A Discussion About What Level Of Analog To Stop At

Just a thought but it seems counter productive to focus on top notch vinyl and stick a DSP unit in the middle of the chain. Of course, we have no idea how many A2D and D2A happened before the record was mastered, just like the old analog tape masters that went through dozens of TLO74 or NE 5558 generation op amps and we fuss about one stage.  Maybe t is the masking from less than 65 dB dynamic range covering up all the lower level garbage that comes from CDs?  Maybe just as tube noise and high low order distortions cover up the higher order that seem to be more objectionable. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not denigrating vinyl or tubes at all!  Just want to know why we perceive these differences and why one or the other makes our brain happy.  Why does a Benchmark sound flat and a Hegel so musical?  Lack of masking noise?  Does a tube preamp swamp a CD or class D amp so we don't hear the noise floor modulation?  We go to a live performance and the background is anything but black and the Macke PA speakers with eq like a mountain range sound just fine!

@tvrgeek ,

That is a statement only an inexperienced person can make. I do not mean that as a negative. People who experience a system with a processor like the Trinnov Amethyst in place are, to a person, blown away by the improvement in sound quality. Just subwoofer matching is enough to justify the unit. You can put these units in bypass and compare processed with unprocessed sound and no person could possibly prefer the unprocessed sound. Analog signals are fragile. Anything you do to them creates distortion. The same is not true of digital signals. You can not distort the meaning of a number. You can do anything you want to them without adding distortion. This opens up a world of capability not available to analog systems. If you are old enough to remember analog cell phones then you have experienced the comparison. Purely because of digital transmission modern cell phones are as good as they are today. The DAC only reads numbers. It totally ignores static and other distortions.  

The Benchmark is deadly accurate and the Hegel is not. This is purely a matter of preference. With a processor like the Trinnov you can make the Benchmark sound like the Hegel and take advantage of its superior signal to noise ratio. Hegel is made in China and I personally think at this point we need to avoid subsidizing that country. A processor like the Trinnov allows you to program your system to sound the way you want without adding additional artifacts while providing superior imaging and bass management. 

Humans are extremely change adverse and Audiophiles are definitely worse in this regard than other humans. Digital processors have been around for over 25 years and they still are not utilized at a level their value would suggest. Most of the high end audio companies lack the engineers capable of designing equipment of this nature. The farthest they go are DACs, a very basic item in the digital playbook. Some companies do streamers but not analog equipment. Of the hundreds of audio companies out there only a handful are capable of engineering processors like the Trinnov or DEQX. Anthem is the exception. They are the only company I can think of that does it all. 

The sound quality at many concerts is hideous. Much of the horror is do to the acoustics of the venue and not the equipment. The best sound quality is in smaller situations where the instruments are not sent through a PA. 

I think we are touching on an old conundrum: whether to take the Dionysian or Apollonian approach to pleasure? Which is to say, shall we visit as many flowers as possible and drink the nectar from many, or simply sit on the best of them all and enjoy that?

I was lucky in being guided to the cartridge I adore above all the others I have heard. I went off the rails when I thought it could no longer be rebuilt when John Wright retired. And now I find myself with six tonearms and cartridges, and most of the time I use the secondary cartridges as ways of delaying the stylus being worn out again on my favourite. This is unhealthy, and I am, in effect, denying myself the full pleasure of the sound I love, leading to the curious paradox of taking the Dionysian approach in order to delay gratification! I might be better off if I simply kept my best cartridge on my best tonearm and used it, maybe accepting that a dedicated mono cartridge on my second best tonearm could live alongside it. Then I could substitute a lesser cartridge when ever I have worn out the stylus, but replace the king whenever it comes back from its trip to the spa. I think this would be both rational, and maximise my listening pleasure.

No doubt, as a deleted post above suggested, some of us are in need of help!

