A DAC In Da House

[David Meek]

Woohoo! I couldn't stand it anymore, so I just pulled the trigger on a new Musical Fidelity A3.24 DAC. It'll be here Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.
:banana:




David - HTGuide flunky
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[Burke Strickland]

Woohoo! I couldn't stand it anymore, so I just pulled the trigger on a new Musical Fidelity A3.24 DAC.

Congratulations. If it holds true to its promise, that DAC should nicely augment the already-fine sound of your system.

It'll be here Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

No need for you to suffer the wait alone. PLEAASSSE keep us informed with the latest minute-to-minute package tracking updates from the shipper. :>)

Burke

PS -- when you finally do get your new DAC and have had a chance to experience it in your system, we really will be interested in hearing about your impressions of it in operation.

[Chris D]

I too will be interested to hear how this turns out for you. Keep us posted!




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[efarstad]

David, way to go! arty:

I love my MF gear...amazing sound! Can't wait to "read what you hear!"

E





The Norwegian A/V Nut!
E-Cinema

[David Meek]

Thanks y'all. I'm having a bit of difficulty with the idea that it's on its way. I hadn't planned on doing this for another year or so, but fortune smiled as they say. Don't worry, I'll be gushing all over the place after it gets here (I hope).

Burke, with an Integra RD-7, Bel amplification and Maggie 3.6s, you're the one with the fine sounding system. I can just hope I have one as nice someday.
;x(

[Lex]

Hmm, a DAC? Those things use analog cables, don't they?

Congrats David!

Lex




Cable Guy DVD Collection

[Lex]

Hey, that's no DAC, you linked to, it's an integrated amp, so which is it?

Lex




Cable Guy DVD Collection

[Andrew Pratt]

Congratulations David that's supposed to be an awesome sounding DAC! Colour me jealous 8O

[David Meek]

Hey, that's no DAC, you linked to, it's an integrated amp, so which is it?

You've hit a limitation of MF's site. You now have to click on the listing for the A3.24 Upsampling DAC to see the details on it. And yes, it MIGHT need cables - smarty pants. :




David - HTGuide flunky
Our "Theater"
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[David Meek]

Thanks Andrew. Oh man, I can't wait.

[JonMarsh]

Congratulations David!

I can bestow no higher accolade than to say, if I were buying a DAC today, the MF A324 is what I'd get.... :W

It's an excellent unit, especially for the price- even at list!

Enjoy, and let us know what you think.

BTW, if you have a good CDR burner like the Yamaha Audio Mastering capable models which can burn at 1X, pick up some good data black CDR's, like Maxell or Memorex, (the former available at exotic emporiums like your local Walmart), and rip one of your best sounding CD's to the HD, then burn it at 1X, and try it on your new MF.

Maybe it's placebo effect, maybe not... but I bet you'll enjoy it.

-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[David Meek]

I can bestow no higher accolade than to say, if I were buying a DAC today, the MF A324 is what I'd get....

Jon, you have no idea how pleasant that comment makes me feel, as I've wondered if I should have auditioined beaucoup DACs before doing this. Your recommendation means A LOT.

It's an excellent unit, especially for the price- even at list!

I picked this one up as a dealer special through Audiogon and saved a bit.

BTW, if you have a good CDR burner like the Yamaha Audio Mastering capable models which can burn at 1X, pick up some good data black CDR's, like Maxell or Memorex, (the former available at exotic emporiums like your local Walmart), and rip one of your best sounding CD's to the HD, then burn it at 1X, and try it on your new MF.

Maybe it's placebo effect, maybe not... but I bet you'll enjoy it.

No, I don't have a burner like that yet; however, a new PC is looming also. But just thinking it through, how on earth could this process generate anything but (at best) a sonically identical copy of the original? Puzzled in Houston. . . . :huh:




David - HTGuide flunky
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[Lex]

It's not a DAC, it's a DIC, lol. Can anyone remember hearing a similar line in a movie?

Oh, it is a DAC, that is designed for 2 pairs of high quality interconnects, I think.



