sashome.net

Sunday Oct 23^rd we had our first member home meeting in Shanghai, at my crib.

I was happy with the turnout, as we had 8 members who wanted to come all the way to Qingpu. From this group we had 3 last minute cancellations, but the rest managed to survive several taxi adventures and made it here somehow. In order of appearance, myself, Raymond L, Steven C, Katja B and Boris C had a nice afternoon with good music, food and drinks. Thanks for bringing the wine and the cake!

The meeting was planned from 2 – 5pm but we had such a good time that it went on until 6pm – and maybe longer if Steven would not have had a dinner appointment – and he was so kind to drive the others back to Lino’s store.

My goal for the day was  - besides having a good time and fill our stomachs with food and alcohol, to talk about my adventures in trying – by taking care of the details of setup – to get good sound from a relatively modest setup, as well as to play lp’s to show members the entertaining qualities of analog playback.

The system at hand had the following main components;

Analog source:  Michell Gyro SE (modified w/ Orbe spindle kit) and fully modified OL RB250 / Shelter 901

Digital source:   classic Sony X7-ESD

Amplification:    Phono pre-amp: EAR 834P fully modified with outboard S&B step-up transformers

Manley Stingray (running on 110V from heavy duty transformer) in triode mode

Speakers:         Audio Physic Tempo 2 Special Edition (with tweeter from Caldera and modded filter)

Cables:                 MIT shotgun S2

Your's truly trying out the listening chairs. In the background the system setup.

Setup – still an issue with many systems

It is well-known that the room and the setup of the speakers in it has a major impact on sound quality. However, it is still an issue with many setups that I have seen around. It cannot be stressed enough that it is really important to take care of this as much as you can. A 10K system can sound really more involving than a 100K system if the latter is setup without enough consideration. We spend considerable time and money to get the best components. So better we get the maximum Return On Investment out of them!

I don’t want to turn this meeting report into a lecture on system setup. I will just mention some of my experience and key things we talked about that I did in this house to get the best sound out of my system. These key things are; loudspeaker positioning, contact between speakers and the floor, cables, resonance control devices.

 Setup – loudspeaker positioning

This is in my opinion the most critical success factor. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most difficult ones, unless you are single or have a dedicated listening room. The average non-single audiophile who wants to be successful with system setup should have either a talent for psychology or a very understanding partner! Otherwise the loudspeakers (and rest of the system) will not get the space in the room they need to blossom. Furthermore, the size of the room relative to the speakers, the materials used in the room, the shape and furniture all need to be carefully taken into account if. You should observe where the sound bounces of walls and in corners.

The ideal listening position is 0.6 – 1m from the real wall. In my case, I don’t achieve that because the system shares the living room. I am sitting almost 2 meters in front of the real wall. The result is that the bass response is not so even, not enough power in the low bass and a little too much emphasis on the high bass/low mid. On the positive side, I am lucky that my wife is very understanding of my hobby and that she likes to look of the amplifier, so she allows me to have the system / speakers quite prominently in the room,  with over 2,5 m. of space behind and  over 1 m. on the sides. And my speakers need it for the music to come alive and to ‘breathe’ with good impact and dynamics.  Audiophysic speakers are famous for a spacious sound with good imaging, so if you have the space, use it.

We played several tracks and especially on lp, members were commenting on the sound stage and that “the garden was not big enough to hold the orchestra”.

Setup – loudspeaker contact with the floor

The living room has a marble floor and I had problems with brightness and some type of strange distortion coming from the left channel. I thought my turntable needed calibration but that didn’t help. I also tried all kinds of materials under the  spikes, then removed the spikes, WHOW suddenly much better – I thought I would lose midrange clarity but actually I gained much more music and I lost a lot of distortion, including the one on the left side. It seemed that between my speakers and the floor there was some unwanted resonance going on that, when gone, allowed for a much more classy and relaxed sound. I then tried some brass cones under the speakers, all top up, all down down, and settled on a combination up/down. This added more definition and removed some of the high-bass bump.  Before this house I had a wooden floor, and there the spikes worked well. So, experiment with your equipment and you will be rewarded.

