I had a friend over this week. He’s not into HiFi but we were playing some vinyl before we left for a curry. I said “before we leave, I will play a song on vinyl, then the same song on digital. Tell me what you think?”
I played Zombie by the Cranberries. After playing the vinyl, I played the digital and his first words were “wow, what a difference. The streamed version sounds sort of edgy of harsh?”
Advice:
I love streaming acoustics and melodic rock, but I do find complexly layered rock music a little too much. It’s almost as if the instrument become more than the whole sound?
I’m wondering if a different DAC might be better? A “smoother” or more “Neutral” DAC.
Any recommendations and is anyone else using an NDX2 and 555ps as a transport? If the NDX2 is just a transport, do I even need the 555ps and could I sell it for a DAC?
Comparing vinyl and digital is a fool’s errand. It’s highly likely you were listening to different masters and, anyway, the two will always sound different, each having its own strengths and weaknesses. Were you unhappy with the NDX2 prior to your friend’s visit, and are you now brooding on their comments and convincing yourself that you must change something? The NDX2/555 is a wonderful source and I’d leave well alone. If you did want to use the NDX2 as a transport, you don’t need the 555.
The traditional approach would be to get a Naim DAC, then the 555 can be used to power it rather than it being somewhat wasted on the NDX2 when using its SPDIF output. If you’re not bothered about losing the screen and remote, trade the NDX2 for a cheaper ND5XS2.
The NDAC is great, but I wouldn’t describe it as neutral. If that’s what you want, there are lots of non-Naim DACs out there that you might prefer, and selling the 555PS might be a good way to fund this.
As HH indicates, music is generally mastered differently for vinyl so a direct comparison can be pretty meaningless, with either having potential to sound better. But if that same adverse sound is consistent through all digital music played through your DAC then the question as to its suitability for you is very relevant. Certainly I’ve found Chord DACs to sound more natural than the DAC I gad in an ND5XS.
No it’s just heavy rock. Too many guitars and playing fast and the whole picture just becomes too complex for me to enjoy? Not a problem on vinyl but as others have said, could just be the compressed nature (and what RIAA curves do) that I enjoy more?
Fiio have their R2R Dac (K11R2R), ladder DAC that can run in no over sampling mode that is about £150, I’ve got one and find it quite a difference from the more mass market chip based DAC’s, could be worth a punt?
I have not heard your DAC at home some can’t say how they compare but I use a Sonnet Digital Morpheus DAC, which is regarded as a very analog sounding DAC (NOS R2R). Even with this I understand what you’re saying, with that “digital glare”. There are a few things I’ve done that have brought both my digital & vinyl front ends inline. First, room treatments, next is power related upgrades on both power cords & outlets. There is all kinds of info on this in the Furutech thread but what I’ve found is that connector & outlets with pure copper as the base metal are far better sounding vs the typical mixed metal you get in cheaper parts. Every time I swapped a item that was of mixed metal construction for a pure copper based one, a level of harshness was removed. These changes brought my digital fairly inline with my vinyl but on the poor recordings there was still a slight digital edge. What fixed this was swapping my ethernet cable from wall to streamer, with a Shunyata Sigma cable. Previously I wasn’t much of a believe on the impact of ethernet cables but this one is very obvious. The best way to sum it up is it makes digital sound more analog.
I have this unit in system 2 and was convinced it would be all I needed there .. but couldn’t make do with it until I fed it to a NDAC (bare) .. now I’m pretty happy.
I went over to the Mavericks HiFi show last week. A great show for listening to other people’s systems. I listened to Linn, Chord, dCS and all manner of esoteric systems.
I played Jonny Mayar’s live cover of Freefallin and Cranberries Zombie.
Overall, I prefer Freefallin on my system. It just captures that emotion and detail.
However, there were two systems I listened to where I preferred Zombie. One was @Dunc dCS systems which is just incredibly balanced and neutral. Another one which surprised me was a relatively modest Roksan/Music Fidelity systems with Spendor BC1s. This system too sounded very neutral and nice.
It’s probably going to be horses for courses though, and can’t have a system that’s perfect for all types of music?
possibly - it may well be some synergy issue. Vinyl replay tend to be quite filtered and so those super definition high frequencies are attenuated away, whereas with digital they tend to be less attenuated.. so yes digital can provide often far more atmosphere and insight - but system and room matching can be more critical.
In my experience vinyl replay can cover over a multitude of sins.
Also worth remembering some vinyl is mastered to be eq’d and smoother - where as rock on digital is sometimes mastered to be hard and aggressive… it can work well on standard audio equipment, but high end needs to be well matched for it not to sound too forced or glaring with room reflections at higher frequencies playing havoc with your ears.
Not a problem I have experienced with heavy rock through digital systems. Some things released on CD, which could well be the original source of material you are streaming, has been over-compressed in what they called the loudness wars. Over-compressed music can sound muddled and be tiresome, and I wonder if actually it might be that rather than the opposite.
Otherwise, it does suggest itself to me as more of a DAC suitability issue. In the early days of digital, DACs often had a harshness to their sound. Whilst by the 90s the better ones had improved, and could be very good, the naturalness of some (like the Chords I mentioned) just makes music sound better. Interestingly some people describing the sound presentation of Hugo have used the term analogue-like.
yes that is going back a long time now - typically pre MP3 / MP2 eras when radio replay was the primary way of promoting music. One thing that lossy encoders for video audio tracks and audio only did was to diminish the appetite for the loudness wars .. lossy codecs often dont play well with such material.
These days multi band compressor s are typically used - which are far more effective at providing compression whilst still keep much musical dynamic range. Compare a 1980s pop/rock track with a 2020s track., it is likely the latter will sound louder and more dynamic …..
Of course sometimes for artistic reasons an artist may want to have a very intense sounding track (think Oasis) to convey a particular emotion - and in production care needs to done for it to play well with lossy codecs and LUFS standards