[ebteeiii]

First of all, I have been away from this site for some time. Since my recent return, I have already dropped $200 on a Corda Move. I now am somewhat curious about the Corda Opera vs. my current Corda Aria. I presently listen to 192 vbr, 256 vbr aac's or apple lossless > Corda Aria > Grado RS-1. Any idea what I could expect with an upgrade to an Corda Opera?

 

[nautikal]

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=261538

Don't really understand why you would be considering a $1100 amp for mp3s though.

 

[itsborken]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebteeiii /img/forum/go_quote.gif First of all, I have been away from this site for some time. Since my recent return, I dropped $200 on a Corda Move. I now am somewhat curious about the Corda Opera. I presently listen to 192 vbr, 256 vbr aac's or apple lossless > Corda Aria > Grado RS-1. Any idea what I could expect with an upgrade to an Corda Opera?

It is a drastic change. More power, better SQ via the changes to the ground signal and circuitry. The DAC is a lot better. Switchable inputs, gain switch on the front. It's quite the amp.

 

[itsborken]

nice double post

 

[steaxauce]

I've done some A/Bing (with a Lavry DA10 and Edition 9) and discovered that the difference between lossless and good lossy codecs is very small. Even at 128 the difference is smaller than the difference between two amps. I had things set up so that I could switch between 128 WMA VBR and uncompressed WAV files of the same song (and the same part of the song) with a flick of the DA10's input switch, and the difference was suprisingly small. I could pick out the 128 in a blind test, but the person I was listening with actually preferred the 128 for one of the two songs he listened to, knowing he was listening to the 128! I'm betting the differences between 192 and 256 AAC VBR and lossless is darn near imperceptible, as is widely demonstrated by blind tests. I expect that the only serious use for lossless codecs (and the purpose for which they were created) is for archiving music in a format where there will be no losses when switching to a different format.

So anyway, don't let that you're listening to compressed audio discourage you from buying an Opera.

Edit: BTW, I had an Opera and it's a good amp!

 

[dkpaul]

Opera is balanced... so does that mean that I need to get balanced cable for my cans?
What happens if the cable is not balanced?

 

[IPodPJ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkpaul /img/forum/go_quote.gif Opera is balanced... so does that mean that I need to get balanced cable for my cans? What happens if the cable is not balanced?

No it isn't. It has a balanced ground which is different. It's supposed to sound similar to a true balanced amp though. But you don't need any special cables for your headphones. That's supposedly the advantage of it.

I'm counting the days until my Opera arrives. It was shipped out 13 days ago.

Something I've noticed: I haven't seen one negative post about the Opera's sound quality. A few people have whined about the blinking light, but I've yet to see a complaint about the audio quality of the amp... which is a very rare thing to find on this forum.

 

[smartins]

Quote:

Originally Posted by steaxauce /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've done some A/Bing (with a Lavry DA10 and Edition 9) and discovered that the difference between lossless and good lossy codecs is very small. Even at 128 the difference is smaller than the difference between two amps. I had things set up so that I could switch between 128 WMA VBR and uncompressed WAV files of the same song (and the same part of the song) with a flick of the DA10's input switch, and the difference was suprisingly small. I could pick out the 128 in a blind test, but the person I was listening with actually preferred the 128 for one of the two songs he listened to, knowing he was listening to the 128! I'm betting the differences between 192 and 256 AAC VBR and lossless is darn near imperceptible, as is widely demonstrated by blind tests. I expect that the only serious use for lossless codecs (and the purpose for which they were created) is for archiving music in a format where there will be no losses when switching to a different format. So anyway, don't let that you're listening to compressed audio discourage you from buying an Opera. Edit: BTW, I had an Opera and it's a good amp!

You said you used Lavry's DA-10 input switch to alternate between sources. I guess you've used coaxial (rca) and optical?

If so, I've did a comparison between my coaxial digital cable (Stereovox XV2) and optical cable (Van den Hul The Optocoupler MK-2) and noticed very noticeable differences between coaxial and optical, the first being more open detailed and overall better. I don't know what components you used but from my limited listening experience, coaxial is much better than optical, which might have some impact on the comparison you did.

So in my opinion it's probably better to use a single cable and instead take advantage of, for example, foobar's 2000 A/B testing option which also allows to switch between the tracks being compared very easily and provides a true A/B test system.

Cheers,
Steven