Matt
Are there any women on this board?
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2001
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Until a few days ago, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that my Stax Classic System II didn't "do" digital. However, this verdict has seen a complete reversal in light of recent listening.
I have a DVD-A transport which I have been using for Redbook through an unmodded Art DI/O. While sifting around in some packed-away posessions the other day, I found a DVD-A sampler which I had, some months back, semi-pilfered from Best Buy.
The Stax system had always had this sort of "tension" with the digital source that I couldn't exactly put a finger on, but which made it substantially less pleasing to listen to than my vinyl rig, which sounded amazing (by the way, Stax and vinyl are made for each other).
Well, upon sticking in that Sampler disc (and making my way through the badly-recorded first track), I sat stunned as some big band played "Satin Doll"...right in my room! Now, the production values on this recording were good, but I have plenty of Redbook discs who's values are just as good. The element which placed the overall experience of this recording head-and-shoulders above the others was the incredibly relaxed-yet-extended treble ("relaxed" meaning all of that previously-mentioned perceptual "tension" just melted away). The timbral fidelity and, therefore, the sensation of reality, was tremendous. (The DI/O handled the 24/96 signal beautifully).
Another thing that shot out at me was the newly extended and refined dynamic range afforded by the 24 bit signal. There is a straightforward rock track which, along with it's real-sounding, crunchy distorted guitars, had this dynamic slam and a real sense of dynamic contrast that I've never heard from Redbook, ever. It was, again, very realistic.
The experience was very nearly vinyl-like.
It seems to me, then, that what the Stax's have a problem with is the inevitable signal degredation that 16/44.1 PCM imposes. I was thinking about this just last night: the highest range of just-born human baby hearing is approximately 20,000 Hz. The average adult caps off at about 14,000 - 15,000.
A 44.1/16 signal has as it's highest *representable* frequency 22,050 Hz. This "representation," though, is a severly broken-down sine wave, one turned into a sawtooth wave. Anyone who's heard the difference between a sine and a sawtooth wave knows what happens here, sonically. It's a change, a degredation, a digitally-imposed loss of fidelity.
However, since 22,050 Hz is clearly outside the range of human hearing, one might be apt to think "oh, well, that really means nothing." But does it?
What is one octave below 22,050 Hz? It's 11,025 Hz, a figure *well* within the regular range of human hearing. That's only *one* measly octave below, since, as indicated above, the frequencies of octaves increases exponentially. In musical terms, one octave ain't much. Most of what we hear in the mids and especially lows is very crowded-together, frequency-wise, and the gaps increase dramatically as you move up the musical scale.
So, if we have a single sample at the peak and single sample at the trough of the wave at 22,050 Hz, we have only double that for the 11,025 Hz signal, adding one sample half way between the two on the way down from the peak (the zero mark) and one half way back up to the peak (again, that darn zero mark). That is still a very boxy, very angular and very degraded signal and, again, well within most everyone's hearing range.
The Stax's are good at communicating whatever is sent to them, without glossing it over, so they give a full, psychologically-perceptible sense of that distortion that comes from 16/44.1.
Anyhow, I am really, really, really pleased and I now feel like I have gotten way more than my money's worth with the Classic System II.
- Sir Mister Matt
I have a DVD-A transport which I have been using for Redbook through an unmodded Art DI/O. While sifting around in some packed-away posessions the other day, I found a DVD-A sampler which I had, some months back, semi-pilfered from Best Buy.
The Stax system had always had this sort of "tension" with the digital source that I couldn't exactly put a finger on, but which made it substantially less pleasing to listen to than my vinyl rig, which sounded amazing (by the way, Stax and vinyl are made for each other).
Well, upon sticking in that Sampler disc (and making my way through the badly-recorded first track), I sat stunned as some big band played "Satin Doll"...right in my room! Now, the production values on this recording were good, but I have plenty of Redbook discs who's values are just as good. The element which placed the overall experience of this recording head-and-shoulders above the others was the incredibly relaxed-yet-extended treble ("relaxed" meaning all of that previously-mentioned perceptual "tension" just melted away). The timbral fidelity and, therefore, the sensation of reality, was tremendous. (The DI/O handled the 24/96 signal beautifully).
Another thing that shot out at me was the newly extended and refined dynamic range afforded by the 24 bit signal. There is a straightforward rock track which, along with it's real-sounding, crunchy distorted guitars, had this dynamic slam and a real sense of dynamic contrast that I've never heard from Redbook, ever. It was, again, very realistic.
The experience was very nearly vinyl-like.
It seems to me, then, that what the Stax's have a problem with is the inevitable signal degredation that 16/44.1 PCM imposes. I was thinking about this just last night: the highest range of just-born human baby hearing is approximately 20,000 Hz. The average adult caps off at about 14,000 - 15,000.
A 44.1/16 signal has as it's highest *representable* frequency 22,050 Hz. This "representation," though, is a severly broken-down sine wave, one turned into a sawtooth wave. Anyone who's heard the difference between a sine and a sawtooth wave knows what happens here, sonically. It's a change, a degredation, a digitally-imposed loss of fidelity.
However, since 22,050 Hz is clearly outside the range of human hearing, one might be apt to think "oh, well, that really means nothing." But does it?
What is one octave below 22,050 Hz? It's 11,025 Hz, a figure *well* within the regular range of human hearing. That's only *one* measly octave below, since, as indicated above, the frequencies of octaves increases exponentially. In musical terms, one octave ain't much. Most of what we hear in the mids and especially lows is very crowded-together, frequency-wise, and the gaps increase dramatically as you move up the musical scale.
So, if we have a single sample at the peak and single sample at the trough of the wave at 22,050 Hz, we have only double that for the 11,025 Hz signal, adding one sample half way between the two on the way down from the peak (the zero mark) and one half way back up to the peak (again, that darn zero mark). That is still a very boxy, very angular and very degraded signal and, again, well within most everyone's hearing range.
The Stax's are good at communicating whatever is sent to them, without glossing it over, so they give a full, psychologically-perceptible sense of that distortion that comes from 16/44.1.
Anyhow, I am really, really, really pleased and I now feel like I have gotten way more than my money's worth with the Classic System II.
- Sir Mister Matt