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A fit of Audiophilia

I am an 81 year old retired software engineer who still dabbles in that activity and am stuck trying to find a minor bug - which has nothing to do with the post except for being the reason for a glass of wine and the striking of Audiophilia.

I started to wonder about different file formats, external clocks etc.

A telling track for my critical listening is the "Bless the lord" from the Sveshnikov 1965 recording of the  Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil.  This has deep Russian octavist voices, a wonderful choir, the intense emotional voice of Klara Korkan and was recorded, I believe, in a basilica.  

In addition to the LP (which wins) I have a DSD128 and PCM 24/192 recordings.  Level matching the digital sources was tricky but playing the DSD at +5.5 dB was as close as I could come. (DSDs are usually about -6dB to avoid stability issues near 0dBfs).

The DAC is the Esoteric K-01XDSE which is a ΔΣ device and so operates internally in DSD 512.  I was listening with 4x upsampling, PCM filtering M1, and DSD filtering off.

The  PCM won, its slightly higher resolution yielded a slight increase in (surprise) resolution.

Conclusion unless something was mastered at better then DSD 128 if PCM 24/192 is available, use the PCM.

I then tried the experiment with and without the external SRS FS 725 clock,10 MHz, sine wave, 50 Ohm.

The K-01xdse has a very high quality OCXO clock but spatiality, these sense of the singers as 3D people, was noticeably improved by the external clock.  The FRS 725 uses the same physics package as Esoteric used to use in their $20k clock (they now use an OCXO clock at a slightly lower price). Conclusion, an external clock may well be worth it.

I do not have a spare $16k to compare the new Esoteric G-01XD with the FRS 725.  But the Stanford Research Systems unit is a bargain.

My clock cable is an entry level priced component usually used for uhf broadcast application, so now I am wondering if I can get even better SQ with an "Audiophile" clock cable, I am thinking of the Shunyata Theta or the Mutec PSC 50.  There are some insanely prices Shunyata and Esoteric products but ...

After all that the 60 year old Melodiya disk has a richer, deeper timbre and greater spatiality - but perhaps that is the effect of the Koetsu RSP/Sutherland Dos Locos front end.

retiredaudioguy
retiredaudioguy OP
290 posts
 

@mahler123 your DAC-3 is a ΔΣ device, as is mine so internally it operates in DSD mode.  For PCM sources they are converted to sort of DSD before being fed to the actual dac processsor.  The software that is doing the conversion is unique to the vendor - your does a better job on DSD  inputs and mine did a better job on the 24/192 - in this instance.  The difference was very very minor.

It may also be that this particular recording was remastered in 24/352.8 DXD PCM at HDTT so that the DSD is inherently a step down from the PCM for this particular recording.

BTW as a Mahler fan have you heard any of the Fischer/Budapest Mahler cycle?  A rather different sound, detailed, he brings out the sections of the orchestra almost like chamber music players one reviewer said.  If you have not heard these give #2 at least a shot - you will know within 5 minutes if it is of interest.

As always, your input is appreciated.

 

 

retiredaudioguy OP
290 posts
 

@quincy my HF has gone, but I am still very aware of the sense of space how 3d singers and instruments are - in some recordings it is as though cardboard cutouts are performing, not living solid beings.

 

retiredaudioguy OP
290 posts
 

@knotscott Oddly the Sveshnikov LPs had been in my possession (from a trip to Academy Records in NYC probably) for many years but I had not played them until rather recently.  I already had several digital recordings of this wonderful work, but after I found and played this LP I was hooked and decided I had to get digital copies to preserve the Vinyl.

There is a rather lovely YouTube of Bless the Lord at - https://youtu.be/XfDreatXYeU?list=RDGMEMgGOgHdkrBSNHvacS9Sp8bgVMXfDreatXYeU

This work is surely one of the absolute masterpieces of music, it brings me peace, joy, emotional involvement every time I listen to it.  In the Stephen Colbert Questionert he asks his guest for their favorite song;  the second part of the Vigil may be mine, though the slow movement of the Op. 132 is up there also.

The various St. John Chrystotom (Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, et al.) works are also rather splendid.  I have been rooting around in Slavic Liturgies.

 

wsrrsw's avatar
wsrrsw
1,477 posts
 

How erudite.  I have to look up ΔΣ (for a friend naturally)  Delta-sigma (ΔΣ or ΣΔ) modulation is an advanced method used in ADCs and DACs to encode analog signals into high-frequency, low-bit-depth digital signals. It utilizes oversampling and a feedback loop to achieve high resolution by pushing quantization noise to higher frequencies, which are then removed by a digital filter. Who knew?

The winning LP payback likely is because of the pleasing imperfections of vinyl's sound. Our ears like the subtile wow and fluttery imperfections. Good digital clocking gets payback better and is less fatiguing.

Is it just a matter of time before digital emulates vinyl’s sound if it doesn't already? Stay tuned.

 

jfrmusic
407 posts
 

@retiredaudioguy 

I have an Aurender N20 streamer that has an excellent clock but I substantially improved overall sound and in particular the high frequencies when I slaved the clock to the clock in my MSB Discrete DAC. I auditioned the Shunyata Alpha, Sigma and Omega Clock cables and to my surprise the Alpha sounded the best in my system. Expensive but well worth it. Like getting a new component. 

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