Laurence Payne wrote:

Pardon my hignorance.....What's an Aural exciter and what is it used
for?

The original Aural Exciter was a box made by Aphex several decades
ago. It was flavour-of-the-month for a time. I think at the
beginning you could only hire it, not buy it outright. It gave your
recordings special "magic" ;-) It was mostly even-order distortion, I
think. Probably some eq and compression as well.

ISTR to remember a 1970's Steely Dan album proudly announcing that the
sounds it contained had NOT been passed through the Aphex Aural Exciter :-)

Filippa Giordano, cello/guitar piece by Schubert, AC/DC's Back In Black,
Rickie Lee Jones, dry instrument recordings from Alan Parsons' sound check
CD, other stuff I can't remember. It was AC/DC's What Do You Do For Money
Honey that did it for me - during the unison riffing, it had that
unmistakable heads down, no nonsense, balls-out drive.

Ricki Lee Jones vocal "Pirates" on vinyl on my original, 25 year old Planar
3 makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up - doesn't do it from CD
despite CD player worth many times P3
However - CD doesn't skip when I boogie to Montrose or Led Zep......
eg

Filippa Giordano, cello/guitar piece by Schubert, AC/DC's Back In Black,
Rickie Lee Jones, dry instrument recordings from Alan Parsons' sound check
CD, other stuff I can't remember. It was AC/DC's What Do You Do For Money
Honey that did it for me - during the unison riffing, it had that
unmistakable heads down, no nonsense, balls-out drive.

Ricki Lee Jones vocal "Pirates" on vinyl on my original, 25 year old Planar
3 makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up - doesn't do it from CD
despite CD player worth many times P3
However - CD doesn't skip when I boogie to Montrose or Led Zep......
eg

I don't really know which conversion system is supposedly better. The DAC
is
several years old (1990-ish?), while the DVD was bought new about a year
ago. It's interesting to note that the DVD player has a quoted noise
figure
of 70dB, compared to the DAC's at around 94dB.


A lot of what you pay for in a "good" DAC is the quality of the non-digital
side. The power supplies and the audio amps as well as the attention to
detail in putting it all together. I suspect this has more influence on the
"sound" than the digital side.

I don't really know which conversion system is supposedly better. The DAC
is
several years old (1990-ish?), while the DVD was bought new about a year
ago. It's interesting to note that the DVD player has a quoted noise
figure
of 70dB, compared to the DAC's at around 94dB.


A lot of what you pay for in a "good" DAC is the quality of the non-digital
side. The power supplies and the audio amps as well as the attention to
detail in putting it all together. I suspect this has more influence on the
"sound" than the digital side.

"David" wrote in message
...


Filippa Giordano, cello/guitar piece by Schubert, AC/DC's Back In Black,
Rickie Lee Jones, dry instrument recordings from Alan Parsons' sound
check
CD, other stuff I can't remember. It was AC/DC's What Do You Do For
Money
Honey that did it for me - during the unison riffing, it had that
unmistakable heads down, no nonsense, balls-out drive.

Ricki Lee Jones vocal "Pirates" on vinyl on my original, 25 year old
Planar
3 makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up - doesn't do it from CD
despite CD player worth many times P3




Er, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, I'm 'with you all the way'
on this an' all......

;-)

"David" wrote in message
...


Filippa Giordano, cello/guitar piece by Schubert, AC/DC's Back In Black,
Rickie Lee Jones, dry instrument recordings from Alan Parsons' sound
check
CD, other stuff I can't remember. It was AC/DC's What Do You Do For
Money
Honey that did it for me - during the unison riffing, it had that
unmistakable heads down, no nonsense, balls-out drive.

Ricki Lee Jones vocal "Pirates" on vinyl on my original, 25 year old
Planar
3 makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up - doesn't do it from CD
despite CD player worth many times P3




Er, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, I'm 'with you all the way'
on this an' all......

;-)

One simple but effective way I have found to test hi-fi is to have it
playing a recording, and then have a microphone positioned in an ideal
location recording the output.

With really high end stuff, the recording will be indistinguishable from
the
original, but of course there is degredation directly related to the
speakers/amps, ...........................

Duh??

I would like to see the exchange if someone turned up with anechoic pads,
B&K, test tones etc. to check out the latest micro system in Curries sale.

eg

One simple but effective way I have found to test hi-fi is to have it
playing a recording, and then have a microphone positioned in an ideal
location recording the output.

With really high end stuff, the recording will be indistinguishable from
the
original, but of course there is degredation directly related to the
speakers/amps, ...........................

Duh??

I would like to see the exchange if someone turned up with anechoic pads,
B&K, test tones etc. to check out the latest micro system in Curries sale.

eg

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 12:26:25 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

(No-one in his right mind though is going to suggest that 'digital' will
ever match the sheer quality of a top notch Hasselblad/Zeiss T* or Leica B&W
bromide print though, despite that in terms of 'hue', if nothing else, it is
immediately a lot less 'accurate' than a colour digital photo from the
outset.....)

Wrong. Unless you restrict yourself to films of less than 100 ASA, the
Canon 1Ds will beat the pants off any Leica. The jury may be out on
the Hassel, since the digiback for that is about 20 grand!

In much the same way, a good SS amp will beat the pants off your
rose-tinted valve amps. A bad recording is not *supposed* to sound
relaxing........................
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering