Varnish connoisseurs

[emphatic]

Will you be wearing white gloves when you handle it on a day-to-day basis?

[thegreathopper]

Insane, how does it sound? If it sounds wonderful it’s worth every penny.

[CTN]

Lovely bit of kit there.

I also have a "small" addition to the stable:
A Sony ST-A6B FM Tuner. Rock solid build from the golden era. Almost as tall and deep as my valve power amp - thankfully much lighter.

[cools]

We had one of those back in the 80/90s

[CTN]

Thing is older than me

[bloodhokuto]

Wasn't sure which thread to post this in, but as this is a thread for Audiophiles, thought it should be the place to ask about a dead lossy format.

Anyway, I always really liked some of the early Sony Walkmans, but recently, more than ever I really wanted to get hold of a SONY WM-20, one of the early Walkmans that ended up being one of the smallest walkman ever.

I don't own any tapes, and don't like the format, so this is the last thing I should be getting hold of, but I think the design and engineering of these tape players are incredible.

I tend to prefer the designs that run off a single AA battery - so the WM10/WM20, and I think that the later units that use a slot on battery section don't look so good'. Although I think some of these can run off the 'Gumstick' battery packs on their own.

I also really like the Sanyo JJ-P4, as that is the smallest ever player, but I prefer the WM10/20 - even if that design cheats by having an expandable case (I like that kind of a cheat). (Also the WM-F10 really blows it up by adding an FM radio).

Anyway, any of you guys like the original Walkmans? Or should I leave this thread now.

[markedkiller78]

I got dac

[thegreathopper]

Nice looks home made, I like it, what’s in it..?

[markedkiller78]

Nice looks home made, I like it, what’s in it..?

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/foru ... mer.22916/

It’s a raspberry pi with a dac hat.

[markedkiller78]

Nice, I use volumio on my pi and love it

I’ve got moode installed, have you tried it? If volumio is better, I’ll go with that

[CTN]

I have to watch the YouTube vid on that thing again I guess

[SuperPang]

This is some insane digital engineering.

[CTN]

Honest question after watching the whole thing. What kind of music ist out there that takes advantage of these sampling-rates?

Not the music I'm listening to.
The highest res. I have is a 96k of the record mbv from My Bloody Valentine. And I rather listen to Loveless than that.

Everything else ist 44.1k.

Have I missed out on something? Where ist the music?

[SuperPang]

Honest question after watching the whole thing. What kind of music ist out there that takes advantage of these sampling-rates?

Not the music I'm listening to.
The highest res. I have is a 96k of the record mbv from My Bloody Valentine. And I rather listen to Loveless than that.

Everything else ist 44.1k.

Have I missed out on something? Where ist the music?

You're absolutely right, there's very little available out there in 192KHz, let alone some of the crazy high DSD sample rates. A handful of audiophile recordings only. I believe most contemporary stuff is mastered no higher than 24/48 as the engineers see no point. I fell for the hype at first after hearing some impressive sample tracks that were mastered in high res with no dynamic range compression, but 99% of music isn't handled with such care as it's mainly listened to lossy on airpods and bluetooth speakers.

As I understand it (and most of this goes way over my head, so I may be a little off), the May DAC's USP is that it's a non-oversampling DAC with crazy low jitter, distortion and massive dynamic range. NOS DACs usually measure terribly and have awful aliasing. With the May, you can upsample your redbook files at the source (a PC with HQ Player), rather than relying on the DAC to do the processing/oversampling. This means you get huge tap/coefficient length on the interpolation filter, to reproduce the signal as accurately as possible. In audible terms, this leads to improvements in the timing, cleaner transients and spacial cues etc. All that audiophile stuff.

This thing is trouncing DACs at 3x the price in terms of measured performance, and the no-compromise design is quite something at the price point.

[CTN]

OK. The only problem I have is the noise-floor of my valve-amp, which makes all the headroom of a dac like this a moot point. Also I already upsample to 192 on my Mac in iTunes an hand it over to my Ayre QB-9. (which is already a bit Voodoo with it's 0 negative feedback)
AND I CAN'T HEAR A DIFFERENCE
Neither to the Airport Express nor to the CD-Player which both do 44.1k
But until I change my listening habits completely, I will never get my hands on proper high-res music.

The only thing that I kinda belive in maybe making a difference at this point is the class-A output stage.

How do all those old farts have better hearing than dogs or bats?

I respect the achivement, but this dac, for now, kinda lacks a application in the real world.

[SuperPang]

OK. The only problem I have is the noise-floor of my valve-amp, which makes all the headroom of a dac like this a moot point.

You like a splash of second harmonic distortion, nothing wrong with that. Many do.

We are talking minute differences between high end DACs at the end of the day. You find the younger headphone crowd like that guy tend to discern the differences.

[CTN]

Now I take offence. I'm only 37

Re the valve combo. I didn't know any better at the time and it looked posh. That Audio Research rig was a BIG mistake. Soft bass and mushy everything else

Should have bought a Denon or Accuphase instead. Would have been posh enough.

[SuperPang]

I think it’s fair to say he likes it.

[thegreathopper]

I have been using. Benchmark DAC2 for quite a few weeks, pleased to swap back out with the Chord TT just sounds nicer.

But my current favourite setup is a pair of Sonos Moves in the garden on make shift stands connected via Roon, sounds lovely and no first reflections.

[SuperPang]

I bought the TT2 and it's up for sale a couple of months later. It's very good. Punchy, layered, snappier in the transients. Way better than the TT with headphones and far more user friendly. Really grabs your attention and wows with good recordings, but the TT is just that bit easier to listen to for long periods with a wide variety of music, slightly smoother. It just seems to gel really well with the rest of my system.

I've concluded that the original TT is the sweet spot in the Chord range and have gone off the idea of trying more expensive, better measuring uber-DACs as they seem to be quite unforgiving and better suited to headphone use or people who only listen to audiophile tosh. So yes, that includes the May, which also seems to require a PC with HQ Player and a lot of rack space.