Not wasting my time on new Digital

Just got back from hearing an all Audio Note SET system. There was naturalness, and detail in spades.

That's why I still love my Linn Ikemi! It's sound is less stepped than most cd players out there thus sounding more analog.*>)

Muralman1, you wrote:

"Get a non oversampler player...any make will do...I am using the cheap Consonance 120...it played the most realistic piano in the room on my Scinnies so far...I have listened to a wide sample of oversampling CDPs and DACs...none do service to the material imbedded on the CD...Even the cheapest AN or Consonance sound far more natural to me"

Informed that the Consonance actually was an oversampling player (I'll take Drubin's word on that, I know nothing about it), you then wrote:

"Some material sounds first rate...piano to a lesser degree...The highs have that same edginess that all oversampling players have...the mids are cardboardy as well."

Can you explain how "cardboardy" mids and "edgy" highs yield the "most realistic" piano? Or how this machine can sound "far more natural" than any oversampling player you've heard, yet suddenly suffer from the same flawed highs "that all oversampling players have" once you learn that it *is* an oversampling player? An inordinate fondness for making sweeping catagorical generalizations without basis, perhaps? Or maybe you're agenda-driven?

Rapogee: I too use an older Theta (DSPro Basic IIIa, with a Pearl transport). A few years ago, under the onslaught of propoganda concerning "upsampling", I decided to give a try with something newer to hear what all the fuss was about, but the popular and well-reviewed DAC I got fell well short of the Theta IMO. I didn't assume this meant that all "upsampling" machines sucked of course, but I haven't bothered again since, though like you I occasionally wonder if I'm missing anything, especially since CDs still don't sound as good in many respects as my rather humble vinyl rig.

But I'm not the sort of hardcore audiophile who listens to a lot of different gear, and anyway a bypass test I constructed to help objectively evaluate the two different-sounding DACs showed that in fact, the Theta is essentially getting most things right or very nearly so. My gut feeling is it's probably more the transport than the DAC which could stand some improvement, and that getting the units modded instead may be a more satisfying way to go, although before springing for that I'll probably want to hear at least one well-regarded, newer all-in-one player in the hope of saving rack space (it would need to have digital inputs though).

However, this rising chorus in support of non-oversampling strikes me much as the one for "upsampling" did. Same type of rhetoric, replete with catagorical pronouncements -- another "magic bullet" as it were, to use Sam Tellig's regrettable (that's a polite way of saying stupid) phrase. I don't know if there's anything to it -- I tend to think this would introduce problems as much as avoid them -- but I don't believe in magic in the form of bullets or anything else, and Muralman1 you're not telling us anything to help convince me otherwise.

Some speaker systems, amps, preamp, cd players...ect, have a quality thats hard to put into words...many old and new components get this part right.

Vinyl gets this part right and is why it did not die it's predicted death. My old Counterpoint Dac gets this part right to...along with many others, old and new.

The ability of a component to convay "everything" without drawing attention to anything. Nothing rolled of, nothing tipped up, Balance...total integration from top to bottom in such a way that when you campare them to other products you may at first deem the other product better.

Many times the new product has that something "that stands out" as better because it draws your attention to "that something"....not a good sign for long term satisfaction of that product.

A lot of times the components that "get this part right" are the ones that fit the old thread...."Components I sold, that I wish I had not".

Probably, in the right designers hands...newer is better...Don't you think?

Dave

Hello Zaidesman. Sorry about the confusion. I just revved up my system yesterday the first time with the Consonance in play, starting with piano. The highs of a piano are not so high, and the piano is stationary in a single plane. Thus, the very good performance.

It wasn't until I put on some spatial music, like a full orchestra, that the flattening out and unreal over-sampling highs began asserting themselves.

I am going to reinsert my Lambda/Audio Note combo, and compare. I already know what I am going to hear, scary real mids, but gently rolled off in both directions. I want to find a non over-sampler that is more extended.

Still, I am pleasantly surprised at the Crystal CS4396 DAC chip. I would give the builder credit for bringing out the best. It sure beats the Burr Brown chip players I am familiar with, and that's a lot.