Lex




Cable Guy DVD Collection

[JonMarsh]

For data, bits is bits, and if there aren't any significant bit errors in recovery, for software, there's no difference.

Music CD's are about data and the timing of data, and it seems that for the majority of CD transports, the timing accuracy of the pit data has an affect on servo behavior and overall jitter. Jitter bad. Very bad. It's still the biggest problems in most systems, even for some pretty heroic CD/SACD players (like my 777ES) aren't really all that good- at least, less expensive, better designed transports can best them.

With conventional recording techniques, different CDR blanks have slightly different sonics- certainly equivalent to the effects of putting CD condoms on the CD's, or the effect of different interconnects.

The best results I've heard so far for playback have been with data black CDR blanks, recorded at 1X. Think about it, a burner capable of 24X burning with OK timing should have VERY good timing and pit definition at 1X. I've noticed some improvements using premium standard TDK CDR's burning at 2-4X using the Yamaha Audio Mastering mode (which increases pit length and definition), but the best sound I've heard from my CD's is remastered at 1X on black CDR's.

So, maybe, as Hank would say, all those pain killers (prescribed by the doctor) and tequila (prescribed by Hank) have gone to my head, and I'm living in Voodoo land. :E Or placebo land. :W

Just try it, and see what you think on your system. I've even done this to good effect with the CD layer downmixes of hybrid SACD's, like Alison Krause and Spyro Gyro, as well as the Oscar Peterson Band, as well as many pop CD sources. Most recent one was Ry Cooder's new "Mambo Sinuendo".


I have two of these Yamaha burners, one built into the system which I handed down to my daughter at Xmas time, one a USB2 external, which I use with my main desktop. That one I got on a special price at my local Best Buy, don't know why or how they marked it down so much, but I picked up a ~250 burner for a skosh over $100.

My DAC is an evolving project, currently based on a Crystal 4397 24 bit chipset, with upsampling and transformer isolation (between DAC and NFB analog buffer) in the works.

And congratualations on getting your MF A324 at a good price, too! :B

Best regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[David Meek]

The best results I've heard so far for playback have been with data black CDR blanks, recorded at 1X. Think about it, a burner capable of 24X burning with OK timing should have VERY good timing and pit definition at 1X. I've noticed some improvements using premium standard TDK CDR's burning at 2-4X using the Yamaha Audio Mastering mode (which increases pit length and definition), but the best sound I've heard from my CD's is remastered at 1X on black CDR's.

Jon, I've been meaning to ask you more about this but hadn't gotten around to it.

01) What brand of "black" CD-Rs do you recommend?

02) Would you consider the CD burner in my Yamaha CD-S1000 to be audiophile-grade or Audio Mastering Mode capable? I can't tell you what the specific drive unit is, but here are the specs and a link to Yamaha's web page regarding the CDR-S1000.

AUDIO SECTION

Output Level (1 kHz, 0 dB) = 2, +/-0.5 Vms, Frequency Response (5 to 20 kHz) = +/-0.5 dB
Playback Mode Harmonic Distortion + Noise = 0.004%, Dynamic Range = 100 dB, Signal-to-Noise Ratio = 107 dB
Recording Mode Harmonic Distortion + Noise = 0.008%, Dynamic Range = 94 dB, Signal-to-Noise Ratio = 90 dB

INPUTS/OUTPUTS

Line Output Level = 2 Vms
Line Input Sensitivity = 550 mVms
Digital Output, Coaxial = 0.5 Vp-p (75 ohms)
Digital Output, Optical = -20 dBm
Digital Output Sampling Frequency = 44.1 kHz
Digital Input, Coaxial = 0.5 Vp-p (75 ohms)
Digital Input, Optical = -20 dBm
Digital Input Gain +/-12 dB with digital volume
Sampling Frequency 32 kHz to 48 kHz, with SRC
Sampling Frequency 44.1 kHz, +/-100 ppm (CD Direct)




David - HTGuide flunky
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[JonMarsh]

Please see my response in the thread below.

http://www.htguide.com/CFBoards/index.cfm?fuseaction=Threads.viewthread&Tid=65317&Forum=6&StartRow=1&CFB=1

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[NMyTree]

I see Yamaha has the CDR-HD1000 and CDR-HD1300 now.

