2xDSD - Smoke and mirrors, or will there appear better masterings on it?

[Kal Rubinson]

when it comes to complex harmonic structures, that multiple, multiple cilia are involved, with micro timing differentials between them. That these cilia are anchored in a 3d matrix or odd shaped 'sack like' ball in the ear. That this sack is motionally activated in 3 different axis with wave flow in the structure and the surface, much like multiple vibrations originating on the surface of an within the fluid in a water balloon.

Imagine all those cilia or hairs inserted in this 'fluid sack' in 3d or an XYZ pattern. And that the motion of the ball in the xyz form, is going to be uneven and all kinds of resonance and flow patterns will emerge/occur in the flow/vibration....and the cilia will be activated via these complex and evolving motional patterns ...to send signals to the aural nerve complexes and to the brain.... to decode and blend them at micro speed differentials that are FAR beyond and WELL above a lousy little 20khz. Thus each ear has a 3d xyz complex of decoding, with micro differentials in timing and level, for large numbers of cilia, at the same time. (we use the leading edge positive transient values, for the most part, and internally reconstruct/guesstimate from that)

Not just some singular and poorly conceived and executed comparison that is used in the world of audio engineering. The ear, as a complex system...is so far from that simplistic audio engineering and linear weighting idea... that it is almost staggering, when one understands how far apart and opposite the directions are.

The ear/brain....simplifies the data rates by concentrating, for the larger part, on ONLY the leading edge transient values and timing differentials for all the cilia and we reconstruct the overall shape in the mind, or decoding engine. It cuts the data rates, in liner weighted terms, by about 90%. The ear only utilizes micro differentials in multiple frequencies and in the context of this fluid sack's vibrational xyz patterns, over time.

I take no issue with your general argument but wonder where you find this information which conflates auditory and vestibular transduction. How does auditory input encode "3d xyz" or where in the CNS is it correlated with auditory input?

 

[opus111]

Lavry himself stated in the article you linked to said 44.1 isn't high enough, so RBCD is flawed from the start according to his impeccable credentials.

Yep, but its a given so as engineers we gotta work within the constraints we have. I tend to go along with Bob Stuart who'd prefer something in the region of 20bits and 64k but we can't have everything.

We use the same exact workstation and converters that Morten at 2L uses and I still say DSD sounds better to us.

Have you got the NOS DAC wired in for a comparison yet? Which one did you go for?

 

[rbbert]

for posting this information, Imperial
I've seen "2L" referenced in other posts, but haven't researched it as of yet.

They do offer some free content at various (hires) resolutions

 

[amirm]

Good thread guys . Still tired from my trip to contribute but here is an article I wrote on the full dynamic range we need for a distribution system to be transparent in all cases: http://www.madronadigital.com/Library/RoomDynamicRange.html

 

[NorthStar]

It rather depends on your price budget - given that you've owned dCS then I'd guess price won't be any kind of problem, so check out the top-of-the-range implementation in AMR's CD-77. Its one of the best implementations of TDA1541A I'm aware of, but still has the imaging issues on NOS though the droop has been fixed up on 'Direct Master II' setting. Slightly lower down the price scale, the Audial Model S. The AMR's a CD player but has USB digital input too as standard with S/PDIF optional.

I ordered it last week.

Lavry himself stated in the article you linked to said 44.1 isn't high enough, so RBCD is flawed from the start according to his impecable credentials.

I agree, and Bob Stuart as well; 88.2kHz is all we need.

We use the same exact workstation and converters that Morten at 2L uses and I still say DSD sounds better to us. We did Winston's FIM albums in DXD.

2L, how many recordings do they have all together?
2xDSD, where can we get them, in our PCs (Macs) under audio files?
DXD FIM albums, LPs or/and CD/SACDs?

