[adydula]

Midgard and Modius with the ESS 9028 dac chip on their way for a good listen and honest write up!
Next week!

Alex
:>)

 

[eliottj]

On the Modi Multibit 2, does the NOS/OS button control self oversampling within MMB2, or does it only make it receptive to outside oversampling, such as from Audirvana?

Thanks

 

[theveterans]

On the Modi Multibit 2, does the NOS/OS button control self oversampling within MMB2, or does it only make it receptive to outside oversampling, such as from Audirvana?

Thanks

Literally turns off any digital oversampling and goes straight to the AD5547 chips. NOS mode allows you to perform external oversampling from Audirvana without resampling it to 352/384 KHz internally

 

[LrrTx]

Hello all.

 

[adias]

Hello all.

Hello and welcome!

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Hello all.

Welcome! As we're fond of stating on the forum, "sorry about your wallet."

Enjoy!

 

[eliottj]

Literally turns off any digital oversampling and goes straight to the AD5547 chips. NOS mode allows you to perform external oversampling from Audirvana without resampling it to 352/384 KHz internally

So you're suggesting there is 352/384 upsampling inside MMB 2 while in OS mode?

 

[LrrTx]

Happy to be here all, I have been reading and lurking for years, but finally decided to join because this seems like a civilized forum, and there is much conversation on Skoll lately. I just received my Skoll a week ago and from what I can see, I am one of the few using it with a balanced turntable and wanted to offer my thoughts. I am super happy with it so far as it seems to have done three things for me that my Tavish Design Adagio did not. 1) It definitely requires less work from my pre and power amp to sound good in terms of volume and dynamics, 2) it really improved the imaging which surprised me, and 3) it makes the music seem a lot more detailed.

This all surprised me as the Skoll was $1,600 cheaper than the Adagio it replaced, which was also well reviewed by Stereophile. I have since sold the Adagio, and am happier listening to the Skoll, AND came out ahead with money in my pocket! Win-win-win situation. I also have a Mani in my second system if anyone is interested in hearing about Skoll versus Mani in the same system, though that one is obviously a single-ended, not balanced set up.

Otherwise, that is my two cents and I am happy to be here and finally join the conversation!

 

[theveterans]

So you're suggesting there is 352/384 upsampling inside MMB 2 while in OS mode?

Yes. In the default, if you feed the MMB2 with 192 KHz, it will pass through the SHARC DSP chip for 2x oversampling to 384 KHz. Every sample gets oversampled to either 352.8 or 384 KHz depending on the base sampling rate. NOS mode turns off that DSP chip but you're only limited to 176.4 KHz or 192 KHz externally

 

[Daniel Johnston]

Happy to be here all, I have been reading and lurking for years, but finally decided to join because this seems like a civilized forum, and there is much conversation on Skoll lately. I just received my Skoll a week ago and from what I can see, I am one of the few using it with a balanced turntable and wanted to offer my thoughts. I am super happy with it so far as it seems to have done three things for me that my Tavish Design Adagio did not. 1) It definitely requires less work from my pre and power amp to sound good in terms of volume and dynamics, 2) it really improved the imaging which surprised me, and 3) it makes the music seem a lot more detailed.

This all surprised me as the Skoll was $1,600 cheaper than the Adagio it replaced, which was also well reviewed by Stereophile. I have since sold the Adagio, and am happier listening to the Skoll, AND came out ahead with money in my pocket! Win-win-win situation. I also have a Mani in my second system if anyone is interested in hearing about Skoll versus Mani in the same system, though that one is obviously a single-ended, not balanced set up.

Otherwise, that is my two cents and I am happy to be here and finally join the conversation!

Nice VPI! and congrats on the Skoll.

I'm tempted to buy the balanced output for my VPI. Did you always run your VPI balanced? I'm curious on how much background hum it reduces.

