Dreadhead

Another cool thing for CJ Damnit

Quite right British. Gut instinct I would say. He said he liked the character and flow that the news setup gave him and he loved the Hedd196's ability to model all the different tubes (it's a very neat piece of audio engineering) He moved to taking the digital file -> Hedd -> all analog with tubes and without tubes -> tape I believe. He also monitored fully analog that way as well. He said the prism was more accurate though but did not "gel" with his setup. I actually got talking to him through the fact he posted the prism for sale but I missed out by a couple months. I picked VTL because I thought they were considered well designed, but your point about design is very true.

Lots of mastering engineers use a purely SS system for exactly the same reason then. I guess the two camps differ in opinion much like we do. I am no more incorrect than you are I had a very nice email chain with a english mastering engineer who went from full SS (Prism + other stuff) to switching to the Hedd 192 + various tube so that he could get more feeling to his masters but he admitted he lost accuracy.

FTW

FTFY

Actually at least in the two examples I stated above the odd order for the tube amp is higher than for the SS amp (which probably has feedback). Professionals use tube gear because it gives the music a "great quality", not for accuracy. I have no issue with other people preferring it though I don't. For me accuracy means the ability to reproduce the signal with as little as possible coloration or non-linearity. I have heard a few good tube amps that I liked but I would not own them, I still want to hear the 507a and the BHSE/BH though and if I like them I will eat crow and switch.

I am well aware of the audibility of even vs odd order distortion etc (note my mention of even order above). I am not just quoting measurements. I am just stating facts. That even order distortion is at least an order of magnitude bigger than the SS amp. Both are very low but it's bigger.

Yup. Still more than a lot of SS stuff though. Stereophile: VTL TL-6.5 Signature line preamplifier Stereophile: Simaudio Moon Evolution P-7 line preamplifier

:eek::eek::eek:

As I said I wouldn't own it but it does look that way.

I am alluding to the fact that tubes naturally add even order harmonic distortion and sometimes in large amounts, thought I doubt any of his gear would. I would personally own very little of his gear but I am sure that it's amazing and well done tube so my allusion was probably just crap (as usual).

Steve Hoffman Info Site | Equipment Tubes tubes and more tubes. Plus some sweet audio stones. Also uses this place: http://www.recordtech.com/atmweb/atmequipment.htm Which does have a model 2 but I think you can see his sensibilities from his home setup.

Also with all the tube gear that the DCC guy uses I am not entirely sure the distortion is really in the master.... Oh well an argument for another day.

Icarium, actually I made a mistaken statement. The percussion was better on the DCC though the distortion was there. I corrected this a couple minutes later in chat last night. In the end I changed my mind anyway. I decided the distortion was worth the increased detail up hight and bass control. The DCC won in the end. That said there is a bit of what I would call digital weirdness going on in both tracks.... I'd love either version to own since I'll have to delete them soon anyway (I never keep anything I don't own for more than a week).

FTFY

Well mine are supposed to ship out today so hopefully I'll get them later this week. I'm a little concerned because they took at least a week with them so I'm guessing they "repaired" them. I hope they didn't do what they did last time and just fix the cosmetic issues without replacing the drivers. I did email customer service several times so hopefully they did the right thing and replaced them.

x2

The difference in audio compared to optical is that our eyes unfortunately outperform the ability of the system to capture the information (well if we are cropping and or using sharpening). Our ears unfortunately don't. I'm not arguing that it's more accurate to the original band I'm just saying it's what's on the CD (good or bad). For an example of a wonderfully recorded and mastered classical cd I will use the Linn recording of the SCO playing Motzart's symphonies (I have the hi-rez download). That CD/SACD was recorded well, has an insane amounts of detail, is accurate and isn't digital sounding at all with even the most "digital" sounding DAC. That's the problem with accurate DACs, 95% of the stuff out there has flaws and they go ahead and point it out. I personally rather see the flaws and ignore them (I have no problem enjoying music even when there is obvious distortion and or other problems). To use a visual reference I would rather see the actresses flaws and still think she's beautiful than have Vaseline on the lens. YMMV

:D:D:D

Hoffman uses shatki stones for me that throws the entire thing into doubt. I also have noticed there appears to be a bit more distortion on the DCC master than the original Dan sent me. The highs are also up as well as the background noise. I've used ABX and it's definitely the case. I wish the foobar ABX did exact volume matching. The jazz is sounding good. Unfortunately I don't have Deepak's ears/sensibilites to really know exactly what he's having issue with but when he said "newer digital devices" I thought I knew what he was talking about.

Thanks Dan. I am comparing away now. The DCC is slightly louder (3dB or so) and enhanced in the bass and highs but as Deepak says it isn't close to needing compression. I'm not entirely sure after 3 minutes that I don't prefer the original. That said it certainly is wonderfully mastered.

These can be good: Car Talk | Puzzler

Well you forgot about all the people that bought the CORIOLAN 2 from rudi...

Please