I agree with you about the Empeg sounding a bit "dead". I have been told that its by design for it to sound flat...but I think it sounds flatter than flat. I think it sounds kinda dead...and I haven't been able to make it more lively with any EQ'ing. I don't think it has anything to do with the MP3's. I think it simply has to do with the quality of the analog outputs on the Empeg. I also have a very high end home stereo system, so anything that isn't brilliant is immediately noticeable. I did A-B tests with my CD player playing the same track...and there was definitely a noticeable difference.

All that being said...my friends all think it sounds positively great when I play the Empeg through my home system (they aren't being exposed to the A-B test) and the fact is...that even though it sounds a little dead when comparing to digital optical connection from CD player...it still sounds perfectly fine for listening and I use it all the time with no complaints.

Some day I will be able to get an MP3 player with digital outs and then all will be even better. For now, the sheer convenience of pulling my Empeg into the house and playing my playlists for parties is unbelievably cool. I can live with the sound being a tad bit "dead".

You said exactly what I was trying to say. "Dead" about sums it up. But, as long as I don't do A-B tests, it sounds great.

As for MP3 players with digital out, I know the Turtle Beach Audiotron has Toslink out. I'm curious how good it sounds. And since almost everybody here has all the MP3s that are on their empeg on a PC somewhere, it's no big deal to point the Audiotron to the PC.

There's also the Stereo Link 1200, which doesn't have optical out, but supposedly has some high-quality equipment in it, as well as some nice reviews.

I'd be curious to test out both of these and see how they sound. Anybody here used one of them?

As for MP3 players with digital out

The HSX-109 has optical digital out. The Rio Reciever doesn't (shame), but it does have "some high-quality equipment in it".

Peter

The freaky thing is sometimes with a good system, the sound is SO good it sounds better than Live music! :-D ;*)

Calvin

The swapped in speakers (ESL) are the ones I auditioned the empeg in that made it sound so bad... :-D

Calvin

Except for optical cable, to an extent even a digital signal on a copper wire is susceptible to noise. If the signal is uni-directional noise in the signal will corrupt the output. If the toslink was bi-directional in the sense that when an error is detected it sends back a request for retransmission of the affected bits, then there would be little disruption and distortion but this is not the case AFAIK.

I've used 120V electrical wiring for speakers and for the most part it is fine. However, 120V electrical wiring is stranded and there are air gaps in the stranding that could create problems in the signal.

Calvin

Typically with longer distances, you want to go with XLR type interconnects. The XLR interconnects work like Ethernet cabling -- it takes a signal, and sends the signal plus an inverted copy of it down the line, and upon receipt of the signal it can filter out common noise.

For shorter distances and analog, the composition of a shielded versus unshielded wire makes a difference. The connectors make a difference -- is it locking versus non-locking? Is it made of a corrodable sustance? Is the cable susceptible to crimping or internal breakage? If it is bent will it fray internally? if it is made of a solid metallic substance, how susceptible is it to skin effects? higher currents tend to travel along the skin of a wire, the bigger the cross section the more likely the electrons will move to the skin of the wire. Different frequencies travel in different depths, and the composition (how pure is the substance?) of the internal parts of the wire can affect the arrival times of the frequencies. I think to an extent there is a difference of quality between a 10 cent wire and a $80 cable, the quality of the connectors, the quality of construction, the weave of the strands (prevents skin effects), and so on. As you approach the $8000 range, I think the law of diminishing results come into play.

Calvin

By your own admission you are comparing apples with pears. It would have been fairer to connect both the CD Player and the Empeg to the amp using RCA cables? I mean it's obvious that digital out is far superior to anologue, as long as the AMPS DAC is good. But then so is only ever plugging phono equipment into the phono stage of an amplifier.

Reminds me of my friend who somehow managed to mix up the speaker wires with the mains power wires into his expensive NAD amplifier. Guess what happened next?

Did it involve smoke? or big blue flash.

Speaking of which next time an AOL cd drops through your door micowave it for 3 seconds with silver side up. way cool probably not safe though.

