A Morning With Graham
Posted by: Mr Underhill on 17 April 2010
Thank you to Graham Russell who kindly hosted me this morning ...which was an interesting three hours for me!
Graham has a top line Naim system, and one that sounds excellent; topped with a dual PSU CD555. I won't mention all the supports and cabling Graham uses, suffice it to say that his HiLines are far from the most expensive interconnects he uses!
Working in the IT industry with a background in programming and hardware configuration Graham's home network is well thought through and gives him the functionality to stream both Audio and DVDs.
Graham has built the full CMP2 front end, including Julia soundcard, this streams WAV files from his remote NAS, via MPD.
To add to this hardware behemoth I added ......a DELL laptop, HiFace and a stereovox digital cable!
Rather than run through each front end I'll start by stating that within Graham's system the order of playback quality was, IMO:
CD555 (2psu) > CD555 (1psu) > Graham's CMP2 front end (WAV) > [Grahams CMP2 (flac) = My Laptop (flac)]
None of these front ends disgraced themselves, and I could happily live with any of them; but back to back this order was clear to my ears.
What really surprised me was the difference between flac files and WAV files within Graham's system.
Flac files sounded less dynamic, the bass was softer and the top end was not as extended. This was the difference I noted between listening to my laptop and the CMP2. So I decided to play a few of my HiRes files!
HiRes Stumbles!
We picked an album that Graham has ripped from CD, and compared that with HiRes on my laptop. The CD rip won.
We therefore moved the HiRes rip onto the CMP2. The CD rip won.
The HiRes rip was expanded to WAV. The HiRes and CD rips were of equal quality!!
Now the HiRes rip was taken from my DVDA using DVD-A Explorer, and it may be that that in some way compromised the sound quality. At least it confirms I am not bonkers when I have posted my reservations about just pronouncing HiRes better than CD as a default win.
Flac -vs- WAV
There is NO doubt that within Graham's system WAV was clearly better. Returning home I uncompressed some files and did the same comparison within my system. Now I KNOW I had done this and heard no difference, but I just had to redo this ....and? No difference. I even got my younger daughter down and subjected her to Annie Lenox, and askd her which she preffered ...' they're the same.'
All I can say is that if you are running Naim amplification I would strongly recommend doing the test.
Music
Graham has a wide ranging taste and played me a number of female vocalists whose CDs will be bought for my collection.
Final Thoughts
Do I think I could walk into a room and pick that I was listening to the 555 rather than my Laptop or the CMP2? I'm not sure. Back to back I could pick them. If I new the music well I think I might be able to. For me that makes the computer front ends BRILLIANT value for money. Graham has the priviledge of choosing whether he wants the best of quality, or to be able to sit back and browse his music collection.
The CMP2 turns in a fine performance, and with more services running than my laptop - including networking; good news as I will now experiment with opening up the networking on the laptop to stream Spotify through the HiFace into the nDAC.
I'm redecorating the back room of my house for my summer hols, and I will be redoing my structural wiring (Cat5 > Cat6). Graham has given me some good ideas about also ripping my DVD collection and streaming that in addition to my audio; and I will definitely setting up MPD once HiFace make the Linux driver available; I dropped them an email last week - not even a tentative delivery date I'm afraid.
A very profitable and enjoyable morning for me,
Thank you Graham.
M.
Graham has a top line Naim system, and one that sounds excellent; topped with a dual PSU CD555. I won't mention all the supports and cabling Graham uses, suffice it to say that his HiLines are far from the most expensive interconnects he uses!
Working in the IT industry with a background in programming and hardware configuration Graham's home network is well thought through and gives him the functionality to stream both Audio and DVDs.
Graham has built the full CMP2 front end, including Julia soundcard, this streams WAV files from his remote NAS, via MPD.
To add to this hardware behemoth I added ......a DELL laptop, HiFace and a stereovox digital cable!
Rather than run through each front end I'll start by stating that within Graham's system the order of playback quality was, IMO:
CD555 (2psu) > CD555 (1psu) > Graham's CMP2 front end (WAV) > [Grahams CMP2 (flac) = My Laptop (flac)]
None of these front ends disgraced themselves, and I could happily live with any of them; but back to back this order was clear to my ears.
What really surprised me was the difference between flac files and WAV files within Graham's system.
Flac files sounded less dynamic, the bass was softer and the top end was not as extended. This was the difference I noted between listening to my laptop and the CMP2. So I decided to play a few of my HiRes files!
