Home
AudioAsylum Trader
General Asylum: REVIEW: TDS - True Dimensional Sound Passive Audiophile Other by Steve

General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

For Sale Ads

FAQ / News / Events

 

REVIEW: TDS - True Dimensional Sound Passive Audiophile Other Review by Steve at Audio Asylum

207.222.4.223


[ Follow Ups ] Thread:  [ Display   All   Email ] [ General Asylum ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

I recently purchased a TDS unit. I auditioned the unit at Custom Audio Creations in Mobile, Al. It was the unit with the switch and was installed between a Marantz CD player with adjustable output and a Rotel RB-991 power amp. Speakers included Paradigm Studio 100s, Studio 20s and a set of B&Ws. After listening to it for awhile with my favorite auditioning material, I ordered one sans switch and had it overnight drop shipped. Total price ran around $400.00.

The TDS was installed in my home system between the pre-amp and power amp. System includes a Rotel RCD 991 CD player with HDCD and adjustable dither, a modified amplifier stage Kenwood CA-1 preamplifier, a Rotel RB 991 power amplifier, a set of much modified Infinity RS3a towers which are very dynamic and have a frequency response of 28Hz to 28 kHz. Other components include a modified Technics SL-P8 CD player with adjustable speed/pitch which is useful for synching with another source; a Technics SL 1300 Mk II turntable with an Audio Technica cartridge (I have vinyl but don’t worship it). Interconnects were DHL Silver Sonics, Audioquest Rubies, Monstercable 400I, and plain old Radioshack cheapies.

Note that this is not a bleeding edge cost is no object system but it represents a substantially greater investment than the average Circuit Wal K Rex junk. It sounds good and it doesn’t break the bank. Any fool can design and produce good sounding stuff for what my house costs or more, but it takes a good designer to come up with good equipment at a price someone other than Bill Gates can afford. In a few years the features from the expensive stuff will show up in affordable equipment so I just wait.

First up was the Holly Cole disc, “It Happened One Night” (Metro Blue CPD 7243 8 52699 0 5). This is a live recording that has been exceptionally well done. There is some tape hiss in the background between cuts but compared to the sound of the music itself, it is of no consequence. It is simply one of the best live recordings of a small jazz ensemble ever done. It is clean, dynamic and very well done. The group plays with no miscues and Holly is in fine voice. And there is the crux of it, her voice. With the TDS in the system, her voice just seemed to clean up and be a little more of her voice. The piano seemed to solidify it’s sound. A very interesting thing occurred on track 6, “Don’t Let the Teardrops Rust Your Shining Heart”. The first few bars into the song, the acoustic bass is bowed rather than plucked in the normal jazz manner. With the TDS this became much cleaner and stood out more obviously as a bass being bowed. Interesting. Is it the 3dB of gain? Does it act like the older dbx expansion systems in some respect?

Second up is one of my favorite test CDs, Enyas “Watermark” (Reprise 9 26774-2). The reason it makes an excellent test disc, for me, is that I like the music, am very familiar with it and it is a poorly mixed, badly mastered disc. It is also very complex, with multiple overdubs, multiple chorus harmonies, both synthesized and actual instruments strewn throughout the mix, and a lot of deep bass on some mixes. This is not your typical “audiophile” disc. As a matter of experience, most audiophiles don’t want to see this disc because it sounds pretty bad on a lot of so called audiophile systems. But guess what, it sounds pretty good on a few systems.

Cut 7 is the ubiquitous “Orinoco Flow”. On many systems, parts of the mix sound listless and dull, with the choral harmonies buried back in the mix. With the TDS in the system, the various choruses seem more forward in the mix, the voicing better defined and the sound livelier. There are fewer dead sounding spots in the mix. Other tracks also benefit. The lightning and rain at the beginning of track 12, “Storms in Africa II” sound sharper and clearer. A better presentation of the leading edges of transients, perhaps?

At length, I popped in Maggie Sansones “A Travelers Dream” (Maggies Music MMCD110. Maggie Sansone is a talented hammered dulcimer player and apparently a formidable personality as she seems to have started her own label to make most excellent recordings of herself and other talented artists. The newer recordings are done in 20 bit mastering and HDCD. The music on this disc is modern Celtic done with a mix of traditional and non-traditional instruments. The sound is superlative.

With the TDS in the system, the instruments seem to take on a more defined less edgy sound. It is as if some harshness is removed. The stringed instruments become s little more liquid and sweeter. The instruments stand out from each other a little better. Not necessarily better separation or imaging, but a more definable sound with better harmonic structure so it seems to sound more clearly like a hammered dulcimer or guitar or mandolin. Does the TDS counteract for recording and processing artifacts?