Empeg sounds Dead

Okay i will admit it isn't the best sounding unit out there but it compares well with other car stereo units. I have heard about the best car unit around (alpine 9809) and the empeg through the same stereo and the alpine sounded way better but the cost more than an empeg and are only a cd player and a tuner.

But stick them in a big tin box with long lengths of interconnects and bolt lots of spinning vibrating machinery to the tin box.and i will be buggered if you could tell the difference. The empeg ain't about sound quality it is about a totally different way f listening to music and to that end it thrashes anything else out there.

You remember that bit at the beginning of Back to the Future, where Michael J Fox is mucking about with a huge amp that he whacks all the way up and hooks up a guitar? And then he strikes a string? Yeah, it was like that.

The freaky thing is sometimes with a good system, the sound is SO good it sounds better than Live music! :-D ;*)

Actually, it should almost always sound better than Live music. Take a studio-created song, with dozens of re-takes, a sound engineer to equalize and re-master it, and a quarter-million dollars worth of recording equipment, and compare it to some poor guy on stage in a room with terrible acoustics and people shuffling and talking in the audience, playing through $1200 worth of amplifiers and the house speakers.... which do you think is going to sound better?

Best example I can think of is to compare the three songs in common between "Exit Stage Left" and "Moving Pictures" by Rush. The "Live" performance is miserable by comparison.

tanstaafl.

Best example I can think of is to compare the three songs in common between "Exit Stage Left" and "Moving Pictures" by Rush. The "Live" performance is miserable by comparison.

Hmm that's kind of a poor example because Exit... Stage Left is a *horribly* produced and mastered album. I don't know if the original recording stunk as well, but something went horribly wrong in the process of getting the live recording onto a CD. There are much better live albums, including Rush's own "Different Stages."

On the other hand I *love* the versions of La Villa Strangiato and The Trees on ESL. Those weren't part of the comparison you made above, but despite the lack-luster production/recording quality, those songs make ESL worth owning.

Exit... Stage Left is a *horribly* produced and mastered album.

I agree with you so much on that point that ESL is the only Rush album I have that is not in my empeg. And keep in mind that Rush is virtually the only rock music I have. (Well, Tony made me get Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon") He keeps sending me snippets of music that he likes, and I keep sending him snippets of music that I like. I keep the ones he sends me in a playlist called "STSMTIDTIL" (Songs Tony Sent Me That I Don't Think I Like). He tells me he has a very similar playlist in his empeg, called "Classical".

On the other hand I *love* the versions of La Villa Strangiato and The Trees on ESL

I love "La Villa" so much that I don't care for the ESL performance of it. Even the difference between "Hemispheres" and the re-mastered "Hemispheres" performances of La Villa are such that I took the original version off my player and keep only the re-master. If you don't have the re-mastered "Hemispheres" you owe it to yourself to get it. After listening to it, the original is like listening to them play in a closed room across the hall.

tanstaafl.

It's ironic how awful ESL sounds, because my long-time Rush fan friends say that the Moving Pictures tour was the one where they sounded best in person.

As far as comparing live performances with studio performances, It's painful for me to do that when listening to Rush. They are such amazing technicians that I think they're forced to work too hard when playing live. Most of their live performances, despite being technically perfect, don't have the "fun" energy of other live performances I can think of. And this is coming from a die-hard fan who's never missed a concert since the Power Windows tour.

Most live recordings are genuinely fun to listen to if you're familiar with the artist. There's a certain exuberance that just doesn't happen in the studio. Peter Gabriel's "Secret World", Tori Amos' "To Venus and Back", even Pink Floyd's "Delicate Sound of Thunder" all have this quality. The technical details of a live recording may be sub-par, but there's always something about the performance itself that I like. Rush, on the other hand, always gives me the feeling that I'm listening to them work rather than listening to them have fun.

