[oneinthepipe]

I've had a few days to listen to the Insight DAC and compare it my JoLida JD100 CDP.

Here is what I can tell thus far about the sound. 

The output from the DAC is detailed and clear.  It isn't bright or harsh.  The instruments and voices sound more "realistic," or at least the way I envision them realistically sounding, since I am not a musician and don't have a live performance with which to conduct an A-B comparison.  There also seem to be more instruments, or I can hear them better, at least.
 
I had always thought the JoLida was a decent player, and I thought it was better with NOS Amperex 7025 tubes.  Well, the JoLida is not a decent player, or maybe it is, but compared to the sound through the DAC's output, the JoLida's output is distorted.  The instruments don't sound correct (although I thought they sounded pretty good previously), and Norah Jone's voice breaks up (I really like listening to Norah, but I primarily listened to Come Away with Me for my comparison because I am familiar with the CD).

I've never owned an external DAC before, and I can't compare the Insight DAC to other DACs, but it blows away my JoLida JD100, and I compared the JoLida to other modestly ($1000.00 retail) priced CD players before I purchased it.

I'm going to try to get over to COSTCO later to pick up a Philips player to use as a transport and compare it to the JoLida.  I assume that both players will function similarly as transports.  If so, anyone want to buy a really nice JoLida? 

[gjs_cds]

Hey OITP:

Great to read about your experiences.  I can really identify with what you're saying (sans the Jolida comparison).  I'd almost be tempted to suggest that your Jolida (analog) output is distorted; it's tough to get tubes right--and they're notorious for adding second harmonic distortion. 

I myself got the Phillips 5990/5992, and am pleased.  (Although I could get more functionality from it if it were connected to a monitor.)  It's such a convenience to put all my kid's music on one DVD, and be able to play it all on the same source.  And for me--I throw in the Coltrane (redbook format) CDs and just enjoy. 

The single biggest wow-factor w/ me was the (vastly improved) dynamics.  I whole-heatedly agree w/ your "detailed and clear" observation, but the dynamics is what continues to stick out to me.  Maybe its just a gestalt difference in our systems.

P.S.  Good luck selling your Jolida on the AVA board!

[oneinthepipe]

gjs_cds:

I was planning to list the JoLida on audiogon.    I didn't think there would be any takers on the AVA board.

JoLidas seem to sell fairly well on the 'gon, and I will fully inform any potential buyers that I am selling the JoLida because I upgraded to an AVA DAC.

Regarding the distortion, I think that it is a category of "distortion" that I hear from a variety of CD players, but I suppose it could be distorted output because of the tubes.  Perhaps I would have been more accurate to use a term like "unnatural."

Now, is anyone interested in a totally unnatural sounding JoLida JD100?   

[Wayner]

OITP, life is filed with Ying/Yang. You've had your Ying, now here comes the Yang, buddy. At least you get to live with something we can only hope for. Perhaps in the future an Insight DAC will find a perch here in my house, then I can feel your pain.     Fuckin tube CD players.

Wayner

[oneinthepipe]

OITP, life is filed with Ying/Yang. You've had your Ying, now here comes the Yang, buddy. At least you get to live with something we can only hope for. Perhaps in the future an Insight DAC will find a perch here in my house, then I can feel your pain.     Fuckin tube CD players.

Wayner

Wayner:

The tube CDP is working fine; I just bypassed the tubes.    BTW, that was the only CDP that I've used, except in my cars, an old 20-something year old NAD that I briefly connected, or a "boom box," in more than twenty years. That's why I wanted to get something kind of decent.    I listened to a few CD players before I bought the JoLida.  Nothing high end, but stuff like Cambridge, Rotel, Rega.  I didn't know that I just needed an Insight DAC and a 39.00 DVD player (and a 13.00 Blue Jean cable).

The DAC, it's so, so sweet, Wayner.  Corrine Bailey Rae is singing to me right now.  It's that nice painful. 

(BTW, Wayner, this is the same type of noobie stuff that I did when I started collecting firearms.  In audio, I shouldn't have any excuse; my father was the service manager at Hi-Fi Associates in Miami and then owned two audio service companies before he retired.)

[oneinthepipe]

I've been thinking about the JoLida CDP distortion issue a lot since yesterday.

Assuming that the tube output is distorted, I didn't hear it with my previous electronics.  Therefore, I suspect that the increased dynamic range of the Insight preamp and/or amp would enable me to hear the distortion in louder passages where the distortion wasn't audibly present previously.  With the output from the Insight DAC, the sound is clean.

