14-May-2016, 19:24
(This post was last modified: 14-May-2016, 19:25 by Rufus McDufus.)
I've just done a very quick test of AIR 3 beta vs Melco N1A with just a couple of tracks, not super audiophile tracks at all but just stuff I listen to. Nick Drake's 'One Of These Things First (HDTracks 24/96 version) and Sufjan Stevens 'The Only Thing' (CD rip). Both FLAC files.
I'm using AIR 3 on a 2011 MacBook Air with Audivarna 2.5 - default settings except integer & direct mode turned off. Files being played are on local disk.
Melco connected via USB to the Devialet, and using Minimserver.
From this very brief test I find AIR 3 more transparent. It's slightly easier to follow individual instruments. Bass is wonderfully well-defined. It does sound very jitter-free.
Melco is very very slightly 'blurrier'. It's perhaps more 'analogue'. I can imagine a lot of people would prefer this.
They are very close! There really isn't a lot in it and I think I would struggle to differentiate in a blind test. My inclination is towards AIR 3 in this instance. The problem is I don't like the usability of the AIR 3 options as I have them (Audivarna or iTunes on a MacBook) and prefer playing tracks from my iPad so in general usage I think I'd go back to the Melco.
The interesting thing is that I never really liked AIR 2. It always tended to be towards the bottom of my playback choices even when it wasn't spitting out white noise or dropouts, so this is a real result for me for AIR 3. Now if only they could port the AIR 3 sender to run on Melco ...
I'm using AIR 3 on a 2011 MacBook Air with Audivarna 2.5 - default settings except integer & direct mode turned off. Files being played are on local disk.
Melco connected via USB to the Devialet, and using Minimserver.
From this very brief test I find AIR 3 more transparent. It's slightly easier to follow individual instruments. Bass is wonderfully well-defined. It does sound very jitter-free.
Melco is very very slightly 'blurrier'. It's perhaps more 'analogue'. I can imagine a lot of people would prefer this.
They are very close! There really isn't a lot in it and I think I would struggle to differentiate in a blind test. My inclination is towards AIR 3 in this instance. The problem is I don't like the usability of the AIR 3 options as I have them (Audivarna or iTunes on a MacBook) and prefer playing tracks from my iPad so in general usage I think I'd go back to the Melco.
The interesting thing is that I never really liked AIR 2. It always tended to be towards the bottom of my playback choices even when it wasn't spitting out white noise or dropouts, so this is a real result for me for AIR 3. Now if only they could port the AIR 3 sender to run on Melco ...