HiRes Stumbles!
We picked an album that Graham has ripped from CD, and compared that with HiRes on my laptop. The CD rip won.
We therefore moved the HiRes rip onto the CMP2. The CD rip won.
The HiRes rip was expanded to WAV. The HiRes and CD rips were of equal quality!!
Now the HiRes rip was taken from my DVDA using DVD-A Explorer, and it may be that that in some way compromised the sound quality. At least it confirms I am not bonkers when I have posted my reservations about just pronouncing HiRes better than CD as a default win.
Flac -vs- WAV
There is NO doubt that within Graham's system WAV was clearly better. Returning home I uncompressed some files and did the same comparison within my system. Now I KNOW I had done this and heard no difference, but I just had to redo this ....and? No difference. I even got my younger daughter down and subjected her to Annie Lenox, and askd her which she preffered ...' they're the same.'
All I can say is that if you are running Naim amplification I would strongly recommend doing the test.
Music
Graham has a wide ranging taste and played me a number of female vocalists whose CDs will be bought for my collection.
Final Thoughts
Do I think I could walk into a room and pick that I was listening to the 555 rather than my Laptop or the CMP2? I'm not sure. Back to back I could pick them. If I new the music well I think I might be able to. For me that makes the computer front ends BRILLIANT value for money. Graham has the priviledge of choosing whether he wants the best of quality, or to be able to sit back and browse his music collection.
The CMP2 turns in a fine performance, and with more services running than my laptop - including networking; good news as I will now experiment with opening up the networking on the laptop to stream Spotify through the HiFace into the nDAC.
I'm redecorating the back room of my house for my summer hols, and I will be redoing my structural wiring (Cat5 > Cat6). Graham has given me some good ideas about also ripping my DVD collection and streaming that in addition to my audio; and I will definitely setting up MPD once HiFace make the Linux driver available; I dropped them an email last week - not even a tentative delivery date I'm afraid.
A very profitable and enjoyable morning for me,
Thank you Graham.
M.
Martin
Great to see you yesterday morning and thanks for the great write up. Just got in from my photo job. Was very successful and will help fund a few more CDs
It was very interesting to compare notes and share experiences along the digital audio road. I wonder why you're not hearing the differences between flac and wav on your system. Perhaps my set up is a bit more sensitive?
It's got me thinking I shouldn't be so lazy and starting using the cd player again. Bit of a waste to have it sitting there not being used
I have a couple of DVD audio disks so I'll look into high-res ripping and see what results I can get.
I look forward to checking out your system soon.
Graham
Great to see you yesterday morning and thanks for the great write up. Just got in from my photo job. Was very successful and will help fund a few more CDs
It was very interesting to compare notes and share experiences along the digital audio road. I wonder why you're not hearing the differences between flac and wav on your system. Perhaps my set up is a bit more sensitive?
It's got me thinking I shouldn't be so lazy and starting using the cd player again. Bit of a waste to have it sitting there not being used
I have a couple of DVD audio disks so I'll look into high-res ripping and see what results I can get.
I look forward to checking out your system soon.
Graham
quote:Originally posted by gav111n:
Martin,
Thanks for sharing your findings on this test. I found this write up very interesting. Both CD555 and computer front-end proponents can take a positive message.
You said that Grahams CMP2 = Your Laptop both playing FLAC files. Would you say that the equation still holds with both computers playing WAV files?
Gavin.
Gavin
We didn't compare WAVs from my PC and Martin's laptop. At the time he only had FLACs available on the laptop. I think he's been batch converting his FLACs to WAVs since I saw him on Saturday
Graham
quote:Originally posted by pcstockton:
James,
Do some research....
-patrick
There would be no point in you being here Patrick.
Seriously, what do you think is going on? There has to be an issue with decompressing the file or the file once decompressed is somehow not a lossless file. Which is it to be?
I don't buy the system transparency argument because I've seen AIFF/ALAC/WAV compared under similar circumstances and nobody could pick them. Nor am I aware of an issue with FLAC per se. Although it's tempting to feel smug about not using it, if this is a problem with FLAC generically.
Joe
Ok so going back to my original queation - is it decompressing ... actually i'll just email you Graham
quote:Originally posted by james n:
Ok so going back to my original queation - is it decompressing ... actually i'll just email you Graham
MPD must be decompressing on the fly.
I have asserted for a year or so that realtime decompression of Flac does impact sound quality. At least on my system, using different sources.