Thank you. Yes, in fact, I had read somewhere that Lincoln used the legendary Audio Note DAC 5th Element which I have always been fascinated by...until he went with Wadax DAC. I was not sure if that was the Audiotechnique Listening Room or his personal system. Do you know if Lincoln personally owned the AN DAC 5th Element or if it is was the main listening room?
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I'm not sure about the AN DAC: the last digital system I was aware of in his system before the Wadax was the big Esoteric rig, although there might well have been other things in between the two...
Thank you.
I presume you will review the Wadax reference sacd-transport - maybe in combination with the Wadax reference PSU - in the near future. If that is indeed going to happen, may I please ask you the following. I know you have a general preference for (sa)cd-replay versus playing files and streaming. As regards the latter: I agree. However, I am (still) not convinced that playing - locally stored - files in their original recording formats is inferior to playing (sa)cd’s. By now there are quite a few high quality companies - and to name just a few: TRPTK, 2L, Challenge Classics (Bert van der Wolf), Reference Recordings (Sound Mirror), Channel Classics, Pentatone, LAWO, etc. - recording interesting (classical) pieces / symphonies in high resolution such as 32 bit/dxd and dsd 256. Would it be possible in your forthcoming review to compare some of these high quality - as well as high resolution - recordings in their original recording formats to their (sa)cd counterparts?
For example and just a suggestion: in my Tidal La Assoluta thread on this forum I recently spoke highly about the TRPTK recording called ‘Viriditas’ by the Sibil.la Ensemble. To my ears this is one the best sounding high resolution recordings I recently acquired. That recording is also available in a sacd-version. In my Tidal LA set up I prefer the 32 bit dxd file (as a download, locally stored) to the sacd played with my Zanden 2000 cd-transport and Wadax reference dac. However, I add to this that my Zanden 2000-transport is not able to play sacd’s so I therefore made this comparison in cd-mode.
Thanks upfront.
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The Ref Transport review is scheduled to follow the (imminent) Studio Player review.
As regards available high-res material, my main issue is and always has been, that the artists I want to hear are by and large, not available from the labels you mention. I'd rather listen to Shoji or Batiashvili on CD than Duenas on SACD or any number of alternatives on a high-res file. I buy by performer and performance, rather than by format. If I can get the music I want on SACD, I generally will, but as with all things, there are good and bad SACDs, good and bad CDs, good and bad high-res files.
However, if you suggest more than a couple of examples of high-res files and their disc equivalents, let's see what we can do to facilitate the comparison. One complication I foresee is the requirement for a second Reference PSU (as both the Server and Transport can be used with the external supply and, having heard whhat it does to the Server, I'd definitely be looking to use it with the Transport). All things are possible - it just takes time and intent...
As regards available high-res material, my main issue is and always has been, that the artists I want to hear are by and large, not available from the labels you mention. I'd rather listen to Shoji or Batiashvili on CD than Duenas on SACD or any number of alternatives on a high-res file. I buy by performer and performance, rather than by format. If I can get the music I want on SACD, I generally will, but as with all things, there are good and bad SACDs, good and bad CDs, good and bad high-res files.
However, if you suggest more than a couple of examples of high-res files and their disc equivalents, let's see what we can do to facilitate the comparison. One complication I foresee is the requirement for a second Reference PSU (as both the Server and Transport can be used with the external supply and, having heard whhat it does to the Server, I'd definitely be looking to use it with the Transport). All things are possible - it just takes time and intent...
Like you I am foremost a music lover so when great artists playing certain pieces are (only) available on sacd of course that is the way to go (and I own hundreds of sacd’s, btw). But we are also trying to achieve a sound at home that captivates us for years to come and for audiophiles like you and me the quality of the recording also matters (greatly). My point is that on some of the relative small recording labels, of which I mentioned a few in my previous post, beautiful music played beautifully by impressive musicians can be found. They might not always be as widely known as some of the artists on the ‘main stream’ labels, but they are nevertheless very good - and in some instances great - musicians. And also on these ‘boutique’ labels some impressive names can be found. For example Rachel Podger and Ivan Fischer on Channel Classics, Manfred Honeck on Reference Recordings and Jaap van Zweden on Challenge Classics.
Speaking about the latter - and in response to your remark in the last paragrapgh -: Jaap van Zweden has recorded a complete cycle of Bruckner symphonies for Challenge Classics. Some of these (inter alia symphonies number one and eight) were recorded by Bert van Wolf in the Netherlands and some of them in Japan by the Exton label. From a sonic point of view the former recordings sound to my ears clearly superior to the latter recordings. The Jaap van Zweden Bruckner recordings can be found on sacd (separately as well as in a box with the complete symphonies) and some of them, namely the Bert van der Wolf recordings, can also be downloaded in their original recording format - 24 bit/dxd - on the spirit of turtle website. So for example these Bruckner recordings can be used to make an interesting comparison.
In addition many recordings can be found on TRPTK website, available both in their original recording formats as downloads as well as in sacd format.
There are also many Channel Classics sacd’s available, albeit mostly from (single dsd) recordings in the past because - as far as I know - they do not produce sacd’s anymore for quite some time. Their downloads can be found on the nativedsd website.
And yes, I fully understand the complication you foresee: a fair comparison requires or the reference server and reference sacd-transport as stand alone units or both pieces with a dedicated PSU. And very likely the reference sacd-transport will - like the reference server - sound much, much better with the reference PSU. And convincing Wadax to ship a second reference PSU to your place might indeed be a challenge, but who knows? But maybe it is possible to use the same reference PSU for the reference server as well as the reference sacd-transport, albeit that it will take some time and effort to disconnect it from one unit and connect it to the other?
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Here is a link to the spirit of turtle website: https://spiritofturtle.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoo4VthXfIkTWd6Lyif2s4775seI-IcoL8HNFvKohpaYtypitota
i too suspect the best sonic performance will be with properly recorded highest rez native files, even compared to SACD/CD on the Ref Transport with added power supply and Akasa cables. formats matter.
that said i agree that the music itself and recording quality trumps the ultimate better technical hardware and format performance regarding the actual listening experience by a significant margin. we don't much listen to sounds, we want to be immersed in music we connect with. hard to know at what point the best recording quality will also be used with the most attractive music? or maybe analog based transfers might happen to bridge that gap? right now my most enjoyable digital recordings are very high rez tape transfers of iconic golden age music. unfortunately too few of those to be a significant part of my listening.
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Here is an interesting link to some new high quality recordings. And I agree with the reviewer that Bert van der Wolf records some very interesting and outstanding artist: https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/music-reviews/bert-van-der-wolf-recordings/
Thank you for sharing the link. Completely new source of music for me; very much appreciated. Color Soni by the Gauguin Ensemble is wonderful.
Btw, if you are interested you can find much more information about the recordings made by Bert van der Wolf for Challenge Classics on the thread Challenge Classics I started many moons ago on WBF.
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