USB Only Grob vs Terminator

[Mike13]

8 minutes ago, rawl99 said:

One of these days I will convince Bill that Cohen is not evil.............:-)

He’s not evil. I like the growl from the 2nd half of his career, since ‘I’m Your Man’ I think.

[rawl99]

2 minutes ago, Mike13 said:

He’s not evil. I like the growl from the 2nd half of his career, since ‘I’m Your Man’ I think.

Are you volunteering to take on the challenge of convincing Bill of that?

I'm already on your team.....

[rawl99]

10 minutes ago, Snoopy8 said:

@bhobba  Bill, when you compare the Terminator with the Groß, can you please compare PCM and DSD tracks.  I find the Groß DSD is significantly better than PCM in my usb-only Groß for the same recording. It will be interesting to hear how the Terminator goes in this regard especially when it has a separate part for DSD.

Snoop,

Thank you for sharing that information.  Most interesting to know.

Will definitely do both now that you bring attention to it.

What are you using as your front end to feed the dac/s?

[Snoopy8]

4 minutes ago, rawl99 said:

What are you using as your front end to feed the dac/s?

Synology DS414 NAS -> ethernet connected directly (no router) -> SOtM SMS-200 -> Uptone ISO Regen -> Groß DAC

[Snoopy8]

34 minutes ago, Mike13 said:

He’s not evil. I like the growl from the 2nd half of his career, since ‘I’m Your Man’ I think.

Not a Cohen fan ! (I can feel the brickbats coming )

 

But am a Diana Krall fan. (Even more brickbats coming!!  )

Edited April 2, 2018 by Snoopy8
typo

[Rob181]

3 minutes ago, Snoopy8 said:

Not a Cohen fan

Ditto...

3 minutes ago, Snoopy8 said:

But am a Diana Krall fan

I think they would make a great team...

And bore each other to death...

[acg]

1 hour ago, Rob181 said:

Ditto...

I think they would make a great team...

And bore each other to death...

 

Looks like Diana won that race...

 

Vale Leonard Cohen (I am a big fan by the way).

[bhobba]

2 hours ago, Snoopy8 said:

@bhobba  Bill, when you compare the Terminator with the Groß, can you please compare PCM and DSD tracks.  I find the Groß DSD is significantly better than PCM in my usb-only Groß for the same recording. It will be interesting to hear how the Terminator goes in this regard especially when it has a separate part for DSD.

 

Hi Snoopy

 

Sorry mate, wish I could help - but I don't have any DSD tracks.  I had a few but converted them to PCM using some special programs I have and simply cant tell the difference, plus it saves space.  The special program is XIFEO - also called my truth program:

https://www.xivero.com/xifeo/

 

I call it my truth program because it shows a lot of DSD material is simply up-sampled 44.1/24.  Some DSD isn't, but it very rarely goes past 44.1khz - usually less - about 30khz is common.   The rest is all noise so is useless reproducing.   Its exactly what the MQA guys found - their first unfold which is lossless captures everything except in much less than 1% of tracks.  To capture that is MQA's real trick they are keeping mum about.

 

That said I have a genuine DXD recording that my truth program shows goes all the way to 176k - IMHO it is BETTER than DSD.

 

Some others there may have some DXD so it may be possible to do what you ask, but I can't guarantee anything.

 

Thanks

Bill

Edited April 2, 2018 by bhobba

[Raffinator]

[mention=111237]bhobba[/mention]  Bill, when you compare the Terminator with the Groß, can you please compare PCM and DSD tracks.  I find the Groß DSD is significantly better than PCM in my usb-only Groß for the same recording. It will be interesting to hear how the Terminator goes in this regard especially when it has a separate part for DSD.

Snoopy, is this for native DSD files, or converted ones eg Roon, HQPlayer, or both?

I get Roon to convert to DSD and I think it sounds pretty special.

[bhobba]

2 hours ago, rawl99 said:

The sonic balance and character were virtually the same suggesting that the balance Bill does not like is indeed the recording and not introduced by the KD.  KD plus valves were more engaging and enjoyable however.

One of these days I will convince Bill that Cohen is not evil.............:-)

 

Its not evil - I just do not like it and the KD exposes those bits I do not like - its gravelly and very close miked - not my cup of tea.  Mike Lenehan for example loves it and Leonard Cohen in general - just a personal preference thing and believe me I do get teased about it.

