Computer Audio Bake-Off

muzzer said:
So what do you think of the QA550?
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At the moment I'm having issues with SD cards. Bought exactly the 16GB card that Colin recommends and can't get it to work. Card is currently up in Derby while he tries to figure it out (as of today).

2GB card works fine but it means I haven't listened to much variety yet.

That said, what I have heard is been good enough to make me want to persevere.

It seems to take me further in a direction I've been going for a while in that it seems to be a very 'natural' sound.
 
I was at Colins today it must have been your card we had a listen to, most strange how it would not work properly even on my player, told you to go for 8gb ;)
Try Kingston cards.
 
sq225917 said:
Not having gone to Ricahrds event it does seem like some with gear to sell are trying to revise what actually happened.
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You will have to explain it all to me next week then - the whole event (and subsequent drama) is as clear as mud to me (though admittedly, things digital are only of passing interest to me).
 
I really don't know where all this drama is coming from - we had a pleasant and enjoyable day from what I could see :confused:
 
RobHolt said:
I really don't know where all this drama is coming from - we had a pleasant and enjoyable day from what I could see :confused:
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It is very simple Rob, everyone who attended accepted other people views and enjoyed the event and accepted it warts and all as an *event* not a manufacturers show case or a definitive answer to everyones needs. *One* person obviously misunderstood the point of it and wanted to use it as a promotional exercise, so when he didn't come top he started thrashing around for reasons / excuses - insulting the speakers, the acoustics and the people who attended ears and judgement. I removed those posts from Subjectivist so he came here to carry it on. I was already cross about what he tried to do at Subjectivist so he got told how I feel about him doing it here.

We had one late drop out who I couldn't contact in FatKat, Hubsand had wanted to attend but I didn't want trade unless they could just be a normal member of the bake-off, his response was "I only have an enthusiasts cap" I will let others judge if he was telling the truth.
 
muzzer said:
I was at Colins today it must have been your card we had a listen to, most strange how it would not work properly even on my player, told you to go for 8gb ;)
Try Kingston cards.
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8gb doesn't work either!

On 16 the first track plays but the rest is garbage, on 8 nothing plays and on (Kingston) 2 the same file plays fine.

SanDisk was what Colin recommended though.

Just waiting to hear back what might be amiss.
 
Richard Dunn said:
It is very simple Rob, everyone who attended accepted other people views and enjoyed the event and accepted it warts and all as an *event* not a manufacturers show case or a definitive answer to everyones needs. *One* person obviously misunderstood the point of it and wanted to use it as a promotional exercise, so when he didn't come top he started thrashing around for reasons / excuses - insulting the speakers, the acoustics and the people who attended ears and judgement. I removed those posts from Subjectivist so he came here to carry it on. I was already cross about what he tried to do at Subjectivist so he got told how I feel about him doing it here.

We had one late drop out who I couldn't contact in FatKat, Hubsand had wanted to attend but I didn't want trade unless they could just be a normal member of the bake-off, his response was "I only have an enthusiasts cap" I will let others judge if he was telling the truth.
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Yup that's how it looks to this outsider...
 
The truth is in the reviews: before adjudicating who is 'thrashing around', or 'spinning' results, I recommend you read the actual results, in listeners' own words, first, on page six of this thread. Listening impressions varied greatly.

Before swallowing these slurs (which, under the circumstances, are pretty hurtful and brazenly hypocritical), readers should know that nothing I've written favourably about is sold, or made by, Item Audio.

It's also very important that they understand that the particular setup Richard is hyping, is a product soon to be marketed by NVA. The headline should read: "NVA Music Server Declared -- by NVA -- 'Best Sound' of NVA-organised show'.

In truth, half the audience did not come to this conclusion, and there were obvious problems with room reflections that made analysis of differences problematic. There's nothing controversial or twisted about that.

It should be transparent who had the vested interest in sweeping inconvenient truths under the carpet: truths best, and most honestly, expressed by Jason (Figlet) in his analysis of his own system in question: please start with Figlet's cogent and candid summary of its strengths and weaknesses. Contrast the tone of this review with NVA's implausible, one-note tub-thumping.

True to form (so I understand), Richard's posts contain libel, misinformation and outright lies, but I hope the truth is evident to careful readers of this thread: it's all there . . .

Definitely, I misread what was happening: I was hoping for a shared exploration of excellence in computer audio: turned out we were in an R&D shortcutting tryout for Richard's new product.

If anyone in the UK would like to meet up for a civilised, unbiased and helpful exploration of computer audio, they can judge my character and motives for themselves. Fellow pilgrims are good company. Anytime late August is good for me.

