gilbodavid;626694 Wrote: > I've had the touch for about 3 weeks, £170 was too good to say no to! > I'm pleased with it, the choice of radio stations is great, specially > as I listen so much to jazz. Been listening to TSF Jazz Paris jazz > station at 192kb and its been remarkably good. Amazing even. Dynamics, > tonality and musicality and PRAT are really good, with really deep > extended bass that is tight and powerful, very unexpected. Jazzfm at > 92kb is very acceptable. > > Strangely i have not been able to get radio 3 to sound good enough, my > Sansui TU-717 is on a different planet. But then the Sansui is better > than my £2000 cd player too, so its on a different planet to most > things. > > Playing WAV files from a USB-tethered external hard drive, I would say > is decidedly average. My pre-power is excellent,TOTL Croft EL34 power > and Foundation Audio valve pre, and I'm using Lowther DX2 horns, and my > CD player, Newtonia Optia, I preferred to the Wadia's being demonstrated > when I bought it. I just compared Talk Talk's wonderful Spirit of Eden > on the CD player to the Squeezebox. Through the Squeezebox the WAV file > sounded relatively flat, lifeless, uninspiring, lacking dynamics, > tonality and a wealth of detail. And the sound stage wasnt up to much > either. I would guess that the right £50 CD player used on ebay would > match it, and my Arcam DV88 DVD player is certainly much better. Maybe > the Squeezebox needs more than the 50 hours burn-in it's had so far > from new. I am beginning to think that a DAC and some of the mods to > improve sound quality are going to be essential. I have high hopes of > improving the sound quality though, from what I've read. > > In some ways my findings don't make sense, as the 192kb jazz station > was far better than my WAV files froma hard drive. any advice on this > much appreciated. > > Any advice on DAC's of the bargain giant-killer used variety would be > much appreciated also. > > Thanks, David
Clearly you are a fan of highly compressed, lossy music (i.e. Internet Radio)! Radio 3 on FM will sound consistently better than (almost) any Internet classical radio station, so I'm not surprised you prefer your 717. My Roberts R861 makes Internet radio sound bad... and my Linn Pekin destroys it. As for your ripped CD's: 1) What software are you using to rip them? 2) The Touch internal DAC is not bad and is certainly not easily bettered by a typical £50 CD player. Make sure that the Touch is not overloading the input to your pre-amp, as that would cause many of the sound symptoms you describe. Try 3) remember that internet radio is manipulated to make it sound "punchy" and louder always sounds impressive/better - at least initially. 4) Hopefully you have the volume on the Touch set fairly high (>70 anyway) and you are using the vol on your pre-amp to regulate listening? 5) Burn-in is unlikely to be a factor - do not expect the sound to actually change, although your ears will get more accustomed to the Touch DAC over time. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... Touch(wired/XP) - Audiolense 3.3/2.0+INGUZ DRC - MF M1 DAC - Linn 5103 - full Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Belden Digital,Kimber 8TC Speaker & Chord Signature Plus Interconnect cables Stax4070+SRM7/II phones Kitchen Boom, Outdoors: SB Radio, Harmony One remote for everything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=87168
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