_______________________

This thread is good, and the players too; it makes me readjusting my scope on this entire affair "Audio Business/Hobby".
...Analog (R2R Tape & LPs @ 33 1/3, 45, & 78rpm, Mono & Stereo), Digital (CD - LPCM @ 44.1kHz - SAD - DAD - DVD-A - SACD - DSD 1-bit - 2xDSD - DXD - XRCD - HDCD - Higher sampling rates - High bits - NOS DACs - Multibit ladder - Sigma Delta - Upsampling - Down & Upconverting - Multichannel Digital), and what WE (us) own in our own music collections, what's available to the general public (amazon, ebay, PCs, Macs, ...), and what's new from the newer artists and how can we access them and from which format (recording technic).

The old recordings (Classics), are always remastered, but never to the level that they should be. Why? Because we keep improving the hardware? ...Mike Lavigne, please?

Money is what drives all businesses; but us as music nirvanists we look for ways to obtain the unobtainium regardless of cost.

Yes, there is a lot of smoke & mirrors in our digital audio world; but there's got to be a light somewhere....
...Perhaps right here, at WBF. :b

 

[NorthStar]

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/abbingdon/abbingdon.html

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2341

 

[Imperial]

2L, how many recordings do they have all together?

A very good question, they have been onto SACD since Y2K ... that is 13 years in the making and more to come evidently. Must be 100 - 200 ++ or something.

Some links:

http://toshibamusicplace.e-onkyo.com/goods/detail.asp?artist=2L
http://highresaudio.com/label.php?caid=105
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HX7041888513520
http://www.klicktrack.com/2l/releases/2l-audiophile-reference-recordings/

A facebook online Store: https://www.facebook.com/2L.music?sk=app_433708673347545

Some free hi-res content: http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html (also some dsd content in that link)

Quite a lot it seems!

Imperial

 

[Steve williams]

A very good question, they have been onto SACD since Y2K ... that is 13 years in the making and more to come evidently. Must be 100 - 200 ++ or something.

Some links:

http://toshibamusicplace.e-onkyo.com/goods/detail.asp?artist=2L
http://highresaudio.com/label.php?caid=105
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HX7041888513520
http://www.klicktrack.com/2l/releases/2l-audiophile-reference-recordings/

A facebook online Store: https://www.facebook.com/2L.music?sk=app_433708673347545

Some free hi-res content: http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html (also some dsd content in that link)

Quite a lot it seems!

Imperial

Great thread indeed and thanks for the links. I have several 2L disks and I agree with how good they are for reference material. I also love another Norwegian label called Odin. I have most of their albums and IMO there just isn't a bad one and IIRC it was Odin who brought us the wonderful (albeit short career) voice of Radka Toneff in Fairy Tales esp The Moon's a Harsh Mistress which is what I use as a reference for the female voice. Keep up the great work Norway

 

[Bruce B]

A very good question, they have been onto SACD since Y2K ... that is 13 years in the making and more to come evidently. Must be 100 - 200 ++ or something.
Quite a lot it seems!

Imperial

And that is the first thing I disagree with. If you record in DXD.... keep it in DXD. Don't issue a SACD or whatever where you have to do a SRC right from the start. Even DXD to DSD is not transparent.

 

[Imperial]

I'm sure they have the DXD files on hand for that demanding customer... :b
But you would have to be able to store and play back the stuff as well.
The lack of infrastructure, well, these days this is becoming less and less of an issue.
A lot of reasonable priced D/A seemingly are able to play back DXD, one way or the other.
But this has only happened quite like... last year and so on.. 2013 should be the year of the DXD or something.
It is quite a good thing the Mayans got it wrong... ! 2013 could indeed be a great year!

Imperial

 

[Mike Lavigne]

The old recordings (Classics), are always remastered, but never to the level that they should be. Why? Because we keep improving the hardware? ...Mike Lavigne, please?

Bob,

not quite sure what you are asking. are you saying great hardware somehow reduces the need for top notch remastering? if so, i certainly don't see it that way.

great hardware pushes rights holders to ever higher level media for us......since the highest resolution gear exposes the benefits of better mastering and better formats. or shows us how original pressings are even better than we might have thought.

to me better hardware demands better software......it does not put a lipstick on a pig. it exposes the lipstick.

