[silverfi]

Have you already "tried" different ICs?  Which are your present?  Are they made out of silver perhaps ?
I understand that solid core Cu cable like Cardas can tame some harshness.

"Silver being harsh or zippy" is superstition. Normally no metal should be named like that. Every metal or alloy should have a proper unique technique to extract its positive virtues. The problems encountered with "harsh" silver cables are mainly related with the technique and topology employed. Some cable designers normally use the same technique that is generally used for copper cables and it does not work. Silver and its alloys are among the best material for cable design and production. Let me say again then "Silver is not guilty of harshness or zippiness."


Warmest regards.

Sezai Saktanber
SilverFi Cable
http://silverfi.blogspot.com

[PorkpieHat]

e.g. ABBA's Gold.. 

Give an example of a "bad recording".

One man's bad might be just fine to another.

I had this CD once. I found the best solution was to throw it out. I agree with Zero One and Wayner - garbage in, garbage out. I suppose if I were into vinyl, I would have sought out the LP.

If you have a great system, why chase your tail over bad recordings? There are so many good ones to be had.

[lonewolfny42]

PorkpieHat ....

If you have a great system, why chase your tail over bad recordings? There are so many good ones to be had.

For the music....
There are a few where the recordings are bad....but the tunes really sing with feeling.

[Wayner]

Well, I hate to bring up this old idea again, but how about a graphic equalizer as suggested before? Then you can monkey around with the offending frequencies and make the listening less "grating". I know where you are coming from. I have some great vinyl that is simply recorded bad. The most offending sounds for me are oversaturation which always highlights "sssssssss" sounds and cymbals, things like that. Unfortunately, those higher frequencies are what make a recording shine or die.

W

[miklorsmith]

He's using a TacT room correction preamp, which is far superior to a graphic equalizer in every respect.

[jhm731]

Nice post, toober.  I wholly agree.  I would bet that the more you acclimate to NOS, the less you'll like the "more resolving", other type.  This is also true with good recordings.  Good recordings still sound better than bad ones with NOS and you'll find what painful tradeoffs that "resolution" includes the more you absorb the musical sound.

Your TacT RCS automatically up samples the signal (the processor runs at 96K), do you down sample the signal (digital out FS set to 44.1) before it reaches your NOS DAC?

[95bcwh]

I read somewhere that the higher you upsample it before going into the NOS DAC, the better it sound? 

[duggie]

i tried an nos dac (audio mirror); i prefer my modded art di/o's.  more dynamics & resolution w/o any harshness.

re: tube buffers, i use them & like them.  i previously only used them for fm tuners.  they always made the sound a mite smoother, but w/o *any* loss of resolution.  only recently did i try one between my dac & my (tubed) preamp.  it had the same effect - a smoother more musical presentation, w/no loss of resolution.  while i never tried the latest musical fidelity buffer, the 1st iteration was too coloured, imo.  i prefer my ase z-man. (only available used), & a new kailin tube buffer i bought about a year ago.  either of these should cost <$200.  there is a company that makes a range of tube buffers, from the relatively inexpensive to the ridiculously expensive; i have never tried one of these either...
http://www.space-tech-lab.com/

also, tube buffers are mandatory for use w/xm or sirius, imo - the only way these formats are barely tolerable for background listening.  they are still unlistenable from the "sweet spot"...

[Wayner]

He's using a TacT room correction preamp, which is far superior to a graphic equalizer in every respect.

Apparently, it's not working very well. How does that deal with crappy audio to begin with?

[miklorsmith]

Yes, the TacT upsamples everything to 192 khz for processing.  The Altmann accepts a 192 khz signal natively, which is one of the reasons I bought it.  The digital conversion is not completely transparent, but the plusses outweigh the downsides, IMO.

Wayner - you are an awfully confrontational fellow.  My response was that a graphic equalizer added to a TacT system made no sense.  If the problem is one of frequency response, the TacT can address it.  If the TacT cannot address it, it is unrelated to frequency response.  Your suggestion was ill-considered to begin with, considering the system context and previous content of this thread.

Many people consider highly resolving systems to punish poor recordings.  If this is the case and Barry's system is resolving "too much" information, should we assume his TacT preamp is somehow failing him?  Your attitude is really too much.

[95bcwh]

I was tempted to try the tube buffer from Space Tech Lab.. but darn...just look at their return policy:
- Must return within 30 day from the day the item is shipped from Canada
- Must return using Airmail (No UPS/No Fedex)
- 20% restocking fees.

