Life after Torreys

Ted Smith said One of the obvious things missing from a flat FR is the phase response. If the group delay is constant (i.e. the phase of each frequency is such that the filter just looks like a simple time delay) then a flat FR should get close to neutral. If phase response is something else then non-steady state tones will get muffled, e.g. transients will loose their edge/timing.

But Frequency response and phase response are measured with steady state tones.

The next detail is the simple distortions -

there’s time distortion, say small echos or acoustic feedback from the speakers affecting a turntable or the filaments of a tube or (thru a board vibrating) the capacitors in the electronics. Often this is perceived as adding richness if the feedback is in the right frequency ranges. Too much feedback at higher frequencies can detract from clarity and/or affect the sound stage.

there’s frequency distortion: e.g. harmonic distortion can add richness (“tube distortion”) or cause things to be a little harsh (old “transistor radio distortion”), intermodulation distortion is a little more complicated.

Then come less linear distortions - noise, jitter, etc.

If the noise is correlated with the sound then in the best case it can add a little richness at the expense of localization or change the tonal character of the sound, etc. - if it’s not correlated with the sound, but isn’t white it can be confusing to the brain. White noise can be fairly benign.

Jitter spreads each frequency in the audio outwards just a little - the audible effect is hard to characterize. I hear high frequency jitter as a little fuzz on the sound, and some loss of localization of the sound stage. To my mind it’s a big part of what people describe as the “digital sound”. I hear lower frequency jitter as messing with the foundation of the sound - sort of taking some of the realness/life out of the music.

I’m just rambling, but adding distortions digitally really doesn’t give the same audible effect as simply adding a (not quite perfect) tube buffer or putting some base traps in the right places in the room…

Thanks Ted!

Many aspects in its sound speak for the DS doing things more right than others, which could mean, previously existent more richness could have been due to existing Jitter/noise/phase issues/THD/resonances etc.

Aside of discussions around taste and preferences I personally have no problem accepting, that add. richness and harmonic structures, some might prefer, probably come from above mentioned possibilities of errors and have other drawbacks, no matter if in vinyl or other digital gear playback with richer sound.

Die hard vinylophobes might need also a theroretically positive aknowledgement of their preference, I don’t. Manufacturers of other, different sounding digital equipment with flat FR and lot of work invested in reducing noise/Jitter etc. might not agree, but that’s not my problem. I hear what the DS does better and what I have to accept as a drawback in my preference is managable.

I see the following facts and conclusions:

  • All digital gear is mostly claimed by all manufacturers and reviewers to have flat FR but as we know can sound very different in tonality and intensity of tonal colors reproduced
  • Out of your explanation I conclude (you didn’t say that and I understand it) that the additional richness other digital sources with flat FR reproduce in side2side comparison to the DS, could practically just come from less care taken in decreasing Jitter/noise/phase issues/THD etc. Thereby I take it that comparing digital sources in the same environment on heavy platforms doesn’t lead to any differently introduced vibration that could manipulate sound.
  • A system can easily be setup, so that the DS makes fantastic and rich enough sound. In such systems, other clearly richer sounding gear (of which not just a few exist on all quality levels) must sound somehow „too heavy“. At least this is my experience and quite logic.
  • Out of these conclusions and counting you as the master mind in the digital area, I currently see improvements in the digital domain going in a different direction, means that one has to search for add. richness (if he needs) somewhere else than in the digital source.
I think we’ll meet no manufactiurer of any part oft he chain, not claiming his part (may it be source, amp or speaker) should be the neutral part and is neutral with flat FR and done right. Solutions for tonal preferences should be searched somewhere else. Well, maybe especially the speaker manufacturers serve special tastes.

This makes it theoretically hard for colleagues like yacheah where to address the problem solving, as all parts should theoretically sound the same in tonality. Practically it’s different as we know and we all choose components or at least one component also by it’s tonal character, may it be source or amp or speaker.

More random thoughts:

Actually there’s more to properly dealing with vibrational isolation than good external dampening. For example, capacitor choices make a big difference as well as any internal wiring (that isn’t traces on a circuit board.) I try to use non-microphonic components wherever possible, etc. and not all audio components seem to pay attention to this.

Still I’m not trying to claim that the DS is the ultimate in neutrality - obviously the changes I’ve made in software make a difference and I’ll keep trying to discover better things to do. There are also some changes in hardware (at a cost) that would help too. There have certainly been some versions of the software that, for whatever reason, sounded pretty bad to me too. There’s hope that some future release may clean something up and then the system may have more richness - I just don’t know if that will be the case or not.

My only point was that having a flat FR is just the beginning of neutrality and conversely deviating from a flat FR probably isn’t the best way of tailoring the sound for more richness, etc.

