Cartridge Preference Comparison

[cafe latte]

Do you think if you record a $20k cartridge and $200 cartridge and listen via your preferred DAC, that you'll hear a difference?

Depends on the rest of the hifi and how it was recorded ie what with and what phono stage.
I still feel that you are no longer listening to the cartridge, my own experiments show this.

This is a very bizarre thread, these needle drops are fun, but there are so many variables they are not close to being scientific so fun aside we can't draw any conclusions at all from the results.
Question one.. Does everyone talking part have a system resolving enough to hear differences? Answer no.
Question two are people all using high quality dacs to liste ln to the files? Answer from previous posts no?
Are some listening on computers with headphones? Probably..
How where these recorded and what phono stage, and were the levels corrected?
Don't know..
Was the music familiar to everyone. No as it was not to me so Probably others too.
Lastly do dac recordings sound exactly like the cart add to this what was used to record? The answer is a big fat no.
If everyone was listening with a high end system and a really good dac it would be still really be just a bit of fun as we are not listening to the actual cart, but it would be a little more meaningful.
Look at any scientific experiment and look at acceptable variables, this has way way too many to conclude anything at all.
Chris

 

[JP]

It's not circular, but it does make for a labored conversation when you're non-responsive to salient questions. Why will you not provide the details of your testing that would enable people to make their own determination of the validity? Or some actual data?

At the end of the day the signal is frequency, amplitude, and phase - that's the summation of all the contributing mechanisms. I can only suggest that you firstly go back and read what was written in regard to the electronics and then do some experiments with proper controls. You'll find that all else being equal enough - no tracking/tracing issues and similar distortion - that once EQd to match response things become rather indistinguishable. The only thing interesting about this pairing was that they were close enough to be indistinguishable without any added EQ.

Think what we are saying here this study is so full of holes...
If I record a 20k MC and you play it back with a 20 dollar usb dac, do you seriously think you are hearing how that cart sounds?
Next what are people listening to these files on?
With a listening room and full range hi end speakers and hifi these carts will sound very different indeed. Recording of them played back with 20 dollar dacs with bookshelf speakers differences won't be so obvious.
Chris

It's not a study.

Price has little correlation with performance inside of extremes. If the DAC measures audibly transparent and the ADC does as well, then for these intents and purposes what came out of the phono stage can be captured and reproduced without any ill effects. If someone doesn't understand a measurement suite well enough to determine transparency, then controlled subjective testing can be used to ascertain if any audible affects present. Full stop.

About 60 completed tests thus far with only one statistically significant(ish) result, and that person admitted it was due to a tell in one of the files. It's certainly possible that all those people are stone deaf or/and are listening on airplane earbuds, but it's not probable. A handful I hand-selected as I know them to be well above average for finding such differences.

Apart the big question how people are listening to these files, like with headphones on a computer which some will be, what phono stage and loading was used to record them and how were they recorded?
If we are talking straw men, there seems to be a line of them..
Chris

Not sure how topics that haven't even been covered can be straw men, but I'm happy to provide the detail.

I use Wayne Kirkwood balanced flat MM and MC phono stages. These were designed for and used by mastering engineers for reference playback and laybacks. Phono stage output goes to a Benchmark ADC-1 at 24/96. The record path goes to a Tascam DA-3000 that just takes the digital data stream and puts it on an SD card. The monitor path goes to a miniDSP OpenDRC-DI which applies RIAA EQ via IIR biquads produced by Scott Wurcer. At 96kHz SR these give me better than 0.006dB variation from prototype, though more importantly it means there is no meaningful RIAA variation regardless of phono stage, record path, or monitor path. RIAA is applied to the recorded audio in post using the same biquads. Level matching is perceived loudness (LUFS).

EDIT - Blue loading was 47k and 105pF. Lyra was 100R.

I still feel that you are no longer listening to the cartridge, my own experiments show this.

Fourth request to detail the protocol, procedure, and controls.

 

[flavio81]

My system is rather revieling, speakers ATC scm 100's

Oh my god!! I´d kill for those and the coveted ATC mid-dome.

 

[flavio81]

If the DAC measures audibly transparent

How can it "measure" audibly transparent? It is almost an oxymoron. It can sound audibly transparent, but you can't "measure it to be audibly transparent" because that would imply knowing perfectly psychoacoustics and having a nobel-prize-winning knowledge of which measurements correlate to transparent sound quality and how. Such knowledge is the holy grial and nobody has reached that point.

