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JA Any measurements coming for this?
Cheers George
On "Ring Them Bells," from the same album, Sufjan Stevens's band-geek arrangement features more than a dozen instruments including a viola, French horn, lap steel, and electric drums, sometimes playing loudly in unison and sometimes creating a floral setting for his delicate tenor voice, which here was thankfully recorded without the usual heavy reverb and overdubs. The d1-unity rendered the instruments with vivid tone color remarkable for a digital source, which lent the playing an unusual amount of beauty and realism. The astonishing electric guitar solo by Bryce Dessner of the National sounded so gorgeous that I listened to the track three times in row.
No amount of harmonic richness can make up for a lack of resolution, and here the Totaldac didn't disappoint. The Rain (16/44.1 FLAC, ECM/Qobuz) documents a live performance by IndianIranian ensemble Ghazal. The mid-tempo "Dawn" is a conversation between Shujaat Husain Khan's sitar and Kayhan Kalhor's kamancheh, a husky-sounding Iranian string instrument played with a variable-tension bow. Punctuated by Sandeep Das's tabla, the two main instruments argue, lament, egg each other on, and engage in what sounds like prayer. The recording captures the live acoustic brilliantly, and the d1-unity was so adept at resolving the instruments' reverb trails that at times the music sounded almost orchestral. Hearing Khan's soft vocal come in midway through this ravishing music was downright startling.
The Totaldac's unusual combination of physical solidity, vivid color retrieval, microbe-level resolution, and ability to home in on and reveal musical meaning made me reach for recordings that sound flattened and uninspiring through other digital sources. Since saxophonist Wayne Shorter's death in March, I have been listening nearly constantly to his body of work. His restless experimentation with form and genre and his world-class songwriting sometimes had the effect of obscuring the childlike sense of wonder at the core of his playing, as well as his ability to produce an unprecedented range of tone colors, particularly on soprano. Joni Mitchell, who appeared with Shorter on 10 albums over the course of 36 years, has likened him to a paint brush. On his solo on "Ponta de Areia" from his 1975 album Native Dancer (16/44.1 FLAC, Columbia/Qobuz), a collaboration with Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento, Shorter plays the soprano with the curiosity, stylistic freedom, and palpable sense of delight that would characterize the best of his late-career recordings. The d1-unity decoded it with a physicality, vibrancy, and emotional urgency that I simply don't associate with digital sources.
To see how much the d1-sublime-streamer was adding to this delightful illusion, I replaced it with my own streamer: the much less expensive and kludgier combination of the Sonore ultraRendu and Denafrips Iris digital-to-digital converter (the latter to enable an AES3 connection to the d1-unity). The resulting sound was possibly a hair more forceful but also audibly less refined and purposeful. The meaning of the music was less obvious, and everything sounded just a bit more mechanical. Still, the fleshy, resolute, Technicolor character of the d1-unity remained, and I came away thinking that the Totaldac streamer is not an absolute necessity for enjoying the company's distinct house sound.
The 12-year-old inside me sometimes gets riled by childish questions. Here's the one he wanted answered while we were living with the Totaldac combo: Does it produce the organic textures, whomp, and utter juiciness of the Garrard 301 record player that was sitting on the shelf above it? (footnote 4) You probably know the answer, but I'll tell you anyway. No, it doesn't, not quite, but it does make music sound more unrestrained and physically believable than any digital front end I've heard (save for Totaldac's top-of-the-line decoder, which I mentioned earlier). It reminded me a little of the decidedly odd Lejonklou Källa, which may be even more engaging, though not as colorful and present, and is far more limited in operation. For those of us who struggle with enjoying digital sound at homefrom anecdotal evidence, there are still more than a few of us aroundthe Totaldac d1-unity just may change your listening habits and enlarge your musical libraries. Machines capable of playing millions of tracks without physical media have been around for a while, and some happen to sound pretty great.
Just as the summer heat was heading into its last swoon...
I got an email from Stereophile Editor Jim Austin. "FYI, for obvious reasons," it read. Below was an announcement that Craft Recordings, the reissue label for Concord Recorded Music, was releasing Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners as part of its Small Batch vinyl series. According to Craft, new one-step AAA lacquers from Bernie Grundman were used to press a limited run at RTI using a fancy vinyl compound called VR900. There would be a "linen-wrapped, foil-stamped slipcase" and a "per household limit of two copies." Oh, and it would cost $109, placing it into the rarefied realm of super amazing reissues.
I've waxed cranky about reissues in these pages beforeall the while realizing that finding fault with a renaissance of excellent-sounding music on vinyl may sound a bit ungracious. Still, I continue to find some reissues to simply not be up to the sonic thrills of the original vinyl, marketing claims and slipcases notwithstanding. In some cases, the records chosen for rerelease are so easily found on the resale market, or so musically lackluster, or both, that they beg the question of why anyone bothered. With due respect to Atlantic Records, who exactly was clamoring for their recent 180gm vinyl reissue of Phil Collins's No Jacket Required?
