Flac -> Wav conversion

After hearing the cable comparison (you know what you need to do Graham ) that would be interesting.

Cheers

James

Graham / James

Thanks for the feedback. Very Interesting. I've probably missed it but - which XLR - Din cable did you use? The Flashback?

Cheers

Richard

quote:

heard an HDX very quickly at home on Monday. Alan from PJ HiFi (who was dropping off some new Audiovector speakers and an Atlas Mavros phono cable for me to play with for a few days) just happened to have one in the car. We gave it a very quick spin and ripped one of my Kasey Chambers CDs for comparison. It sounded pretty flat. To be fair we didn't give a really serious listen.

Seems it needs a bit of warm-up time, anyway–and it's pretty warm to the touch as the voltage regulators for the internal supply keep the boards warm even when using a 555PS.

Richard - it was the flashback XLR/DIN cable.

Cheers

James

quote:

Originally posted by Graham Russell:
I wonder whether a better XLR->din cable would bring more improvements to the Lavry.

Maybe a Naim 'lavender' interconnect with one of the DIN plugs removed and replaced with an XLR.

quote:

Originally posted by Graham Russell:
Once of the conclusions we came to was the Sonons via coax output sounded better than Mac via optical output. However, when we swapped coax for optical output from the Sonos the sound deteriorated a bit to probably Mac level.

I've always been led to believe that coax is better than optical for digital signals and this seems to reinforce that.

I think both Sonos and Mac are great players via the Lavry and because of the coax output the Sonos just edges it in musicality.

Neither are up to the quality of the CD555 - luckily for me On some music the gap was pretty small and on others such as Shelby Lynne (which is mainly acoustic and very emotional) the gap big.

If I were starting from scratch wanting a good quality source with the convenience of streaming & jukebox benefits the Sonos/Lavry combination would be great. And at approx £1k for the pair it's great VFM. The multi-room capability of the Sonos is great if you're looking for a "lifestyle" system.

A big issue for me is the Sonons won't play 24/96. We tried it and the box got very unhappy. For high res audio playback the Mac is the ideal solution. I assume Sonos are working on a successor product that works with the high res audio formats. That will be a very interesting box to try

Same results we got with 16/44. The TC interface was much better again before ASIO and then once again with. Still never reached HDX/CDX2 quality regardless of material for us with CDs and through a better DAC($) then a Lavry or SN. Same progression for 24/96 except for Sonos and CDX2 not being in the mix and native 24/96 has a huge advantage over 16/44. You may want to try the Konnect 8/Media Jukebox ASIO combo. Careful though, it begins to become informative enough to show errors elsewhere. I suspect that I may have used a 24/96 file for my lossless test so I will do again with a standard CD track.

As I am reading this I cant help but think the Sonos is holding things back.

Is it possible that the Sonos is no better than a Squeezebox or other consumer-grade "streamer" that you would find in a big box store?

OK, I just tried this with a John Lee Hooker/Santana Healer rip and the lossless files were exellent. Very subtle differences so I now understand why we disagree. There were some but it was far from a killer in these conditions. It would take a lot of things being very resolved and correct in a system to get it. I must have been using tougher 24/96 dub files the first time. I also have a pretty good cold at the moment so it's possible I'm not as acute but I wanted to do this and report back. Also checked out EAC burst vs secure (no c2 and a non cache drive) vs Wavelab for the rip and that was as big of a difference. Now for the comparison, I used the burst file which I thought was 3rd of the 3 as many here do the same and I didn't compare before conversion. Might be systen related. So I guess we're not all crazy. System was laptop/tc/SN/Sonus Faber Cremona Auditor M so VG but not top of the line. I'm not moving to a better setup for another or longer(I spent about 15 min.) listen as I'm satisfied that the differences are small enough with what most here are using as souce material and I suspect I'd here even less with a a standard MAC dig out. I haven't tried the files through a Sonos which may very well be the bug in Graham's ointment though I can't imagine why. This was for posterity as I have no interest in personally using lossless and I wanted to just try it under more normal circumstances. I suspect I would still have some issue with using it for critical listening in a top notch setup as the lossless files were still not quite identical even in this setup.

I heard an HDX very quickly at home on Monday. Alan from PJ HiFi (who was dropping off some new Audiovector speakers and an Atlas Mavros phono cable for me to play with for a few days) just happened to have one in the car. We gave it a very quick spin and ripped one of my Kasey Chambers CDs for comparison. It sounded pretty flat. To be fair we didn't give a really serious listen. Alan said it ideally needs a 555PS to bring it to life.

It works even with spx2! Wich audiovectors are you having on a demo? I know it is for the hifi forum but anyway.

Claus

quote:

Originally posted by Claus-thoeg:
Wich audiovectors are you having on a demo?

Claus

S3 Avantguarde.

I happened to wander down to the city yesterday and JS played for me the different file types as he described above.

The were definitely some differences with the wav file being clearly the best. Apple lossless was very good, but still lacked the PRAT and clarity and control of the wav file. My impressions with the EAC files was the same as John's.

Based upon this small demo, Wavlab is really very good for ripping and playback and given prices for storage at this time I'd be using only wav files.

quote:

Originally posted by gary1:
I happened to wander down to the city yesterday and JS played for me the different file types as he described above.

The were definitely some differences with the wav file being clearly the best. Apple lossless was very good, but still lacked the PRAT and clarity and control of the wav file. My impressions with the EAC files was the same as John's.

Based upon this small demo, Wavlab is really very good for ripping and playback and given prices for storage at this time I'd be using only wav files.

Played on Quads that time and it was a bit more revealing. Gary could attest to my cold too. LOL. I still wouldn't use them for myself either. The differences were there but but rather subtle and smaller than I expected with 'normal' program.

Are you guys suggesting that Wavelab is a better playback application than MediaMonkey, or Foobar, or Winamp etc? As far as I can tell Wavelab is a commercial product whereas the others are free/shareware.

Thanks
Graham

You guys are crazier than I am.
-p

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
You guys are crazier than I am.
-p

It does seem to sound a bit better but It's not what I used in the dem. Media Jukebox in ASIO as it plays everything.