I'm sure that others understand this process better than me.

edited for spelling

[martyo]

Just 2 comments. To me the best gear is "revealing", and that is one of the terms I would use to describe AVA equipment. (And of course Jim Salk uses it often when describing his  speakers).
I've never heard the Jolida player, but Amperex tubes are more on the warm side, and much of tube "warmth" and tube "bloom" really is distortation. I totally understand the fondness for the tube "coloration", but as far as revealing, uh-uh, it's adding  coloration.

I listened to a few CD players before I bought the JoLida.  Nothing high end, but stuff like Cambridge, Rotel, Rega.  I didn't know that I just needed an Insight DAC and a 39.00 DVD player (and a 13.00 Blue Jean cable).

It really is that simple. 

Enjoy  aa

[gjs_cds]

I've been thinking about the JoLida CDP distortion issue a lot since yesterday.

Assuming that the tube output is distorted, I didn't here it with my previous electronics.  Therefore, I suspect that the increased dynamic range of the Insight preamp and/or amp would enable me to hear the distortion in louder passages where the distortion wasn't audibly present previously.  With the output from the Insight DAC, the sound is clean.

I'm sure that others understand this process better than me.

Really great quote.

My knee-jerk take might be to suggest that most recordings are way compressed these days.  And when you combined poorly engineered recordings (i.e., compressed) with audio gear that lacks dynamic range (as you suggest), then yes--it does make sense (at least to me) that the synergy of these two variables would hide or conceal each other.  Add in tube-related distortion, and becomes a trifecta of funk.

But as soon as you add in dynamic range, the compressed recordings will sound crappier.  Higher resolution of the amp & pre-amp will reveal greater distortion.  And then AB compare it to an Insight DAC?  Game over.  Better dynamics, better resolution, no distortion.  Night and Day.

[oneinthepipe]

My knee-jerk take might be to suggest that most recordings are way compressed these days.  And when you combined poorly engineered recordings (i.e., compressed) with audio gear that lacks dynamic range (as you suggest), then yes--it does make sense (at least to me) that the synergy of these two variables would hide or conceal each other.  Add in tube-related distortion, and becomes a trifecta of funk.

But as soon as you add in dynamic range, the compressed recordings will sound crappier.  Higher resolution of the amp & pre-amp will reveal greater distortion.  And then AB compare it to an Insight DAC?  Game over.  Better dynamics, better resolution, no distortion.  Night and Day.

That is exactly what I meant to say! 

[oneinthepipe]

Here's my dilemma, and frustration.

I purchased a Philips DVP5992 today at Costco for $39.99 to replace my JoLida JD100 as a transport.  I conducted a brief A-B comparison of the Philips and the JoLida.  I am aware that "a transport is a transport," but I am certain that the sound, when played through the JoLida and DAC, was slightly fuller, richer, airier, and deeper than was the sound when played through the Philips and DAC.  They both sounded great through the DAC, and I still plan to sell the JoLida because it's not worth the money to keep it.

I also conducted a brief A-B comparison of the sound of the Philips' digital output through the DAC to the Philips' analog output directly into the spare input of the preamp, and I was surprised that there did not appear to be a substantial difference when the volume was adjusted.  I didn't listen for dynamic range, just the sound of the vocals and instruments, in general.

Obviously, I need to listen more and/or have my hearing checked.  I'll have my wife listen when I get home later. Her opinions about which sounds better may not be consistent with those with trained ears, but she has better hearing than me and can hear differences in systems. 

[Wayner]

The performance of the 2 are certainly source sensitive. What I mean is that on ho-hum recordings, evaluating between 2 sources can be frustrating. There is also that brain thing that does take a little time to get use to. I will bet that in an evening of really listening, you will discover the strenght of the AVA Insight DAC over the Philips in many ways, including faster transient response, dynamic range and dynamic speed (decay vs attack). Put on a nice later recording from Telarc if you have one or some later Pink Floyd (Division Bell) or something like that. I'm sure you will realize that the Philips built in DAC just can't custer the mustard.

My Sony ES CD player can't match my old AVA TOPP/DAC and that DAC is from 1997.

Wayner

[gjs_cds]

I agree w/ Wayner 1000%.  Doing AB comparisons is *really* tough.  First off, if you're more than .15 dB off between the two sources--it's confounded.  Psychoacoustically, the brain always prefers the louder source.  (Why did the loudspeaker industry move toward 4-ohm you ask?)  I doubt you're able to get it w/in .15 dB--that takes some really precise gear and measurement capabilities.  Secondly--as Wayner said, it's not even worth your time comparing the two on a meat-market recording.  Pretty much all mainstream CDs have horrendous engineering.  They're compressed to be as close to -0 dB as possible.  Listening to such recordings literally gives me a headache, and I feel exhausted after a while.  My head just beings to hurt.  I don't know you're music library, but I'd give MapleShade a shot.  These are legit great recordings, and it'll really open your eyes (if it already hasn't) to what your audio system could be.  With this caliber of gear, recording quality is HUGE. 

