Excellent comments - very helpful. Interestingly, it seems we're nearly split between theories 1 and 2.
Guidof, you're right, I will need to listen more and to different recordings and bit rates. It might be instructive to listen to the same tracks without compression, and with MP3 at 320, say, 192, and 128 to get a feel for how it degrades. A *brief* comparison yesterday of Tracey Chapman at 320 kb/s and straight off a CD (NAD C542) didn't show much difference, but its also true that my stereo is so different from before that it may take a while to really get a handle on it. I am, of course, anxious to get it sorted out, but impulsive choices can be costly. JohnB, its not quite as bad as all that. Quite a few posters on various forums have said the 800 series speakers of any generation can be clinical and unforgiving of "upstream" problems. B&W have raised prices greatly in the two generations of the 800 line since mine were built. The Nautilus 804 listed in the US for $3500 and one marvels at how the price has doubled in 8 years. But your point is spot on - a reasonable allocation of resources would allow quite a bit more esoteric electronics but .... there are so many choices and I know so little. Mnyb, I'll experiment a bit with placement, but on most recordings the tonal balance is fine. The bass is seems very solid and controlled and the high end is a little rolled off but not enough to complain. Its more a problem of mid-range clarity and transparency. It sounds like a stereo instead of music. :-) Would placement have much effect on that? My listening room is about 3.5m x 8m by 2.5m high ... with the speakers on the long wall down at one end, like this: |-----------------------------------------------| | |.......S...............S | | | | |............couch |_________________________________________| (The wall on the right doesn't display correctly since these seem to be proportional fonts). It does seem like this avoids exciting room resonances, but certainly its not symmetric and the sound stage, while much better than with the old speakers hasn't quite met expectations. And yes, I don't have these problems with the factory stereo in my Honda. :-) bhaagensen, I wish I had a good set of answers, but I don't. Your point is really excellent, though. I need to take the bad discs to a store with good equipment and compare the sound with that at home. There is a B&W dealer near work with newer B&Ws and some tasty electronics - rega, peachtree, classe, rotel. Hopefully, I can listen seriously sometime this week and post impressions back here for comment. Thank you all again -- hope to have more info soon. One more point ... most of you seem to be using a third party DAC ... in general, would you think a DAC upgrade over the Touch's internal unit could be as big a step up as better power? If that's a silly question (as in, there are way too many variables to reach a meaningful answer), that's a good answer, too. Thanks again! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ wuffles's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=32915 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97105 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
