[Wilderness]

 
I agree.  Nothing I have tried matches JRiver's sound quality.  Not even close.  Not iTunes, Pure Music, or Audirvana, or some others I have forgotten.
 
I tried some additional settings today in JRiver.  After setting Integer mode and Sox resampling, I found another couple of settings that made a difference: Living Room and Surround Field.  I set Living Room to 1.  Any higher than 4 caused static.  And Surround Field to Subtle.  The sound is now more lively, and vocals have more decay.  Bass is tighter.  Tools>Options>DSP>Effects>.  Treble is smoother yet more present without being harsh.

I know I am quoting myself here, but there's a reason.  I noticed that some songs, especially some live recordings, sound a little better with these settings turned off, and the slight improvement in other songs wasn't worth it.  So I turned off the settings.  I will try various settings and tweaks from time to time in the future, but I will also keep in mind that improving one thing can harm something else.
 
I also noticed tonight that to fully enjoy music from speakers, all background noise in a house or apartment needs to be shut down.  I had noticed today that some songs sounded really bad from my speakers, and I thought about getting a different DAC.  I am playing those same songs now in my quiet house and they sound fine and I am enjoying the experience.  Earlier today, when I thought some songs sounded bad, I was running my washing machine and dishwasher each a dozen feet from my speakers.  The listening environment, I now know better than ever, is hugely important in perceived sound quality.  This lesson was one I had to experience for myself to fully appreciate.  I am wondering about other influences on perceived sound quality, too, such as listening to music when groggy in the morning versus when wide awake, and listening when emotionally receptive versus listening when distracted, etc.  And playing music when a DAC has not fully warmed up.  And then, of course, there are room treatments....

 

[sterling1]

​I wonder if relative humidity makes  my music sound different? I get the impression that it does. I also wonder about what  details I miss when listening to music at a relatively low SPL. Right now, I'm listening to the SACD of Pictures at an Exhibition performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner at a level which seems like what I'd get at the theatre. The detail I hear is adding greatly to my at home experience for this great work.

 

[pinnahertz]

 
​I wonder if relative humidity makes  my music sound different? I get the impression that it does. I also wonder about what  details I miss when listening to music at a relatively low SPL.

While humidity does change how sound propagates through air, it's not going through enough air in your listening room to have any noticeable effect. If you sat a couple hundred feet from your speakers, yes you might notice that.
 
But differences in sound quality can be percieved for a number of reasons, and many of those have nothing to do with actual changes in the sound. Our perception is easily altered by expectation bias, and aside from the fact that we'd all like to believe we are not affected, all of us are. It's often impossible to easily identify the bias, but it's there and it's powerful. If we feel, and know that humidity is up, that feeling changes a lot about how we perceive the world around us, even if the actual stimulus has not changed.
 

Right now, I'm listening to the SACD of Pictures at an Exhibition performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner at a level which seems like what I'd get at the theatre. The detail I hear is adding greatly to my at home experience for this great work.

The CSO/Reiner recordings are technically not great. They were recorded on early tape recorders and most importantly, old tape formulations with lots of problems. Prevalent was Scotch 111, a very basic tape type that saturated quickly and had a relatively high noise floor. The machines themselves were full of mechanical and electrical issues. SACD isn't improving any of that. What you're enjoying is the performance.

 

[pinnahertz]

 
I know I am quoting myself here, but there's a reason.  I noticed that some songs, especially some live recordings, sound a little better with these settings turned off, and the slight improvement in other songs wasn't worth it.  So I turned off the settings.  I will try various settings and tweaks from time to time in the future, but I will also keep in mind that improving one thing can harm something else.
 
I also noticed tonight that to fully enjoy music from speakers, all background noise in a house or apartment needs to be shut down.  I had noticed today that some songs sounded really bad from my speakers, and I thought about getting a different DAC.  I am playing those same songs now in my quiet house and they sound fine and I am enjoying the experience.  Earlier today, when I thought some songs sounded bad, I was running my washing machine and dishwasher each a dozen feet from my speakers.  The listening environment, I now know better than ever, is hugely important in perceived sound quality.  This lesson was one I had to experience for myself to fully appreciate.  I am wondering about other influences on perceived sound quality, too, such as listening to music when groggy in the morning versus when wide awake, and listening when emotionally receptive versus listening when distracted, etc.  And playing music when a DAC has not fully warmed up.  And then, of course, there are room treatments....