Now, I see that it appears you claim that DAC and ADCs should sound "the same "and it is a very puzzling claim, since for starters both ADC and DACs have:

- analog amplifiers/ analog I to V conversion
- analog filters
- digital filters (of which there are different algorithms)
--- (... which have different impulse responses)
-- (... of which there are different implementations)
------ (... and some implementations are not so good, since we're talking about doing high-precision math in real time)
- different DAC chip topologies (i.e. multi-bit, 1-bit)
----- of which there are even different variations on each one
----- not to mention different ADC chip strategies
- a timebase (clock) which might or may not be very stable/jitter-free
- for DACs, different operating modes, i.e. non-oversampling, n-times oversampling, or extreme operating frequencies like the DSD dacs
- DACs that have to play PCM audio outside their designed (native) sampling frequency will have to apply downsampling algorithms, which there are many
- DACs that have to play PCM audio outside their designed (native) bit depth will have to apply dithering and noise shaping techniques, which can vary.

So, how can we claim they would sound "the same"? Even worse if we're to test a chain from ADC to DAC.

Now, i have a personal thesis -- if the ADC and DAC have identical filter responses/impulse responses, sampling frequencies, bit depth, etc.. there is a chance they will fool the listener into sounding transparent. But this is seldom the case, the studio samples with some ADC, and you play at home with a non-matching DAC.

 

[cafe latte]

It's not circular, but it does make for a labored conversation when you're non-responsive to salient questions. Why will you not provide the details of your testing that would enable people to make their own determination of the validity? Or some actual data?

At the end of the day the signal is frequency, amplitude, and phase - that's the summation of all the contributing mechanisms. I can only suggest that you firstly go back and read what was written in regard to the electronics and then do some experiments with proper controls. You'll find that all else being equal enough - no tracking/tracing issues and similar distortion - that once EQd to match response things become rather indistinguishable. The only thing interesting about this pairing was that they were close enough to be indistinguishable without any added EQ.



It's not a study.

Price has little correlation with performance inside of extremes. If the DAC measures audibly transparent and the ADC does as well, then for these intents and purposes what came out of the phono stage can be captured and reproduced without any ill effects. If someone doesn't understand a measurement suite well enough to determine transparency, then controlled subjective testing can be used to ascertain if any audible affects present. Full stop.

About 60 completed tests thus far with only one statistically significant(ish) result, and that person admitted it was due to a tell in one of the files. It's certainly possible that all those people are stone deaf or/and are listening on airplane earbuds, but it's not probable. A handful I hand-selected as I know them to be well above average for finding such differences.



Not sure how topics that haven't even been covered can be straw men, but I'm happy to provide the detail.

I use Wayne Kirkwood balanced flat MM and MC phono stages. These were designed for and used by mastering engineers for reference playback and laybacks. Phono stage output goes to a Benchmark ADC-1 at 24/96. The record path goes to a Tascam DA-3000 that just takes the digital data stream and puts it on an SD card. The monitor path goes to a miniDSP OpenDRC-DI which applies RIAA EQ via IIR biquads produced by Scott Wurcer. At 96kHz SR these give me better than 0.006dB variation from prototype, though more importantly it means there is no meaningful RIAA variation regardless of phono stage, record path, or monitor path. RIAA is applied to the recorded audio in post using the same biquads. Level matching is perceived loudness (LUFS).

EDIT - Blue loading was 47k and 105pF. Lyra was 100R.



Fourth request to detail the protocol, procedure, and controls.

Sorry JP, will all due respect this is nonsense.
I have not tested Dacs, recorders and cd players but others have and I have for sure heard plenty and thry don't all sound the same not even close. OP amp can sound very different, clocking filters, power supplies the list of reasons to sound different is huge before we even look at chip types. Even with the best dac and best recorder what we hear is not the cart anymore it is the dac. Comparing what I have at home, listening to a cd on my oppo 105d or my Cyrus cd8se the latter is sweeter, the Oppo is a day and maybe a bit lean. Digital is far from neutral, I don't care what you think you have measured JP the sound of Dacs is almost as varied as carts.
You are attempting to prove that a 2m blue sounds the same to most people to a decent MC. Well maybe if they are listening on a computer with the 20 dollar dac discussed earlier, then I am not surprised.
If the actual carts were being listed to on a decent system then I am very sure everyone would pick out the awful sounding 2m blue very quickly as inferior.
You write very eloquently JP, but it does not make this any less nonsense.
Far far too many variables to conclude anything at all.
Chris

 

[flavio81]

If the actual carts were being listed to on a decent system then I am very sure everyone would pick out the awful sounding 2m blue very quickly as inferior.

I have not read the whole thread but I happen to believe the 2M Blue has a readily identificable sonic character. This based on two entirely different turntables fitted on the 2M played on my system.

Perhaps if we EQ the 2M Blue then it would be more difficult to sort out, maybe, maybe. But it would leave the question of the playback chain. At the very least of the speakers. It is amazing, and not funny at all, how inferior speakers (or headphones) mask details or even entire instruments that were there in the recording. Or mess with spatial separation/detail.

