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Sonic vinyl nirvana: combining a D400, B&W 800D, and a DJ turnable system
#1
I'm going to try to describe the experience of listening to a pair of the state of art B&W 800 Diamonds, driven by the D400 with SAM turned on, using as source vinyl records. 

Eh, what's that you say? You own a Devialet Dxx, but you don't have a turntable, and don't listen to records. Hmm...how should I put it? 

Think of it like buying a really really expensive sports car -- a Ferrari Testarossa, or a Lamborghini Countach. After the purchase, the salesperson takes you aside, and whispers in your ear. He (or she) says: "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but there's this feature, see, if you twist this knob and push this button, the engine horsepower greatly increases. We don't tell our customers because it requires a real expert to handle the car, which under this mode, has ferocious acceleration". You walk away, with a wise but knowing look. The next time you are on an open country road, and a certain wild look goes over your face...now, what did the salesperson say I need to do....

So, Devialet gives you all these inputs in the back of the unit, digital SPDIF, digital AES, digital USB, digital ethernet, and then there's this strange looking thing, Phono 2. What do you do? Use the SD card to turn it off. Because you don't have a turnable. Now, think of me as the salesperson whispering in your ear. I'm going to show you how to release the real power in the amplifier you just bought by not turning off the Phono inputs! Now, it's not for everyone, it's only for those who truly want to hear what their amplifier and speakers are capable of. 

But, but, you say. I don't have a turntable. I can't afford those multi-thousand monsters with the multi-thousand dollar flimsy cartridge, and the need to clean my records. Relax! I will use as my demonstration a vinyl setup that cost me all of $400. I guarantee you that this $400 vinyl system will completely blow away any digital source of similar price, heck, any digital source of price 5x more. What about the software? Head to your nearest used record store. Buy the cheapest albums you can find, of music you used to love when you were young and wild! Ignore all the audiophile records.

So, we will use for our demonstration, a used $300 Technics SL-1200 MkII turnable, the so-called "Wheel of Steel", loved by DJ's worldwide as their favorite turntable of choice. For cartridge, we use the budget Shure "White" DJ cartridge, which produces a healthy output of 7 mV and costs all of $100. Set up time on the 1200: 30 seconds. The cartridge comes with its own headshell, and all you do is screw it on, balance the tonearm for zero balance, and adjust tracking force and antiskating.  So, we are going to use a $400 source to drive a $20K amplifier (the D400) on a pair of $20K speakers (the B&W 800D). Sounds like insanity, no? 

Where should we begin? Well, since we are reviewing a French amplifier, why not pick a French composer, let's pick that master of lyricism and haunting sensuality, Jules Massenet. One of his most famous pieces, which takes all of 20 minutes, is called Le  Cid (from his opera of the same name). If I had to choose one piece of orchestral music to test a system, it would be Le Cid. It has stunning dynamic range, haunting woodwind playing, lots of cymbal crashes, castanets galore, the works. 

Our recording of choice is a famous one on EMI, by Louis Fremaux and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, recorded by the incomparable team of Brian Culverhouse and Stuart Eltham, who produced many fine recordings. Unlike 99% of EMi recordings, this one is not compressed. 

Massenet's music has this strange mixture of absolute lyrical beauty (which even Mozart cannot touch) combined with utter gaudiness, and excess. It's like he can't control himself. He mixes a beautiful sensual passage with loud orchestral passages, constantly keeping you guessing what's coming next. 

My favorite track is Track 4, Marilene. This has the most haunting two minutes of woodwind music in all of the classical repertoire, it's a duet between the Cor Anglai (English horn, the most beautiful instrument in the whole orchestra) and a flute. They dance around each other, each drawing the other to new heights. Then comes Massenet as usual, with his wrecking ball, and the whole orchestra goes into a frenzy, percussion and castanets galore. 

What's amazing here is when the Cor Anglai and the flute begin to play, you hear the ambience in the hall, a sort of hushed silence that reveals the size of the hall. The sound just echoes around and makes the instruments much louder than they are. The phono stage on the D400 is capable of such delicacy combined with such thunderous dynamics, that my whole listening room was shaking as the crescendo builds on this track. With SAM turned on, the response of the B&W 800D is extended to 16 Hz, and with orchestral peaks hitting well over 100dB, there was not a hint of harshness or brightness. Each cymbal crash is rendered with absolute precision, and you hear the sound hitting the back of the hall and returning. It reminded me of my experience in Boston's Symphony Hall, listening to Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, where the brass instruments get louder and louder, and the orchestral fortissimos just resonate and slap across the back wall and return. You can hear all this and more with a $400 turntable. 

