Dan Lavry
Member of the Trade: Lavry Engineering
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2008
- Posts
- 150
- Likes
- 16
I learned long ago that "what sounds good" is rather subjective, and while I know what I like, I do not try to argue others into what they should like or dislike. It is also not appropriate for maker of gear to argue that their gear sound better, so I do not.
Many sophisticated users of audio gear make a point to occasionally “calibrate their ears” by listening to a real piano, singer, and orchestra. Listening to a real acoustic performance provide a reference point for comparison.
Say you never listened to a real acoustic piano, and the electronics yields too much bass boost, and some extra reverb. You may like it, and that is fine. But listening to the real thing (before the electronics) will sound different.
The listener and the designer have to decide what end result they wish for. As an older designer, I got into electronics in the tube age, before the transistor days, and by the time I graduated, transistors where all over the place, so I feel at home with both tubes and transistors. I make gear for both music production (recording, mastering, monitoring) and for home listening audiophiles like myself. So what is my design philosophy and approach? Here is what great sounding gear means to me (in non technical terms):
Listening to a piano, a vocal, an orchestra does not require tubes, transistors or any electronics. Electronics recording and playback is needed for listening away from the original performance, at a later time and place. My goal is to bring the performance sound to the listening environment in tact and with minimal altereation.
Note: I do acknowledge that music is often altered by recording and mastering engineers, to correct some of the imperfections encountered in the recording process, but good recording practices calls for subtle alterations, and good music production is not about altering the Sonics. Sadly, there is much music that is too compressed, with too much EQ, reverb and so on. I can not fix that after the fact. So I concentrate on good music material.
Sound is air vibrations. Musical instruments (and vocals) vibrate the air, vibrations reach our ears and we hear sound and music. The air motion changes over time constantly. When recording, we first convert the air motion into voltage (using a microphone). The mic voltage is tiny so we amplify it, store it…. At some point we convert that voltage back into sound, into air vibrations, by means of speakers or headphones.
My design philosophy is to make the air vibrations at the listening environment as identical to the air vibrations in the performance space as possible.
I do not want Yoyo Ma Stradivarius cello to sound warmer then the real instrument. I do not want a singer to have more highs or sound warmer or colder… Of course, such a goal is not easy to reach. The terminology used for staying true to the original is transparency.
So my gear is not designed for warm sound. It is designed for transparent sound. The audio industry is filled with phrases such as “full bass”, “warm mids” and “crisp highs”, and such words mean very little. Music is about sound, and much of the “audio language” is less then optimal for expressing the experience. It took me years to understand what the phrase “more air” means to mastering engineers…
But “transparent sound” is a clear concept, and I decided to go for transparency. I declared to the pro industry that I am for transparency years ago. Needles to say, by now the term transparent got reduced to an advertizing slogan by many gear makers. It is not uncommon (and sad) to see gear advertized as warm and transparent. Warm is in conflict with transparent.
One can alter a transparent sound to warm sound. Say a transparent DA drives a warm tube amplifier, then you end up with a warm sound. If both the DA and the amp are very warm, the sound may be much too distorted (warm is a distortion). But the converse is not true. If the DA puts out a warm sound, you can not reverse it and make it more transparent (less warm).
The DA11 is very transparent (true sounding) DAC. The headphone output is also very transparent. That is what I like. But if you are after a warm sound, you can have the DA11 drive an external warm sounding amplifier and/or headphones. With external tube amplifier, you can have both - The DA11 phone jack for transparent sound, and the external amp for warm sound.
Regards
Dan Lavry
Many sophisticated users of audio gear make a point to occasionally “calibrate their ears” by listening to a real piano, singer, and orchestra. Listening to a real acoustic performance provide a reference point for comparison.
Say you never listened to a real acoustic piano, and the electronics yields too much bass boost, and some extra reverb. You may like it, and that is fine. But listening to the real thing (before the electronics) will sound different.
The listener and the designer have to decide what end result they wish for. As an older designer, I got into electronics in the tube age, before the transistor days, and by the time I graduated, transistors where all over the place, so I feel at home with both tubes and transistors. I make gear for both music production (recording, mastering, monitoring) and for home listening audiophiles like myself. So what is my design philosophy and approach? Here is what great sounding gear means to me (in non technical terms):
Listening to a piano, a vocal, an orchestra does not require tubes, transistors or any electronics. Electronics recording and playback is needed for listening away from the original performance, at a later time and place. My goal is to bring the performance sound to the listening environment in tact and with minimal altereation.
Note: I do acknowledge that music is often altered by recording and mastering engineers, to correct some of the imperfections encountered in the recording process, but good recording practices calls for subtle alterations, and good music production is not about altering the Sonics. Sadly, there is much music that is too compressed, with too much EQ, reverb and so on. I can not fix that after the fact. So I concentrate on good music material.
Sound is air vibrations. Musical instruments (and vocals) vibrate the air, vibrations reach our ears and we hear sound and music. The air motion changes over time constantly. When recording, we first convert the air motion into voltage (using a microphone). The mic voltage is tiny so we amplify it, store it…. At some point we convert that voltage back into sound, into air vibrations, by means of speakers or headphones.
My design philosophy is to make the air vibrations at the listening environment as identical to the air vibrations in the performance space as possible.
I do not want Yoyo Ma Stradivarius cello to sound warmer then the real instrument. I do not want a singer to have more highs or sound warmer or colder… Of course, such a goal is not easy to reach. The terminology used for staying true to the original is transparency.
So my gear is not designed for warm sound. It is designed for transparent sound. The audio industry is filled with phrases such as “full bass”, “warm mids” and “crisp highs”, and such words mean very little. Music is about sound, and much of the “audio language” is less then optimal for expressing the experience. It took me years to understand what the phrase “more air” means to mastering engineers…
But “transparent sound” is a clear concept, and I decided to go for transparency. I declared to the pro industry that I am for transparency years ago. Needles to say, by now the term transparent got reduced to an advertizing slogan by many gear makers. It is not uncommon (and sad) to see gear advertized as warm and transparent. Warm is in conflict with transparent.
One can alter a transparent sound to warm sound. Say a transparent DA drives a warm tube amplifier, then you end up with a warm sound. If both the DA and the amp are very warm, the sound may be much too distorted (warm is a distortion). But the converse is not true. If the DA puts out a warm sound, you can not reverse it and make it more transparent (less warm).
The DA11 is very transparent (true sounding) DAC. The headphone output is also very transparent. That is what I like. But if you are after a warm sound, you can have the DA11 drive an external warm sounding amplifier and/or headphones. With external tube amplifier, you can have both - The DA11 phone jack for transparent sound, and the external amp for warm sound.
Regards
Dan Lavry
