[slackman]

Quote:

Not to move too far off topic...
 
I am using a D100, which utilizes a ASRC unit and I believe converts everything to 110kHz sampling rate anyways.  Are you suggesting upsampling via the foobar component you recommended to say 176.4 will (or can theoretically) generate improvements at the end of it all?  Would you recommend resampling to a different frequency? (Like 88.2?)
 
Thanks for the advice in advance
 

 
Sorry I don't really know what theory says about this.
I noticed a very minor improvement when resampling from 44.1 to 96Khz with SOX for my Lavry DA10 which uses a similar ASRC as the D100 I belief.
The subtle improvement I can best describe as "sound becoming slightly more evenly filled out throughout the spectrum" apparent with some music,and some small change in the treble.
Besides these changes coming from the actual upsampling there's even the possibility that these changes come from the Lavry switching to a different clock for the spdif input. I don't know.
But I did hear it as a slight improvement myself, not just as slightly different.
Best to try it out and listen for the changes. With some DACs the differences are very big.

 

[drez]

Quote:

I personally haven't tried JPlay, but cPlay should sound the same for jitter sensitive transports and is free.
But JPlay doesn't allow upsampling (like cPlay and Foobar do) and in my personal experience upsampling makes a bigger difference (potentially MUCH bigger difference depending on your DAC) than the improvements of computer player related jitter on a jitter sensitive source (cheap non asynchonous USB to spdif).
So I'd say for best soundquality of these 3 cPlay / cMP comes first, then foobar2000, then jPlay (based on specs/theory, have not used jPlay). And the fun is that the best 2 are free
Probably better spend that $99 towards something that really matters.

You can try JPlay for free.  IMO cMP is good IF you fully optimise your PC to run it - just running the player it does sound better than Foobar (in terms of detail retreival) but the soundstage is still very impaired.  I highly suggest you try [JPlay].
 
If you don't have a fully dedicated music server, JPlay offers far more comprehensive optimisation than cMP, and is designed to work with Windows 7 rather than requiring a XP pro install.
 
I can't say for certain how cMP^2 sounds when set up properly yet - that will have to wait until I set up a dedicated machine or find time to do an XP pro install on this machine.

 

[Sonic77]

Does cPlay  require Pentium 4 type processor only? The reason I ask is because I have an AMD processor.

 

[Philharmoniker]

Quote:

Does cPlay  require Pentium 4 type processor only? The reason I ask is because I have an AMD processor.

There are still Pentium 4 processors around these days?

 

[drez]

Quote:

No but as time goes on cPlay is getting a bit long-in-tooth.
 
Jplay seems to be taking the crown because it addresses the short-comings of Windows appropriately.
 
cplay only supports asio, and "if" you have experience with asio you will soon discover it has different flavors. At least in my book, flavors are to be avoided unless I purposely want them there eg tubes. Otherwise I want transparent. 
 
 

Mine has the crackling distortion flavor

  Just got asio4all to work then it starts to continuously cr*p itself.  Renstall doesn't work either.  Why not add direct KS support to Cplay anyway?
 

 

[Sonic77]

This all sounds like a hassle, I'm probably going to skip this one, besides the D18 is sounding just fine. Asio is picky, sounds good when it works tho.
Quote:

No but as time goes on cPlay is getting a bit long-in-tooth.
 
Jplay seems to be taking the crown because it addresses the short-comings of Windows appropriately.
 
cplay only supports asio, and "if" you have experience with asio you will soon discover it has different flavors. At least in my book, flavors are to be avoided unless I purposely want them there eg tubes. Otherwise I want transparent. 
 
 

 

 

[project86]

It seems like I'm the only one using (or planning on using) the D18 without a PC and a USB to SPDIF converter. I know computer-as-transport is the wave of the future, but certainly not the only way to get good sound.
 
High end CD players can work as excellent transports. My best, the Marantz SA-1, has something like 150ps jitter peak to peak if I remember correctly. But the relatively affordable Squeezebox Touch has been measured at 50ps RMS or 300ps peak to peak, which approaches that of the SA-1. MSRP on the SA-1 was roughly 25 times that of the Touch. In my humble opinion a really good transport is no longer out of reach for most folks.
 
And I can say that the D18 will really respond to transport quality. I tried a basic DVD player (a cheap Samsung) and I could tell a significant difference. It scales up really well with good (but remember - not necessarily expensive) equipment. 

 

[Sonic77]

I plan on using the D18 with my cd player, as I already said I did. My ERC-1 CD as a transport did wonders, maybe not the best player in the world, but no slouch either. Don't knock it until you try it, is what I am saying to disbelievers.
Quote:

It seems like I'm the only one using (or planning on using) the D18 without a PC and a USB to SPDIF converter. I know computer-as-transport is the wave of the future, but certainly not the only way to get good sound.
 
High end CD players can work as excellent transports. My best, the Marantz SA-1, has something like 150ps jitter peak to peak if I remember correctly. But the relatively affordable Squeezebox Touch has been measured at 50ps RMS or 300ps peak to peak, which approaches that of the SA-1. MSRP on the SA-1 was roughly 25 times that of the Touch. In my humble opinion a really good transport is no longer out of reach for most folks.
 
And I can say that the D18 will really respond to transport quality. I tried a basic DVD player (a cheap Samsung) and I could tell a significant difference. It scales up really well with good (but remember - not necessarily expensive) equipment. 

