Yes, SACD’s are the same as DSD 64, but the differences you hear are in the transports playing it. Also 24 bit 192k while pretty close in SQ, are a little different nontheless, being DSD a bit smoother sounding to my ears. It’s a matter of preferences.
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I’d have played the Hell Freezes Over version.
I feel the same way about many mainstream pop titles on CD mostly from CDs early decades. Some I can save with my equalizer but others are just too far gone to be made listenable. Often running them through a tube preamp can help impose some needed warmth and liquidity with no further intervention with the equalizer needed. But CDs have come a long way with more recent releases. I have seen a lot of really wonderful sounding albums on CD that stand up to anything I’ve heard from any other format I have including vinyl.
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CD’s are capable of some decent sound if it is mastered and recorded well. But the other higher rez formats do have an advantage simply because you can record more information in the same space just like the difference between 33 1/3 rpm and 45 rpm vinyl or 7 1/2 ips and 15 ips tape. And happy cake day, rkindel!!
Space tech labs makes a similar product, but it has balanced outputs, but if you needed balanced inputs also I’m sure he would build one. It uses big power tubes like kt150, the bigger tubes seem to give a bigger bolder type of sound in my opinion.
The live unplugged version of that song sounds best to me.
His EQ is an conventional banded EQ and not the same at all imo. Decware’s is a very different animal.
Space tech will build one that only has adjustments for a few frequencies if that’s what is needed, but without the 6 month wait time.
Okay. That is STILL not like a ZROCK, at all.
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It’s probably better. I know his super rectifier power supply has been getting great reviews with the decware equipment.
I honestly don’t believe his EQ will be better for me–it’s a very different device. I had an excellent band EQ in the house for a month this year hoping that it could replace one of my ZROCK2. It was a real dud in that sense. Didn’t do at all what the ZROCK2 does and what I rely on it for. Maybe it will work out for someone else but the ZROCK2 is a very DIFFERENT device. I know that the Super Rectifiers have become a hip thing of the moment, but that’s very different from his EQ, and also something I’m not really interested in.
That’s what most people think about the space tech equipment, their loss.
That’s what most people seem to think of the Decware equipment, their loss.
I have a few dozen applicable rectifiers that serve me well, and I am at a financial situation where I just have to ignore things like Super Rectifiers after a very successful splurge on Swiss Digital Fuse Boxes which really have made a positive impact. And I just want to clarify that Al at Space Tech does NOT have a component like the ZROCK2 or 3. And the ZROCK2s that I have are among the most cherished components I have and have solved problems in my systems that conventional EQ (even tubed) can’t and won’t, not for lack of trying.
It has always appeared to me to be a buffer with an EQ curve which appeals to a dedicated bunch of Decware enthusiasts. Nothing wrong with this.
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It’s more than a buffer as it adds gobs of gain as well, with two curves that are adjustable, and with hundreds of tube choices as well to tailor sound. I know persons who use it with no other Decware and no tube gear. Riding the gain is part of my audio process that works.
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Ok, a buffer with EQ and a gain control.
I have heard it, not for me, but others like it - which is all that matters.
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It’s just not in my opinon a buffer. I’m surprised you’ve heard it.
OK, now it is not a buffer, but EQ with gain.
Whatever this magic box actually is, it does nothing for me
I know someone who believes the sun rises and sets on Decware. The Decware cult is strong.
Again, nothing wrong with liking it as in addition to your signal chain.
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If Decware is a cult so is PS Audio!
It just technically is not a buffer amp. For me it is room treatment in a box. I cannot do room treatment and I have two rooms that need it, but unless I get a divorce, which I neither want nor can afford, I cannot treat my rooms with systems. The ZROCK2 transforms the sound in my room, correcting thin and edgy, etc. for digital and analog. And it has helped others as well.
End of my talking about it in this thread. I just wanted to point out that it really helps cds NOT SOUND TERRIBLE–the topic of this thread–for some of us fortunate enough to use it. And I think it’s worth trying as a useful tool.
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I still think the space tech labs EQ buffer will sound better.