I think we are getting drunk with the vocabulary ... dCS can be many things but not boring, it is the most exciting dac I have ever heard. Nor would I call it sterile. Previously had a Chord TT2 and the Bartok had a lot more meat on the bones, is fuller and sounds more natural.
Hi Opm,
Obviously our tastes are different. I had dCS in several of my systems at home. And it was analytical as hell! I couldn't even take it in the spectacularly musical Zu- Audion Golden Night system. Now dCS is not as sterile, hang yourself from the chandelier ... Swing... Swing... Swing... Swing... as the Berkeley Reference DAC but on that side of the spectrum...
But I agree with you about the audiophile vocabulary, that's why I brought it up initially, as we all use words differently...
Let me bring a psychological perspective to help make my point even more salient: it has been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. This is also true when it comes to putting words around subjective experiences of audio.
Words like “warm” and "organic" are really nothing more or less than words that anyone can use to indicate anything we please. The problem is that people use these words to indicate a host of different things, which has created a tremendous terminological mess…
A lot of the mess stems from prior experiences – or a lack thereof. If someone lacks the machinery for a sexual orgasm, then our experience of orgasm is one that this person will never know -no matter how much we talk about it.
Experiences of fine tequilas, string quartets in world class venues, caring deeds, ice cream, and high end audio are rich, complex, multidimensional, and impalpable. Because “warm” or "organic" are also experiences, they can only be approximately defined by its antecedents and by its relation to other experiences. That’s why I can’t stand Neil Grobbers/ "audio journalist" scumbags who never compare, but just proclaim something as “best” because some new detail they heard tickled his analytical preference. Of course, it is best only in the worthless guys' imaginations and contributes to fukc the audio fan culture… (And thank God Goebbels did not have access to the talent of these despicable propaganda artists!)
Once we have an experience - hear a component that does something very new or very different – like speed and inner detail of a horn or an electrostatic midrange, we cannot simply set it aside and see the world as we would have seen it had the experience never happened.
Additionally, distorted views of reality are made possible by the fact that experiences are ambiguous -that is, they can be credibly viewed in many ways, some of which are more positive than others. Different moods, auditioning circumstances, people we like or don’t like, preconceived notions, etc…
Furthermore, to complicate things even further, our remembrance of things past is imperfect, thus comparing our new understanding of “organic” with our memory of our old "organic" is a risky way to determine whether two subjective experiences are really different.
With all that said, coming back to comparisons, I offered options that may be "warm" or "organic", but definitely more emotionally satisfying than dCS: TotalDAC, Lampizator and Jadis.
Good Luck in your search!
