SWL Posted October 1, 2016 Share Posted October 1, 2016 Thought I'd start a discussion on how digital audio has become more common in the last few years and what others have experienced along the way. My digital experience has evolved to 100% of my listening. Feeding fully restored vintage gear with DSP by way of streaming music from the internet or playing lossless files from a music server is all I do these days.....for about the last two years now. The sound quality is THAT GOOD. What's the most important aspect to getting great sounding digital audio? Is HI-Rez worth the effort? Is 320kbps good enough? What to look for when buying a DAC? Different options for using DSP? My recent change from USB to HDMI feeding my DAC has transformed my listening experience. My knowledge in this area is very limited but help from others here (you know who you are) has helped immensely and hopefully others who are interested and/or getting into digital audio for the first time can benefit from this discussion. Thinking back 20-30 years ago that we would be playing music from our phones, computers, tablets etc. with libraries that consist of millions of songs....and sound this good....still blows my mind. Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWL Posted October 1, 2016 Author Share Posted October 1, 2016 I made paragraphs when I typed it on my phone. Don't know what happened....Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teaman Posted October 1, 2016 Share Posted October 1, 2016 I like the ease of streaming the likes of Spotify, itunes radio, Pandora, iHeart and others but I am old school. I own about 1200 cd's and I continue to shop for them. I like the tangible feel of ownership with discs. I only stream when I am lazy or when I am heading to bed and want to doze off with music playing. Otherwise I put "repeat" on the CD player and fall asleep with that playing. I am sure i am in the minority but I still love the fact of owing something physical. Tim 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derrickdj1 Posted October 1, 2016 Share Posted October 1, 2016 I am also a digital guy. The easy of obtaining a wide variety of material is also a plus. I use a combination of lossy and lossless media. I can't reliably tell a difference betwee high quality mp3 and their lossless counter part. Sure, there are some good and bad lossy and lossless files. I like the look of a TT but, most of the music that I like is not on vinyl. I like a lot of today's junk,lol. As of late, I've been buy more good quality mp3's than lossless. To my ears, I can't justify the cost, limited selection, need for large storage, ect. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWL Posted October 1, 2016 Author Share Posted October 1, 2016 I own about 1200 cd's and I continue to shop for them. I like the tangible feel of ownership with discs. I am sure i am in the minority but I still love the fact of owing something physical. TimI know exactly where you're coming from as well as many others. Buying vinyl, cassettes and cd's was my thing for many years. Now, my laptop sits about eight feet away and I sit in my sweet spot looking for new and old music on my phone while I listen. Having album artwork and info about the artist etc. somehow goes hand in hand with opening up an album jacket for the first time.....or something like that.Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWL Posted October 1, 2016 Author Share Posted October 1, 2016 I'm interested to hear how many here believe in upgrading their power supply for various digital audio components.Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWL Posted October 1, 2016 Author Share Posted October 1, 2016 http://uptoneaudio.com/products/ultracap-lps-1I'm mainly interested in this gizmo. There's a big thread on it over at CA.Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coytee Posted October 1, 2016 Share Posted October 1, 2016 No way I'm going to stream. I'm on a satellite and don't want to use the bandwidth. ($$$) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Its not digital audio if you are doing any conversion... its only digital as a storage medium. I think, and this is only my opinion, that a good digital front end is much much better than any analog front end. That being said, I still use a TT when I have one because that 10 bits and smooth dynamic range is still extremely impressive... specially when I think about what I own on vinyl versus what "quality" files I have access to digitally. Its much less about convenience for me, even though I do acknowledge there is an ease of access quotient, because my listening experience is more ritualized than it is a past time. Im drunk right now 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 I had to wait for the amp technology to catch up with my library. One word described the transition: LIQUID Water, juicy, creamy, smooth, milk, syrup, viscous, flows effortlessly...yup, that's digital, done right. "Aw, digital is gritty, harsh, lifeless, flat.....blah blah blah..." Sounds impossible, until you experienced it. Then the real journey begins. Some stuff sounds freaking amazing, while others not so much. Just like digital video, some native 4k stuff will leave your jaw on the floor in comparison to early cell phone videos floating around on eBaum's World that are barely watchable. Then you start to experience all the "shades of gray" in your source material. Lossy? Nope. 320? Still not enough to hide the warts for serious 2-ch. Lossless 16/44.1 LPCM ? The bench mark to measure all others. Sounds great when done right, but can sometimes hear the low-pass filter artifacts at volume. Completely underrated. 16/48? DAY-yum!! This can't be digital?? So smooth!! 