[PhoebeFairchild]

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I would say a top-end digital source sounds like a mid-to-high-end turntable, which I think is probably the current SOTA in digital reproduction. But once you add in the arm, cart and a decent phono preamp, you are probably not too far from the price of the DAC/CDP/streamer anyway. I have somewhat limited turntable experience, so take that with a grain of salt.
 

I have heard current generation top of the line digital source components and they are extremely close to the sound of top of the line analog turntables especially if it is capable of playing very high resolution digital content like DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD or 24bit/192kHz AIFF, WAV, FLAC, or ALAC loss less audio files. A prime candidate is the dCS Scarlatti three box system. I have heard this for two days in my home and it was the best digital source component that I have ever auditioned. I had to return it because I can not afford it. It sounded virtually indistinguishable from the master source material. Nothing was missing.

 

[peregrinare]

That is indeed upside down! What other DAC's have you tried before settling on the Klimax?
 
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My system is sort of the otherway around.
 
LCD2 + B22 + Linn Klimax
 
So that's basicly $3k worth of headphone and amp and a whole lota $$ on the source.
 
I can honestly say I like my setup much better than LCD3 + phonitor + a mid-range CDP, granted I thought the LCD3 was one of those "veiled" version. There is a realism to the sound from my system that I rarely hear in other systems, including big ticket speaker/amp combos. I have had the same phone/amp combo for quite a while and have gone through a series of DACs. With each incremental upgrade, I get closer to a more lifelike sound. The difference between Linn and lesser priced DACs is not night and day (e.g., from 32kps mp3 to 24/96 master flac), but there is an important point at which sound becomes real and music become almost lifelike.

 


 

 

 

[telecaster]

Simplier, buy or pick the cd you love, put in spiner, and enjoy! Seems like the OT is a complete noob in digital playback. PC playback is the worst nightmare if you can't configure that sheet. Then yes 5000 bux only for headphone setup is complete overkill, you won't get the most of it without headaches!
 
Or buy Sonos and be done with it.. Even squeezebox can be hard to setup. With that kind of money better to spread it and have an audiphile setup classy and easy to use rather than a computer running with HF noise and harddrive spinning and network problems and bad jitter because you don't use the asynchronous USB device which driver is not updated or incompatible plus all the wires that look ugly and so on..
 
Lossless playback is the best, but you got to know exactly what you are doing. Look at Meridian Sooloos for a clean lossless playback solution.. It costs some pennies though. So just buy a Sonos and be done with it!

 

[rgs9200m]

Just to chime in here with a question I was wondering about, SACD always sounds superior (often far superior) to regular CD (Redbook/44.1).
But there is very limited music available in SACD.
Are lossless/FLAC (or whatever) files of music more like SACD than CD, and thus better and more hi-rez than regular 44.1 CD?
Thanks.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Just to chime in here with a question I was wondering about, SACD always sounds superior (often far superior) to regular CD (Redbook/44.1).
But there is very limited music available in SACD.
Are lossless/FLAC (or whatever) files of music more like SACD than CD, and thus better and more hi-rez than regular 44.1 CD?
Thanks.

To your first point, that's really not true. SACD often sounds marginally better at best, and in the case of certain pressings, a SACD master that's just upconverted PCM (arguably fraud) will sound the same or worse if there's a better master available on Redbook. A very high-end CD transport will also outperform a mediocre SACD player, particularly if that SACD player converts to PCM as part of its D-to-A process.
 
For your question, lossless files ripped from a CD are identical to the CD. If you burn them on to a CD-R, they should sound exactly the same as the original press. Lossless files ripped from a DVD-A disc will sound better than CD, to the extent that the DVD-A master is better. You can technically rip a SACD digitally using a Playstation, but the resulting files have to be converted to PCM, you can't play them in the native DSD format. I don't know how high-res lossless files ripped from a SACD compare to the original on a SACD player.
 
There are also high-res better than CD files available for download. HDTracks carries them but beware, a lot of their inventory is just upconverted, similar to those lazy SACD releases. There are some masters created just for HDTracks though. The files available from Reference Recordings, Linn Records and others are all the real deal.
 

 

[rgs9200m]

Thanks Davebsc! Yep, I shouldn't have generalized there, point taken. But thanks for all that, I guess there is no true source of real universal hi-rez, and that's a real shame, because quality SACDs (and to me most of them qualify)
are really awesome, with highs that go all the way but without the wincing that can happen with redbook digital glare.
 
