The regular readers of my audio blog probably have read the thread: “How to record FM broadcasts” at:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?postID=1644

As you know I turned into to do it digitally and I do like it quite a lot. A couple months ago I knew literally nothing about digital. Today, I know as much but I have a surprisingly wonderfully performing recoding system. (look at “My Playback”, digital section, for further info) This is a totally different subject but there are a lot of very specific and very certain benefits to play music from wave files (...and perhaps I should describe them in a different thread).

So, during my search for a recording AD processor I came across the Lavry AD122 and the success with it made me to think about the DA 924 DAC. I was not on the DAC market. For quite a while I use a DAC that form my perspective is a unique and that very much corrupted my views about the digital to analog converters. Still, my reference DAC was 44.1/20 but I wanted to do 88.2/20-24. So, I bought the Lavry Gold DA-924 since I had a very goof experiences with it’s Sound approximately 5 years ago. Read the “How to record FM broadcasts” article and you might see how I was trying to figure what Lavry could do in context of my objectives...
 
Of course, of course of course … having two virtually interchangeable DACs I did ask myself which is better and is since both of the DACs have multiple digsital inputs I was wondering if I can pick one, the best one, and to use it for both purposes: playing CD and to play my FM recording system. This thread will my elaboration on this thought .... Do not anticipate an easy swallowable answer: both DACs are surprisingly resilient in thier contestability and both do well in the specific environments and in the specific applications. Read on and you understand what I mean, thought be advised that the data will flow “gradually” as I'll  dive deeper into the Bidat vs. Lavry “battle”.

I very few words about the contestants.

Bidat is a creation of Ed Meitner from beginning of 90s.  At that time Meitner ran Musatex Company that kind of were responsible for Bidat, thought the production I think they outsourced. I think when Meitner designed Bidat his himself did not know how wonderful it sounded. Sure engendering-wise Ed Meitner is a world-class specialist but how much is has to do with Sound?  Anyhow, the original commercial production was kind of off the wall and the commercial Bidat sounded although very nice but it was not the Bidat that I would apreciate. Over the course of the years there was a number of standard upgrade discovered for Bidat, this some “upgrades" were juts the removing to needless elements of design that severely degrated Sound. Some upgrades did not work (the idiotic BG upgrades and the switching PS) another did… but in the end, if the objective of the Bidat owner were not the Moronic audio hype spared by folk at the audio web sites but the actual Sound then working with Ed Meitner and then with John Wright (who took over the Musatex) it was possible to end up with a most musical DAC ever. In interestingly that Bidat does not stay any criticism from a perspective of a casual “Angry Engineer ”.  Ed and John never expanded why Bidat sounds in the wat it sounds. Theoretically Bidat holeds 5 Meitner’s patents but Ed and John assured me that the sound of Bidat has nothing to do with the patents but it has only to do with “how the things are done in the given case”.

A few more word. I wouldn’t like to sound like a typical audio Moron who worships any next thing that he own and I have no specific reasons to like or do not like Bidat. Over the course of the years, owning a few of Bidats, I was completely intentionally and VERY enthusiastically familiarized myself with anything available in D/A word: I have in my listening room many other DACs, or I very eagerly took my Bidat to many others listening rooms. My respect and appreciation of Bidat was juts building and browing while I was exposing it to other DACs. I can very confidently assure you that whoever DAC an average Audio person has seen out there in one or other ways was the subject of my attention or interest in my past. The only DAC that I never heard (but would like to) was the Pacific Microsonics.  All the rest 16-20Bit DACs that I am familiar with the Bidat destroyed from musical perspective... I made over a dozen people thgat I liked to buy Bidats and it was always a fun to see thier first reaction to THAT version of the “digital sound”. Also, I have to confess that I was a person who 2 years ago decided to mock the Audio Morons and I posted on my site an announcement that I’m selling one of my Bidat for $7700

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Commerce/SaleListing.aspx?Cat=Digital

As the result, within a 2-3 month the prices on the used market for Bidat when from firm $900 to $3500. I sincerely feel, that despise that the 16-20Bits is kind of become not popular among the audio people, but considering the “performance index”, the proporly tuned Bidat should cost today $8K-$9K. You do not like to pay $8K for Bidat? Very well! Pay $15K for EmmLab, dCS or Wadia and have a fraction of the Bidat’s performance…

Lavry DA-924 is designed by Dan Lavry. I know little about him. He live at some kind of Seattle island, plays accordion and at the pro-audio forums he exposes himself as heavy-core designer with insultingly objectivistic but somehow reasonable judgments:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/f/38/0

I bought a used DA-924 and it sounded very-very nice in the mode that should sound… worst and it sounded quite badly in it’s default “lowest jitter” operation mode. After exploring the unit I, to my surprise,  did not detect any high precision .001% resistors upon wish this DAC should be made (S102 would be fun) but rather the flimsy trimmers. So, I desisted that it was mostly likely got discalibrated and sent the DAC to Lavry Engineering for tuneing up and to perform some very minor changes that I would like to have. A week and a few hundred dollars later the unit arrived back and since then the DAC is up and running. The DA-924 is multibit DAC and uses the Lavry’s own approach to deal with problems of digital conversion. My technical consultants, all of them, unanimously informed me that what Lavry does is conceptually light years ahead to what was done in Bidat that that Lavry’s multibit should wipe out my Bidat.