Brilliant Corners is something else entirely. An undisputed masterpiece, it captures Monk at his compositional peak, playing with an inventiveness and energy that would begin to drift after his move to Columbia Records in 1962. The original mono recording was released by Riverside, a company known for historic sides by Monk, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, and Wes Montgomeryand also for its records' decidedly pedestrian sound. And some of the original Riverside LPs on my shelves also number among the noisiest records I own.
According to music writer Ashley Kahn's insightful liner notes, included in the Craft Recordings reissue, one reason had to do with Riverside's decision, in 1956, to stop using Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack, New Jersey, studio and move their sessions to Reeves Sound Studio, a reasonably priced outfit on 44th Street in Manhattan best known for recording advertising spots for radio. That's where engineer Jack Higgins captured the 1957 sessions that would become Brilliant Corners using a process billed rather optimistically on the record cover as "Riverside-Reeves Spectrosonic High-Fidelity Engineering." To make matters worse, Riverside didn't allot a budget for rehearsals, and Monk's difficult title track required 25 takes, one of which reportedly ended in fisticuffs, and which had to be edited together by producer Orrin Keepnews into the final version.
To get a measure of the Craft reissue, I compared it with a 1961 Riverside pressing and a 1976 pressing from Victor Musical Industries of Yokohama, Japan. Though in pristine condition, the Riverside sounded forceful and dynamic but also somewhat coarse and pitchy. On the title track, it added a sharpness and sourness to Sonny Rollins's and Ernie Henry's saxophones, while Oscar Pettiford's bass sounded a bit recessed. The decay of the piano notes was truncated as well. This challenging, occasionally strident music wasn't helped by the record's challenging, strident soundlistening to the Riverside proved borderline unpleasant.
These issues were sorted out on the Victor: The horns were more correct, and the bass came forward, though the recording, like many Japanese reissues from that era, sounds comparatively lightweight and dynamically restrained. It provided a pleasant, balanced listen but lacked immediacy, vividness, and excitement. For years, this was the pressing I reached for most often.
From the first needle drop, the Craft Recordings reissue offered a more complete picture of the sessions. Pettiford's bass sounded deep and powerfully resonant, while the horns were richer and brassier than on the other versions. On "Pannonnica," Monk plays the piano with one hand and a celeste with the other, and the latter instrument's bell-like, glassy timbre rang out with haunting accuracy. And the piano on his solo performance of the Tin Pan Alley chestnut "I Surrender Dear" sounded full and reverberant, with long, realistic decay. There was also zero groove noise. I played the reissue straight through twice, marveling at this music, which I hadn't heard sound this sonorous and alive. Listening to it reminded me of watching Walter Murch's reverential 1998 restoration of Orson Welles's Touch of Evil, another midcentury masterpiece from a relative outsider.
Is this the best Brilliant Corners in existence? I cannot say, not having heard the 2010 Analogue Productions pressing mastered by Kevin Gray or the 2020 release from the Electric Recording Company. No copies of the former are currently for sale at Discogs, while the latter is selling for about as much as round-trip airfare from New York to Rome. I suppose that puts the relatively high price of this release in perspective. Regardless, kudos to Craft Recordings for this beautiful-sounding version of an indispensable albuma case of a reissue we needed, done right.
JA Any measurements coming for this?
Cheers George
George, to your point about measurements, which can be interesting and useful in de-obfuscating problems, a couple of the somethings to look for in DACs utilizing switched R-2R resistor arrays would be presence of glitch impulse energy added to the output signal, and settling time degraded by deglitching circuits. I wouldn't know if the performance of this DAC suffers any such problems. Useful measurements and analysis could highlight or eliminate some concerns.
You might find interesting an Analog Devices engineering note on the subject of deglitching switched R-2R DACs at the following link.
https://www.analog.com/en/technical-articles/deglitching-techniques-for-highvoltage-r2r-dacs.html
Here is the introductory section of that excerpted to the block quote below.
In an R-2R DAC design with supply voltages exceeding ±5V, large voltage glitches (up to 1.5V) can occur during the DAC's major-carry transitions. These glitches can propagate through the output buffer amplifier and appear at output. The slewing of the level shifters that control the top (VREF+) and bottom (VREF-) single-pole double-throw switches (S0 to SN) causes the glitches (Figure 1). If each switch of the "inverted" R-2R ladder were turned on and/or off instantaneously, glitch amplitudes at the DAC output (or input of the output buffer amplifier) would be small. However, switches do not switch instantaneously; in fact, to avoid crowbar current between outputs of the two reference buffers, the switches employ a break-before-make connection. The associated time delay can produce very large glitches during DAC code transitions that degrade the dynamic performance specification 'glitch impulse energy.'
A lower voltage could scale down the magnitude of the problem, perhaps also at the cost of reducing dynamic range. The cause of the glitching is in the switching.
"I wouldn't know if the performance of this DAC suffers any such problems."
That's why I like to see for myself, not speculate from others subjective opinions.
To do so is like purchasing a new car without looking at all it's measured specs, even though your only going to drive it.