Listening when groggy/away yes.  Engaged vs distracted, yes. DAC warming up, no, not a bit.  Room treatments, absolutely, but hard to compare before/after.  And background noise? Absolutely. 
 
Getting bad sound and considering a different DAC is a bit misdirected.  The differences in DAC performance are microscopic, inaudible, but highly affected by expectation bias.  The difference between speakers is huge, their position in the room, huge, acoustics of the room, huge.

 

[Zoom25]

  Listening when groggy/away yes.  Engaged vs distracted, yes. DAC warming up, no, not a bit.  Room treatments, absolutely, but hard to compare before/after.  And background noise? Absolutely. 
 
Getting bad sound and considering a different DAC is a bit misdirected.  The differences in DAC performance are microscopic, inaudible, but highly affected by expectation bias.  The difference between speakers is huge, their position in the room, huge, acoustics of the room, huge.

Agreed with everything except for those two.

 

[pinnahertz]

  Agreed with everything except for those two.

Expected that.  Too bad there's no real evidence (ABX data) to support it. 

 

[Zoom25]

  Expected that.  Too bad there's no real evidence (ABX data) to support it. 

 
1) Warm-up time:
 
I have found warm up to be important on all my gear: DACs, Class A, Class A/B, and Class D amplifiers, Bryston music server, linear power supplies. I leave my DACs, music serve, and Class D on 24/7. You'll find manufacturers recommending that as well. For Class A/AB, it's a lot quicker. For digital gear, it's a lot longer. You'll find plenty of Bryston and Naim owners echoing the exact same thing, along with manufacturers saying the same thing. Thermal stabilization is a real thing.
 
 
2) DACs sounding different:
 
I have an Emotiva DC-1 which is mid level DAC and neutral. My other DAC (Dangerous Music Source w/ LPS) and other high end DACs that are neutral and have brought into my setup trash the DC-1. If the critiquing is done via headphones, then it's probably tougher to hear it. However, in my case, it's much simpler to prove.
 
Get a big treated room with a full range system and level match all the DACs. Next, I can even put earbuds in your ear to block the sound. Yet, you'll still be able to tell the difference based on how deep the bass goes. Aside from hearing the difference, you can feel the difference. My DC-1 for example can never hit the bass with that tightness. Regardless of how much I crank it, I can never replicate that feeling in the chest.
 
There's another thread on another forum (which I don't know if I'm allowed to reference) are testing all top DACs and people are consistently finding differences in testing among all high-end DACs (Crane Song Solaris/Avocet IIA, Prism, Dangerous Music Convert-2, Mytek Brooklyn, the new high end RME DAC, Burl B2). It should be mentioned that most of us there are running high-end monitors in decent rooms, so perhaps that maybe the case. We're mostly talking about $10k+ rigs here. I don't expect the general headphone crowd to really match that.
 
Once you spend a lot of time with each particular chain, listening both passively and actively, it becomes quite easy in doing blind A/B. The time-interval in the A/B is also of great importance. I don't want to derail this thread any further as it's about Mac players, but absolutely needed to step in and say this. I've heard this way too many times that all DACs sound the same, which makes me wonder if that person has ever tested high-end DAC in a highly transparent chain in a decent room.

 

[CarlosUnchained]

Not being transducers, the expectation bias makes bigger differences than the measurable sound differences between components. Your brain creates real audible differences where there's no differences or the differences are beyond your hearing capacity.
 
Some people tend to forget that this a very personal hobby, where nobody has the absolute truth.

 

[Zoom25]

http://dangerousmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/st-sr-manual.pdf
 
 
The paragraphs below are from the Dangerous Audio manual for the Monitor ST and I think this sums it up nicely, It is from Chris Muth, the designer for the Dangerous Audio Stuff and who was once the in house tech at Stirling Sound I believe:
 

"Do I turn my gear off at night?

This is a good question and one that takes some reflection to answer. There are several issues to be weighed in making the decision of what to do with unattended gear. Equipment that is powered down when the facility is not in use can’t be damaged by power problems short of a direct lightning strike, however, turn-on transients can, over time, lower the reliability of equipment because of inrush current spikes. On the other hand, a room left powered and unattended can result in blown speakers if the power company has problems and there is no one to turn the room off. If one lives in a stable power situation (non-rural or power-conditioned), our preference is to leave the monitor section, A/D converters, and solid state power amps on unless the facility will not be used for a time.

