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Post by bram on Jun 14, 2018 11:02:19 GMT -6
At the time of the test, it was easy to say I preferred the sound of the Apollo - my ears had grown accustomed to that sound. I have really sensitive ears in the HF (to a fault) where sibilance in recordings is easily registered as shrill/painful, so in general if I'm listening to music for enjoyments sake, I'd prefer a softer, less detailed high end. That doesn't mean that while I'm working on a mix I wouldn't prefer the "brighter" sound of the S2, if anything that would end up helping my mixes come out smoother on the top end.
I agree that it comes down to preference when discussing the upper echelon of quality gear/tools - and they are just that, tools. Does the tool help you achieve a desired result faster/more efficiently/easily? I put the S2 through its paces over the past couple of days on a few rock mixes - no complaints. Clients are happy with the results and that tells me the music is translating well with the new converters. Could I have achieved a great result on my previous system? Most definitely. For the price of the S2 it's a no brainer. Do I also derive great pleasure in buying new gear? Yes.
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Post by winetree on Jun 22, 2018 23:03:22 GMT -6
Just upgraded the playback system. Removed the modded Ross Martin Superbeast II and replaced it with the Pro-ject S2. Bought A Kimber Kable pure silver U.S.B. cable from the Mac to the S2. Out of the S2 with Mogomi digital cable into my J.W. Modded Adcom 555 Pro into a Soundcraft 8 pair speaker switcher using Soundrunner speaker cable. I have 6 pairs of various book shelf speakers hooked up to the switcher with a set Of Emovia B1 speakers arriving Monday. I had considered getting some high end speakers but Figured I be better off upgrading what goes into the speakers. My monitoring sound stage is the unbelievable and the best ever in this room. Clients and Friends can't believe how great the Ns10's, Auratones, J.B.L, Polk, speakers sound. Can't wait to hear the Emovias. I no longer feel the need to buy expensive speakers. I've been criticized for the multiple speaker setup. I just read the Tape Op article with F. Reid Shippen. His monitor controller only has 3 speaker selections. He wishes he could have a wall of speakers.
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Post by jeromemason on Jun 23, 2018 2:47:55 GMT -6
I'm going to have to buy another S2...... I set up my Mackie 824's in the living room and my wife is loving Tidal MQA's chilling on the couch. The first time I flipped on an album she'd heard hundreds of times her direct quote was "you have my permission to buy another one of those little box things, but I want the silver one" The Pro-ject S2...... a DAC even the wife wants.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2018 3:36:05 GMT -6
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 23, 2018 7:41:34 GMT -6
Good question, which is the exact model we should be looking for?
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Post by bram on Jun 23, 2018 9:42:07 GMT -6
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 23, 2018 11:29:52 GMT -6
Too bad about the High Sierra bug, no point buying it then.
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Post by bram on Jun 23, 2018 12:07:23 GMT -6
Too bad about the High Sierra bug, no point buying it then. I think I'm running High Sierra on my computer in the studio and haven't experienced any issues changing sample rate. I'm also going lightpipe out of my interface into the S2 though, no usb connection necessary.
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 23, 2018 12:15:08 GMT -6
They reference it as an issue ?
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 23, 2018 12:15:46 GMT -6
Specifically with USB and HS.
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Post by bram on Jun 23, 2018 12:20:06 GMT -6
I'm seeing on the product page FAQ that they reference El Capitan/Sierra as being problematic for some users. I've tried the box as a USB interface on both my laptop (Sierra 10.12.6) and studio mac (High Sierra 10.something.something) and it ran without a hitch on both computers.
