audiofilodigital

Ok, I see. Thanks, Ferenc.

Well, I found a similar problem (problem for me, not for professionals, obviously) while searching through the different Pro-DACs: you are mentioning the price of a professional product (Sonic Studio 305) which has... 8 channels IN/OUT (sounds a kind of Metric Halo to me, by the way). This means you are(metaphorically said) 'paying' for... 8 Analog-to-Digital converters + 8 Digital-to-Analog converters. Its price, obviously, has to be expensive. Now imagine its price if such product were manufactured by the traditional Hi-End manufacturer (for home, I mean). Anyway, I don´t know where you buy, but based on the web of the manufacturer, that model with its 16 converters (4 x A-D-A)should cost: 6000 + 4000 the Quested (link in my previous post). Logically, we'd only need (and pay for) the number of channels (just 2) & kind of converters (Ditigital-to-Analog, only) as in the Devialet. There is no other way here: I spent months and months comparing prices and qualities in electronics as well as analyzing the model of both markets (Professional vs Domestic Hi-End). But this is not the subject of this post, I guess :-). For more specific examples, and as said before, you can get a Weiss DAC for 3000 $ (Professional distributor), or, the same model, for 5000 $ (Hi-End distributor). By the way, just curiosity, ferenc... what is the difference (there must be something I don´t know about that) between the Metric Halo and the Model 305 ? It must be important to justifiy the difference in price (https://www.mhsecure.com/mhdirect/product.php?productid=49&cat=0&page=1 ) between those 2 models (http://store.sonicstudio.com/hw305.html) but I don´t get the point... Where is it? Not irony here just pure technical curiosity (I am not a professional musician nor recording engineer)... as they look the same...

Excelent, Ferenc. Clap my hands for your review and the fact that you listened to an almost crossoverless desing (Zu). Again, it seems very clear that the best "passive crossover" is "no-crossover" (or only that Mundorf capacitor between amp. and speaker itself). The less between the motor and the wheel, the better. It's pure logic (when properly done, of course !). It also calls my attention the price of both systems. I am not sure about the price of the Devialet (in US$) + ZU speakers, but I guess they, both together, won´t go below 19.000 $. (loudspeakers cables apart). Now, let's have a look at the price of the excellent Lavry DA10+those good Quested active speakers (http://www.proaudiodesign.com/Quested-VS2108-Monitor-System.html)used even by Hans Zimmer: we got a TOTAL amount of... 5,200 $. Not a fair comparation for most of the audiophiles. Frankly speaking, very fair and clear for me. Again, thank you for your time and comments. I couldn't explain it better, down in numbers, than you. Now... could we imagine/dream if we've tried the same comparation (Devialet+Zu) against a Professional DAC + Active loudspeakers, both products for a total amount 20.000 US$ ?

"Yes. I do feel that all high end (read expensive), if they are truly 'good' should sound alike on the same recording." Apart from the fact that "expensive" is a subjective matter, the retail price will depend on the applied margins. Yes, Hi-End has the highest margins regarding electronics: you'd pay much more for same electronics because of those Higher-margins. Have a look at WEISS (DAC2 PRO vs Minerva Hi-End): 2 identical products. More expensive in the Hi-End (5000$ vs 3000 $) but you get the pure Hi-End touch: a new front-plate + new audiophile feet for the Minerva. Same with any other Hi-End product. Maybe you will understand now why dCS has left the Pro-business. Why not getting much more money for selling the same products to no-professionals who are wishing to pay more for the same? :-)))) "Re professionals. As they insist on feeding us with highly compressed music as much as they can get away with their opinion is of no value whatsoever, and I most certainly do not, as a body of people, consider them 'expert' in any way. Obviously there must be some exceptions." I'm not talking about professionals as 'experts' but about the PRO-products designed by PRO-engineers. Anyway, whatever: you will always eat their food (music recordings) with their own selection of ingredients (mikes, A-to-D converters, mix, mastering...). Like it or not. ...or you choose the music based on the recording engineer ? :-). "Don't like active loudspeakers. Simply because should I want to change them after a year or so I am not only discarding a pair of 'hard to get rid of without losing a whole lot of money' speakers, but if the next ones I like happen to be inactive I then have to buy a power amp as well. So no thanks." About losing money... have a look to the depreciation in value for Hi-End components... hard to beat. Specially at this moment. One product, X-margin. 2 products, 2X-margins. Simply commercial maths. "And as for Devaliet - leaving the DAC aside, the power amp is just a grossly overcomplicated way of doing what should be a simple job. Again, no thanks." I am not defending its internal circuitry but the integrated-concept. I can appreciate the same conceptual idea regarding some NAIM/Linn products. 'Though I still prefer to choose the DAC by myself (specially thinking of this fast-present times with DSD, etc.) and avoid to waste the amplified signal turned into unuseful "heat" inherent to passive crossovers. The most expensive heat (but musical!) in the world. But thank you for proving your point of view which is very interesting from certain marketing vision.