A lot of my friends who really enjoy vinyl seem to listen to their vinyl louder than they turn up their digital (or at least they play their vinyl for me louder than they play their digital) - I’ve digitally recorded the output of vinyl and when played back digitally at the same level you get essentially the same richness. Perhaps we’re used to loud digital being annoying in some way that vinyl isn’t, but I’d like to think that the DS doesn’t suffer that way when cranked up.

I have no problem with people tailoring their systems anyway they wish to, and adding a tube buffer or changing, say their preamp or amp to a tube based amp may well make a system sound better for some. Others may find that they have too little or too much diffusion or absorption in their rooms, etc.

Thanks for your openness!

The DS doesn’t change when volume is turned up, I see no problem here.

In my experience there were always two aspects deciding if I can play louder or not.

  • The main aspect was to have at least sufficient or little more (never too little) bass within the tonal spectrum AND close to no resonances that would annoy.
  • The second was, that the more harmonically rich the midrange, the louder it can get
The second aspect is the one why I, as your friends, can play vinyl little louder than digital with all recordings, that are not exceptionally rich sounding itself. As soon as one records this vinyl effect, it certainly can played as loud over a DAC.

Boy, I’m completely confused by “that the more harmonically rich the midrange, the louder it can get”. To me many recordings (especially from Telarc) don’t really come to life until they are played close to “realistic” levels. Play them too quietly and they are sort of bleh, get them near the “right” loudness they really shine.

For me the cleaner and less distorted the sound the louder one would often play it.

Three different things for me, all correct.

many recordings have to be play loud to come to life ->> correct

The cleaner and less distorted the sound, the loud music can be played ->> correct (this is not rarely better with digital than vinyl)

But even if it’s clean and with less distortion, there can be a difference in midrange harmonics I.e. influencing strings or piano sound, preventing a louder volume.

I guess I have no experience nor can I imagine the midrange harmonics limiting how loud I feel like playing something any more than too much bass or treble in the recording might limit the loudness I’m comfortable with. I guess I’m just confused on this point.

maybe that’s just because I personally can easily compensate a little too much treble or bass on the speakers, but if a piano or stings sound little glassy or too thin with too little body, there’s nothing much to do and it sounds even worse the louder it’s played.

“Glassy” I get - louder is clearly worse, but to me that falls in the realm of distortion limiting loudness.

But “too thin” or “too little body” I don’t get - turning it up usually helps for me - maybe not in “thickening” it, but overall a little more volume seems to have a bigger positive effect. But that helps me understand where you might be coming from.

yeah, roughly spoken I come from upper mids too loud or upper bass to weak, even if treble and deeper bass is ok.

It makes instruments and voices which hardly benefit from deeper bass performance sound with too little body. And I don’t mean the loudness effect that everything can sound little less rich if not played loud enough.

There’s still a little room for interpretation what’s lower mids, upper bass, upper mids and lower highs. Unfortunately I’m no sound engineer and firm in these terms, but I think you understand the rough direction.

edit:

but it could also to a minor degree be tonal colors flatter or more intensive while general tonality is not so different. Like the difference between a Blue Note mastering by Bernie Grundman or Gray/Hoffmann if you know what I mean.

I agree with Jazznut. It is an issue with body more than anything.

In recent listening sessions I played back a lot of Bobby Hutcherson titles (may he RIP). I found that the lack of body also affected the bassline groove that drives a lot of songs. Listen to “Delia” on his last Blue Note outing. On the DS, it was like listening to the individual instruments with air and clear separation. They didn’t play together and it wasn’t tuneful or musical. It was very hi fi.

On the Cary DAC I compared it to, the bassline cohesively made all the instruments meld into a tune.

My system is already made up of warm sounding components with midrange richness and bloom and putting in the DS made all that difference. The DS is not bright up top. If anything the treble is reticent and non fatiguing which is a good thing for me. It doesn’t have a problem with the volume being turned up. Quite the opposite. I found myself having to turn it up more often than not. Like Ted, I find that recordings tend to sound better when played louder at realistic volumes, rather than softer for nearfield listening - at least in my system anyway.

Mind you I have minimal room treatments because it is a real world living room and not an anechoic chamber.

I just read that the Cary DAC has a tube stage, so this could be an even more extreme comparison than with the Accuphase. I think it’s important to mention, we don’t talk about right/wrong, more that there are quite big differences possible.

on a separate note, will breathe a sigh of relief if ted could look into the i2s connectivity issue where the ds does not recognize if the hdmi cable is unplugged and instead shows a 24bit/44.1 kHz active connection. i am willing to bet with my +30 years in the streets of audiophilia this has sonic consequences esp if one is occasionally switching inputs.

jazznut said I just read that the Cary DAC has a tube stage, so this could be an even more extreme comparison than with the Accuphase. I think it's important to mention, we don't talk about right/wrong, more that there are quite big differences possible.
It's not the tube stage in play.

