What is the most MUSICAL DAC? DAC for Music Lovers vs. Geeks and Analytic Listeners

[Orb]

Because at this point, we're talking about fidelity to recordings vs audiophile terms like "musicality," that can mean almost anything the individual audiophile imagines they mean, not the performance of DACs.



If you're talking about warm recordings, that doesn't surprise me at all. What would surprise me is a DAC that measures extremely well, yet renders all recordings with the same kind of warmth and/or detail; then I would question the measurements.



No, I wouldn't, because I'd be listening to the system, not the CD player. If I wanted to ascertain your system's neutrality without comprehensive measurements of every component in the signal chain (and a trusted engineer on hand to help me interpret them ), I would listen to a variety of recordings I'm very familiar with, noting how it renders the known differences between those recordings and watching out for any systematic sound or character that cut across all recordings. And if I heard one, frankly, I would begin with the most likely offender - the speakers. If I wanted to evaluate a DAC for neutrality, I would put one in the chain that I know is of high quality, built with the goal of the highest levels of fidelity, and switch the DAC under evaluation in and out. If your CD player added a consistent character to all recordings, or sounded "warm" compared to the reference DAC, then I would think it is coloring the system.

None of this, by the way, is right or wrong. The right thing to do is build a system that pleases you and enjoy listening to music. If it rounds the edges off of 70s rock recordings (that probably need that), and softens Cannonball & Coltrane (which doesn't need it) and it still pleases you, good. Enjoy. But stick to "warm" and "musical." Neutral, transparent and accurate have real meaning in this context.

Tim

Tim you keep shifting the goals.
You mentioned initially that musical perception is probably added distortion, then go on about highest fidelity,resolution and transparency is what matters and what people are interpreting is coloured reproduction.
I have shown that your oversimplifying this with a perfect example with the MBL C31, read the review (fyi this uses bespoke interpolation and reconstruction filters), look at the measurements and before continuing with your assertion of what is transparent/coloured/high resolution please give it a listen and ask yourself why is sounds so "coloured" by your critieria with excellent measurements.
This is not just my view on the C31 but every professional reviewer who has had it in.

Until you do this I really cannot see how you can keep on stating so casually (sorry but feels that way to me) on the topic without expanding the experience with products that measure well but subjectively reported to sound warm-rich-etc rather than focusing on those that have poor measurements or pushed beyond their very limited specs (such as SET amps); bah I knew you would not bother listening to the MBL C31 in a neutral system that you know well
It is a shame you cannot make the effort there but can with your opinion and experience of what is "neutral"/transparent/resolving while generalise others experience or POV.
So your way to deal with the C31 that is reviewed warm-rich-organic (and also in my experience) but has excellent measurements is to ignore it as breaks your model for what causes reproduced music to sound that way.
Cheers
Orb

 

[JackD201]

By time domain are you referring to driver group delay, or the listening rooms contribution to the sound (RT60) and amplitude of what exactly?
Keith.

Both

Also amplitude abnormalities from both the loudspeaker driver output calibration be they passive or active and effects of room gain.

 

[JackD201]

I think we are discussing two different hobbies, and this thread is going astray. Audiophilia is setting up systems and OCDing over system sounds. Music is playing, listening to live concerts, listening to ipod etc. There is some overlap. But as different as cooking and eating.

I dunno about everybody else but I cook to eat and eat what I cook. As far as the business side goes I try to cook what the diner will enjoy.

 

[bonzo75]

I dunno about everybody else but I cook to eat and eat what I cook. As far as the business side goes I try to cook what the diner will enjoy.

I don't cook but I took a lot of detailed cooking courses just for geekiness sake. For regular home and work I eat boring and healthy and then splurge on trying out different restaurants and cuisines once or twice a week - try a lot of new stuff

 

[JackD201]

Given the size of the spare tire I'm lugging around, boring and healthy sounds like a good idea.

 

[Orb]

Given the size of the spare tire I'm lugging around, boring and healthy sounds like a good idea.

