A remarkable Redbook CD afternoon at Goodwin's High End

[caesar]

Nice write-up! Al did you write a check or charge it to your credit card?

 

[caesar]

Gentlemen, I'm confused about one thing: is the Rossini better than the Vivaldi? Has the vivaldi been discontinued?

Robert "worthless to the audio fan" Harley recently proclaimed that the Berkeley Reference DAC was "the best dac", just 2 months after he proclaimed that the Vivaldi was "the best dac". Of course, he never compared the 2. Actions like this just make him seem like a marketing agent for Berkeley than a friend of audiophiles trying to navigate the morass of digital:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...C-DSD-Debunked&p=339348&viewfull=1#post339348

 

[Al M.]

I have always heard a slightly dry, mechanical presentation from digital. Most of the digital that I have heard has produced a high frequency distortion to which I am quite sensitive. I often become fatigued and usually lose interest pretty quickly. In the rare instance when this has not been the case, I think it is because the DAC is voiced to sound warm or “analog like”, or the system has tubes or some other distortions that mask what I hear as a typically harsh digital sonic signature. I heard none of this with the Vivaldi or more recently with the Rossini DAC. In fact, I think I more clearly heard the capability of the Rossini with the Magico Q1/Spectral than I did of the Vivaldi with the Magico S7, because I actually think the Q1 is more transparent than the S7, but that is a discussion for another time.

Thank you, Peter, for your thoughtful and detailed follow-up.

I agree with you that the Q1 seemed, and probably is, more transparent than the S7. As a caveat, however, I should mention that with the Q1 we engaged in near-field listening, which is more like having headphones on and listening the each detail up-close. Yet I personally have not yet heard any headphone system as tremendously detailed and transparent as the dCS Rossini/Spectral/Magico Q1 system that we heard (and I used to be a headphone fanatic in the olden days). But also that is a discussion for another time.

Resolution is one area that I had always heard good analog to be superior to digital. The Rossini had an incredible amount of resolution, rivaling really good analog, and yet it sounded very smooth and relaxed. String tones, vocals, piano, drums, horns, I heard more detail than I had ever heard from digital before, but with absolutely no harshness, glare, etch, or digital artifacts. There was no fatigue. The instruments were separate in space, with lots of air. Hall sounds were very evident and clearly defined the recording venue. What also struck me was just how natural the sound was. The Rossini presented the notes completely, not emphasizing the transients, or the harmonics, but the whole note, from beginning to end, was heard in a continuous and balanced way. The note’s attack was dynamic and impactful, the fundamental were accurate with beautiful harmonic and a natural decay.

I completely concur with all that.

The Rossini was superb in these two critical areas. The Berkeley Reference DAC did not fair as well. I am familiar with both Al’s and Ack’s Berkeley Alpha DACs, so I was interested in hearing this new version, especially since I have read so many nice reviews. Well, it did have a great deal of resolution, though not as much as the Rossini, and certainly not as much as the good analog that I have heard. But, what was really strange was how it reproduced the notes. It did not sound natural, but rather artificial. As I mentioned earlier, the system was so transparent, that I was able to hear what I think is a fundamental flaw with this DAC. I do not hear this issue in Al’s or Ack’s system and I have not identified this sonic anomaly in any digital player before. The notes were neither complete nor continuous. I heard an emphasis on the leading edge, or transient of the note, and then a strange discontinuity immediately afterward around the fundamental, then pretty good harmonics, though not fully developed, and then a truncated decay. This gave the initial impression of good detail, but it was an exaggeration, a distortion, and it could not be ignored once heard. It was fairly subtle, but I heard it in all the music we played. Again, this was a testament to just how transparent the Spectral/Q1 combination is.

You describe this phenomenon of digital artifact much better than I could have done and I agree with it. You said the artifact was fairly subtle on the Berkeley Reference DAC, and it was. Yet where I don't agree with you is that it was unique to this DAC. Contrary to your impression, I would say that this artifact is present in all digital replay that I have heard to at least some extent, except for the dCS Rossini and Vivaldi, and it is present in my own system with the Berkeley Alpha DAC 2 to a greater extent than with the Berkeley Reference DAC. After listening to my system again the next day, I recognized the artifact immediately again, and it was even more pronounced than with the Berkeley Reference DAC. It was really obvious on some solo violin (in string quartets and on the Bartok violin sonata CD).

