Hyderabad HFV meet ? Interest check

Q Acoustics M20 HD wireless music system
Hello Kittu!
Thank you for posting Raghavendar Rao's photograph! People say I hold a resemblance to one Mr Ram Reddy too (a lesser known telugu villain!) Thank goodness for your limited knowledge of telugu cine field. :lol:
 
s_sachin said:
So guys just a short summary of the CD player / DAC comparison - Immdeatly noticed more details and better soundstage, bass was tighter , vocals never sounded so crisp - in short with CD player it became "lively", the DAC somehow seemd to hold back everything.
Comparison was done with same song, original CD played on Musical Hall cdp and the wav file ripped from same CD played on the PC - coaxial - DacMagic.
Ironhorse visited my house yesterday and had similar thoughts. But i would like if he also updates with his feedback.

So overall although i was quite happy with the DAC setup, listening to the CD player made me realize i was missing out on a lot of things. Maybe my PC setup needs some improvement and there are ofcourse much better DAC's there, but i have come to the conclusion that a CD player is a must have, even with all the troubles of managing CD's.
Click to expand...


sachin's got a really nice cosy setup in the room.. but hell loads of equipments inside.. and the tv looks mean at that distance.. really awsome.

though my bakar started and the glasses clinged before we got into comparison of the dac vs cdp thingy.. but we did spend sometime playin with them..

guys m a noob too so i will be able to only tell what i felt.

UDAC VS cdp..

udac itself sound good when heard.we will not complain about it any point of time and this comparison was done with pc on foobar connected via optical to dac. though we did not try changing the equalizer settings on foobar and that might have changed the sound a bit. however as both of talked about and we did a A vs B

these are few things i figured out :

soundstage : dac had a narrowed soundstage but sounded very crisp on the other hand musichall had more lively soundstage. the seperation of intruments was a lot better. you will love listening the same song over it again for the natural sound.

bass : udac was able to go deeper than the cdp but a bit boomy cdp had more natural and woddy bass.. the drums sounded natural while dac made it more beefy but un natural..

midrange of both the dac and the cdp was quite comparable just at the few places it missed on the female voice compared to cdp..

overall i wudn't say that dac is bad or cdp is good..

yeah the cdp certainly sounded better and is a good option.

the pc was the transport and digital audio was fed to udac. we could have tried tweaking settings in pc that might
have helped to tune and control the bass but over the natural sound and soundstage the cdp was superior. imaging and resolution was far better in cdp.

i am somwhat poor with all audio jargons as of now but cdp sounded good to my ears...

after all of it.. our bakar started again and though sachin did not complain bout it to me yet m sure i bored him to death...

thanks for the invite buddy.. BLASTO you gave us a goli man... hehehe :):)
 
Last edited:
Prior to 2010, I used to use a 110 technics cd changer. Going across the forums, I learnt that good cd player is a important component so after doing significant research I bought MHDT havana($900) dac and used cd changer as a transport.

I tried to find difference using A and B testing. Didnt find it.

Next up I changed the interconnects to expensive acoustic zen matrix reference and silver reference pairs.

Still no difference.

Following that March of 2011 squeezebox was bought and enjoying it since then.

I tried to do A & B testing using squeezebox's dac and external dac(MHDT havana).

Not much difference.

The problem could lie at one of the three possibilities

1. My ears could be a problem.
2. My preamp and AMP (B&K) could be suppressing the openness which was supposed to come out.
3. My room 17 X 13 which is kind of small for the speakers could be an issue here.

I am itching to find out where the problem is.

Blasto,

Need your help for an afternoon. Need to test with the same cd player at my place.

Will send you a PM.

Thanks
Pandu
 
Pandu Garu,

  • The preamp processing you are using is a home theater preamp which might not do the duty of pure stereo preamp's sincerely. Probably direct audio bypass mode should help us here.
  • During HFV meet when we tried SBT+DacMagic+Rotel+S4, if you have noticed, we've by passed SBT's DAC by digital outs to Dacmagic. And the difference was felt by everybody at the meet.
  • And when we did the SBT testing at your place, I guess we did the same by connecting SBT's digital out to MHDT Havana's digital inputs by bypassing SBT's Dac and see how MHDT performs.
  • Now, when you test it with Blasto's MH CDP, do digital out from SBT to Havana to your preamp(in direct audio mode) to blah blah Vs CDP to preamp/MH amp to blah blah
  • That way you'll know if any change is necessary or not in your system.
  • Also, don't toe-in the paradigms.

hav04.jpg


Also, what is that switch between toslink and coaxial input?