Follow Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) diet
Quite amusing but would suck if you hate fish.

Probably a good diet if reduced and balanced to match ones actual size and activites.
Cheers
Orb

 

[bonzo75]

This is a fun way to lose tire

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-04-21/buttered-coffee-could-make-you-invincible-and-this-man-very-rich

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim you keep shifting the goals.
You mentioned initially that musical perception is probably added distortion, then go on about highest fidelity,resolution and transparency is what matters and what people are interpreting is coloured reproduction.
I have shown that your oversimplifying this with a perfect example with the MBL C31, read the review (fyi this uses bespoke interpolation and reconstruction filters), look at the measurements and before continuing with your assertion of what is transparent/coloured/high resolution please give it a listen and ask yourself why is sounds so "coloured" by your critieria with excellent measurements.
This is not just my view on the C31 but every professional reviewer who has had it in.

Until you do this I really cannot see how you can keep on stating so casually (sorry but feels that way to me) on the topic without expanding the experience with products that measure well but subjectively reported to sound warm-rich-etc rather than focusing on those that have poor measurements or pushed beyond their very limited specs (such as SET amps); bah I knew you would not bother listening to the MBL C31 in a neutral system that you know well
It is a shame you cannot make the effort there but can with your opinion and experience of what is "neutral"/transparent/resolving while generalise others experience or POV.
So your way to deal with the C31 that is reviewed warm-rich-organic (and also in my experience) but has excellent measurements is to ignore it as breaks your model for what causes reproduced music to sound that way.
Cheers
Orb

Orb I don't have any goals here, I'm just having a conversation, stating a point of view. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a product out there that challenges my point of view. And yes,this is all casual discussion, which is why I'm not interested in reading a review of a product I have no use for. As far as listening is concerned, it's a DAC. Unless it is WAY off, I don't think I'd know if it was warm and organic without putting it in my system and listening to it with my familiar collection of recordings. And even if I did all that, do you suppose you and I have exactly the same sonic response that we think of as "warm and organic?" We talk about stuff here all the time that very few of us have any reasonable opportunity to listen to critically. If we didn't, we wouldn't talk much. I haven't been around much myself in the last several months. Maybe that was OK. I've gotten seriously back into one thread and I've already got someone telling me my opinion can only be considered valid if I've had his personal experience with a single product. And I was never talking about a product; I was talking about language and basic approaches to audio reproduction technology. Jeez.

OK, let's have a poll...how many people here have listened to the MBL c31, in their own systems, playing their own music? You three? Everybody else shuddup. We good?

Tim

 

[KeithR]

No, I wouldn't, because I'd be listening to the system, not the CD player. If I wanted to ascertain your system's neutrality without comprehensive measurements of every component in the signal chain (and a trusted engineer on hand to help me interpret them ), I would listen to a variety of recordings I'm very familiar with, noting how it renders the known differences between those recordings and watching out for any systematic sound or character that cut across all recordings. And if I heard one, frankly, I would begin with the most likely offender - the speakers. If I wanted to evaluate a DAC for neutrality, I would put one in the chain that I know is of high quality, built with the goal of the highest levels of fidelity, and switch the DAC under evaluation in and out. If your CD player added a consistent character to all recordings, or sounded "warm" compared to the reference DAC, then I would think it is coloring the system.

What if the inserted component was cold or sterile/dead sounding- wouldn't that be a coloration by a different means? doesn't in fact almost all gear impart a sonic signature. the idea of neutrality still comes down to listener preference i would think.