Cheers George
Measurements aren't going to get any closer to understanding this DAC than any subjective opinions...You can use both to baseline the performance of the DAC in your mind and thats about it because only listening will help you understand how the DAC behaves in your room and your system. Same way looking at specs of car doesn't give you any indication of how it performs in your environment on your roads. So your analogy is weak just like using meaurements to eval audio gear. There's a website for people like you it's called ASR.
maybe it is expected to not measure well and therefore not a regular column?
to relegate certain components to "columns" and not "features" to keep their measurements a secret. I mean if the truth came out then the entire audiophile universe would collapse in on itself in a matter of hours ! How silly. I would think that it's a practical thing - as in JA1 only has enough bandwidth to do his exhaustive and detailed measurements and listening tests to a few components a month. Totaldac, Border Patrol, AudioNote UK, Lector, etc. are all brands that have legions of music loving fans and receive great subjective reviews but do not measure "well." But that's a different story and one that isn't going to be dealt with here. This is not new news and to expect differently just means...well it means, just go read ASR.
yeah, JA's Measurements would be welcome.
you would have to consider the Brilliant Corners on 15ips R2R from Tapeproject, too.
The product in this category that most interests me (currently) is the Eversolo DMP-A8 ($1980), which seems far more capable at much lower pricepoint.
https://www.eversolo.com/
This post is not SPAM. I have no affiliation, no financial interest, no money on any horse in the race.
Great column!
I love Totaldac for their rich, dense tone. Hits me like my favorite old grappa. But I can only listen to it occasionally (just like I don’t drink 8 glasses of that grappa every day) - it has a distinct flavor that can distract. Soft, a little sweet, the opposite of a crisp white. Maybe it’s better balanced with the horns they use in their best system. This newer version should also be better than mine from a couple years back.
For that dense musical tone but a balance that might better suit non horn systems, Playback Designs is wonderful. Like Totaldac, I doubt it measures great but so be it.
P.s. - love that soundtrack, the Jim James / Calexico track is the one that takes me home.
Metaldetekto: "I love Totaldac for their rich, dense tone."
"But I can only listen to it occasionally"
"It has a distinct flavor that can distract. Soft, a little sweet"
Thanks Metaldetekto:
What you said in a couple of words tells me more than the 2 page review does, and about how and maybe why it was not maybe measured.
Cheers George
Product link:
https://www.totaldac.com/D1-unity-en.htm
-non-oversampling DAC compensation filter activated or disactivated by remote control.
A new amplifier and the matching driver have just been released by Totaldac.
The Amp-1-sublime is the new Totaldac reference amplifier, using solid state components exclusively.
The triode stage used in the previous generation of Amp-1 is now upgraded by an innovating transistor gain stage, using very low component count (all discrete) and no global feedback.
A very high voltage (240Vdc) is used to give the maximum dynamic to the signal and its power supply is based on a discrete regulator as well.
The circuit uses 0.01% VAR Bulk Metal® Foil resistors from Vishay in the critical voltage gain stage.
The gain stage is then followed by an equally innovating and powerful transistor buffer, using no global feedback as well.
This design combines no global feedback, low noise (0.2mVrms), high gain (33dB), high bandwidth (400KHz) and high current (driving 1ohm) thanks to its 2500VA/25kg live-power transformer.
These characteristics produce a transparent, fast, live and natural sound without harshness and at the same time with punch and weight in bass.
The Amp-1-sublime amplifier is available as stereo amplifier with RCA inputs or as fully balanced monobloc with XLR input.
amplifier page: https://www.totaldac.com/amp-1-en.htm
A new d1-driver is also released to perfectly match the quality of this new amplifier.
The d1-driver-sublime has no volume control because it relies on the DAC volume control but in case the complete system gain is too high (DAC + amp + speakers + room) an analog -15.5dB attenuation can be activated using a switch at the back panel.
This attenuator uses 12 pieces of 0.01% VAR Bulk Metal® Foil resistors from Vishay.
In case the complete system misses some gain with some tracks recorded very low, the latest Totaldac DACs offer a +12dB digital gain option.
This 2 selectable gain in a Totaldac system allow to optimize all configurations.
driver page: https://www.totaldac.com/D1-driver-en.htm
i do not get the first part, that some coloration sounds better then some other coloration? then how much coloration is preferable, a lot or little less or something in between? and will this coloration be suitable at all situations?
"then how much coloration is preferable"
How long is a piece of string??
No coloration is ideal to me, as it's closer to the real thing and the way you were meant to hear it.
No??? then get yourself a graphic equalizer
Cheers George
You really need to be a bit more educated before making absolute statements such as this:
"As it reduces the total amount of distortion, negative feedback adds higher order harmonics that sound nothing like the simple harmonics we associate with musical instruments (footnote 1), and after a while the brain begins to call bullshit on the idea that dialing in more of it is bringing us closer to the recording."
To become more educated I would suggest that you look into Bruno Putzeys thoughts on feedback. He has shown with his designs that there is point where one adds even more feedback, and ALL of the harmonic distortion products disappear.