[DeadFish]

For those in the wondering, our own Scott F. reviews the Chime in the July issue.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0706/hagerman_technology_chime.htm

I thought it a good review, 'cause I know what Scott put into the listening. 
I finally got to hear the one he had at his place and was impressed. 

I had wondered a long time, given the Chime-Tour how the durn thing sounded, but was hoping it was the individuals not wanting to influence anyone else's listening, by stating a position of any kind.

Oops.  I'm no longer unbiased....

Nice work!

Regards,
DeadFish

[Jon L]

It's too bad that Scott obviously put in a lot of work into the review, but apparently nobody told him he must use ASIO4ALL with Chime in order to bypass K-mixer. 

I WAS surprised to see he thought the non-bit-perfect USB input was close to full-monty Bolder SB3 spdif 

[Scott F.]

It's too bad that Scott obviously put in a lot of work into the review, but apparently nobody told him he must use ASIO4ALL with Chime in order to bypass K-mixer.

 

I wasn't aware of ASIO4ALL until you mentioned it in this post. As I type that, I do remember seeing some posts over at AA dealing with ASIO. As I remember, that thing has given (some) people an absolute fit trying to get it to work properly. I'm sure using ASIO does something to the sound but the plain old USB output with Foobar sounded pretty darned OK too (until Foobar acts up).

I WAS surprised to see he thought the non-bit-perfect USB input was close to full-monty Bolder SB3 spdif 

You know, a lot of people out there make a really big deal out of really small differences when it comes to audio. As I wrote, there is a difference between the sound of the two but in my opinion (as if that counts for anything), its not huge.

I guess the next thing is for me to define really big and huge since they are both subjective. Using this scale, big and huge to me fall squarely in the 8+ scale...... maybe even reserved to just 9 or 10.



The differences I heard on my system fell in the 5 to 6 range. Was there a difference between the two,...... sure. Was it as huge as some might have you believe,..... not to my ears on my system.

[Loftprojection]

Scott, very good review, I like your more down to earth style!  I own MHDT Paradisea so I was happy to read it did pretty good against the Chime.  I also own a HagUSB which is probably the same or quite similar to the USB interface in the Chime obviously without the digital interconnect.   The Chime is a very interesting piece of equipment and the fact that it performed so well with USB and Windows Kmixer makes it even more appealing.

Like Jon L said, I was also surprised the modded SB3 digital out didn't perform better then that.  I did a/b testing of my HagUSB with a laptop and foobar versus using my Arcam CD23T as transport directly into my DAC and the Arcam definitely sounds better, on your scale above it would be a 5 to 7 I would say.  Considering all that has been written about modded SB3, I would have thought it would give you at least a 5 to 7 if not more.  Ho well, maybe its like you described, a lot of people make a "really big deal out of really small differences"!

Thanks, pretty fun read.

[Jon L]

Scott, I'm not a Squeezebox user, but my understanding was that Squeezebox software automatically bypasses K-mixer, which is why I thought the non-K-mixer/Bolder Mod should have FAR outpaced K-mixer/HagUSB inside the chime. 

I had the Chime and HagUSB for demo, working beautifully via ASIO4ALL, so I have no problem believing how great the Hagerman stuff is.  But to me, the admittedly "small" difference between using ASIO4ALL and Windows K-mixer was the kind of difference between say a great-sounding Chi-Fi tube amp vs. a tube amp an Artisan spent years tuning by ear.  The differences aren't "huge, say 6 on your scale, but the kind that would make me invade my bank account. 

Anyway, I highly appreciate your series on NOS DAC's and computer audio.  God knows not many other reviewers are paying attention to this arena.  Perhaps next on your list should be the new Constantine DAC with the USB input ? 

For future use, I would play around with the "ASIO-USB driver" you can download  here for 30-day free trial.  If you use this instead of Windows USB driver, you can automatically bypass K-mixer.
http://www.usb-audio.com/download.html

I would also reference you to the free ASIO4ALL download.  It really IS indispensible with ANY PC music.
http://www.asio4all.com/

[Scott F.]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the kind words about the article.

As I think about what you guys mention where you are suprised at the relatively small differences between Jims USB interface and the Squeezebox's outputs, where I really believe the biggest improvement in the digital domain lies is the elimination of the CD drive mechanism and the resulting dramatic reduction of jitter (and error correction). Since we are all (or many of us) now are using a hard drive rather than a CD player we have already made a healthy leap in sound quality. After that, playback just becomes a matter of preference in DAC formats (NOS, Oversampling, Upsampling, tubed, and so on).

I'll definately play with the ASIO drivers to see what the difference sounds like. Who knows, maybe by the time I build my own Chime the wireless USB reciever will be around and I won't have to mess with a long USB cable.