The only difference I can see between the two is the size of the hard-drive; 20GB and 80GB...respectively.

Jon, have you any experience with these latest models? Do they live up to the previous models' burning quality?

They both have that Audio Mastering Quality Recording capability.

[JonMarsh]

I haven't tried these new models yet- my old one is still going strong. I've pondered picking one up just in case they stop making this series, to have a backup. Quality doesn't seem to be a big draw in the PC market these days, unfortunately- every where you go it's price, price, price. Very unfortunate.

Got lucky in a couple of visits to Microcenter stores in Denver and San Jose- it's hard to find the Memorex "black" CDR's anymore, but scored a few boxes at both.

[NMyTree]

Thanks Jon.

As it turns out the CDR-HD1000 is discontinued, but the CDR-HD1300 is still available. I've always burned at 1x speed with my older computer and found it to make the best quality CD-R.

The Rep for Yamaha claims the CDR-HD1300 can burn at 1x speed, in the analogue mode. But only 4x and up....in the Digital realm. I'm thinking that should be okay, shouldn't make much of a difference. What do you think?

I still have about 25 Black CD-Rs from Eworks. But I too have had a difficult time finding more black discs ...from anyone.

[jclyle]

What was the verdict on the MF A3 24 DAC? I've got the upgrade bug again and am curious how this unit sounds...

[TimRawson]

I don't have enough hifi shops in my region so hit some occasionally when traveling. "Reading" about DAC's (or any equip) drives me nuts....

How is the MF?... Any final verdicts about Benchmark (others)? Anyone familiar with Ack Dack? I've switched focus to 2 channel (with new listening area, living room). So... in a conundrum about sources. Have Von Schweiker VR4jr's and a Coda V10 amp, but now I need a source. Would like to create a new HTPC using a good quality sound card with good DAC's... But don't want to hook up a display nor use my laptop for remote desktop etc. Also curious about cambridge's upcoming audio server.

[NMyTree]

Black Memorex CD-R at Wal-Mart

I found some Black Memorex CD-R at my local Wal-Mart.

They come in a 30 pack.

These are hard to find, so I picked up four packs.

[PewterTA]

I'm sort of confused why you would use cheap Memorex CD-Rs?

I mean if you are looking for the best CDRs then you should be looking more towards Ritek and Taiyo Yuden especially...

I've never seen a Memorex CD hold up for error rates scanned that comes even close to what a Taiyo Yuden CD does. I mean their Super Cyanine dye that they use provides zero wave distortion...one of the most essential things when burning disc as it will create very defined pits.

Course most of the "better" discs aren't made for your stand alone CD burners because they just don't do the same job as some of the lot better CD burners for computer.

Plus I think it's impressive that most Taiyo Yuden media you can burn over the rated limits (ie 52x with 48x media) and get the same if not better accuracy. That's good stuff right there. So imagine if you were to take that media and burn it at 1x...I think you'd get an extremely good accurate copy...

Just my thoughts.

[NMyTree]

I've never heard of those.

I'm still a newbie to a lot of this stuff.

Tell me, what are some of the better CD burners for computers?

[PewterTA]

Here's a quick link to give some info on the quality and what to look for...a lot more info is in the forum on this site and the other listed below it.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/BurnersCorner/MediaQuality.asp

http://www.cdfreaks.com/

Some of the best CD burners for the PC I've found is the ones from NEC, Plextor, Philips, Lite-On, Aopen, and Benq. All of them will give fabulous burns on the Taiyo Yuden media.

[DifferentLee]

An even better DAC is the amazing Benchmark Dac1. Some friends of mine and I do live to 2 track recording and we use this for playback. It runs around $1,000 but sounds as good as some of the Weiss DACs I have used in the studio. The trick is to find a good low jitter transport.

[jclyle]

how does the a3.24 DAC compare to the DAC thats in the a3.2 cd player? I have an A3.24 DAC but am thinking of trying an A3.2 CD player to help reduce the size of my rack.

