I do not generally post to any forums, but prefer to lurk and gather as much information as possible from experts that share valuable knowledge and experience. The quality of the information on forums such as these vastly exceeds the commercial audio reviewers, whse opinions appear to me to be less than impartial and thus suspect. My recent experience with a Pace Car reclocker from Empirical Audio compels me to share my experience with other interested persons.
By way of background, I am not a kid, and as a youth had only one choice for music source, vinyl. Years later, I purchased an early Sony CD player, I have forgotten the model number, and was truly amazed at the convenience of the format, but was not so keen about the sound quality. Fast forward decades, and in comes the PC and digital revolution. Not to be swept aside by the rush of technology, I purchased an SB3 and truly enjoyed the sound quality and incredible convenience of being able to access a large music collection so quickly and easily. Although the sound quality is very good, after some time I became itchy to improve the sound quality. I had Wayne from Bolder Cable, perform both the analogue and digital upgrades. The improvement was very noticeable. As I continued to scratch, I built a linear power supply from a Taiwan DIY company and noticed yet another incremental improvement. Being so satisfied with myself at being able to succesfully assemble the power supply kit without any instructions, and not electrocuting myself in the process, I built a top loading CD transport from a Chinese kit. This was pretty challenging but I managed to build it succesfully. Now that the CD player appeared to work properly, I needed a dac. For some strange reason, the idea of battery power intrigued me, and I decided to find a used Ack Dack. As Providence would have it, I found an Ack Dack on Audiogon and it was one that was modified by Steve Nugent at Empirical Audio with the V-Cap bypass option. When I received it and hooked it up, I was floored by the improvement in sound quality. The background was black, the music had punch yet the sound was so smooth. The DIY CD player sounded good, but the Bolder SB3 with the linear power supply hooked up to the Ack Dack sounded noticeably better. Life is (was) good. As the dac sounded so nice, I became interested in finding out about the Empirical Audio modifications. I went to the website and looked it over and found out more about the provenance of the Ack Dack modifications. Interesting. I also noticed a lot of information about something called the Off Ramp and Pace Car. It looked like too much to take in and besides, I love the SB approach and was not and am still not interested in tethering my audio system to a computer using a USB cable. So, I ignored all this stuff as not within my interest. As my interest in the technical aspects of audio grew, I started to read more about reclocking, jitter, i2s, NOS and all the other three letter terms one needs to understand in pursuit of this audio affliction. So, I read the raging debates about the effects of jitter, what is audible and inaudible jitter, spdif as compared to i2s and all the other stuff. I am no engineer but am by profession trained to be logical and deductive. It made sense to me that if you could transmit bit perfect music data from the computer and eliminate audible jitter, the only electronic thing to deal with for sonic quality improvement would be the dac. Let's not even think about interconnects and power cables and power conditioning! On some of these forums was a poster calling himself Audioengnr. As it turned out, it was Steve Nugent, Mr. Empirical Audio. He was talking about his Pace Car reclocker and how it vastly improved the sound quality of sources such as, computer USB, the SB and Sonus line of products. Given the already extremely positive experience with his modifications to the Ack Dack, I communicated with him by email from here in the jungles of Vietnam. No, I am not a former POW stuck here, although I easily could have been if fate were different. Steve was incredibly forthcoming and patient in answering my questions and I decided to pull the trigger. This was in part based upon my impressions about Steve's knowledge and integrity. As a new version of the Pace Car was coming out I had to wait to get it shipped half way around the world. I am listening to it right now. My impressions? I set it up and ran it through the Empirical Audio Ack Dack. The sound was nice, but I was questioning why I just spent so much money to get rid of audible jitter, perhaps for an inaudible and expensive improvement. As the hours passed and I listened to different music through both the Ack Dack and a Satch dac, which uses a TDA1541A NOS with reclocking off, I started hearing things. No, not those kinds of things, the things I was hearing were not in my imagination. I heard far more detail in the pluck of guitar strings, the breathing of singers, a tighter and more coherent bass sound and a more pleasing midrange. As the days and weeks have gone by, all of this is improving even more. Perhaps I am being trained by the Pace Car or it is improving as it burns in. I am not certain of this, but for sure, the Pace Car is a significant and not by any means marginal improvement. It was indeed money well spent. In fact, I really regret when I have to go out or go to sleep and shut my system off. Never had I experienced that! It is really hard to articulate and communicate what I am hearing and the level of improvement with the Pace Car. You have to experience it for yourself. I am currently using spdif and will in the upcoming weeks implement the i2s interface to the Satch. This is an easy option as the Pace Car has i2s out already and a supplied cable. It can also work with the Transporter and computer sources, as well as dacs with an i2s interface implemented stock or modified for this. I have received good guidance on how to do this. Steve Nugent is an expert in the computer world, with impressive credentials, and you can check out his credentials for yourself. He has a small company and I for one am glad that he has such great products. Hopefully he will be exceedingly successful, as he deserves it, but not let success diminish the incredible value and quality of his creations. To digress a moment, I have disdain for a lot of high end hype in the audio business and cannot fathom how a relatively conventional Russian tube amp can cost $130,000 or how rocks can improve the sound of anything. There is a lot of nonsense and snake oil out there, and a lot of people who must buy the latest, most expensive name brand equipment without regard to how it fits into or improves the sound of their system. The Pace Car is not such a product. It has its place and value in any computer based front ends. So, I think my digital front end is all set. I can now go back to the future and set up my Garard 401 and build that Aikido phono preamplifier that has newly become available. I have my China made 845 amp ready to modify and a set of high efficiency Westrex bass drivers, Vitavox horns and JBL tweeters to set up and play with. The Pace Car sounds great into the Satch dac. Life is good. What? Empirical Audio has a new dac called the Overdrive Signature now available. Maybe this would sound better in my system, but........Damn! -- SNZ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SNZ's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=22232 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57107 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
