Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

jtavan wrote:

It looks like you're looking at the right brands for ADC. It seems likely to me that getting proper A/D conversion is as hard as or harder than getting proper D/A conversion. I'm currently shopping for a good A/D converter for a number of purposes, and those are supposedly the cream of the crop. I'd add to your list (at least to audition) the new Lynx Studio Aurora line, probably down near the Apogee units. As the Prism and Pacific Microsonics are out of my budget, that's what I'm looking at. I'm trying to find someone willing to let me demo it before shelling out the money. In any case, please do keep us posted as to your progress in this matter.

Although I am a software engineer, on software writer site, but believe me or not I ma completely ignorant in that digital audio things. None of my machines that I ever used had any sound card in them; at least I never used thus cards…

The first thing that I need to find out if a digital stream from my DAC might be stored on computer’s hard drive in none-compressed format and if it might be then playable back to my DAC. I need for this case an interface with digital I/O and probably I will go for an optical I/O, despite that I do not like the optical interface but I do not what to bring the computer dirty ground to my system. If the computer base mass storage will be able perform OK then I will be thinking about a good external converter. No mater ho simple the first parts but still there are very many questions and variables that should be result and assessed. Will the optical drive be sufficient enough, how good the I/O interface might be, will be a different in sound if the file will be pulled from a network mass storage vs the local drive. What kind optimization should be done to the PS in order to “optimize” it, how to power the Pc… and many-many others

Let presume that the first part will be successful then here is what I think about the A/D. If to presume that the quality of the company A/D has any relation to the company D/A (I presume that it is the case) then what do I have practically available? Pacific Microsonics would be out of my budget as well but there is an interesting glitch with it. After the Pacific Microsonics it looks like Keith Johnson designed his Spectral SDR-2000 Professional D/A processor. I had this unit 5 years ago for a few days in my home and I was not impressed. This init did an absolutely feminine everything and deliver the bass that was unmatchable but it was very much not musical unit. It cost a little under 10K and I decided do not keep it. It was like all Spectrals too anal-retentive and very much alike to anything else the professor Johnson even did. I know that many top notch studios do use the Pacific DACs but….. I need more musical results. It is very possible that the Pacific DAC will be nothing like the SDR-2000 DAC but to spent a lot of efforts to find this ADC, to pay a huge sum of money and to have a result the I can’t assess it might be too painful. I do have a local guy with the Pacific recording studio and I might have a demonstration but his it quite pricey and I do not think that I will be wiling to pay his price range for this DAC.

I have a little knowledge about the Prism Sound Dream. Some top of the world studios use them a, love them and I have a sores to borrow them. I do not know, perhaps I will try it… Also, I have local guy who has the tope of the line Apogees and he will be happy to lend me those units to try. I will looks also at your Lynx Studio Aurora line, although I never heard bout them.

The Switzerland Weiss is tricky. A lot of very top flying studios use them, including most England, DG and EMI. I heard the DG did with Weiss thier “Originals” ….  It might be OK but my problem that that I am well familiar with Weiss DAC. It is very good DAC, I mean relay good, way more interesting then all out audiophile-proved garbage but … I never bought it….  To me Weiss has a seatrain syntactism at HF, very pleasant, very articulate and very attractive but this syntactism (or artificiality) do not exist of real music. To me the Weiss’s HF is a smell of autumn burned leaves during a cold November morning… It has an attractive “yellowness” but should will you do with it if you play “spring” or “summer”. Still, I do not know if this ADC has the same problems….

What is left? The Lavry Engineering. There is a “problem” with them: is LOVE thier DAC. Approximately 5-4 years ago I had for a day or two their DB Technology DA-924 and it was the only DAC that I ever liked. A beautiful machine with a fanatic quality of sound and very musical at the same time. If their ADC will be the same then it will be defiantly it. Thier ADC cost somewhere around $9-8K and if I would be able to get it for a half price perhaps used then it will be quite nice. I have a very good feeling about this company…

There is another ways… There are recently a quite few PC recording devises that might turn out to be OK. Even the Lavry Engineering makes $300 recording ADC for PC that they state if very good. (Optimized for microphones). In addition there are very many similar products within a price range $1-$2K that “might” deliver an acceptable result. Most of them do 24 bit and many other ran form DC batteries, that is not necessary sucks.

So, I feel I will be doing some listening very soon… if no one would give me a Lavry Engineering AD processor for Hanukah…

To be continue....
Romy the Cat

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site