Mr Peabody
Well-known member
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- #1
I was over to a friend's house doing some listening to his system. He had a CD of an artist I'm not familiar withso forgot the name already, anyway, healso had the CD rip and the track was on Qobuz. He didn't tell me which was playing at first. Supposedly the digital file and Qobuz was being upsampled in DSD. I say supposedly because the rip and Qobuz sounded quite a bit different.
I preferred the rip because it sounded to me like it had less noise in the background, or, another way, more transparency. The Qobuz sounded larger and less ambience. Interestingly, the CD sounded most like the track played on Qobuz. My take away, I have doubts the Qobuz was upsampled due to the similarity I mentioned and secondly, although I preferred the rip upsampled at first I believe it altered it the furtherest from the original recording. So if I new the way the recording was supposed to sound I doubt I would use the upsampled rip. The rip seemed to be more transparent but it was also thinner images if that makes sense.
#2, I didn't want to start a second thread.
Typically my stance in the analog vs digital is, too many variables to really compare, I like both but they are different.
My friend has a top Lampi DAC, his turntable rig is nice but modest compared to many here, A SOTA, not the model with the vacuum, a PS Audio phono stage, forget the model but the one with the A to D converter for ripping, the cart was an old Audioquest which I suspect is stellar. He said the guys who made it for AQ went onto Lyra.
I was swayed tward analog, or at least the potential for analog being better based on what I heard. My friend has some direct to disc pressngs of Sheffield Labs. We listened to Amanda McBrook and an album of LA Philharmonic playing Romeo & Juliet. My jaw was on the floor, the dynamics and slam were incredible,as ell the lifelike presentation. Those who criticize analog's lack of dynamic range just don't know, maybe we don't need all that range, I was really amazed. With that being said not all LP's come close to D2D nor produced as SL can do.
With that being said we really didn't have the digital format of this music to compare, except the one track of Amanda McBrook which paled by comparison. But for some reason some of the CD pressings ofSL recordings were like that, didn't stak up to the LP.
Hope this don't open a can of worms, just my musings.
I preferred the rip because it sounded to me like it had less noise in the background, or, another way, more transparency. The Qobuz sounded larger and less ambience. Interestingly, the CD sounded most like the track played on Qobuz. My take away, I have doubts the Qobuz was upsampled due to the similarity I mentioned and secondly, although I preferred the rip upsampled at first I believe it altered it the furtherest from the original recording. So if I new the way the recording was supposed to sound I doubt I would use the upsampled rip. The rip seemed to be more transparent but it was also thinner images if that makes sense.
#2, I didn't want to start a second thread.
Typically my stance in the analog vs digital is, too many variables to really compare, I like both but they are different.
My friend has a top Lampi DAC, his turntable rig is nice but modest compared to many here, A SOTA, not the model with the vacuum, a PS Audio phono stage, forget the model but the one with the A to D converter for ripping, the cart was an old Audioquest which I suspect is stellar. He said the guys who made it for AQ went onto Lyra.
I was swayed tward analog, or at least the potential for analog being better based on what I heard. My friend has some direct to disc pressngs of Sheffield Labs. We listened to Amanda McBrook and an album of LA Philharmonic playing Romeo & Juliet. My jaw was on the floor, the dynamics and slam were incredible,as ell the lifelike presentation. Those who criticize analog's lack of dynamic range just don't know, maybe we don't need all that range, I was really amazed. With that being said not all LP's come close to D2D nor produced as SL can do.
With that being said we really didn't have the digital format of this music to compare, except the one track of Amanda McBrook which paled by comparison. But for some reason some of the CD pressings ofSL recordings were like that, didn't stak up to the LP.
Hope this don't open a can of worms, just my musings.