DACs and midrange performance (i.e. voices playback)

[gino1961]

I listened to my worst distorted DAC in my collection today (Schiit Bifrost 2) and wow those mids are rendered beautifully, voices are rendered with extreme realism, zero harshness and mic coloration disappeared from the recording, piano sounds like a real piano, imaging is so holographic /sarcasm .
Serious talk, it's not the DAC, but the recording sounded great to me IMHO, and fault nothing to the way the recording was made contrary to some of the opinions of others though listening through the HS7 speakers ...

Hi thanks a lot for your advice. Beautiful speakers the HS7. So if it is not the dac the other suspects remain the amp (a very cheap one) and speakers
I start realizing that the best bet could be really a pair of actives speakers. In this way the amp/drivers matching should be guaranteed.
But i often read about hiss issues with actives ... I guess that a balanced preamp should be a must ? are really actives the best approach to get the most with the least money ? in the studios the recording engineers use only actives i guess. There must be a very good reason

 

[majingotan]

Hi thanks a lot for your advice. Beautiful speakers the HS7. So if it is not the dac the other suspects are amp (a very cheap one) and speakers
I start realizing that the best bet could be really a pair of actives speakers. In this way the amp/drivers matching should be guaranteed.
But i often read about hiss issues with actives ... I guess that a balanced preamp should be a must ? are really actives the best approach to get the most with the least money ? in the studios the recording engineers use only actives i guess. There must be a very good reason

I would disagree with actives being the best approach for the least money unless you're strictly listening to them only in nearfield scenarios (around 2 feet way from tweeter on-axis only). I find that if listen farther than 3 feet with the Yamaha HS7, treble energy dispersion is worse than even sound bars from my living room, and they start to sound boomy far-field hence they're only good for nearfield conditions. There are some monitors with hissing, and that's a dealbreaker for me while HS7 has no hiss even if I put my noise meter directly on the tweeter: Studio monitor speakers without hiss? | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

There are active monitors that are meant to be nearfield, but sounds great far-field and they don't cost a lot of money as well. Just sort them out on this page by score which is based on far-field listening: Speaker Review and Measurement Index | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

 

[ZolaIII]

@majingotan that's related to power amplifier used in active speakers. Yamaha uses AB class so no hiss there. Only HS8 isn't bad.
@gino1961 please try to find what I told you earlier and audition it.

Edit:
When it comes to a topic about power amplifiers. What would be worth finding are one's with later uper series (better SNR ratio) of Sanyo STK hybrid AB class IC's of course in good implementation. Those should be still very competitive and Chines still make products based on them. Why I say that, well I still have and from time to time use old Denon UD-M30 (got it cheap used long time ago for small bedroom) which is based on early lower end STK and it whosent bad (nor great for today's better one's) at all.
https://www.kenrockwell.com/audio/denon/ud-m30.htm
Of course good implementation is still very important.

Best regards.

 

[gino1961]

I would disagree with actives being the best approach for the least money unless you're strictly listening to them only in nearfield scenarios (around 2 feet way from tweeter on-axis only). I find that if listen farther than 3 feet with the Yamaha HS7, treble energy dispersion is worse than even sound bars from my living room, and they start to sound boomy far-field hence they're only good for nearfield conditions. There are some monitors with hissing, and that's a dealbreaker for me while HS7 has no hiss even if I put my noise meter directly on the tweeter: Studio monitor speakers without hiss? | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

Thanks a lot. Actually i was thinking very different ... in my mind the nearfield listening is much more critical and can expose issues in the speakers much more clearly. I was wrong again
Hiss is a show stopper for me ... i hate noise of any form I will read the linked thread with the greatest interest indeed.

There are active monitors that are meant to be nearfield, but sounds great far-field and they don't cost a lot of money as well. Just sort them out on this page by score which is based on far-field listening: Speaker Review and Measurement Index | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

Thanks a lot. A great resource indeed.

 

[gino1961]

@majingotan that's related to power amplifier used in active speakers. Yamaha uses AB class so no hiss there. Only HS8 isn't bad.
@gino1961 please try to find what I told you earlier and audition it.

Hi you mention Dynacord one's with Fostex ? i have difficulty to find it ... do you have a specific model ? a link ?

 

[Pdxwayne]

With my smartphone and headphones, the song is not harsh....Maybe it is the YouTube quality difference.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Hi ! I'm very glad you liked it too. Truly a great singer and an exciting cover. If i were the recording engineer i would not be happy with a less than perfect recording of her voice. To get her voice recorded rightly is a sign of respect and admiration. Today the technology allows for very realistic recordings. When i watch movies for instance sometimes i am shocked by how real some effects sound ... for instance i remember a movie (stupid me that i did not take the title) where at some point and actor was knocking on the window of a lab. It was like the actor was inside the TV knocking on the glass screen. It was not just realistic ... it was real. And shocking. The friend's palyback chain was a Samsung 80USD dvd player > Revox B150 integrated > Quad esl 63. I bought only the dvd player ... my rule is ... if a chain sounds good also the elements of the chain must be good.
I am quite sure that both the amp and the speakers can sound really good. The SPlevel was not that high by the way.

