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   Home » Didital Things » Recording options: Pacific Microsonics vs. Lavry Gold. (25 posts, 2 pages)
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  »  New  Digital recorders: what the "big boys" use?..  Converters comparation....  Didital Things  Forum     15  129721  01-05-2005
  »  New  How to record FM broadcasts...  Left to center...  Off Air Audio Forum     125  1131210  11-04-2005
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  »  New  Analog Transfer: the first draft...  What I am after in this test....  Didital Things  Forum     19  160589  04-11-2006
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  »  New  The Museatex Bidat pages...  Good lack......  Didital Things  Forum     57  535434  02-11-2008
  »  New  The Lavry Gold DA924 ++..  A new Lavry Gold?...  Didital Things  Forum     25  287705  03-28-2008
  »  New  Tuners and digital noise from DAW, A/D and D/A..  Beter installation + more ferrete...  Off Air Audio Forum     10  115322  07-20-2008
  »  New  DC offset for A/D converters...  DC offset for A/D converters....  Didital Things  Forum     0  17866  03-13-2009
  »  New  The LavryBlack DA11 Stereo DA Converter..  The Lavry DA10 and Berkeley DAC...  Didital Things  Forum     10  114576  04-07-2009
  »  New  Pacific Microsonics Model 2..  This is very typical....  Didital Things  Forum     85  725522  05-28-2009
10-28-2007 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,636
Joined on 10-12-2006

Post #: 21
Post ID: 5750
Reply to: 5749
Of a piece
Interesting that the Pacific unit uses somewhat different words and presumably somewhat different means to achieve such similar ends.  This does seem to suggest that the in-common "smart algorithm" is a contributor here.

This "of a piece" quality was the first thing that struck/attracted me with the IDAT/Bidat, and for me the singular temporal response is accompanied by a related "of a piece" quality with respect to frequency response and imaging as well, as opposed to the more-usual-for-digital disjointed "stripes" or "striations", or in extreme cases a Picasso-like abstraction, not to mention the usual brain-numbing noise.

I really liked the super-clarity of the early Sony SACD, but I just couldn't take the dismembering.

Does the Pacific run in Class A, as well?

Best regards,
Paul S
03-05-2008 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,111
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 22
Post ID: 6866
Reply to: 5715
What to do with Pacific Microsonics?
Since Pacific lost it’s battle to Lavry AD122 as AD converter I was wondering what I might do with this possessor. My initials sentiment was to sell but Pacific to my large surprise turned out to be a very good CD-level DAC. In fact it is so good 16Bit DAC that only this fact made me do not let the Pacific go.

Pacific certainly, very much like Bidat is not a champion in the LF and HF extremes –and it is one of the reasons why it is sound so phenomenally musical. The Morons are accustomed to that barbaricly – extended, edgy, Black-Gate fucked, syntactic sound of HF and LH distortions and brutality. Pacific (similar to Bidat) has none of it and have completely different presentation. I have no Bidat now and play Pacific – what a wonderful DAC. BTW, Pacific is MUCH more immuned to bad electricity then Bidat.

I think if not Bidat then I would invest some efforts to disconnect the AD part of the Pacific and would enable it to run 24/7, using it as a primary Red Book DAC

The caT


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
05-04-2008 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,111
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 23
Post ID: 7351
Reply to: 6866
The Pacific Microsonics A/D is back
Two month back I stopped to use Pacific A/D but yesterday, experimenting with some exciting things ( I will tell later) I discover a very interesting configuration in which Pacific is free from small compression problems that I reported before. I was VERY pleased with result. I will try to record using Pacific the Sunday’s broadcast of   Berlioz's epic opera “Les Troyens” with Levine and BSO. It should be very interesting and I have new VERY good feelings about the Pacific. Funny, a month ago I almost sold it…

The Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
05-04-2008 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,111
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 24
Post ID: 7356
Reply to: 7351
I am switching to Pacific, finally…

After all I just realized that I am due to my Moronity I did not use the full capacity of Pacific Microsonics A/D. Since I have fugue it out it just open a second round of my love to this processor and I am switching to use it as my main recoding A/D converter.  I still prefer Lavry D/A over the Pacific internal D/A in case I use 88/24. So, I have running multibit A/D and multibit D/A…

Well, it is better once to hear then 100 times to read. It juts was recorded two hours back “live” off the air.  James Levine leads Boston Symphony with Berlioz. The tuner is Sansui TU-1X. Whoever doubts that FM “might be good”… god luck.

The files are 50 and 70 Meg, regular WAV in 88/24…

http://www.mediafire.com/?gmy9bj2xtz2

http://www.mediafire.com/?t9yvj6b1f1z

Rgs, Romy the Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
07-01-2009 Post mapped to one branch of Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,111
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 25
Post ID: 10952
Reply to: 5428
Pacific Microsonics vs. Lavry Gold in D/A mode.
fiogf49gjkf0d

In continuation to the "A new round of Pacific’s DAC listening" post....
 
I have a number of revisions of this little contest between two DACs in this thread and in other threads. In all of them the Lavry 924 has a little edge over Pacific Microsonics’ DAC. Now, after acquiring the Pacific Microsonics Model 2 I have reviewed those old competitions between two very good DACs. Here are my foundlings.

Result in short: Lavry gold “won” again but with much much much narrower margin. In fact the result that Pacific and Lavry demonstrated were not better and worst but rather slightly different type of sounds. Both of them are EVRY good and I should easily leave with both of them. I do not think that I would be able blindly to distinct them and the different is auditable ONLY during the running both of the DACs from the same source and immediate switching the preamps inputs, using the short-term memory (thanks for Placette that is very good in doing it)

A Caveat:  with all things being equal I have to confess that my Lavry and my Pacific run different analog cables to preamps. Lavry runs 1M Dominus, Pacific runs 2.5M Redco. I span quite a lot of efforts trying to find a cable that would be able to match Dominus, Redco is not the match but it has less problems that MANY other high-end cable I tried in THIS location. Also, my Lavry's PS are modefied...