"If accuracy is the goal (and I think it should be) then the closer you get to the high end, and the more money you spend, the more ALL systems should sound the same." High-end is for domestic users with its particular margins. Go to PRO-word and you will discover a different (and serious) world with a different approach to get better results with, obviously, less money. About sounding the same... Ah ! here you have hit the bull's eyes (right between the eyes I'd say). Isn't the same orchestra/voice/guitar/piano playing for all of us or been recorded at studio? But yes, that is where the commercial/marketing trick lays: we want to have different systems... by nature. Have some fund (basics in Marketing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs ). However, you can find very different solutions with many different DACs (also in the PRO-world: Burl Audio, Cranesong, Crookwood, D.A.D., Lavry, Prism Sound, TC Electronics, Grace Design, Dangerous Music, Apogee electronics, Mytek...), AND different active loudspeakers: Genelec, Adam, ATC, Barefoot, Dynaudio, Geithain, Grimm -by the way, have a look at what this people ALREADY invented years ago... with the amplification in the right place-, Holm Acoustic, Klein+Hummel, Linkwitz Lab -same engineer that invented that particular crossover, now advocating for active systems-, Manger, Meridian, PMC, PSI, Solphonique, SGR, Sonicweld, VLSI... only to name some of them. Now add a digital cable + a pair of XLR ones and you'll get a large number of combinations to play with (probably you will never be able to get to know all the results), but ALWAYS, with completed products (completed by professionals). I can understand that playing with the bricolage/mixture of amplifiers and passive loudspeakers (plus loudspeakers cables) must provide a kind of fan (and expensive) entertainment to spend the free-time (and money). I agree that this may mean less millions of combinations and so, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" would turn into a shorter-movie. But I like to lean on true engineers' knowledge and judge their achivements.

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/discuss/sites/default/files/Feedback-iPad-connection.pdf

Not sure, Bernard. The Hi-End consumer market has been a mine-of-gold for many years... do you think that all manufacturers involved in the business are not going to fight against that ? Let me hesitate... this is business, a way of life and earning money for many people... "Not everyone likes the same sound, right?". Well, what can I say... I have never heard any protest regarding the sound of a trumpet playing live... can you imagine? "That trumpet is sounding too soft !" That is only possible in the world of audiophiles self-educated to make the system sound like they wish, which, on the other hand, depends on the season, mood, etc... :-). My goal is to hear all that is present in the recording with all its defects and virtues (mostly, defects but... that's the funny thing: to discover the good and bad recordings). And the way to reach that is to remove all the absurd things that are not necessary while putting the remaining necessary ones in the right place according to its technical function. A Hi-End Mastering minimalist system ? Sure. Yep, I don't dislike the concept of the Devialet but I'm not sure they will be able to reach the top of the mountain if they trust in the typical Hi-End retailer. IN the past some professiona companies tried something similar (Tannoy) with some digital systems and they failed in the domestic-market ( I know because of I was sent one of those systems to test and provide my opinion). From a technical point of view, it was excellent, from a commercial point of view... impossible to be successful, you cannot try to teach anything related to techinicism to the current Hi-End retailer. But, maybe, in a future, a new generation of serious retailers may appear and realize that mixing expensive cables, and tubes with transistors is not the way to get a real High-Fidelity system. Abstract art may be OK for the bad painters and amateurs so they can mix color as they want. Accuracy, precision and High-definition in technical photographs are a different one.