The loudspeakers have a small woofer and cannot deliver ultimate punch, but the group seemed happy with the way the system allowed the music to swing and be entertaining and engaging.

Checking if all cables are connected well and that interconnects are well away from power cords.

Setup – Cables

We spoke about cables and that it’s worth it to invest in that. I started with basic thick wire and have moved up the ladder with many different brands and I can tell you it makes a worthwhile difference. Try in your system to find the point of diminishing returns and stop there – in my case it’s the price of the loudspeaker cables 25% of the cost of the amp. + speakers. You can go higher – I tried Nordost Heimdahl from Lino and Raymond brought Kubala Sosna Expression speaker cable to the meeting. The latter is about 35% more expensive than my MIT’s. It made the sound a bit more neutral and gave somewhat better bass definition, however it was not such a big difference that I could not live with the MIT’s back in the system. The Heimdahls are almost double the price of my LS cables and produced an even more palpable sound, but also exhibited some sibilance in my system – granted that the time of testing was before I had the best (current) setup.

Besides LS cables, the interlinks and power cables are even more important! See the report about the Nordost demo for more about that.

Another member, Mike Hsu, has recently bought the Taiwanese brand Neotech. These have a very good price/quality relation. I am trying the their top copper interlink, which costs about 200 euro’s but performs on par with my MIT Shotgun S2 which cost more than double that – granted it’s an older design.

The Manley integrated amp on Stillpoints

Setup – resonance control

What also helps here in my experience is careful placement of the equipment to ensure a) drainage of equipment-borne vibrations and b) preventing vibrations coming from the speakers through the floor into the equipment. Especially if you are using tube amplification like my amp and phono pre-amp, you can get dramatic improvements if attention is paid in this area. What works very well for me are Stillpoints under the equipment and a (self made) rack which also sits on 4 Stillpoints. These babies are quite expensive but in my opinion well worth the investment. They help make the sound much bigger and dynamic, as well as more elegant, smooth and full-bodied with good inner harmonics. A good rack also helps to get more harmonic richness and dynamics from your system.

The turntable sits on a custom Neuance shelf, unfortunately no longer available. But if you have a suspended turntable, a light and rigid platform under it will usually give better results than something heavy. An insider tip; the Ikea Lack table – if use it as-is or cut off the legs and use it as a platform – good price/quality performance!

I also tried to place the power distributor on the rack, this also helped.

Another modification that paid off big time was to replace the power cord and all internal wiring of the big 110V/220V transformer, as well as the cheap power receptacles by audio grade ones from Furutech.

The members traded places on the chairs because there is always only 1 chair that has the best sound…

We had a great time. I hope this meeting will see many follow-ups by other members!

Jeroen

Computer Audio

More and more we start to hear the term “computer audio”. For some of us, especially the ‘analog ones’ who’s only source of music still is the LP and tape, this could provoke frightening visions of being locked into our (strangely claustrophopic) listening room by the computer, where HAL is forcing us to listen to an endless loop of the worst sounding quality mp3 of our favorite music which he had secretly downloaded, slowly destroying our audiophile brains…

However, once you have learned more about it, you will know that computer audio is nothing to be afraid of and that it can even be of audiophile quality. In fact, for the digital audio formats, computer audio will be the main ‘playback system’ for the foreseeable future and will see most new developments and improvements. The reason for this is that we are going through as phase in audio where there are many different digital formats available of our favorite music, like MP3, FLAC, CD, HDCD, SACD, DVD-audio and newer high-resolution 24/192 (or higher) versions. Most of these formats will slowly disappear and will be replaced by the high resolution formats. How long this phase will last will largely depend on the technological advancement (and thus consumer price level) of storage capacity and internet bandwidth. People started to listen to mp3’s because that was the only format compact enough to fit on their mobile player they use in the gym, and which could be downloaded with reasonable speed. If those limitations are gone, we could all have again 1 format – of the highest quality – which suits everybody including the most critical audiophile. However because of all the complexities between the different industries this could take a while…