Now--why the digital out would sound different between two sources, I cannot account.  A bit should be a bit should be a bit.  I would reserve judgment until you throw a really honest-to-gosh good recording in there.  Wayner likes Telarc.  I like MapleShade (among others).  You've got some homework to do; get at it and report back to us.   

[oneinthepipe]

I know that I didn't conduct a very good comparison.  I probably shouldn't have posted unless/until I had more information.  I think I was expecting an earth-shattering difference in the sound quality, which assumedly exists, similar to when I went from the JoLida's output to the Insight DAC's output.  If I had listened longer and/or with a better recording, I would have had better information.

I don't have any Telarc or Mapleshade recordings.  I don't even have a CD library.  Before I purchased the JoLida CDP two months ago, I only had about ten CDs, which I only listened to in my car every few years (my car's audio systems, even my 2006 Jaguar, have been so bad that listening to music in the car isn't very enjoyable; if I could purchase a car without an audio system, I would). 

In the past two months, I've purchased twenty or twenty-five meat-market CDs, mostly from Amazon.  (I also bought an LP from Amazon; Neil Young's Tonight's the Night.)  I'll look in to Telarc and Mapleshade CDs. 

BTW, my wife could hear a distinct difference, but she listened to a different meat-market recording.  She seems to have grown tired of me asking her to "sit there, now move up an inch, now keep your eyes closed" while listening to Norah. 

NB:  I looked at Telarc and Mapleshade offerings.  I don't listen to jazz or classical music, and except for some of the blues musicians, I didn't know most of the artists.  The Telarc and Mapleshade collections are also listed on Amazon, and there were a lot of recordings available from marketplace sellers at very good prices.  I might order Kendra Shank's Afterglow.  Are there other good labels in addition to Telarc and Mapleshade?  I suppose I'll be expanding my musical experience. 

[DSK]

....Chesky, FIM, Opus3, DMP, Verve, Audioquest, Sheffield Labs, ....

Unfortunately, most of them tend to be in genres you may not typically listen to (jazz, blues, classical, etc)

[oneinthepipe]

If they didn't record Lucinda Williams, Neil Young, Al Green, The Crusaders, Tower of Power, Marvin Gaye, Led Zepplin, Shelby Lynne, Martha Wainwright, The Allman Bros., Feist, Adelle, Norah Jones, and some others, they may not get much of my business.  My musical tastes were defined in the late 60's and early 70's, I suppose, albeit before Adelle's time.  It's not that I wouldn't listen to and enjoy other music, I just don't know what else to listen to.

[markC]

There really is a lot of good jazz & blues out there. I was surprised at how quickly I grew to like it; being a rocker that grew up in the '70's.

[oneinthepipe]

UPDATE:

(you must be getting very tired of me by now)

One of our colleagues sent me a PM and hypothesised (why is there a British spell-checking dictionary?) that the inexpensive switching power supply of the Philips DVP was introducing excessive noise in the system, thereby diminishing the DAC's improvements.

I reconnected the JoLida (which I just listed on Audiogon ) to the DAC, and as my wife listened, I powered the DVP on and off.  Even standing behind the right speaker, I could hear an increase in volume when the DVP was powered off.  My wife told me that the music was softer (and she held her hands out and moved them inward, as in shortening a word in Charades) when I powered on the DVP.  The music was louder and fuller with the DVP powered off, and the music was softer and narrower with the DVP powered on.

Goodbye DVP?

[markC]

So the transport does make a difference?

[oneinthepipe]

Yes, the transport makes a difference, in my experience today.

Just having the Philips DVP connected to the system and powered on reduces the quality of the sound.  Where the reduction in quality takes place, I don't know.  It could be anywhere and everywhere; I don't know much about electronics or audio.  Someone else will need to explain the results, but the source of the deterioration is the DVP.  This presumedly explains why there wasn't an earth-shattering difference between the output from the DAC's output with the DVP as a transport and with the DVP's analog output; the DVP's power supply was introducing noise in the system.

I took the DVP out of the system, and I'm back in Allman Brothers nirvana.

Bits are bits are bits, but noise is noise is noise.

Maybe Frank will build an Insight CD transport.   

NB:  Who would of thought?  http://www.townhallrecords.com/cgi-bin/townhall.pl?detail=SL10074

[mark funk]

One big thing is the Insight DAC is a 16bit (R2R) and the Philips is a 1bit (Sigma-delta) DAC. Read this http://www.mother-of-tone.com/conversion.htm:smoke: