A bit of hyperbole Ric? Keep pushing your mods of the month but stop badmouthing other stuff. Your act is getting rather old. I have not heard your modded LKS but have heard modded Halo and the Gustard that you have waxed poetically about. Neither is as good as an Yggy. A friend gas the Gustard. It is not used for PCM, just DSD. There is a reason for that. It isn't to the level of his Yggy.
Are the $19,500 Berkeley and $35,000 dCS DACs really worth big bucks?
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Fangs back on.
That's simply not true. 99% of the DACs in use are solid state and I don't see their owners crying that they can only listen to them in short intervals. And as I said, almost all production of music is done with solid state. So if your assessment is true, it is yours and yours alone.
Fortunately we can easily show that your assessment is not what you say either. All we have to do is remove the knowledge of what you are listening to and all of your observations about sound of solid state and tube will disappear. If your observations are that fleeting, then what is their value again?
Unfortunately this is more improper audio evaluations leading to faulty conclusions. Please come back when you do your long term listening without knowing what is being played and then we can talk. Until then, you have formed prejudices that you now overlay on sounds you hear. And your brain equates that with reality with ease. You are simply showing what is wrong with improper evaluation of audio when you let extraneous factors enter the equation than just the sound going into your ears. How else your subjective reports could be so different than 99% of the world out there to say nothing of objective evaluation of audio?
Given the number of tube output stage DACS now on the market for the high end and the continual swapping that we read about on the forums of dissatisfied DAC owners, I would not agree that 99% of dacs in the high end are SS...if you include mass market then ok probably you at right...it is for sure a cheaper solution. My subjective reports are not different than 99% of anything...ask all the Lampi owners on this forum alone...not to mention all the Audio Research DAC owners past and present, Sonic Frontiers, STAX, Brinkmann, AMR etc. etc. the list keeps growing.
The Yggy uses the most accurate R2R-DAC ever made, by Analog Devices.
Delta-Sigma is across-the-board worse. Hence the explosion of R2Rs right now -Schiit, Metrum, Lapi, Totaldac and many more. In 2010, there were hardly *any* R2Rs !
Tweaking helps -but some products don't need this anymore. If your so sure -show your wares at an audio show. There's enough of 'em !
Delta-Sigma is across-the-board worse. Hence the explosion of R2Rs right now -Schiit, Metrum, Lapi, Totaldac and many more. In 2010, there were hardly *any* R2Rs !
Tweaking helps -but some products don't need this anymore. If your so sure -show your wares at an audio show. There's enough of 'em !
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Evidence of delusion : you consider it 'easy' to get morricab to take part in a blind test supervised by yourself and your cohorts.
We used to conduct level matched. Single blind tests here, which is about the limit of practical with real gear and not using ABX switch boxes or computer test tones with different amounts of distortion etc.
Fangs back on.
That's simply not true. 99% of the DACs in use are solid state and I don't see their owners crying that they can only listen to them in short intervals. And as I said, almost all production of music is done with solid state. So if your assessment is true, it is yours and yours alone.
Fortunately we can easily show that your assessment is not what you say either. All we have to do is remove the knowledge of what you are listening to and all of your observations about sound of solid state and tube will disappear. If your observations are that fleeting, then what is their value again?
Unfortunately this is more improper audio evaluations leading to faulty conclusions. Please come back when you do your long term listening without knowing what is being played and then we can talk. Until then, you have formed prejudices that you now overlay on sounds you hear. And your brain equates that with reality with ease. You are simply showing what is wrong with improper evaluation of audio when you let extraneous factors enter the equation than just the sound going into your ears. How else your subjective reports could be so different than 99% of the world out there to say nothing of objective evaluation of audio?
"Fortunately we can easily show that your assessment is not what you say either. All we have to do is remove the knowledge of what you are listening to and all of your observations about sound of solid state and tube will disappear. If your observations are that fleeting, then what is their value again?"
Ah, so we are back to the "all amps sound the same" mantra. You really think there is no difference between the sound of a tube amp and a SS amp?? Or preamp? Or DAC? Also, you are purely speculating as to whether or not i would be able to tell the difference or not. Maybe you have found that for whatever reason you can't tell the difference and therefore no one else can either? The other psychological factors involved make removing the knowledge also potentially flawed as a concept. FWIW, we have done single blind tests where it was no problem for the listeners to tell one piece of gear from another.
If you really believe that remvoing the knowledge removes all traces of the type of gear making the sound then are you listening through a $100 amp and a $50 cd player? I thought not! You probably have rather expensive stuff like the rest of us. I am sure that gear can be found for not much more than this that measure "perfect" and you would claim blind they sound like any other.
About long term listening...we will just have to agree to disagree. I have found that long term satisfaction with the sound is a very telling aspect of what one thinks of the sound quality. When there is a distortion or imbalance ot the sound that is small and maybe imperceptible under short term and rapid changes it will work its way into your psyche on the long term and lead to dissastisfaction. Dissatisfaction is far more common than long term satisfaction. So much for ease... Have you done a long term Blind test? I doubt you have...
You are welcome...feel free to provide feedback on the quality of my work...I don't mind.
Brad, you appear to have particular sensitivities and preferences which, I suspect, are not widely shared. I don't think you should so easily extrapolate from your personal experiences to larger trends among the audiophile community.
