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Romy the Cat wrote:

It would be more complicated then that… as they do better or worth under the different conditions… I will be posting my further comments into this thread… Stand by….

Now about the sound but a few word about the setup for the friendship before.

Currently Bidat and Lavry are installed in my system, suck the power form the same dedicated digitals line, and connected with the same “Dominus B” to the different inputs of my preamp. It would be also worth to mention that my preamp has no sonic or electrical differences between its inputs (Unfortunately this is a very atypical virtue in the “high-end” preamp). I drive the Sansui TX-U1 into Lavry AD and then into the Linx16 card, from which one of the eight AES-XLR lines goes into Lavry and another goes into Bidat. Considering that Linx16 interfaces has absolutely no influence to sound (tested it vigorously subjectively and I measured it at minus 110dB – it is absolutely transparent) the entire setting turn out to be very convenient for the DACs assessments. By pushing a button on a remote control I am able to play the Sansui’s output directly, or the same via the Bidat, or the same via the Lavry. To my great pleasure the Bidat AND the Lavry in balanced mode have the identical output. I tuned at 1.3dB the sensitivity of the AD to make sure that the Sansui-direct (the output attenuators are bypassed) has the identical output with the Bidat/ Lavry. So, the test environment was as perfect as it could be…

Last night there was a wonderful LIVE broadcast from The Metropolitan Opera, the opening MET broadcasting season. It was Verdi: Rigoletto with Anna Netrebko, Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Rolando Villazon, Carlo Guelfi, Eric Halfvarson, conducted (VERY nicely conducted!) by Asher Fisch. I liked the performance generally with probably minor exception of Netrebko who sang immaturely-sharply sometimes, too fresh and for the moments just childishly. I was listening the broadcast and sometime was just flipping the input channels of the preamp…

The Sansui-direct, the Bidat and the Lavry sounded more or less identical and I would very doubt that during a blind test it would be possible it identify what it what, unless it would be the infamies Paris wine testing 1976… :-) Well, let to be VERY anal retentive… Than, the Sansui-direct and Bidat had very-very-very minutely less noise then Lavry. This was kind of not good because the very same Lavry before the factory “tuning up” had the similar problem (only ~800% stronger). However, before the “tuning up” switching the Lavry into “wide clock” mode eliminated problem completely and the Lavry DID sound undistinguishable from the Sansui-direct. Now, the “New Lavry” wide-locking and the crystal-locking (presumably less jittery mode) produced identical results. This result I estimate way better then the “discalibrated Lavry” in the “crystal-locking” mode but not as perfect as the “discalibrated Lavry” in the “wide-locking” mode. Still the updated Lavry’s noise was very minor and slightly more harmonically pleasant then the noise before. Previously the Lavry’s noise was the sharp high-order zippiness. The fixed Lavry’s noise sound more like a soft tape hiss, and do not really annoys me as much, not to mention that the noise amplitude is way lower then it use to be…The good part of the fixing problems with Lavry (whatever problem it had) was illumination of a huge advantage that Bidat had in the “melody range”.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=1414

Before, Lavry was just very thin and sharp. After, Lavry become neutral but very slightly bright. The Bidat, comparing to Sansui-direct was more interesting – it was juts identical to the Sansui-direct… with it’s trademark: SPU-nisation of sound.

Continuing listening the opera I, and acknowledging the very minute noise disadvantage of Lavry, I also realized that Lavry runs a bit brighter all together then Sansui-direct/Bidat (probably here is where the noise was coming from). It was not the aggressiveness or the HF nervousness but rather just a very slight extension at HF. It was kind of negative thing, but I turn out kind of like it. The FM is “HF-challenged” by nature of the FM modulation and the presents of the “tape hiss” at HF during this broadcast added some sparkles here and there. Thanks god the sparkles were minor enough do not convert the sound into the Hi-Fi. So, generally the Lavry’s disadvantage turned out to be quite useable in my FM case…

Both Lavry and Bidat did very good job to handle the Sansui TX-U1 lower octave (whoever knows this tuner know what I mean). I would say that a very minor advantage in bass was at the Lavry side. Bidat still has a soft touch of that “Ortofon SPU roundness” in upper bass that very slightly muddy the Bidat lowest bass. The Lavry is more subjectively neutral all the way and the Lavry’s bass is very slightly more articulate. Also, this “Ortofon SPU roundness” slightly centers the musical events closer to the center of the performing stage vs. the Lavry that images more equally and more in consistency with what I would identify as a correct imaging. Still, it is important to understand that ALL OF THIS was in a so minor scale tat they would not be even notable blindly and only were possible to detect in a direct switching the lines…

Also, interesting that when I stopped to feed everything with 24bit and switch to 16bit then Lavry’s performance went down and the Bidat’s comparative performance went up. I have no idea why…

So, would the Bidat’s “humane qualities” in the “melody range” would be worth the Lavry’s “HF enthusiastic neutrality”? Probably not. I would prefer to stick with Lavry for FM recordings and partially for the benefits of the highest sampling frequencies…

Well, Unfortunately when not FM source was used during my further experiments but my 16-bit CEC TL0 transport then the comparative scale heavily moved towards to the Bidat. I will cover it in details in my next post.

Anyhow, here is a MP3 fragment from yesterday’s Rgolatto, the final of the second act…

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Audio_Files/Rgolatto.mp3

I was just listening the file now before posting this post and it stroked me again and again: there is nothing like the LIVE FM broadcast!!! Of course this performance is not the Fausto Cleva's MET performance with Warren and Tucker, not the Serafin's La Scala Rigoletto with Di Stefano, Gobbi and Callas and not the Renato Cellini's performance with Berger,Peerce and Warren. However, there is something special in it as I was experience it "live" as it was building itself up. As the result there is always an opportunity to return to the time when the initial listing experience took place and it’s kind of “different” as the singers and the orchestra play without any “safe net”. It is “live” and you can feel it in each single note. Whatever happens “live” becoming the row “as is” experience and THIS certainly adds an extra “puss” to the operatic “pressure pluming”....

To be continue…
Romy the Cat

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