 

[Orb]

Orb I don't have any goals here, I'm just having a conversation, stating a point of view. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a product out there that challenges my point of view. And yes,this is all casual discussion, which is why I'm not interested in reading a review of a product I have no use for. As far as listening is concerned, it's a DAC. Unless it is WAY off, I don't think I'd know if it was warm and organic without putting it in my system and listening to it with my familiar collection of recordings. And even if I did all that, do you suppose you and I have exactly the same sonic response that we think of as "warm and organic?" We talk about stuff here all the time that very few of us have any reasonable opportunity to listen to critically. If we didn't, we wouldn't talk much. I haven't been around much myself in the last several months. Maybe that was OK. I've gotten seriously back into one thread and I've already got someone telling me my opinion can only be considered valid if I've had his personal experience with a single product. And I was never talking about a product; I was talking about language and basic approaches to audio reproduction technology. Jeez.

OK, let's have a poll...how many people here have listened to the MBL c31, in their own systems, playing their own music? You three? Everybody else shuddup. We good?

Tim

Tim,
I am dropping this but it all started due to what you mentioned from page 5 onwards regarding coloration, and also musicality comes from all systems that are in essence neutral,transparent, and highly resolving while anything else is wrong if being warm-rich-analogue-etc.
Hence why the suggestion is for you rather than anyone else here to listen to the MBL C31, in fact if anyone has a view that warm-analogue-rich sounding gear cannot be "neutral" (and this must come from measurements) then yes they should make the effort to seek out gear that is reported to be warm-analogue and measures very well in terms of related neutral measurements.

Cheers
Orb

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

What if the inserted component was cold or sterile/dead sounding- wouldn't that be a coloration by a different means? doesn't in fact almost all gear impart a sonic signature. the idea of neutrality still comes down to listener preference i would think.

Yes that would be another type of coloration. No, I don't think neutral is a listener preference. I think it is both measurable and audible, though identifying it audibly through careful comparison to components that have been very thoroughly measured, in your own system, with your own familiar examples. This is only controversial if you don't believe in the efficacy of thorough measurement. I personally don't have a lot of faith in the frequency of thorough measurement, but it does exist, particularly in the pro audio world.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,
I am dropping this but it all started due to what you mentioned from page 5 onwards regarding coloration, and also musicality comes from all systems that are in essence neutral,transparent, and highly resolving while anything else is wrong if being warm-rich-analogue-etc.
Hence why the suggestion is for you rather than anyone else here to listen to the MBL C31, in fact if anyone has a view that warm-analogue-rich sounding gear cannot be "neutral" (and this must come from measurements) then yes they should make the effort to seek out gear that is reported to be warm-analogue and measures very well in terms of related neutral measurements.

Cheers
Orb

Are you talking about this...

Orb - In response to "Musicality is always part of the performance; it is not what is added but in summary could be the subtle nuance of music, so is this conveyed or not is the real question.

Tim -- Is this conveyed where? In the performance or in the reproduction? If we're talking about the reproduction, retrieval of detail in the recording is the thing that will allow the subtle nuance of music to be reproduced to get to your system in the first place. So those who make "musical" vs "analytical" arguments are denying logic, good sense, and reality. The more of the recording you retrieve, the more subtle nuances of the music are available to be reproduced. Can there be distortions in some recordings that are better minimized or not retrieved at all? Sure. But that's not the "retrieval" of musicality, it's the reduction of fidelity. And unless you can turn it off, it will reduce the fidelity of your best recordings too.

This is only controversial to those who want to believe in the objective superiority of their favorite colorations.

Tim

...well, I did say that the more a system retrieves from the recording, the more music there is to be reproduced, and yes, I believe that music is the key to musicality. Is that the same thing? I didn't say that musicality comes from all systems that are highly resolving. In fact, I think you'll find that here, and throughout my time at WBF, my position has been that musicality, as a description of audio reproduction, is vague to the point of meaningless. The last thing I'd try to do is define it in that context. I can only guess what you guys are talking about when you say a DAC is "musical." And it's not worth guessing, because it will, inevitably, mean different things to different people.

Or is it this one, where you put words in my mouth...

Orb -- "I get the feeling you like to go on that coloration and distortion is what those who do not want a system that matches your view on natural/neutral/transparent reproduced sound."

Wrong, so I gave you an example of what I do believe...

