Cheers phil for the explanation.
I will have to try going direct once again
Iâm of the Pete school of thought that an occasional revisit of going direct is worthwhile. Sometimes the result has been a âblechâ, other times a âwell that match is so good that it means Iâm a preamp full of cashish richer.â
Going direct on the DACs I had before the dCS never lasted long for me, though. Quite why the Ayre QX5-20 and the Lumins never worked out the same way I donât know. Assume itâs likely to do with the execution that Philâs explained above rather than anything else, as the rest of the system has been largely similar each time.
Pete, I can confirm that what you say here
âWe are listening to an illusion which involves a compromised source in that commercial recordings are deliberately imperfect in order to perform on all sorts of consumer equipment , often of poor quality from an audiophile standpoint. However if the magician reveals too much of how the illusion is achieved the effect is destroyed!â
is totally true!
Years ago a friend of mine, a musician, visited my house to finally listen to âhisâ music in âmyâ setup.
At the end he said it was beautiful, engaging, interesting, and⌠different from what he thought.
In brief he said: âI have to sell this stuff to NORMAL people, so it has to sound good, and by that I mean melody, harmony and rhythm. I want people to hear THAT, while here you listen to something else. I am glad that you can find sound quality in my CD, but I can assure you I didnât know it was there. Thatâs because 99.9% of the people who buy this CD donât know. On a side note, the bass player was not having a great day when we recorded track xxx, and thatâs why not much is left of his performance in the final mix. We had to finalize the project, no more sessions, so that was itâ
I think this explains many things.
And the fact that nonetheless I am going to upgrade my amp proves that the Universe has already been replaced by something more inexplicable. Probably a few times.
Cheers
A.
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Hi Chris,
No - I can well believe that there is a huge difference - but unless youâre comparing like for like though then the comparison doesnât really hold water ⌠any commercial recordings will have been gain modified, limited, gated and otherwise processed on their way to there so will sound totally different.
I used to manage a small studio back in the 90âs. It was a commercial studio used primarily for vocal / voiceover recordings. A lot of the guys and their friends played instruments and there wasnât the kit available to have a good recording setup at home so there was a fair amount of non-vocal recording went on âout of hoursâ as they made their own demo tapes etc. - which meant I had access to the original âdirect from the deskâ recordings before the guys had processed them and playing those even on pretty modest kit (stereos, PC speakers or basic studio monitors that we had laying around) was really very impressive âŚ
Other than the two main mixing desks (one Yamaha O2R in the âdigitalâ studio that we had because the MD wanted the latest high-tec desk that he could show off to potential customers but was only memorable because it was always breaking down and I canât remember the analogue deck in the âanalogueâ studio) there were no other electronics used in those studios that you couldnât have found in a domestic environment - we used Nakamichi BX cassette decks for outputting to tape, Yamaha CD Recorders for making CDs, Sony DAT decks for archiving, Bryston amps, Van Damme cabling and PMC speakers so nothing particularly esoteric.
(Actually, we did obviously have a reasonable collection of rack mounted audio processors that you wouldnât normally find outside of a studio but we rarely used them, similarly we rarely used the 02R studio as you couldnât guarantee that the damn thing wouldnât break half-way through a session and you couldnât move over to the analogue studio if it did as it sounded very different so we tended to just use the analogue studio as long as we didnât have clients looking round.)
All our processing was done using ProTools on Pentium 133 based PCs (the fastest machines you could buy at the time)âŚ
Phil
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chortle
Thank you for running with that one⌠
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Take solace in the fact that it wasnât a certain Italian Jazz guitaristâŚ
I have seen a photo of the dCS listening room where they were using Wilson Audio Alexx speakers and DâAgostino amp (looks like Momentum integrated):
Not sure if this is still current setup for dCS.
I have Wilson Sabrina speakers, DâAgostino Progression integrated amp, dCS Bartok, and Transparent Audio cables. I heard that each of these three companies use the other two companiesâ products for the voicing of their own products. I have been to several dealers that carry and frequently play these 3 together in listening rooms. They are a very synergistic coupling for sure. But the DarTZeel would be a good choice too.
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Thank you, I am testing the DâAgostino, and finding it very nice.
My wife saw this picture you shared and says she likes the loudspeakers, so I guess that will be next step :-))))
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Pretty sure thatâs the Momentum (stereo) power amp, Bruce â which does seem to be a really common choice for demos. With good reason in my opinion. Sounds great!
(As I said above, my money went to darTZeel, but it could very easily have gone to what I think of as the amplification version of MB&F rather than Journe )
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My dealer sells many brands but the preferred setup seems to be Wilson / DâAgostino / dCS / Transparent.
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I hope my remarks will encourage a few audiophiles to experiment i.o. rejecting outright.
Over the years, a lot of what I experienced listening to in digital (as opposed to analogue) is resonance and vibration (R&V). Mitigating these opens up a dramatically improved musical experience, letâs say 50% better. Analogue is much less sensitive to R&V and therefore sounds more ânaturalâ even at dramatically lower price points. There is even a theoretical foundation for this observation.
Perhaps the discussion of using a preamp between DAC and amp simply boils down to poor R&V mitigation. At a modest outlay (compared to new/additional gear incl power cables, connections, earthing and other paraphernalia), good R&V mitigation often hits the bullâs eye and is an investment âfor lifeâ. Check out products from HRS/ Nordost/ Ansuz/ Stillpoints/ Synergistic Research/ the late Townshend/ A Capella (my favourite) etc⌠and be astounded. Of course, this presupposes that enough attention has been given to power supply and delivery (the alpha of any serious hifi setup, at any price point).
