So, this is going to be quite a long post because I want to give as much details as possible before I get feedback because I would really love to hear different theories about an experience I had recently that made me question measurements. Or at least to some extent. I want to figure out what I experienced.
I have been an avid believer of measurements, basically because it makes sense. I have a decent hifi setup consisting of a pair of DIY Troels Gravendsen Revelator 851 speakers that are really good. Well balanced, very transparent etc. Probably would cost 20k-30k if they were a commercial product. I use an Audiophonics HPA-S400ET Purifi class D power amp paired with an Accuphase C-2150 preamp. At the time of this event I had a Vincent DAC-1MK and a MiniDSP Studio with Volumio as source. This system sounded quite good. Good soundstage, great details and separation of instruments etc, but I always felt something was missing. I did not feel moved emotionally by the music the way I would have liked to.
So I went to a dealer here in northern Sweden that had a decent listening room and asked him to show me some good products and to discuss with me what I could do as my next step. I made clear to him that I was not interested in vinyl since it is too inconvenient. Also I do have a decent vinyl setup at home (Rega P6 turntable, ClearAudio MC pickup and EAR 834P RIIA with Lundhal step up transformers) that I bought because I had a romanticized idea based on childhood memories. I quickly realized that it did not sound any better than my digital setup and was mostly a hassle and had all the clicks and pops that comes with vinyl so I stopped using it pretty much completely after a while.
The dealer played some music on his system and it sounded good, but not better than what I had at home already. His system consisted of a pair of Hörning Eufrodite speakers (that cost 27k and I think my speakers sound somewhat better to be honest), a TEAC AP-701 power amp (NCore class d, 35k), TEAC UD-701N preamp with built in DAC (41k) and a Lindemann Limetree streamer (9k). Prices are for the Swedish market so might vary, but you get the idea.
After a couple of hours of talking and listening the dealer told me that now when I had listened to my digital stuff he wanted to show me what he likes about hifi and put on a LP on his vinyl setup going through the same preamp, power amp and speakers. I had no idea at that time what the components in the vinyl setup cost and as I said my bias was strongly against vinyl. But from the first note of music my jaw dropped. I had never heard music move me emotionally in that way. I was completely stunned. It sounded so beautiful. It did not sound any more detailed, or had a better soundstage or anything like that but somehow the music went straight to the heart. It was hard to pinpoint the difference soundwise, but it was so much more emotional. I got goosebumps and it just sounded amazing.
I asked him to put on the same song digitally (Qobus) and while it sounded good, it was a night and day difference emotionally. I did not do a blind test (no point since the pops and clicks from the LP would have spoiled it anyway) nor did I do any volume matching, but changing volume made no difference. The emotion was there no matter the volume, and the difference compared to the digital version was not subtle, it was night and day.
After I came back home I could not stop thinking about this. That emotion I had experienced was the missing piece, it was what I had been looking for. In my amazement I forgot to ask the dealer what gear he had used so I emailed him the day after and asked. It turned out to be pretty expensive top notch gear. Gold Notes top turntable Mediterraneo X (12k), with Gold Note Machiavelli Gold pickup (3.6k) and a Gold Note PH-1000 Lite phono stage (7.2k). Very expensive stuff it turned out, but it certainly sounded better than anything I had heard.
This experience turned everything I thought I knew about Hifi upside down. A format that measures worse than digital blew digital out of its socks completely.
The interesting thing here is that this source went through the same preamp and NCore class D power amp from TEAC so this tells me that a good measuring class D amp like NCore, Purifi etc, can pass through the emotion I am looking for. Many audiophiles despise class d but for me this proved that good class d is very good indeed. So what is going on here from a technical point of view? This really messes with my mind trying to understand what I experienced and I want to hear what you guys think. I don´t believe in some hifi magic so there must be an explanation to this.
I know some of you will say that I didn´t blind test or volume match and think the case is closed because of that. So be it, but it certainly is not a closed case for me. The difference was so big that it just blew my mind. So for the sake of argument, let's assume there was a noticeable difference in favor of the vinyl setup, what could be the cause of that difference?
I really don't think it has anything to do with digital being inferior. Perhaps some of you are familiar with the MoFi scandal? Analog purists for decades happily went to MoFi for analog audiophile LP recordings but then it leaked that they use digital DSD processing before pressing and the purists are in shambles.
My first thought was that perhaps the streaming services are not as lossless as they claim. So I bought a digital lossless copy of the album. It was the album “Thank God we left the garden” by Jeffrey Martin by the way. The song we listened to was “Red Station Wagon”. It did not convey the same emotion in my system at least, even though I used a lossless file. It is possible that it is my system or room that is the problem and that it might have sounded better in the dealers room.
My second idea was loudness wars. Some of you might know that there was a huge problem in the 90s and early 2000s that studios made albums “hotter” by increasing loudness so that their songs would stand out as louder on radio and CD than the competition. This process meant heavy compressing, killing the life and dynamics of the music, especially noticeable on a good system. LP often had a different master since LP was never part of the loudness wars and could sound much better than the digital version because of this. Even though this problem is not as common any more since there were reactions after some time and when streaming became popular the streaming services normalized the volume anyway and it became pointless. However some digital masters are still worse than their analog counterparts. I checked the dynamic range on the digital album I bought (I uploaded it here:
https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/212351) but it looks quite ok. I do not know what the dynamic range is on the LP version though. But I suspect this might not be the reason why the LP sounded so much better, but it is possible that it could be.
My third idea was the inter-sample issue that many DACs have. A problem that is rarely measured but can cause a lot of distortion. The problem is still quite common and it is discussed here for anyone who are interested:
I don´t know if the TEAC Dac had this issue or not, but I do know that I do not have that issue in my system since MiniDSP fixed that problem in their products in 2023. If this was the problem why doesn't the song sound as emotional in my system?
One possibility could be that the dealer's DAC had this problem and even though my system does not, I might have other problems holding the sound quality back in my system. I do know that I have some room issues. I have my system in my living room so there is a lot of furniture and stuff and very little room treatment. I only use Dirac to correct things but Dirac cannot solve a dip in the bass of almost 10db (which I have).
A fourth possibility is that the measurements are missing something. It is not impossible since the inter-sample issue went under the radar for a long time and still does. I do not think Amir measures it either, so what else could we be missing in measurments?
Perhaps good capacitors, resistors, linear power supplies, clean power, cables etc do make some difference that we can hear (as many audiophiles claim) but we don't measure it properly? This experience with the dealer's analog system certainly has made me reconsider some of the claims made in the audiophile world but there might be a simpler explanation too that I am missing.
A long post I know, but what do you think? I really want to go to the bottom of this and understand what I experienced. I kindly ask for a civilized and open discussion. I am a science oriented guy, but in my world science must always be open to the idea that there are more things to learn and discover otherwise it's not really science.