 

Thanks

Bill

 

[bhobba]

2 hours ago, Mike13 said:

He’s not evil. I like the growl from the 2nd half of his career, since ‘I’m Your Man’ I think.

 

Of course he isn't - just not my preference.

 

Don't worry someone there will play some Cohen.  I think I actually have every album he ever made because quite a few do like him.

 

Thanks

Bill

[bhobba]

2 hours ago, rawl99 said:

Are you volunteering to take on the challenge of convincing Bill of that?

I'm already on your team.....

 

Rawl has tastes a lot more varied than me - he is also into Classical which I am not.   That's a good thing  - he got me onto a group called the Swingles that are simply amazing - Capella was not my thing until he played them - amazing.

 

Thanks

Bill

[bhobba]

Hi All

 

The source will be the best source I know - a little notebook I have running HQ Player with a SSD disk all my main music is stored on.  The notebook does not have the puff to do DSD conversion although it is one of HQ Players main claims to fame.

 

Would love to have a Macbook with the latest Audirvana available - that does the lot including MQA.  Have put off getting one  - a Widows version is supposedly coming out.  So if anyone cn bring one - great.

 

Thanks

Bill

[rawl99]

32 minutes ago, bhobba said:

 

Hi Snoopy

 

Sorry mate, wish I could help - but I don't have any DSD tracks.  I had a few but converted them to PCM using some special programs I have and simply cant tell the difference, plus it saves space.  The special program is XIFEO - also called my truth program:

https://www.xivero.com/xifeo/

 

I call it my truth program because it shows a lot of DSD material is simply up-sampled 44.1/24.  Some DSD isn't, but it very rarely goes past 44.1khz - usually less - about 30khz is common.   The rest is all noise so is useless reproducing.   Its exactly what the MQA guys found - their first unfold which is lossless captures everything except in much less than 1% of tracks.  To capture that is MQA's real trick they are keeping mum about.

 

That said I have a genuine DXD recording that my truth program shows goes all the way to 176k - IMHO it is BETTER than DSD.

 

Some others there may have some DXD so it may be possible to do what you ask, but I can't guarantee anything.

 

Thanks

Bill

Don't stress on this one Bill.

I have a reasonable selection we can choose from.

Have got a handful 'preparing for the future' cause 'everybody' says dsd is the ducks n (dangly bits)

As you well know, at this point I am very far from convinced that dsd is either superior or the way of the future.

 

Time will tell and I am very much of the belief/viewpoint that dacs/Dac chips/FPGA programming is optimised around a particular format which gives that selected format effectively preferential treatment.

This is one of my concerns about DACS that convert eg everything to dsd .  We are then listening very much to the conversion hardware/software which may help or hinder a particular incoming format giving us a false impression that one format is inherently superior to another when in fact that situation may be true but only on that specific device.

 

By example: Playback Designs MPD5 and our experiences with that.

 

The other aspect around DSD is that, as I commented upon earlier, I have found the top end to be consistently etched and brittle.  ( love to hear an implementation that is not)

With the absolute abundance of pretty crappy brass binding posts ( oops sorry, "alpha copper" or "high copper content alloy") on even rather expensive speakers and amps I believe it is highly likely that the brittle top-end is balanced out by the brass connectors - which are pretty much always dull and slow sounding.

I think I may have demonstrated this phenomenon to your satisfaction on a number of occasions?

 

Then we move on to the effect of brass rca plugs and sockets which do much the same thing.......

 

I better stop now as I am airing a few viewpoints that may not be received well.

 

Rawl

[Nada]

2 hours ago, Snoopy8 said:

@bhobba  Bill, when you compare the Terminator with the Groß, can you please compare PCM and DSD tracks.  I find the Groß DSD is significantly better than PCM in my usb-only Groß for the same recording. It will be interesting to hear how the Terminator goes in this regard especially when it has a separate part for DSD.

Smart idea to feed the Terminalbor both PCM and DSD.  Especially if Bill can use the same music tracks converted to ensure the production is the same.  Ideally the  conversion goes both way ie a native DSD track is converted to PCM and a HD native PCM converted to DSD.

 

Does the Grob use a noise modulating DAC process eg a delta-sigma? If it does I guess it would turn any PCM into a DSD like format for noise modulation DA conversion. That might explain why DSD would sound better?

 

Thinking about DA design does anyone know if the Terminalbor does any internal calibration of the R2R network on power up e.g. is there a delay on turn on before PCM can be played?  Dan Lavry nailed that ages ago with his genius compensation design to ensure r2r networks are accurate but the Chinese seem to be having a really hard time ripping that off in a competent way despite Dan openly publishing the design online. That's not like the Chinese. I presume the implementation is harder then it looks?

 

I read the final page of the SixMorons review of the Terminalbor and see in a big DAC comparison it was a DAC with the redundant TDA1541A chip that was favoured.  I think that makes this shoot out also redundant. You guys can all stay home now, turn on your TDA1541A DAC's and relax knowing you listening to a superior low glitching chip.

[a.dent]

19 hours ago, Rob181 said:

 

NAS>(ethernet)Denafrips Server(I2S)>(I2S)Denafrips DAC(RCA)>Pre Amp...

 

Hey Rob,

Is this Denafrips server you mention in production or just a forlorn hope? I can't find any details.

[Snoopy8]

2 hours ago, Raffinator said:

Snoopy, is this for native DSD files, or converted ones eg Roon, HQPlayer, or both?

 

Native DSD.  

 

One of my test tracks is Gjeilo: North Country II, available as 24/96 PCM in 2L hi res test bench. Unfortunately DSD 64 of this track is not available here (but there are others that can be used for compare). The piano in DSD is so much clearer than PCM, even though it was originally recorded as 24/96 PCM. The Groß does something to the DSD. I will leave it to the experts to explain why.

 

DSD is consistently better that I have doubled up on my Diana Krall  and others. Doubling up is something I seldom do. But decided to increase my SACD collection before the Gerry Harvey tax kicks in.

 

 

[Rob181]

1 hour ago, a.dent said:

Is this Denafrips server you mention in production or just a forlorn hope? I can't find any details.

It is still a WIP...

Should have been ready...now in fact...around the end of March 18...

I have already paid for mine...how's that for a leap of faith...

It will I2S out to the Terminator DAC...

[zenelectro]

On 4/2/2018 at 2:27 PM, bhobba said:

 

Its not evil - I just do not like it and the KD exposes those bits I do not like - its gravelly and very close miked - not my cup of tea.  Mike Lenehan for example loves it and Leonard Cohen in general - just a personal preference thing and believe me I do get teased about it.

 

Thanks

Bill

 

I'm with you on this one Bill.  The vocal is very treated with compression and EQ.

The album, Ten New Songs to me always sounded kind of half baked and a bit plastic from a sonic perspective.

It was recorded in his very modest home studio. The drums and percussion were all sequenced.

 

However having said the above I think from a creative perspective it kind of works. I think that's probably what he wanted.

There are certain fake themes and a falseness in life that he delves into with this album and this is almost what the sound appears like to me. 

But it's very compelling. Great albums are not always about high fidelity

 

Maybe if the same songs were recorded in a big studio with live drums big production the album would not have the same impact.

With Leonard Cohen the genius is in the songs.

 

Terry

[zenelectro]

Oh - that's right, we are talking about DAC's! LoL

Edited April 5, 2018 by zenelectro

[BAM]

On 6 April 2018 at 12:45 AM, zenelectro said:

 

 

 

Quote

With Leonard Cohen the genius is in the songs.

 

Yes, but if Leonard doesn't like the  DAC I doen't like the DAC

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by BAM

[Dacman]

On 02/04/2018 at 6:24 PM, Rob181 said:

It is still a WIP...

Should have been ready...now in fact...around the end of March 18...

I have already paid for mine...how's that for a leap of faith...

It will I2S out to the Terminator DAC...

Hi guys just reading through this thread and seeing a lot of mentions of denafrips terminator ...i do sales and support for alvin and denafrips (im running a terminator too)...just wondering how many more in melbourne? also not seeing them on the google maps just curious did you buy via vinshine? 

[CedricH]

Hi guys just reading through this thread and seeing a lot of mentions of denafrips terminator ...i do sales and support for alvin and denafrips (im running a terminator too)...just wondering how many more in melbourne? also not seeing them on the google maps just curious did you buy via vinshine? 

Hi mate.

Rob mentioned his Terminator in not in Australia yet which would explain why nothing is on the map.

However, I received my terminator mentioned by Bill a few weeks ago and nothing on the map for me. It should appear over the Gold Coast area.
I ordered with Alvin who was very responsive.

Cedric.

[Dacman]

ok great. how do you like it?

[CedricH]

ok great. how do you like it?

Simply put, my DAC search will very probably end with the Terminator. It is that good!