Apple, in rolling out OS 11, may be the beginning of the end for MQA

Lee

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Feb 3, 2011
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The converters used in studios to down - dither from high Rez to 16/44.1 / HDCD are much better than average studio gear, Pacific Microsonics converters are great sounding. Even the "regular " 16/44.1 version sounds good.

Generally speaking and based on recording live events and being in studios, I would say only a few pro converters sound as good as high end converters. You would think it would be the opposite but that's not been my experience and why I a naturally skeptical when one of my pro audio friends dismisses an audiophile friend of mine.
 

Lee

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Feb 3, 2011
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Alpharetta, Georgia
Based on my listening, the older Berkeley DAC is no better than my LH Labs Pulse Infinity or the Benchmark 3 I have in for review, both less than half the price. The new Berkeley Reference DAC, however, is quite good. I think the Esoteric gear may be the best on redbook based on my own listening, followed by dCS.

The one HDCD that I like to listen to on my system and which sounded phenomenal on the Berkeley DAC, is the Janaki String Trio on Yarlung Records. I was afraid that the Yggy would render a sonically inferior version of it, but decoding it as just Redbook CD it extracts a sound that is just as good (timbral balance and resolution) as with the Berkeley DAC that decodes it as HDCD.

When several of the Boston group heard the full Vivaldi stack at Goodwin's, we had been extremely impressed by the rendition of the orchestral Reference Recordings discs (among others, those triangles!). I thought maybe this is due to them being HDCDs. Only later I discovered that the Vivaldi does not decode HDCD, but also reads the discs as Redbook format.
 

Lee

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2011
3,210
1,738
1,260
Alpharetta, Georgia
I should add that there may be a problem with today's Safari 11 update on MacOS. I had a system crash from it so I went to the apple store this morning and several others were there with the same issue. A full OS reinstall solved it but it made me think there might be a known issue. I would wait a few days or at least connect an ethernet cable right into the router (after doing a Time Machine backup) for good measure.
 

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