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New Pro - SQ for classical music
#51
(16-Nov-2016, 14:09)Confused Wrote: But lets assume for a moment I am correct, then any tweaks that improve performance would actually make the issue worse by improving the revealing nature of the Pro.


A final note to the Tweakers, it's all good stuff, keep it coming, keep filling up Tweaker's corner, in fact I might need some of this stuff, as I have Dev's on a glass shelf, with standard power cables, rubbish and speaker binding posts, I need help! Sad

Sorry, if it was for me, but I find it difficult to help someone out of his problem w/o mentioning a 'tweak'.
The shifting of the phase of your power cable is not a 'tweak' to me though. I find it very significant. Sure will the PRO sound better with the right phase on. But in no way worse with bad recordings then.

If the wrong phase is fed to a Devialet Power Supply it produces more of the 'digital' sound we all hate and the thread opener was addressing just this. May be I was not clear enough about the blessings of a right phased Devialet.



gui
"Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
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#52
(16-Nov-2016, 14:40)yabaVR Wrote:
(16-Nov-2016, 14:09)Confused Wrote: But lets assume for a moment I am correct, then any tweaks that improve performance would actually make the issue worse by improving the revealing nature of the Pro.


A final note to the Tweakers, it's all good stuff, keep it coming, keep filling up Tweaker's corner, in fact I might need some of this stuff, as I have Dev's on a glass shelf, with standard power cables, rubbish and speaker binding posts, I need help! Sad

Sorry, if it was for me, but I find it difficult to help someone out of his problem w/o mentioning a 'tweak'.
The shifting of the phase of your power cable is not a 'tweak' to me though. I find it very significant. Sure will the PRO sound better with the right phase on. But in no way worse with bad recordings then.

If the wrong phase is fed to a Devialet Power Supply it produces more of the 'digital' sound we all hate and the thread opener was addressing just this. May be I was not clear enough about the blessings of a right phased Devialet.



gui

Gui - Your enthusiasm for tweaks shines through and I am sure are appreciated by many!  So keep it up! Shy   However, is it not logical that if the phase was incorrect here then Arcam would be experiencing a 'digital' sound with everything?  What Arcam is saying is that his Pro sounds excellent, or to use his own words, he is 'generally over enthusiastic about sound quality', the digital artifacts bit was with some recordings only, the phase issue would impact everything.  I guess another issue with this one is that in the UK we have these pesky 3 pin plugs, which can only be connected the right (or wrong) way around! Sad   I do think this stuff is worth following up in another thread though, I find myself wondering how you could check the phase issue yourself, but this is going further off topic here.....
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
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#53
(16-Nov-2016, 15:39)Confused Wrote:
(16-Nov-2016, 14:40)yabaVR Wrote:
(16-Nov-2016, 14:09)Confused Wrote: But lets assume for a moment I am correct, then any tweaks that improve performance would actually make the issue worse by improving the revealing nature of the Pro.


A final note to the Tweakers, it's all good stuff, keep it coming, keep filling up Tweaker's corner, in fact I might need some of this stuff, as I have Dev's on a glass shelf, with standard power cables, rubbish and speaker binding posts, I need help! Sad

Sorry, if it was for me, but I find it difficult to help someone out of his problem w/o mentioning a 'tweak'.
The shifting of the phase of your power cable is not a 'tweak' to me though. I find it very significant. Sure will the PRO sound better with the right phase on. But in no way worse with bad recordings then.

If the wrong phase is fed to a Devialet Power Supply it produces more of the 'digital' sound we all hate and the thread opener was addressing just this. May be I was not clear enough about the blessings of a right phased Devialet.



gui

Gui - Your enthusiasm for tweaks shines through and I am sure are appreciated by many!  So keep it up! Shy   However, is it not logical that if the phase was incorrect here then Arcam would be experiencing a 'digital' sound with everything?  What Arcam is saying is that his Pro sounds excellent, or to use his own words, he is 'generally over enthusiastic about sound quality', the digital artifacts bit was with some recordings only, the phase issue would impact everything.  I guess another issue with this one is that in the UK we have these pesky 3 pin plugs, which can only be connected the right (or wrong) way around! Sad   I do think this stuff is worth following up in another thread though, I find myself wondering how you could check the phase issue yourself, but this is going further off topic here.....