[David Meek]

I've not heard an A/B comparison, but the A3.2 CD player's inboard DAC upsamples at 96kHz while the A3.24 is a 96/192kHz switchable unit.

[jclyle]

The A3.2 CD & A3.24DAC look alsmost identical except for the 192 upsampling on the DAC. However MF website mentions that the A3.24 DAC has a "massive output stage" that makes me wnder if there will be much of a difference.

[ajpoe]

BTW, if you have a good CDR burner like the Yamaha Audio Mastering capable models which can burn at 1X, pick up some good data black CDR's, like Maxell or Memorex, (the former available at exotic emporiums like your local Walmart), and rip one of your best sounding CD's to the HD, then burn it at 1X, and try it on your new MF.

What do you think about just leaving the files ripped via EAC on a hard drive and running them through a DAC in comparisson to the "black" CD-Rs. I know you did a write up on how impressed you were with a DAC and media server, but I'm curious how it matches up to this remastering process. Doesn't playing a file from a HD majorily reduce jitter and then the DAC pretty much takes care of the rest?

[JonMarsh]

It's kind of meaningless to talk about jitter on files on the HD. Jitter is a time related phenomena during streaming the data to the DAC, and because SPDIF systems USUALLY derive the clock timing from the incoming stream, the transport jitter (which is primarily a function in the case of a PC of the sound card circuitry) and the DAC itself determine the results. The sound card and software are assembling the SPIDF data through internal hardware chip functions. The jitter will be determined by PSSR on the audio card, local bypass, layout, and the master audio crystal oscillator and it's power supply.

WIth a DAC that has a high rate of SPIDF jitter rejection, due to the way it handles incoming data and resampling all inputs to 110 kHz, (we're talking about the specifics of the Benchmark DAC1, then it matters little (in all likelihood) whether you've got the source from an HD or a CD transport. What was noteworthy about the Benchmark DAC1 was that even with a PC card toslink output which resulted in measured jitter at the DAC of up to 400 ps with some $4K DACs, the Benchmark showed about 128 ps. So, comparatively, it's more source immune than a lot of other DAC's.

What some people believe is that black CDR's, on conventional CD transports, are less prone to data errors, and the more stable and accurate the burning is done, the less likelihood of problems in that regard. If you ONLY had fairly high end transport with very good data recovery/error tolerance characteristics, feeding a DAC like the Benchmark, it would probably be a moot point. All things being the same, when I burn disks, I like it to be the best job I can do- not all the playback

On the PC, the most important point probably is to be using ASIO drivers, at native 44.1 kHz for CD, and not go through the normal Windows K mixer, which resamples to 48 kHz, and doesn't do such a great job of it.

~Jon

[DifferentLee]

What was noteworthy about the Benchmark DAC1 was that even with a PC card toslink output which resulted in measured jitter at the DAC of up to 400 ps with some $4K DACs, the Benchmark showed about 128 ps. So, comparatively, it's more source immune than a lot of other DAC's.

We use a number of transports in the studio and while the Benchmark helps in terms of jitter, the right transport also helps. What also helps is to use an outboard MasterClock where possible. We don't use a PC, we use an Alessis or Tascam product so I'm less familiar with PC issues.

[gostan]

David:
Any time for a review of the MF A3.24 DAC. I am considering a MF A5 CD Player along with several other manufacturers players and I am curious to know how the MF DAC is working for you and whether or not such a choice with my existing Denon 2900 is a viable option for me.
Stan

[thyname]

Jon (JonMarsh)! I am very interested in purchasing a DAC-1 from Benchmark, however I did not read any final review of yours on the thread you started after you purchased yours. Any opinion on how the Benchmark compares to the MF one? Do you think it will improve the redbook performance of my system?

I have Rotel RB-1080/RC-1070 combo with RCD-1072 cd player and Axiom M60s speakers.

[NeutralMAN]

Sorry for this stupid comment but..

"It's a duck, not a dick" - Movie: Long Kiss Goodnight - Samuel L. Jackson