Exactly. I, too, love measurements. But there are limits to their applicability. There is not necessarily a correlation between measurements and what we hear. We can measure more precisely than we can hear. We can measure things that do not matter to the sound. We can prefer the sound of units that do not measure as well.
Their are, of course, products that both measure poorly and sound bad, too. One needs to know what measurements to pay attention to and what one is trying to accomplish.
tony22 said
. . . it would be a hoot to release the FW fix that cleans up these measurements but has no audible impact - I'd love to see how the measurements crowd would respond to that!
By claiming they hear the difference.
It is the same group who download a free copy of Audacity, look at the waveform of a rip, listen with their eyes, and claim all sorts of things about how it was produced and sounds. All of us who actually make recordings would love to possess this magical skill.
These are the same people who will claim when the next version of FW comes out that may sound better - but not through anything that coincidentally cleaned up the Stereophile measurements, that it will clearly sound better because of what got cleaned up. You can’t win.
Double sigh! I have been following this thread and some of the tripe on stereo.net.au with increasing frustration. I may have this wrong but I thought we bought hi-fi gear so we could listen to music reproduction in the comfort of home. Music is an art, like most arts that is supposed to touch the listener’s emotions and be an enjoyable experience. In other words, the equipment is merely a means to an end.
It then follows that a piece of equipment ought be judged mainly on the ability of it to provoke pleasure in the listener, in a manner that allows him/her to suspend belief that they are listening to a recording. If the measurements crowd want to dismiss the DS (or any other piece of kit with supposedly poor measurements) then they are obviously free to do so. It is perhaps telling that the vast majority of people who have heard the DS seem to find it a remarkable piece of equipment that meets the objective mentioned above. Most of the naysayers appear to be ones who have not listened to the DS.
I am old enough to remember the 1970’s when Japanese manufacturers started making amplifiers with vanishing levels of THD - in fact there was a battle to see how many zeros you could get after the decimal point. It is fair to say that many of those amps sounded less than good. As ever there seems to be a disconnect between measurements and our listening experiences.
None of this should be construed that some measurements may not be useful in determining how something sounds but I personally would never use them as a basis to reject something if my ears told me something else. We are after all humans with our own flaws and distortions
For the purposes of transparency, I should add I do not own the DS but am patiently waiting for the upgrade kit.
Chris, yes I remember those days as well. All of that work to get all those zeroes and it hardly brought us a new age in high end sound. On the other hand we’ve seen a lot of gear that sounded pleasing precisely because of poor performance in some areas that can be measured (I suspect you may recall some that were built that way on purpose - think excessive even order harmonic distortion). It seems you can get great measurements with great sound, or great measurements with poor sound. Ted is deliberate and thoughtful (it goes without saying the same is true for Paul); I’m betting on him giving us optimal measurements but superior sound.
crabby said
He said in some ways it measured superbly and in other not so much. A bit of additive distortion in the low and and only 17 bit resolution nut also very linear in the midband.
I took the review as very, very positive. Especially once he got the new firmware.
I subscribe to the old maxim …
Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted.
Right from the beginning, the design goals for the MPS-5 were to reach new heights in sonic performance with real music signals rather than optimum test-signal measurements. The result is that the algorithms may not perform optimally from a measurement point of view when they have to process test signals, but, as your review also confirms, they do their assigned job quite well when processing real music signals. As we are always researching new ideas, the next-generation algorithms may very well make these kind of measurements even worse—but we can assure you that it will be for the benefit of sonic performance. Isn't that what we are all after?
—Jonathan Tinn, Andreas Koch (Playback Designs) responding to a noisy measurement in the pages of stereophile....
cerobo said
In other words, the equipment is merely a means to an end.
Yes, but this hobby is about more than the music - despite what we like to claim.
I would be loath to assert the music lover with $50 in playback equipment is not deriving at least as much pleasure and emotional content when listening than any of us. I bet he is often getting more. It really is about the music; he his listening and not obsessing over his piece of kit.
Claiming my playback system is “all about the music” is like asserting my Corvette Z06 is “about the transportation.”
Inspired by Stereophiles article, I went back to 1.1.5 (5407) firmware because I thought my system sounded a bit “hard” and I thought it would soften it. Well it did, but in same time sound became dull (from what I have used to). I wasn’t enjoying music so much anymore. So, I went back to newest (which makes any change to the sound) and there was I again (“home”). Sound was more alive and energetic. Interesting how these “updates” works.
dan said
For the record, I think you've always said no preamp is best, that's why I was disappointed to read that Dudley didn't try the DS directly into his amps.
What do you think he would have concluded if he had done so?
Do you believe this would have changed his review? If so, how? If not, why not?
Have you concluded running the DS directly into an amp sounds best?
Do you believe Art Dudley would have shared your opinion given his predilections?
I now have both run the amp direct in and with my preamp (a Decware CSP2+ upgraded with cryo’d Jupiter beeswax caps and a stepped attenuator). There is a tiny bit of a sense that micro-detail is compromised right now but there’s a newish interconnect in the mix and I have some tube rolling to begin to do and analyze. There is also a sense of body and weight with the preamp that is nice, and I have more gain which really aids my lowest source. If the DS had the same gain output as the PWD Mk II does, I would prefer it directly into the amp by a hair. Alas, it does not, and so far the preamp adds as much as it detracts, or more. Happy either way.
Hi Dan. Elk’s doing a good job and I support him. He may be a bit protective and it’s only when things get personal. He know I have absolutely no problem with people expressing opinions that run counter to ours. Yours are always welcome here. Let’s just keep any kind attacks from the discussion. And, thanks for posting, thanks for being a PS customer.
For the record I agree with you. Art’s review was, well, not as careful and thorough as I would have preferred. In his defense he was up against a deadline, we did send him the new firmware at the last moment. All that’s true. Only, I use a word processor just like Art and if he had taken an extra hour to modify his comments throughout the review based on the latest firmware I think the seemingly disconnected conclusion that DirectStream is ‘in a class of its own’ might make more sense with the rest of the review and we’d all benefit.
Here’s the thing about reviewers. We can hope all we want that they’ll go direct in the amp as we suggest and that they try all manner of experiments that we believe benefit the end results, but they don’t. They have busy schedules and lives of their own. Go figure. Vade Forrester’s review was extremely thorough. Vade lived with DirectStream and played with it in all situations for months before publishing his review. We all appreciate an extremely thorough review like that. Art didn’t have the luxury of that much time. It happens.
I am sorry you’ve had some problems and I would encourage you to email me personally and let me work directly with you. It would be my pleasure to do so.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post, which Elk has obviously deleted. [I left it long enough for Paul to respond, and then deleted it as it was off-topic and comprised only another of Dan’s attacks.]
I saw on another forum that JA plans to do a follow-up, and will compare the DS to a Luxman DA-06, Auralic Vega, and dCS Vivaldi.
After having read all reviews concerning the DS I can conclude: It’s fun to read about it, but it’s much better to listen to it. And, I get bored by reading the reviews again and again, but I can’t stop listening to the DS
I’m not really conserned about reviews, because they don’t really affect what I think about DS. What I’m conserned is that based an a small “imperfection” in measurements someone may not get DS and will miss a great opportunity to enjoy music in its full potential…
