Februrary 2016 SAC Meeting
For our February meeting we set out to evaluate various ways to get a digital signal into your system. Does a CD ripped to disc sound better than the CD itself? Does a music server sound better than a computer audio solution (ie. music player software running on a PC or Mac)? Does an inexpensive solution like the Popcorn Hour stack up against either of the above?
We wanted to find out.
We set out first to ensure the digital signal was sent to the same DAC in all setups, and that the rip to disc and the rip to flash were sourced from the same CD.We also wanted to try to ensure the volume levels were the same across all setups. Always uppermost in our minds is the belief that our members come to enjoy themselves, so from the outset it was as much as possible “in the hands” of our members to make what they wished of it. We wanted people to take away from it what they wanted whether it was a feeling of enlightenment, or maybe of confusion. The event was meant to be fun and entertaining as well as informative… so we did not want to impose any indisputable conclusions from these evaluations! Hoping rather that our members might however, walk away with ideas they could then try at home.
These setups available on the day were:
Oppo BDP105 playing from a USB flash drive
Oppo BDP105 playing the CD layer
Wyred 4 Sound (W4S) Music Server
Mac Mini music player (playing Pure Music V3)
Popcorn Hour C300
(Sadly during the set-up the Popcorn Hour C300, though performing surprisingly well initially, emitted a puff of grey smoke and perhaps a spark or two! So it was consigned to the bin. One lucky (ambitious) member retrieved it. Good luck with that! So sadly no budget comparison this time.)
That’s a lot of configuration changes and a lot of listening.
Details of the system….
Wyred 4 Sound (W4S) Music Server – Refer to http://www.deephzaud... Australia.html
Oppo BDP-105 Universal player – The ubiquitous universal player with the excellent ESS Sabre 32 DACs. Refer to https://www.oppodigi...lu-ray-bdp-105/ and http://www.theabsolu...player-and-dac/
Mac Mini (late 2012 version) – with i7 processors, 16GB memory, SSD system disc. Music files on 1TB SSD with Thunderbolt connectivity. The computer is configured as a bare-bones dedicated music player with only essential services running.
Bricasti Design M1 – Refer to http://i.nextmedia.c..._test_lores.pdf and http://www.audiostre...i-design-m1-dac
Audio-GD Master-10 integrated amp – “Fully balanced design, the gain stages and pre-driver stages working on class A , built by discrete analog stages without any OPA or coupling caps in the signal channels.” Refer to http://www.audio-gd....er-102015EN.htm
Energy Veritas 1.8 Floorstander speakers – Older speakers now but still sounding good. These were last at the club back in February 2015. Refer to http://www.audiorevi...34_1594crx.aspx and http://www.stereophi...udspeakers/551/
Cabling was by Nordost, Wireworld and Synergistic Research.
So, how did it all go?
As an introduction for all, we had a session on evaluating the sound quality from different digital sources fed into the same DAC and system.
We had these “sources” lined up:
Oppo BDP-105 playing CD (via SPDIF)
Oppo BDP-105 playing USB flash (via SPDIF)
Wyred for Sound (W4S) music server (via SPDIF)
Mac Mini (running Roon/HQPlayer) (via USB)
We tested all the gear before people arrived of course. As mentioned, we scrapped the Popcorn Hour very quickly… not because it sounded terrible (it didn’t actually), but because it starting smoking after a few minutes!! Fortunately it didn’t take down anything else with it. The Bricasti M1 DAC was sitting on top of it, but came out unscathed.
Since the comparison included CD that dictated that all music would need to be 16 x 44.1 regardless of the source. All the music was ripped from the same source discs, to ensure a level playing field. And the levels from each source were measured in advance as well, and set upon playback to ensure a level playing field.
We initially listened to the Sara K track “I Can’t Stand The Rain” from “Hell or High Water” (Stockfisch label). We listened to each source in turn, in the order shown above.
We then took a vote on what people thought sounded best – the vote results: Oppo CD = 1, Oppo USB = 0, W4S = 8, Mac Mini = 7. The total vote count might suggest a small audience – but actually only a small percentage of the audience chose to vote.