(Sorry I could not call back to your missed call today):o

Just my thoughts,
Kevian
 
Last edited:
theironhorse said:
sachin's got a really nice cosy setup in the room.. but hell loads of equipments inside.. and the tv looks mean at that distance.. really awsome.

though my bakar started and the glasses clinged before we got into comparison of the dac vs cdp thingy.. but we did spend sometime playin with them..

guys m a noob too so i will be able to only tell what i felt.

UDAC VS cdp..

udac itself sound good when heard.we will not complain about it any point of time and this comparison was done with pc on foobar connected via optical to dac. though we did not try changing the equalizer settings on foobar and that might have changed the sound a bit. however as both of talked about and we did a A vs B

these are few things i figured out :

soundstage : dac had a narrowed soundstage but sounded very crisp on the other hand musichall had more lively soundstage. the seperation of intruments was a lot better. you will love listening the same song over it again for the natural sound.

bass : udac was able to go deeper than the cdp but a bit boomy cdp had more natural and woddy bass.. the drums sounded natural while dac made it more beefy but un natural..

midrange of both the dac and the cdp was quite comparable just at the few places it missed on the female voice compared to cdp..

overall i wudn't say that dac is bad or cdp is good..

yeah the cdp certainly sounded better and is a good option.

the pc was the transport and digital audio was fed to udac. we could have tried tweaking settings in pc that might
have helped to tune and control the bass but over the natural sound and soundstage the cdp was superior. imaging and resolution was far better in cdp.

i am somwhat poor with all audio jargons as of now but cdp sounded good to my ears...

after all of it.. our bakar started again and though sachin did not complain bout it to me yet m sure i bored him to death...

thanks for the invite buddy.. BLASTO you gave us a goli man... hehehe :):)
Click to expand...


Compare apples to apples guys.
Use cdp as transport and connect the digital out of cdp to the DAC to do the comparison. :)
I alredy suggested sachin do it. Pls post the observation.
 
Kevian said:
[*] Now, when you test it with Blasto's MH CDP, do digital out from SBT to Havana to your preamp(in direct audio mode) to blah blah Vs CDP to preamp/MH amp to blah blah
Click to expand...

Thats what I have asked him to do.
BTW, he has only the CDP as of now. Not willing to take the amp as it would potentially trigger the replacement the NAD. :ohyeah:
 
Last edited:
BLASTO said:
Compare apples to apples guys.
Use cdp as transport and connect the digital out of cdp to the DAC to do the comparison. :)
I alredy suggested sachin do it. Pls post the observation.
Click to expand...


it was purely done to get better sound directly.. using cdp as transport would not be feasable as sachin already got an HTPC for the same ...thats one reason he was looking forward to eliminate the pc and get just the cdp..

to cover up the losses between the transport and dac. and get better sound out of the same set of speakers and yes.. speakers did show up the diffrence.
 
Kevian said:
Pandu Garu,

  • The preamp processing you are using is a home theater preamp which might not do the duty of pure stereo preamp's sincerely. Probably direct audio bypass mode should help us here.
Click to expand...


  • I use preamp in direct mode only. In this mode 5.1 does not work. No sub out and no center out, no surrounds out.
    [/QUOTE]
  • During HFV meet when we tried SBT+DacMagic+Rotel+S4, if you have noticed, we've by passed SBT's DAC by digital outs to Dacmagic. And the difference was felt by everybody at the meet.
  • And when we did the SBT testing at your place, I guess we did the same by connecting SBT's digital out to MHDT Havana's digital inputs by bypassing SBT's Dac and see how MHDT performs.
  • Now, when you test it with Blasto's MH CDP, do digital out from SBT to Havana to your preamp(in direct audio mode) to blah blah Vs CDP to preamp/MH amp to blah blah
  • That way you'll know if any change is necessary or not in your system.
  • Also, don't toe-in the paradigms.

hav04.jpg


Also, what is that switch between toslink and coaxial input?

(Sorry I could not call back to your missed call today):o

Just my thoughts,
Kevian[/QUOTE]

The switch is to be used interchange the output between coaxial and toslink. Only one of them works at a time. SInce comeback from the meet I have decreased teh toe in.



Thanks
pandu
 
theironhorse said:
it was purely done to get better sound directly.. using cdp as transport would not be feasable as sachin already got an HTPC for the same ...thats one reason he was looking forward to eliminate the pc and get just the cdp..

to cover up the losses between the transport and dac. and get better sound out of the same set of speakers and yes.. speakers did show up the diffrence.
Click to expand...

Iron horse,

We cant use CDP as a transport. If intending to use large collection of music, CD player is a problem. Maintenance of CDs is a issue.

I think is some gap in my system. Need to find it out.

Thanks
Pandu
 
msagar said:
Hi,

BIT PERFECT SOUND FROM A PC

If you have a large collection of CDs, copy them onto hard disk and use Amarra, Pure music or decibel softwares to get bit perfect digital out from your PC. Please visit following links for more info.