It is not essential, it is just one of the 2 options you only have as a buyer, Bernardl. Because you only have 2 main pieces here: the DAC + active loudspeakers (how boring ! :-). Plus... room-acoustics. Related to the freedom to match the best-amp (the best amp for... what pair of speakers?)...You know? as I am not an electronic engineer/designer, and so, I don´t have any idea about the exact needs (load) of the speakers (tweeter and woofer previously matched by an expert), I think I will leave that complicated matter to a real engineer who can assume the whole responsability and I will judge his final result. That way, I will avoid the everlasting excuses from ALL passive-loudspeakers manufacturers... kind of "Oh, put the blame on that amplifier of yours: that's not the proper one to manage our loudspeakers!" or... "Ah, it is clear: you should use this specific Anaconda-cable that workd perfectly with our wonderful loudspeakers timing the harsh sound you're mentioning"... well, probably you know what I mean :-). I must admit one thing about the Devialet, at least, this people have been brave enough to assume several tasks: the DAC + amplification. Pity that the amplification may not be in the perfect place. But, compared to what the market is offering (an absurd puzzle of multiple pieces to be joined by amateurs) I recognize that it is a brave product. ...and if you don't like it, well, you know: put the blame on the loudspeaker cable :-)), for instance. When Equalizers were rejected by the Hi-Fi community, the Hi-End started to grow... and grow... and grow: instead of 1 (average at that moment) product, the industry could sell whatever piece to reach the same goal: change the frequency response BUT with 1000 passive components.. and all could be sold many times with different levels of price ! My God, what a success for marketeers !

Choose the DAC you want so you choose the way you remove the jitter: big-buffer memory (Chord), reclocked DATA, RSC,... why people like to mention problems instead of mentioning all the already invented solutions? For me (maybe I'm the only one) it is very clear: only get the best DAC + best active loudspeakers you can afford. That is where the real Hi-End "mystery" is right now. It is amazing how some persons like to make things more complicated. 2 variables are enough, why should we add something else? Then, make a proper room-equalization (after a passive one) and, voilá, you are there. I know, I know, manufacturers and the market would have only 2 products to be sold/bought... but frankly speaking I care about accuracy and precision not about business.

"The main achievement of the Devialet is to ensure that digital data is transported to an optimilly located dac without any jitter issues." Once you receive the info in the client/receiver you only need a DAC which cancel/minimize the jitter (as much as possible). Connect a DAC (kind of Benchmark) and measure the jitter that gets into the chips... "When you consider the amount of money spent by audiophiles to synchronize sources with nuclear clocks," Atomic clocks are the most absurd things that anybody can use in a DAC to reproduce 1 source. That is not said by me: you can read Daniel Weiss, Dan Lavry... http://ukiro.com/2011/05/12/interview-daniel-weiss/ ...or any serious professional: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun10/articles/masterclocks.htm "the amount of money spent in high end cables to ensure just that, I have a hard team understanding you really think they haven't achieved anything special here." Sorry, I have been using active loudspeaker for years, so I guess you must be talking about other kind of cables. "It is a well known fact that speaker cables are the least impacting of all in a system." I agree with you in this point, obviously. Now, let's say that to the hundreds/thousands of audiophiles spending their money on them :-) "What is relevant is the matchinf of the electronic with the speaker load, and that is something Devialet is very well equiped to deal with in future releases thanks to the tight integration of powerful DSP at the core of their infrastructure." It is hard to believe that a stereo amplifier (in future, specially) can be better equipped, in the present, than a "well-designed" active loudspeaker because of technical reason. I repeat: well-designed active loudspeaker. ...or do you expect that such "tight integration" be done by an amateur/end-user? Get a simple & good Ethernet/WiFi DAC, connect it DIRECTLY to a pair of good active loudspeakers. The total amount will hardly reach the amount of money you will pay for the shining Devialet. You can control the volume in the digital or analog domain (for that I recommend a simple TC Electronic pilot= 80 Euros, XLR cables attached to the knob). And, the power-amplifiers (2 of them) have been carefully matched to the loads represented by the tweeter+woofer. I know: that would be the end of Hi-End... or the proof that Hi-End is a group of expensive products that, joined together, can only provide average results in terms of accuracy. But maybe, the fun is in the journey itself...