Still not convinced? Eh, you don't like classical. Very well, let's pick some rock and roll. Loggins and Messina made this fun recording called Full Sail, which has very low bass in several tracks. On the B&W 800D, when these low frequency bass notes come, they are so fast, that you feel it more in your chest than in your ears. Your first reaction is "what the hell was that?" before you realize a second later that it was a bass note very low down in frequency. When on the opening track, they sing of centipedes crawling on you, you almost feel like checking to see if they are crawling around your listening room! 

We have to end with an audiophile recoding, so let's pick the old warhorse, Jazz at the Pawnshop, released numerous times on LP, CD, and now on multiple SACDs. The LP version released by Rega records still sounds the finest to my ears, and on the D400, you hear way into the jazz club, all the clinking of glasses being picked up by the waitresses, the swish of the cleaning cloth, the scraping of chairs, the gentle murmur of Swedes talking through the music, along with the main instruments playing. The xylophone on track 2 is rendered with crystalline precision, each thwack comes across pure and direct. 

So, there you have it. Remember, this information is not to be shared widely. It is only meant for a few select customers, who we believe have the skill it takes to control this amplifier in the Phono mode, where the real power inside is released, and the amplifier takes on a whole new performance level. For all our normal customers, we recommend they stick with the digital inputs, where life is more sedate, things are more controlled, dynamics are a bit subdued, and the pace is more gentle. 

Finally, a picture of the room and setup, in case you are interested. This is my basement home theater. The large B&W HTM1D center channel speaker and the AW855 subwoofer played no part in this production. The Technics turntable is shown on right at the top of the stand. D400s are just below it. LP cover of Le Cid shown on bottom. 

Adieux, Mon Ami. 

   
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#2
(13-Aug-2016, 04:07)srima Wrote: I'm going to try to describe the experience of listening to a pair of the state of art B&W 800 Diamonds, driven by the D400 with SAM turned on, using as source vinyl records. 

Eh, what's that you say? You own a Devialet Dxx, but you don't have a turntable, and don't listen to records. Hmm...how should I put it? 

Think of it like buying a really really expensive sports car -- a Ferrari Testarossa, or a Lamborghini Countach. After the purchase, the salesperson takes you aside, and whispers in your ear. He (or she) says: "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but there's this feature, see, if you twist this knob and push this button, the engine horsepower greatly increases. We don't tell our customers because it requires a real expert to handle the car, which under this mode, has ferocious acceleration". You walk away, with a wise but knowing look. The next time you are on an open country road, and a certain wild look goes over your face...now, what did the salesperson say I need to do....

So, Devialet gives you all these inputs in the back of the unit, digital SPDIF, digital AES, digital USB, digital ethernet, and then there's this strange looking thing, Phono 2. What do you do? Use the SD card to turn it off. Because you don't have a turnable. Now, think of me as the salesperson whispering in your ear. I'm going to show you how to release the real power in the amplifier you just bought by not turning off the Phono inputs! Now, it's not for everyone, it's only for those who truly want to hear what their amplifier and speakers are capable of. 

But, but, you say. I don't have a turntable. I can't afford those multi-thousand monsters with the multi-thousand dollar flimsy cartridge, and the need to clean my records. Relax! I will use as my demonstration a vinyl setup that cost me all of $400. I guarantee you that this $400 vinyl system will completely blow away any digital source of similar price, heck, any digital source of price 5x more. What about the software? Head to your nearest used record store. Buy the cheapest albums you can find, of music you used to love when you were young and wild! Ignore all the audiophile records.

So, we will use for our demonstration, a used $300 Technics SL-1200 MkII turnable, the so-called "Wheel of Steel", loved by DJ's worldwide as their favorite turntable of choice. For cartridge, we use the budget Shure "White" DJ cartridge, which produces a healthy output of 7 mV and costs all of $100. Set up time on the 1200: 30 seconds. The cartridge comes with its own headshell, and all you do is screw it on, balance the tonearm for zero balance, and adjust tracking force and antiskating.  So, we are going to use a $400 source to drive a $20K amplifier (the D400) on a pair of $20K speakers (the B&W 800D). Sounds like insanity, no? 

