[Jan Meier]

Just a note that my website has been updated. It no shows pictures of the final product!



Jan

 

[intlsubband]

Just a note that my website has been updated. It no shows pictures of the final product!



Jan

Congragulations Jan for continuing to innovate in our community! this must be the most innovative headphone-related product to hit the market in years. Looking forward to adding it to my chain.

 

[elira]

Mine arrived Today. It looks amazing in person.

 

[MRC001]

I like that look, and the functionality. It's tempting...

 

[elira]

Now that I have used it a few times, let me share some initial impressions, using the internal DAC/amp. Sound quality is kind of mid-fi, and there are some obvious degradations when using DSP, so for those ultra high end listeners that want an unaltered sound end to end this is not the device for you. What this device does is to make DSP tweaking easy, just plug your source move some knobs and you are done, no need to suffer with some complex to set up software in your PC. I attempted once to use crossfeed on my windows machine and after a couple hours I was unable to make it work, so I see some value in having all the DSP in a physical device that you can adjust easily.

The EQ is EQ you can tweak a bit the sound signature with the EQ, make voices more prominent, increase a bit of low end, reduce treble on some tiring songs, it's easy to correct that kind of things using the EQ. Crossfeed is in general nice but kind of a long term thing, it won't make an impressive difference, but it does help with imaging and that kind of stuff. The reverberation is where I find the most significant and pleasurable change to the sound, I have tested it with some DCA closed headphones, and they are bit dry but with the reverberation you can make they sound very musical and engaging, the reverberation makes the sound fuller and makes music fun instead of clinical.

Overall I'm very satisfied with the device, it makes music listening very enjoyable. I'm glad @Jan Meier decided to take the risk with such a weird device, it's in a class of its own.

 

[MRC001]

The COUNTry says it resamples all inputs to either 96k or 192k, so DSP is always applied at the same internal rate. Does this mean the COUNTry digital output is always a fixed rate, 96k or 192k, no matter what the source rate is?

 

[elira]

The COUNTry says it resamples all inputs to either 96k or 192k, so DSP is always applied at the same internal rate. Does this mean the COUNTry digital output is always a fixed rate, 96k or 192k, no matter what the source rate is?

If I understood properly the last update, it seems like the default is the 192kHz version and that means everything is sampled to 192kHz no matter the source rate.

 

[MRC001]

Also, with the 7 band EQ: it uses "shelf" rather than the standard "bell", for smoother cumulative response. So the low bands are low shelf and the high bands are high shelf. What is the center (1 kHz) band - low or high shelf?

 

[MRC001]

If I understood properly the last update, it seems like the default is the 192kHz version and that means everything is sampled to 192kHz no matter the source rate.

Yes. More precisely, from Meier's email updates:
1. You can opt for 192k, which has simple bass boost instead of the more sophisticated bass enhancement.
2. You can opt for 96k, which has bass enhancement.

It's a personal choice but I'd be inclined toward option (2) because I believe 96k is already well beyond any perceptual limits so 192k doesn't have any real benefit. And I believe there are technical reasons to prefer bass enhancement over boost. That is, enhancing the bass overtones/harmonics perceptually enhances the bass without boosting the fundamental. That's useful since boosting the fundamental increases distortion not only in the bass, but that distortion can extend into the mids where it is more audible. Why? because on a single diaphragm driver (which most but not all headphones are), the mids & treble are just ripples riding on the bass wave. Boosting low bass increases total diaphragm displacement/motion which is one of the root causes of distortion. The further it swings from the neutral position, the greater non-linearity, and you're now producing mids & treble also at those more extreme displacements.

BTW, the above is why I think bass enhancement is such a unique cool feature. If you want a simple boost you've got the EQ for that.

 

[MRC001]

Also, with the 7 band EQ: it uses "shelf" rather than the standard "bell", for smoother cumulative response. So the low bands are low shelf and the high bands are high shelf. What is the center (1 kHz) band - low or high shelf?

Jan answered this question for me, so I'll share it here:
The COUNTry EQ is a bit unique. Each band is neither "bell" nor "shelf", but a pair of symmetric shelves. The edge frequencies between adjacent bands match exactly. Thus you get a similar effect to standard "bell" EQ yet smooth, without ripple bumps from adjacent bands. I would call it "complementary dual shelving".