You should have started at the end of the chain and purchased some ESL 63s. Speakers make by far the biggest difference.

 

[ZolaIII]

Hi you mention Dynacord one's with Fostex ? i have difficulty to find it ... do you have a specific model ? a link ?

No, mentioned Dynacord as there should be lot of those around in Italy, didn't told you buy great Denons or Fostex studio monitor's (with same cones) as I don't want you go into bankruptcy. And do a lot of auditioning and take your time when it comes to buying speakers!

 

[gino1961]

Hi thank you All for the very kind and helpful advices I have just received the new Smsl sanskrit 10th And it sounds quite ok
I will be trying to listen to some recommended speakers asap I have to stop judging speakers by the look Kind regards gino

 

[AnalogSteph]

Thanks a lot. Actually i was thinking very different ... in my mind the nearfield listening is much more critical and can expose issues in the speakers much more clearly. I was wrong again

Well, it is more critical when it comes to issues with the recording. But obviously the more diffuse sound is in the picture, the more critical speaker dispersion becomes. Trying to think of a speaker that probably won't be too good in farfield, the Dynaudio LYD-48 would probably be one such candidate (not sure how they messed that one up, but the graphs in the spec sheet are none too promising). I'd also have my reservations about any 8"/1" 2-way that doesn't sport much of a waveguide at all, it is virtually impossible to sensibly reconcile dispersion and power handling with these.

Hiss is a show stopper for me ... i hate noise of any form I will read the linked thread with the greatest interest indeed.

At your distance of 3 m, I don't think you have to be overly worried about this. You can check the hiss list just in case, but pretty much everything that isn't an absolute noise bomb should be fine.

 

[gino1961]

Well, it is more critical when it comes to issues with the recording. But obviously the more diffuse sound is in the picture, the more critical speaker dispersion becomes. Trying to think of a speaker that probably won't be too good in farfield, the Dynaudio LYD-48 would probably be one such candidate (not sure how they messed that one up, but the graphs in the spec sheet are none too promising). I'd also have my reservations about any 8"/1" 2-way that doesn't sport much of a waveguide at all, it is virtually impossible to sensibly reconcile dispersion and power handling with these.

Hi ! thanks again for the precious advice. I really do not understand how speakers are not sold optimized. Brand like Dynaudio have access to the best engineers and equipment. The speakers should come out from their factories technically perfect. I am sure that can be done.
I can only guess that putting together 3 drivers is more challenging than just 2 ? and i agree that using a 8" woofer with a 1" tweeter makes the dispersion reconciling at the transition point quite challenging.
I am interested mostly in 2 ways ... i can always add a sub later to fill the response in the bottom range.
Speaking of cheap active speakers mho is that the woofers are usually the weakest part. Simply because a good woofer can cost like one complete cheap active speaker
As i have somewhere already a couple of Behringer 2031a speakers a long term idea is to replace the cheap 8" woofer with a 6-7" with a wider emission close to the 2kHz crossover point. The tweeter is absolutely not a problem. The market is full of decent tweeters.
The good point of the Beh are the cabinets (quite robust and braced) and the amps quite powerful and clean.
A good woofer would cost at least 100-150USD. I have to look around.

At your distance of 3 m, I don't think you have to be overly worried about this. You can check the hiss list just in case, but pretty much everything that isn't an absolute noise bomb should be fine

thank you very much again for the very helpful link. The last thing i would really want is to get hiss ... i got divorced to get rid of some hiss ... joke ... never been married. Have a nice day. We are locked down ... still.

 

[CtheArgie]

Caro Gino,

I want to offer you a different interpretation of the original recording where you started this post. You said it was a "bad" recording of the voice. I don't think this is the case. I am pretty sure that the singer, the recording engineers and even the producers were well aware of what they wanted to achieve. They heard the singing multiple times and they made all the different modifications of the voice to reach the version you heard. They probably had state of the art equipment or near SOTA. They chose specific microphones, preamps, plug ins, etc. It is the particular choices they made that you don't necessarily like. It is a "like" issue more than a recording "quality" issue.

Let me give you one example. Find a CD of Frank Sinatra singing Only the Lonely. There is a remastered version. His voice is completely different in perspective to the orchestra. They made him sound as if he was in the room with you, whispering the song in total control of the volume. The recording represents what Sinatra and his team wanted you to hear. The orchestra sounds distant, way back from the singer as if it wasn't truly important for this song, just some background to follow the tune.

