joeljoel1947

So FLAC and AIFF only huh? What about WAV and WMA, ever try those? I'm the guy with 10000 tracks in 20 formats, most of which are wav files at 24/192 (HRx). I haven't tried MM in a while, maybe they improved it to switch automagically now if configured as they say and using FLAC and AIFF only. I doubt it will work with WAV files though---automagically detect that is. That crazy Japanese .67 never did work right for me.

"Of course, I won't be getting hold of an Otari and trying the tapes (though I'm sure they're very good). Why? Because I tried a live mic feed into the Model Two instead... and what comes out is exactly what went in! A good enough test for me." Have fun recording yourself talking BS into the mics. I'm sure that's your acid-test for your "live-feed"! I'm a recording engineer myself. I use real music to determine that reel to reel is the best possible way in the here and now to capture a live feed. Maybe someday you will understand this too. "In my first post I said, "Unfortunately, I think that the ONLY way to really hear 24/176.4 HRx files in all their glory is to use a Model Two to play them back on." Sorry if this wasn't clear enough for you No, sorry for you. You are "grandstanding" and stating that the ONLY PROPER WAY to hear HRx files (original master analog ones too that had to be "converted" to 24/176.4 to fit the HRx medium and out to your Model 2) is via your beloved and over-priced "model2". Funny how someone "grandstanding" about such a thing---non-oversampling and such so that their Model Two can do its stuff----can accept a complete analog WAVEFORM being digitally converted to fit into the 24/176.4 HRx domain, LOL. Trust me there was a lot of "conversion and sampling" that had to be done to get that original analog HRx version to you! How do you even sleep now knowing that???? I expect this type of statements/behavior on Audiogon and Audio Asylum, but not here. Complete BS, so as per the above analogy keep talking into those mics to convince yourself.......

OK, well then your hang up is the EMU. You should have stated as such. Well After the EMU comparisons in the OP, for HRx we tried the Apogee Rosetta/Big Ben combo and a Weiss Minerva after that-- loaned by Gary Koh at Genesis (nice enough to donate). Neither came close to the TP reel to reel version. And both DAC's are considered much better then the EMU (even though when the 3 were compared together the EMU was better then the Weiss----- and the Apogee/Big Ben combo vs. the EMU was a virtual wash---this on a dealers 500k plus system.) The difference here is NOT hardware-based. It's the SOFTWARE. All you are Mani is 7k away for an Otaro MX-5050 BIII plus a $500 tape project tape to learn this all for yourself as you already have the "model 2". Pick up an Otari and the tape and report to me your findings!! I already know the outcome, and it's not pretty. The analog dupe via TP tape will beat the Model 2 via HRx. Just a "wild guess". But you let me know for confimation Mani------so I can sleep better.......

I am the original poster. And just joking in that title there as a reminder on how quickly the PC DAC landscape is changing. Just to put everyone posting today on a "reality check", you are not going to beat a Tape Project Tape dub of a original analog RR master with the HRx version using a Model 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. It's just not going to be possible. I have two of them to compare (HRx versus TP release), "Arnold's Overtures" and "Exotic Dances" and the differences are so far superior on the tape (would that surprise ANYONE considering these recordings were made originally on analog open reel and then later duped to 24/176.4 digital for the HRx release????) that I don't care how much you spend on a 24/176.4 converter---the digital version will NEVER win. And as for the snide "The OP was using an Otari for God's sake..." comment. Yes I do. I have many of them---consoles, stand ups, etc. I also have some of the finest consumer machines made by Techincs, Teac, etc. Otari's are some of the finest machines in the world and are recommended by the Tape Project to play back their master dubs on! The solid state electronics in the Otari are BYPASSED and I am running through SOTA Bottlehead TUBE ELECTRONICS if that is your hang-up. If you hang-up on Otari is something else, I would love to hear what it is, and also hear about what open reel deck you are running. I have compared the 5050 Otari line to Studer's, Ampex's, Scully's, etc. and never felt the need to chase those brand names. The Otari is the last open reel deck still in production, and for good reason! If you have 15k to drop on a model 2 DAC, I recommend you shell out another 7k and pick up an Otari to see what you've been missing in the world of reel to reel!!!! If you want to further educate yourselves on the merits of open reel and what you can gain sonically, I recommend a brand new article written by Positive Feedback writer Myles Astor: http://positive-feedback.com/Issue46/tape_project.htm I just wanted to point these things out as I disagree with what has been stated today. Trying to state that either a) a better DAC would have made HRx sound better then the reel or b) that an Otari MX-5050 deck is not sufficient enough to play back a master dub are both PREPOSTEROUS! You are talking about an original ANALOG RECORDING here! You will not be able to beat a dupe of it in HRx---despite what Marcia says! See here: http://www.tapeproject.com/smf/index.php/topic,1031.0.html

Man, did I call the Studer or what? I knew "nothing but the best" for Juergen. LOL Nice setup though, can't wait to hear your finished product! Keep us posted when it releases.