Not at all. I do tend to go on when people are implying some kind of objective superiority (more "transparent," "natural," "musical"...) for entire classes of reproduction technology (vinyl, tubes, tape generations away from the masters) without an objective leg to stand on. If they simply like it better, good for them."

...nope, nothing there about believing that "musicality comes from all systems that are in essence neutral,transparent, and highly resolving while anything else is wrong if being warm-rich-analogue-etc."

Again, I don't believe in musicality in the context you're using it at all. I think it is sloppy language at best, and I'll make no attempt to define it. I do, however, believe that more recorded music is resolved more accurately by systems that are and more resolving and more accurate. Radical thought.

And that, sir, is what I actually said, and have said here many times. I'm flattered at the attempt to base your fiction on my opinions, but unfortunately, your reproduction of my opinion was inaccurate. Colored. Not particularly warm. Have a nice day.

Tim

 

[Orb]

Tim I feel I need to respond to such an aggresive post.
The context needs to be taken as a whole with the OP and all our posts whether responding to each other or in general, which I feel you are now going defensive on and present a slightly skewed view in that last post, part of where we diverge and break down into an argument seems when you said the following and much of my response has been to that;

It will come as no surprise, Jack, that I disagree with the premise as well. Very specifically, I disagree with the inaccurate use of the word "extract." If the "analytical" component extracts more, the "musical" component doesn't "extract" its musicality, it adds it, unless it somehow knows how to extract the musical part and leave the other parts behind. You're going to have to tell me how that works...
And by the way, I think a valve in a DAC is about as serious as a paper flower sticking out of a clown's bum. But I'm sure that shocks no one here either.

Not at all. I do tend to go on when people are implying some kind of objective superiority (more "transparent," "natural," "musical"...) for entire
classes or reproduction technology (vinyl, tubes, tape generations away from the masters) without an objective leg to stand on. If they simply like it better, good for them.

This is exactly as simple as I think; high fidelity refers to high levels of fidelity to the recording. In context, neutral and transparent mean the same thing. It hasn't anything to do with my, or your idea of what is more "natural" or "musical."

Sorry but it does feel you are suggesting in my words summarising what you present "musicality comes from all systems that are in essence neutral,transparent, and highly resolving while anything else is wrong if being warm-rich-analogue-etc."

And regarding my "sloppy language" regarding musicality, please note what I express is how I feel others see that term and being very loose I also suggest it is probable used by those to differentiate between artificial and natural-flowing (hence Uncanny Valley effect), along with another possibility that some systems may influence the listeners' critical listening behaviour and how or what they focus on.
Anyway in fact many times I have said musicality IS used by those with high academic musicology and performance backgrounds and have suggested in the past a certain book those who poo poo its existence should read; The Anatomy of Musicality by Dr Rozalie Levant.

Maybe a lot of time could had been saved if you just came out originally to say you do not believe and agree with Musicality as a word-phrase-descriptor and that the OP and everyone responding with it are wrong as then I would not had created the summarising position I feel you present, but then part of the discussion also was then taking your comment about objectivity and presenting the C31 that contradicts some of your positions presented (much more so Tomelex than you).

Anyway if you want to carry this on I am happy to do so in PM.
Cheers
Orb

 

[the sound of Tao]

If we define musical as the sounds that most remind us of music then early we hit a hurdle just defining music in itself... the idea of music as a series of harmonically organised sounds seems to broadly cover it but musicality is also not limited to those sounds that are typically derived from musicians or even necessarily anthropomorphic at all in origination but any patterning of sound that we can recognise either unconsciously or consciously as having a harmonically characteristic resonant relationship. Therefore our capacity to naturally resonate with these individually patterned or musical moments is part of what defines musicality.

Musicality is the experience of recognising the relationship in sounds and is subjective otherwise these sounds remain disconnected noises. Sound that connect us only just partially so that we experience the resonance in a separated or in a more disconnected way is only seeing part of the music and is not wholly immersive experience. If the music is just being perceived analytically and limited to the section of the mind that actively deals with conscious connections to music then we are only perceiving a limited fragment of the music.

