Running DCS Vivladi DIRECT?


Hey Folks,

Anybody out there who cares to comment on running the Vivaldi DAC direct  to the Power amp.

Please compare with running through your favorite preamp and elucidate the differences.

Thanks & keep enjoying our hobby!

Ag insider logo xs@2xsthekepat
folkfreak
Having said all that spinning vinyl has turned out to be so much more rewarding these last few days
Funny you should mention vinyl, I also love to listen to it now and then especially on old stuff like Beatles ect which kills the digital of the same thing, which tends to be cold and very pin-pong from left to right, and no bass or body to the vocals like vinyl does.

So I knuckled down to find out why I preferred it with old stuff over digital , besides all the clicks and pops, was the channel separation. So I concentrated on the channel separation of vinyl, and at best it’s 30-40db at 1khz, above and below that, it worse almost mono in the bass, digital is over 100db separation across the audio band 20hz -20khz in most cases

So what I did was make a switchable network circuit to bleed the left into right and visa versa on the output of my cd player to blend the channel separation from 100db down to 30db and instantly you could hear those old Beatles, Beach Boys, ect come to life.
Almost gone was the exaggerated ping-pong effect, the bass was richer because it was "mono’ized" and the voices had more body because the of the richer bass, the only down side was the image wasn’t as spread across the room, which is also understandable, because of the "mono’isation". But all this and still no clicks pops and surface noise, it’s a winner.

This CD/digital "vinyl mimicking" circuit with far more complexity would be even closer to vinyl, if below 1khz the 30db it would follow the vinyl’s worsening channel separation in the bass and treble.

Cheers George
It must be very sad to believe that everything we find attractive in this hobby is an artifact or coloration ...

I found this a very interesting piece on how our hearing works
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/theres-an-inverse-piano-in-your-head/
It must be very sad to believe that everything we find attractive in this hobby is an artefact or coloration


Ah yes, but not sad, just understandable,
As I said this was only with old stuff Beatles, Beach Boys ect. that was recorded and voiced with no digital involved, and where the "channel separation null’ing network" worked a treat with digital.
With later stuff recorded and voiced on digital equipment, the null’ing circuit is definitely better left out, and to me far better through the digital gear, and not through vinyl.

Cheers George

@georgehifi That's a very good piece of analysis and detective work George. I am particularly impressed that you could actually design and implement a circuit to do what you did.

For a rock kicking civil engineer, I am always amazed at how electronics work and how it all fits together. I think I should have studied a different engineering stream.

Well done!

@folkfreak A very fascinating article. love the science in it.

Easy to do simply on a scope using test bench cd's, just a flat across the board 30db channel separation with resistance across left and right channels, but to get it follow like a cartridge takes quite a bit more complexity.

Bit of a channel separation discussion on the Vinyl Engine
https://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=44346

Cheers George