Until then, computer audio is the way to go, because it allows most digital formats to be played in a convenient way from the same machine. As things stand now, audiophile-quality computer audio generally means using either a high-end DAC, which can be directly connected to the computer (where your music is stored) via USB or S/PDIF cable. In this configuration you control the music playback from your computer. A more flexible but also more complex solution is to use a DS (Digital Streamer) which is connected via Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet with the computer or external NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive. Such a system allows you to control the playback from the DS (which has a built in DAC) or even from a wireless handset or Iphone/ Ipad. Some knowledge of how to create a home-network is needed. The music needs to be either ripped from your existing CD’s with your computer (the best ripping software at the moment is DBpoweramp, www.dbpoweramp.com ) or downloaded from the internet already in the resolution you want and stored on either the computer or a separate NAS drive. Fortunately there are now websites where you can download high-res files (higher than redbook CD quality), like http://www.hdtracks.com/, and my guess is this offer will grow quickly.

The blind test

So, now is a time where many of us will think about building a digital computer music collection. This topic is however not about how to do this (a good online resource is www.computeraudiophile.com/faq ), but rather about how do different digital formats sound. To have a better understanding of this helps to decide which format(s) to choose when building one’s digital library, because at the moment many people still need to weigh sound quality against storage/playback cost.

Inspired by the report of a similar members meeting of a Polish audiophile club, we wanted to know if we could hear the difference between mp3, CD quality and higher resolution versions of the same original track. These original tracks were either rips from (HD)CD and DVD-A or high res downloads, all recorded in 24bit/96khz. These were then ‘down-converted’ using DBpoweramp dbConverter into mp3 192kbit/s, mp3 320kbit/s (both with a sampling freqency of 44.1khz) and redbook CD 16bit/44.1khz. Each comparison was between the mp3, CD and original 24/96 versions of the same file. The A/B comparisons were conducted blind. The participants only learnt afterwards which file had been which.

The test was conducted at Lino’s store as he had the resources and to prepare the digital files (grazie Lino for the help!), and of course, a reference system that would be transparent to the smallest change in sound quality.

The test system:

Amplification: VTL TL6.5 pre-amp and VTL MB450-II monoblocks

Loudspeakers: Raidho C2

Digital streamer/DAC for the music digital formats: Linn Accurate DS, connected via Ethernet with the home PC and controlled from Ipad

Computer/music storage: Lino’s home PC with dedicated internal hard drive for the music storage

Audio cables: Nordost Valhalla

The test music, in order of playing;

1) Ella Fidgerald & Louis Armstrong – From Ella and Louis; Moonlight in Vermond (Verve, 1956, 24/96 remaster)

2) Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Green Dale; Leave the driving (Reprise, 2003, ripped from DVD Audio 24 bit/96 kHz)

3) Dunedin Consort – Handel/Messiah; Halleluya (Linn, 2007, 24/88.2 studio master)

4) Scottisch Chamber Orchestra – Beethoven, piano concerto nr.4 (Linn, 2008, 24/192 studio master)

5) Barbara Jungr / Love me tender – Are you lonesome tonight (2005, Linn, 24/96 studio master)

6) Jazz at the Pawnshop – High Life (Proprius, 1976, 24/88.2 remaster)

The results

Ella Fidgerald & Louis Armstrong – From Ella and Louis; Moonlight in Vermond (Verve, 1956, 24/96 remaster)

The first piece of music was played in all 4 different formats. First off (we heard afterwards) was the 192khz mp3 version, then we heard the 16/44.1 CD version, then the 24/96 and lastly the 320khz mp3. In the blind test, the 192khz mp3 was easily identified by everyone, because it was just pretty awful sounding, with fluctuating noise levels, and a grainy, colorless sound. The 24/96 version was also correctly identified, being by far the most full and relaxed sounding version. Interestingly, between the CD format and the 320khz mp3 version there was however not such a great difference and not all agreed which was which! Although the CD version was much better than the 192khz mp3 with much fuller and smoother voices, the 320khz mp3 did not fall behind much on this particular recording, and we were switching back and forth a few times without coming to a uniform conclusion. Some preferred the mp3 because the voices sounded a bit more clear, highlighted. A good score for this mp3!