We then had an open discussion of the SQ differences. It was clear from our discussions that another listen was in order! We narrowed the competitors down to just the two top voted sources, and listened to another track. This time we heard the Shawn Mullins track “The Great Unknown” from his album “My Stupid Heart”. This time the vote was W4S = 8, Mac Mini = 4. This track was a bit too harsh sounding through the Mac Mini, so no doubt the more “analogue” sounding W4S garnered more votes. More discussions ensued.
A few people were perhaps surprized that CD collected so few votes. They wished to hear CD compared to the W4S and the Mac Mini. So we then listened to the Simone Kermes track “Lascia ch'io pianga” from her album “Dramma” (yes, with two “m”s!). We listened to the entire 5+ minute track on CD, but only the first 3 minutes on the W4S and Mac Mini. In this instance, the Oppo playing CD won 10 votes to the W4S winning 6 votes. We neglected to write down the vote count for the Mac Mini (sorry!) but I recall it was less than the W4S.
This left people wondering if maybe the style of music made a difference to their preference of source. In the end, it seemed that most still thought that the W4S and the Mac Mini sounded better, but by how much appeared to depend on the music.
Among the many discussions points, we touched upon why a dedicated music server like the W4S may have a SQ advantage over a computer audio solution. We agreed it was likely due to the reduced noise emitted by a dedicated music server – after all, they are engineered for a specific purpose and hence the manufacturer has an interest in ensuring the noise is low. Compare that to a Mac Mini or PC that is designed to run Word, email, surf the web, etc. - the manufacturer doesn’t really care how much noise their boxes emit. That said, computer audio can still sound good when connected asynchronously via USB.
Upon that note, we decided to leave it and we unanimously agreed to have a slightly early break to avoid the stifling heat in our room!! Afterwards, we had our usual BYO music session.
Once more a “shoot out” meeting was popular and elicited a great deal of comment, discussion, technical analysis, theory and, well I suppose controversy. Oh…. And enjoyment. People do seem to really enjoy this comparison, shoot out format, so I assume they must get something out of it.
Well done Tom and Steve for sterling work setting this up and to the rest of the committee for the solid background support, oh and to you our ever enthusiastic members, without you, we wouldn’t hear the tree fall in the woods.
George Davidson
Vice President
We wanted to find out.
We set out first to ensure the digital signal was sent to the same DAC in all setups, and that the rip to disc and the rip to flash were sourced from the same CD.We also wanted to try to ensure the volume levels were the same across all setups. Always uppermost in our minds is the belief that our members come to enjoy themselves, so from the outset it was as much as possible “in the hands” of our members to make what they wished of it. We wanted people to take away from it what they wanted whether it was a feeling of enlightenment, or maybe of confusion. The event was meant to be fun and entertaining as well as informative… so we did not want to impose any indisputable conclusions from these evaluations! Hoping rather that our members might however, walk away with ideas they could then try at home.
These setups available on the day were:
Oppo BDP105 playing from a USB flash drive
Oppo BDP105 playing the CD layer
Wyred 4 Sound (W4S) Music Server
Mac Mini music player (playing Pure Music V3)
Popcorn Hour C300
(Sadly during the set-up the Popcorn Hour C300, though performing surprisingly well initially, emitted a puff of grey smoke and perhaps a spark or two! So it was consigned to the bin. One lucky (ambitious) member retrieved it. Good luck with that! So sadly no budget comparison this time.)
That’s a lot of configuration changes and a lot of listening.
Details of the system….
Wyred 4 Sound (W4S) Music Server – Refer to http://www.deephzaud... Australia.html
Oppo BDP-105 Universal player – The ubiquitous universal player with the excellent ESS Sabre 32 DACs. Refer to https://www.oppodigi...lu-ray-bdp-105/ and http://www.theabsolu...player-and-dac/
Mac Mini (late 2012 version) – with i7 processors, 16GB memory, SSD system disc. Music files on 1TB SSD with Thunderbolt connectivity. The computer is configured as a bare-bones dedicated music player with only essential services running.