Darn..just can't put myself into making the order...

[duggie]

just keep your eyes peeled for a used ase z-man, or get the guy on agon who sells kailin gear to sell you a kailin tube buffer for $160...  plan to spend a bit more on better tubes...

I was tempted to try the tube buffer from Space Tech Lab.. but darn...just look at their return policy:
- Must return within 30 day from the day the item is shipped from Canada
- Must return using Airmail (No UPS/No Fedex)
- 20% restocking fees.

Darn..just can't put myself into making the order...

[Zero One]

I have been thinking about this issue and relating it to my experience in Photo Editing, I realise it sounds tenuous but bear with me, my business is in imaging training so I can see a parrallel.

If you take a an 8 bit image file and apply adjustments to it you get an issue called posterization, if the adjustments are great enough it looks terrible.  If the same file is up sampled to 16 bit, it looks the same but when you apply adjustments due to the way the program reallocates data you get much smoother tonal transitions.  Upsampling works really well but only if adjsutments are applied otherwise the file looks the same.

I imagine with sound the situaltion is the same up sampling will work really well but only if the adjsutments applied after up sampling are intelligent and sensible and that is I imagine where something may well be gained and I suspect lots of experimentation could produce some pretty amazing results beyond those currently available simply because no one size fits all solution is ever the best......every image file is different, and the same with sound recordings.

Adding a tube buffer would I think be like adding a low level noise filter to a image file, the effect is to apply very low level noise over the entire image (thought with a dvanced editing this is very adjsutable, but in the analogue domain of the tube buffer it would not be I imagine, basically all or nothing).  The noise smooths the transitions between tones by adding extra tones in between, but it adds an overall grain effect that also removes micro detail and definition.  To the naked eye at a distance it looks neat and film-like if done right, but the damage on close inspection is obvious.  It does help compensate for poor files but it only really works well if you massively upsize/sample the file first and then apply the noise in the upsized format, before downsampling which will compress the blending a bit to add back a little punch.

Overall I think intelligent up-sampling with clever application of noise applied digitally to only limited parts of the audio spectrum will work to make harsh recordings acceptable,  but it all has to be done in the digital domain.

My final idea then is this...take the recordings transfer them to a computer as 24 bit files, edit to suit using a suitable equipped editing program (I need to check which ones have the right tools) then re-burn as 24 bit DVD_V files and play then on a good universal disc player.  This definitely works well with LPs I have dne is many times and I plan to digitise and treat my whole LP collection this way when I have a better soundcard and phono pre on the Mac.

I imagine the cost overall would be less than the tube buffer or any number of flash bits of gear too, and the really neat thing is you can build into the re-recorded music the exact EQ and ambience settings you need for your music listening room!

Have a great weekend- I'm off to build a circuit or two.

[PorkpieHat]

PorkpieHat ....

If you have a great system, why chase your tail over bad recordings? There are so many good ones to be had.

For the music....
There are a few where the recordings are bad....but the tunes really sing with feeling.

Yes I know. I love that stuff. Dancing Queen. O man, the memories. An anthem really. And if you read the life stories of some of the band members, you have to stop and think. A time and place we will never be able to truly understand.  I just couldn't get past the atrocious sound. I guess I thought it was an insult.

My bad, I suppose.

Sorry for the slow response.

[boead]

Folks,
   Can anyone suggest a way to improve the sound of harsh recordings? My current setup is as follow:

   Bolder SB3 digital out -> Aberdeen Modified Tact 2.0S -> Moscode 401HR - Salk HT3

   On good recordings, it sounded real good.. very good..like music from heaven. But on bad recordings, but it's too revealing, sounded harsh and thin at times. I was thinking of adding a little flexibility into my current system, maybe insert a tube buffer between the Tact and the Moscode when I'm in the mood of listening to some bad recordings?

   I'm even thinking of getting an NOS DAC and a tube preamp so I can run the digital out from the Tact into this NOS DAC and tube preamp before going into the Moscode 401HR.

  Any suggestion is welcome. Thanks!

  Regards
  barry 

Hello Barry,

http://www.decware.com/paper60.htm

http://www.decware.com/newsite/zbox.htm

Many of the owners at the Decware forum loves this little device. It’s not expensive and like all Decware products has a return policy if you don’t like it.