I would imagine musicality is most complete if it experienced as much as Dionysian perception connected in the sensuous baser instinctual lure of Pan's rhythms felt through the lower parts of our body as well as the more Apollonian experience of music in the hyper hypnotic thread of fascination following the patterns of sound in the more brightly lit consciousness of the mind.

The most complete and true musicality involves the whole body responding from the unconscious base of our being and threaded thru to the top and crowning high in the mind and beyond. Beyond this complete musical experience partial perceptions are a poor image much like a holograph where the fractured elements of the hologram can contain the whole image but just in a less resolved way. Whole musicality is an experience that starts in the feet and harmonically moves on all the way up through the fabric of us to the very top so that it is completely resolved and deeply experienced. Some gear barely gets the head moving, beyond that can be the nearly static lifelessness of the completely analytical disconnect and worse still when the system has no apparent cohesion so that the parts aren't at all attracted in the sound that makes up the very bonds of harmonic patterning that defines music... and so the brilliant separate noises just stay that, brilliant but separate noises, isolated in experience and limited in meaning.

Surely the most musical dacs are those that connect the greatest range and proportion of us to the greater range of patterns of music in a more whole way.

The gear that compels you to listen in the complete stillness of mind and the full activity of the body and that leads you to connect with all kinds of richly diverse music. The experience is as true to the context as it is to spirit of our experience and so it as much resembles the literal reality of music as it reflects the truth of the emotional connection of the experience. Musicality is a characteristic that is fundamental and subjective and probably requires no further evidence of it's existence in our gear than our simple experience of it. A musical dac is the one that takes you into a deeper state of self and beyond as you tune in to the connecting and organising resonant patterns of life... into the music.

 

[JackD201]

Quite a lot more eloquent than how I would have put it but yeah, what he said.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Sorry but it does feel you are suggesting in my words summarising what you present "musicality comes from all systems that are in essence neutral,transparent, and highly resolving while anything else is wrong if being warm-rich-analogue-etc."

Sorry if that's how it made you feel, Orb, but that is not what I was suggesting. Again, I would not suggest that, as I don't know what musical means to you or anyone else until they give me a detailed personal definition (often not even then), so I would never use it to describe reproduction.

The "sloppy language" remark was not aimed at you personally, and if my post seemed aggressive, it's because I felt you had put a whole lot of words in my mouth and I wanted to be sure to be very clear about what I had actually said, relative to how you understood it. Sorry, I'm a bit of a language geek. I hate the verbing of nouns that has become so common in American culture even more, FWIW.

And I don't see any reason to carry on in PM. We're good.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

If we define musical as the sounds that most remind us of music then early we hit a hurdle just defining music in itself... the idea of music as a series of harmonically organised sounds seems to broadly cover it but musicality is also not limited to those sounds that are typically derived from musicians or even necessarily anthropomorphic at all in origination but any patterning of sound that we can recognise either unconsciously or consciously as having a harmonically characteristic resonant relationship. Therefore our capacity to naturally resonate with these individually patterned or musical moments is part of what defines musicality.

Musicality is the experience of recognising the relationship in sounds and is subjective otherwise these sounds remain disconnected noises. Sound that connect us only just partially so that we experience the resonance in a separated or in a more disconnected way is only seeing part of the music and is not wholly immersive experience. If the music is just being perceived analytically and limited to the section of the mind that actively deals with conscious connections to music then we are only perceiving a limited fragment of the music.

I would imagine musicality is most complete if it experienced as much as Dionysian perception connected in the sensuous baser instinctual lure of Pan's rhythms felt through the lower parts of our body as well as the more Apollonian experience of music in the hyper hypnotic thread of fascination following the patterns of sound in the more brightly lit consciousness of the mind.

