No improvement with Arcam rDAC......

[John22614]

Guys,


I've been looking for ways to improve the sound I'm getting from songs purchased from iTunes Plus MP3 256 kbps. The new Arcam rDAC is not too pricey at around $500, is getting great reviews and was highly recommended by my local B&W retailer for MP3 and Apple lossless. In fact, they use it connected to an IPod Doc and new 802's. It sounds remarkably good in their showroom.

So, I took one home and gave it a try, and, for the life of me, noticed no improvement in my current set up. Granted my Outlaw 990 is a pretty good processor, especially for the price of less than $1,000, but I was surprised not to hear any improvement from the Arcam feeding the signal from my MacBook or IPad through the Airport Express. I was hoping to get sound similar to CD, but was disappointed.

Wondering what impressions any of you have using moderately priced outboard DACs and if you have any other suggestions for ways to improve MP3 or lossless signals sent from a computer using Wifi.

[Skyblue]

I have an ayre qb9 and the sound from that one depends a lot on the computer and how its set up. I dont know the arcam rdac at all, but ayres setup pages are a very good place to start, regardless of which type of dac you have.

http://www.ayre.com/usb.htm

[Briz vegas]

You have the same speakers as me so I can pretend to be half way informed on this topic.

What CD playback are you trying to replicate? Are you using the Denon as a transport and the processors DAC?

It is quite possible that your processor is the bottleneck in your system. You may also be expecting too much from an inexpensive DAC but then it sounded good in the showroom so this is unlikely.

A well setup showroom (which is rare) could employ any number of tweaks to get more out of the DAC. With 804s they would typically be using pretty fancy amps. They could also employ fancy cables, vibration management and possibly even room treatment.

You have also gone for convenience with the wifi audio and MP3s, which while not as bad as some say, they are not as good as a CD. Also you are using itunes. This is not ideal.

Suggestion one
I would download the free trial of Pure Music 1.8a if I was you. Set it to memory play and hog mode and see if it helps.

Suggestion two
Can you use the Arcam with coax in, if so try your Denon digital out into the arcam and then into the CD analogue inputs on your amp. This way you can compare apples with apples. If the arcam is superior to the internal DAC then you will hear a difference. Actually keep in mind that the cables you use may also make a difference, they did in my case but my setup is likely to be more revealing than yours.

[aarsoe]

Or it could be acoustics playing havoc...

[Briz vegas]

.....could not agree more. Most folks have domestic constraints so I didn't to there. I have panels all over the shot which looks a bit ordinary. Still, it sounds great.

[John22614]

Thank you guys for your responses......I will follow your suggestion Briz and give Pure Music a try....perhaps it will add some life to the Itunes music. I am satisfied with the performance of my Denon CD player, in fact, good CD's sound fantastic.....but the MP3 and Apple lossless just sounds kind of flat. I would love to get great sound using my Macbook as a music server, but if I can't, I'll just bite the bullet and listen ditectly to my CD's. The 804's set the bar pretty high for good quality recordings.

I have a good thick area rug in front of my speakers, but there's not much more I can do with acoustics given the constraints of my living room.

[Skyblue]

Thank you guys for your responses......I will follow your suggestion Briz and give Pure Music a try....perhaps it will add some life to the Itunes music. I am satisfied with the performance of my Denon CD player, in fact, good CD's sound fantastic.....but the MP3 and Apple lossless just sounds kind of flat. I would love to get great sound using my Macbook as a music server, but if I can't, I'll just bite the bullet and listen ditectly to my CD's. The 804's set the bar pretty high for good quality recordings.

I have a good thick area rug in front of my speakers, but there's not much more I can do with acoustics given the constraints of my living room.

Unfortunately I dont know much about mac tweaking, but the tweaks I did on my pc all contributed tremendously. Setup incorrectly, the sound is indeed flat. Setup correctly, its quite the musical heaven I always dreamed off. And then some.