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Happy to be here all, I have been reading and lurking for years, but finally decided to join because this seems like a civilized forum, and there is much conversation on Skoll lately. I just received my Skoll a week ago and from what I can see, I am one of the few using it with a balanced turntable and wanted to offer my thoughts. I am super happy with it so far as it seems to have done three things for me that my Tavish Design Adagio did not. 1) It definitely requires less work from my pre and power amp to sound good in terms of volume and dynamics, 2) it really improved the imaging which surprised me, and 3) it makes the music seem a lot more detailed.

This all surprised me as the Skoll was $1,600 cheaper than the Adagio it replaced, which was also well reviewed by Stereophile. I have since sold the Adagio, and am happier listening to the Skoll, AND came out ahead with money in my pocket! Win-win-win situation. I also have a Mani in my second system if anyone is interested in hearing about Skoll versus Mani in the same system, though that one is obviously a single-ended, not balanced set up.

Otherwise, that is my two cents and I am happy to be here and finally join the conversation!

Welcome my son
Welcome to the machine


JC

 

[RCBinTN]

This guy makes furniture out of cardboard ... seems right up your alley, @bcowen. He may be hiring ...

 

[Vtsailor]

I met someone once that thought all speakers sounded more alike than different... all of them too far from reality to matter. It was a musician.

I'm not too sure how high-end of a hifi system that person had heard, but they must have heard a lot of different PA systems, some undoubtedly quite good.

But that was one single person. And I've talked sound with something like three or four dozen musicians at this point.

Sometimes I think I’m that person which may be my budget talking. I enjoy listening to well recorded music over different speakers but I hate shopping for them. Speaking of well recorded music I just bought all the Mahler symphonies with Leonard Bernstein conducting. The first symphony, the only one I’ve performed, was marvelous, you could even make out the differences in the attack on the pizzicato.

 

[LrrTx]

Nice VPI! and congrats on the Skoll.

I'm tempted to buy the balanced output for my VPI. Did you always run your VPI balanced? I'm curious on how much background hum it reduces.

The balanced box for the VPI is totally worth it! I purchased it for that reason to use with the Tavish Adagio when I bought that several years ago, so it's always been a balanced setup. It will make your records sound more pronounced than using it with the regular phono connector, which you can swap back and forth with two screws on the VPI. This is good if you have clean records that have good recording quality, otherwise is is less forgiving than a normal set up with poor or dirty recordings.

Second for background hum, this is where it gets interesting. From my experience it depends on the cable you use. With single ended I have a Kimber Kable TAK Cu tonearm cable with WBT ends ($450) and that sounded pretty good (but typical for a mid-fi set up). So, when I got the balanced output for the VPI and the Tavish Design Adagio balanced phono stage I bought Kimber Kable Base (Timbre) XLR interconnects ($198) because they use the same cable as the TAK Cu incorporated and noticed a minor background noise reduction and was happy. However, the Kimber Timbre were not shielded, so I then tried Better Cables Silver Serpent XLR cables ($149 & pictured in my pics) and night and day difference! Now, especially with Skoll it is "digital quiet" until the music starts. I am really happy with the set up.

I learned two things in this process 1) more expensive is not always better as the Skoll and Better Cables are the two cheaper options and sound better (to me), and 2) It seems in my experience the thicker the shielding on quality cables (interconnect, power, USB) the less noise there seems to be in my system.

But back to the point of your question, yes, to my ears, the balanced set up with VPI > Skoll > McIntosh > Sonus Faber seems to be a very musical system with near no background noise. I enjoy it very much!

 

[FLTWS]

Sometimes I think I’m that person which may be my budget talking. I enjoy listening to well recorded music over different speakers but I hate shopping for them. Speaking of well recorded music I just bought all the Mahler symphonies with Leonard Bernstein conducting. The first symphony, the only one I’ve performed, was marvelous, you could even make out the differences in the attack on the pizzicato.

The re-mastering of that set is superb. My favorite M2 is this one with Lee Venora and Jennie Tourel, and the difficult to pull off 7th (that fifth movement) is, along with Abbado on DG, the best recorded of the whole series I think.