The Chicken or The Egg?

[MylesBAstor]

"Garbage in, garbage out."

Whether or not they agree with this adage, there's no self-respecting audiophile who hasn't come across this line at one time or another. Ivor Tiefenbrun probably made it famous but sure he wasn't the first to ever express this sentiment.

So I got to thinking while listening to Nick Doshi's new tape stage and the new Technics 1506 with its John French modded headblock last night. Do we really know or appreciate just how good our electronics and speakers really are? Are the flaws we hear and attribute to the components in the signal path really traceable to and a reflection of issues in the front-end? And whatever else we are doing is just compensating for the front-end. (conversely, if we don't hear much of an improvement after changing out front-end components, have we reached the ceiling of something else downstream?)

Part of the reason for this exercise is that I'm hearing among other things with the new tape setup, upper octaves on my system like I've never heard before. Not on analog, certainly not even close on digital. And a sense of openness and space like never before on the best tapes out there. And just a resolution and lack of smearing like never before. Take something like Jonathan Horwich's Jason Roebke recording. Now when you listen to the vibes, the striking of each bar (s) is clearly separated as well as their decay. Before, things were just slightly smeared together and fuzzy. There wasn't nearly as much of that sense of ringing. There was more of a heaviness rather than lightness to the sound.

[cpp]

Myles maybe the equipment just complemented that type of music you were listening to. . I guess you could have tried another tape stage or tried different tapes, or even another RR to really know. I'm still in the camp, that a poorly recorded and mastered LP, Tape, Digital file or CD will sound poor on any device. And the level of quality in the device will provide a sound to the listener that can be much worst. Its got to start somewhere, without recorded music the equipment is just that equipment doing nothing,.

[JCOConnell]

99% of all audio recordings are audibly inferior to the very best, even on modest playback gear. Playback gear is rarely pushed to its limits.

[MylesBAstor]

Myles maybe the equipment just complemented that type of music you were listening to. . I guess you could have tried another tape stage or tried different tapes, or even another RR to really know. I'm still in the camp, that a poorly recorded and mastered LP, Tape, Digital file or CD will sound poor on any device. And the level of quality in the device will provide a sound to the listener that can be much worst. Its got to start somewhere, without recorded music the equipment is just that equipment doing nothing,.

I've actually had three other tape stages in here and two machines so far (and a couple of heads). The one thing that I've noticed is that one gets far more rewards in improving the tape front-end compared to the other two front-end sources. I take that as meaning tape has far more of ceiling than the other two mediums. But that also the system is up to the task too.

[JCOConnell]

I've actually had three other tape stages in here and two machines so far (and a couple of heads). The one thing that I've noticed is that one gets far more rewards in improving the tape front-end compared to the other two front-end sources. I take that as meaning tape has far more of ceiling than the other two mediums. But that also the system is up to the task too.

tape has more of a ceiling or a higher ceiling?

[MylesBAstor]

The same to me.

[JCOConnell]

compared to Lp and tape front end improvements, digital front end improvements are like turd polishing.

[Bruce B]

I've done freq. sweeps of a few tape machines and have seen signals as high as 50-60k. You'll have to remember that bias freq. of some tape machines are as high as 350k!

[Alrainbow]

compared to Lp and tape front end improvements, digital front end improvements are like turd polishing.

It's comments like that
that starts arguments how can one be so sure of anything in this , spec wise digital wipes the floor with any analog period but I do get it's about sound not spec
may I ask what great digital have you heard at length to make a claim like that please reply.
I really try to be kind in analog forums even help here.
Gteat is great in any format I have tape transfers and vinyl transfers of same albums I would think hands down tape would win but in some clearly it's vinyl
maybe it's the eq used that pushes out better sound
a great recording is first be it analog or digital.

[Joe Pittman]

"Garbage in, garbage out."

Whether or not they agree with this adage, there's no self-respecting audiophile who hasn't come across this line at one time or another. Ivor Tiefenbrun probably made it famous but sure he wasn't the first to ever express this sentiment.

So I got to thinking while listening to Nick Doshi's new tape stage and the new Technics 1506 with its John French modded headblock last night. Do we really know or appreciate just how good our electronics and speakers really are? Are the flaws we hear and attribute to the components in the signal path really traceable to and a reflection of issues in the front-end? And whatever else we are doing is just compensating for the front-end. (conversely, if we don't hear much of an improvement after changing out front-end components, have we reached the ceiling of something else downstream?)

Part of the reason for this exercise is that I'm hearing among other things with the new tape setup, upper octaves on my system like I've never heard before. Not on analog, certainly not even close on digital. And a sense of openness and space like never before on the best tapes out there. And just a resolution and lack of smearing like never before. Take something like Jonathan Horwich's Jason Roebke recording. Now when you listen to the vibes, the striking of each bar (s) is clearly separated as well as their decay. Before, things were just slightly smeared together and fuzzy. There wasn't nearly as much of that sense of ringing. There was more of a heaviness rather than lightness to the sound.