In addition to what Al brought to hear, I brought one CD from my small collection: “Best of Chesky Jazz and more Audiophile tests, Volume 2.” We repeatedly played Kenny Rankin, “Always”, and test tracks #43 “Dynamic Drum Test, and #44 “Bass Resonance Test”. I have used these superb recordings for digital system evaluation for years. Rankin’s voice and finger snaps sounded very natural. Quick fingers with fleshy palm and natural echo in the room. His voice had all the nuance of what we hear live. Very revealing of the quality of the reproduction. The drum test was also informative. The cymbals were metallic, distinct and clear with the Rossini, but they were a bit whitish and splashy with the Berkeley. The drum skins were detailed and taught and the bass was impactful with the Rossini, while the Berkeley just sounded a bit artificial. The timbre was not as accurate. With the bass test, the Rossini had all the nuance and beautiful balance of string, bow and wooden body while the Berkeley emphasized the plucking but did not quite reproduce all of the different tonal colors of the strings resonating with the wood. And there was less air and hall information in the rather live acoustic.

Again I think you described very well what we heard. The highs of the cymbals on the drum track were a bit disconnected from the overall sound envelope, and on that track they are even more so in my system with the regular Berkeley Alpha DAC 2. With the dCS Rossini there was just this complete integrity of tone that I also hear from great analog. As with all the other music, there was more body with the dCS Rossini, a body that also made Kenny Rankin's voice more believable and human.

I was mesmerized by the Rossini, but I thought the Berkeley was just good digital that I had heard before. The Rossini sounded much more real and approached the good analog that I know so well.

Precisely this is the difference that makes we want to consider the dCS Rossini as the one digital upgrade that I would strive for. I don't want to spend a considerable amount of money on something else to have just a better version of typical digital.

I want to write a bit about my recent thinking of what component is responsible for what aspect of a sonic impression. I think that the source components are basically responsible for extracting the recorded information. The electronics and speakers present that information. The less distortion the better. The set up or relationship between the listener, the speakers, and the room recreate, or destroy, the sense of presence, dimensionality, scale and palpability of the performance.

I agree with all that. And the importance of the room and the room/speaker interaction cannot be over-emphasized.

At Goodwin’s, Al and I heard what great digital is capable of. The information retrieval was of the highest order. And, as was said before, this was just redbook CD. The electronics, cables and speakers presented that superb resolution in a very transparent and believable way.

This is the mind-boggling part: it was just plain Redbook CD from which this superb resolution was extracted.

And for the music lover it is also the most reassuring part: from Redbook CD all the innumerable musical treasures available only in that format can in principle be reproduced with superb sonic resolution if the recording itself is up to good basic standards of miking, mixing, mastering.

Thank you Al for asking me to join you for this incredible demonstration. Goodwin’s High End was extremely accommodating and generous with their time. It is a great place to do such direct comparisons. I learned a lot and have a completely newfound respect for what is possible with digital playback. I was very pleasantly surprised and now know what digital is capable of sounding like. It was a great afternoon and it has changed the way I think about audio in general, and digital in particular.

There are the thoughts of an analog only guy about the best digital that I have ever heard. It has really changed my thinking about the whole analog/digital divide.

Mine too, but it is particularly impressive that these thoughts come from you who listens only to analog at home.

As for myself, the extensive exposure to the great analog in your and Ian's (Madfloyd's) system had made me very skeptical about digital in practice, even though on the ideal theoretical level I was convinced that digital audio was correct (also courtesy of the technically very knowledgeable folks here at WBF). Auditioning the dCS Rossini has fully restored my faith in the medium, and demonstrated to me that digital theory can be convincingly converted into practice.

 

[Al M.]

Gentlemen, I'm confused about one thing: is the Rossini better than the Vivaldi? Has the vivaldi been discontinued?

No, the Rossini is not better than the Vivaldi but it comes close, according to Alan and Paul at Goodwin's, while the Vivaldi stilll reigns supreme in the dCS line-up. The Vivaldi lives on and will be upgraded with the same streaming capabilities as the Rossini.

The Vivaldi was the first DAC that made Peter and myself (and Madfloyd too, I believe) rethink digital when we heard it in December at the Magico S7 demo at Goodwin's. The dCS Rossini session only confirmed in an incisive, up-close and personal way the impression that we had already gathered from that demo, that dCS has found a way to finally make digital sound like great analog.

Robert "worthless to the audio fan" Harley recently proclaimed that the Berkeley Reference DAC was "the best dac", just 2 months after he proclaimed that the Vivaldi was "the best dac". Of course, he never compared the 2. Actions like this just make him seem like a marketing agent for Berkeley than a friend of audiophiles trying to navigate the morass of digital:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...C-DSD-Debunked&p=339348&viewfull=1#post339348

Robert's stated opinions have added to some confusion of mine as well, but now with the direct comparison things have become clear.

A special thanks also to Alan Goodwin who first suggested to me that I audition the dCS Rossini.

 

[caesar]

Thank you again, Al. This hobby needs more true fans such as yourself writing about their experiences.

Now that you found something you find truly special, I think you should bite the bullet and purchase it. Why procrastinate?

 

[Al M.]

Thank you again, Al. This hobby needs more true fans such as yourself writing about their experiences.

Now that you found something you find truly special, I think you should bite the bullet and purchase it. Why procrastinate?

Money doesn't grow on trees. I tell you, if I had the money, I'd buy tomorrow the whole dCS Rossini/Spectral/Magico Q1 set-up that we heard. Not that this might not happen eventually Goodwin's really know how to suck you in with an outstanding demo, but that's what a great dealer is there for.

I sure want the dCS Rossini eventually. Let's see if Madfloyd beats me to it

 

[caesar]

Money doesn't grow on trees. I tell you, if I had the money, I'd buy tomorrow the whole dCS Rossini/Spectral/Magico Q1 set-up that we heard. Not that this might not happen eventually Goodwin's really know how to suck you in with an outstanding demo, but that's what a great dealer is there for.

I sure want the dCS Rossini eventually. Let's see if Madfloyd beats me to it

I'm just teasing, of course. I hope you can find a way to afford it. There are few things worse than hearing a component that blows you a way and then not being able to afford it right away.
Good Luck!

 

[Al M.]

As a general rule of thumb, people advise that digital equipment NOT share a ground connection with other equipment. I am of the same opinion, and it's more than an opinion - I have experimented heavily with lifting the ground on my Alpha DAC, and at the end of the day there are a couple of data points:

1) My phono picks up a little bit of hum (with the preamp volume maxed out) from the Alpha and its ground connection, and it goes away when I lift the Alpha DAC's ground
2) The phono sounds a little better with the DAC's ground lifted
3) The DAC itself sounds sizably better with its ground lifted, and more than that, I star-ground to the preamp by lifting everybody else's ground (sort of what the Entreq folks are indirectly doing, w/o the cat litter and magic dust which is not necessary). Unfortunately, I have not demonstrated to you guys the benefits of this preamp-star grounding.

To get to the point: always audition a DAC or CD Player with and without its ground, or at least inquire about it. Based on my experience, the Berkeley Reference stands a chance to sound better than what you guys described. Having said that, my guess is the Rossini is still a better DAC, and I'd be curious how it sounds with its ground lifted, if it wasn't.

Thank you very much for this info, Ack. Just a question from a technically inexperienced guy like me: what do you mean by "lifting the ground"?

 

[mauidan]

To be honest, I don't know the filter setting. I do think that upsampling is default.

FYI- the dCS Rossini DAC offers DXD and DSD upsampling, as well as the ability to select from 6 PCM filters and 4 DSD filters.*

Maybe if you had done a little research before going to your listening session, you could have asked to hear the Rossini's different upsampling and filters.

