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Re: Listening to two DVD-Audios: Bach/St. Matthew Passion/Harnoncourt (Teldec) and Mozart/Figaro (Naxos)

Posted by Martin419 (A) on October 7, 2005 at 02:58:55

In Reply to: Re: Listening to two DVD-Audios: Bach/St. Matthew Passion/Harnoncourt (Teldec) and Mozart/Figaro (Naxos) posted by Christine Tham on October 6, 2005 at 14:53:15:

>> I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. The manual states that the speaker distance settings apply to all listening modes (including DVD-Audio). <<

Nope, the DVD-S97S manual I've just read doesn’t. I’ve read the PDF, and there’s absolutely no specific mention of "DVD-Audio" under the "delay time" speaker setup section.

>> Panasonic is one of the co-inventors of the DVD-Audio format, I think they would have the right R&D resources to get it "right". <<

Uh, so Denon wasted their time by specifying, not one, but TWO 32bit floating-point SHARC DSP processors to do realtime high-sample-rate & 24bit BM & TA for DVD-A? ;-)

>> They player even supports Dolby Pro Logic II, and can apply it to all stereo sources, *including* hi-rez DVD-Audio :-) <<

That’s funny, since DPLII works up to 48kHz/16bit. So I suspect that your player downsamples everything prior to the DAC, in order to apply the DPLII processing. :)

>> When I visited your room, I saw plenty of hard reflective surfaces, mainly your walls. Unless you've padded every square inch of wall, and your entire ceiling, you will get a lot of reflections.<<

The anaglypta lining is a ** soft ** polymer. Also, the main speakers are now angled slightly upwards and inwards thus avoiding perpendicular angles with the walls, and are aimed at the listener position, i.e. a large 3-seater suede sofa! Don’t forget there’s another heavily padded sofa by the adjacent wall.

>> Uhmm, brick walls are the *worst" in terms of reflections. <<

They absolutely don’t resonate like wood or plasterboard. REL itself recommends dense brick (or concrete) walls as the acoustically optimum construction material for adjacent walls.

>> But time alignment and bass management are processing stages too - they just happen to be in the digital domain. <<

Yep, but in my player they happen transparently at source -- where it should -- in the 32-bit floating point domain with data taken directly from the disc.

>> All processing stages negatively impact the sound - it depends on the trade off you are willing to make - does the benefit outweigh the loss in quality? <<

I detect no loss in quality. And the benefits are obvious.

>> The amps suck out so much power the lights dim when i switch each one of them individually on. At peak, they draw well over 3000W from the power supply! <<

I’d be worried about my electricity bill! And they are putting up prices in the UK yet again!

>> Unfortunately, it's the minimum to be able to listen to music at an average levels of 78-85dB (Grammy surround music production recommendation for critical listening/monitoring) without clipping. Even then, there is a slight possibility of clipping at 85dB (but I never listen up there, so that's okay). <<

Decent high current amps can take peak transients of much greater than the rated RMS wattage in their stride. I simply ** don’t believe ** that you need as many watts as you are implying for yours (or my) normal listening levels. And I do know a struggling amp when I hear one! And mine ain't struggling. Not by a long shot. In short, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this subject.

>> Also, the S97 the only player I know that explicitly handles 0dBFS+ levels - it allows the output to be attenuated by up to 6dB prior to the digital filter to allow for additional headroom to prevent clipping. None of the Denon players handle 0dBFS+ - they all clip. <<

Firstly, I'm not convinced of that (and, in any case, you didn't test my player). Moreover, and despite all of this, you still rate Denon DVCD-A1/-9000 as an ideal sounding player.

IMO, if a recording ever gets right to 0db (i.e. top-of-scale amplitude level) then the engineer has made a bad mistake anyway. In such a case, you can bet your ‘bottom dollar’ that there are many more transients that would try to overshoot by a considerable margin and clip any ADC. So the point is moot.

>> The denon AL24+ algorithm can't be defeated. <<

Oh, yes it can! You can switch it off via the firewire setting, coupled with setting ‘Source-Direct’.
But I do like AL24+ And it didn’t stop you saying the -9000/-A1 sounded "gorgeous", even with its (first-generation) AL24 engaged. ;-)

>> Even my subwoofer doesn't go much below 26 Hz so this means my subwoofer is completely redundant (unless there is a dedicated .1 track). <<
FWIW my new Storm 5 goes down to 15Hz!

>> I do care about absolute sound quality, and as I recall that player [-9000/-A1] was gorgeous sounding. <<

As I said, my present -A11 player is ** much better ** sounding than the prototype one which you heard.

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