Tat Chan wrote:

James, I am curious. The Meridian DAC is at least 12 years old. I
would have thought that the newer Burr Brown DACs in the NAD would
measure better and produce "better" sound than the older Philips DAC
in the Meridian (is it multibit or bitstream?)

As old as the 203 is, there's a good chance that a $39.95 Apex DVD player
has better-performing DACs. Seriously.

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article ,
Tat Chan wrote:

James Harris wrote:


Nad C541i as transport,
Meridian 203 DAC,
Rotel RA-02 amp,
Dynaudio Audience 62 floorstand speakers




James, I am curious. The Meridian DAC is at least 12 years old. I would
have thought that the newer Burr Brown DACs in the NAD would measure
better and produce "better" sound than the older Philips DAC in the
Meridian (is it multibit or bitstream?)


I doubt that this is simply a matter of choice of DAC chip. Other
influences will include the PSU, buffering, differences in filtering, etc.


well yes, but the NAD 541i is a one box solution and as such, shouldn't it have
much lower jitter levels compared to using a separate DAC and transport, even
with the well-engineered Meridian DAC?

And since the NAD player has HDCD playback capability, it must use a certain
digital filter that is highly regarded? (can't remember the name of it atm)

FWIW I remain a fan of the Meridian 263 and 563, (as well as the Quad 67)
despite them being 'out of favour' for a while for technical reasons.


what would the technical reasons be? Did they process/filter the digital data in
a "funny" way?


Maybe they'll become popular again if SACD really takes hold. A situation
with a certain wry irony for Bob Stuart if it occurs... ;-


and why would that be? (possibly related to my question above)

Arny Krueger wrote:

Tat Chan wrote:


James, I am curious. The Meridian DAC is at least 12 years old. I
would have thought that the newer Burr Brown DACs in the NAD would
measure better and produce "better" sound than the older Philips DAC
in the Meridian (is it multibit or bitstream?)


As old as the 203 is, there's a good chance that a $39.95 Apex DVD player
has better-performing DACs. Seriously.



OK, the DAC in the newer elcheapo DVD player might be better performing, but I
doubt the analogue output stage would be better than the Meridian's (granted, I
am moving the goalposts here, since I have now changed the point from DAC to
output stage)

Tat Chan wrote:
Arny Krueger wrote:

Tat Chan wrote:

James, I am curious. The Meridian DAC is at least 12 years old. I
would have thought that the newer Burr Brown DACs in the NAD would
measure better and produce "better" sound than the older Philips DAC
in the Meridian (is it multibit or bitstream?)

As old as the 203 is, there's a good chance that a $39.95 Apex DVD
player has better-performing DACs. Seriously.

OK, the DAC in the newer elcheapo DVD player might be better
performing, but I doubt the analogue output stage would be better
than the Meridian's (granted, I am moving the goalposts here, since I
have now changed the point from DAC to output stage)

I wouldn't be too sure of that. For one thing, even solid state audio gear
doesn't last forever.

"Woody" wrote in message ...

---snip---

Your hearing is done by a 'field' of very fine hairs inside your ear canal
that flex with the air movement that we call sound.

---snip---

An otherwise excellent post, but just to avoid unintentionally
misleading anyone, those hairs flex indirectly with the air movement
(localized variations in pressure) which we call sound. Those hairs
are in a fluid-filled chamber to which the vibrations of your eardrum
caused by sound are coupled through some little bitty bones. The air
doesn't move those hairs directly, and as far as I know they have
absolutely nothing to do with those "other ear hairs" that show up and
start growing like crabgrass somewhere in middle age.

"Fleetie" wrote in message ...
"Mike Gilmour" wrote
My hi-fi sounds great late night and during the early hours... single malt
may have a lot to do with it ;-)

Beer googles for the ears?


Martin

My ears google for free beer :-)

On 16 Apr 2004 12:15:06 -0700, (unitron) wrote:

"Fleetie" wrote in message ...
"Mike Gilmour" wrote
My hi-fi sounds great late night and during the early hours... single malt
may have a lot to do with it ;-)

Beer googles for the ears?


Martin

My ears google for free beer :-)

Perhaps he meant beerphones? :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

In article , Tat Chan
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:


I doubt that this is simply a matter of choice of DAC chip. Other
influences will include the PSU, buffering, differences in filtering,
etc.


well yes, but the NAD 541i is a one box solution and as such, shouldn't
it have much lower jitter levels compared to using a separate DAC and
transport, even with the well-engineered Meridian DAC?

It will certainly help that the SPDIF transfer is avoided in a one-box
system. However the Meridian systems seem to have very good reclocking,
etc. In then end it would come down to how well each systems was actually
engineered.

In my case I use each DAC for multiple sources, so some sort of transfer is
involved. However if I was buying a new Cd player today it would probably
be a meridian one-box system. :-)

And since the NAD player has HDCD playback capability, it must use a
certain digital filter that is highly regarded? (can't remember the
name of it atm)

FWIW I remain a fan of the Meridian 263 and 563, (as well as the Quad
67) despite them being 'out of favour' for a while for technical
reasons.


what would the technical reasons be? Did they process/filter the digital
data in a "funny" way?

They use low-bit sigma-delta. Hence they tend to produce the same sort of
ultrasonic 'hash' as SACD. Can also, theoretically, suffer from some of the
same drawbacks as other low-bit methods. However in the end this comes down
to how good a job the engineers did.

Maybe they'll become popular again if SACD really takes hold. A
situation with a certain wry irony for Bob Stuart if it occurs... ;-


and why would that be? (possibly related to my question above)

Because Bob is what might be termed a 'critic' of the SACD system and he
would prefer LPCM as used in DVD-A to avoid the potential problems of SACD.
Yet he made a neat job of sigma-delta DACs of a similar type before moving
on to what he would now - I think - say were 'better'.

From his POV SACD is probably a 'step backwards' to a method he discarded
about 10 years ago. But at the time he made nice DACs that way...

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

BTW, RIP Doub Self's "Amplifier Institute". A sad loss.

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/ampins/ampins.htm

Cheers,

Mark

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:43:39 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In each case I tend to switch the speaker energisation and DAC power on in
the morning, and off at the end of the evening. I have a slight impression
that the speakers (and maybe the DACs) benefit from this.

The manual for the Quad '57 speakers recommends leaving them powered
all the time and not switching them off. Is the advice given for the
'63/988/989 different?

My Stax electrostatic headphones sound noticeably 'edgy' for the first
few minutes after switch-on. I have not investigated this in any
detail, but it seems reasonable that high-impedance capacitive systems
will need a little time to stabilise because there may be some fairly
long time constants associated with the biasing supply.

This would tie in with the instructions Quad provide for monitoring
the HT bias supplies of the '57 in which they specify the use of an
electrostatic volt meter because the input impedance of a standard
meter is sufficiently low to affect the reading. (Of course in those
days, the majority of meters were not electronic.)


--
Chris Isbell
Southampton
UK