 

[intlsubband]

Now that I have used it a few times, let me share some initial impressions, using the internal DAC/amp. Sound quality is kind of mid-fi, and there are some obvious degradations when using DSP, so for those ultra high end listeners that want an unaltered sound end to end this is not the device for you. What this device does is to make DSP tweaking easy, just plug your source move some knobs and you are done, no need to suffer with some complex to set up software in your PC. I attempted once to use crossfeed on my windows machine and after a couple hours I was unable to make it work, so I see some value in having all the DSP in a physical device that you can adjust easily.

The EQ is EQ you can tweak a bit the sound signature with the EQ, make voices more prominent, increase a bit of low end, reduce treble on some tiring songs, it's easy to correct that kind of things using the EQ. Crossfeed is in general nice but kind of a long term thing, it won't make an impressive difference, but it does help with imaging and that kind of stuff. The reverberation is where I find the most significant and pleasurable change to the sound, I have tested it with some DCA closed headphones, and they are bit dry but with the reverberation you can make they sound very musical and engaging, the reverberation makes the sound fuller and makes music fun instead of clinical.

Overall I'm very satisfied with the device, it makes music listening very enjoyable. I'm glad @Jan Meier decided to take the risk with such a weird device, it's in a class of its own.

Thank you for this - just to clarify, have you tried to use the Country's digital output to another DAC, rather than analog/ HP output? and if so, is there still adverse effect on the sound?

 

[MRC001]

With the Country's digital output, the only adverse effect on the sound would be resampling. If the resampling is an integer multiple (48, 96, 192) it should be transparent. If it is not (like 44.1 to 96 or 192), then there may be some adverse effect... whether that is audible is a different question. Depends on the source material, the headphones, and the listener. In any event, the digital output should be cleaner/more transparent than the analog outputs.

 

[intlsubband]

With the Country's digital output, the only adverse effect on the sound would be resampling. If the resampling is an integer multiple (48, 96, 192) it should be transparent. If it is not (like 44.1 to 96 or 192), then there may be some adverse effect... whether that is audible is a different question. Depends on the source material, the headphones, and the listener. In any event, the digital output should be cleaner/more transparent than the analog outputs.

Thanks. I have ordered one as well, and am looking forward to playing around with the Country in my system. I plan to mostly use it before my DAC/preamp, which then feeds multiple devices, including standard and electrostatic HP amps, active speakers, and a separate DAC connected to an integrated amp feeding a pair of loudspeakers. In other words I'll be able to give its many functions a good run.

 

[MRC001]

Thanks. I have ordered one as well, and am looking forward to playing around with the Country in my system. I plan to mostly use it before my DAC/preamp, which then feeds multiple devices, including standard and electrostatic HP amps, active speakers, and a separate DAC connected to an integrated amp feeding a pair of loudspeakers. In other words I'll be able to give its many functions a good run.

Great! Please share your impressions after you've explored its features & sound quality.

 

[Jan Meier]

Dear friends,

has been a while ago that I checked this discussion. Has been bussy times.

Just a single note.

"With the Country's digital output, the only adverse effect on the sound would be resampling. If the resampling is an integer multiple (48, 96, 192) it should be transparent. If it is not (like 44.1 to 96 or 192), then there may be some adverse effect... whether that is audible is a different question. Depends on the source material, the headphones, and the listener. In any event, the digital output should be cleaner/more transparent than the analog outputs."

When the SOUL was developed I made two firmware versions. One that had all the digital effects done at the native sampling frequency of the incoming signal and one version that upsampled every input signal to 192 kHz before the effects were applied.

And yes, it was found that there was a very (!!!!) small (!!!!!!) negative effect on sound quality with upsampling. Therefore the final version of the SOUL does everything at the native frequency.

With the COUNTRY the situation is a little bit different. There are more options and especially reverb can not be implemented in the same firmware for different sampling frequencies. Upsampling saves computational power needed to accommodate the extra options and allows to implement reverb.

Since the negative effects of upsampling are extremely small (they really only can be heard in a direct A-B comparison with a highly resolving headphone and a highly resolving amp) this disadvantage is easily outweighted by the advantages.

Life is a compromise!

Cheers

Jan