Mil, 

Well, I have been listening to a lot of DACs and several amps. I find very large differences. Yes, the Benchmark amp is dead flat, super low distortion, but to me it sounds lifeless.  Just for fun, I grabbed a Fosi V3 ( also super low numbers) and at very low levels, not bad. Bring it up to moderate levels and it was terrible, well within 10W range on my desk. ( My 2W Rekkr does very nicely). So relegated to my garage system.   I find every class D amp either lifeless or something wrong I can't put my finger on, though they are getting much better. If return shipping was not so high, I would like to try a March. My JDS DAC sounds better  than my Topping or Schiit with traditional numbers a good 50% "better." as well as several much higher priced SMSL/Topping/Cambridge I have sent back and the internal DACs of some almost prestige level integrated amps.  I do want to play with a Qutest for a while. My specific area of concern is female vocal edginess. Not bass weight or some ethereal "air" I don't believe is in the recordings to start with. Maybe a Denafritz. Much worse traditional numbers. 

Simple SNR/IM/THD numbers are valid, but only part of the answer.  The missing component is how our brain processes the information. Also not determined by simple pure tone testing. Good data, but not the full story.  With a speaker producing 0.2% third harmonic, explain why our brain likes or dislikes differences in electronics of .000x.   It seems to, but we don't have an explanation. I propose masking is part of it.  If numbers were all of it, no one would fool with vinyl. We do because it sounds better in the preferences of some people. Clear differences even in a tone arm and we have no idea what measurement describes that. Personally, I found surface noise and ticks and pops to be more objectionable than even second generation digital so I switched. 

If you read my post more carefully, I am speculating on what DISTORTIONS possibly make our music more pleasurable and which make it less so.  Tubes are a prime example. Distortion from moving coils another. High noise floor and limited dynamic range from Vinyl? (OK, most CD's are super compressed too thank you loudness wars)  Something in most DSP I find objectionable. Testing through JRiver identified clipping due to filter overshoot to be one issue ( easily solved). Does pre-ringing mess up our perception of transients?  Don't know, but an easily measured kind of distortion. Lots of issues to explore. 

Again, if you have a better understanding of DACs and how digital filters work, you may not have the same " reads numbers" viewpoint. Reading numbers is only step one.  Even the cheapest dongles do some DSP. The A2D has just as many issues as do all the processing done in the mastering.  To avoid any DSP, well maybe an old Sheffield D-to-D lp.   The King James Version being one of my favorites. 

Where something is assembled is of course your choice. I prefer to select the product for it's merits.  I am tempted to get a Vidar and see how it compares to my own MOSFET.  So far few have equaled it.  It benches pretty well too, better than I can measure through a Focusrite. ( distortion added by A2D). I am not wealthy enough to buy "prestige" amps.  I am not convinced ( yes, I have borrowed some) are any better in any system I can afford. Drop me off a Levenson of Bryston if you wish :) 

We can agree, many PAs are terrible. Many venues are worse, but I find the musical experience to usually be better.  "Why?" is the question.  We did walk out of a MoodyBlues concert once as it was totally unlistenable. Why does a Strat into an over-biased Fender sound great live but a recording of it does not? Why can't we seem to record a single classical guitar or piano convincingly?   We don't know. 

Yea, the Anthem DSP is decent for HT.  Beats Audessy any day, though my old MXR310 is not exactly SOA amp wise. Have not had a MiniDSP with DIRAC to play with. ( digital in, digital out as their DACs are about an Apple dongle level). I do my eq on my main system by careful crossover design and let my brain sort it out without any processing artifacts. Our brain actually does a very good job of eq if it is not too far off.  ( component burn in I propose is 90% our brain getting used to it, 10% actual technical)

@tvrgeek It is all a balancing act, and its a cost versus reward analysis. I tune the room the best I can with acoustic panels and speaker and equipment stand location. Actually the room measures almost ruler flat from 200 Hz on up. Then I allows the DSP to make small corrections, essentially fine tuning the set up. The thing with a quality DSP is if you make modest changes it does not intrude on the music, its when you make giant steps that processing becomes noticeable. Since this is not a custom built audio room and is off my dining room, it has a dual purpose of entertaining guests from time to time. Not frequently though. Its primary function is my music room. So this is the best arrangement I have had, and the Trinov is one of the more formidable DSP systems on the market. It does work well. But it does get the analog purist in a bit of a tither since an analog signal is going AD to DA at some point.