24/96? Simply put, Reality.....limitless playback volume, dynamic range can tap out ANY system, without fault. DTS-MA? Great potential, so long as the soundtrack isn't squashed up against the rafters...unfortunately it usually is. Dolby True? Usually kick ***. Dolby ATMOS? Holy Crap. Now THAT is lossless surround sound! Object orientated is no joke. Will wow you even when downmixed. Digital FM? Sure....if they weren't broadcasting 128K MP3 all the time on 5 odd sidebands. NPR and a smattering of others are the only ones that have kept it close to real. Ideally, one station, one or two frequencies, full bandwidth...playing FLAC, CD or vinyl. HD radio? Can sell only because regular FM is so god-awful since the change to digital broadcast and subsequent overuse of lossy compression in support of multiplexing. It's a real trip to listen to a file and you can clearly discern when a track was pulled from a tape or record. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 ^^ What he said... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Some of my really good sounding material is only cd quality... of course some of my best sounding material is bluray audio. I still have tremendous issues with computer based storage in comparison to my stand alone system when compared head to head... although my astell kern sounds very good thru headphones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efzauner Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 1 hour ago, Schu said: Its not digital audio if you are doing any conversion... its only digital as a storage medium. I think, and this is only my opinion, that a good digital front end is much much better than any analog front end. That being said, I still use a TT when I have one because that 10 bits and smooth dynamic range is still extremely impressive... specially when I think about what I own on vinyl versus what "quality" files I have access to digitally. Its much less about convenience for me, even though I do acknowledge there is an ease of access quotient, because my listening experience is more ritualized than it is a past time. Im drunk right now made perfect sense after I had a few shots of whiskey ... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 zoinks.... A zingger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 54 minutes ago, Schu said: I think, and this is only my opinion, that a good digital front end is much much better than any analog front end. I don't have the ears for this, but was reading an old article/interview with Rupert Neve. He built analog consoles with response out to 50khz (and beyond), which engineers/producers could discern. At the time, no digital format could handle that high a freq. response. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derrickdj1 Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Most of my mp3 have some type enhancement and the avr will upsample anything that needs it automatically up to 4X. The mp3's are amazon which are ACC 256 and others use VBR for a better top end to the track. I have the lossless digital media but, can't tell the difference. Next weekend I will get a chance to see if a few guys coming over can tell the difference. I might just have old ears, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Digital audio has been around since the 80's. We're just using a different transport to play back the exact same data that's always been present on those shiny silver discs... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 19 hours ago, SWL said: What's the most important aspect to getting great sounding digital audio? Room acoustics + the quality of your loudspeakers + the quality of the recordings (including whether they've been cleaned up in terms of being unclipped and un-EQed). These three are about equal in importance. The lack of any one of them kills the deal, I've found. 19 hours ago, SWL said: Is HI-Rez worth the effort? This is a more of a personal question, I've found. Neil clearly invests in Hi-Rez. Since I've been unmastering recordings, it's a lot more of a toss-up. I find that for every one Hi-Rez download, I can buy 4-6 original CDs from the 1980s and unmaster them. The difference in sound isn't very much when you're talking about recordings made originally in something other than Hi-Rez digital (meaning the Hi-Rez recordings have to be originally made in Hi-Rez format within the last 10 years or so...nothing older than that...in order to actually sound significantly better). 19 hours ago, SWL said: Is 320kbps good enough? I don't use anything that's lossy. In practice, it never sounds very good to me. (But note that this isn't a limitation of MP3s and other lossy formats, but rather how they're used by the mastering folks.) 19 hours ago, SWL said: What to look for when buying a DAC? HDMI input. Other than that, a good analog output section is the real discriminator between these usually very good devices (I'd put my money elsewhere, like in loudspeakers.) 19 hours ago, SWL said: Different options for using DSP? I'm not sure what you're talking about here. It sounds as if you're talking about post-DAC analog input to a receiver or preamp, but I could be confused. My experience is that using a higher quality AVP with good DACs using regular HDMI inputs from computers or disc/streaming players (i.e., I'm not talking about an entry-level AV receiver, but a higher quality AV preamplifier with balanced XLR outputs), good quality amplifiers driven through higher quality digital crossovers (or even using AES/EBU connections between the preamplifier and digital crossovers), is key to sound quality. Chris 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWL Posted October 2, 2016 Author Share Posted October 2, 2016 HDMI input.....Amen to that, brother.[emoji106] Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWL Posted October 2, 2016 Author Share Posted October 2, 2016 By DSP I meant EQING in the digital domain. I'm using a DEQ2496 with an outboard DAC right now with excellent results but I'm also interested in those Mini-Dsp devices for two channel . Anyone here using one....or something similar?Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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