Probably JP, being as serious into audio as you, has a great listening setup. But does everybody else do? And this doesn't even consider the difference between amplifiers and DACs of course. But even assuming they "all sound the same", the playback depends on the speakers/headphones.

Perhaps we can all agree that we live in a happy era where most cartridges, MM or MC, are very good. But that wouldn't mean they are all the same. If they have different transfer functions, they shouldn't sound the same. And if they aren't mechanically and electrically identical, they have little chance of having the same transfer function.

PS: For example i was shocked at how different the AT-VM95ML and the AT-VM540ML sounded. Not just the difference in frequency response, but the spatial presentation and resolving of details. Entirely different. Yet they operate on the same VM principle, the canilever is the same material (but not same dimensions) the stylus tip is exactly the same...

 

[JP]

How can it "measure" audibly transparent? It is almost an oxymoron. It can sound audibly transparent, but you can't "measure it to be audibly transparent" because that would imply knowing perfectly psychoacoustics and having a nobel-prize-winning knowledge of which measurements correlate to transparent sound quality and how. Such knowledge is the holy grial and nobody has reached that point.

Now, I see that it appears you claim that DAC and ADCs should sound "the same "and it is a very puzzling claim, since for starters both ADC and DACs have:

- analog amplifiers/ analog I to V conversion
- analog filters
- digital filters (of which there are different algorithms)
--- (... which have different impulse responses)
-- (... of which there are different implementations)
------ (... and some implementations are not so good, since we're talking about doing high-precision math in real time)
- different DAC chip topologies (i.e. multi-bit, 1-bit)
----- of which there are even different variations on each one
----- not to mention different ADC chip strategies
- a timebase (clock) which might or may not be very stable/jitter-free
- for DACs, different operating modes, i.e. non-oversampling, n-times oversampling, or extreme operating frequencies like the DSD dacs
- DACs that have to play PCM audio outside their designed (native) sampling frequency will have to apply downsampling algorithms, which there are many
- DACs that have to play PCM audio outside their designed (native) bit depth will have to apply dithering and noise shaping techniques, which can vary.

So, how can we claim they would sound "the same"? Even worse if we're to test a chain from ADC to DAC.

Now, i have a personal thesis -- if the ADC and DAC have identical filter responses/impulse responses, sampling frequencies, bit depth, etc.. there is a chance they will fool the listener into sounding transparent. But this is seldom the case, the studio samples with some ADC, and you play at home with a non-matching DAC.

The data isn't on your side. There are established thresholds of audibility and tests that together can establish transparency to high degree of reliability. These are all backed by controlled subjective testing, null tests, etc. I can, and have, played back through an DAC/ADC loop and nulled the recored file with the source file which resulted in expected difference far below audible thresholds. This stuff is really, really easy to do these days.

Re: the AT carts, what was the loading, and what were the controls? The electrical properties of the two generators are very different, so the FR for the same load is also quite different. Anyone who's played around with extensive EQ knows that FR can have an effect on the presentation ("resolving and "details"), particularly with vinyl due to the influence of the high noise levels.

 

[JP]

Sorry JP, will all due respect this is nonsense.
I have not tested Dacs, recorders and cd players but others have and I have for sure heard plenty and thry don't all sound the same not even close. OP amp can sound very different, clocking filters, power supplies the list of reasons to sound different is huge before we even look at chip types. Even with the best dac and best recorder what we hear is not the cart anymore it is the dac. Comparing what I have at home, listening to a cd on my oppo 105d or my Cyrus cd8se the latter is sweeter, the Oppo is a day and maybe a bit lean. Digital is far from neutral, I don't care what you think you have measured JP the sound of Dacs is almost as varied as carts.

Having reviewed hundreds of measurements of DACs and cartridges, and having done controlled subjecting testing of audibility, etc., that has to be one of the most bizarre claims I've ever read.

You are attempting to prove that a 2m blue sounds the same to most people to a decent MC.

I'd consider that a gross misinterpretation of the thread premise. Perhaps re-read the OP?

If the actual carts were being listed to on a decent system then I am very sure everyone would pick out the awful sounding 2m blue very quickly as inferior.
You write very eloquently JP, but it does not make this any less nonsense.
Far far too many variables to conclude anything at all.

If done with examples representative of the ones I had with competent equipment and proper controls, I'd take that bet any day.