Bricasti Design M1 – Refer to http://i.nextmedia.c..._test_lores.pdf and http://www.audiostre...i-design-m1-dac
Audio-GD Master-10 integrated amp – “Fully balanced design, the gain stages and pre-driver stages working on class A , built by discrete analog stages without any OPA or coupling caps in the signal channels.” Refer to http://www.audio-gd....er-102015EN.htm
Energy Veritas 1.8 Floorstander speakers – Older speakers now but still sounding good. These were last at the club back in February 2015. Refer to http://www.audiorevi...34_1594crx.aspx and http://www.stereophi...udspeakers/551/
Cabling was by Nordost, Wireworld and Synergistic Research.
So, how did it all go?
As an introduction for all, we had a session on evaluating the sound quality from different digital sources fed into the same DAC and system.
We had these “sources” lined up:
Oppo BDP-105 playing CD (via SPDIF)
Oppo BDP-105 playing USB flash (via SPDIF)
Wyred for Sound (W4S) music server (via SPDIF)
Mac Mini (running Roon/HQPlayer) (via USB)
We tested all the gear before people arrived of course. As mentioned, we scrapped the Popcorn Hour very quickly… not because it sounded terrible (it didn’t actually), but because it starting smoking after a few minutes!! Fortunately it didn’t take down anything else with it. The Bricasti M1 DAC was sitting on top of it, but came out unscathed.
Since the comparison included CD that dictated that all music would need to be 16 x 44.1 regardless of the source. All the music was ripped from the same source discs, to ensure a level playing field. And the levels from each source were measured in advance as well, and set upon playback to ensure a level playing field.
We initially listened to the Sara K track “I Can’t Stand The Rain” from “Hell or High Water” (Stockfisch label). We listened to each source in turn, in the order shown above.
We then took a vote on what people thought sounded best – the vote results: Oppo CD = 1, Oppo USB = 0, W4S = 8, Mac Mini = 7. The total vote count might suggest a small audience – but actually only a small percentage of the audience chose to vote.
We then had an open discussion of the SQ differences. It was clear from our discussions that another listen was in order! We narrowed the competitors down to just the two top voted sources, and listened to another track. This time we heard the Shawn Mullins track “The Great Unknown” from his album “My Stupid Heart”. This time the vote was W4S = 8, Mac Mini = 4. This track was a bit too harsh sounding through the Mac Mini, so no doubt the more “analogue” sounding W4S garnered more votes. More discussions ensued.
A few people were perhaps surprized that CD collected so few votes. They wished to hear CD compared to the W4S and the Mac Mini. So we then listened to the Simone Kermes track “Lascia ch'io pianga” from her album “Dramma” (yes, with two “m”s!). We listened to the entire 5+ minute track on CD, but only the first 3 minutes on the W4S and Mac Mini. In this instance, the Oppo playing CD won 10 votes to the W4S winning 6 votes. We neglected to write down the vote count for the Mac Mini (sorry!) but I recall it was less than the W4S.
This left people wondering if maybe the style of music made a difference to their preference of source. In the end, it seemed that most still thought that the W4S and the Mac Mini sounded better, but by how much appeared to depend on the music.
Among the many discussions points, we touched upon why a dedicated music server like the W4S may have a SQ advantage over a computer audio solution. We agreed it was likely due to the reduced noise emitted by a dedicated music server – after all, they are engineered for a specific purpose and hence the manufacturer has an interest in ensuring the noise is low. Compare that to a Mac Mini or PC that is designed to run Word, email, surf the web, etc. - the manufacturer doesn’t really care how much noise their boxes emit. That said, computer audio can still sound good when connected asynchronously via USB.
Upon that note, we decided to leave it and we unanimously agreed to have a slightly early break to avoid the stifling heat in our room!! Afterwards, we had our usual BYO music session.
Once more a “shoot out” meeting was popular and elicited a great deal of comment, discussion, technical analysis, theory and, well I suppose controversy. Oh…. And enjoyment. People do seem to really enjoy this comparison, shoot out format, so I assume they must get something out of it.
Well done Tom and Steve for sterling work setting this up and to the rest of the committee for the solid background support, oh and to you our ever enthusiastic members, without you, we wouldn’t hear the tree fall in the woods.
George Davidson
Vice President