We decided not to continue with the 192khz mp3 versions for the rest of the meeting, as they were way to inferior to the rest and cannot be used for serious listening in our opinion.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Green Dale; Leave the driving (Reprise, 2003, ripped from DVD Audio 24 bit/96 kHz)

First the CD version was played, which sounded well focused and had good dynamics in the cymbals and guitar. Next was the mp3 320khz version which sounded a bit more relaxed, and initially some thought this was the CD version, because the highs were not so pronounced and in the Ella Fidgerald piece the mp3 had actually a bit more perceived treble response. However it appeared that the Neil Young recording actually had pretty dynamic highs which were not accurately captured in the mp3 version. This became clear when listening to the last one which clearly was the best one and indeed turned out to be the 24/96 version. This one had all the power in the cymbal work as well as a good bass foundation and a smoothness and detail that the other versions could not match.

Dunedin Consort – Handel/Messiah; Halleluya (Linn, 2007, 24/88.2 studio master)

This was an interesting one. Most of us thought the first one we heard was better than the second version, and some even liked the first one the best, period. Main reason for this was that in the first version the voices in the choir were a bit better highlighted in the whole picture, while it also had good depth and dynamics. In the second version the voices merged a bit more into the whole picture so individual voices in the choir were a little less easy to follow. It turned out that the first version was the 320khz mp3! The second was the 16/44.1 CD format, and the third one the 24/96 version. This one had clearly much more ambient and reverb information than the other two, and was also smoother. One member commented that she felt much more ‘in the church’. For some other people however this version sounded the most ‘diffuse’ in terms of imaging and preferred the simple clarity of the mp3 version.

Scottisch Chamber Orchestra – Beethoven, piano concerto nr.4 (Linn, 2008, 24/192 studio master)

As the original file of this one was of a higher resolution than what we were working with for this test, it was downconverted to 24/96 before the test.

The first version we heard turned out to be the mp3 and we all indicated it correctly. It clearly fell behind the other formats because it had a bit of hash around the subtle piano notes. The difference between the CD version and the 24/96 was not so clear for everybody. The 24/96 version was so smooth that some found the HF response a bit muted. The imaging was much better that the CD version, the piano stood clearly on the stage, however if you did not sit in the sweet spot, this quality of the 24/96 format was less obvious. We did not compare the original 24/192 file, that should be even better, but that will be for a next time when we have more 24/192 files available.

Barbara Jungr / Love me tender – Are you lonesome tonight (2005, Linn, 24/96 studio master)

Here the first two formats we heard were quite close, although in the second one Barbara’s voice stood out a bit more clearly, not brighter but more forward of the rest of the music, creating more depth. This second version was the CD one and the first one the mp3. Most of us had that scored correctly, and on the last one everybody was very clear that this was by far the best one. We were right, it was the 24/96 file and it sounded much better, more relaxed and full, with good emotion in her voice, and the slowly played, decaying piano were the most believable.

Jazz at the Pawnshop – High Life (Proprius, 1976, 24/88.2 remaster)

Here, surprisingly, the individual preferences were divided between the CD and 24/96 version. The recording has a lot of dynamic shadings and an astounding clarity, and this was more appearant with the 24/96 resolution file. Some people thought that the CD version was the 24/96 one because it had a smoother, softer HF response, which was generally attributed to the higher res format in previous songs. But what was in fact happening here is that the 16/44.1 CD format was rounding off the leading edges of attacks from instruments like the tambourine, and although that sounded pleasant, it was less life-like.