Hi Juergen, Wow this is getting SCARY. I also used tube mics for my piano recording, the Advanced Audio CM12's which are clones of the famous AKG C12 mics. What mics did you use? Juergen wrote: "And one crazy step further, I can tell you, that after finishing the editing and cutting and leveling, I will send the signal to an open reel machine, to bring more “reality” into the sound." Ok, you are a man after my own heart there Juergen!! Though I would personally skip all the other steps in your recording chain and just do it direct to reel in the 1st place myself. Of course that is then very hard to edit, level, etc.!! What open reel machine will you use to add the "reality"?----let me guess, knowing you Juergen------ Studer A820?

@ Two Rocks: "DxD, on the other hand, is multi-bit, very much like traditional PCM, but at a sample rate of 352.8 kHz! (8x that of Redbook CDs!) I've looked at some graphs of transient signals recorded with DxD, and the results are practically as good as what DSD delivers in that regard, but without any of the downsides I just mentioned. Finally we are getting "full analog quality" in the digital realm (without any of the shortcomings of analog, like tape hiss and such...)! Yay!" Regarding hi-rez digital recording------I don't know about the "full analog quality", but it can be pretty close. Just like Juergen (we must be on the same page!) I did my own piano recording last weekend. We did it direct to DSD @ 5.8 mHz via a Korg and also direct to high speed 2-track open reel simultaneously. Without any conversion of the DSD (we played it back on that interface) the final product was just not quite as realistic sounding to the "live event" as the analog tape was---but it was close. Hopefully DXD gets even "closer", but I'd have to hear it to believe it. Of course, as you might notice by looking at my avatar, I'm a big fan of the reels! OK, NOW we can get back on topic, LOL!

CharlyD; I would have lost my loudspeakers twice in JRiver within the first 10 minutes of using it with the ASIO driver, had I not been using my headphones at the time. Once was trying to play a hi-rez wav file (24/176.4 HRX) and the other was playing a hi-rez AIFF file (24/192 Kent Poon Jazz Prologue). Of course to make matters worse, those were like 2 of the first 3 things I tried to play in JRiver. Others reported the same thing happening to them earlier in the thread. I quicky deleted JRiver. Convert everything to FLAC, or BEWARE! For me, no loss of speakers is worth the convienience of not having to switch sample rates. YMMV.

"That also means, of course, that KMixer is always doing its horrible, horrible sample rate conversions to the sample rate that's locked in for the E-MU audio interface if the locked sample rate is not the same as the native sample rate of the respective track..." Yes!! that is exactly what is happening. If you don't use ASIO or KS, then all you are doing it up and down sampling if you don't have the correct sample rate setting on the EMU panel. I found this out 6 months back, but you are a very persistent one to find it out all over again! LOL! I can "hear" myself the differences when playing back HRx material on the EMU via wav_output when I sometimes "forget" to set the EMU to 176.4 and its mistakenly at 44.1. Does not sound nearly as good, because there is a lot of sample rate conversion going on. Now, when I set it to 176.4 in the EMU panel and play back the HRx material, then it sounds much better----even though as Juergen states it is not "bit perfect". If anyone is all hung up on that (I for one am NOT because of what I noted in my tests), then use the native ASIO drivers with a DAW like Wavlab (or convert all your files to FLAC and use JRiver or pull your hair out in Foobar resetting your ASIO settings every other track) and you are then "bit perfect" and can rest easy. I have tested all the players. The only thing that is "safe" and stable for hi-rez material and sounds phenomenal on my setup is Media Monkey with wav_output. And "bit perfect" or not, it sounds just as good to me as when using the ASIO drivers in wavlab! The only downfall in using what I am using is that I always need to **remember** to manually switch the control panel on the EMU to match the sample rate of the material I'm playing. BTW, very interesting to read that the current designer at EMU came from Apogee. Makes sense to me, they sounded for all intensive purposes "identical". RedRocks---yes, the 400k system is very impressive. Here is my friends web-site, some really cool stuff on there. He is also a recording engineer like our good friend Juergen here at CA: http://www.awardaudio.com/Default.htm

Yep, I play all kinds of material out of wav_output. From 16/44.1 to 24/192 and everything in between. The 0404 driver, if you have updated it, will always start at 44.1kHz. Thats what EMU specified in the driver update. In MM with wav_output you will need to always change the setting in the EMU panel to the sample rate of what you are playing. That's old news. Only ASIO and Kernal Streaming with the EMU allow for "automagic" detection of the sample rate you are playing and the EMU will automatically adjust to whatever it is. Every other alternative you will have to manually adjust the sample rate yourself in the EMU control panel.

There are some at Design w/Sound: http://www.designwsound.com/dwsblog/?page_id=318 Just don't analyze the data in Spectralab for any meaningful things. There is a brick wall filter at 20kHz on all the hi rez stuff. Still, the sound quality is simply magnificient!! P.S. looks like I jinxed your Winamp eh?? My guess will be that it will only get worse for you when you try the higher resolution material, just a hunch.