It has a selectable tube or solid state output stage. There is midrange richness regardless of if I select tube or solid state. More bloom with the tube stage selected.

Yes, not talking about what is right or wrong - just what I find to sound musical to me, in my system.

makfi said on a separate note, will breathe a sigh of relief if ted could look into the i2s connectivity issue where the ds does not recognize if the hdmi cable is unplugged and instead shows a 24bit/44.1 kHz active connection. i am willing to bet with my +30 years in the streets of audiophilia this has sonic consequences esp if one is occasionally switching inputs.
I do remember this being reported and I never explicitly looked into it, thanks for the reminder - perhaps we can get some more details since I can't get it to happen here.

FWIW I don’t see how the FPGA code could possibly “invent” 24 bits at 44.1k since it counts the individual samples so they have to be at the correct rate and they would have to be well formed (e.g. Left/Right toggling at the correct rate.) There’s a slightly higher possibility that it’s a bug in the control processor code that’s reporting a stale status: we haven’t seen that in recent released code (tho if I remember correctly it was in one/some of the older betas.) If that’s the case there’s no sonic penalty at all - there are no lines wiggling in the hardware or in the FPGA that could be causing interference…

i certainly hope i am not an isolated case. can fellow ds owners try the following:

  1. Play your favorite song from i2s input of the DS
  2. Hit stop
  3. Unplug the hdmi cable from the DS end
  4. The DS screen reads 24bits/44.1kHz
  5. Try 1-4 with other inputs (USB/TOS etc) and observe that the green dot turns red and no bit depth /sampling rate is reported on the screen (as should be the case)
yacheah said I agree with Jazznut. It is an issue with body more than anything.

In recent listening sessions I played back a lot of Bobby Hutcherson titles (may he RIP). I found that the lack of body also affected the bassline groove that drives a lot of songs. Listen to “Delia” on his last Blue Note outing. On the DS, it was like listening to the individual instruments with air and clear separation. They didn’t play together and it wasn’t tuneful or musical. It was very hi fi.

On the Cary DAC I compared it to, the bassline cohesively made all the instruments meld into a tune.

My system is already made up of warm sounding components with midrange richness and bloom and putting in the DS made all that difference. The DS is not bright up top. If anything the treble is reticent and non fatiguing which is a good thing for me. It doesn’t have a problem with the volume being turned up. Quite the opposite. I found myself having to turn it up more often than not. Like Ted, I find that recordings tend to sound better when played louder at realistic volumes, rather than softer for nearfield listening - at least in my system anyway.

Mind you I have minimal room treatments because it is a real world living room and not an anechoic chamber.

Mike, is it possible that the DS has a better channel separation of left and right than the Cary? I know it presents left and right with more independence than another source I have, and this could be interpreted as greater instrumental separation and perhaps a loss of "organic togetherness" and perhaps midrange leanness (though in my case in my system it doesn't and the presentation is wonderful--but I do clearly hear the instruments more separated in comparison and not "knit together" by a baseline,etc.)
makfi said i certainly hope i am not an isolated case. can fellow ds owners try the following:
  1. Play your favorite song from i2s input of the DS
  1. Hit stop
  1. Unplug the hdmi cable from the DS end
  1. The DS screen reads 24bits/44.1kHz
  1. Try 1-4 with other inputs (USB/TOS etc) and observe that the green dot turns red and no bit depth /sampling rate is reported on the screen (as should be the case)
1. If I do as you requested, on both my DS boxes, it shows a red dot in the source box with no rate or bit depth.... 2. Replug the HDMI cable and all back to normal.. Same scenario with the other inputs.. 3. On Inputs unconnected/unused - it's the same as number (1.)
lonson said

Mike, is it possible that the DS has a better channel separation of left and right than the Cary? I know it presents left and right with more independence than another source I have, and this could be interpreted as greater instrumental separation and perhaps a loss of “organic togetherness” and perhaps midrange leanness (though in my case in my system it doesn’t and the presentation is wonderful–but I do clearly hear the instruments more separated in comparison and not “knit together” by a baseline,etc.)

Yes, could be - the soundstage is certainly airier. And I can hear sounds I didn't hear before with the Cary. But once again, the musical flow seemed missing. With the Cary, the bassline made me want to tap my feet but with the DS everyone was just playing their own jam and it wasn't cohesive. I mean that piece certainly ain't free jazz.

