Hi there - here is some info, from testing direct LP playback through the Io, vs digital streaming of the same album. Hope you find something useful.
Testing Aesthetix Io vs my new Teac NT-505 streamer/dac
Testing two variants of the same album, Maren Selvaag: Bare være. Excellent new Norwegian piano and instruments recording. Useful for testing what a modern recording says of analog / digital differences.
LP version (original, first print) vs Tidal version (streaming through the Teac NT-505).
LP version: I doubt if this is AAA (pure analog) recording. I guess it is 92 x 24 bits pcm or similar. It does not say, on the LP.
Tidal version: this is not (yet) a master recording on Tidal. The Teac tells me that the recording is standard CD format – 44 x 16 bits.
Test result, playing the album, first song, Vigilien:
The LP is better, although the Teac narrows the gap. Playing directly from the LP, through the Io, I hear more tone color, more of the harmonies, more of the interplay between the musicians, compared to the Tidal stream. The main instrument (piano) sounds even more imposing. There is no doubt, this is still the best – in my system.
Still, the Teac does very well, on some accounts especially. The stream version is very nice and listenable, it doesn’t harm my ears. I don’t hear much digital glare. The effect, rather, is that the music is somewhat more closed in, a bit like a tunnel, or with a glove – compared to the LP. Note that the Teac has only played 30 hours, it may need more break-in, to come out fighting, so to speak.
I’ve read so much good stuff about the Teac that my expectations were maybe too high. This is not top of the digital art, but a good mid-level player and dac. It does not dethrone the analog chain, in my system – rather, it helps me identify plusses and minuses with each chain. If analog still reigns, on top of the mountain, the digital troops have advanced, so to speak, saying “me too” – I am better than I was ten years ago. This is true – digital often sounds much better – and the Teac clearly shows it.
The Teac does a bit of upsampling of pcm format input, by default, and I have not experimented much with the filters – my first impression is, these are only subtle changes. Digital remains digital, and the gap up to analog remains, although the Teac makes it smaller.
My DSD “vinyl rips” (400 albums by now, recorded on a Tascam DA-3000) sound fine through the Teac, through ethernet, from a home network disk. This is very good, since it was a main consideration for me, buying the Teac. My first impression is: my vinyl rips are better than the streaming. Inclusion of the Aesthetix Io, as well as a good cartridge, clearly plays a role. I have not investigated fully. A preliminary ranking is level 1 direct analog, level 2 dsd recordings incl my vinyl rips, level 3 all else. Very generally speaking. Sometimes, a recording on a lower format may sound great, nevertheless. The CD format recording of Selvaag, on Tidal, is an example (an even better example of CD sound brought to "max" is Dr John plays the Duke, on CD).
I wish the Teac – or the Lumin software / Teac streamer for controlling it, had an option for turning down pcm and streaming volume compared to dsd files that have much lower volume. A play list going from a low volume dsd file to a standard streaming file can crash the system unless you turn down the volume control.