Two Saturday afternoons well spend…….

jsa_ind schrieb:

Hi All, I am inclined to go by what Ravi, Benks Nagaraj say, a 100%. If technical specifications had no meaning then why do reputed companies give technical specifications after all ? Apart from the technical specifications of components & loudspeaker drivers, it is like saying " I think I hear 50 watts coming out of this amp & so fifty watts it is" ...instead of going through the technical specifications and seeing what the rating actually is technically. Yes for those individuals who cannot interpret technical specifications & correlate it with their listening perception, or for those companies who have inferior products & want to mask their deficiency behind the veil of so called listening tests ( in environments suited to hype their product/s), technical specifications are toilet paper to them ......you cannot blame them after all....poor souls...they are self deceived...a very small fish in a very small bowl of water. Regards, Junia.

Let me make myself clear here.
What I meant is spec sheets are useless to me if the equipment can’t make music for me. I don’t really care what the equipment measures if it does the job for me right. I have spent a number of years hanging around in a recording studio because the engineer is my friend. I listen to live Jazz as and when possible. I used to play the guitar (acoustic variety) and most of my college friends are musicians. We used to jam up with real instruments often. So I relate to real and natural sound whenever I listen to reproduced music. I am very used to the natural sound reproduced in the sound room of the studio. If the sound is close to “real” and “natural” I like the equipment if not I don’t like it. I have heard quite a number of hyped up so—called perfectly measuring equipment which I didn’t like at all. Even if somebody gifts it to me, I won’t have it anywhere near me.
From a pure tech point of view, spec sheets are very useful. I give it due importance. Without stringent specs, nobody can make musical sounding equipment. It gives me a glance of what it is capable of. But that is how far I will go with a spec sheet. Then the real measurement with my ears starts. If it does not measure up, it is a worthless piece of junk for me. Maybe a very expensive paper weight. End of the day, music is notes and I listen to it with MY EARS.

Hi,

I came across this discussion late and it looks interesting, well I'll share my experience.

Here are the digital front end's I own;
a) Audio Aero Prima/CAPITOLE DAC
b) Proceed CDD Transport (Philips CDM12)

c) Wadia 861

I'll start by saying that the WADIA 861 SMASHES the living day-lights out of the Audio Aero combo, now before I continue let me clarify I'm a fairly rational guy who would love to get the sound I want for CHEAP but sadly there is a difference in sound and comes at a fairly heavy price at least for me.

If there is no difference in transports and the argument that a CD-ROM is the best transport well.... a CD-ROM spins at 12X-50X the vibrations that take place while reading the data is phenomenally bad for digital reproduction, the power supply of a CDROM is very poor you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that, in fact there are only two CD-ROM manufactures I respect they are Plextor and Yamaha on the other hand a dedicated CD Transport reads at 2X and a fairly advanced Transport will have a 64MB to 128MB buffer with state of the art cloking systems.....

If CD-ROM's were the BEST then guys like TEAC, PHILIPS, DENON.... would never waste/spend millions of dollars on R&D to make the perfect platter, loading mechanism, study different CD loading techniques, no one would make different clocks..... guess in short the CD-ROMS should better ANALOG reproduction which is what philips and sony promised about 20 Years ago

I had also built a HTPC for myself about a couple of years back and tried to use the CD-ROM as a transport with a Audio Aero DAC and a Anthem AVM20 Processor, all I'll say is that it was very poor.

I wish I had some OBJECTIVE way of proving my point but sadly I cant. Let me clarify again I'm not delusional

Regards,
Satyam