13-May-2016, 04:57
Previously i had mixed experiences with Air 2. It would work perfectly for days and then I had problems for a while and then back to flawlessness, all with no changes to the system. It was very irritating and thankfully vinyl could be played when the irritation levels ran high
I tried out the AIR 3 beta last night, using iTunes to handle the library with the following:
mac mini (headless with latest OS) > Dirac (for a wee bit of room correction), ethernet > devailet 800 > Vivid G1
It worked a treat on high res - played an entire album without a glitch
suffice to say a redbook album was also handled with aplomb
Now its confession time.
I lie in the bits is bits camp (more down to ignorance on matters digital). However my experiments with USB (due to AIR 2 frustrations), in my set up, it never sounded as good as AIR 2 so i persisted with AIR 2 over USB
So i hesitantly agree with Guillaume - AIR 3 sounds better (than AIR 2). This is based on aural memory with albums i know well. I have no inclination to load AIR 2 and do back to back tests.
Let me try and articulate, what was better. Flowery audio reviewer prose is not my strong suite:
- imaging (and i am not a big soundstage/imaging fan) was more holographic
- fine detail was better resolved (aka apparent lower noise floor) - e.g. in a live recording you could more easily
hear the jazz club boundaries as the sound decayed
- tonally there were subtle improvements (although i am less firm on this than the above)
So there i said it . Would i stake my life on it? No way!. But from an objective perspective i am reluctant to believe it - but i did experience it. So whether its true or not to me is not really the issue. I perceived it, i believed it and i had a magical musical experience, in which i got lost in the music.
So hopefully this continues over the weekend - i will report back if not.
If and when the final AIR3 is released i will first make a back up copy of AIR 3 beta (just in case they good folks at Devialet mess with the broth)
I tried out the AIR 3 beta last night, using iTunes to handle the library with the following:
mac mini (headless with latest OS) > Dirac (for a wee bit of room correction), ethernet > devailet 800 > Vivid G1
It worked a treat on high res - played an entire album without a glitch
suffice to say a redbook album was also handled with aplomb
Now its confession time.
I lie in the bits is bits camp (more down to ignorance on matters digital). However my experiments with USB (due to AIR 2 frustrations), in my set up, it never sounded as good as AIR 2 so i persisted with AIR 2 over USB
So i hesitantly agree with Guillaume - AIR 3 sounds better (than AIR 2). This is based on aural memory with albums i know well. I have no inclination to load AIR 2 and do back to back tests.
Let me try and articulate, what was better. Flowery audio reviewer prose is not my strong suite:
- imaging (and i am not a big soundstage/imaging fan) was more holographic
- fine detail was better resolved (aka apparent lower noise floor) - e.g. in a live recording you could more easily
hear the jazz club boundaries as the sound decayed
- tonally there were subtle improvements (although i am less firm on this than the above)
So there i said it . Would i stake my life on it? No way!. But from an objective perspective i am reluctant to believe it - but i did experience it. So whether its true or not to me is not really the issue. I perceived it, i believed it and i had a magical musical experience, in which i got lost in the music.
So hopefully this continues over the weekend - i will report back if not.
If and when the final AIR3 is released i will first make a back up copy of AIR 3 beta (just in case they good folks at Devialet mess with the broth)