Audio is my passion. I earn my bread-and-butter from unrelated activities, so, frankly, it's immaterial whether I sell anything at all. My mission is explicit: simply to make, and enjoy, the best sounding computer. I even publish recipes for free, so people can build their own. sq225917: please dig a little to see how far wide-of-the-mark these accusations are!
 
hubsand said:
The truth is in the reviews: before adjudicating who is 'thrashing around', or 'spinning' results, I recommend you read the actual results, in listeners' own words, first, on page six of this thread. Listening impressions varied greatly.

Before swallowing these slurs (which, under the circumstances, are pretty hurtful and brazenly hypocritical), readers should know that nothing I've written favourably about is sold, or made by, Item Audio.

It's also very important that they understand that the particular setup Richard is hyping, is a product soon to be marketed by NVA. The headline should read: "NVA Music Server Declared -- by NVA -- 'Best Sound' of NVA-organised show'.

In truth, half the audience did not come to this conclusion, and there were obvious problems with room reflections that made analysis of differences problematic. There's nothing controversial or twisted about that.

It should be transparent who had the vested interest in sweeping inconvenient truths under the carpet: truths best, and most honestly, expressed by Jason (Figlet) in his analysis of his own system in question: please start with Figlet's cogent and candid summary of its strengths and weaknesses. Contrast the tone of this review with NVA's implausible, one-note tub-thumping.

True to form (so I understand), Richard's posts contain libel, misinformation and outright lies, but I hope the truth is evident to careful readers of this thread: it's all there . . .

Definitely, I misread what was happening: I was hoping for a shared exploration of excellence in computer audio: turned out we were in an R&D shortcutting tryout for Richard's new product.

If anyone in the UK would like to meet up for a civilised, unbiased and helpful exploration of computer audio, they can judge my character and motives for themselves. Fellow pilgrims are good company. Anytime late August is good for me.

Audio is my passion. I earn my bread-and-butter from unrelated activities, so, frankly, it's immaterial whether I sell anything at all. My mission is explicit: simply to make, and enjoy, the best sounding computer. I even publish recipes for free, so people can build their own. sq225917: please dig a little to see how far wide-of-the-mark these accusations are!
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Still clutching at straws, and you or anyone can confirm everything I say with Figlet and Uglymusic. In conversations with both I was undecided which way I should go with getting a computer audio source to use at Whittlebury Hall Show, that was the point of the exercise. Uglymusic is a Mac man, Figlet is a PC man, Figlets system is expensive and Uglymusics one is cheap, so we decided to bake them off against each other in my system. As we had room for more I advertised it for a couple of other alternatives, so I had no preconceived ideas. In fact my leanings were to Uglymusic as others like Alan Brown had heard his system and praised it and I have known Uglymusic for about 20 years and I respect his ears. Figlet I didn't know that well as he had visited and listened once and bought two TSS mk2 statement amps and pre and cable, plus I thought his solution was too expensive. BUT the proof of the pudding is in the eating and on the day in my room on my system (which will be used at Whittlebury) it did a bloody good job, where as for some reason Uglymusics one didn't. Now it upset and puzzled Uglymusic to the point he made some comments at the bake-off about compatibility even though his system is virtually identical and nva apart from Royd speakers. So he was obviously looking for differences which could only be acoustic or speakers (or I suppose mains). Hubsand was unhappy about not winning the bake-off 'cos it was a dac he sells in Uglymusics system, and his other lash up he brought took about 30mins to cough into life and then failed again.

So mild puzzlement by Uglymusic has been turned into a fully fledged marketing protection exercise by Hubsand. Now regarding making a product out of Figlets beast that happened after the bake-off. I said to him build me one for the show and you should produce a few of them, he said it would be difficult because of other commitments to make a production product and said why don't we collaberate he doing the computer side and me doing the casing and PSU. So we are producing a prototype to show at Whitlebury Hall and if there is enough interest or orders we will make it, and if that is successfull we will make a scaled down Black Box version. Figlet is a serious computer engineer whos old company was sold to IBM, so he knows his onions.

This I am afraid is the reality of the situation.
 
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Does the ASUS card convert D/A and A/D, something like the Lynx L22 would add more functionality.
Keith.
 
"Provence" - does he live in the south of France then?