Also, Why didn't you ask to hear both DACs connected directly to the Spectral amp?

This whole concept that Spectral amps must be only used with Spectral preamp is BS.

Marty uses a tube preamp with his Spectral amp and Reference Recordings uses a Berkeley DAC connected directly to a Spectral amp.

*http://www.audiostream.com/content/...-dac-rossini-master-clock#eSrDPX6uTSFGD4Gq.97

 

[Al M.]

Also, Why didn't you ask to hear both DACs connected directly to the Spectral amp?

This whole concept that Spectral amps must be only used with Spectral preamp is BS.

Tell that to Spectral.

Marty uses a tube preamp with his Spectral amp and Reference Recordings uses a Berkeley DAC connected directly to a Spectral amp.

I had called the Spectral factory two and a half years ago after I first heard the amps in my system and pointed them to this fact about Reference Recordings. They said that their power amp was custom modified to allow for that; Spectral amps normally need rather high power in their input. When I asked them why in this digital age they did not give any customer that obvious option I could not get a coherent explanation. Very nice guy though with whom I spoke.

If you ask me, it makes no sense why they would not provide that option. It would save an extra pair of expensive interconnects too. I think the factory could get much more sales with that configuration (and if the price of the power amp with the more sensitive input would have to be somewhat higher, so be it, no big deal for most, I would think). It's old school thinking I guess, rather odd from a company that is so much on the cutting edge of solid state sound quality.

If they had provided that option, I might have bought a Spectral amp already. But boy, do those amps sound great...

On the other hand, it remains to be seen if the dCS Rossini as a pre-amp is as good as a Spectral pre-amp. Perhaps the drive to perfection compels Spectral to stick to their philosophy.

 

[Al M.]

The instruments were separate in space, with lots of air. Hall sounds were very evident and clearly defined the recording venue. What also struck me was just how natural the sound was. The Rossini presented the notes completely, not emphasizing the transients, or the harmonics, but the whole note, from beginning to end, was heard in a continuous and balanced way. The note’s attack was dynamic and impactful, the fundamental were accurate with beautiful harmonic and a natural decay.

Peter, I want to address your important point about hall information and decay a bit further. You had made me aware of that during the session, pointing out that on the Rossini there was more acoustic space around the piano in the Bartok violin sonata. After that, I paid more attention to it. Soon after the beginning of the finale of Beethoven's Eroica symphony there are three short brass bursts as part of the orchestra's presentation of the theme. After these few brass bursts the decay of the sound in the hall space around the instruments seemed perfect with the Rossini, down to the background. When I listened to the same recording again on my system I did hear that hall sound too, even though perhaps standing out to a lesser degree. Yet the decay was truncated pretty soon, to slightly odd effect. What a difference. It might partially also be a function of the amps, but my main suspicion goes to the DAC as source.

The lack of good presentation of decay in digital has been admonished many times. The dCS Rossini presents decay in a proper manner as it is also heard on great analog.

Excellent low-level linearity of the Rossini DAC must be responsible for this. The technical explanation for achieving this linearity is provided by John Quick, General Manager of dCS America, as quoted in the review that mauidan linked to above.

 

[spazmatron]

its great to hear of your fun and continuing spirit of exploration despite some prejudice before hand. double kudos to you guys, your boston audiophile gang is to be envied.

My TAD has a lifted ground, it comes with no center pin on the ac inlet, not tried changing this.

with so many factors being of more importance than format, too many to list its great to see guys just enjoying music.

a note to Al M. after our conversation a while back i went room treatment crazy, plus speaker placement mad... great results so thanks for prodding me.

my TAD being a E.U model powers down after being idle for 30 min, i recently managed to find a way to switch this eco mode off. i believe leaving it on, as i do with the rest of my gear has bought sonic benefits.

 

[Al M.]

a note to Al M. after our conversation a while back i went room treatment crazy, plus speaker placement mad... great results so thanks for prodding me.

I am glad to hear of your success!

