BillyHOEZ
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 22, 2003
- Posts
- 139
- Likes
- 10
Hello fellow Head-Fiers.....for the past few weeks, I've been fortunate enough to upgrade my equipment and since all of you have been so kind to me by giving me wonderful suggestions, I feel that it is my duty to supply everyone here with a good review regarding the heavily debated PC sound versus a good entry level CD player. To keep this message nice and short, I'll get straight to the point.
NOTE: all equpiment is fully burned in with the exception of batteries, which i just got a week ago
Competitors:
M-Audio Revolution analog output w/ Foobar 2000 player
versus
stock Music Hall MMF-CD25
Test equpiment:
Grado RA-1 amp w/ plainview 9.6 volt NiMH batteries
Grado RS-1 headphones w/ VWAP's modded sennheiser flat pads
computer audio configuration:
M-Audio Setup:
speaker bass management off
front speakers size large, w/ crossover off
left and right speakers set at 0dB, with a distance of 0 ft
Master volume set at 7
NO surround processing (basically preset headphone setup excet its tweaked just a bit as mentioned above....)
Foobar 2000 setup:
Kernel streaming output enabled
Equalizer enabled: here's the configuration of equalizer
from LEFT TO RIGHT:
-2,-5,-8,-11,-14,-16,-17,-17,-17,-17,-16,-15,-13,-11,-9,-6,-3,0
bass mids highs
interconnects used for m-audio to RA-1: Bettercables Silver Serpent 1/8 inch mini to left and right male bullet RCA plugs (1 meter long)
CD player setup:
Stock Music hall cd 25 w/ 0.5 meter outlaw audio PCA interconnects to RA-1
*used standard redbook cds for test and compared them w/ the same songs burned into hard drive @16bits, 44.1kHz, 1411kbps*
The Conclusion:
after listening to multiple types of music (stuff tested with, BUT not limited to: red hot chili peppers, sum 41, gypsy kings, celtic music, incubus, nirvana, led zeppelin, mariah carey, 2pac, etc, etc), the PC sound w/ the configuration described above sounded much fuller w/ greater soundstaging than its counterpart. the details are still there, and the sound is tweaked just enough w/ the help of the equalizer to really maximize the capabilities of the Grado RS-1/RA-1 combo. the difference is really apparent w/ more recent recordings such as pop music. Bass is deep, thunders when its supposed to w/ classical and celtic music, and highs are nicely enriched...as i have mentioned before, the best way to describe this "sound" is that it is full of weight and energy - - it seems as if it has life to it....
now i know that there are lots of head fier's here who dislike the use of any sort of DSP because it alters the original signal. I've tried the foobar2k player stripped of dsp's w/ kernel streaming and the sound is similar to the stock music hall. i felt that the sound was so light that it seemed lifeless....the bass didn't thunder when it was supposed to...and overall it just sounded flat...personally i like to have a clean, unmodifed signal as well, but to listen to something that's THAT flat just doesn't float my boat...hence i spent some time and played around w/ the equalizer in the foobar2k player until it was to my liking
as for the music hall, don't get me wrong - - the potential for this thing to sound fan friggin tastic is there! it just needs the help of mods....i've listened to this thing extensively and for a stock player, the build quality, the price, as well as the sound quality and the ability for hardcore audiophile nuts to modify it is perhaps the best bang for the buck out there.....i've noticed that with classical/acoustic music, the stock player versus the computer source had almost no audible difference - - i mean there was, but it is too discreet for the causal listener to pick out....i think where it really stands out is with rock/pop music. i was listening to Nirvana's "Been a Son" on both the cd player and the computer source, and i found that the CD player lacked a bit in soundstaging, clarity, and most importantly, the bass and the liveliness of the quick drum beats. the best way to describe the music hall sound with rock music is that its like listening to a good pair of speakers with a tad too much of black fabric covering the speakers. it seems as if all the mid and high frequencies are muffled just slightly, with the bass losing its dramatic impact and ability to make listeners feel as if they're apart of the music. maybe the outlaw ICs have something to do with this, but since i've read so many rave reviews about these cables, it doesn't seem that that could be the case....
nevertheless i will be getting the level 1+ mod for my music hall very soon. once i get that done, with some ample burn in time, i'll do another comparison! hope this helps!