I think I did what Synfreak recommends above. See my post here from a few months back. "Well, I did some interesting tests last night at a freinds house and thought I would add it to this thread for some closure. I have been using MediaMonkey with wav output but as the EMU does not automagically switch sample rates to line up to the music being played (44.1 or 96 or 196, etc.) I was never sure if I was getting TRUE bit output through Media Monkey to my DAC. Each time I switched to different materials sample rates in MM, I have to manually go into the EMU's control panel and select the proper bitrate. A minor pain, yes, but MM sounds so good and works so smoothly on my PC without any hiccups that its worth the small hassle. BUT---was I getting true bit/sample output when doing this? Was wav_output really reproducing "high resolution"? The only way to know "for sure" was to send something of high rez out of the EMU's analog outputs and capture and analyze the data using another Hi-rez interface. That said, I hauled the EMU over to a friends house who has an Apogee Rosetta and Big Ben. We played an HRx cut from my PC through the EMU using MediaMonkey and wav output and captured and recorded it to the Apogee at 24/176.4. From there, we put what we captured on the Apogee from my EMU into a frequency spectrum analyzer (SpectraPlus) to look at the data. Well, sure enough there was output in the recording we made well past 40kHz (topped out around 50 for this particular track we tested) and the Apogee locked on playback to 24/176.4 which means that the EMU is surely able to do up to its claimed 24/192 through MediaMonkey with wav output. So, that said, EMU 0404 owners can now "rest easy" that using MM and wav output is giving you "legit" high resolution at its analog outputs. Next, for fun, my friend wanted to compare the EMU 0404 to his Apogee recording setup for playback just to see what the differences would be between the 2. We loaded the same HRX cut onto both out PC's and using two inputs on his preamp and matching levels we could easily toggle between the $200 EMU 0404 and the $3500 Rosetta/Big Ben combo. Well, I promised him I would not go onto any forums and describe what we heard (he's still in disbelief I'm sure) so I'll just leave it at this: EMU 0404 USB owners can also "rest easy" that they are getting truly state of the are high resolution sound out of this little $200 "wonder-box". Regards, Joel" And as an aside, that test was done on a 400k audiophile system with Genesis 1.1 loudspeakers------so with all due respect to Juergen and what he mentions about "if your system was better then you would hear a bigger difference" needs to be taken with that YMMV theory. We heard virtually NO difference between wav_output in MM and ASIO in Wav_lab, though the latter MIGHT HAVE been just a hair better. Certainly nothing to lose ANY sleep over, FWIW. When we did the actual comparison between the 0404 and Apogee for playback sound quality, I did use ASIO in wav_lab however just to give the little EMU all the help it might need. Funny thing was, it needed no help at all and for all intensive purposes sounded "identical" to the Apogee Rosetta/Big Ben setup.

Two Rocks: Sounds like the Tracker is a nice unit. Sounds very close to the EMU 0202 as well, with perhaps the same chipset as that particular unit. Though with no power supply it would probably just be too much strain for my application (laptop w/external USB portable HD already eating power). As they are cheap however I may try one out. I have no care for the digital ins/outs anyhow----who wants to be restricted to 96kHz anyhow? So all I use are the analog outs on my 0404. Yeah, I had scary stuff like what you mentioned in Winamp happen to me a couple times too ("run for your life" static/distortion/etc.), and it didn't matter where I set the buffer on the Japanese ASIO driver. I had the same thing happen in JRiver as well trying to play a wav file once. I think much of this has to do with the fact I play only hi-rez files on all of these programs (winamp, MM, Foobar, JRiver, etc) and it tends to give them "fits". Luckily, I'm "smart enough" to test everything with headphones before going "live" to my system when trying a new player or new settings, but still I have really expensive loudspeakers and I just cannot risk anything but the most stable players (who wants to blow things up??), 1 of which is Media Monkey, and the other (gasp) is WMP for my redbook material. And of course, all the software that came with the EMU is "safe" too. I may try the winamp again for fun though, maybe I have learned enough and tweaked my PC enough since my last trial that I "may" make it stable. Thanks again for the info.

The EMU will need its own driver and they have updated drivers on the EMU website. Its not "plug and play" if you know what I mean....

I'm with ya on the "don't trust, verify" which was why I did my simple tests on the EMU 0404 to begin with. I wanted to make sure I was actually hearing HRx material in all its glory. I am. Hmmm, maybe the EMU Tracker Pre just likes winamp more or something then the 0404 USB. A lot of us tried it with the .67 Japanese ASIO and we all had the same issues (some worse then others). Though you do have a very powerful machine there which could be the main difference. Here, I would get Winamp to play OK, but would get a lot of "ticks and pops" which was frustrating. I played with the latency monitor a long time ago you linked to as well, and everthing stays green on my PC so I don't know where the hiccup is. The bottom line is that Media Monkey with wav_output solved all those issues here---so I use that. BUT---I need to manually switch simple rates all the time as the downfall, which is a PITA. Would be really nice to be rolling along like you are in Winamp with the EMU Tracker Pre automagically adjusting sample rates and not having to deal with that. Have you ever compared that Tracker Pre to the 0404? Looks like the Tracker Pre can do everything the 0404 can, just some different chipsets....