Seems to me you are confusing "digititis" with other distortion and room induced artifacts.
MSB Select II arrival
- Thread starter Mike Lavigne
- Start date
Seems to me you are confusing "digititis" with other distortion and room induced artifacts.
Yes, once glancing over the post was enough to not understand it.
Do I need to translate from plain English into plain English for you?
Oh I got your post just fine. How a room and how a tube amp has "digititis" is beyond me...Yes, maybe you mis-diagnosed your sound problem or you don't really know what digititis actually sounds like in a system.
Curiously we were not referring to "digititis" as something that has a sound, but as a personal subjective "disease" that makes one uncomfortable when listening to digital media.
Well, there is cause and effect. Surely this is clear, no? There is something in the noise or distortion of many digital products that works on the nervous system of many audiophiles that makes the listening either lacking in ease or outright synthetic sounding that is then classified as "digititis". I have heard many digital systems (the older DCS stuff and Meitner MA-1 for a more recent example) that created an unease in me, the DCS because it didn't sound natural although it was smooth enough and the Meitner because there seemed to be a "sheen" on the sound that pushed everything at you rather aggressively although you could not point to exaggerated highs or a prominent upper midrange etc. It just felt "forced" and I quickly fatigued when I listened to music through it. Switch to analog on the same system and there was a strong sigh of relief.
Never heard a DAC 5...bet it has a nice sound though...it is just about the antithesis, designwise from the Select II though... a curious comparison I bet that would make.
The Kassandra v the Select would also be interesting.
The DAC 5 is something special IMO. It is old school for sure, but stripped right back as regards digital processing, no filtering. The tube PS and tube gain stage IMO are what is probably making most of the difference. It is basically right out of the M6 pre-amp, so a decent PS and line stage. This part to me, is what lets a lot of DACs down and affects the sound a lot more than probably the chip or digital section.
The DAC 5 uses transformers on the output and I/V stage on the digital to gain stage. The AD1865 chip is possibly one of the best sounding chips ever made. But of course, no USB, no high res as limited to 96K. But TBH I have not heard a better sound from digital yet. I haven't heard the Lampi's yet or the Kassandra, but it wiped the floor with the C1 and MSB IV Platinum to my ears last year. Also the Esoteric K-01.
I would say the DAC 5 is in the warm camp if there is such a thing. Compared to the Esoteric certainly it is. The C1 was nice but not to my taste in the end.
As we've discussed I think it's sounds that originally alerted us to dangers in our environment that are primarily responsible for nervous system stimulation in audio systems. This undesired stimulation is often a result of digital but can come from many other sources. Many are acclimated to a certain amount of stimulation and often confuse it with more desirable aspects of system performance like resolution. I've even heard audio designers say they want a certain amount of stimulation but not too much as a system without these artifacts can come across as boring to those who don't know better.
IMO, Analog sources have issues as well but these generally aren't stimulating. I think this is a huge part of the reason many prefer analog, not necessarily because it's so much better, it's just not fatiguing. It's been shown that digital sources can recreate an analog source and all it's character with exceptional fidelity, to the point you probably can't distinguish an A>D rip vs analog, nor could you tell if a high quality ADA exists in a system. I think eventually Blizzard will be proven correct that a DAC can be voiced to sound just like your favorite analog gear and the distinction between the two might be nearly impossible to tell apart.
The "digititis" started to disappear, with my exposures to TotalDac, Aries Cerat Kassandra, MSB Select, Nagra HD and Classic DAC etc., so I would say it was connected with the digital front ends more then with the system in my case.
And no, no "suffering" with great digital sourced LPs.
This is more or less what I was thinking also, although I have "heard" digital artifacts which seem to sound like glare in the higher frequencies, a kind of HF distortion. I am fairly sensitive to this. Admittedly, this could be something else in the system, but when switching sources, it often disappears suggesting it is not room induced but something caused by a particular component.
Yes, and fatigue-causing is precisely what I have experienced. I have heard it with grossly misaligned cartridges also, so perhaps it has something to do with timing or how the completeness of the note is corrupted. Yikes, this is way off topic. Sorry.
I have referred to it before - in order to assemble a system for top digital you have to assemble it from a digital perspective. Many people assemble and fine tune a system to LP playback and them expect that bringing a DAC will bring immediate great sound - completely wrong IMHO. Bringing the DCS or even the Metronome some years ago to my room ago obliged me to re-think and change a lot in the system. One of the easiest systems I have owned was built around the Audio Research pieces - REF8 CD , REF40 preamp and REF150 amplifier. It sounded divine on Quad ESL63's - no "digititis" at all, but needed proper care in cables and room set-up. BTW, sometimes the pest pill to avoid "digitits" is the proper selection of power cables and power conditioner.
Or we can say that it was the interaction between your system and the DAC's. What is your explanation for the absence of "digititis" from digital sourced LP's? It suggests we can have digital without "digititis" (the disease).
Back to OT, it would be great to have access to a top encoder and listen to digital loops from analog top sources using these great DACs. EDIT - reading recent posts I found DaveC already referred to it in a previous post http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?23302-MSB-Select-II-arrival&p=465079&viewfull=1#post465079
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Sorry, off the OP for a moment. On digititus' my theory is it resides to large degree in the filtering (digital domain filter) and upsampling. Many top DACs still have a filter, and even though these are very advanced now, I am convinced I can hear the effect of it particularly in the treble region. The DACs mentioned above are non upsampling and no filter? (confirmation required). Not sure about the Select, but that DAC is NOS I believe? Some top flight DACs which are R-2R still upsample. No idea why, maybe the filtering is easier in those cases?
You said it well, thank you.
And as you say, it can be system interaction with the DAC, rather than the DAC itself. It can be the latter too, even if just in part, but to say one can always clearly distinguish between the scenarios seems a bit far fetched.
How can such general statement be made, considering it is based in one DAC? And, as you say, The tube PS and tube gain stage affects the sound a lot more than probably the chip or digital section.
Can you describe us the systems where you listened to the DAC 5? Was it in your system?
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