highstream said I've often wondered if a sense of dryness is in part a tonality issue . . .It depends, of course, on what you mean as dryness.
In recording, dry is the opposite of wet, and is used primarily to refer to the amount of reverb in the sound, natural or added. A dry recording contains only the sound of the instrument, with no room sound. Dry can also refer to raw, unprocessed sound with no added effects or any change, such as compression.
So, what do you mean by dry? And by tonality?
Dryness is not a word previously in my audio vocabulary. But maybe it is now. I believe that is what I’m hearing–not perceptively on all recordings but definitely on some and pronouncedly on others. It is hard to describe, but I’m going to use another Photoshop analogy because I spend hours working in it (my profession) while I’m listening: it is almost as if the sound has been over sharpened. Photographers call this look “brittle” and in fact that’s what I hear. A dry brittleness. Again not with everything or I would have heard it at first.
Encountered a problem: I tried to reload Yale and the initializing screen won’t appear. The front power button flashes but nothing appears on screen. I erased the SD card and reloaded off the website but same thing happens. Any advice?
Thanks,
Steve
Elk and Stephen, I think you guys are on to something here. I believe this dryness or brittle nature to the sound is very descriptive of what I may be hearing in concern of the post I made above about the string tones having a stridency about them. Maybe to much of an etch and not enough of a wet tone per se. Yale in my opinion does not have this dry/brittle edge.
Great analogy, Steve. Very helpful even though my Photoshop abilities are limited. I love the word brittle to describe over-sharpened. Perfect. Keep the analogies coming. I think visual analogies will help many of us describe what we hear.
I hear Torreys as a having a little less ambience. It is as if I have moved forward a number of rows in a concert hall. It possesses a cleaner, less forgiving, more immediate sound.
This same sense of focus perhaps it what is disconcerting to others. I like it as it sounds more like my concert going experiences as I typically sit six to ten rows back, center. But there is less ensemble blend and less room sound.
I’ve had Torreys C in my system for a number of days now and I’m completely sold. Is it perfect? Nope. But I find myself increasinglyuninterested in re-examining it or re-evaluating it. I’m having so much fun that I forget to “evaluate.” It’s often a challenge for me to turn off the “vigilance” switch in my reviewer’s brain, but when a product seduces me out of that mode, I know it’s best for me to just “let go.”
Elk said Great analogy, Steve. Very helpful even though my Photoshop abilities are limited. I love the word brittle to describe over-sharpened. Perfect. Keep the analogies coming. I think visual analogies will help many of us describe what we hear.I hear Torreys as a having a little less ambience. It is as if I have moved forward a number of rows in a concert hall. It possesses a cleaner, less forgiving, more immediate sound.
This same sense of focus perhaps it what is disconcerting to others. I like it as it sounds more like my concert going experiences as I typically sit six to ten rows back, center. But there is less ensemble blend and less room sound.
My conclusion: I think I have become accustomed to Yale’s higher noise floor, which I believe has come to stand in for ambience. You start playback in Yale, and immediately there’s a change in the acoustical environment in the room. Not so with Torreys, which stays quiet until the music starts. At higher playback volumes, however, Torreys conveys the recording venue ambience accurately - often with startling realism - but doesn’t imprint one of its own.
Mind you, I can see how someone might think that Yale’s noise floor is a feature, and not a bug - it is a very benign bit of euphonics which in the tromp l’oeil (tromp l’oreille?) audiophile experience, might contribute to the illusion of realism. Some people speak about subwoofers ‘pressurizing’ a room even when there is little bass material, and that helping with a sense of liveness. So maybe a related psychoacoustic effect of the noise floor?
I dunno why but i can’t shake the feeling that torreys B and C sound a bit ‘tight’. Somehow torreys A seems to sound the best.
i’m using tube amps (cary slp05 and mcintosh mc275) so it should sound rather wet but not really…
I’m very frustrated here. I just can’t make it work.
First, my DS-Bridge II set up went to Boulder where it was determined that I had a bad Bridge. It came back working on a private network, that is, just the DAC and the Mac Mini connected by a crossover cable. Then I decided to get bold and try joining the household network. That worked sometimes, more often did not. IF Bridge shows up on the left column of JRiver, the moment I click on anything I get the spinning wheel of death and the Bridge vanishes. I restart everything. Try again; get the same result. Do that for about half an hour and then get tired of it and leave the stereo.
I DL’ed Torreys, thinking that maybe that would help. It worked for one tune and then the same thing happened again. I tried going back to the private network. Nothing.
Now I’ve gone back to the household network, and Bridge is gone, replaced by CDMCM-210. Which connects to nothing and produces no sound.
And in addition, since I have to repeatedly reboot the DAC, each time it does what it did the first time - black screen and blinking pilot for 30 seconds, and then “initializing”.
Wait - it’s changed. Now CDMCM-210 sends album data to the DAC. But produces no sound.
EDIT: CDMCM-210 vanished. After a minute or two, Bridge II showed up, at last. Then I clicked on it, hoping sound would come out. And… same thing. Disappeared.
EDIT: 30 minutes later. I’m just chasing my tail. Same sequence, same results. Restarts, Bridge II vanishes the moment I try to play anything.
USB works. I’m back at that. No network.
