I've owned an SB3 for about six months, and I think it's a great piece of equipment and a terrific value. I also think it (via its analog outputs) sounds quite good (especially given its low cost), but not as good as good as my Rega Planet CD player. I haven't performed any blind comparisons, but the SB3 sounds less dynamic and "thinner" (leaner, or less full). In general, I felt less captivated by music from the SB3 than from the Planet.
My first attempt at improving the sound was adding a linear power supply (an Elpac WM-1950 linear power supply). I found one on eBay for about $10, and bought a connector locally for another few dollars, so the experiment was cheap. I don't think this power supply makes any difference in my system, but I left it in place anyway. It certainly didn't make anything worse. (Recently, in a de-cluttering effort, I switched back to the original wall wart.) My next step was adding an external DAC. My internet research led me to select a Lavry DA10, which I've owned for over a month. I thought I'd post my subjective impressions of it, along with a description of a blind test I ran to convince myself that I wasn't imagining the differences I heard. === Subjective Impressions === In short, I think the DA10 is a worthwhile upgrade. The differences are not night-and-day, but they are noticeable, and they add up to a more realistic, dynamic, and detailed musical presentation that is more engaging than that of the SB3's analog outputs. Two of the improvements are easy to describe: fuller, deeper bass, and better dynamics. The bass improvements alleviate the thinness I heard with the stock SB3, and make the overall sound more balanced (frequency-wise). The dynamics improvements restore some missing weight and heft. Big drumbeats have more impact, and plucked strings have more snap. The other improvements are a bit harder to describe. If I had to use just one word, it would be "clarity." Every instrument seems to be well-defined and distinct from the others. More of the texture of the instruments shows through. Notes seem more reverberant or "rounder." By that, I mean that the whole attack/decay/sustain/release envelopes around the notes are better presented. (Maybe this is what some people talk about "bloom," a term I've never quite understood, or about there being "more space around the notes.") In particular, when notes trail off, they seem to do so very gradually, instead of stopping abruptly. The end result is that music simply sounds more real. Soundstaging is also better. The front wall of my listening room just seems more alive. There's a better sense of the musicians being there in the room. With the stock SB3, the whole soundstage seems flatter or constricted. To use a visual analogy, the improvement is a bit like that of HDTV over DVD. That analogy is appropriate in another way. Just as HDTV sometimes shows more flaws (skin blemishes you didn't notice before, bad makeup jobs, etc.), the DA10 doesn't make every recording sound better. Recordings that are highly compressed, or on the thin, harsh, or bright side, continue to sound that way. Don't get me wrong--I hate it when I hear some guy raving about how detailed/resolving/revealing some new piece of equipment is, saying things like, "My new system is so great that all my records sound like crap!" like it's a good thing. (In my opinion, that sort of thing is the real tragedy of audiophila run amok. When a guy's system starts selecting his music for him, he's taken a wrong turn somewhere.) The DA10 isn't like that. Its sound is not fatiguing. It won't mask flaws in poor recordings, but it won't make you stop enjoying them if you like the music. I think it's interesting (and good) that my impressions seem similar to those Ben Diss reported in the "SB3 vs SB3/Elpac vs SB3/Lavry" thread (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=33986 ). === System and Setup === Before talking about the blind test, let me describe my system. - Source 1: SB3 (with Elpac WM-1950 power supply) analog outputs - Source 2: SB3 digital outputs plus DA10 - Preamp: Parasound Halo P3 - Amp: NAD C272 - Speakers: Ellis 1801F - SB3-to-DA10 connection: SPDIF, using a DIY Belden interconnect - DA10-to-preamp connection: Canare/Neutrik XLR cables from Markertek One feature of the P3 preamp is worth mentioning. It has two types of inputs: "direct" (bypasses the defeatable tone control circuitry) and "regular" (goes through the tone controls). One of the direct inputs is balanced; all others are unbalanced. I've always had the SB3 connected to one of the regular inputs (with the tone controls defeated), and I left it that way. I had to connect the DA10 using to the XLR direct input (because I didn't want to mess around with jumpers or XLR/RCA adapters). That means the comparison wasn't just between the SB3 and SB3+DA10. It was really between SB3+regular input and SB3+DA10+direct input, and it's possible that some of the differences I hear are due to the direct vs. regular inputs. (I don't think that's the case, because later I did try connecting the SB3's analog outputs to the direct RCA input, and it didn't sound noticeably different.) I matched the SB3 analog and DAC levels as best I could using my Radio Shack SPL meter and the 1Khz tone from a Stereophile Test CD. The DA10's output level ended up at 46. My speakers are DIY, and they sound good enough to me to have supplanted a pair of Spendor 2/3s. If you're interested, see my Ellis 1801F Project Page (http://home.hiwaay.net/~rgs/ellis1801f/default.html ). All of my music files are FLAC, ripped from CDs using dBpoweramp. === Test Procedure === Before attempting any tests, I just added the DA10 to the system and listened to it. Often, if I thought I heard a clear difference, I'd switch back and forth between the SB3 and SB3+DA10 to try to confirm it. After a few days, I was pretty sure I had a handle on the DA10's sound, and I created a short playlist of some of the tracks that hightlighted the differences to use for the blind test. - Bass Resonance Test, Ultimate Demonstration Disc, Chesky - Dynamic Test, Ultimate Demonstration Disc, Chesky - Battle Introduction, (instrumental), Toys Soundtrack - Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Into The Battle Mix), Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Toys Soundtrack - Under the Boardwalk, Rickie Lee Jones, Girl at Her Volcano - The Nutcracker - Danse Russe (Trepak), Almanac 1992 Highlights Of The Year, Sony Classics - Three Babies, Sinead O'Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got - Sail Across the Water, Jane Siberry, When I Was a Boy - Fanfare for the Common Man, Aaron Copland, Copland: Fanfare, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, Louis Lane/Atlanta Symphony, Telarc To perform the actual test, I asked my wife to program my universal remote with "A" and "B" buttons that selected preamp inputs. I didn't know which inputs A and B selected, and she didn't really know that the "direct" input corresponded to the DA10 and the "aux" input corresponded to the SB3's analog output. (So, the test wasn't double blind, but sort of one-and-a-half blind.) Then I just played the entire playlist, selecting between A and B as often as I wanted, and both of us noted, for each track, whether we thought A or B was the Lavry. I was correct on every track, and so was she, even though she wasn't doing any of the A/B switching. I realize that this test amounts to one trial, and that we really should have repeated the procedure a number of times, with her remapping (or not) the A and B inputs on the remote. I didn't think it was needed. I didn't have to guess on any of the tracks. Plus, all I was trying to do was make a sanity check, not publish a paper or convince a panel of skeptics. === Final Thoughts === Blind testing is hard work. Some differences that seemed very obvious during sighted listening were harder to detect blind than I expected. It's also very important to select the test tracks carefully. Any random track might highlight the differences, but it might not. A track that does highlight differences might not do so at every volume level. Blind testing is a good evaluation tool, but I won't be a slave to it. In this case, it confirmed (to my satisfaction) what I was hearing during sighted listening, and reassured me that I wasn't dropping a grand on a DAC just because I wanted a new toy or had read that it was, and expected it to be, better. But I won't rule out an upgrade that I'm convinced sounds better just because I can't identify it blind. For my own purchases, I'll continue to give my my subjective impressions greater weight. - Ron -- Ron Stewart SB3 -> Lavry DA10 > Parasound Halo P3 -> NAD C272 -> Ellis Audio 1801f ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ron Stewart's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12767 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=42797 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