[style]

Hi John22614,
for me is a setup "problem": the Arcam dacs is very good reviewed...

now are present other "gear" like the Marantz N7004 and the Yamaha S2000...and they will be very nice.

@ Sky, your Ayre is the top Dac today availeble! in europa is very expensive: 7-8 x the Arcams!!
now is coming out to the new chord with the HD codec!
..but with speak from around 5k. $$

Style

[Skyblue]

Hi John22614,
for me is a setup "problem": the Arcam dacs is very good reviewed...

now are present other "gear" like the Marantz N7004 and the Yamaha S2000...and they will be very nice.

@ Sky, your Ayre is the top Dac today availeble! in europa is very expensive: 7-8 x the Arcams!!
now is coming out to the new chord with the HD codec!
..but with speak from around 5k. $$

Style

Thank you Style

It is certainly a fabulous dac, no doubt about it. Still you can get much improved sound by tweaking your machine.

As for being the best dac available, I believe it is not. Most people seem to agree that the Berkeley alpha and the full dcs stack beats it clearly. Those are very expensive solutions, so for me the ayre represented the best bang for the buck.

Btw. computeraudiophile.com is always a good place to visit with questions regarding dacs and computer tweaks.

[style]

this one?

berkeley is very acclamete dac, that is sure...is not much publicized like Ayre, Chord ..but is very great!

I agree :T
Style

[Skyblue]

this one?

berkeley is very acclamete dac, that is sure...is not much publicized like Ayre, Chord ..but is very great!

I agree :T
Style

That is the one. It isnt sold in europe though last I checked. So ... Anyway, the ayre "does" it for me for now.

[John22614]

Sky,

Thanks for you link to the Ayer site, I will check out their Mac set up guide. Even though you have a PC and not a Mac, I suspect the tweaks are somewhat similar. Can you tell me what types of changes you made to your PC to enhance sound.

One of the things I'm considering is taking the Wifi out of the mix and using a USB connection from my Macbook to the processor, maybe that will help....I believe that's also a requirement for PureMusic anyway. Also, when Apple Lossless is selected in iTunes, it has default settings it makes automatically.....

And Briz, thanks for the suggestion on the Apple to Apple test you describe....I had actually done that a few weeks ago before returning the Arcam to my dealer. I was surprised not to hear any improvement. I use the Burr Brown DACs in my CD player and send an analogue stereo signal unaltered through my processor and it sounds very good. So, perhaps the internal cd player DACs are equal to the Arcam. I don't use the sub when playing music from my CD player.

[style]

Sky is available in Switzerland too!!!

the problem? the price!!!!

Chf. 6300.-

personaly the Ayre QB9 or the Chord QBD76 are the top choice.
I don' remember but one of this 2 is be prefented with the HD version 8O

[Skyblue]

Sky,

Thanks for you link to the Ayer site, I will check out their Mac set up guide. Even though you have a PC and not a Mac, I suspect the tweaks are somewhat similar. Can you tell me what types of changes you made to your PC to enhance sound.

Ah there are many many tweaks... From the top of my head, a probably complete list.. Many of these things I got from ayres page.

Remove power saving settings because it diminshes the sound when the cpu switches to power saving (it turns the clockspeed down).

Better usb drivers. This probably is part of the motherboard drivers. If they fail, you WILL hear the graphics cards bus interfere with the usb port timing.

Have the usb dac on a hub with no other devices as they too may interfere.

Get a usb cable with no power in it. Your dac doesnt need it, and its one less thing to interfere.

Asio4all to surpass the windows mixer..

Exclusive access to the soundcard to remove interference. Remove all soundenhancements. (this is probably specific to windows). On mac/itunes I believe there is a similar problem with the sample rating being determined globally, so if you play a 44hz file, and its set to 96hz it will automatically be upsampled, which diminshes the sound.

Tweak the player (I use foobar2000). Remove all enhancements, timing between songs. Always have the volume at 100% else the signal is degraded.

