Post
by Dreamer » Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:38 pm
True story:
A few days after I got my Benchmark DAC, and was running my Oppo through it as a transport, my stepdaughter came home from school and wanted to play me a song from her iPod. AS it turns out, it was a massively compressed MP3, AND as it turns out, I had recently purchased the CD that included this song.
So I hooked up her iPod through a headphone jack-to-RCA spitter into the "aux" input on my preamp, and let her listen to it for a while...
While she was listening to that, I cued up the same track on the CD playing on the Oppo through the Benchmark (connected to my Krell pre via silver XLR cables). The Krell was feeding a pair of bridged M-500ts driving my Martin Logan Sequels.
After a little bit I asked her if I could play something for her and she agreed. So I cued the iPod to synch with the CD player, and then started the iPod again, and let it play for a while, then switched the preamp over to the synched CD, so that the music pretty much just continued--in time--from the different source.
Now remember, this was a 21-year-old female art student--a true "fashionista", and a young lady who although VERY smart, creative, and aesthetically attuned, has NO interest in or real exposure to high-end audio, and she thought her iPod sounded pretty good through my rig...
But when I switched over to the CD, within a few beats, she squealed--"WOW--what did you do? That sounds AMAZING! Is that a different version of that song?"...
I told her no--same song, same album. It's just that this is the CD played through a good CD player, and your iPod (I switched it back) sounds like this. And it's NOT your iPod--it's the way the music was ripped...
So then I explained how Lossless ripping to iTunes would make it sound WAY better. She agreed to try it.
And I believe she still--to this day (some five years later) has pretty much eschewed those free download sites, and is actually BUYING her music on CDs, and ripping them in Apple Lossless before porting them to her phone.
She STILL doesn't care about high-end audio gear, or the experience that it provides, but at least I opened her eyes on the dramatic improvement that lossless ripping can provide.
It was a small victory, but a victory none the less...
.....• HT Rig • Sony STR-DG600 Receiver • Carver M-500t • Sony BDP-S1 • Sony DVP-NS3100ES • Apple Airport Express •
..............................• Martin Logan Scenarios, Logos • Realistic Minimus 7's • Velodyne F-1500b •
• 2 Ch. Rig • Carver C-4000t • Silver 7t's • Krell KAV-300i • Oppo DV-981HD • Benchmark DAC1-USB • MacBook Pro 17", iTunes •
......• Technics SL-1350 turntable with Sumiko headshell, leads, and Bluepoint cartridge • Martin Logan Sequels •
.........................................................-+-Click Here to see my system-+-
Is playing on the whole house system and walked in the HTR for a quick listen while Track 15 was playing. Track 15 is a cut by Jen Chapin called "You Haven't Done Nothin". The soundstage is so wide and deep, the Sax player sounds like he is almost in another room. He appears to be far behind and way to the left of the left channel speaker. 
