Meier Analoger

Hi Lextek,

I was interested in this too and ran a search and came up with two threads. Seems there are mixed reactions and also that it may also be dependent on the source material.

I asked Jan about it and he pretty much said the same thing, that some people couldn't really tell a major difference and that others swear by them. He cited one example where he sold one to a guy in Brazil. He demo'd it for his buddies and suddenly, Jan had orders for four more from Brazil. Jan's a good guy in that he didn't try to "sell" it to me. I always appreciate that.

I'm thinking of taking a shot at one in kit form (along with his HA-1). I have some recordings (CD's), where I have to crank down the volume during some passages of high frequency stuff that really jangles me. I'm thinking (hoping, actually) that the analoguer might smooth and warm some of that sibilance without filtering out any content.

I have one and I swear by it. But...

He isn't lying when he says the effect is subtle!

I would suggest listening to Sting or Natalie Merchant and listen to the super-high tones in thier voices. There is the god-awful harshness way, way up there and the analoguer helps smooth that out (but doesn't eliminate it completly).

If you listen and can't hear what it is I'm talking about then I would imagine you would likely not hear the difference.

Unless there is something bothering you in the super-high registers (14+ kHz) I wouldnt spend the money on it.

If you are unsure take the harsh source material and push it though an EQ (like winamp or something, it doesn't have to be perfect) and start a roll off of the high frequencies around 14-15k. If you like what you hear then you'll likely like the Analoguer,

I think the 'analouger' is swell idea for those who have problems with low-rez digital--CD, mp3, etc., but I don't like the idea of running the signal through a another set of cables/ac outlets if I don't have to, just my view.

As I understand it (and I've been asking for six solid months), the analoguer is basically a controlled high frequency rolloff without phase distortion.

My bane is this... for imaging, seperation and detail, high frequency information is critical. And yet, I am one of the few people who seem to be genuinely infuriated by digital artifacting caused by high frequency undersampling and especially those accompanying the sibilants of bright vocalists, of whom I am especially fond.

I also agree with what was stated previously--that introducing an additional component and another set of potentially expensive interconnects is not ideal.

My solution in the meantime has been, frankly, to upgrade every front end source component possible. I'm still in the process of this but I fear that because many of the discs were digitally mixed and mastered that some of the harsh digital artifacts are simply hardcoded into the digital master and not error correction, buffering, reclocking nor upsampling will ever eliminate this from these recordings. I've found these type of issues to be more prevalent in rock recordings and hope they'll decrease in frequency as time goes on but I may yet be driven to add the analoguer to my main rig if the source upgrades don't satisfy me.

Jan hints on his site that expensive source components like the Wadia do something similar to his analoguer but in the digital domain. I'm still not completely clear on how they would do that. Somehow the processor must be able to identify when a chain of information is undersampled and filter it from the playback. If this is the genuine solution to this problem, I wonder if someone might introduce a digital processor to place between the transport and DAC to accomplish this. If so, I'd probably be more easily talked into going that route.

Meanwhile, I think Jan's solution would be more appropriate in a low resolution system such as PC music and the like. I also wonder if a multichannel version might be approriate in home theater where stereo imaging is less critical--though, to be honest, films seem to be recorded a little warm to begin with and rarely suffer from digital artifacts on a decent playback system.

If anyone can add more information to this thread, please do.

It's actually a quite easy problem to solve in the digital domain with a caveat...

The caveat is you *HAVE* to upsample to gain the benefit.

The effect Jan describes is an inaccurate represention of the high-frequencies in digital recordings.

Because the time reference is constant and because the frequency is constant throught the time sampling the amount of amplitude "wavering" can be predicted and can thus be compensated for.

Granted you cant ever get back the data that wasn't recorded but at those frequencies you can get *damned* close. Close enough that the human ear likly lacks the resolution to notice.

This technique actually puts that lost data back and outputs it at a higher sample rate like 96k or 192k for the insane.

Jan's solution is to roll-off the upper frequencies. He makes no attempt to put that missing data back. Doing so in the analog domain would be difficult to say the least!

If you're that bothered by it (and I hear you, I'm bothered by it too), I suggest getting a high-end CDP with a DSP that corrects for this artifacting. The analoguer helps but doesn't eliminate this effect even on it's highest setting. Further the analoguer to me also rolls-off the parts of the high-end that are there and acureatly represented. In essense it throws the baby out with the bath water. But in this application it can be a good thing.

I wish I could afford a Wadia but until then I'll have to listen with the Analoguer and take the bad with the good.