Timbre has a dictionary definition that’s surprisingly close to the audiophile one, it’s if an instrument (including the human voice) sounds like the instrument in question.
For the most part It’s a lot about the subtleties of the sound, for example I find timbre in the Aeolus to be lacking, everything is too smooth. The ZMF Biodynamic drivers don’t do this. It’s not really lacking detail per se, but it doesn’t manage it with the rest of the instrument sound playing.
There are tube amps out there, that can make a highhat sound more like a bell, these can be otherwise good amps, and there is a question of how much weight you put on it.
Personally it’s one of the more critical things especially in the midrange.
Honestly I can’t see myself buying a 10K DAC for headphones, but I didn’t see buying a 3K one either, and I very much don’t regret that, and I’ll probably buy another.
My 2c, for me the $3K DAC (now closer to $4K I guess) was as much of a leap over the $1K DAC as the $1K DAC was over a $200 DAC, but you have to have the rest of the chain in place to get the win.
A lot of the Nuance for me is the same across almost all the gear, better staging/separation, the ability to hear the space where the recording is taking place (which plays into the former), and the Timbre.
I also struggle to explain the differences, and I’ve thought it about it a lot, the best I can describe it is the ability to hear the small details while the big sounds are being produced.
Thanks for this, it’s funny how much of a struggle it is to describe things that I can now hear that I couldn’t before. My first example of this was upgrading to a USB reclocker which didn’t so much ADD to the music but instead I want to describe it as taking away noise from the music and hearing silence in passages of songs now is as exciting and revealing as the music itself.
Looking forward to the timbre experience. My current cans are about at their limit I think. LCD-2 f. Still patiently waiting for my Eikons to show up which I think will open up the bottleneck that the LCD 2 is currently.
I’m honestly though afraid of the dark side, it’s fucking easy to slip down the rabbit hole of wanting more. But what’s the ultimate high right? At so many points during the journey these last couple of years I’ve said… yeah, that’s perfection right there only to realize that there’s more BUT you gotta open your wallet up wide. Really wide.
For me, I use my gauge of how closely it can fool me into believing it is a live performance.
For example, in a car. You can tell a song is merely a playback. In our setups now, that certainly gets closer to that illusion.
With the increased electronics, if I can close my eyes and imagine a stage, where the instruments sound realistic, and can point out the direction of each instrument, that is an improvement of sound for me. The closer I get, the more of an upgrade I perceive.
I’ve yet to hear a $10K DAC, I’ve heard $50K+ turntable setups (and if you include the Phono preamp that’s not even trying for Summit-fi on Vynil).
I know I’ve said it before, but Vinyl just sounds like Vinyl, there are a lot of reasons for this, generally less compressed masters being one of them. But Vinyl really lives in the midrange, that’s where you hear the dynamics it can produce, because of limitations in the media, bass on Vinyl systems has a built in crossfeed (i.e. you don’t get completely distinct left and right), and that can make it sound very pleasing.
I think this dac kinda reminds me of my berkeley alpha dac reference 2, in how it’s pretty neutral but has a sense of balance to it, how it’s not overly forward or recessed, not overly sharp or overly smooth, just kinda does it’s thing and perhaps gets out of the way. That being said, I do think the berkeley is different in that it doesn’t have as much body and weight to the sound (but still just as tonally accurate), has a more impressive recreation of space (much more pronounced stage with more razor sharp placement, more holographic in a sense), tends to give better dynamics and also a bit less soft impact, and is more detail forward as well. So while I do think the berkeley is most likely a more capable performer, the bricasti tends to shoot for a similar goal as the berkeley, it’s scaled back in terms of performance and offers a more full rounded slightly more smooth sound compared to the berkeley which is a bit more pleasing for casual listening imo. Today it’s a similar chain as before but this time using a first watt j2 and the susvara instead of the lta and spatial audio. Also I should say that while the berkeley is a higher preforming dac sonically the bricasti is much more feature rich
I’m really tempted to bring both downstairs and see how they fare in a studio environment, but I would have to set up my pmc first lol. Although at least I already ran the wires for them
