Digital glare I suppose is inherent in the technology when a bad recording accentuates this. I have listened to digital for hours with no ear bleeding glare but with all well recorded material.
What is the cause of PCM glare? Bad recording or Bad DAC? Anything banish it?
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It seems much more likely that the known quiet, extension and linearity of digital reveals flaws in the recording than the glare is inherent in the tech and only bad recordings reveal it.
Tim
Greg I agree 100%. I went from all vinyl to a CD player when they first came out. My friend Scott Nixon was one of the first to modify the Magnavox player with tubes. Even with a modded player digital is 10,000 times better now.
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We have come a long way from the days when my opinion of digital was just my imagination fueled by my attachment to vinyl. Digital has gone through several incarnations and continues to progress. Never admitting along the way there was anything wrong.
Oh, no. Digital has improved, so of course there was something to improve. I don't think anyone is denying that. What we are supposing is that it has been better than analog, by all objective metrics, for a long, long, time. What you like, of course is another matter.
Tim
Analog sounds pretty good to my ears. I can have both technologies coexist in my system and be perfectly happy. Best of both worlds right?
I don't find very many recordings have an offensive element to them. Yes many sound bad, some are just not that good, etc, but as far as an outright bad sound that isn't that common.
Good recordings reduce the way sound interacts with noise in your DAC, it seems. That statement is almost fo-fo level but clearly it's true from every instance we can account with.
Here's an interest example of something... I went to a fellows house to show him a power conditioner. We played an MP3 off a burned disc, pretty loud, with the power conditioner being used. It was Jethro Tull and he was rocking out pretty loud. Then we didn't touch a single thing but unplugged the stereo from the conditioner and back to the wall. When we hit play it was immediately noticeable how awful the MP3 had become. I had to physically move backwards because my ears were hurting. We didn't even make it through the song. Now when we did the same test with a mere CD the difference was apparent, that the conditioner was an upgrade, but it wasn't so adverse that you had to literally get away from the painful sound.
Good recordings reduce the way sound interacts with noise in your DAC, it seems. That statement is almost fo-fo level but clearly it's true from every instance we can account with.
Here's an interest example of something... I went to a fellows house to show him a power conditioner. We played an MP3 off a burned disc, pretty loud, with the power conditioner being used. It was Jethro Tull and he was rocking out pretty loud. Then we didn't touch a single thing but unplugged the stereo from the conditioner and back to the wall. When we hit play it was immediately noticeable how awful the MP3 had become. I had to physically move backwards because my ears were hurting. We didn't even make it through the song. Now when we did the same test with a mere CD the difference was apparent, that the conditioner was an upgrade, but it wasn't so adverse that you had to literally get away from the painful sound.
See my post:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...win-s-High-End&p=380299&viewfull=1#post380299
(See also my follow-up post there on that.)
I now like top-level digital and top-level analog equallly. Digital measures better by some traditional objective metrics, but how relevant this is for the final audible result is of course a matter of debate that we have had for decades now.
I'm really don't see any point in the debate, but it rages on. Digital measures better. There is no legitimate debate about that. Analog and digital sound different. There's no debate about that either. And of course, what we like is not a matter of debate. There's no argument to tell someone they don't like something. But somehow that just doesn't keep people from making these broad declarations of the superiority of their preference, as if no one could possibly have a different one.
Tim
No, top-level digital and analog do not sound that different. Please read the post that I linked to, as well as my follow-up post in that thread, about the best examples in both media sounding more like live music and about colorations.
I agree ,my vinyl system is as much like digital as I can make it, direct drive turntable, cartridge with a ( relatively ) flat FR ,solid state phono stage with accurate RIAA, vinyl and digital can sound remarkably similar .
Keith.
I read it. Whenever anyone begins talking about the impossible reference point of live music, I conclude that they are really talking about preference, probably heavily colored by bias and perception. They're certainly not talking about a system's, or an individual component's ability to reproduce the recording.
Tim
I disagree, even though I appreciate the point that you have repeatedly made about mikes just not 'hearing' the way we do, leading to necessary compromises on mike positioning.
However, in my follow-up post I specifically addressed the issue of coloration and my conclusions about the DACs performance as apparently being true to the recording:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...win-s-High-End&p=380325&viewfull=1#post380325
I posted it early on, at the inception of this forum. In the beginning there was an attempt to recreate what was heard at our ears. The attempt to reproduce what is heard at the ear was and remains a disaster. With the exception if binaural of course.vStereo is an attemt to mimic the performers, not what is heard at the ears. The fact that a microphone does not "act' like an ear is irrelavant.
quality of recording is preeminent. but with bad recordings, your notice (or minimization) of glare will be contingent on how well you address incoming AC & vibrations (given a reasonable level of CDP quality)
AC: go whole monty: dedicated lines / upgrade duplexes (big fan of oyaide RO and y have compared v Furu GTX) / good cables & route them carefully (i'd offer most IECs sound lousy too--get ATL, they sound best).
vibrations: either star sound shelves (my fave; setup is ingenious), stillpoints (very effective as well), or active vibration control (pricey). funny thing: if you have hard feet, it has higher upside potential but can also cause glare if you do it wrong. soft footers are always a loser. always. so get the hard footers set right.
fix these things before even thinking of upgrading your player.
AC: go whole monty: dedicated lines / upgrade duplexes (big fan of oyaide RO and y have compared v Furu GTX) / good cables & route them carefully (i'd offer most IECs sound lousy too--get ATL, they sound best).
vibrations: either star sound shelves (my fave; setup is ingenious), stillpoints (very effective as well), or active vibration control (pricey). funny thing: if you have hard feet, it has higher upside potential but can also cause glare if you do it wrong. soft footers are always a loser. always. so get the hard footers set right.
fix these things before even thinking of upgrading your player.
Gaps between live music and recordings are many, and much greater than the way mics "hear," but agreeing to disagree is probably best.
Tim
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