile Users Groups to facilitate local computer audiophile users meetings.