Reasons:  the reasons the revision of the Pacific vs. Lavry competition feel would be necessary because a few things are change on my site.

1)      I use Pacific Microsonics Model Two instead Model One
2)      I run Pacific Microsonics in master clock mode 
3)      I found how to salve the Lynx card “more properly”
4)      I use better cable between Pacific and preamp.
5)      Mani Sandher with his idea to use Pacific as the ONLY processor kind of reignite my interest the subject

Material: I used mostly my own FM recording for imaging control and the grasp of the total sound, a few my own Stallavox tape transfers for HF tonal control,  the 3-point modulated test for pitch control and SoundMirror’s Mahler 6 file for “the sounds controls” (I find that file is faulty to use for other  testing purposes). All material was 88/24, I did not run the DACs at 16 bit. I did not read the SoundMirror’s HDCD encoding.

Result in Details: Pacific Microsonics vs. Lavry Gold do have different type of sounds. Pacific in a way is very similar to Bidat but with much-much higher degree of transparency. Bidat pushes lower MF a bit upfront, creating a VERY locative “body” in the “fundamental channel”. Pacific does the same but to much less degree. It is so delicate that it is absolutely not auditable in most of the music unless you search for it, the 3-point modulated test, choruses or the voice of newscaster probably was the best to highlight it. Lavry Gold has no minute domination in “fundamentals channel” and it is very neutral everywhere. It is also less “upperbassy” and more “bassy”. Pacific has “event” in bass - what bass reaches the lower region then is has a feeling of a little “injection” of power. It does not sound artificial or anything like this. The bass is very-very-very good but the Pacific bass has rather a “collapse” of bass after the bass reaches the lower point. With Lavry Gold it does not happen – Lavry has no “event” in bass and Lavry’s lower bass runs uneventfully deeper. It is not that Lavry has deeper bass but it rather that Lavry deeper bass has no “breathe change” event. They are very minor thighs and probably would not mater for most of the people but they meter to me.

The Pacific Microsonics and Lavry Gold do have different imaging pattern. Again, it is not about the better or worth but rather different. Lavry has a sound field very slightly larger geometrically (what they call “soundstage”) and the spate is more ignited with diversity of excitements. Pacific is less about excitement, less about the geometrical excitement but more about delicacy, gracefulness and sophistication. It is very interesting to switch between the DACs. Pacific has fancier imaging but not effective, you need to look into it to “get” it. Lavry opens its arms and show off itself right the way… Kind of different not capacity but presentation manner… Still, both DACs is way “out there” in term of imaging quality. I have two other 24bit-able DACs, one is a consumer DAC and another $350 pro DAC. It is even hard to describe how much Pacific and Lavry out of competition with those “little DACs”. It is not even a different league, it is 42393 leagues away…

Anyhow, in the end the Pacific showed itself off better then it did in the past as before it was just losing to Lavry in bass more aggressively. Now I do not feel this disadvantage, there are different characters but not that one is unambiguously better than other. I can clearly see that Pacific might be a fine only Reference DAC in a good playback, particularly if payback uses only one sampling rate and the bits depth.

The Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Page 2 of 2 (25 items) Select Pages:  « 1 2
   Target    Threads for related reading   Most recent post in related threads   Forum  Replies   Views   Started 
  »  New  Digital recorders: what the "big boys" use?..  Converters comparation....  Didital Things  Forum     15  129721  01-05-2005
  »  New  How to record FM broadcasts...  Left to center...  Off Air Audio Forum     125  1131210  11-04-2005
  »  New  A littlie D-War: Bidat vs. Lavry Gold..  TL0 3.0 Like Less Sharp DACs...  Didital Things  Forum     14  201117  12-18-2005
  »  New  Analog Transfer: the first draft...  What I am after in this test....  Didital Things  Forum     19  160589  04-11-2006
  »  New  Metaxas-Wolfson ADC with Sound Devices SD744T..  Misery or misunderstanding ? ...  Didital Things  Forum     2  33970  02-11-2007
  »  New  Any good sounding AES/EBU interfaces out there?..  Better keep with AN cables...  Didital Things  Forum     53  425535  09-17-2007
  »  New  The best practices for DAW Data Storage...  The Time Stamps Directories Synchronizer...  Didital Things  Forum     9  78551  09-24-2007
  »  New  DA architecture: True Multibit vs. anything else...  If it might…....  Didital Things  Forum     17  177186  12-09-2007
  »  New  The commercial music servers...  Touch screen remote...  Didital Things  Forum     37  346598  01-10-2008
  »  New  Reference Recordings “digital master” and Berkeley's ne..  The Berkeley Audio DAC’s processor....  Didital Things  Forum     13  193220  01-17-2008
  »  New  The Museatex Bidat pages...  Good lack......  Didital Things  Forum     57  535434  02-11-2008
  »  New  The Lavry Gold DA924 ++..  A new Lavry Gold?...  Didital Things  Forum     25  287705  03-28-2008
  »  New  Tuners and digital noise from DAW, A/D and D/A..  Beter installation + more ferrete...  Off Air Audio Forum     10  115322  07-20-2008
  »  New  DC offset for A/D converters...  DC offset for A/D converters....  Didital Things  Forum     0  17866  03-13-2009
  »  New  The LavryBlack DA11 Stereo DA Converter..  The Lavry DA10 and Berkeley DAC...  Didital Things  Forum     10  114576  04-07-2009
  »  New  Pacific Microsonics Model 2..  This is very typical....  Didital Things  Forum     85  725522  05-28-2009
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