A very long time ago, parents of a friend of mine had a Dual stereo, late 70s…The sound was so cool, warm, pleasant…Evverything he played sounded so good ! By our highest hi-fi standards of today I guess people would say this stereo was non linear to things like that. And they would be 100% right.
However, if sometimes, it is this kind of song we want to hear, we know that Dacs and Upsampler we can transform the sound as we want to…So, would it be possible for dCS to add new filters that would transform the sound to something unrealistic, non linear, awful for hi-fi purists but so nice for some other people ?
You seem to mean effectively adding tone controls or something equivalent? It would be technically possible but it would not fit with the conceptual basis behind dCS units which is to reconstruct the original waveform as perfectly as possible, at least IMO. The digital filters do allow some degree of preference but they all have a similar purpose but which is not to add colouration.
This does not mean that I am opposed to your idea but that other solutions may be available. Hence I use a tube pre-amp which to me ( if not others necessarily) sounds closer to what I experience from live sound otherwise.
You got exactly what I meant …So, if it doesn’t sound good for dCS team, that I can understand, they could call a filter “Low volume filter” one could be “Rave Party filter” or “Birthday party filter” and another could be “Mid 70s filter”.
An alternative would be giving the possibility for the users to create their own filters via Mosaic and save it into the Dac or Upsampler…
You know, John Lobb makes sneakers, and Patek Philip built some quartz watches…
I’m with you on this - I think having some less accurate but clearly fun filters would be really interesting. Like the plugins that are available on studio gear “make this sound like 70s FM radio” or “make this sound like a Notting Hill Reggae Sound System” and so on…and yes, I think something for “late night background” and “low volume” would have a place for sure, particularly in increasingly urban living environments.
…most of us have accurate systems - and there is no such thing as a graphic equalizer any more (maaaan I used to love how they looked) but in Filters the technology exists to tune and sculpt the sound. Why not!
We are now not talking about filters but tone controls. Filters in the world of digital to analogue conversion attenuate aliases I.e. the additional high-frequencies (noise) produced due to the sampling rate needing to be at least twice that of the sampled frequency.
What people seem to be asking for are effect or tone controls that may be found on components other than DACs.
There is a huge amount of processing power in our platforms - so a bit of sonic tuning within the DAC platform is possible, and we’ve all played with the filters and have preferences. I think it’s an extension of that.
This said - I do remember the clamour on the Naim (I think it was Naim - might have been Linn) for a Party Mode - it sounded like a good idea - but I’m not sure if anybody ever actually used it.
I do personally find the idea of being able to apply a sonic signature appealing though - and doing it in the DAC makes sense, as it will then deliver the most consistent experience. I know there are users on here who change filters and upsampling depending on what music they are listening to (I’m not one of those people) so I think the desire to tune the device to suit certain circumstances is there.
…but here’s a thing - and perhaps this is covered elsewhere - but why stop there? …Linn have been very successful with their Room Correction software - all delivered in the digital domain - I wonder if dCS have explored this.
Ah yes - you’re right - and as a fellow Accuphase lover I’ve looked into this before. I may yet.
Doing things downstream does appeal - but I think the boffins at dCS could have a lot of fun implementing some sound tuning at source. Be interested if they’ve tried to extend the capabilities of the platform from filters and sampling and into tuning.
I We are not talking about filters in the sense of those that already exist in the DAC for the reason that I state above and so would be a new venture . The ones desired would seem to be convolution filters which are more familiar in the head-fi world. I suppose that, effectively, Expanse is of this nature so maybe expanding ( pun meant) the features of this this and applying it to loudspeaker use would fit the bill.
Would such a thing be popular and justify the expense of development though? I have a few devices that have this sort of option ( dongle DAC, TV audio) but even when I have tried them it has been a case finding out what it does and never wanting to use it again .
…So, if it doesn’t sound good for dCS team, that I can understand, they could call a filter “Low volume filter” one could be “Rave Party filter” or “Birthday party filter” and another could be “Mid 70s filter”.
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