As I said before, the importance of the room and speaker/room interaction simply cannot be overemphasized. Thankfully Goodwin's pointed me in the right direction with the ASC room treatment they offer.

 

[ack]

Thank you very much for this info, Ack. Just a question from a technically inexperienced guy like me: what do you mean by "lifting the ground"?

Use a cheater plug at the end of the power cord

 

[ack]

Tell that to Spectral.



I had called the Spectral factory two and a half years ago after I first heard the amps in my system and pointed them to this fact about Reference Recordings. They said that their power amp was custom modified to allow for that; Spectral amps normally need rather high power in their input. When I asked them why in this digital age they did not give any customer that obvious option I could not get a coherent explanation. Very nice guy though with whom I spoke.

If you ask me, it makes no sense why they would not provide that option. It would save an extra pair of expensive interconnects too. I think the factory could get much more sales with that configuration (and if the price of the power amp with the more sensitive input would have to be somewhat higher, so be it, no big deal for most, I would think). It's old school thinking I guess, rather odd from a company that is so much on the cutting edge of solid state sound quality.

If they had provided that option, I might have bought a Spectral amp already. But boy, do those amps sound great...

On the other hand, it remains to be seen if the dCS Rossini as a pre-amp is as good as a Spectral pre-amp. Perhaps the drive to perfection compels Spectral to stick to their philosophy.

The reality is that Spectral DID have amplifiers that did not require their high-current preamps; they were called "Universal" with an "S" designation (since then used in other, non Universal, amps as well - confusing as hell), for example see http://www.goodwinshighend.com/_products/spectral/dma160s.htm

The DMA-160S Studio Universal has been designed as a stand-alone reference amplifier for use in various applications in studio monitoring and audiophile systems where a Spectral preamplifier is not available. The stand-alone capability of the DMA-160S is achieved with an exclusive “active buffer” input topology which can maintain optimum input matching with high-level source components without compromising internal bandwidth.

At the end of the day, they did not sound as good as their brethren, and I verified that for myself - probably that "active buffer" was not that good. So they then abandoned that approach... So when you say "I could not get a coherent explanation", I take it with a bit of salt, and I suspect they might have told you it was all about optimizing performance. On the other hand, it does beg the question, how does the modified RR Spectral amp sound... No answer to that can be had.

Finally, one thing I would agree on is that the amp/preamp you heard are pushing the envelope in transparency - straight-wire-with-gain if you will - to levels I have not heard anywhere else yet.

 

[Jim Smith]

Al,

When I had my dCS system, the difference between various upsampling choices was profound. In your case, that would be standard DXD vs. optional DSD.

The digital filters definitely change the sound as well.

Both can make the difference between pretty good to OMG (at least back when I had mine)..

Any chance you could ask Paul what settings they use?

Best,

Jim (who is tempted by these reports - it's your fault - both of you!)

 

[Al M.]

At the end of the day, they did not sound as good as their brethren, and I verified that for myself - probably that "active buffer" was not that good. So they then abandoned that approach... So when you say "I could not get a coherent explanation", I take it with a bit of salt, and I suspect they might have told you it was all about optimizing performance.

No, they did not give me your explanation which makes good sense. I don't remember excactly what they said but it certainly was not that and it didn't make a good impression on me. It seemed an attempt of wiggling themselves out of the issue. I must have chosen to forget what they said precisely

Finally, one thing I would agree on is that the amp/preamp you heard are pushing the envelope in transparency - straight-wire-with-gain if you will - to levels I have not heard anywhere else yet.

Yes, absolutely phenomenal, isn't it?

 

[Al M.]

Use a cheater plug at the end of the power cord

Ok, great, thanks.

 

[Al M.]

Any chance you could ask Paul what settings they use?

Will do.

 

[amirm]

Maybe if you had done a little research before going to your listening session, you could have asked to hear the Rossini's different upsampling and filters.

Dan, let's not put members who share their experiences this way on the witness stand with this type of tone. Otherwise it may discourage them from sharing such in the future. Ask questions but don't get personal this way.