Well… they were not too wrong -the measurements-wise Bidat do not stay close to Lavry.

Below is a 16bit 1000Hz wave at minus 70Db after Bidat. In fact it should be looked at minus 60Db ,as at minus 70Db the details of the wave are completely hidden behind the noise.

Below is the Lavry’s DAC at the same  16bit, minus 70Db ... it is very much tolerable as you can see:

Here is below, the Lavry’s DAC at minus 90Db 16bit. I think that the image depicts the relative nose/distortion between the DACs quite illustratively… Do not forger that there is 20dB difference between this and the first image....

Ok, how it all manifest itself in Sound?

This is much more complicated question. I would love to say that "Lavry masseurs better but Bidat sounds better" but it would not be correct. I would not also say that Bidat lost the battle against Lavry. 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….

To be continue,
Romy The Cat

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

TonyB wrote:

How about expanding the D-War and comparing the CEC transport and a PC feeding the Bidat? It should not be that difficult to rip a few CD's onto a PC. I would LOVE to hear the comparison. Using a PC would have a few advantages if the sound is as good as the transport.

I did not try the CEC transport vs. PC feeding. The CEC transport vs. PC transport had no chance. I did it quite a long time ago and the PC transport sounded like a bad MP3 file compare to the TL0. I did try to rip a CD into PC using the WaveLab 5’s Ultra-Secure mode (it took hours for a entire disc). However, I did not listen the result critically as I see no purpose for it, at least for me.

Rgs,
Romy

TonyB wrote:

What does Linx16 card do in your tuner recording set up? Do the digital A/D signals only pass through Linx16 or do they get buffered in PC RAM and then go to the Linx16 digital output? Tuner audio sounded very similar directly and through Linx16. If the tuner data gets buffered in PC RAM, I do not see almost any reason why the data taken off the hard disk should sound bad (well, there is MDI).

TonyB wrote:

Re: Pity

I was not looking for the card to do any buffering; quite opposite I was looking for ONLY I/O interface with no logic aboard. To use PC as the music CD server? What for? It might be a WAV files server, but only the files are not available on the CDs. If the CD are already exist then what the purpose to copy them to PC, even if the “quality” presumably might be preserved? Also, I did not try to drive, or to drive-by the Linx16 with Lavry’s clock, as I do not see what I might be for. The theories are fine but it “as it” performance of the PC past of my recoding systems is perfectly fine, so why to spell troubles when the troubles do not trouble me?

Antonio J. wrote:

Did you find some program different than Linx's that can play the 24/96 files?

Nope, I play it with that same WaveLab program as I recorded it. It is not comfortable but it works very well.

Anyhow, guys let leave it all “as is” because it begins to shift out of the subject of the thread, namely: Bidat vs. Lavry

Rgs,
Romy

Before announcing Lavry complete failure against Bidat when Lavry was driven by a CD transport I have to make a very important comment: in my case the transport was not a regular transport but the CEC-TL0, a know son of a digital bitch.

I know quite a few installations when CEC-TL0 entered a well performing setup and literally destroyed it. The typical compliances by the system owners were that the CEC-TL0 was “too much”. This is very much true: the CEC-TL0 output so much in everything: details, rhythm, bass, articulation that most of playbacks juts could not handle them and the listing awareness get overwhelmed and stop processing Sound. Using without spacial precautions the TL0 produce just a collection of super high quality sounds that would be not organized into music. This is how the TL0 pretty much sounds in moist of the places… In order to make the TL0 do not sound like a cold, high precision anal-retentive machine it needs a proper DAC, that DAC that would embrace what TL0 dose incredibly well: both frequency extremes, details, phenomenal rhythm and stunning, not comparing with a anything else articulation, but in the same time compile the sounds into music, unite everything together and fix up the TL0’s limitations in upper bass.

