It was not meant that way - I just wanted to show the exact Aichille's heel of HA-S500s.
The said recording is extreme of extremes - never thought reproduction can get this good. For starters, it has startling dynamic range for vocal only piece - and given vocal is the most familiar sound to everyone ( you do communicate everyday to other people by talking ) , it is natural for us to be most critical of vocal - a violin can sound appreciable different from another violin, vocals, although far more diversified still, are in fact very close to each other. First thing to do - REDUCE the playback level until the loud, really loud parts sound at least kind of tolerable.
That piece will push your entire chain to the max - FORGET clips and similar, forget anything below CD quality. Forget 99% of the high end gear - it will not "survive" !
I have two korg MR1000 DSD recorders. The second is still in the stock condition, the first has been upgraded to the point I no longer see any reaL possibility to further improve it, at least not in the reproduction department. MR1000 offers recording and playback of both DSDs and all PCMs from 192/24 down to 44,1/16 (CD). So, naturally I downloaded studio master FLAC at 192/24 and played it on both Korgs - no prize for guessing which one did not "survive". I could go in great detail regarding failings of the stock unit - suffice is to say it does not support so great a recording. To be blunt - it "shouts" practically the entire duration of the recording - and it is a marketed as a professional recorder ! It is superiour to most, but not all, home high end gear, in sheeer SQ.
Enter the modified MR1000. It simply - performs. Entirely civilized, even in the most tense moments in music.Just for the kick of it, I loaded entire Linn Records Christmas free download contents to both MR1000s - and my A/Bing stopped after second or third song - no point making further comparisons, life is too short to be wasted like that. I simply enjoyed the music on the modded machine instead. A fitting compensation for months of figuring out how to get MR1000 really going - it was anything but picnic.
JVC HA-S500 deliver their goods in practically any department but two - soundstage and high pitched vocals, where it shatters to pieces like a glass window hit by a magnum bullet. Like I said, it did occur before, with flute(s) and vocals, but never so severely as with this superb track. I will try to ameliorate this unacceptably rough edge in HA-S500's performance - if I am sucessful, I will share the results.
Provided we get past the 21th unscaved.