Conclusion

There were a lot of different opinions throughout the test. The difference between files was almost always clear and most listeners correctly identified the higher-resolution versions as better – but not always. The sound quality 16/44.1 and 320khz mp3 versions was more close than expected. In comparison with the 24/96 version, the 16/44.1 CD versions, and to a lesser extend the 320khz mp3’s, usually sounded (initially) more substantial, as though certain elements of the sound were brought up to the surface. The 24/96 files were more relaxed and calmer. Perhaps because the 16/44.1 files have less detail due to the lower resolution, our brain had to process less data and this allowed the sound that was in the file to appear more clearly. This was proven by the fact that for some people, going abck and forth a few times between the versions, allowed them to assimilate the details of the 24/94 version and then they would more easily recognize it as the better one.

Although the 24/96 versions usually sounded more relaxed and calm, but when the dynamics of the recording where fierce, this was also fully exposed, like in the last track, which was throwing most of us off in the blind test. The 24/96 versions also had the best grounded bass notes which aided the fullness of the sound.

The surprise of the evening was the relative success of the 320 khz mp3 files compared to 16/44.1 CD versions. If storage capacity is an issue, and for situation where not the highest sound quality is required, this is a good option.

Caviat; because of the way we prepared the different music files, we made sure that we did not have issues with different sources for the different versions which could lead to differences in sound quality. However, in theory it is possible that there are better sounding CD and mp3 versions are out there than the ones we created with our conversion method. I will try to do a follow up on this.

And, for next time we will include the 24/192 versions, let’s see if that is significantly better then the 24/96 format!

 Jeroen

Intro

Nordost is an American company based in Massachusetts, which is in the north-east of the US, which was inspiration for the company name. It is one of the most “high-tech” cable companies, making audio cables since 1992. What separates them from most other cable companies is that audio cables are not their main source of revenue. About 25% comes from their audio and video cable business, the rest is done in their medical, computer and aerospace product categories. This explains why they can afford to invest relatively much in R&D and proprietary production, which obviously benefits their audio cables. They made one of the most succesful high end audio cables “Valhalla”, still used by many audiophiles (who can afford it). Currently Nordost is (in)famous for having the most expensive and (according to reviews) best high end cable series, the “Odin”. The company is doing relatively well. Currently they employ around 200 people, and they recently opened a new factory.

The Foundation Theory

According to Nordost, it is useless to invest in your audio system unless the system’s foundation is solid. In short, this means that ideally one should have a) a dedicated power line, b) a dedicated grounding,  c) a good equipment support (rack / support cones). No equipment should be sitting on the ground, including the power distributor. The effect of this was demonstrated today.

According to Nordost, the most important cable of every system is the power cord which connects from the wall to the equipment power distributor, and the least important cables are the loudspeaker cables.

The demo

Lars Kristensen, one of the frontmen of Nordost, was in Shanghai for a demo of the latest and greatest of the Nordost line, for this day focused on the new entry-level “Leif” series, consisting of 4 models increasing in price and quality, “White Lightning”, “Purple Flare”, “Blue Heaven” and “Red Dawn”. Each model has interconnects (single ended/balanced) as well a speaker cables. The “Purple Flare” and “Blue Heaven” also come in a power cord, and the latter also has digital cables as well as a (phono) tonearm lead cable. The cables are colored according to their name for easy recognition.

For the demo, the “Blue Heaven” power cord was used.

The rest of the equipment was; BelCanto CD2 as CD transport, Belcanto DAC3 as DAC and preamp,  Belcanto M300 mono power amps  and Raidho C2 speakers. Although the speakers are relatively expensive, the electronics provided enough quality signal to allow for a clean and transparent system that easily revealed the differences between the different cables that were used during the demo.

The electronics were connected by the balanced version of the interconnects.

Music used was diverse, from an high quality “live studio” recording of Elvis Presley to the first album of Puschifer (V is for Vagina).

