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Understanding DA conversion of Dialog / Phantoms
#1
Hi,

i normally listen through tidal / qobuz with dialog. A while ago i connected my old McCormack UDP-1 CD-Player (3700 € when new many years ago) to dialog an listend to some music. My understanding was that as long as a digital input is used that dialog and / or phantoms do the digital analog conversion and chips in sources like cd players are beeing ignored when the output is digital. Is that correct?

Now to me the sound of the UDP-1 seems much better. A fuller sound might describe it perhaps. A bit warmer, not so harsh. I dídn't expect the sound so different. The problem is, i don't like to change / buy cds all the time. What streamers do you use with your phantoms and has anyone the same experience with the dialog?

thank you

Benjamin
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#2
Yes if you present a PCM source to phantoms it does the d to a not the dialog. Btw the conversion is done by a US$5 TI chip :-(


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#3
Oh and yes all your high end dacs in your source equipment are effectively redundant


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#4
Thanks for your response.

But why is it that other digital sources sound so different? My Sat-Receiver, Media-Player sound different as well. Shouldn´t they all sound the same?
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#5
It's probably to do with how those sources are processing the digital streams prior to output I take it your udp1 has a digital out that bypasses it own dacs, maybe it's just a great transport. Also you could be falling into the trap of believing it's better just coz it cost 4 grand. If I blind tested you with your sources could you really tell which was which?


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#6
(14-Oct-2016, 20:19)DSD Wrote: It's probably to do with how those sources are processing the digital streams prior to output I take it your udp1 has a digital out that bypasses it own dacs, maybe it's just a great transport. Also you could be falling into the trap of believing it's better just coz it cost 4 grand. If I blind tested you with your sources could you really tell which was which?


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I´m not sure if i would always detect a difference between cables, mp3 - flac, .. But in this case 100%. The sound is so much warmer with the upd1.

Funny thing was: I used Tidal - lossless till recently. One of my favorite cds is Gladiator from Hans Zimmer. Compared to my udp1 the sound was cold and lifeless. Long time i thought the dialog is the reason. So i was looking out for other streamer like Auralic Aries, Linn, ... 

But before buying i ripped the cd to pc and played it again through the dialog. And it sounded great. I was curios now and signed up for qobuz - lossless. I expected the same bad sound like with Tidal. But it sounded exactly like the one played from the pc. I then did a spektrum analysis with the files (different songs from others albums, not only gladiator) from tidal, qobuz,  and cd. The image showed the qobuz and cd are identical, but Tidal has less information.
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#7
(14-Oct-2016, 22:07)Benjamin79 Wrote:
(14-Oct-2016, 20:19)DSD Wrote: It's probably to do with how those sources are processing the digital streams prior to output I take it your udp1 has a digital out that bypasses it own dacs, maybe it's just a great transport. Also you could be falling into the trap of believing it's better just coz it cost 4 grand. If I blind tested you with your sources could you really tell which was which?


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I´m not sure if i would always detect a difference between cables, mp3 - flac, .. But in this case 100%. The sound is so much warmer with the upd1.

Funny thing was: I used Tidal - lossless till recently. One of my favorite cds is Gladiator from Hans Zimmer. Compared to my udp1 the sound was cold and lifeless. Long time i thought the dialog is the reason. So i was looking out for other streamer like Auralic Aries, Linn, ... 

But before buying i ripped the cd to pc and played it again through the dialog. And it sounded great. I was curios now and signed up for qobuz - lossless. I expected the same bad sound like with Tidal. But it sounded exactly like the one played from the pc. I then did a spektrum analysis with the files (different songs from others albums, not only gladiator) from tidal, qobuz,  and cd. The image showed the qobuz and cd are identical, but Tidal has less information.

Tidal sounding less good could be the steaming bug that resets the streaming quality to 320 AAC or even 96 AAC every time you start Spark or it gets kicked out of the internal memory of your phone.
Living room: Kii Three/BXT with Control.
Den: Tannoy Precision 8 iDP with TS112 iDP subwoofer.
In the cupboard, waiting for a sibling: 1st gen. Phantom Silver running DOS1
My Phantom Voyage
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#8
I´ve captured the stream through the Tidal app. Spark wasn´t involved.
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#9
I've never been convinced by tidal I know linn had babies over it and my respect for linn has declined enormously over the last few years esp with this stupid exakt tech (I've heard 6 exact demos and the they've all been rubbish) stick with qbozz then...


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