Absolutely right, Miska. Networking over Ethernet (wire) or Wi-Fi (wireless) are asynchronous by design. Packages of data are send using a protocol like TCP/IP. This protocol is very strict, it is build with bit perfect transmission in mind. It is a bi-directional protocol, if a package fails the checksum test, the receiver simply tells the sender so and it will get a new one. . What really surprises me is the fact that some people who use to write in this specialized website/forum can be surprised of that feature!. In other words, nothing new, but 'marketing sentences/terms' make miracles (specially if the clients are total ignorants about what they already are using at home/office). You can buy a simple DLNA receiver (a cheap one if you only want to make a try, like the DP1W from LG, 80€) and receive, not only music 24/192 kHz, but also pics and movies (1080p through Ethernet), or many other brands. Once you get the receiver/client, you only have to get the digital signal out (from the dig. out) and connect it to your favourite DAC (you can choose the DAC, not the one that Devialet selected for you). The real trick is to put the amplification as close as possible to the wild-load represented by the loudspeaker itself. So, from my point of view, Devialet is only joining together a WiFi receiver+DAC+Amplification altogether (kind of Peatree Nova with WiFi receiver)... while still keeping separated (divorced?) the most delicate couple: amplification+speaker. A shining piece of marketing (stylish included) with a lot of bla, bla, bla. So, it will be very popular among certain audiophiles, I presume...:-). For further information about the technology that 99% of us ALREADY have at home, read a little bit http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/Performance.html and save a lot of money (if you care about your wallet).

I think no more comments are needed... http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun10/articles/masterclocks.htm

It seems that it is much better accepted in the Hi-Fi (High Fidelity... to what? Easy, to each own taste, well, that way 'infidelity' gets into a new dimmension :-) ). While active systems are a far better solution on paper, it is true that it gives the chance to hide cheap electronics inside. Overall there is a true here: whatever the manufacturer of active loudspeakers does... his brand-name is the only responsible of the results. So, what is this ? No more excuses??? ...no more blaming these or those cables? or not the right power to feed those wonderful speakers? ...or not the right speakers for such wonderful poweramp? Where is the game then? How boring ! Have you ever seen a car designed around a wheel? has anybody seen motors to be installed in any car? No, because the motor company accepts the responsability of the final result: you may like a BMW or a Mercedes, a Ford... whatever. You can be sure that none of those brands will put the blame on the tyres or the brakes:-), But that's a serious industry, nor a bricolage game (joining parts by simple amateurs). After creating a market making money on anaconda-cables, and monstered power-amplifiers (kind of very macho-amplifier) We all know about the fact that such business is, precisely, highly interested in keeping its customers going in circles through an everlasting journey... with no end. Another example: "No capacitors in the signal path !" Ha, sure... until the signal reaches those coils, resistors and... capacitors in those jurassic passive crossovers before reaching the wheels to get moved. But, again, this commercial trick helps to the business, so you can make any kind of mix with a very low risk of breaking something. You only have to connect and listen, connect another one and listen. You are happy now ? Who cares? We all know you will be unhappy tomorrow: there is never satisfaction in a long term. The wet dream of any marketeer ! Dealers don't need to have any high knowledge of anything (how many engineers are attending HiEnd stores, I'm wondering? Probably no one as it is not necessary to have a degree on anything to mix products designed that way: you rarely will break anything:if you have the money, the passion you can have a HiEnd store. But active crossovers, problems with phase, loops, etc. Ah, that's different... Let's face it: HiEnd, itself, is not sincere about 'using the latest technology to get the most from recordings': it is merely a bricolage of parts for amateurs. A simple hobby where the anti-scientific method of a basic trial-and-error (mixing products to hear what happens today and for how long you are satisfied) is still the base of the business. In fact, it is the core and soul of those high-priced products. At the end, who knows better about a tweeter and a woofer needs than the end-user :-) and his technical knowledge? Probably a very smart engineer who designs a monster of 300 watts to manage whatever, at expense of wasting half of the power for nothing. Hi-Fidelity? Sure as any hobby, Hi-End mixing game has his Highly faithful followers. Why not? So, let's keep the business alive separating everything in more parts. The more parts, the more complicated to get something right...specially when the one to face that puzzle is a simple amateur. But it must be very funny and satisfactory, based on the money people spends on joining such pieces together. My 2 cents for the guy who rejected the equalizer from the ecuation: from that moment, an very profitable business started for cables, tubes, transistors, etc. My other 2 cents for the other one who rejected complete (as it should be) active loudspeakers. Let's see what those amateurs can do mixing 1 million different amplifiers with 1 million different loudspeakers and to make things even more complicated, let's put 1000 different cables in the middle. The hobby will never end...