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Post by dankin on Jun 23, 2018 17:18:22 GMT -6
Just upgraded the playback system. Removed the modded Ross Martin Superbeast II and replaced it with the Pro-ject S2. Bought A Kimber Kable pure silver U.S.B. cable from the Mac to the S2. Out of the S2 with Mogomi digital cable into my J.W. Modded Adcom 555 Pro into a Soundcraft 8 pair speaker switcher using Soundrunner speaker cable. I have 6 pairs of various book shelf speakers hooked up to the switcher with a set Of Emovia B1 speakers arriving Monday. I had considered getting some high end speakers but Figured I be better off upgrading what goes into the speakers. My monitoring sound stage is the unbelievable and the best ever in this room. Clients and Friends can't believe how great the Ns10's, Auratones, J.B.L, Polk, speakers sound. Can't wait to hear the Emovias. I no longer feel the need to buy expensive speakers. I've been criticized for the multiple speaker setup. I just read the Tape Op article with F. Reid Shippen. His monitor controller only has 3 speaker selections. He wishes he could have a wall of speakers. I just got a pair of the B1's. They sound good with my JW modded 545. I'm liking them as another reference and just for listening to music on. They are definitely hi-fi sounding, with a really smooth top and surprising amount of lowend for their size. I'm planning on getting the Pro-ject S2 soon.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 23, 2018 17:32:32 GMT -6
Can someone tell me exactly how I would I hook this up to my Apollo 8?
I don't use "High Sierrea", but I wouln't want to be prevented from using it.
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Post by jeromemason on Jun 23, 2018 19:13:00 GMT -6
Either the lightpipe or RCA Spdif out and then on to your speakers/monitor controller.
The only problem with an OS is if you're running off the USB from the comp. If you use the Apollo for main playback from your comp it wouldn't phase you anyways. You'd only be able to go up to 192/24. If you went USB, which can be simultaneously hooked up with the Apollo, then you open yourself to MQA and ultra high sample rates and 32 bit.
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Post by bram on Jun 23, 2018 21:34:11 GMT -6
What benefit is there going up beyond 192/24 or MQA when working at/listening to material at or beneath those rates?
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Post by jeromemason on Jun 23, 2018 23:55:08 GMT -6
Most MQA stuff is 48k - 96k on Tidal. It's still a compressed format, but to my ears it sounds extremely pure. I know a lot of ME's are not crazy about it, and I haven't really done that much digging to find out why, but it definitely sounds pretty incredible to me.
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Post by bram on Jun 24, 2018 0:45:55 GMT -6
So the S2 would reproduce those TIDAL masters at a higher quality when run off USB compared to optical from an interface?
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Jun 24, 2018 9:11:50 GMT -6
MQA isn't a conventional sample rate. It's a very high one with data above 20k losslessly compressed. This allows using better sounding filters than simply upsampling low sample rate recordings.
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Post by indiehouse on Jun 24, 2018 11:53:30 GMT -6
Is this why jeromemason and jimwilliams have been going on about this? Are you getting the same euphoric experience running this off of your interface, or just at super high resolution from USB?
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Jun 24, 2018 12:56:51 GMT -6
It would have to be USB because I understand that AES/EBU/SPDIF would strip out the MQA data.
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Post by jeromemason on Jun 24, 2018 13:04:47 GMT -6
Right...... The S2 has an MQA decoder inside it, so when you play an MQA recording from Tidal through it, the box will take a second or two and "MQA" will appear at the top. The only way to do this is by running it USB when you want to listen to MQA or ultra hi-res material.
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Post by bram on Jun 24, 2018 13:16:41 GMT -6
Ah, I didn't understand this. I'll have to do another A/B test when I'm back in town using the USB mode. My previous test listening to the TIDAL MQAs was using the optical connection.
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Post by Johnkenn on Jun 24, 2018 21:09:31 GMT -6
So when can we expect the other 7 billion people on the planet to listen with MQA? I keed I keed.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Jun 25, 2018 6:26:30 GMT -6
So when can we expect the other 7 billion people on the planet to listen with MQA? I keed I keed. When Tim CooK decides preach the new gospel of a better iTunes?
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Post by bram on Jun 27, 2018 19:51:41 GMT -6
Forgive my ignorance on this subject - In the interest of maximizing my output count - If I ran the S2 off of USB and selected it as main LR output in my DAW with my main IO interface selected for input, is clock sync a factor? If so how would I clock the S2 to the rest of the system? In Logic at least, if I select the S2 as the output interface then I'll lose the main interface's multiple out's - I'm getting into aggregate device territory, right? It's looking like coax/optical is the way to go at the sacrifice of the MQA functionality...
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