Apparition;267456 Wrote: > OK... just to clarify, I really am just looking for an explanation (this > isn't a veiled attack on tubes or whatever). So: why would you get a > different result doing the modwright rather than using a tubed amp? I > don't get it--isnt the alleged virtue of both "warmth" or "musicality"? > Color me confused.
Yup, this is where one moves between science and religion! But maybe there's some common ground here. I think the issues are around the small-signal amplification by op-amp, and the power supply for that stage. If I understand correctly, this is where Dan focused his attention. As far as I can tell (not being an engineer) the stock stage represents "best practices" for today's players, taking the output of the DAC and creating a stable amplified signal for the subsequent amplifier (or preamp). I think Sean did a spectacular job with this circuit. It's truly clean sounding, based on my few weeks listening to the stock unit. It doesn't lack warmth. it doesn't impart any false sense of precision, yet all the detail is there. Nice work! So what's missing? Well, I don't have the language for it, but I think it might be described as a sense of "real-ness" or palpability. I wouldn't know how to begin to measure such a thing. Maybe like pornography -- we know it when we see it? I don't think this is a function specifically of tubes, or not. I've got a solid-state phono stage (Klyne) which is particularly good at rendering this from LP's, via extremely small signals from a phono cartridge. And my amplifiers are solid state Innersound ESL, feeding electrostatic speakers, which are supremely clear sounding. High resolution system, not biased inherently to mushy tube warmth. Anyway, I found fault with the Transporter for its lack of this characteristic, compared to my current CD player. I actually preferred a Bolder-modified Squeezebox to the Transporter. That unit belongs to a friend of mine who got me onto the whole computer-based audio trend (I was happily mostly listening to LP's before that). I was disappointed, because I consider the Transporter to have much better technology. And the Transporter is such a cool thing, I really wanted it to work in my system. So I tried a number of things, including inserting a tube preamp (either an Audible Illusions M3a or a Mapletree Ultra4), and a Musical Fidelity XDac which is a tube buffer. In the latter case, I felt that there was a false sense of "warmth" that seemed to me to be euphonic and "phony." the Mapletree sounded "nice" as in listenable, but I lost a lot of detail. And the Audible Illusions also tends to the warmth side of the equation. Just sticking some tubes into the audio chain wasn't the solution. That's when I heard that Dan was modifying it. Since I have had a long experience with some of Dan's gear, I thought it was worth a try, or maybe I was just throwing more money at the problem? It seemed like a big risk, but I'm happy to report it is working out for me. I love the Transporter. I'm sure others who have tried it and have found it wanting might be interested in this experience, so I wanted to share, not because I'm such a smart guy -I'm not -- but trying to be helpful. I'm getting a lot of joy out of it and it's nice to share... Frank -- HalleysComet ------------------------------------------------------------------------ HalleysComet's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=14590 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43269 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