From rapid detection to constant repetition... Our sense of hearing is much more than the frequency analyzer most people take it for. In a musical context humans first perceive and interpret a pitchless noise (a so-called transient) followed by the actual note (a repeating vibration, frequency). In fact each natural tone is preceded by such a transient noise. It informs our sense of hearing about the location, type and size of the sound source, e. g. an instrument. And as music is such a complex mixture of transients and tones, it can only be reproduced naturally by means of extremely fast and precise sound transducers. The Manger sound transducer works according to the bending wave principle similar to an inverted ear. This fullrange driver is not based on energy-storing powers and reproduces music and other sound events without any delay. Thanks to an extremely fast rise time of less than 13 ?s and a wide frequency range of 80 Hz to 40 kHz even the most rapid transients and most complex musical structures are radiated naturally from one point: The prerequisite for realistic spatial imaging of the instruments and extraordinarily detailed resolution of the music. Thinking ahead for you Fast sound transducers which accurately reproduce subtle musical structures, and woofers which generate even the lowest octaves with ease are important but not the end of the story. The design of the MSMs1 is inherently consistent and its functions are very effective. The dimensions adhere to physical laws and the cabinet perfectly enhances the sonic reproduction. Despite its functional design the enclosure is stylishly elegant and classy. It blends into the room without looking like a status symbol. Manger also implemented a number of control options that will facilitate the life of music lovers, including various correction filters and control switches as well as a limiter for preventing system overload. The clearly laid out and selfexplaining control panel makes user manuals dispensable. Classic design, excellent quality, amazing reproduction – the accurate, innovative and authentic MSMs1. Precise – in the tradition of the watchmaker’s craft. Innovative – like an inverted human ear, minute details arranged in space Authentic – the artist, the reproduction, the experience Music – rediscovered in its true dimension...

I agree, George. BMC-2 (TC Electronics) is a cheap jewel used even by Bob Katz in some of his 'trainings', I only miss the AES/EBU input. As far as I've read the Manger unit has evolved along these years (Neodymium magnets, etc.) until today, specially as they have been installed in many different areas (PA, Monitoring, etc.). I think they still sell their 'transducers' to the DIY fans, 'tough it seems that the new active models are the most populars, specially in Germany but personally I feel to old to start such a project on my own :-). My next system is going to take that minimalist road: computer (different mediaplayers) + DAC w volume control + Active Monitors. Personally I find the active crossover a kind of wonderful solution: nobody but the manufacturer knows better what 'food' his kids demand. The idea of no-crossover-point in the most delicate (for our ears) range of frequencies (between 1000 and 3000 Hz) is very attractive...