;) (provenance perhaps - sorry, couldn't resist)
 
Hi folks. This looks like a fun thread to introduce myself into :)

To set the scene I'm not a seasoned and experienced audiophile and I certainly couldn't hold my own with most of you lot on most topics. But I do know a bit about computers and I'm out to have some fun and stimulation.
I'm definitely not interested in diving into any of the silly arguing - tbh it had me laughing out loud at work today when I read through it all :D

But I do want to set the record straight on a few points:
1) I personally had a lot of fun at Richard's and really enjoyed meeting everyone. I didn't find Mark playing his trade role unduly (I for one was interested in all the stuff he had to offer on the day) and I also didn't find Richard overly controlling or in any way manipulative. From my perspective we were simply a bunch of guys with all the usual subjective opinions, egos, and personalities hanging out doing a bunch of hifi stuff.

2) The bake-off was about trying different digital front-ends in Richard's System. I happen to have a lot of respect for Richard and like him personally, warts and all, but I won't pretend that I'm looking for exactly the same thing from my hifi as Richard. We are all unique. So it came as no surprise to me that there were some aspects of some tracks that I didn't like, e.g. Michael Buble's vocals and Kate Walsh's overall sound just didn't work for me on the day. At home in my system those same tracks blow me away, and Michael's voice is sublime as is Kate's. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Richard's system and it certainly wouldn't have me draw any conclusions about my server or the Xonar. The whole event was too subjective.

3) In fact the whole event was so subjective, I find some of the conclusions being drawn a bit too forceful and bit too definite for me personally. I respect Mark and certainly have an affinity with him from the computer based music perspective, but I just don't know how much I can really hear the flaws in the Xonar he mentions. I'm not saying he's not right, I'm saying I'm really disappointed we didn't get a chance to plug his more expensive DACs into my Nexus so I could make a direct comparison and hear or not hear any flaws for myself.

4) I'll state right now that I have a more than adequately paid day job and I'm in no way looking to get into the HiFi industry. On the Subjectivist forum someone asked me about the Nexus music server I had built at the start of the year and I explained my design philosophy, what I had built, why and what it was like. Despite encouragement on the forum to put it in production I refused as I'm not interested in that life. Richard wanted to hear the Nexus to see if it was as good as I was 'boasting', and when in his opinion it was he asked me if I would consider putting it into production. Again I refused, but I said I would work with him so that he could put something in production under the NVA label if he wanted. I've been a fan of Richard's amps for nearly 20 years and it's a personal honour for me to work on an NVA product.

5) Right now where I'm at with my digital music journey is to first create as perfect a transport as possible. To me that means not only sound quality but also functionality and convenience. (so I get excited about high end NASes and I'm not interested in plug-in hard drives). My plan after building the 'perfect' transport (which for now I believe I have done) was to search for the best DAC/interconnect solution I could afford, and until then stick with the Xonar as the DAC. That plan has been delayed for 3 reasons: a) I'm waiting for Westlake's new DAC, b) the Xonar turned out to be a lot better than I expected, and c) the considerable effort to research, audition and buy speakers earlier in the year drained me

6) I don't believe putting together a high end transport is rocket science - it's more like computer science :) (sorry couldn't resist)
After I had build the Nexus I found Chris Connaker's forum (http://www.computeraudiophile.com) which is by the way the best resource bar none for computer based hifi, and anyone serious about the subject should spend many hours reading that stuff. From there I also found Mark's site (http://www.itemaudio.co.uk) and both were doing or talking about doing similar things to my Nexus.
From there it's really about the DAC, and the connection to the computer. However, I really think there is a lot to be said for a computer based front end that incorporates a built in DAC. (a bit like the huge market for CD players that didn't need an external DAC. Frankly it's convenient and easier for novices to stomach). I'm interested in putting together the best all-in-one solution I can, and if Richard can make money from it then all the better.

I also hope Mark succeeds with his music servers - I'm sure they will sound awesome, and the hifi world will be all the richer for any well-engineered solution.


Right, enough of all that crap, what I really want is to hear one of these with my Nexus: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Weiss-Engineering-DAC202-Review
If anyone has one or can get access to one please speak up!


Jason
 
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Hi Jason,

For the Weiss you want Keith (purite audio) but he needs a lot of beauty sleep, so he won't be here this late...;)
 
Figlet ,Jason welcome to Zerogain, really good of you to post, can you run through your front end, a few years back I used a pipe cooled pc, stripped right down with a Lynx 16aes card , outputting aes/sb ,running wavelab software it was pretty good with a decent dac.
Re the Weiss I sell those and the 202 is good imho.
Very Best,Keith.
 
No need to make digital audio unnecessarily complex IMO.
Optical from a Mac into a £140 V-Dac is all you need, and it'll take on anything at any price...... behind a curtain and out of view ;)

Handles 24/192 with noise, distortion and jitter all at ultra-low levels - the latter is down around the current measurement limit.

Job done.
 

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