 

[NorthStar]

-- What I really meant is this: There are some great recordings out there (Older ones, from yesteryears), and you've talked about few, on R2R tapes, and also on LPs.

BUT! You are privileged to have them in your own music collection; because you "know some people". :b
...And you've been directly involved yourself in some of them recordings.

Why can't they be made available to us also, in their pristine sound quality?

...And like being avail as high-res audio files, but properly well recorded of course.
Or as perfect remastered SACDs? ...Or even CDs? ...And LPs too?
{R2R Tapes, I'm not sure how far it would fly though.} :b

That's all, what I meant.

 

[amirm]

-- BUT! You are privileged to have them in your own music collection; because you "know some people". :b
...And you've been directly involved yourself in some of them recordings.

Why can't they be made available to us also, in their pristine sound quality?

It is simple economics. Getting permission from copyright holder can be complex and at any rate, very expensive. Given the tiny market this represents, it simply does not justify the expense/process.

 

[Bruce B]

--

Why can't they be made available to us also, in their pristine sound quality?

.

As Amir said, you pay the license for say..... Led Zeppelin IV, about $120k and I'll give you all the copies you want!

 

[Mike Lavigne]

-- What I really meant is this: There are some great recordings out there (Older ones, from yesteryears), and you've talked about few, on R2R tapes, and also on LPs.

BUT! You are privileged to have them in your own music collection; because you "know some people". :b
...And you've been directly involved yourself in some of them recordings.

Why can't they be made available to us also, in their pristine sound quality?

...And like being avail as high-res audio files, but properly well recorded of course.
Or as perfect remastered SACDs? ...Or even CDs? ...And LPs too?
{R2R Tapes, I'm not sure how far it would fly though.} :b

That's all, what I meant.

i'm not a rights holder. i'm a grateful recipiant of some special recordings. many of us here have this or that in their collection that someone gave them or they got thru an underground process. these are not mine to provide.

my reason for speaking about them is to encourage interest in dsd and 2xdsd as i really enjoy these formats and know how satisfying they can be. we need more people to ask their music labels for these formats. the technology is now widespread, and the rights holders will respond to demand. digital storage is now cheap and easy to use.

we will have the digital formats that we demand to have. or what we settle for.

 

[jkeny]

......
The open minded audiophile is looking for (and literally hearing) sound they've never heard before, like when learning a new language. This is the part of the mind that is used by the constantly evolving audiophile, who has learned how to attach this particular learning method we all have, they have learned to attach it to their audio listening, and to their enjoyment of audio. that they try to learn a new language, or hear given sounds for the first time, like that of a child learning to hear. whereas the audio naysayers, use their already existing set of library of sounds, to project into what they hear. that they indulge less into the learning of new, and more into the projection of old patterns of known - over new data that is slightly different.

In this case, the comparison is direct and valid, with regard to mental orientation and wiring.

I tend to agree with this - it does explain some of the glaring differences between what are called the two camps Obj Vs Subj. The Objs not having tried to get through this pattern matching habit implicit in hearing & being reinforced in this position by their use of measurements in justifying this position. This is not an attempt to start any war or adopt a superior stance for either position, just an attempt to understand why the twain never have met.

I'm sure we all have examples of not hearing what others state or of hearing what some others don't seem to hear when listening to the same playback. We had an interesting example on this forum some time back where a kind of test was put out to listen to a 3 pieces of music with everything BUT the 1kHz EQ band reduced to inaudible & report what they heard. Only 3 people reported but what I found interesting was that one person reported that

"And If I run it up to the mid -40s dB range, it is surprisingly full for having defeated everything but the 1k slider. Not sure I get the "sing along" thing. What did I learn? That a whole lot more of the content of jazz and rock recordings is in a very narrow midrange band, and that I can hear 1k pretty good, in spite of my advancing years."

