blue2

Thanks, excellent recommendation. Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters - Still River $10 for FLAC version on Bandcamp!

Agreed! Enjoy the music as someone said! OTOH it's easy to dismiss this dismiss this playlist and overlook some good choices amongst the over-produced ones. I'm always on the lookout for artists I haven't heard before and tracks which are well recorded with natural acoustics. 👍

Bruce Cockburn - Crowing Ignites on Bandcamp for 9$ CAD. Bargain of the year!

Nice one! Thanks. However this is the high res thread and it seems it's only available in CD resolution? They do have another album (which is full length and recorded at Mark Knopfler's studio in London) in 24/96 https://vestbotrio.com/album/gentlemen

Your profile still says "Taiko Audio modified T+A DAC 8 DSD". What do you have now?

The Phil X solo in the style of EVH (RIP) is much more interesting. Nice job by Rick Beato too.

Another excellent article from mitchco albeit a few years old now. Alpha Audio has a similar finding using the Jacques Loussier track Little Fugue in G Minor. The OHL Blog is still around and a new version of the site is in beta. The hear the difference tool is here. Looks like VB6 but still works! Comparing the 24 bit WAV file from Alpha Audio to my 16 bit version (with volume adjusted -3.5dB) the differences are almost inaudible at -50dB or lower. Now to look at the different master versions of PF!

Very good. Any more examples than Steely Dan Gaucho? BTW thanks also for the playlist. Half way through and it looks like Blackbird - Andrea Schroeder, Mettavolution (including their version of PF Echoes) - Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Sad Hunk - Bahamas are going in the shopping trolley!

I don't have both versions to compare but I'd recommend the 20th anniversary version on SQ.

Another good review 👍🙂 As you have the MiniDSP EARS measurement rig did you try creating an EQ filter for correcting the minor flaws you observed with the headphones in question? It would be very interesting to know how successfully that would work.

Try this one for good SQ, soundstage. 20th Anniversary remaster Blues In My Heart. Track 'Canned Heat' has some nice percussion.

Miska, re reports that one line of code change between versions has different sounding output. Could it be the compiler introduced more changes to the binaries (perhaps some optimisation) than expected? Expanding the two install exe's and binary file compare would reveal that?

(A) So maybe you need to look for components you can try before you buy? Otherwise you'll blow your budget many times over! (B) It could be the Adams are faulty or the hiss is coming up the chain from your phono and because you've got the volume very high. You could try an alternative source to try and troubleshoot this first. This is definitely not normal so IMHO it would be a mistake to rule out actives. You could easily find the issue is exactly the same with your new amp/passives. (C) I agree that speakers dictate 90% of the SQ. However that's the very reason I made the previous suggestions to help you find a solution without going round in circles.

You're not going to make progress until you demo some amps and speakers yourself. No one else can pick which components you're going to like! If you take a poll you'll get positive and negative views on most components. Now you've said you're source is vinyl you'll need an integrated amp with phono. If you also want digital you'll need to allocate funds for a DAC/streamer or inboard DAC. You might want to consider the amp choice first, spend more on quality and power, then get good headphones or bookshelf speakers to upgrade later. If you chose wisely on the bookshelf speakers you might just need the subs to complete the system. If you already had a digital source (with volume control) I'd have suggested you combine your amp+speaker budget and go direct into actives, but that might still work with a suitable preamp for vinyl input. Good hunting!

Very interesting. Could you describe your full system components please?