So, in my world the Bidat was exactly the DAC that was doing exactly that. The combination of TL0-Synopsis-Bidat turned out to be very-very successful and probably if not Bidat I would not go for the TL0. OK, what happen when I drive the TL0 into Lavry? The problem is that nothing happen and the Lavry outputs the very same TL0’s high quality individual sounds that many other DACs did. The TL0- Lavry presentation was very nice, large, bassy, fast but it is hardly musical. Not to mention that in the case of CD course (contrary to my FM case) the Lavry’s tendency for being slightly brighter serves a negates purpose. I would say that Lavry extreme HF were objectively better then Bidat. They were cleaner, more “expressed” (in very positive ways) and I would say even more sophisticated. However, the Bidat juts did not have any HF at all! Sound after Bidat flows very naturally and I do not acknowledge or bothered by any existing or none-existing HF.

You know Bidat HF is like reading Pushkin. Pushkin in Russian literature is not the same as Shakespeare in the literature of English speaking world. Shakespeare smart, inelegant, fancy, witty, stylish and sophisticated. Shakespeare requires the reader brain to switch into a mode of wit and style and sophistication.  You have to be already somebody to “get” Shakespeare… With Pushkin it is totally different story. Before Pushkin Russian language did not exist and arguably it hardly exist after him. Pushkin’s language is insultingly simple (3 year old kinds “get” it with no problems) but at the same time it has within itself the wit, style and sophistication no less, or in some cases even more, then Shakespeare. This amassing simplicity create own absolute unique fluency of Pushkin’s language and it is no surprised that someone had noticed in the past that reading Pushkin ventilates the reader’s lungs… The Bidat’s sound has something from that Pushkin’s fluency and smoothness. Lavry, in contrary, is juts presents the good sounds.

I wonder how much the Lavry’s disability to work with TL0 comes from that minute HF “eagerness” that Lavry has.  I did tried to kill my tweeter when I dealt with Lavry; it helped but only to a degree.  It would be fun trying to lowpass Lavry additionally to what it does at 15-16kz and to see how it would behave….

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Hm, some very mysterious things are going on today similar to the observance of the Bethlehem star… :-)

I was commenting before that Lavry 924 is very slightly brighter then I feel a neutral peace of equipment should be. Once again it is not HF disgustingly noisy as EMM or Wadia and not HF-sharp as ML or dCS but a very-very- very too HF extended (still without loosing the reference to the rest spectral). What was interesting that during those few weeks that I was running Lavry DAC I detect that the delta between the Lavry’s HF and the HF as they should be “live” (I fell that Bidat with TL0 do it correctly) kind of fluctuated…Last few days I made and observation that those fluctuations are virtually synchronies with the general quality of electricity (my constant and none-resolvable years-lasting pain). 

Today, since I do not basically celebrate Xmas and did not wanted to go for the Jew’s typical Xmas’ Chinese I was listening afternoon some music and I was very please with the quality of electricity today. Furthermore, closer to 6PM (when the business presumably were closing down) the electricity turned out to be so phenomenal that I hardly remember it was so good this year. I switched from analog to my PC playback driving Richard Strauss at 94/24 into the Lavry and… o magic!!!… all Lavry’s hyper-HF got evaporated!!!! I was so surprised that I took the 44.1/20bit peace and played it into Lavry and into Bidat simultaneously (thanks the Lynx’s multiple outputs). The result was absolutely identical even Lavry had better imaging l!!!

Hm, what does it mean? Is Lavry DAC more vulnerable to “bad electricity syndrome” then Bidat? (I have seen as the “bad for sound electricity” converted Bidat’s sound into the sound of the chainsaw.) Still, today’s Lavry performance is the undeniable evidence that IT MIGHT PLAY VERY VERY WELL! Now, what the hell I need to do to power this DAC after the Xmas will be over?

The caT

As I told before I picked recently a new interesting DAC and I got for it some AES/EBU cables. That made me to make the same Bidat vs. Lavry experiments only to use the AES/EBU interface with Lavry Gold.  During those experiments I did not use Synopsis S/PIDIF with Bidat and it would set all bets off and use AES/EBU Bidat as well.

It looks like Lavry sounds way better with AES/EBU that is not surprise as pro use is the Lavry’s primary duty. I opened Lavry and discovered that it looks like that Lavry’s S/PIDIF input used one more input gain stage AES/EBU compare to AES/EBU… Might be that is why or perhaps the AES/EBU is juts better, particularly for higher sampling rate.

What however surprised me was the Sound. Though Lavry with AES/EBU sound better then with S/PIDIF  I still found, identically to what I did 2 years back, that the damn Bidat still much more preferably when it driven by CEC TL0. I have all desire in the world to found Lavry as a winner – that would reduce complexity of my installation and would allow me to use one DAC for all my digital. Lavry has 2 digital automatically switchable inputs – one for CD transport and one for my DAW – it would be perfect to have one DAC for everything! Unfortunately the sound of the damn Bidat still forces me to keep that DAC in the system, using extra cable, extra preamp inputs and extra space within my rack.