Where should we begin? Well, since we are reviewing a French amplifier, why not pick a French composer, let's pick that master of lyricism and haunting sensuality, Jules Massenet. One of his most famous pieces, which takes all of 20 minutes, is called Le  Cid (from his opera of the same name). If I had to choose one piece of orchestral music to test a system, it would be Le Cid. It has stunning dynamic range, haunting woodwind playing, lots of cymbal crashes, castanets galore, the works. 

Our recording of choice is a famous one on EMI, by Louis Fremaux and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, recorded by the incomparable team of Brian Culverhouse and Stuart Eltham, who produced many fine recordings. Unlike 99% of EMi recordings, this one is not compressed. 

Massenet's music has this strange mixture of absolute lyrical beauty (which even Mozart cannot touch) combined with utter gaudiness, and excess. It's like he can't control himself. He mixes a beautiful sensual passage with loud orchestral passages, constantly keeping you guessing what's coming next. 

My favorite track is Track 4, Marilene. This has the most haunting two minutes of woodwind music in all of the classical repertoire, it's a duet between the Cor Anglai (English horn, the most beautiful instrument in the whole orchestra) and a flute. They dance around each other, each drawing the other to new heights. Then comes Massenet as usual, with his wrecking ball, and the whole orchestra goes into a frenzy, percussion and castanets galore. 

What's amazing here is when the Cor Anglai and the flute begin to play, you hear the ambience in the hall, a sort of hushed silence that reveals the size of the hall. The sound just echoes around and makes the instruments much louder than they are. The phono stage on the D400 is capable of such delicacy combined with such thunderous dynamics, that my whole listening room was shaking as the crescendo builds on this track. With SAM turned on, the response of the B&W 800D is extended to 16 Hz, and with orchestral peaks hitting well over 100dB, there was not a hint of harshness or brightness. Each cymbal crash is rendered with absolute precision, and you hear the sound hitting the back of the hall and returning. It reminded me of my experience in Boston's Symphony Hall, listening to Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, where the brass instruments get louder and louder, and the orchestral fortissimos just resonate and slap across the back wall and return. You can hear all this and more with a $400 turntable. 

Still not convinced? Eh, you don't like classical. Very well, let's pick some rock and roll. Loggins and Messina made this fun recording called Full Sail, which has very low bass in several tracks. On the B&W 800D, when these low frequency bass notes come, they are so fast, that you feel it more in your chest than in your ears. Your first reaction is "what the hell was that?" before you realize a second later that it was a bass note very low down in frequency. When on the opening track, they sing of centipedes crawling on you, you almost feel like checking to see if they are crawling around your listening room! 

We have to end with an audiophile recoding, so let's pick the old warhorse, Jazz at the Pawnshop, released numerous times on LP, CD, and now on multiple SACDs. The LP version released by Rega records still sounds the finest to my ears, and on the D400, you hear way into the jazz club, all the clinking of glasses being picked up by the waitresses, the swish of the cleaning cloth, the scraping of chairs, the gentle murmur of Swedes talking through the music, along with the main instruments playing. The xylophone on track 2 is rendered with crystalline precision, each thwack comes across pure and direct. 

So, there you have it. Remember, this information is not to be shared widely. It is only meant for a few select customers, who we believe have the skill it takes to control this amplifier in the Phono mode, where the real power inside is released, and the amplifier takes on a whole new performance level. For all our normal customers, we recommend they stick with the digital inputs, where life is more sedate, things are more controlled, dynamics are a bit subdued, and the pace is more gentle. 

Finally, a picture of the room and setup, in case you are interested. This is my basement home theater. The large B&W HTM1D center channel speaker and the AW855 subwoofer played no part in this production. The Technics turntable is shown on right at the top of the stand. D400s are just below it. LP cover of Le Cid shown on bottom. 

Adieux, Mon Ami. 

Nice story :-)

David
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#3
Srima

I don't have a turntable in my set-up (last time had one back in the 70's growing up as a teenager), but it's the first time since coming to Oz (arrived in '88) I've actually went on SNA & Gumtree looking at one.