In your system, the tube pre and power probably fills it out. I have a tube pre with a full sounding solid state power amp but I guess that isn’t sufficient.

I’ve just read some comments on Computer Audiophile attesting to the same lack of weight. He compensated elsewhere in the system but eventually moved on to Lampizator I believe. I’m glad I am not the only one but I was kind of stymied by reviews saying the DS was full and rich sounding. Guess you can’t believe all you read.

I’ve heard systems that do the instrumental separation thing very well - Soulution with Magico speakers - but had more weight and richness to the sound and most importantly a musical flow. I tested my RVG’s of some aggressive sounding Freddie Hubbard and Jackie McLean on it and it was swell.

makfi said i certainly hope i am not an isolated case. can fellow ds owners try the following:
  1. Play your favorite song from i2s input of the DS
  2. Hit stop
  3. Unplug the hdmi cable from the DS end
  4. The DS screen reads 24bits/44.1kHz
  5. Try 1-4 with other inputs (USB/TOS etc) and observe that the green dot turns red and no bit depth /sampling rate is reported on the screen (as should be the case)
I don't mean this to be an inquisition but perhaps somewhere in the answers to the following list of questions I'll find a hint to what's happening, most of them probably aren't relevant, but who knows which one might give a hint:

What I2S source are you using (e.g. a PWT, NPC, a particular streamer…)?

Do both I2S inputs act identically?

Does is act the same (i.e. always display 24/44.1k) if you were playing 44.1k, some other sample rate, DSD?

Is something plugged into the other I2S input? If so, what happens with it disconnected? If so, is it also playing? If so, can you try it with some other sample rate going into that I2S input?

Are there any other inputs connected at the time? If so, does it happen with them disconnected? If so, are any of them playing? If so, could you try make sure none of them are playing at 44.1k?

Was your box an upgrade? If not, are you the original owner? If so, did it start out as a Mk I or a Mk II?

Do you have any modifications internal to the box? (Not that that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Do you have a bridge? If so is it a bridge I or bridge II? If so does the same thing happen with the bridge input disconnected?

What versions of the software are you running? (All of the numbers off of the version numbers screen, just in case something fishy happened in an upgrade.)

Did this happen with previous software releases?

Have you tried downgrading to a previous release and upgrading back to your current favorite release?

Thanks for you help looking at it. I’ve tried a lot of variants of the above looking for it, but I haven’t seen anything like that with released software.

Ted Smith said
makfi said i certainly hope i am not an isolated case. can fellow ds owners try the following:
  1. Play your favorite song from i2s input of the DS
  1. Hit stop
  1. Unplug the hdmi cable from the DS end
  1. The DS screen reads 24bits/44.1kHz
  1. Try 1-4 with other inputs (USB/TOS etc) and observe that the green dot turns red and no bit depth /sampling rate is reported on the screen (as should be the case)

I don’t mean this to be an inquisition but perhaps somewhere in the answers to the following list of questions I’ll find a hint to what’s happening, most of them probably aren’t relevant, but who knows which one might give a hint:

What I2S source are you using (e.g. a PWT, NPC, a particular streamer…)? PWT

Do both I2S inputs act identically? Yes

Does is act the same (i.e. always display 24/44.1k) if you were playing 44.1k, some other sample rate, DSD? No I tried it again and it showed 16/44.1 this time

Is something plugged into the other I2S input? If so, what happens with it disconnected? If so, is it also playing? If so, can you try it with some other sample rate going into that I2S input? No

Are there any other inputs connected at the time? If so, does it happen with them disconnected? If so, are any of them playing? If so, could you try make sure none of them are playing at 44.1k? Same result when other inputs connected.

Was your box an upgrade? If not, are you the original owner? If so, did it start out as a Mk I or a Mk II? It was not an upgrade. I opened the shipping box myself.

Do you have any modifications internal to the box? (Not that that there’s anything wrong with that.) Just a fuse change

Do you have a bridge? If so is it a bridge I or bridge II? If so does the same thing happen with the bridge input disconnected? I dont have a bridge

What versions of the software are you running? (All of the numbers off of the version numbers screen, just in case something fishy happened in an upgrade.) Torreys final, I checked all the numbers and they are OK. I had this prior to torreys as well and opened a thread about it. at that time, you seemed to replicate this in your own unit

Did this happen with previous software releases? Yes

Have you tried downgrading to a previous release and upgrading back to your current favorite release? No but i can try

Thanks for you help looking at it. I’ve tried a lot of variants of the above looking for it, but I haven’t seen anything like that with released software.


My answers are in red. If i am indeed isolated case, i do not want to continue hijacking this thread and I will contact your customer support. But pls can any one with this same issue let me know?