SoftwireEngineer wrote: > Note, the comparison with Touch - > http://www.the-ear.net/review-hardware/nad-m50-m52-streamer-server
Thanks for the link... A few choice quotes: "You could either work with a Logitech Squeezebox or you had to look for high end solutions like dedicated music servers with USB out or proprietary ones with their own D/A converter on board. Indeed, a Logitech Squeezebox is not too bad, but in a high end set-up it looks rather out of place." -- Doesn't really "look" out of place to me (although I have the Transporter in my main system)... But hey... I guess "looks" are important to some. "The Ethernet cable between a Cisco switch and the M50 is ordinary CAT5. It cannot make any difference says my brain, *I am a network expert* and we transport gigabytes of data over these kind of cables. But a week later I try a CAT7+ cable from Supra and although I do not understand why, again the total sound quality improves. This one meter piece of cable works like changing from an ordinary power cord to a good one." -- Someone sell this man some really expensive "audiophile approved" CAT7+ cable please! It doesn't look like these Supra cables are expensive enough... He neglected to mention the M50 is only 10/100 ethernet! I wish a "network expert" can a least delve a little into this cognitive dissonance. (No matter how much I try, I also cannot convince myself power cables make any difference for me.) "Let me start the listening experience with the Logitech Squeezebox Touch, which I have used without any complaints for over a year. Sadly no longer in production, it was very good for its money, until the M50 arrived. Suddenly it Touch didn’t sound so good, the stereo image is smaller, it has a more sterile sound and is a touch metallic and sometimes voices seem to hiss. This was never very obvious but is easy to hear in direct comparison." -- From earlier in the article this person is comparing the two units plugged into the Esoteric D-07 DAC by coaxial SPDIF. To make matters even more questionable, he uses the Esoteric's PCM->DSD upsampling which deteriorates PCM by the conversion process and measurably adds noise above 10kHz causing the noise floor to be even worse than 16-bit PCM (see the Stereophile review of the Esoteric). Consider this - *how* could the Touch have a "smaller" stereo image, sound "sterile", "metallic", and add "hiss" to voices (only!? Why not violins or piano?) digitally to the same DAC? Does this even make any sense unless the M50 has some magical smoothing, vocal noise-reducing, stereo expansion DSP? If you think this has something to do with jitter, consider just how *poor* the Esoteric D-07's measures in terms of jitter - even WORSE than the Touch itself! Of course I'm not saying the M50 is bad or anything, but the rationale and effusive praise seems a bit hollow to me. For $2500USD, you get a "streamer" + CD transport which doesn't even have a built-in DAC. Not much of a deal IMO. Stereophile review of Esoteric D-07: http://www.stereophile.com/content/esoteric-d-07-da-processor ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Archimago's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2207 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97950 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