Great story and really inspiring for us Turntable Virigin's  Tongue
1000Pro (Matte Black), Lenehan Audio ML5 Reference's, FoilTek Speaker Cable's, Paradigm Sub1, Entreq Poseidon, Antipodes CX, Roon (Lifetime), Curious Cable USB, Aqvox Switch, Gigawatt PC-3 Evo Se, Mad Scientist Link Cable (RCA/AES), PSC Power Cords

Australia (Perth)
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#4
Now you made me wanting to buy a TT Dodgy
Technics SL-1200G | Ortofon Cadenza Bronze | Audio Technica AT-ART9 | Hana ML
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#5
(13-Aug-2016, 13:54)tategoi Wrote: Now you made me wanting to buy a TT Dodgy

Yeah, me too. An Audi TT. Now where's that button... Big Grin
                                                    Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,                                     
                                                                                                                                                                            Dynaudio C1 MkII.
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                                                                                                                                                                        Northern NSW Australia.
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#6
Great description of the music. I agree, the phono stage on these Devialet pieces is absolutely first rate. The experience listening to vinyl is enthralling.
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#7
I hope no one is implying digital is inferior. If so, remember all Devialet analog inputs are digitized by an ADC, upsampled and processed by DSP (like for SAM) and later converted back to analog by a DAC.

The one digital source is not the other and a Sqeezebox over USB really is not going to cut it.
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

The Netherlands
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#8
(13-Aug-2016, 23:48)Antoine Wrote: I hope no one is implying digital is inferior. If so, remember all Devialet analog inputs are digitized by an ADC, upsampled and processed by DSP (like for SAM) and later converted back to analog by a DAC.

The one digital source is not the other and a Sqeezebox over USB really is not going to cut it.

Excellent point. I have often wondered why vinyl has such incredible dynamics, and digital often sounds squelched. It seems to make no sense mathematically (and I am a computer scientist, so I should be more enamored of bits than a rock cutting through plastic!). I vividly remember my experience as a grad student excitedly hooking up a portable CD player through its line output to a receiver, and expecting to be blown away. After all, the specs of the CD player said it had 90+dB dynamic range, yada yada. I was incredibly crushed to find it sounding totally lifeless compared to my analog turntable (then a air-bearing tonearm based wonder called the Mapleknoll, long since defunct). I learned an important lesson, way back in the late 80s. Don't trust the specifications, trust your ears. Whatever the specs say, your ears are the ultimate arbiter. 

Digital technology has made vast strides since the late 80s, but not always in terms of higher fidelity. Consider that the vast majority of mankind considers high fidelity to be compressed MP3 tracks from iTunes (or in a cruel joke, it's now called "Mastered for iTunes"). Or the millions who listen to crappy Internet radio, or Spotify, or even the latest horror of horrors, Tidal (a marketing joke, if there ever was one). 

If this is the digital input you are feeding your D400 (or Dxx), vinyl will sound infinitely superior in every way, even a $300 turntable with a $100 budget cartridge playing a 20 cent record. This is largely thanks to the wonderful vinyl stage that Devaliet has given us. 

The Logitech Squeezebox is superior to every digital streaming source I've heard, unless you get into the real high end of digital (e.g, my 3 piece Esoteric system, which has vastly superior dynamics). I haven't heard the much touted Aurender, but to my ears, iTunes or JRiver or Pure Music through my iMac or Mac Pro or Mac Mini or any of my fancy GPU machine PCs does not sound superior to the Logitech Squeezebox. I would be surprised if that were the case. These are crappy computer interfaces, not designed for high end audio, but made by Apple for the mass market to stream iTunes. I would expect any computer output to have very high jitter levels, unless it is clocked asynchronously (like USB) to a very good clock. Such interfaces are rare, and cost quite a lot. It takes real moolah to construct a low jitter clock, since the temperature has to be controlled just right for the clock to be stable. 

I haven't heard the Aurender system (e.g, the W20) or some of the higher priced streamers. They may be better than the Squeezebox. But, if you are streaming from a PC, forget it. It's not going to sound better than the Squeezebox through asynchronous USB. 

The best digital sound through my D400 that I've heard is my high end Esoteric transport (P-03) clocked by the GR0b Rubidium quantum clock, to the AES-EBU input. That has incredibly low jitter. Unfortunately, the Devialet cannot accept an external clock signal, which would certainly improve its sound by a significant amount. I hope eventually Devialet would release a version of their amplifier that can be externally clocked. Certainly, if they want to make a dent in the professional digital world, they can't sell to studios without such a clocking mechanism. 

