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Old 05-02-2009, 04:49 PM
PHC1 PHC1 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 2112 View Post
Dan, Obviously I have been thinking about this for several days. I thought I remembered a thread about a High End Manufacturer like Ayre or Meridian that has a new DAC out that could eliminate what they called "pre-ringing" in compressed Digital recordings. That is the single biggest complaint for me (pre-ringing that is).

Did I mis-remember or misinterpret that??
Correct. Dynamic range compression can't be undone by any digital process. What the MP filter of Ayre for example does is eliminate some of the digital artifacts that simply do not belong to the music recorded on it. You can read some more on this here. http://www.ayre.com/pdf/Ayre_MP_White_Paper.pdf

I've been listening to the Ayre C-5xeMP for a while now. It seems to exhibit a level of naturalness that is unlike any other digital product I have heard so far. It takes a bit of getting used to, it almost seems with the digital edge gone, like there is something missing. Except that everything sounds more relaxed but just as dynamic. Took me a week to settle in to the new sound. I've noticed the intentional distortion of guitar amps for example, now simply sounds like artistic distortion, not harsh distortion that drives your ears crazy.

Bass instruments have acquired the roundness, fullness and naturalness usually associated with the best analog rigs out there. This is very evident on material such as XRCD which is made from analog master tapes. The highs are extended but very natural sounding with no irritation to the ears with digital harshness of which there seems to be none. Simply incredible and the way recorded music was really supposed to be! I don't know about the midrange, it seems I am able to pick up much more information and subtle details like singers swallowing during pauses which was never part of my older system but that could be the ultra transparency of the Wilson speakers I am now using.
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