This is a shame as Lavry is unquestionable much better DAC. It is very properly implemented multibit that do everything much better then Bidat. Although Bidat is not a simple Delta-Sigma but has in real time switchable processing algorithm depending of Music speed but still the Lavry’s pure multibit, with all it’s resistors switching and constant self-recalibration should be way more advanced. In fact it is more advanced. Lavry has way better lover bass, it lot more extended at higher frequencies. Still Lavvy is loosing the battle as my “transport DAC”… I think the Bidat’s output analog stage juts happens to “sound better” and it sets all apart. John Right told that after years of experiments he would 30 cents worth op-amp that do very good job. They are very common op-amp and they are nothing special themselves but in the way how they are used and applied in Bidat they reportedly sound “unique”. So, I do not know why my Bidat has that unbeatable sound. Is it the output stage, the cooking of the Bidat caps:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=5032

… the Synopsis S/PIDIF interface, the idiosyncrasy of my transport or anything else. However, the Bidat still is my very preferred DAC for my 16/44 transport. Here are some aspects where the Bidat leads:

1) Tone. It is softer, sweeter and more “yellow”. It reminds in a way what Ortofone SPU needles do.

2) More saturated second harmonics then any other DACs I have heard.

3) Has larger performing space.

4) Has some absolutely exemplarily and unmatchable balance between sharpness of attacks and lower order harmonics.

5) Has very deferent type of HF nose – absolutely different then any other DAC – the Bidat noise does not bother me as mush and any other noise. (Synopsis?) The Bidet’s nose sound more like a tape hiss then like digital nose.

6) Absolutely amassing imaging, any other DAC I have use were not able to image properly in contexts of extreme nearfiled and in order to throw the right image other DACs wanted me to sit 2-3 feet back. Bidat can do it from the same extreme distance as my vinyl can do it.

Among the disadvantages I would name

1) Lower bass

2) 20 Bit and 44 kHz maximum. It reads 20 bit but it toss the 4 bit internally and in reality it posses 16Bit.

3) Too “fat” and too slow when it is not driven by CEC TL0

So, the coming new “investigational” DAC will still have the “old” contestant... Surely it will compete with Lavry as well but Lavry is solely my DAW DAC, where it does extremely good job.

Romy the Cat wrote:

buy naltrexone online cheap buy naltrexone from trusted pharmacy where can i buy duloxetine buy duloxetine 60 mg go I know quite a few installations when CEC-TL0 entered a well performing setup and literally destroyed it. The typical compliances by the system owners were that the CEC-TL0 was “too much”. This is very much true: the CEC-TL0 output so much in everything: details, rhythm, bass, articulation that most of playbacks juts could not handle them and the listing awareness get overwhelmed and stop processing Sound. Using without spacial precautions the TL0 produce just a collection of super high quality sounds that would be not organized into music. This is how the TL0 pretty much sounds in moist of the places… In order to make the TL0 do not sound like a cold, high precision anal-retentive machine it needs a proper DAC, that DAC that would embrace what TL0 dose incredibly well: both frequency extremes, details, phenomenal rhythm and stunning, not comparing with a anything else articulation, but in the same time compile the sounds into music, unite everything together and fix up the TL0’s limitations in upper bass. So, in my world the Bidat was exactly the DAC that was doing exactly that. The combination of TL0-Synopsis-Bidat turned out to be very-very successful and probably if not Bidat I would not go for the TL0. OK, what happen when I drive the TL0 into Lavry? The problem is that nothing happen and the Lavry outputs the very same TL0’s high quality individual sounds that many other DACs did. The TL0- Lavry presentation was very nice, large, bassy, fast but it is hardly musical. Not to mention that in the case of CD course (contrary to my FM case) the Lavry’s tendency for being slightly brighter serves a negates purpose. I would say that Lavry extreme HF were objectively better then Bidat. They were cleaner, more “expressed” (in very positive ways) and I would say even more sophisticated. However, the Bidat juts did not have any HF at all! Sound after Bidat flows very naturally and I do not acknowledge or bothered by any existing or none-existing HF. Rgs, Romy the Cat

I Think CEC TL0 3.0 is not very good partner for dCS , ML , CEC DA 3.0 and other Sharp SS DACs.

It seems CEC TL0 X is better with less sharp DACs like Audio Note .

CEC DAC DA 3.0 was cold when i heard it with CEC TL0 3.0 and i wrote about it in past. I hate digital (tone) when i hear sharp sound.

Kevin (Designer of Living Voice) used Audio Note DAC with CEC TL0 X in Munich High End 2014 and it was wonderful .