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Originally Posted by SemiAudiophile /img/forum/go_quote.gif
haha, ok. maybe not exactly. But pretty close. Well, that's how I hear it anyway when listening through my OMZ. Mine's a v4.2 btw (if that means anything?).
IMO, vinyl > any digital format out there right now. The fact is that many modern day music doesn't come in the LP format.
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I hear dramatic differences...but then again, a person that blows up digital photos cannot see the mush all over the piece of paper vs. a properly drum scanned piece of sheet film and enlarged to the same size, so like people's eyes are different, people's ears are different as well.
I think where the issue is is in a person's vinyl setup. I don't feel many have a good vinyl setup and I don't feel they have anything remotely close to the equivalent digital source that Ori offers with the OMZ/pre or even just dac itself. In other words, and especially with Ori's pre/dac, we're talking about a truly reference piece that the entire world of preamps and dacs has to compete against...but you compare this "worldclass" pre/dac to an average or even what I feel the majority of owners out there have in a vinyl setup to it, then yeah, I would actually much rather have the digital since that "smooth" tonality is likely all one can tell when distinguishing the two.
From my experience, the vinyl brings the listeners into the room whereas the digital brings the listening experience on a flat soundstage that is analyzed. Go listen to some well implemented dipolar based speakers that can image well front to back, left to right, as well, and you'll hear how very different box speaker sound is...I prefer a musical experience vs. an analytical one. Sure, I can analyze music with my system very easily, but I never had any feeling of wanting to analyze it when I first heard the speakers I have now. However, every box speaker I had in past and even some dipolar speakers I have heard in time give a overly analytical sound that to me, completely forces the listener to judge the recording and kills the experience.
Anyhow, my experience with vinyl, even on what were not the best of setups, but really quite good is this:
1) Removes the box based sound so the "images" are presented in space in a way that makes sense to me. Like listening to Tool or name your favorite band and the vinyl will make the music sound alive, presenting exceptional images in space, removing that contained box based monitor sound that is typical of digital. Listen to the digital and the soundstage flattens, becomes basically a flat line, and you start to analyze these horrid recordings...yes, vinyl has pops and cracks, but it has a level of transparency nothing digital can do. Correct speakers w/correct digital sources helps, but I know if i had a nice vinyl rig in my system, I could care less for the digital...
2) It does have a smoother sound...but it can actually sound pretty harsh in a very revealing analog signal. Those rolled off highs vinyl supposedly has can actually be the highest level of high end energy on any recording period. Thing about vinyl, as a whole, is it is more listenable be it a bad or good system. But the listenable thing is irrelevent to me and only a bonus.
3) Vinyl is what old stuff was recorded directly to. The recording is the most important thing "just about", and if you pick up some vinyl that contains older recorded material of accoustical music where they recorded directly with the instrumentalists and didn't run it through anything afterwards, you get such an amazing playback experience.
In the digital world, a TON of things have been said to sound vinyl like or more like vinyl, but until people realize digital and vinyl are two entirely different sounds, they will always make claim of one sounding more like the other and vice versa. It's like the digital photographers saying their work looks very film like. Why would a digital photographer that uses digital for many reasons, but having clean files want something that looks like film???...that makes no sense, but you hear it all the time. Funny no one ever says their film images look so much like digital
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There's so many examples in the subjective world of things to point out where two entirely different things are attempted to be made similar and are written or consistently put together in discussion about the similarities, etc. etc.
Sorry for the long ramble, but regardless of my opinion with what I have heard, I won't say my experience with Ori's dac sounds anything like vinyl, but I will say it has been the best dac/preamp I have ever heard. If I had tons of cash to burn, I could go and pickup tons of different dacs adn preamps to see how they do versus Ori's stuff, but since I don't have floods of cash, nor a fetish about buying excessive garbage with an attempt to hear a better sound than what I hear with Ori's stuff, there's absolutely no point.
Ori has gotten his stuff right since he brought the cables to the market. Now he's taken the dac side of things and put in his sophisticated linestage which IMHO, truly does it for this device. Sure, the dac is ok, but that linestage is worldclass...take two very minimalistic circuits, put them together into one device, do some tricks here and there, and you have a reference dac/preamp in one. One reason why I stick to what sounds right and not bother buying excessive stuff to see if it is better is likely the same reason Ori sticks to the dac he uses in his designs that has proven well, so why buy a ton of dacs from different manufactures out there to find the best of the bunch for his design??? Maybe if he is Wilson Audio and has millions in R&D to test all these things out, he would probably find a better dac board to work from/with. But as it is, it is very good, and works simplistically and minimalistically into a simplistic/minimalist design that results in gorgeous sound.