But thanks for the wikipedia-like comprehensive info. I'll see what's on HDtracks to see if it's worth it.
 
(I think it's unconscionable  that there are no SACDs of the Beatles.)

 

[grokit]

If you're lucky, SACD's and vinyl are mastered differently than their redbook counterparts. So if this the case you can hear a difference, but technically your ears can't discern any improvement with 24/192 compared to 16/44. Especially if you listen bit-perfect, without any DSP.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

If you're lucky, SACD's and vinyl are mastered differently than their redbook counterparts. So if this the case you can hear a difference, but technically your ears can't discern any improvement with 24/192 compared to 16/44. Especially if you listen bit-perfect, without any DSP.

Pretty much. There are some differences between mediums of course, Redbook is hard limited to 22Khz, Vinyl can hit about 30Khz but has limits in deep bass. The mix/master defines the sound though. Vinyl doesn't beat CD, but vinyl masters often do.

 

[grokit]

 
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Pretty much. There are some differences between mediums of course, Redbook is hard limited to 22Khz, Vinyl can hit about 30Khz but has limits in deep bass. The mix/master defines the sound though. Vinyl doesn't beat CD, but vinyl masters often do.

Well-mastered first pressing virgin vinyl is pretty hard to beat as well

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

I guess there is no true source of real universal hi-rez, and that's a real shame, because quality SACDs (and to me most of them qualify)
are really awesome, with highs that go all the way but without the wincing that can happen with redbook digital glare.

Unfortunately no. Frankly I think SACDs are more trouble than they're worth. DVD-A discs were always much more practical. You could play them in some cars, on computers, and you can easily rip them and get high-res flac files which will work on just about any media server (and thus bypass the S/Pdif lockout) or even a portable player like the Hifiman HM-801. The files can also be downsampled and burned on to a CD if necessary.
 
You can't do any of that with a SACD, and most people just don't want shelves full of discs anymore. The CD is likely to stick around for many more years, with download files eventually taking over. Self releasing by artists is also likely to be much more common, and it will be totally up to the artist as to how high-res they want to release their material.

 

[rgs9200m]

All I know is that a bunch of SACDs of music that had me looking for equipment upgrades with my system are unbelievably glorious in SACD (Stones Hot Rocks, Carole King's albums Tapesty + Music, Boston, the Who, some classical).
I have an EMM cdp, which can be excellent on lots of redbook, but still, most SACD to my ears is just soooooooooooooooo wonderful and seems to cure all sonic problems with one stroke.
I've been listening to these albums for 30+ years on vinyl and digital and the SACD sound to me is way better (more natural) than both, including vinyl, because the SACD digital has all the layering and detailed dig-deep texture that makes it sound
natural and real, but without any artificial hyped-up sound you get in redbook to some degree. Those details are just not there in vinyl, and I've heard this music in megabuck systems at shows.
 
Sure, some SACDs are not at this level of quality, but when they are good, they are awesome, and somehow they are especially great on headphones. My HD800s on SACD are a religiously-good experience, no joking.
I'm really picky and get annoyed easily, but I just can't praise the Hirez sound enough. Amplifiers and headphones that had all the common issues still maintain their character but suddenly sound close to flawless, like  a miracle happened.
It's a shame SACD never really caught on.
 
OK, rant over...

 

[grokit]

Neil Young thinks that the internet is the new radio, where the compressed bandwidth stuff is like tape recording from FM in the day. If you like what you hear for free on the radio/internet you will purchase a better quality copy. And research has proven that free/pirated compressed music does increase sales. Read between the lines and he's saying that the anti-piracy campaigns that labels are waging are idiotic.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Neil Young thinks that the internet is the new radio, where the compressed bandwidth stuff is like tape recording from FM in the day. If you like what you hear for free on the radio/internet you will purchase a better quality copy. And research has proven that free/pirated compressed music does increase sales. Read between the lines and he's saying that the anti-piracy campaigns that labels are waging are idiotic.

 
Yep. According to a report internet piracy is down massively in France thanks to their "three strikes" law, and yet music and movie sales have not increased at all there - they are actually down slightly. Eliminating piracy does not make people rush out and buy more music, it just means that people that can't afford/don't want to purchase the music just won't listen to it.

 

[rgs9200m]

Yeah, as I remember it, Neil Young was a big proponent of DVD-Audio during its brief lifespan.

 

[grokit]

I'm pretty sure he's into Blu-ray Audio now.