IIRC, RIAA equalization had to do with the fact that ancient crystal (or ceramic) piezzoelectric pickups had output proportional to needle deflection, while modern dynamic (coil in magnetic field) pickups generate (much weaker) signal proportional to needle's speed. I don't remember whether vinyl record production process compensates for former or later.

Any self-respecting audiophile has separate external phono preamp

Calvin, come on, we are talking few hundred kilobits per second, probably at TTL levels, over a coax! If the cable is very long, then capacitance could become a problem, much sooner than attenuation or noise. As long as the signal looks decent enough that clocks can be kept in sync and noise is a couple of dB below the signal, you will get exactly the same result as with the highest quality optical fiber (or some hypotetical error-correcting protocol).

As for $8.000 cables: whoever has read a single book on experimental perceptive psychology (or has any experience in conducting experiments or observations with a subjective component in them) understands that any test similar to comparison of high-end Hi-Fi gear is absolutely useless unless it is double-blind. Mere A/B is not enough. Hi-Fi magazine writers who harangue against objective testing are either morons or frauds.

What is often neglected is quality of source. Analog vinyl record production techniques had reached very high level in their last years. CDs are (still) often slapped together by less than competent audio-engineers and post-producers (because of deceiving ease with which 'anybody' can tweak a recording using even a $500 PC program). Introduce, for example, a bit too much of phase distortion, and sound image or 'presence' is gone. Even an abrupt piece of 'digital silence' before and after 'concert hall silence' between two movements can be enough to ruin the experience. None of this is inherent problem of CDs.

(It is bad that it is very difficult to conduct double-blind tests between vinyl and CD, as vinyl is always easy to tell by lower dynamic range, clicks and hiss )

BTW, I have read here that empeg sounds 'dead', but also 'over-analytical' and 'harsh'. To me that sounds contradictory, but that could be due to terminology. Care to elaborate?

I mean it's obvious that digital out is far superior to anologue, as long as the AMPS DAC is good.

Not that obvious. I mean, plasma torch is superior cutting tool to an ax, which in turn is superior to kitchen knife, but if we just have to open a letter, all three are overkill and the first two actually won't do the job.

Over the typical distance, in relatively noise-free environment and with firm relatively oxide-free cable contacts digital vs. RCA will only show difference in DACs. (Which, of course, means that you are right and we should test both over RCAs unless we *want* to compare amp DAC to the one in empeg,)

They're not contradictory terms.

Dead == That means it sounds very very flat across the whole range of frequencies.

Analytical/Harshness == An incredible amount of detail. Details in the music are represented so clearly, so precisely, that it (potentially) ruins the experience.

Vinyl recordings tend to be noisy, but there is something in the midrange that I can not duplicate that creates a sense of presence and warmth. When you hear a good vinyl recording on very good equipment, it sounds rich, not so much like you are there, but it sounds like music. You can crank up the volume on the empeg and not duplicate this. I tried using the EQ to warm the music up and can not duplicate this.

Some people of course, like an analytical sound. But it is less enjoyable to listen to.

The toslink cables don't have a clock signal. The receiving end makes intelligent guesses. ;-) Not a big deal really. -- The point I'm putting forth is it is possible to interfere with a digtal signal on a metal cable, while it is not easy to mess up the same signal on an optical medium.

As for the value of $8000 cables--like I said, there is a point of diminishing returns. Psychology aside, below the point of diminishing returns the quality, features and construction differences can be discerned.

Calvin

Some people of course, like an analytical sound. But it is less enjoyable to listen to.

Obviously, it is *more* enjoyable to listen to for those who like it

OK, I think I understand (the words), but I am not quite sure I can imagine 'too much detail' in totaly flat sound (that is, if it is genuine detail and not artifact of extreme nonlinearity). My reference when listening to a record is original unamplified sound in a good concert hall (where aplicable ) I will have to try and find something familiar that a respectfull house has published on both vinyl and CD from the same masters, and compare. (Note, please, that here my double-blind criterion does not apply: I just try to find out what I *like* more, not what is 'better' by any other definition.) Any suggestions?