NOTE: all equpiment is fully burned in with the exception of batteries, which i just got a week ago
Competitors:
M-Audio Revolution analog output w/ Foobar 2000 player
versus
stock Music Hall MMF-CD25
Test equpiment:
Grado RA-1 amp w/ plainview 9.6 volt NiMH batteries
Grado RS-1 headphones w/ VWAP's modded sennheiser flat pads
computer audio configuration:
M-Audio Setup:
speaker bass management off
front speakers size large, w/ crossover off
left and right speakers set at 0dB, with a distance of 0 ft
Master volume set at 7
NO surround processing (basically preset headphone setup excet its tweaked just a bit as mentioned above....)
Foobar 2000 setup:
Kernel streaming output enabled
Equalizer enabled: here's the configuration of equalizer
from LEFT TO RIGHT:
-2,-5,-8,-11,-14,-16,-17,-17,-17,-17,-16,-15,-13,-11,-9,-6,-3,0
bass mids highs
interconnects used for m-audio to RA-1: Bettercables Silver Serpent 1/8 inch mini to left and right male bullet RCA plugs (1 meter long)
CD player setup:
Stock Music hall cd 25 w/ 0.5 meter outlaw audio PCA interconnects to RA-1
*used standard redbook cds for test and compared them w/ the same songs burned into hard drive @16bits, 44.1kHz, 1411kbps*
The Conclusion:
after listening to multiple types of music (stuff tested with, BUT not limited to: red hot chili peppers, sum 41, gypsy kings, celtic music, incubus, nirvana, led zeppelin, mariah carey, 2pac, etc, etc), the PC sound w/ the configuration described above sounded much fuller w/ greater soundstaging than its counterpart. the details are still there, and the sound is tweaked just enough w/ the help of the equalizer to really maximize the capabilities of the Grado RS-1/RA-1 combo. the difference is really apparent w/ more recent recordings such as pop music. Bass is deep, thunders when its supposed to w/ classical and celtic music, and highs are nicely enriched...as i have mentioned before, the best way to describe this "sound" is that it is full of weight and energy - - it seems as if it has life to it....
now i know that there are lots of head fier's here who dislike the use of any sort of DSP because it alters the original signal. I've tried the foobar2k player stripped of dsp's w/ kernel streaming and the sound is similar to the stock music hall. i felt that the sound was so light that it seemed lifeless....the bass didn't thunder when it was supposed to...and overall it just sounded flat...personally i like to have a clean, unmodifed signal as well, but to listen to something that's THAT flat just doesn't float my boat...hence i spent some time and played around w/ the equalizer in the foobar2k player until it was to my liking
as for the music hall, don't get me wrong - - the potential for this thing to sound fan friggin tastic is there! it just needs the help of mods....i've listened to this thing extensively and for a stock player, the build quality, the price, as well as the sound quality and the ability for hardcore audiophile nuts to modify it is perhaps the best bang for the buck out there.....i've noticed that with classical/acoustic music, the stock player versus the computer source had almost no audible difference - - i mean there was, but it is too discreet for the causal listener to pick out....i think where it really stands out is with rock/pop music. i was listening to Nirvana's "Been a Son" on both the cd player and the computer source, and i found that the CD player lacked a bit in soundstaging, clarity, and most importantly, the bass and the liveliness of the quick drum beats. the best way to describe the music hall sound with rock music is that its like listening to a good pair of speakers with a tad too much of black fabric covering the speakers. it seems as if all the mid and high frequencies are muffled just slightly, with the bass losing its dramatic impact and ability to make listeners feel as if they're apart of the music. maybe the outlaw ICs have something to do with this, but since i've read so many rave reviews about these cables, it doesn't seem that that could be the case....
nevertheless i will be getting the level 1+ mod for my music hall very soon. once i get that done, with some ample burn in time, i'll do another comparison! hope this helps!