Of course, there are lots of poor recordings, but I think that there are many more recordings that we don't like the choices the producers made.

Just a thought.
Ciao, ciao!

 

[AnalogSteph]

As i have somewhere already a couple of Behringer 2031a speakers a long term idea is to replace the cheap 8" woofer with a 6-7" with a wider emission close to the 2kHz crossover point. The tweeter is absolutely not a problem. The market is full of decent tweeters.

Honestly, that's not at all the impression I'm getting from this review:
http://noaudiophile.com/Behringer_Truth_B2031A/
The woofer is not completely without its response issues (midbass is a bit too fat, and there's what seems to be a typical surround resonance causing a 600 Hz dip and 800 Hz peak), but overall not that bad and probably EQable, and it seems to be very robust and reliable. The port resonances in the 250-400 Hz region are not something I particularly like seeing, but front ported speakers with these slotted ports are often a bit problematic. The tweeter grille seems to be causing some unevenness in the treble.

 

[gvl]

I went through through a NOS DAC period in my journey. Notwithstanding all the associated nasties, one aspect I liked about NOS DACs vocals never sounded harsh through them. For the record, this is an observation, not a recommendation.

 

[JSmith]

It's the recording master, not the DAC... write to the singer and tell her to stop singing harshly, lol.



JSmith

 

[gino1961]

You should have started at the end of the chain and purchased some ESL 63s. Speakers make by far the biggest difference.

Yes thanks and i guess so. Let's say that all the elements of the chain must have been quite transparent to provide that kind of realism.
I do not like the ESL form factor. I like slimmer speakers ... not with a wide baffle. At all. I like more Martin Logan style ... the narrower models.
I regret very much not remembering the movie title ... often i am amazed how good special effects are recorded. My thinking is that if a recording chain is so good to record effects it must be very very good in general. I have to say that in dvd the soundtrack is in 16/48 format.
I have no scientific basis to say it but I have the distinct feeling that downsampling from 48 to 44.1 somehow detracts some detail from the sound ... even when I hear the soundtracks of the movies it seems to me that they sound more fluid like vinyl in short

 

[gino1961]

Caro Gino, I want to offer you a different interpretation of the original recording ...
Of course, there are lots of poor recordings, but I think that there are many more recordings that we don't like the choices the producers made.
Just a thought.
Ciao, ciao!

Hi thanks for the valuable advice and i see your points. But i see sound recording process be similar to cooking. You have raw food (singer voice, instruments, ecc.) kitchen tools (mics, preamps, AD, recorders, ... ok cables) and a cook (the recording engineer).
The best cooks using the best tools are able to extract the most/best from the raw food. If you spice the food too much you taste the spice. That could be very welcome when the raw materials are bad in quality. But it is clearly not the case. The singer voice is very beautiful.
I am pretty sure that little annoying distortion comes from the equipment used.
I tend to think that perfection is zero noise and zero distortion. A perfect copy of the original. I am pretty sure that at some point a blindfolded listener could be fooled to listen to a real singer when instead he/she is listening to a very good recording playedback with a very good chain.
At that point it is done. Mission accomplished. Like the real thing.

 

[ctakim]

His DAC has Lupus

An autoimmune disease???

 

[Wombat]

@gino 1961. Your listening set-up and listening environment are not the same as that in which the recordings are produced. There is a real difference between the two conditions.

Stop obsessing and enjoy the music.

 

[gino1961]

Honestly, that's not at all the impression I'm getting from this review:
http://noaudiophile.com/Behringer_Truth_B2031A/
The woofer is not completely without its response issues (midbass is a bit too fat, and there's what seems to be a typical surround resonance causing a 600 Hz dip and 800 Hz peak), but overall not that bad and probably EQable, and it seems to be very robust and reliable. The port resonances in the 250-400 Hz region are not something I particularly like seeing, but front ported speakers with these slotted ports are often a bit problematic. The tweeter grille seems to be causing some unevenness in the treble.

Hi thanks a lot for the link and the very helpful advice. I think that to stretch a 8" woofer up to 2kHz is a design mistake. I am completely sure about this. There are limits intrinsic in the size. At 2kHz a 8" woofer start to beam too much. I see 1kHz as a upper limit. And there is also another issue ... IMD. If the same driver is asked to reproduce both a very high SPL 100Hz and the midrange the distortion is not only possible ... is guaranteed.
Someone say that in order to cover all the audio range with conventional drivers 4 ways is the minimum. With 3 ways being already a compromise.
My ideal speakers are something like the Wilson Audio Watt + Puppy ... completely out of my reach ... for now. (However i do not like the slanted baffle of the Watt Not needed at all I prefer drivers facing the listening point)