[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shamu144 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Slim.a, when you A/B the modded HiFace with the stock one, can you pleeeeaaase try it removing the battery of your laptop and plugging the laptop directly in your AC power conditionner. I also heard significant improvements while doing so with the stock HiFace. If the modded HiFace still hold its own and show clear improvement in this set up, I should be all for it. Thanks.

It is already on my to do list of various things to try for the review. I didn't forget about it

 

[mmerrill99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'll DIY, I'm pretty good with a soldering iron even soldered in a few SMD PCM1704's. But I appreciate what jkeny is doing for those without soldering skills.

Thanks Regal & good luck with the mods. I'm not suggesting you will be doing this but I get lots of requests from people looking to do this requesting help or to answer questions & I'm afraid I don't have the time to answer.

 

[shamu144]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif It is already on my to do list of various things to try for the review. I didn't forget about it

Fantastic

Thanks a lot and looking forward to reading you.

 

[reverendo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif I didn't generalize my comments about all audiophiles. I just said that a "drift" from the live event can happen under certain conditions. And you are right, generalizations are bad. If I was unclear about it in my post, I wasn't trying to say that all audiophiles or all non-audiophiles behave the exact same way. As for non-audiophiles not all of them go to electronic/rock music. Some non-audiophiles that I cited were fans of classical music and opera and attended live events regularely. Edit -- As for the sennheiser hd650, I have tried 5 different aftermarket cables so far (3 pure silver and 2 pure copper) and going silver makes it a lit bit more balanced a lot cleaner and more resolved sounding. And personally, I like having neutral electronics and cables and a slightly colored headphone than the other way around. I tried the AKG K702 (with stock cable) for a brief period in my system and they sounded excellent but they had less overall resolution than my recabled hd-650. Since the system worked very well with the AKG K702 without the need of changing a single component or cable, I feel that my electronics/cables had less colorations than the headphones themselves and were not specifically tuned for the hd-650. My next can purchase will probably be the Hifiman HE-5 not to improve on the hd-650 but just to get another perspective on the sound. I have seen a lot of bashing of the hd650 but they are still used by many recording studios. 2L that make excellent high rez recordings use the hd-650 for their editing/mastering along with B&W 801 and Genelec pro monitors (see here: Lindberg Lyd AS .: EDITING). If they were so horrible and unnatural sounding I doubt that those recording studios would use them for mastering/editing purposes.

Sorry to say that Genelec Monitors have a great name, but are mostly bought exactly because of that: they attract customers. They are severly flawed, except you know what to do with them, in which case you could use anything. Just saying that not everything professionals use are what they really like... another good example would be the Yamaha NS-10, which many studio's have in order to create the illusion of a quality standard, since they are also flawed and also because the amplification, cables and, above all, room will change the way they play drastically....
just my $ 0,02
best regards
André

 

[reverendo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by upstateguy /img/forum/go_quote.gif This might be a good time to discuss the "Live Event." I've see operas and classical concerts at Lincoln Center, Rock events in stadiums and small venues around town. None of them could compare with a well done recording. I recently saw Yo-Yo Ma at Lincoln center. I was sitting in the middle of the auditorium and I couldn't hear finger squeaks, page turning or any cues from the stage and his cello sounded, for lack of a better word, subdued. Stadium concerts are loud, the bass is usually muddy and the highs distant and muffled. I saw Woody Allen and Jonathan Schwartz perform at Micheal's Pub (which is a small venue). Voices were unnatural and Woody's clarinet wasn't clear and distinct during his solo. I remember seeing the Beach Boys at Jones Beach and wishing they could have EQ'd the concert as good as an album. I only wish I could go to a jazz club and hear something like the live club recordings on Ramsey Lewis' Greatest Hits CD. There may be those who think a live event is reference point, but IMHO "the Live Event" just plain sucks compared to a well mic'd and mastered recording. This might be why our non-audiophile friends are so "wowed" when they listen to a good system. USG

USG,
gotta support your views on this one. amplified 'live' events are normally a sad experience for those who already have a decent system and are used to listening to well reproduced music.
I attend classical concerts in the local National Theatre and have the privilege of sitting of what one could call the 'sweetspot'. It's a great atmosphere and is always nice to see the musicians playing, but from the audio point of view there's no way I would change it for listening to my system. The acoustics aren't great and it's a little too blurred for my taste.
So, yes, it's great to go out, dress up a little, meet other people, go out with the wife afterwards for a pleasant dinner, but the sonic experience is not up to par... and I must say that I don't have an expensive system...

best regards
André

 

[regal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by reverendo /img/forum/go_quote.gif USG, gotta support your views on this one. amplified 'live' events are normally a sad experience for those who already have a decent system and are used to listening to well reproduced music. I attend classical concerts in the local National Theatre and have the privilege of sitting of what one could call the 'sweetspot'. It's a great atmosphere and is always nice to see the musicians playing, but from the audio point of view there's no way I would change it for listening to my system. The acoustics aren't great and it's a little too blurred for my taste. So, yes, it's great to go out, dress up a little, meet other people, go out with the wife afterwards for a pleasant dinner, but the sonic experience is not up to par... and I must say that I don't have an expensive system... best regards André

You kids never heard the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound, there is a whole book written on the Dead's perfectionism for audio quality at concerts. It was a different world back then.