Everything in a system matters. But you can't have ultimate sound quality if you don't have a source with ultimate sound quality. So far tape is the best sound I have heard but, it is unlikely that I will ever have enough tapes in my collection where tapes will be my primary music source. So tapes are just my reference where I am trying to close the gap from my primary digital and vinyl sources.

Vinyl is my current best music source and I have a decent collection of LP's to make me happy. Up till now, I play digital because I have a lot of music that is only available digitally and for the convenience. Digital doesn't suck, but it has not excited me as much as great vinyl. So, I had not really loved digital. But this last Saturday, I heard the Sound Galleries server and Aqua Formula DAC at Mike Lavine's place and I have to say I was impressed, it was the most analog sounding digital I have heard so far. I thought the Sound Galleries server/Aqua Formula DAC combo had really closed the gap between digital and vinyl. Everything from Red Book to high rez PCM and DSD was amazing. I thought that digital "system" was far better than his previous server and Lampizatior combo.

The thing about digital is that it continues to advance every day. When I was at Mike's place, the designer of the Sound Galleries server, Edward Hsu from Monaco, was there to explain in great detail how the server was designed and manufactured. I have considerable experience building servers and can tell you that they have gone further in the design of their server than anyone else on the planet that I know of, and explains to me why the server is helping close the gap in performance between digital and analog. The Sound Galleries web site does not come close to describing what they have done.

Getting back to your thought about "Garbage in, garbage out.", Myles, I think these are exciting times in high end audio history where great advances are occurring in digital, vinyl and tape. All we need to do is pick one or all areas and enjoy!

[Alrainbow]

So that server was good glad you liked it. It's my point a server or source is a must unless it's a combo like msb does
the new select 2 must be marvel to Listen too.
Whike I am sure his server is beyond any of mine and I missed an opertunity to have it at my place in my system
what I don't get in all of this and it's nit just here is some take a dac feed it garbage and say it stinks it's very unfair

the xenon chip
is a really hi end type he needs the hiurse power as he upsamples up to dsd at a very hi rate dsd 512 I think and it's software is optimized for dsd 512 it runs very hot and needs to lol. A really really well made product
but lesser servers in the right setup sound very good to

[MylesBAstor]

Yes I think that's a little extreme in 2017. 😄 Some of the issues with early CDs was the production. If one heard the original recording vs the final production CD, you wanted to throw up. So much of the original recording was lost. I think that's why people are rediscovering some of these 16/44 recordings. There was more on the original disc than people knew.

[Rust]

Early CD player never conformed to Redbook spec because RAM was so very expensive. Data is read from the disc and stored in memory to be clocked out to the converter. With limited RAM the write to memory operation occurred much more frequently than may have been optimal. Ideally the entire disc should be written into memory and clocked out from there.

IMO the same applies to DACs, they should have sufficient memory to write the entire of a cut or album into memory prior to playback/conversion. This would also make the storage device/server less critical, all it would have to do is pass on the entire file without error and leave clocking from memory to the DAC.

The conversion/filtering algorithms and process are still a work in progress as indicated by the continual introduction of new equipment on nearly a weekly basis.

[cpp]

99% of all audio recordings are audibly inferior to the very best, even on modest playback gear. Playback gear is rarely pushed to its limits.

Can you explain this """ Playback gear is rarely pushed to its limits",

[JCOConnell]

Can you explain this """ Playback gear is rarely pushed to its limits",

what I meant is you rarely if ever hear the full potential of your playback system due to limitations in the recordings.

[cpp]

Understand I thought that is what you meant but wanted to be sure.

[JCOConnell]

It's comments like that
that starts arguments how can one be so sure of anything in this , spec wise digital wipes the floor with any analog period but I do get it's about sound not spec
may I ask what great digital have you heard at length to make a claim like that please reply.
I really try to be kind in analog forums even help here.
Gteat is great in any format I have tape transfers and vinyl transfers of same albums I would think hands down tape would win but in some clearly it's vinyl
maybe it's the eq used that pushes out better sound
a great recording is first be it analog or digital.

all I meant was the differences between entry level and ultimate level digital are not as great as they are with analog vinyl.

[Alrainbow]

Not to argue but they are immense . The one thing I have learned in this is

[Alrainbow]

Is rarly do people know well both groups meaning analog and digital . While some do its nkt many . Your a nce man who always posts honestly so please as I am phasing out my tenure never feel.I mean anyone any harm . Digital.is perhaps more complex then analog in that the partS don't move and the setting alone are staGering .
Besides a cartridge on a turn table.the rest is not many many settings but equipment sourcing
Didgtial once setup.is easy but knkwnijg how to achieve greatness is a steep clime
I spent about 40 k on my msb stack just not to have a computer or caps or server in it
After how good it sounded I then went after how to with a cpu alone now called caps . Of for anyone who wants a simple.setup by a aurender or rendu then pick any dac and ypu close at maybe 60 of 100 .
For who can afford a msb or other top end one button solutron that you 80 . Pitting a whole system.is how you get to 100 .
I