Perhaps we can agree about (old) recordings can contain a lot more jitter than current recordings, because the technology wasn't as advanced as today.
Jitter adds up in the digital audio chain. I can imagine a threshold where it gets obvious for a listener (special for everyone). The jitter or time deviation in the signal is to much to take and one can not compensate on it. It's not an On&Off thing, it just gets more or less. This could be very personal. For me with the digital power supply of the Devialet jitter gets worse when not phased the right way.

To explore the right phase in Britain just take a cheap power cable, cut off the middle pin and listen to both directions. If you got the right direction alter your precious cable to the right phase.

gui
"Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
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#54
What I don't quite understand is why SAM (seems to have) made such a difference in sound quality, making it more analog, less digital. Signal crosstalk that amplified the digital artefacts?
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#55
(16-Nov-2016, 23:55)arcam Wrote: What I don't quite understand is why SAM (seems to have) made such a difference in sound quality, making it more analog, less digital. Signal crosstalk that amplified the digital artefacts?
SAM = more bass = warmer sound

Or

SAM = flatter frequency response = more balanced sound

Kind of the same thing, both guesses on my part.
Roon, Rega P9 + Dynavector XX2Mk2 > 440 Pro > Sonus Faber Guarneri Evolution
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#56
(16-Nov-2016, 23:55)arcam Wrote: What I don't quite understand is why SAM (seems to have) made such a difference in sound quality, making it more analog, less digital. Signal crosstalk that amplified the digital artefacts?

Most speakers have wildly turning phaseshifts in their low frequencies. Phaseshift, in short, means that these low frequencies (who once were time aligned to a tone that carries many frequencies) now seperate from this original tone in time. These low frequencies run beforehand or behind the original tone they belonged to (on the timeline).
This seperation causes fatigue/disruption because your brain while listening trys to assemble these frequencies to the original tone all the time. That's why when there is no (or less) phaseshifts in the music you can say at once "Hey, this sounds very natural". It's an ease for the brain. It notices right away the less (or not appearing) phaseshifts and does'nt have to work (thus calms done).
Got it? Difficult for me as english is not my native language.

For your brain fixing things on the timeline is much more difficult than e.g. fixing different volumes in the frequency responce of a speaker.
Therefor Jitter (digital Phaseshifts) bothers us so much. That is the 'digital sound' we all complain about. The brain has to work in large amounts on these digital phaseshifts.
Now with SAM it's a mixture of both analogue and digital phaseshift. Very complex.

Devialet with SAM measures these (analogue) phaseshifts for each speaker model and 'bend' them digitally (process them on the timeline/volume) to the position THEY think it would be optimal. But it's a 2D(imensional) approach of them on a 3D job. You loose Bit-Perfection of the recording with the first touch on a bit with this.

For many here SAM works and they are happy. For me and some other D owners I know it only works at the expense of loosing ALL the fine details (especially room mapping of recording and transients).
Maybe because of loosing these details you also loose the phaseshifts of these details thus your brain has to work less and you're experiencing the result as sounding more analogue?
It would be better though to work on the problem an other way and maintain the details of music.

To experience for yourself what I'm hearing listen to a recording with no bass but high frequencies (single instrument, woman's voice) and many of room information (best is live recordings). Listen - switch off SAM on RC - listen again. Then you know what SAM also does to your music.

gui

edit:

To be more clear. If SAM helps you to get a more analogue sound, perfect. But have in mind the losses or better try the above test (SAM on/off) if there are any for you.
I think if any Devialet (expert/Pro) sound harsh, edged...digital, it is not caused by the Devialet in origin but due to the spoiled power it gets, due to the jitter of the source it is connected to, due to materials it stands on (glass) that colours the sound, etc. There are so many things that could possible alter the sound. It may be just one thing or all of the before but look at the Devialet being your magnifying glass on this.
From my point of view the Devialet is a 'Diva' and if there is something obnoxious in the signal it just gets mad on it and you will hear this. As I don't work for Devialet the before said is only meant to help if you are unlucky with your D's sound. And for sure it is not THE perfect amp but I know it can sound soo good and I would like others to have the same experience.
"Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
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#57
Hello,

SAM is a digital process, as the whole Devialet concept in fact. But as far as I know, SAM only deals with low frequencies equalization to match with speakers.
If you try a room correction software (as Dirac or other ones), you'll get the whole benefit of frequency AND phase correction at your listening point. Another world : just try.
As Devialet concept is able to do this (SAM is a first example), maybe any room correction option will be included in future softwares ?...