 

[upstateguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif You kids never heard the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound, there is a whole book written on the Dead's perfectionism for audio quality at concerts. It was a different world back then.

I've heard of the Phil Spector wall of sound. Never went to a Dead concert.... saw the Jefferson Airplane though.

USG

 

[reverendo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif You kids never heard the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound, there is a whole book written on the Dead's perfectionism for audio quality at concerts. It was a different world back then.

Nope, never heard of it. Probably my loss, but I definitely is a different world nowadays.
best regards
André

 

[dszabi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif Power supply: The power cord and the power filter are essential to having a good and resolving system. I have gone through a lot of power cords, power filters before settling on my current system. Just to give you an example, I tried 6 or 7 different aftermarket power cords between my power filter and the wall outlet.

Hi,

Did you write the details of your experiences somewhere on the forum?

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dszabi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi, Did you write the details of your experiences somewhere on the forum?

Sorry, I never had the time to compile my experiments on power related equipment into one single thread. If you have the time, you can go through this thread: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/rev...-19mk3-435669/. I have mentioned several times there different "tweaks" to set up properly a DAC, including the power related ones.
And here is what I wrote about the PowertransPlus power cord. See here: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f21/my...ml#post6227091

 

[K_19]

A question for those who are familar with the Hiface...

I'm getting "ticks" every time I switch track in foobar, regardless of whether I'm using hiface KS or ASIO4ALL (yes, properly set up as per instruction here on Head-fi). Nothing major but bit of an annoyance, and possibly not good for my headphones. My source is the Eee 1000HE netbook hooked up to hiface, to Stello DA100 then WA6... haven't had this problem with any other setups I've had with my netbook/DAC. Could it be because my 1000HE's processor is not strong enough? (1.6Ghz).

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K_19 /img/forum/go_quote.gif A question for those who are familar with the Hiface... I'm getting "ticks" every time I switch track in foobar, regardless of whether I'm using hiface KS or ASIO4ALL (yes, properly set up as per instruction here on Head-fi). Nothing major but bit of an annoyance, and possibly not good for my headphones. My source is the Eee 1000HE netbook hooked up to hiface, to Stello DA100 then WA6... haven't had this problem with any other setups I've had with my netbook/DAC. Could it be because my 1000HE's processor is not strong enough? (1.6Ghz).

It could be your OS (I was using Win 7 x64), or it could be that your PC is a bit slow (although that seems unlikely considering its specs). I don't recall ever getting pops or clicks from the HiFace when using KS. It was very responsive too.

 

[K_19]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shahrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif It could be your OS (I was using Win 7 x64), or it could be that your PC is a bit slow (although that seems unlikely considering its specs). I don't recall ever getting pops or clicks from the HiFace when using KS. It was very responsive too.

I'm using the XP service pack 3 on my primary laptop rig. Hmm, I'm thinking it's most likely the Atom N280 that is the culprit... but I can't tell for sure. Maybe it's because of other processing in the background? But they're avast! and zonealarm, both of which should be relatively light. Maybe I should close'em as a test and see.

Also, it doesn't tick/pop EVERY TIME I switch tracks... maybe only about 3/5 times or so?

I should also mention that with KS, switching/skipping tracks results in about a half a second/1 second delay each time... which has me go with ASIO4ALL instead at the moment which doesn't have such delay for whatever reason.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K_19 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm using the XP service pack 3 on my primary laptop rig. Hmm, I'm thinking it's most likely the Atom N280 that is the culprit... but I can't tell for sure. Maybe it's because of other processing in the background? But they're avast! and zonealarm, both of which should be relatively light. Maybe I should close'em as a test and see. Also, it doesn't tick/pop EVERY TIME I switch tracks... maybe only about 3/5 times or so? I should also mention that with KS, switching/skipping tracks results in about a half a second/1 second delay each time... which has me go with ASIO4ALL instead at the moment which doesn't have such delay for whatever reason.

I used to have occasional crackling on Vista with KS under high CPU load, haven't heard them once since switching to Windows 7. Do you upsample by any chance? HiFace also clicks switching between bitrates, that's normal.

 

[K_19]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew_WOT /img/forum/go_quote.gif I used to have occasional crackling on Vista with KS under high CPU load, haven't heard them once since switching to Windows 7. Do you upsample by any chance? HiFace also clicks switching between bitrates, that's normal.

I do upsample sometimes but it's all hardware resampling through DA100 192k hz switch (otherwise bitperfect from the source itself). Maybe it's because of bitrate as you say, actually... I do have variety of music in different bitrates (perhaps something like 60% FLAC, 20% 320kbps, 10% 256kbps, 10% other) and put it on shuffle usually so maybe that's the reason. I'll give it a check, thanks.