PS Audio
OK the screen fix and now will this new update play with Roon yet, if so how do you do that i thought it was plug in play? thanks for your help in advance.
Brent
Brent Bolthouse said PS AudioOK the screen fix and now will this new update play with Roon yet, if so how do you do that i thought it was plug in play? thanks for your help in advance.
Brent
andytts said I dunno why but i can't shake the feeling that torreys B and C sound a bit 'tight'. Somehow torreys A seems to sound the best.same here
for me, as a listener of mainly contemporary music / free jazz: TA >= TC >>> TB.
For those who mention ‘brittleness’, does this effect surface for any volume of Torreys?
I just wonder if my comment related to perceived strain/listening fatigue for loud levels could relate to the above. I loaded TC before trying TB on high volumes so I speak mostly for TC.
Waiting in suspense for the official release of Torreys!
I thought some wiseass would ask me to define dryness and tonality -; Saying I know it when I hear it is true but not good enough for a conversation. Tonality is a little easier: on my system, the pitch of individual notes (if that’s the term) is distinctly higher with TorreysC than Yale, and I believe what I’m hearing from the latter are more accurate, i.e. closer to what those instruments sound like, individually or ensemble. As for dryness, I’m less sure how to convey it in words. Perhaps Yale brings out the bit of warmth (sweetness?) in instruments better (more appealingly) than TorreysC. What I know is that I’m being drawn into TorreysC more by virtue of its sound characteristics than by an emotional connection to the music. What all that’s made of perhaps someone having a similar reaction can articulate better than I.
Hi,
I just installed last Torreys after a quick warm up on my system with Charlie Winston last album “running still” on it
The stage seemed wider, the sound level in the bass louder, and depth deeper.
My kid’s love that album too and knows it : he just reacted “wow, it’s quieter”…
I think it reffers to some comments in this post regarding noise floor level.
I appreciated it and found that it gives a better sonic experience at low volume (my main usage, unfortunately).
I’ll go back to listen to other musics and give more feedback later on.
Thanks to Paul, Ted and the whole team for this.
Fantastic job. We have a knew dac for free -and the choice for very different sonic signatures…
François
The one thing to note is to remove the SD card. That will stop it from blinking and taking 30 seconds.
Several people have reported missing Bridges and a reboot without the card inserted seemed to fix it.
Paul, if I never turn the DAC off, is there any sonic benefit of pulling the SD card out? Thanks.
Paul McGowan said The one thing to note is to remove the SD card. That will stop it from blinking and taking 30 seconds.Several people have reported missing Bridges and a reboot without the card inserted seemed to fix it.
Still doesn’t work with the Bridge, but at least that’s fixed.
highstream said I thought some wiseass would ask me to define dryness and tonality -; Saying I know it when I hear it is true but not good enough for a conversation. Tonality is a little easier: on my system, the pitch of individual notes (if that's the term) is distinctly higher with TorreysC than Yale, and I believe what I'm hearing from the latter are more accurate, i.e. closer to what those instruments sound like, individually or ensemble. As for dryness, I'm less sure how to convey it in words.....I tend to agree with Highstream, that TorreysC seems to push the pitch of individual notes higher than Yale, TorreysA and TorreysB...this is more obvious on male baritone vocals...perhaps the reason for general sensation of 'dryness' when most of the music are 'pushed' upwards..
This is the only anomaly I could detect for TorreysC, but otherwise is phenomenal in bass texture and extremely relaxing to listen to and sounding more refined than TorreysB…
I’ve evaluated Torreys A, B, and C for sound quality (I’ve had no functional issues with C).
The main difference I hear is that the tonal balance (or perceived frequency response) is different between these versions, and this leads to a number of reported differences. Torreys A was slightly rolled off in the high treble, B had too much treble energy, and C is in the middle (and close to just right on my system).
Torreys C seems slightly louder than A or Yale. I will get around to using a 1kH test tone and/or pink noise and try to measure a difference, when I get a chance. What’s interesting is that probably the FR and output level of Yale and all three Torreys will measure the same using test equipment.
Torreys C continues moving some instrumental images on some recordings slightly to the left.
A lot of the discussion about these three Torreys and Yale is related to the tonal balance, but in my opinion all three Torreys maintain a cleaner sound (meaning less digital artifacts) than Yale. To me, this is a real improvement. Good work Ted and team! Once you get into small differences in a component’s tonal balance, what’s “right” always involves the recording, the system, the person’s hearing, and taste. As I said though, I do feel Torreys C is best.
One more point regarding some comments about one version or another being too dry or not possessing enough low-level ambient information: It’s critical to match levels exactly (easy to do with the DS’s gain control) between versions. If one version (or component) has more upper midrange or treble energy, a listener may be annoyed by this strident sound and turn down the volume. Then if another version has less energy in that region and the level is turned up, the person may hear way more low-level ambient hall sound (or other details) and attribute this to an intrinsic property of the second component.
Likewise, if a component has more treble energy than another, there may be more apparent detail, but this usually is found to be an “etched” or “analytic” property and quickly can be fatiguing. Using the Photoshop analogy mentioned earlier, if you overuse the sharpening function, you can get “halos” and other artifacts around images, which do not look natural.
I wonder if the Torreys C beta will be identical with the final released Torreys…
Focal_Point