By investing in R&V mitigation, you save megabucks and dramatically improve the musical experience. IMHO, a no-brainer.
Elsewhere I will comment on my experiences upgrading to Vivaldi Apex and comparing my 3-piece Vivaldi suite to my Clear Audio Reference turntable, using the same performances (SACD vs vinyl), the same power conditioning (Isotek+Nordost), the same cable loom (Nordost Odin2), the same amp (Burmester 911 mk3), on the same racks optimized to mitigate V&R. You will probably already guess that I connect the Vivaldi DAC directly to the amp (I suspect that much of the Apex improvement results from the new analogue output stage that frankly used to be eh⌠âbelow parâ?).
Really !! She must be genetically modified or she has got something in her DNA that should be used to modify the other 3 billions ladies on earth !!
I guess you know you are a very lucky guyâŚShould I buy loudspeakers like this my wife either kills me or calls a psychiatrist 
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And my wife says that speakers fall into two groups:
A) they look like speakers
B) they look f***ing ugly (her words)
I love her 
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⌠and thatâs before they (the wives) know the price :-))))
So, letâs say that itâs going to be the Dâagostino Progression Integrated, and I am not ruling out the DCS Rossini direct into the Progression Power amp S350.
Anyway, time to think about speakers. I have the following in my other shortlist:
Focal Sopra III
Focal Scala Utopia EVO
Wilson Yvette
Sonus Faber Amati Tradition
Sonus Faber Serafino Tradition
I always see dcs - dâAgostino - Wilson together, so taht onw should be a good match; what do you think about the others?
Thank you
A.
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e
You are in the upper end region of home audio where all of the products offered to the public are good. The days when manufacturers could get away with poorly performing items are long past ( I wish I could take you to a 1960s audio show - you would be astounded at the overall low standard by todayâs expectations).
What is the best? Nobody knows as there is not a single person on the planet who has tried a dCS processor with every permutation of amplifier and speaker (and cable) that there is.
Do not interpret the choice of accompanying equipment of any manufacturer as being the optimum choice. Other factors play a part. Try going to an audio show on set up day and find the manufacturers of speakers trying to borrow amps from those productâs suppliers and amp manufacturers borrowing speakers etc. Incidentally the dCS/dâAgostino/Wilson combination just happens to all be supplied by the same distributor in the UK. It is a very good combination but other amps and speakers are viable alternatives.
Your exact choice will depend on you and your tastes, typical genre of music, size of room etc. Listen before you buy or, if not possible ensure that you have a good return agreement in place.
BTW, I have heard that dCS/dâAgostino/Wilson combination several times. I fully understand why it is poplar and may be just right for you .Itâs just that I would buy something else so donât rely on me or on anything but your own ears 
.
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Oh I started getting interested in hifi at the end of the seventies: we still had some notable examples of trash-fi. I perfectly remember an expensive speaker that had very good reviews from some magazines. To my ears, it sounded horrible. I mean, there was consistently no combination of amplifier, room, music track, source (we only had vinyl and reel - to - reel at the time) that made it sound right. And we had no Internet to share thoughts about stuff, so I felt like something was wrong with my ears (I was young and naive). Until one day I read these words in a review: âThe best thing you can do after buying these speakers is 1) take the speakers out of their boxes 2) use boxes to carry things around: they are sturdy, well-built boxes and will serve you well. 3) Do NOT under any circumstance listen to music through the speakers.â
I felt relieved.
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You may add to your list Magico, YG and RockportâŚ
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I have the DâAgostino Progression amp and preamp. Those electronics opened up a whole new world of hifi for me. I didnât know that level of music reproduction was even possible!
Last week, I replaced my DAC with the Bartok. I really wanted the Bartok to replace the preamp as I only stream Qobuz. I started with the Bartok connected to the amp, no preamp, on 6v. Nice, very nice. I experimented with the filters and got it sounding itâs best. My system now sounded on par or slightly better than with the Progression preamp and PS Audio DAC. Next, I added the preamp and switched the Bartok to 2v. I donât want to admit it, because itâs illogical that adding a preamp to an all streaming system would make it sound better, but it does.
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My system during last year it was Bartok , Benchmark pre amp HPA4 and DâAgostino Classic Stereo amp. Few weeks ago I changed with Bartok 2.0 and setting output to 0,2 v directly to the amp , because is highly sensitive and with 0,2 v I can manage the digital Bartok volume between -30 and - 10 . Result ? I like it now much more with no preamp ( without 2.0 version I prefer clearly with preamp, just the opposite) . Now I found better focus, the same and wide soundstage but a bit deeper , better detail, and micro details. But the biggest improvement is on voices male and female , because the better focus and clarity and general better sound with my ânewâ Bartok 2.0 ( Mapper 3 and DXD upsampling, Filter 4). Cables XLR are Transparent Reference . Speakers B&W 802 D (2009) with the help of a sub REL this last point is also a key point because without preamp even in 2.0 version the sound is a little bit thiner directly to my amp and sometimes with some music you need some more body. Very happy now and I must think what I can do with the excellent Benchmark preamp.
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