Martin-Logan Owners

[roberto]

Hola chicos,
I just wanted to tell you that now I am using the Lush USB Cable along with the JS-2 Linear Power Supply by Up Tone Audio. It is making my digital gear to sound much better, at a point ( I think I am going to be nailed here ) that I am listening only digital. I am rediscovering a lot of music. The sound it is not dry and could. I do like the new harmonic texture and the stage presentation. It is resolving things that I never heard before. The sound now is sweet and has an incredible 3D sense. The right size of the instruments and also there is no soreness at the voices. The harsh sound is gone completely and for the very first time, I am really enjoying digital sound very much, including all the benefit. I am using the HQ Player software and Audirvana Plus. Also changed mi Mac mini for a Mac Pro ( not the latest model ) that has a cylindrical shape, like a small barrel. I am really getting beautiful sound.

Happy listening!

 

[thedudeabides]

Hola chicos,
It is making my digital gear to sound much better, at a point ( I think I am going to be nailed here ) that I am listening only digital. I am really getting beautiful sound.

Happy listening!

Roberto, I knew you would "get it" eventually.

Gordon

 

[roberto]

Hola Gordon,

Yes, digital sound has come forward with giant steps, and in the last two years, the improvement is amazing.

Happy listening Gordon!

 

[kach22i]

,Yes, digital sound has come forward with giant steps, and in the last two years, the improvement is amazing.

I don't want to sound negative, but I've been hearing that every two years since 1988.

 

[Gregadd]

What is amazing is how much perfection has improved.

 

[kach22i]

What is amazing is how much perfection has improved.

To be fair to digital, the analog bar has also been rising.

One wonders if it is the sources or the amplification and loudspeakers responsible.

Heck, could it be the interconnects and speaker wires as I'm reading in between the lines on Roberto's post?

EDIT:
Upon re-reading some of the posts, could it be software used in the design of everything...... including USB cables and power supplies?

Have the audio tools of human ear and oscilloscope finally been replaced?

 

[microstrip]

What is amazing is how much perfection has improved.

People still fail to understand that something related to an imperfect standard can never be perfect.

 

[Gregadd]

People still fail to understand that something related to an imperfect standard can never be perfect.

Digital proponents have that covered too. They make a perfect copy of analog.

 

[microstrip]

Digital proponents have that covered too. They make a perfect copy of analog.

It is an open issue. We had plenty of challenges and tests carried with 16/44.1 in the 90's, but none carried with current top digital equipment in a top high-end system.

 

[Gregadd]

The issue is you can't improve on perfect tion.
Digital has yet to reach its potential. It is and never was perfect. Whether it can be is open to debate. The real challenge is to assure the pursuit continues.

 

[roberto]

I'm going to be nailed again, I have a question: aren't you listening digital recordings on your LPs? Please tell which recording company is not digital on these days?
Katchi, how can you measure love or hate with an oscilloscope? How can you measure the feeling of the musician playing a certain musical instrument? Can you call on a recording, a Clapton guitar, or David Gilmore? How can you measure their touch? Perhaps you are listening old digital stuff...try to listen the new recent goods...I really like them a lot, perhaps you would as I do.
Happy listening!

 

[Gregadd]

Many of us own lp that pre-date digital.

 

[roberto]

Many of us own lp that pre-date digital.

Yes, I do know that, so are those the only ones that you play in your system? I have about 4000 old ones lying there in my other room...I am thinking to do a big sale...I learned something. I am not saying that this is the only media that you should listen. Also I am not saying that analogue is perfect. How about tonearm resonances? Vertical distortion? Wow and fluter? S/N? I do believe that what happens is that we are most used to that...if you want to enjoy digital, you must stop to listen to analogue. Both media on these days are great! The good thing is that you can't stop the digital exponential explosion. New paths and new softwares are available. Right now I am very happy with the combination with ASiO Software/HQPlayer by Signalyst. There are no mechanical resonances on digital, so it is giving the exact replica of what is at the recording. Please do not get me wrong here. I do know the quality sound of my turntables, and my choice at this moment is the Linn. While I listen my LPs, it takes time to get back to digital...why? Perhaps my ears misses the suface noise, the miss tracking, the distortion at the last songs (reason why I use the Goldmund Studio linear tracking T-3) even that I have all the tools for have the 15? angle, and to have the needle tip aligned tangent to the grove line. I have a VPI vacuum LP cleaner to maintain my LPs without the fungus and dirt...you do know all the history.