The start was a little rough, making me suspect that the Italian wine was still making it’s way through Lars’ veins J Things escalated into the blow-up of the Belcanto stereo amp which was then replaced by the mono blocks. After this things went pretty smoothly and we were taken through a series of comparisons that I will describe briefly here. The method used was that Lars would first play a piece of a track with one cable and then the same piece (with the same volume settings) with the next level up cable. One could argue that if you hear a piece of music for the second time, you always hear more things, so the more expensive cable has an unfair advantage, but the differences were obvious enough that this was not a real issue.

Lars and Lino replacing the broken Belcanto stereo amp for the mono blocks

First off was the old version of the “Red Dawn” against the new baby model “White Lightning” (which is ½ the price). With the old “Red Dawn” the sound had a good solidity and weight (perhaps slightly better than the “White Lightning”) but overall the new  cable was superior due to a more clear and airy presentation.

Second up was “Purple Flare” against “White Lightning”. Here the most obvious improvement was that the “Purple Flare” was more detailed especially in the midrange which was also nicely full-bodied. In addition the noise floor was lower, so overall more music was coming through.

Then “Blue Heaven” defeated “Purple Flare” with a more clean and less grainy sound especially in the highs, and a more lean (neutral)  midrange (I preferred the midrange of the “Purple Flare” although that one was probably more colored).

Lastly the new “Red Dawn”, which took the clean and neutral qualities of the “Blue Heaven” to another level and added more air, refinement and musicality. This cable is by far the best one of the group, as it should be based on price.

Some other interesting things that were part of the demo:

According to the foundation theory, the most important cable is the power cord between the wall and the equipment (most likely going into your distributor). Lars changed the “Blue Heaven” that was in the system for the top of the line “Odin”, the rest of the power cords stayed the same. The effect was dramatic; the music was so happy with the better power that it was jumping out of the speakers, the sound presentation became much more 3D, with much better bass definition and dynamics. According to Lars, this setup (1 “Odin” in the main position and the rest “Blue Heaven”) will outperform an all-”Valhalla” system, which is quite a statement because the latter is much more expensive especially if you have more power cords.

We also heard the impact of placing the power distributor on the ground. The sound immediately collapsed. It is really worth it to have your power distributor on a good support. It has to do with vibrations in the cables. The mechanical (resonance) behavior of audio cables plays a major role in the result. When a signal travels through a cable, the electrons “vibrate” and together they will cause the whole cable to resonate (at a micro level). Depending on the length of the cable these resonances are concentrated in a small frequency band but in a high amplitude, or they are wide spread with a lower intensity. The latter will give a better audio result so the Nordost cables are designed to have this optimized. One could argue that just because of that, they could be more sensitive than other brands to any disturbance like putting the power distributor on the ground but we didn’t have time to check this. Me being my sceptical self, back at my house, I took my power distributor from the ground and on a better support. I actually heard a big difference! The sound was more clear, free flowing and full of tone with a lower noise floor. And I don’t use Nordost cables! Ok that was a quick win, what’s next?

The system with the power distributor on the ground - don't try this at home folks!

Another experiment was the effect of small speaker cable jumpers (which are in fact a kind of optimized resonators). With the jumper connected between the speaker cable and the speaker, the sound became more open en dynamic. They could also be connected on the amp side for additional improvement. Your speaker doesn’t need to be bi-wired, just hook them up to the terminals you have. In fact, according to Lars, to have your loudspeaker wired in shotgun-configuration is better than bi-wire. For a $200/set this is an interesting improvement.

Lars explaining the "resonator" cable jumper before hooking it up.

The positive effect of vibration controlling cones under equipment was also demonstrated. There are many brands that make these products, and it is worth it to experiment. The Nordost ones work well, I will be interested to try them against my personal favorites the Stillpoints.

So, all these things help to create a good foundation for one’s system, that will allow the system to show it’s potential. This is very important because there are too many systems around that sound poor because one of the fundamentals are not in order, and people who are disappointed with the sound are often looking to upgrade the amplifier, or cd player, but they could be looking in the wrong direction.

We haven’t even talked about room acoustics, that will be for another time!

Jeroen