 

 

[project86]

Quote:

I plan on using the D18 with my cd player, as I already said I did. My ERC-1 CD as a transport did wonders, maybe not the best player in the world, but no slouch either. Don't knock it until you try it, is what I am saying to disbelievers.
Quote:


 

Oh that's right, I do recall you saying that. I hear nothing but good things about the ERC-1 (and 2) and I don't get why some people dislike Emo so much. 

 

[Grant Fidelity]

 

 

[project86]

Quote:

Does this Dac have a Plitron transformer?

 
Yes it does.

 

[AVU]

Quote:

I mostly post positive reviews because the stuff I don't like doesn't get a write-up. I'm always borrowing and buying new gear but I don't waste time describing the stuff that I don't connect with. That's why it probably seems that I love everything I write about - because the other stuff gets returned or quietly sold without any discussion. 
 

 
I read this and had a shock of recognition.  
 
For one thing, it's inherently a bit difficult to write NEGATIVE reviews of items on head-fi.  Why?  Because if you bought them yourself, and can't just return them to the store for a full refund (rare), you're probably going to be selling them here.  Who's going to crap all over a piece of gear 9 ways to sunday and then list it for sale and expect anybody to buy it?!?  Secondly, a lot of other people often have bought the same gear and I feel bad writing something negative about something they love so much.  Ideally, everybody would just want the truth, but humans don't really work like that.  You buy something because you've convinced yourself it's going to be great.  You have a lot invested in it being great.  I remember last year when portable balanced amps became all the rage, and www.headfonia.com was probably the only place on the web you could read a detailed review and explanation of why not only these particular balanced portables were a bad idea for some iems, but why ALL balanced portables would likely be a bad idea for ALL iems.  Boy did that make a lot of people who had plunked down $650+ for their new RSA amp twitchy.  
 
Of course, it works the other way as well.  Once you've convinced yourself you don't like X and you sell it, you're likely to remember it as being bad - regardless of the fact that you no longer have it around to test against whatever you're talking about. 
 
Anyway, I really appreciate your thoughtful reviews, Project86, verbose or no!
 
best,
avu

 

[grokit]

Quote:

I read this and had a shock of recognition.  
 
For one thing, it's inherently a bit difficult to write NEGATIVE reviews of items on head-fi.  Why?  Because if you bought them yourself, and can't just return them to the store for a full refund (rare), you're probably going to be selling them here.  Who's going to crap all over a piece of gear 9 ways to sunday and then list it for sale and expect anybody to buy it?!?  Secondly, a lot of other people often have bought the same gear and I feel bad writing something negative about something they love so much.  Ideally, everybody would just want the truth, but humans don't really work like that.  You buy something because you've convinced yourself it's going to be great.  You have a lot invested in it being great.  I remember last year when portable balanced amps became all the rage, and www.headfonia.com was probably the only place on the web you could read a detailed review and explanation of why not only these particular balanced portables were a bad idea for some iems, but why ALL balanced portables would likely be a bad idea for ALL iems.  Boy did that make a lot of people who had plunked down $650+ for their new RSA amp twitchy.  
 
Of course, it works the other way as well.  Once you've convinced yourself you don't like X and you sell it, you're likely to remember it as being bad - regardless of the fact that you no longer have it around to test against whatever you're talking about. 
 
Anyway, I really appreciate your thoughtful reviews, Project86, verbose or no!
 
best,
avu

I'm pretty sure you just broke the first rule of Head-fi 

 

 

[Philharmoniker]

So I just got my XLR cables from monoprice. They are not that great, but I am quite impressed by the XLR output comparing to the RCA out of D18 so far. I find it rather accurate what Xiaolong himself said about the two outputs. While the XLR out is more technical and wider and broader everywhere, the RCA out is more "musical", with a bit more coloration of the sound. To me the balanced out definitely presents much more details and a much broader and fuller sound stage. On the other hand, I did not quite appreciate the added "musicality" of the RCA out as much. Maybe it is because I have only tried out two pretty large symphony pieces with the XLR vs.RCA comparison. The first is Nielsen's Symphony No.3 under Bernstein and the second is Beethoven's Symphony no.3 under Abbado. In both cases the XLR out came out on top giving me a much better reproduction of what the sound should be.
Anyone else tried the balanced versus SE output and heard any difference yet?

 

[project86]

Quote:

So I just got my XLR cables from monoprice. They are not that great, but I am quite impressed by the XLR output comparing to the RCA out of D18 so far. I find it rather accurate what Xiaolong himself said about the two outputs. While the XLR out is more technical and wider and broader everywhere, the RCA out is more "musical", with a bit more coloration of the sound. To me the balanced out definitely presents much more details and a much broader and fuller sound stage. On the other hand, I did not quite appreciate the added "musicality" of the RCA out as much. Maybe it is because I have only tried out two pretty large symphony pieces with the XLR vs.RCA comparison. The first is Nielsen's Symphony No.3 under Bernstein and the second is Beethoven's Symphony no.3 under Abbado. In both cases the XLR out came out on top giving me a much better reproduction of what the sound should be.
Anyone else tried the balanced versus SE output and heard any difference yet?

 
I have only been using balanced out to a Violectric V200 so far. But I should spend some time with RCA outs and see if I notice the same thing. I'll add to my list of things to ask the designer - what is the difference caused by?
 
 
EDIT - what don't you like about the monoprice Cables? I thought they were very well built for the $10 or so that they cost. Not fancy but solid.