03-Aug-2015, 11:51
I tried iTunes with AIR over the weekend, having converted a few albums to ALAC.
Observations:
- Sounds much better than A+, actually I think it is pretty good!
- No DWN or dropouts, admittedly I didn't play for much longer than an hour at a time... but this is encouraging.
I can see why many of you stick with AIR, it sounds good. However playing music that I am very familiar with on the d1 server I can hear very specific differences in detail and presentation. There's almost a little bit of congestion (in the sense that it's harder to follow individual instruments in complex passages) and some of the higher frequencies are being truncated resulting in less detail, you hear it for instance with higher pitched female arias. Then there is this slightly bright, shimmery soundstage... which isn't actually unpleasant but it feels a little unnatural.
Guillaume
Observations:
- Sounds much better than A+, actually I think it is pretty good!
- No DWN or dropouts, admittedly I didn't play for much longer than an hour at a time... but this is encouraging.
I can see why many of you stick with AIR, it sounds good. However playing music that I am very familiar with on the d1 server I can hear very specific differences in detail and presentation. There's almost a little bit of congestion (in the sense that it's harder to follow individual instruments in complex passages) and some of the higher frequencies are being truncated resulting in less detail, you hear it for instance with higher pitched female arias. Then there is this slightly bright, shimmery soundstage... which isn't actually unpleasant but it feels a little unnatural.
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
UK