There's a reason why every high end recording studio in the world uses a very fancy external clock to synchronize all their digital equipment. So do dCS and Esoteric, which together sell the best digital high end equipment I've heard. But their external clocks do not come cheap, unfortunately. The higher the bit rate, the more important the clock becomes. The saddest part of the story is HDMI, a story of failed opportunities. For literally cents, the HDMI interface could be vastly improved by adding synchronizing clocks, but for whatever reason, the clown who designed it did not. Every HDMI interface has vast amounts of jitter, and is hugely inferior to asynchronous USB with a good clocking signal.
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#9
I think much of it comes down to poor mastering for digital and poor implementation techniques in digital sources/DAC's.

Devialet AIR from an off the shelf computer should already outperform a Sqeezebox. A Mutec MC-3+ USB re-clocker/USB converter behind the Sqeezebox will outperform the Sqeezebox on its own, and you can feed it a 10M atomic clock signal if you'd want to. Great, extremely low phase noise clocks can be bought from $1000. No absolute need for the massively overpriced dCS stuff here. Smile Mutec will also release a -140dB@10Hz one soon but it'll cost around €3k.

I've had an optimized PC using many specialist parts and software outputting into Devialets USB input that outperformed AIR and it itself is significantly outperformed by a relatively cheap Sonore microRendu and this same Mutec. Using a high quality Paul Hynes linear PSU feeding the microRendu improved it even further. Some claim the microRendu outperforms all the Aurenders including the massively overpriced W20.

Bits are bits but there's a lot more to it. For USB for example asynchronous data transfers plus buffering in the DAC is not the silver bullet. There's also the need for proper isolation of different power domains/ground planes, high quality clocks, high quality, low noise power, high signal integrity (e.g. through proper impedance control) both in the source as in the DAC. I have to keep my reply short now, sorry about that, (typing on an iPad and time to go to bed) and a lot is already written on these matters on this forum and many others. Personally I've also kept a log of my "travels through computer audio country" in my system topic (see link in my signature) for those interested. I'm an EE but work in IT now and I've had to admit that a lot of my preconceptions/things in computer science I thought were absolutely true and applicable to digital/computer audio have been wrong. Network and USB cables, hell even an audiophile SATA cable inside my computer made a difference as did powering the SSD from a separate power source. (just some examples) and of course these have been workarounds for the real issues in both the source as Devialet.
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

The Netherlands
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#10
My experience is that the biggest SQ differences we experience are down to the recording, and its subsequent mix and mastering.
I have fabulous sounding LPs, and mediocre ones. I have fabulous sounding CDs an mediocre ones.
This is very unfortunate if one is an enthusiast of a particular band, since you are stuck with what is issued. Ironically, if there is an LP and CD of the same album the LP is often less dynamically compressed than the CD, presumably because the mastering engineer knows the LP won't be listened to in a car, train or whilst jogging. It is a shame since the potential of CD is much greater than is usually exploited nowadays.
Older CDs and not "remastered" tend to be better than recent ones IME.
I mainly listen to classical music. I do have some fabulous sounding LPs but here I reckon CDs are more often best, and in any case there are usually many versions of the same work, so unlike with pop music one usually has a choice of sound quality and interpretation when buying.

Microphone choice and positioning make a bigger difference to the SQ than anything else IME.

I do not attribute the differences between CD and LP to differences between digital and analogue since a digital recording of an LP sounds just like the LP.

FWIW whilst people are giving their experience history, my main experience in audio started analogue, I was a noise and vibration research engineer who worked for a short time for Garrard on how and why record players work the way they do.
I have been an amateur recordist for 50 years or so, starting with a mono valve reel to reel recorder, finishing with a Metric Halo digital recorder and using many technologies in between.
As a professional I have used analogue and digital methods for recording data, I was the first person to use a digital recorder on a Formula 1 car, and wrote my first significant software in 1971. I had to write most of the software I used for the first 15 years of my career.

My experience is quite different from Antoine's, btw.
I did not find huge differences between normally engineered DACs when I last did a careful comparison, far, far less than, say, the difference between my CD and LP copies of a favourite Liszt Piano concertos recording I enjoy.
I have yet to hear a difference between any cables which do not act as filters or aerials.
I compared a very expensive linear power supply on my Metric Halo recorder in place of the supplied (presumably extremely well designed) switched mode supply, I heard no difference. Interestingly (to me anyway) Bob Diament of Soundkeeper recordings (who uses the same recorder) wrote almost the same though he felt the bass was be a bit better with the smps, which is logical.
http://soundkeeperrecordings.com
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Oxfordshire

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