Re: Vinyl revisited---Sure to piss off digitial heads


"Stewart Pinkerton" <patent3@xxxxxxxxxxxx> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:4bvoh1p66vgm218mjb767t57eg1rj690fe@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Mon, 05 Sep 2005 14:26:47 GMT, "Fabio Berutti"
> <fabio.berutti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>I have many vinyl and many CDs, mostly Deutsche Grammophon and Verve
>>labels.
>>There are bad ones in both types, the good ones being a rarity.
>>Nevetheless
>>I heard one of the most dramatic differences in my "tubed hifi" experience
>>when I added a tubed DAC to my old Mission DAD5 CD player. I understand
>>what happened this way:
>>
>> - First, the Philips "gold" DAC in it, designed and manufactured with
>>today's silicon technology, is 1K times faster and more accurate than the
>>old ones
>
> Actually, the speed is identical for all Philips Bitstream DACs. BTW,
> since that player is now 13 years old and was a first-generation
> Bitstream player, it certainly doesn't use today's technology!

When I bought the Mission, my PC ran on a 486/66Mhz Intel CPU. The one I'm
writing on now is powered by an AMD Pentium IV-class processor running at
3.2Ghz. I don't know what's in a recent DAC compared to the old one, but I
suppose that silicon technology has progressed in the same way. After all,
just a look at the RS catalog shows DACs from 3 to 40 euros: I guess there's
something different between them.

>
>> - Second, the plate-follower gold pins Tesla E88CC which is now caring
>> for
>>final gain+output impedance is definitely better than any IC
>
> Define 'better'................


As soon as You (or anybody) manage to define "beauty". I'm an engineer,
building chemical plants since many years, but I leave technology a bit
aside when speaking about music. There are true nonsense and lots of snake
oil around, but the FACT is that the tubed output stage, together with a 1st
order filter at about 20k, sounds more enjoyable to MY ears. If I'm not
able to find a good technical explaination for all whys and hows, it doesn't
change the existence of a fact. Maybe I'm just a bit deaf and high tones
disturb me, if reproduced "linearly", and I unconsciously prefer a slightly
arched frequency response.
I've read Your closure about art and engineering... well, I do not agree
100%, I suppose that the complexity of the music signal and all the
non-linearities of all systems involved, from the mikes in the recording
room to the LSs, thru the listening room and finally to the ears and the
brain of the listener make such a complex system that cannot be reduced to
'scope curves only. Sure there must be some electronic common sense and
good practice, but at the good end the LISTENING test is the only "real"
one.

>
>> - Third, the 1st order output filter has a much better sound than the
>>"brickwall" filters usually provided to cut off 44.1K sampling whistle
>
> There is no such 'whistle', you're thinking of the 19kHz pilot tone on
> time-division-multipled FM stereo.
>
> The reconstruction filter in a DAC does exactly what it says on the
> tin - it matches the anti-aliasing filter on the ADC in order to avoid
> the creation of false images above 22.05 kHz. If you have replaced the
> reconstruction filter by a 1st order filter, you have *broken* the
> player. Audio Note made the same basic error, in fact they left it off
> altogether, so I guess you're in 'good' company..... :-)
> --
>
> Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering


.

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