Quote:
Originally Posted by chris_m  I'll do more listening tests later, just woke up. On first listen converter 3 stood out. The drum is a bit more punchy but not only that, also the guitars and other transient oriented material stands out.. They have more air arround them compared to the original. On the whole it sounds more alive/transparent/3d. No other converter in this test does this. Maybe there's tubes or transformers involved? Burl?  Converter2 seems to have the least bass, very shocking as it ruins the lowend of the bassguitar in this example.
However do you want an AD, as converter 3, with that kind of coloration for your mastering chain? I'll vote after i give it a deeper listen but i already know i probably wont choose #3. #3 would be very interesting to have as an DA in a hifi playback chain, whatever it is. I also wont choose #2 because it fails big on the bottom
EDIT:
After more listening and ABX Tests:
Converter6 seems to be a tiny bit muddy in the (lower) mids, it lacks clarity there but overall treble extension is fine. Converter5 also seems to have something similar going on.
Converter4 is the only one i cant detect via ABX. Also Converter1 seems to be very close to the original.
Overall the differences are extremly small (with the exception of #2 and #3) and you need serious monitoring and concentration to make out the differences.
My choice would be Converter4, please tell me this is some cheap old interface |
Hi Chris,
thanks for the post! It's very interesting for me; my observations and conclusions are quite different from yours. I guess this shows how subjective this kind of thing is. With a given trade off, we can still focus on different aspects and thus weigh performance differently.
Unfortunately, converter #4 is not cheap, none of them are :(
Oh, and I completely agree, the differences between these converters are small, definitely smaller than I had anticipated. Isn't that good news
I have clear preferences but certainly would be fine working with any of them.