Regards
I.
Upgraded Mac Mini - Audirvana - Dirac plugin - Air3 Wifi - Roon & Roon Air - D250 pro - Thiel CS 3.7
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#58
I tried most of the RC software: Dirac, Acourate, parametric EQ's in jRiver. All of them help to solve room problems, but all of them also degrade the SQ. Dirac the most, Acourate is better but not perfect. The only room correction software that seems to work without any negative impact is the RoomEQ from Mathaudio (free for foobar). SAM is also slightly degrading SQ but can help a lot on some speakers.
On my Giya G2 it is not used anymore since I have the pro.
The best option is to use passive room correction if possible. And I think if the SQ with the Devialet is bad there are other problems like LS/room mismatch, cabling, source. Solving such problems with an active correction system is not a good idea imho...
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#59
(18-Nov-2016, 08:59)Inox Wrote: Hello,

SAM is a digital process, as the whole Devialet concept in fact. But as far as I know, SAM only deals with low frequencies equalization to match with speakers.

Regards
I.

The whole Devialet is a digital concept I agree but the raw concept, if you don't touch anything with settings, does not alter the music signal. It stays Bit-Perfect until it leaves the DAC and is amplified.

As far as SAM 'only' deals with low freqeuencies.
Have you ever listened to a system with a perfectly speaker matched subwoofer with only high frequency music like lets say Xylophon or a solo woman's voice.
You would say there is no bass in the recording BUT you will hear a dramatic collapse of stage/room mapping when you turn off the subwoofer.

How to explain this? I'll try but I'm not safe on this one.
Even tones of high frequencies resonate in a room and are alocated to (generate?) low frequencies of very low volume level.
These low frequencies belong to the original high-frequency-tone and imprinted is the precise 3D-Location of them in 'time-volume-freq' because these values are unique for the room they were recorded in.

When listening with a perfectly speaker matching sub the increase in holographic room mapping is huge when the sub is switched on.
So, if you think the reverse way, it would be most likely, if you swirl around with the bits and bytes of low freq (as SAM does) you loose all the informations of room mapping because the low freq get displaced out of phase/volume and hence can not be allocated to the original tone by the brain. These 'Out of Phase informations' will just add upp to a fidgety background for which reason some call it 'the blackness of background increases' when such freq are back in phase. Almost for me this is quiet coherent.

..ummpf...weird stuff though when I reread it (also in non native language Rolleyes  )

gui
"Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
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#60
Gosh chaps aren't we digressing a little? I know a lot of these themes are intertwined but still.... this seems to have turned into a discussion about the merits of SAM (as interesting as it is, perhaps this convo should be moved to a SAM thread?).

Classical music on the PRO is the post subject right?

Quote:Arcam Wrote: 

When I suspected issues with a recording, I turned to Qobuz to compare. The result was often in favour of Qobuz, but not always. Most striking was when Qobuz had a remastered version.


Here are the records that definitely did not play well:
  • Bach partitas by Milstein: the highs tend to be clipped (CD), the Qobuz version is mildly better
  • Chopin ballade #1 by Samson François: both CD and Qobuz sounded terrible, a lot of digital artifacts
  • Verdi Requiem by Giulini: the voices tend to merge in a distasteful sound, even on Qobuz
  • Ysaye sonatas by Papavrami: the violon causes quite listening fatigue
  • Wagner Parsifal by Karajan: I remember the trombones on LP to be sublime and so did the press think at the time. Definitely missing some chromatism in the CD/Qobuz version
  • Debussy melodies by Dietschy/Cassard: the voice tends to be a bit harsh. I've heard it sound sublime in some system in the past (ah! yes, the past is always better, isn't it?)

Arcam: can we get more precise details of some of these recordings so that we can try them out and give you feedback? 

Guillaume
Industry disclosure: UK distributor for Shunyata Research

220 PRO, totaldac d1 server with additional external power supply, totaldac d1-seven, Echole PSU for Totaldac, Wilson Audio Sasha 2, Shunyata Research cables, Shunyata Hydra Alpha A10 + DPC-6 v3, Various Entreq ground boxes and cables, Entreq Athena level 3 rack, 2 X SOtM sNH-10G with sCLK-EX + 10MHz Master Clock input + sPS-500 PSU, i5 sonicTransporter w/ 1TB SSD

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