Over the years, the experience of the Dangerous team has been that gear left on is more stable in performance and sound quality, and doesn’t really cost very much in extra power consumed. Solid state amps and converters can take several hours to stabilize in temperature and the sound quality is a moving target while things are warming up. Having said that, the writer has come home to his studio and found smoked speaker cones (bummer) due to Con Edison power switching problems. This issue is a tough call and really situation dependant. Studios that power down daily can lose a piece of gear now and then to the rough reality of daily power-up. The repair bill is likely more than the extra electricity consumed had the equipment stayed on."

 
Both Dave Hill of Crane Song and Chris Muth have found this in their testing. Chances are that 90% of your music has at some point been through either a Dangerous Music component or Crane Song. A lot of their designs have been used in consoles as well. This is also echoed by many high-end manufacturers in both hi-fi and high-end pro audio.
 
Other ways people have tested this before is by making sure all the gear has been run for a long time and printing a mix. Then turn everything off and the next day by the time it's all cool, print a mix. You can compare the sound and A/B to see which one is more natural and warm sounding. You can also run null tests.
 
Regarding human capabilities and thresholds, here's a story that I have found true many times:
 

Although completely different, this whole topic reminds me of something Joe Chiccarelli told me..

He complained for years in the early version of Pro Tools that consolidating the audio files changed the sound (in a bad way), and would continue to change the more times you consolidated your edits. Now you can imagine on big projects that have many people working on them, with multiple versions of multiple edits and stems being tossed around between different studios that there is lots of consolidating going on. Joe felt so strongly about this that he would never consolidate, and he would send all his mixes to the mixer with all the edits still in tact as he didn't want to degrade anything and felt the mixer should receive the pure audio files as they were recorded. All the guys at Avid (then Digidesign) kept saying, "you're crazy Joe, its scientifically impossible...it's just zeros and ones being re written". Still, Joe held his ground and refused to believe the science and what the 'tests' were saying on paper and rather trust his ears and his experience.

A few years later, Joe gets a call from a programmer at Avid, and the programmer sheepishly begins to explain he found the reason why Joe was hearing the change of sound which had something to do with extra dither being applied to each concurrent consolidation (and you times that by hundreds of edits, dozens of audio tracks etc...the sound changes).....So Joe was right all along, and the scientists were wrong. They fixed it, and now Pro Tools sounds better because of Joes ears and his experience.

I'm just saying this to prove a point that too often the 'science' types totally discredit the human ear, when really, the human ear and human brain is far more powerful than we realize if properly trained and when it knows what to listen for. 

I also think the human ear can be trained to perceive extremely small differences in sound - and that's easily provable. Think about a regular person compared to a professional mixer - the mixer can detect frequencies, compression, (hell even attack and release times on compressors), reverbs, delays, distortion etc etc. Those are all 'learned' aspects the ear has to have been trained for through experience.

When you sit in front of studio monitors with sound coming at you 10-16 hours a day, every day, you really begin to notice subtitles of sound. 

 
In the past, whenever this topic has came up, I have typically been very easy and not really pushed things, but now I don't feel the need to hold back. If someone tells me that they flat out cannot hear any difference between any DAC or that gear warm up doesn't affect sound, I can say one or more of these things is true:
 
1) The gear is not up to par
2) The room is not up to par
3) The person has not trained their brain/ear. This takes a long time of listening and working for hours upon hour in the same spot and eventually you get so used to hearing subtle changes in compression, EQ, phase issues, tonality, detail retrieval, spacing, etc. 
 
I'm not saying this to be rude as I also at one point wasn't there. The room, gear, learning, practicing and time have all played a factor. You can talk to many Grammy winning mastering engineers with top shelf records working with top artists and they'll replicate what I am saying. I guarantee it without any hesitation.

 

[pinnahertz]

   
1) Warm-up time:
 
I have found warm up to be important on all my gear: DACs, Class A, Class A/B, and Class D amplifiers, Bryston music server, linear power supplies. I leave my DACs, music serve, and Class D on 24/7. You'll find manufacturers recommending that as well. For Class A/AB, it's a lot quicker. For digital gear, it's a lot longer. You'll find plenty of Bryston and Naim owners echoing the exact same thing, along with manufacturers saying the same thing. Thermal stabilization is a real thing.
 