I took this to mean that he heard a very different effect on the music (of the reduction to the 1KHz freq band) to my listening where I found

"JackD's experiment is good evidence to suggest that our hearing is about pattern processing (as are some of our other senses). We tend to fill in the missing pieces in the sound-field & come up with a listening experience that more closely matches the full blown soundfield than it should. i.e we compensate for the missing bits. It also explains how we hear a conversation through a nosy background. It also explains Tim's issue with audiophile's reporting of the differences that they hear - to the man in the street there is not much difference if he listened to Jack's experiment, to me there was a huge difference in the songs I played with which I am familiar & the 1KHz band replay. I reported that it came from a tunnel, that it was robbed of all body, no fullness to the sound, no semblance of anything approaching realism. So this is an audiophiles description - call it hyperbole if you like & to the man in the street it is but I contend I listen for something different than just the familiarity of the song, I listen for it's realism, it's reproduction. So I guess, Tim, the reason audiophiles spout such nonsense is because they are listening in a different way to the sound. Don't get me wrong, when I am happy with the sound I abandon myself to it & let it wash over me so this is a different kind of listening, I guess?"

 

[NorthStar]

-- I hear you clearly guys.

But, as a musician (non-pro) myself, I understand the benefit of sharing the best that it can be to all who cares about the very best sound quality.

Mike, you are the closest to what we want (us, here, in this 'audiophile' world).

And yes Bruce, I'd love to get the very best Led Zeppelin recordings, as their music (in particular their first four albums) are 'la creme de la creme' in Rock music of the highest caliber.
And Jimmy Page would love to share that with all of us, I am certain of this.

- Forget the high cost for a sec and try to spread the message (music) in all its splendid glory to the people who can appreciate; all of us. :b

Hundred years from now we'll be talking about the same thing but with less and less people knowing what they're talking about! Can you see? ...The irony?

If the Art of Music, and Cinema, is only accessible to that special elite, in its best light possible; what is the use for the rest of us to waste our time with inferior renditions, and talking about high-end audio, and cinema?

How can we bring more good hearts, pure souls, closer to the best?
...Is it always related to money, and "knowing some well situated people"?

 

[asiufy]

It rather depends on your price budget - given that you've owned dCS then I'd guess price won't be any kind of problem, so check out the top-of-the-range implementation in AMR's CD-77. Its one of the best implementations of TDA1541A I'm aware of, but still has the imaging issues on NOS though the droop has been fixed up on 'Direct Master II' setting. Slightly lower down the price scale, the Audial Model S. The AMR's a CD player but has USB digital input too as standard with S/PDIF optional.

Thanks. The reviews I've found of this unit aren't very encouraging. A Marantz CD94 mk2 was judged to be on the same level as the AMR. I might find the Marantz easier...
This AMR unit was released in 2007 or so... Nothing better came out using this specific chip since then?


alexandre

 

[opus111]

Thanks. The reviews I've found of this unit aren't very encouraging. A Marantz CD94 mk2 was judged to be on the same level as the AMR. I might find the Marantz easier...

I was somewhat puzzled by that review. The 6moons one was far more glowing. I don't recommend the AMR without any reservation because its incontinent in that image frequencies above 22kHz are output but I reckon technically it touches far more bases than the Marantz. Yes by all means if you can find the Marantz give it a whirl.

This AMR unit was released in 2007 or so... Nothing better came out using this specific chip since then?

None that I'm aware of - probably for the reason that the TDA1541A isn't being manufactured so any prospective maker using it would have to secure reasonable stocks prior to going ahead with a product. Seems unlikely given the sticky supply situation. Those currently in manufacture with this chip got stocked-up years ago AFAIA.

 

[dallasjustice]

I've had both types of DACs; single bit SDM (MPD-5) and multi-bit r2r (totaldac). My preference is multi-bit DAC playing PCM files. Its tough to really compare formats with a single converter though. Someone with access to the live feed and different ADCs would be in the best position to judge.