Of course, my experiences also only stand as an 'anecdote of one'. Yet while I was quite busy with experimenting and upgrading the last 4 years, all the upgrades I did were not because I felt irritated or uncomfortable with my sound (except for too recessed images, which were a now solved acoustic problem, not a problem related to the system itself), or because I had other troubles with long-term listening in any way. Rather, I made upgrades based on rational decisions about certain goals that I wanted to achieve in sound reproduction.
Smells like rationalization 101 to me.
I have very well defined sonic goals and so when a piece of gear doesn't meet those it gets taken out and sold/traded. If it doesn't fit with my sonic goals then it will feel irritating or uncomfortable (like the story of the Princess and the pea...you know?). I have actually achieved it a couple of times but moves and downsizing forced some changes that now need adaptation to reach the former level (I am basically there with the exception of the amp...the one I have is really good (Ayon Crossfire III) but it still vexes me somewhat). Of course as a reviewer I get to plug other things in to see what's what so experimentation is a part of the fun of the hobby for me.
I just knew this would be your answer! It is also problematic, as it shows that you seem to be unable to see things from any perspective other than your own.
I know people who are more sensitive to alleged digital artifacts than me, and I can acknowledge that as fact without dismissing them (thus, I am in fact able to look beyond my own nose). But when they voice their concerns to me, it simply does not relate to my own experiences.
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No this is a very different case. Your views about solid state DACs goes against 99% of listeners on the subjective side as well as objective.
There are two explanations:
1. You are right and 99% of listeners of either type are wrong.
2. You are wrong and hence, your method of evaluation is improper.
I am working toward #2 because #1 is untenable and easily disproven. So many of us are happy with solid state DACs with none of the problems you say universally plagues that implementation.
On #2, first we have to remove your preconditioned bias to think solid state sounds bad. Until we do that, we can't get a fair evaluation from you. My late grandfather in law, may he rest in peace, hated cheese. We had him over once and my wife wanted to make cheesecake. Knowing he would not even touch it, she made it chocolate cheesecake. He ate it and complimented how great it was over and over again!
He had no idea it had cheese in it.Likewise, we need to get you past your predisposition to get to what your ear really like and dislike. Like my late grandfather in law above, we need to create a situation where you don't know you are listening to solid state DAC to see if the fatigue remains. My bet is that it would disappear like a fart in the wind because the rest of us don't hear it. If you don't believe us, then just remove that knowledge and see for yourself. You don't even have to tell us that you did such a test. Just do it for yourself. After all, if fatigue is as present as you say is there, it should remain so without said knowledge of DAC. The only reason to not do it is to want to stay in a mistaken state.
And oh, you can do the testing in as long of a term as you want. Put one DAC in there and listen for days or weeks and then switch. You simply have to have some else do the switching and you not knowing which DAC is being connected. A loved one should be able to do that for you. Note that you have to repeat the process about 8 times or so.
I should add that above assumes that frequency response measurements of the tube amp shows the same flat response as solid state DAC. To the extent there is any roll of or otherwise variations in frequency response in the tube DAC, then we have a preference for coloration as I mentioned.
I have had the same thing happen to me but I didn't let the wrong conclusions guide me. I did a correction with Dirac to my system. Thought it screwed up the high frequencies. I redid the correction, this time limiting it to 200 Hz. All the high frequency problems went away. Then I look at the control panel for Dirac and noticed that I had not yet told it to use the new settings! In other words, it was still doing full correction and nothing had changed but my perception.
Another time I was trying to teach my two sons the effects of room EQ. I have a programmable parametric EQ where I can turn filters on and off. I created a filter and asked my sons if they could hear the improvement that it was making. Both gave me a blank look causing me to look at the interface and realizing I had not enabled said filter! It was all in my mind that it was turning on and off.
Let's agree that the effects of such EQ is quite audible. To be mistaken about them shows how powerful our mind is to create very large differences that are not really there.
It is for this reason, especially in light of your conclusions that go against so many of us, to take some steps to verify what you are thinking is going on here. It takes less effort to do than investing in writing all of these posts.
Well if you don't hear them...rejoice and enjoy the music. But please then don't give advice or become a hifi critic, ok? It requires some sensitivity to these kinds of things to help out the others "afflicted" with a high sensitivity to unnatural sounds.
It has nothing to do with other people's perspectives it has everything to do with the sensitivity or lack thereof in assessing sound quality.
so Brad, you are magically neutral and transparently self-aware too?
hardly.
btw; I don't expect that from anyone. we all offer opinions as fairly as we can. some are just more honest about our biases and more tolerant of other viewpoints than others.
pot, meet kettle.
Hehe, I didn't claim that I don't hear any of them. In fact, had you paid attention to my posts here at WBF, you would have noticed that I have often pointed out digital artifacts and shortcomings. Also, there is a substantial difference between hearing certain artifacts and being bothered by them.
Oh, beautiful, now we must share your particular sensitivities to digital fatigue, solid state amps etc., which are not shared by many audiophiles, to be able to count as 'perceptive' enough and to be able to say anything meaningful about hifi? Gimme a break.
As I said, it's all about your perspective, and no other perspective matters or can be valid. Fantastic. But of course, your perspective must be right, because evidently you have the most exquisite sensitivities.
Of course, that last sentence was an ironic comment, but secretly you totally agree with it and think it is true, straight up without irony. Don't you, Brad?
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