Computer Audiophile Suggested Hardware List | Computer Audiophile

<I>Stereophile</I>'s Products of 2011 COMPUTER AUDIO PRODUCT OF THE YEAR | Stereophile.com
Click to expand...

Way too expensive. Without confirming the improvement in the quality it is hard to invest that much amount of money in any of these products.

Thanks
Pandu
 
Currently I a using Amarra, with Amarra I hear great improvement over iTunes. You can download Jriver or other software trial versions and decide for yourself.
 
Some more updates :)

Yesterday blasto visited my place and we went through the the comparisons again with the various sources. This time added my onida dvp as well.

But first we did another test - coaxial out from musicahall to the dacmagic DAC. Now this sounded the most closest to the CD :) although CD analog still sounded a bit better.

2 Conclusions
1. the DAC is alright :) and maybe thats the signatures which is different between CD DAC and the dacgmagic DAC and we just liked the cdp DAC signature
2. The PC coaxial out is inferior to the CD coaxial out :( now this was a discovery both of us could not digest :(. Or the player software or the CD drive .. frankly dont know :(

We later did the onida dvp - coaxial out to the DAC and this was much better to the PC out, althought inferior to the CD analog and CD coaxial out.

For lack of technical terms i would "better" sound as vocals were extended, bass was tighter and overall sound had more "brilliance"

Blasto please add/correct

So guys good thing is thet the DACMagic is fine, so either i need a good digital transport or a CD Player.

Thoughts , Feedback, suggestions welcome ...

Again just my thoughts hearing to my system :)
 
Thanks msagar. And that might be the culprit as my PC is using the onboard graphics/sound card on the gigabyte 785 usb3 mobo.

So the delima again is whether to go for a 8/9 K soundcard or invest in a CD player. If only i could borrow someone's sound card and try it out :(

Amd beleive me I would love to keep the PC as source , with all the fexibiiity and hundreds of FLACS :)
 
s_sachin said:
Thanks msagar. And that might be the culprit as my PC is using the onboard graphics/sound card on the gigabyte 785 usb3 mobo.

So the delima again is whether to go for a 8/9 K soundcard or invest in a CD player. If only i could borrow someone's sound card and try it out :(

Amd beleive me I would love to keep the PC as source , with all the fexibiiity and hundreds of FLACS :)
Click to expand...

We didn't have time at the HFV meet, else we could have tried SBT in your chain. Before I sourced SBT, I used my laptop as the source and it sucked real bad. After getting SBT and Nordost ICs, I realized significant improvement in instrument separation, bass, etc. Remember, when we tried your DAC with SBT, there was a great improvement in SQ on S4s via rotel. Thats when I've felt that a DAC+SBT can do something appreciable. Gugal unkal tells me following when probed:
  • People on SB forums have settled with SBT+Rega DAC(our own fella, Hydra loves to be in bed with Rega Dac) and few sold of their Rega Apollo CDP or not using it
  • People on Audiogon have settled with SBT+EE Minimax Dac.
  • People on some Oz stereo forum have settled with SBT+Audio-GD NFB2 Dac.

The overall feeling that most carried AFAIK on the above mentioned forums is SBT+Mid/High end DAC would do wonders. On Audiogon, few got Benchmark, Lavry, PS Audio etc type DACs which are way above my wallet atleast:o.

I'd suggest you to try SBT also before you put your money on anything. I know that Anand(Stereorules) has SBT and lives closer to your place. Why not both of you do some experiments on a weekend. I'm sure Anand would be more than eager to do this testing.

Note: I'm recommending SBT just because you've mentioned about huge flac collection on your PC. Else CDP IS the way to go any day.

My 2 Paisas.

Cheers!!
Kevian
 
IMO Sound card definetly adds value ,

i remember i used to sell Sound Blaster titanium when i was workinf for DELL

the card had two units, one pci card and one will go in the dvd drive bay , this one will have sound input

specially for people who use surround sound system , and to play games, it is a must to have.

Cheers

Tanoj
 
s_sachin said:
Thanks msagar. And that might be the culprit as my PC is using the onboard graphics/sound card on the gigabyte 785 usb3 mobo.

So the delima again is whether to go for a 8/9 K soundcard or invest in a CD player. If only i could borrow someone's sound card and try it out :(

Amd beleive me I would love to keep the PC as source , with all the fexibiiity and hundreds of FLACS :)
Click to expand...

Sachin, it is better you build a Music PC instead of CD player. My CD player is mostly a showpiece and most work is done by my Media Placyer + DAC combination. CD Player adds value but the overall job of maintaining a CD Library is a cumbersome job left to CD maniacs. I hope somebody own a Asus Xonar Essence sound card in Hyderabad and is on HFV :)
 
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