Digital Front End: Critical Listening


I'm motivated to write this post after some initial comparisons I made between the DAC in my Marantz DVD player and my Levinson 360S. Using the Marantz as transport, these units fed into a Mccormack RLD1 pre, a Levinson 334 amp, and Celestion SL12si monitors. I realise this system is not your typical "high-end" system used for comparison.
The problem is that I couldn't hear much of a difference between the Marantz and the Levinson. Actually I felt a little foolish for having paid over $3000 for the Levinson when it doesn't seem to offer asignificant improvement. The Marantz is a mid-level DVD player with their "HDAM" technology which is said to replace op amps.
Can anyone offer an opinion as to why I'm not hearing not only a significant difference but drastic improvement with the Levinson. Could it be the Preamp not passing on the improved resolution offered by the 360S? Or maybe it's the speakers but I really don't think so.

Any thoughts?
sjh32

Showing 6 responses by sjh32

Wow, judging from all the interest in this subject I guess there's a lot of us who are questioning the claims made by manufacturer's and reviewers alike.
First, a couple of things I neglected in the first post. I don't use any AC filtering or regeneration. I do use decent cables, synergistic research X series (approx. $200 per pair). Digital is not as good, the best monster cable and a custom AES/EBU on one end and RCA the other. I had a lond talk with an engineer on the subject of digital cable and he agreed with me that, in theory, it should really make a difference and that the hype was just that, markering hype.
I've taken apart my Celestion's and, as a speaker builder with decent knowledge of what is good and why, I think it's doubtful that the speakers are the culprit. The crossover use Solen caps and good parts all around.
I must say I was suprised to see so many of you questioning the sonic differences in digital gear. I also own a Sony SCD 777ES. Soon I'll be reorganising my system using different speaker placement in the room and different speakers, a DIY pair using the very best part I could find. I also plan to place the X-overs outside the enclosure so I can easily change parts throughout the voicing process. For speaker I'll be using E-speakers G3 ribbons and Scan Speak 5" mid, the revelators, and Scan 10" in a sealed WMTMW. This is my attempt at using what I've learned about speaker technology and computer analysis to build the best speaker I can. Maybe these will be able to reveal some more subtle differences.
Thanks for all the feedback.
I don't follow Bemoptil, I use a Levisnon 360S DAC. In the original post I said that I was comparing the Levinson to a newer Marantz DVD player, one of the better ones. To restate my original suggestion, maybe the newer DAC's are almost equal to older one's like my Levinson. There's about 5 years difference between the build dates. I'm gearing up to finally build a pair of DIY speakers that should be the last word in resolution, IMHO. Using the new E-Speaker G3 ribbon and 2 San Seak 15W's (5") per side in an MTM. The trouble, and what delayed this project so long is whether to add woofer and make it a 3-way, or using a separate active subwoofer per side. My room is only 12 by 20 by 8. With the 3-way design, I'd have trouble keeping the enclosure narrow due to the large volume required.
Artisen65,

You make some good points, looks like transport synergy might be the issue. My local stereo guy always refers to a CEC transport he once owned as his reference. I read somewhere that Parasound sold a similar design under their banner that was made by CEC. Both are belt driven. With my Sony I was trying to have digital separates and a good SACD player in one. Now I'm starting to think about mod's to the Sony, Richard Kern's in particular. Thanks for the good feedback.
First, jdaniel, you bring up a very good point that I had considered but sort of dismissed, thinking that any general improvement should be at least audible with any well recorded music, regardless of genre. But I guess complexity of the signal is your point, and the subtlies of largescale acoustic ensembles. I have only a handful of classical disks. I don't have a classical music education so I think a lot of that stuff is just lost on me. I am beginning to get into Jazz so maybe there's hope.
About the transport issue, the Levinson 360's has what they call intelligent FIFO. This technology, says the user manual, makes the quality of transport and digital cable less crucial. It's a kind of buffer or resevoir that reclocks the data in such a way as to render jitter practically non existent. The manual goes into more detail and basically says their FIFO is different from some other recent attempts in several important ways. Considering that Levinson sell transports, why would it be in their interest for marketing to lie or misrepresent this feature if it weren't true? Now I know much heated controvesy exists surrounding the claims made about digital technology, some saying digital is digital and expensive cables are theoretically a waste of money and all claims to the contrary are the result of self-fulfilling auditory anticipation, etc. I haven't made up my mind simply because I don't think I have enough experience, listening wise, to weigh in on either side. But judging solely from arguements I've read, I have to at least partially side with the aforementioned critics.
I have to admit, Aroc, that your suggestion is over my head. A USB fed buffer sounds like it uses a USB cable, but why that might be superior (bandwidth?), I can't figure out on my own. As with most of my hobby knowledge, I pick things up slowly over time, and that's what interests me in your post; I should probably have at least a conversational grasp of these subjects if I'm dropping over $4000 on digital gear (I love it when some bored looking saleperson tries to wow me with some marketing technobable and you just know they're full of shit,).
Is there a newletter or other publication for laymen that follows advances in digital audio, like Speakerbuilder was to DIY speaker building?
For analogue, my whole system is wired and connected with Audio Synthesis. Some of the RCA's(no balanced) are better than others but they're all at least "very good" according to the research I did when I bought the stuff. I also got a very good deal on most of it. I understand that varying cables can be used to fine tune a system but I don't think I'm there yet. First I need to get off my ass and build my DIY speaker which I finally got all the parts for but now need to design the crossover.