 

[cafe latte]

Ĺ

Sorry JP, will all due respect this is nonsense.
I have not tested Dacs, recorders and cd players but others have and I have for sure heard plenty and thry don't all sound the same not even close. OP amp can sound very different, clocking filters, power supplies the list of reasons to sound different is huge before we even look at chip types. Even with the best dac and best recorder what we hear is not the cart anymore it is the dac. Comparing what I have at home, listening to a cd on my oppo 105d or my Cyrus cd8se the latter is sweeter, the Oppo is a day and maybe a bit lean. Digital is far from neutral, I don't care what you think you have measured JP the sound of Dacs is almost as varied as carts.
You are attempting to prove that a 2m blue sounds the same to most people to a decent MC. Well maybe if they are listening on a computer with the 20 dollar dac discussed earlier, then I am not surprised.
If the actual carts were being listed to on a decent system then I am very sure everyone would pick out the awful sounding 2m blue very quickly as inferior.
You write very eloquently JP, but it does not make this any less nonsense.
Far far too many variables to conclude anything at all.
Chris

Having reviewed hundreds of measurements of DACs and cartridges, and having done controlled subjecting testing of audibility, etc., that has to be one of the most bizarre claims I've ever read.



I'd consider that a gross misinterpretation of the thread premise. Perhaps re-read the OP?



If done with examples representative of the ones I had with competent equipment and proper controls, I'd take that bet any day.

You find it bizarre that I think all Dacs do not sound the same l, I find it more bizarre that someone thinks that they do when they are so very different inside and in design.
You claim that most can't hear the difference between these very different carts when no such claim can be made with so many variables and nobody has actually compared the carts, some probably listening to thr files with headphones on a computer, someone with a 20 dollar dac!!
It's bizarre you think you have proved anything at all.
Chris

 

[JP]

I presented a specific situation, a test of that situation, and gave people the opportunity to take it, with the data being what I'm in it for, as I follow data. Not FUD, not anecdotes, and not hand-waving claims.

 

[cafe latte]

I presented a specific situation, a test of that situation, and gave people the opportunity to take it, with the data being what I'm in it for, as I follow data. Not FUD, not anecdotes, and not hand-waving claims.

You have said a number of times on this forum and another about the results of this flawed study ( see the ve Vas thread for example)
As a bit of fun, I have no grip at all, because that is all it was. People listening to files on computers with cheap dacs is not comparing cartridges.
Chris

 

[JP]

Again, it's not a study and results is not the same as a conclusion. For instance, I've never said nor would I ever say that no one can tell a difference. What I have said is that SO FAR there has only been one statistically significant result, and what that situation was. Your objections, such as they are, are well noted and I'm sure there are many people who agree with you, just as I'm sure there are many who don't.

How about being productive - shoot me a couple clips or tell me a couple songs and I'll throw together some ADC/DAC comparison tests. I'm sure people would find that interesting.

 

[mr_petit]

As a bit of fun, I have no grip at all, because that is all it was. People listening to files on computers with cheap dacs is not comparing cartridges.

You were present at all of them, knowing what hardware they used and how it sounded?

Regarding the bit of fun....I think all listening to music, tinkering with audio equipment and whatnot is 'a bit of fun'. The fun part is I think the key ingredient
You state this as a negative conclusion, I don't know why.

You repeatedly keep saying that no conclusions can be drawn from this, but I think @JP draws the least conclusions here and you possibly draw the most...
If any, @JP lets people draw their own conclusions. What he writes in his OP emphasizes this.

 

[flavio81]

The data isn't on your side. There are established thresholds of audibility and tests that together can establish transparency to high degree of reliability.

I wonder what a speaker designer would think about that claim.
However....

and having done controlled subjecting testing of audibility,

... in good nature, if you claim "the data is not on your side", ok, then please point me out for some of those tests and " data " that can correlate measurements with transparency. Perhaps I will learn something new. Or not.

You find it bizarre that I think all Dacs do not sound the same l, I find it more bizarre that someone thinks that they do when they are so very different inside and in design.

Yes, my point exactly.

I mean, if JP's premise is true, then I shouldn't even bother with selecting an opamp for a simple analog preamp circuit, since everything will sound the same...

Puzzling premises really.

 

[JP]

I wonder what a speaker designer would think about that claim.

Speakers and electronics are entirely different things, so I'd guess they'd laugh you right out of the room, and rightfully so.

I mean, if JP's premise is true, then I shouldn't even bother with selecting an opamp for a simple analog preamp circuit, since everything will sound the same...

Similar to the speaker statement, trying to twist what I said to service component selection is also completely ridiculous.

... in good nature, if you claim "the data is not on your side", ok, then please point me out for some of those tests and " data " that can correlate measurements with transparency. Perhaps I will learn something new. Or not.

Your education isn't my burden, and the journey is likely worth more than the destination particularly when there are foundational gaps that need to be filled in. If I had an index of tests I'd be happy to provide it, but this is stuff I've read and tests I've conducted over more than a decade. You'll need to your own research, though I'd suggest first-hand experience with controlled listening would be your best bet, if done right.