Have the dac as far away from the computer as possible, and use another powerplug than the computer or display. The computer generates rfi noise from the cpu and whatnot. And this also travels down the powerlines if they share ..

If you are not in europe, you should probably consider some sort of power cleaning machine.

Always have the dac on. It sounds best after a couple of days. Also, new dacs may have a burn in time. The qb9 took 300 hours + before it settled.

One of the things I'm considering is taking the Wifi out of the mix and using a USB connection from my Macbook to the processor, maybe that will help....I believe that's also a requirement for PureMusic anyway. Also, when Apple Lossless is selected in iTunes, it has default settings it makes automatically.....

and .. Do not at any time have any wifi near, as that too degrades the sound.

Incidentially I believe stereophile had an article last month where they tried 3 different plugins to improve mac/itunes. I believe pure music, amarra and one more was evaluated. Perhaps try and find that article.

Edit: Here is a link discussing the stereophile piece: http://www.stereophile.com/content/j...puter-software. I suppose the real link will be online soonish.

Finally. Listen at night. Thats when it sounds the best.

[John22614]

Thanks very much Sky...very helpful. And, no doubt about it, listening at night makes a a difference.....especially with a good bottle of wine and a beautiful woman by your side.

[bigburner]

Can you tell me what types of changes you made to your PC to enhance sound.

Hi John,

I applied these changes to my music laptop and have had excellent results:

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/downloads/Windows_7_Optimization_Guide.pdf

Nigel.

[Skyblue]

Hi John,

I applied these changes to my music laptop and have had excellent results:

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/downloads/Windows_7_Optimization_Guide.pdf

Nigel.

Iff you have a dedicated machine the sweetwater guide is very good. However, I think it disables way too much. If you have a sufficiently fast computer, like I do, then you dont actually need to disable all those services and startup items. Modern cpu's are lightningly fast, way beyond any normal persons needs.

One thing I did that it included though, was turning off usb power management. Also the guide to change the powerplan and the speedstep is good.

[Skyblue]

One more thing btw. As Charles Hansen of Ayre is keen on pointing out, keep all switching power supplies out of the loop if possible. For instance disconnecting the tv entirely may improve sound.

[Briz vegas]

Incidentially I believe stereophile had an article last month where they tried 3 different plugins to improve mac/itunes. I believe pure music, amarra and one more was evaluated. Perhaps try and find that article.

Edit: Here is a link discussing the stereophile piece: http://www.stereophile.com/content/j...puter-software. I suppose the real link will be online soonish.

Finally. Listen at night. Thats when it sounds the best.

Regarding the Stereophile review, like a number of reviews out there at the moment they have reviewed the just superseded 1.74 version. I think 1.74 is still on the web site but the 1.8a is clearly superior, as you can read on the computer audiophile website, along with other Mac software suggestions.

If both versions are still there you can compare for yourself.

[Skyblue]

One more strange note. I have been a bit unsatisfied with the performance lately. Today I moved the dac away from the screen it was standing beside. That improved the sound noticably. I guess Charles Hansen is correct. RFI interference is the biggest enemy of great sound.

[Briz vegas]

That may well be the case Skyblue, however there may be other factors at play as well. What your DAC is sitting on and even the tension in the cables all make minor differences to a good DACs performance if you are a fussy listener.

I have my DAC sitting on Nordost Sort Cones, but as I have cats I usually have something wedged under the DAC while it is off to avoid accidents when my 2 high speed missiles touch and go through my lounge room at speed.

I can sit down to listen and things will sound a little 2D with lower levels of detail, then I will remember that I haven't removed the safety wedge from under the DAC. If I have been adjusting something in the rack and the power cable is tightened then I can get a similar problem, the power cable needs to hang free for best results. I will hear the problem before seeing what the issue is. Same with Hog mode on Pure Music. For some reason it has been self cancelling on startup occasionally. I hear it before I find the problem which is hidden 2 sub-windows down in the Pure Music settings.

In hifi, everything makes a difference when you are seeking optimum performance.