 
2) DACs sounding different:
 
I have an Emotiva DC-1 which is mid level DAC and neutral. My other DAC (Dangerous Music Source w/ LPS) and other high end DACs that are neutral and have brought into my setup trash the DC-1. If the critiquing is done via headphones, then it's probably tougher to hear it. However, in my case, it's much simpler to prove.
 
Get a big treated room with a full range system and level match all the DACs. Next, I can even put earbuds in your ear to block the sound. Yet, you'll still be able to tell the difference based on how deep the bass goes. Aside from hearing the difference, you can feel the difference. My DC-1 for example can never hit the bass with that tightness. Regardless of how much I crank it, I can never replicate that feeling in the chest.

Sorry, that's a great opinion, but it's not proof.  

Once you spend a lot of time with each particular chain, listening both passively and actively, it becomes quite easy in doing blind A/B. The time-interval in the A/B is also of great importance.

Well, I'm not sure what you're calling a "blind A/B test", but until all biases are removed, you don't have much. Well administrated DBT/ABX would confirm your opinion on warm up (or not), but the problem is a good DBT/ABX is hard and expensive to do. THat's unfortunate, because opinions based on biased comparisons are cheap and easy.

I don't want to derail this thread any further...

Too late...

I've heard this way too many times that all DACs sound the same, which makes me wonder if that person has ever tested high-end DAC in a highly transparent chain in a decent room.  

Yup, been done. Hard to talk much about it because it brings the science haters out of the woodwork.

 

[pinnahertz]

 
In the past, whenever this topic has came up, I have typically been very easy and not really pushed things, but now I don't feel the need to hold back. If someone tells me that they flat out cannot hear any difference between any DAC or that gear warm up doesn't affect sound, I can say one or more of these things is true:
 
1) The gear is not up to par
2) The room is not up to par
3) The person has not trained their brain/ear. This takes a long time of listening and working for hours upon hour in the same spot and eventually you get so used to hearing subtle changes in compression, EQ, phase issues, tonality, detail retrieval, spacing, etc. 
 
I'm not saying this to be rude as I also at one point wasn't there. The room, gear, learning, practicing and time have all played a factor. You can talk to many Grammy winning mastering engineers with top shelf records working with top artists and they'll replicate what I am saying. I guarantee it without any hesitation.

Well, I guess I'm in the wrong forum.  Anything else I would say in response would just be interpreted as insulting, and I don't mean to do that. I do respect other's opinions, so long as they realize an opinion without backup data is just that, an opinion.   I will admit to being disappointed, though.  

 

[winders]

  Well, I guess I'm in the wrong forum.  Anything else I would say in response would just be interpreted as insulting, and I don't mean to do that. I do respect other's opinions, so long as they realize an opinion without backup data is just that, an opinion.   I will admit to being disappointed, though.  

Yeah, people buy uber expensive DACs just so they can experience "expectation bias".

 

[johnjen]

Sorry, that's a great opinion, but it's not proof.

There are some measurements made by Atomic Bob on the Jggy dac at different times during burn in.
They are clearly different.
 
If that would provide proof, or not, is dependant upon what you consider proof.
 
For me the 'proof' is in hearing the music, not in tests or numbers, which are ofttimes misleading (ie. tests that don't correlate, etc. to the experience of music).
 
JJ

 

[sterling1]

 

​Yes, humidity does have an effect, even in my listening room; and,  regarding my SACD, of course it's the performance but the SACD of this performance does allow me to listen to it as was recorded in 3 channels. Also, I am actually impressed with this SACD which gives me the impression that magnetic tape recording back then could capture a performance so well.

 

[CarlosUnchained]

  There are some measurements made by Atomic Bob on the Jggy dac at different times during burn in.
They are clearly different.
 
If that would provide proof, or not, is dependant upon what you consider proof.
 
For me the 'proof' is in hearing the music, not in tests or numbers, which are ofttimes misleading (ie. tests that don't correlate, etc. to the experience of music).
 
JJ

Ears are WAY more misleading than numbers. True that measurements don't tell the whole story, but still I don't trust anyone ears, not even mine because I know I'm biased.
You are not proving anything to me if you say "it sounds good".
 
Just think measuring a table with your arm. Or saying how far is the Eiffel Tower with your eyes. Or how warm is the teapot just by touching it. It makes no sense.
In a hobby that the differences are so subtle even for trained ears, the error is greater since each person hear different AND are differently biased.
 
I take what sounds best for me.