The last serious auditioning disc (for now) was Scott Huckabys “Alchemy” on the Soundings of the Planet label (SP-7175-CD). This disc is recorded using HDCD. The music, once you get past the new age packaging is a lush symphonic mix of acoustic and electric guitars. Scott Huckaby seems to go quite a bit past mere songwriter and heads into composer territory. As for the recording itself, the sound is clean and clear, the mix is excellent. In an HDCD player, it is even better.

Once again, the TDS seems to have made the instruments clearer in the mix, the sound just a little bit more lush. Since this particular recording is very well done to begin with, there is little of the harshness that makes listening to most things fatiguing. With the TDS in the system, it just seems to enrich the sound a little bit more. Is it overly euphonic?

And what about a lesser system? A typical K-Wal-Rex-City system was cobbled together using a PioneerPD 7030 CD player, Pioneer 505S AV Receiver at 150w/channel in stereo, and a set of PSB Stratus Mini speakers and a set of Paradigm Studio 20s. Radioshack interconnects were initially used. This is to represent what is typically passed off as a “good home entertainment system”.

The base system sounded pretty dismal after listening to the better setup. Addition of the TDS didn’t really accomplish much. The addition of even the Monstercable 400 interconnects was startling. I realize that a lot of people who have discovered much better cables look down their noses at the Monster cables, but for $45.00 there isn’t much to top them. And they do start a lot of people on the way to better sound. There was a lot more sound all of a sudden, the bass did not sound particularly well controlled but there was a lot more of it. The Audioquest and DHL cables also displayed marked improvements, but in this system there are limits to what any single component can achieve.The TDS had a more pronounced impact with the better cables, but not as much as the impact of any better set of cables. The addition of the Rotel RCD 991 CD player really woke things up, and the TDS started to do things similar to what it had accomplished in the other test system. Of course, with a CD player that cost as much as the base system, something should sound better.

Another thing worth noting is that neither the Paradigms or PSBs are can really be considered inexpensive speakers and are much better than the rest of this “base” system. One thing everyone agreed on was that the Paradigms destroy the PSBs for just over half the price. Of course, for the price of the PSBs, a set of B&W CDM-1SEs could be had.

So indications are that the TDS is sensitive to the quality of the other componetry in the system. There has to be sufficient resolution/clarity/bandwidth/dynamics from the system to really determine that something is going on. That can be said of virtually any other component for that matter.

As to what the TDS actually does, or how it does it, beats me. It does have about a 3dB boost but even with careful level matching, the TDS still sounds distinct from the non-TDS signal. Is it a case of expansion a la the old dbx dynamic expansion units? Is it subtle equalization, as in how a careful RIAA curve match can make all the difference in a phono amp? Does it somehow compensate for a ton of recording and processing artifacts? Since it is an inductive device and a gain modifier, it is not exactly completely passive either, even though it is not externally powered.

Several people who sat and listened with me stated that the TDS could only add something to the music that in fact, did not exist, that it processed the signal. My reply to that was that once the music hits a microphone, it is processed or at least altered in many stages before the listener hears the music to begin with. Microphone, microphone to microphone cable connector, microphone cable, microphone cable connector to mixing console connector, various inductors, op amps, potentiometers, processors, console connector to cable connector, cable, cable connector to tape deck connector, tape deck electronics, cable to tape deck head, tape deck head, tape etc. For digital, deduct some interface influences and add D/A and A/D conversion influences. All recorded signal is processed, period.

So, in my system, in my room, listening to the music I like to listen to, the TDS adds considerably to the listening experience. It makes the sound sweeter and more liquid, and seems to remove a little harshness (recording/processing/digital artifacts?) that allows a less fatiguing listening experience. It was more than worth the money I spent on it, and I would strongly recommend that you check one out in your system.

Some might say that it is ridiculous that this component could work at all. Sure, just like the perfect sound forever CD. It took almost twenty years to deliver good DACs, filters, and to discover and cure jitter. But twenty years ago a bunch of really smart, well-educated engineers sat up in front of us all and declared the CD couldn’t be improved upon. Somewhat like the upcoming SACD/DVD perhaps. So for someone to dismiss it out of hand would be like saying nothing can be improved on and that we know all we need to know.

The bottom line is it works for me quite well, and is one of the more interesting products I have run across in a number of years. The only way for you to determine if it will work for you is to borrow (always the best idea to audition anything in your own system) or buy one with a money back provision. I seriously doubt too many people will be asking for their money back.




This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.  



Topic - REVIEW: TDS - True Dimensional Sound Passive Audiophile Other Review by Steve at Audio Asylum - Steve 14:36:16 10/8/99 ( 3)