The most complete and true musicality involves the whole body responding from the unconscious base of our being and threaded thru to the top and crowning high in the mind and beyond. Beyond this complete musical experience partial perceptions are a poor image much like a holograph where the fractured elements of the hologram can contain the whole image but just in a less resolved way. Whole musicality is an experience that starts in the feet and harmonically moves on all the way up through the fabric of us to the very top so that it is completely resolved and deeply experienced. Some gear barely gets the head moving, beyond that can be the nearly static lifelessness of the completely analytical disconnect and worse still when the system has no apparent cohesion so that the parts aren't at all attracted in the sound that makes up the very bonds of harmonic patterning that defines music... and so the brilliant separate noises just stay that, brilliant but separate noises, isolated in experience and limited in meaning.

Surely the most musical dacs are those that connect the greatest range and proportion of us to the greater range of patterns of music in a more whole way.

The gear that compels you to listen in the complete stillness of mind and the full activity of the body and that leads you to connect with all kinds of richly diverse music. The experience is as true to the context as it is to spirit of our experience and so it as much resembles the literal reality of music as it reflects the truth of the emotional connection of the experience. Musicality is a characteristic that is fundamental and subjective and probably requires no further evidence of it's existence in our gear than our simple experience of it. A musical dac is the one that takes you into a deeper state of self and beyond as you tune in to the connecting and organising resonant patterns of life... into the music.

This is lovely, but it's not my personal experience. I will always have a good system somewhere in my home, and I love to listen to recordings well reproduced, but I connect to music emotionally. Music has driven me to tears from an iPod, while on a treadmill. It has consumed me with joy driving down the street on a Spring day with the windows rolled down, tunes blasting from a dashboard radio. Higher levels of fidelity impact my intellectual connection to music, but the elemental connection is emotional, at times even spiritual, and it's a connection to the music, not the reproduction of the music. It happens at all levels of fidelity. It happens with scratchy old recordings and shining audio master pieces. YMMV, of course.

Tim

 

[DonH50]

I won't pretend to understand what Tao wrote. It sounds like something out of a college philosophy class. I'm a simple-minded hairy-knuckled engineer unable to appreciate such prose. As for music, I know what I like when I hear (or play) it, no matter the gear, but have no hope of explaining it to others. Huxley (my sig line) did as good a job as any for me.

Musicians listen to the music.
Audiophiles listen to the gear.

This is a religious debate unfettered by science and driven largely by emotion. Nobody will win because fundamental concepts are not understood and fundamental desires and goals are ill-defined. The initial premise of this thread marginalized science and assumed engineers and "geeks" cannot understand music. Thus for me there is little point in participating. The objective as best I can tell is not to debate but simply for non-technical audiophiles to list their favorite "musical" DAC's, yes? No engineers or geeks need apply...

 

[cpp]

Check out the Lampizator Golden Gate. Superb PCM and KILLER DSD up to 256.

I hear that the Berk Ref is also excellent for PCM, as would be the Bricasti and LH DaVinci Dacs. For $$$, you could also consider the Trinity Dac.

There you are right on time... Lampi not bad on PCM and DSD , check

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I won't pretend to understand what Tao wrote. It sounds like something out of a college philosophy class. I'm a simple-minded hairy-knuckled engineer unable to appreciate such prose. As for music, I know what I like when I hear (or play) it, no matter the gear, but have no hope of explaining it to others. Huxley (my sig line) did as good a job as any for me.

Musicians listen to the music.
Audiophiles listen to the gear.

This is a religious debate unfettered by science and driven largely by emotion. Nobody will win because fundamental concepts are not understood and fundamental desires and goals are ill-defined. The initial premise of this thread marginalized science and assumed engineers and "geeks" cannot understand music. Thus for me there is little point in participating. The objective as best I can tell is not to debate but simply for non-technical audiophiles to list their favorite "musical" DAC's, yes? No engineers or geeks need apply...

This is a really good point. I'm no engineer, but I brought another kind of geeky discussion into this thread that can add nothing to non-technical audiophiles sharing their favorite "musical" DACs. My apologies.

Tim