I don't want to enter in a endless discussion. You could live with both media, and enjoy the musicians playing for you. Being myself a musician, you know that I did study for 14 years classical guitar; So, I do understand what's going with the musician(s) communication and what they are doing. This is what I do love...

Happy listening!

 

[kach22i]

Katchi, how can you measure love or hate with an oscilloscope?.........Perhaps you are listening old digital stuff...try to listen the new recent goods...

As usual I agree with +90% of what you have written, I was trying to be humorous and truthful at the same time.

One of the professional amp designers in the forum does not subscribe to fine tuning to human ears and accommodating demanding speaker loads the best I can tell, yet often gets brilliant results via "if it measures right it has got to sound right". I am not in that school but have so much to learn from an opposing viewpoint, I'm just a consumer at this point.

I held out on buying my first CD player until the first MASH chips came out around 1989-1990 as they were herald as a huge improvement. Then 2-3 years later I hear my same speakers sound so much better at the stereo store, the salesperson said that was because the CD players have really improved in the last year or two.

Then every couple years another quantum gain is made, or so it was claimed in the stereo magazines of the day.

I know many of us chased that cart, I stopped when I bought a McIntosh CD player in 1999-2000 and now read in audio circles that some of the older CD players like mine sound more natural and hold on to them.

 

[Gregadd]

No one knows the faults of vinyl better than vinyl lovers. I am not sure that has anything to do with the quality of digital

CD players are subject to mechanical resonances. I suppose this is cured by streaming

 

[kach22i]

Nice post Roberto.

I stagnated so long on my system improvements in part because the the vinyl LP's and CD's sounded equally good. Going back between the two formats was not a abrupt transition.

To expose myself to much more expensive systems than my own I frequent the audio events at a local high end shop.

Digital is incredible "sound".

Analog LP and reel to reel tape is an incredible "experience".

Both are playing music and doing it enjoyably.

 

[microstrip]

(...) CD players are subject to mechanical resonances.

Yes, and some of us loved the sound signature of these resonances

I suppose this is cured by streaming

Most of the time the resonances were replaced by a nasty sterile sound signature - digital signatures seem to be subjectively much more disagreeable than mechanical ones.

 

[kach22i]

No one knows the faults of vinyl better than vinyl lovers. I am not sure that has anything to do with the quality of digital

CD players are subject to mechanical resonances. I suppose this is cured by streaming

The closest I've come to hearing faultless vinyl LP playback was at a demonstration at Paragon Sight & Sound in Ann Arbor featuring a Brinkmann turntable.

No surface noise.

No awareness of a black spinning disk in the room.

Most of all, no huge abrupt transition from the streaming music server or what ever they were playing earlier in the evening.

What my main take away is all the formats make great sound.

The differences lay in the level of engagement and scale of music, a factor being greater than a simple size of soundstage. Call it the envelopment of music verses the mere projection of sound.

I mean to say, what is that thing that compels one to play a certain song over and over again? Like you just played ELP's Lucky Man, but just gotta play it a second or 3rd time?

No matter how good digital is, I am never driven to this madness. And I like my madness.

EDIT:

Found a PDF describing AWS verses LEV and think it could be what I was attempting to describe.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjANegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw1StYt9-Dla6uIKcT80DUpn

 

[Gregadd]

Thank you for making my case. Record wear was one of the primary reasons for creating cd. It was not superior sound quality.
Am I being drawn into another vinyl vs digital debate?

 

[kach22i]

I skimmed the PDF I posed earlier.

Seems the small study group experimenting with surround surround front speaker, side speaker and rear speaker volume on variable loudness and reverb delay in general liked more rear sound than a opera hall would naturally have but in real time, not delayed as much as in real hall.

If I were to derive anything from this, it may correlate to the larger envelope I noticed master tapes had over LP's and LP' had over digital.

That is to say analog sources might be adding spacial information, or digital sources may have been stripped clean of it in some degree.