The toslink cables don't have a clock signal. The receiving end makes intelligent guesses. ;-) Not a big deal really. -- The point I'm putting forth is it is possible to interfere with a digtal signal on a metal cable, while it is not easy to mess up the same signal on an optical medium.

I know it doesn't have a clock signal. I certainly hope that this 'intelligent guess' is PLL or something equivalent. I wanted to say that it takes 'very' deformed (or drowned in noise) signal to throw the PLL off the balance or confuse input buffers to DAC. Glass fibre (not to mention plastic) also introduces noise and deforms the signal (mostly owing to dispersion - the same effect responsible for chromatic abberation in lenses). Granted, it is not susceptible to EM noise, but I think that it takes at least an arc welder or Tesla coils in the same room for toslink coax to pick up enough noise to matter.

As for the value of $8000 cables--like I said, there is a point of diminishing returns. Psychology aside, below the point of diminishing returns the quality, features and construction differences can be discerned.

Construction differences, and especially price differences, can certainly be discerned, but that is irrelevant. I would suppose that we are introducing those monstrosity in order to *hear* the difference. If double blind test shows we *do not*, then we are at or bellow the point of *no* return, not diminishing returns.

I'm partial to the I2S format for digital, and XLR balanced lines for analog--even though XLR balanced lines should make no real difference for short distances. :-D


Consider the construction difference between a cheap steel RCA connector that eventually corrodes, and forms an improper connection that introduces noise to the line versus a gold locking connector that is on so tight it might as well be welded. Some differences in quality (such as via construction) result in changes to the sound over months or years. The truly anal clean the connectors every few months even on the gold contacts. Can a double blind test reveal such differences? You'd have to do one every few months for situations where the cable or the connection degrades.

Personally I think the point of diminishing returns is somewhere below $150. $8000 is just silly. :-Q

The peak to peak voltage for toslink coax is 500mV, so in order to disrupt the signal, all you need is something around half a volt of noise every once in a while.

Calvin

I'd have to agree. For me, the experience came when I first got into high-end hi-fi and was exposed to the "Cable Crusade." It's not a rational debate, it's a religous war. $8,000 for a cable? Not too bad - the Kimber Select Black Pearl gets up to about $18,000 or so for a long speaker cable.

I started with .50/ft 14-gauge stranded cable, and started borrowing/begging higher-end cables until I could not hear any difference between them, whereupon I decided I had reached the curve in price-performance, and just stopped. Some of the differences I thought would be obvious were non-existent, and some that I thought I'd never hear, I actually did. My total system is around $20k, and the cables were all less than $120 - and those were long speaker cables. Most were WAY less than that.

This sounds reasonable... I guess that most of the cable price are connectors and cost of carefull asembly and testing, anyway.

Agreed. I now understand what you meant by design etc. Distortions introduced by a good layer of oxides, sulphites and what not our smoggy atmoshpere (and electrochamical reactions) deposites on the surface of crappy connectors are, I suppose, easily measurable (and painfully easy to hear), so no sophisticated subjective testing is necessary...

$8,000 for a cable? Not too bad - the Kimber Select Black Pearl gets up to about $18,000 or so for a long speaker cable.

It may be a myth, but I'm sure I read somewhere about a guy who chiselled little channels into his concrete floor, running from his amp to his speakers, filled them with mercury, and used those as speaker "cables".

Peter

An no doubt he was insane before he did so, and even more so after he had his speaker wires in place for a while!

Maybe, but that's pretty silly: Mercury doesn't have a lot of really desirable conductive properties, IIRC.

Now, I could easily see someone doing that and then using the mercury to float their $18,000 speaker cables on for better isolation. THAT sounds more like an audio-maniac to me.

But don't listen to me, I have my cables suspended above the carpet to avoid interference from the earth's magnetic field.

Wouldn't you have to put the cables in 'orbit' to stop them being affected by the earths magnetic field ?

It seems that would be messy since mercury is a liquid at room temperature and stays that way.

Not to mention that mercury is rather poisonous...