Kolkata Audio Meets Q3-Q4 2018 / Q1 2019

[haisaikat]

This is a synopsis of 3 audio meets we held in Kolkata between Q4 2018 and Q1 2019 at different places. It was great fun having these sessions where so many ideas and suggestions and even surprising findings happened. The idea to post the happening is not to come to a conclusion but to report the observations to help others

Meet 1 / 1st September 2018
Location: My place
Attendees: Myself, @subhashis_1980 , @Sandip Das , @Udayan sen
Base Setup: MS Aviano 6 Speakers, CA 650A Integrated Amp (my old amp, I no longer have this) , CA 851C CD Player, Zeus Z1 interconnect (Sound foundations), Allo Digione / RPI 3 pulling FLAC / WAV from LAN and connected with CDP Digital input via Othelo Coaxial cable (Sound foundations)
Additional items brought for the meet

• @subhashis_1980 : Sony 337-ESD CD Player (vintage CDP from 80s), Schiit Modi DAC, Jitterbug, MX 2RCA interconnects
• @Sandip Das : He is rightly termed as our eternal CD collector, brought some rare collector CDs from his precious collection of the likes of Mohra, Akele Hum Akele Tum

Objective: To compare various DACs and sources

Summary of observations

• It was a 4 hour session, 2 hours pre lunch and 2 hours post lunch. Over the course of this duration we listened to FLACs, WAVs, CDs of mostly Indian Bollywood origin including Saagar, Zubeidaa, Mohra, Akele Hum Akele Tum
• The different interconnects did not make any noticeable difference in limited swapping we did
• The Vocal of the Sony 337-ESD CDP sounded the most natuaral when its internal DAC was used
• Schiit Modi DAC and the internal DAC of CA 851C had more sharpness / brightness in their treble including female vocals but were better in bass department
• It is worthwhile noting that this Sony 337-ESD CDP being sourced from Japan is a 110 Volt version and hence had a separate 220-110 step down transformer
• The bare USB out of RPI for feeding to DAC is improved in aspects of detail in the music by the addition of the Jitterbug
• Another suggestion came up from the meet was to raise my stereo speaker to ear level at normal seating position to improve on highs.
• We could not make comparison of Jitterbig / Digione due to time, nor a detailed comparison of Schitt modi vs CA 851C CDP inbuilt DAC
• Because of my integrated setup could not utilize the in-built preamp of the Sony 337-ESD CDP.

Pictures from the meet

From left to right, myself, @subhashis_1980 , @ Sandip Das , @Udayan sen


The mighty Sony ESD 337 on the floor, on top of that the Schiit Modi DAC (This was my old setup rack, so had limited space, so apologies for the clumsy appearance). On the left the silver CA 851C CDP has the Allo Digione tucked in vertically on one of the sides. On the top left, its the RPI with Jitterbug on its USB feeding to USB DAC input of the CA 851C when this pic was taken. On the top left its the step down transformer of the Sony CDP.


Note: at the bottom left corner of this pic, its thumps up in summer heat, nothing suspicious

 

[haisaikat]

Meet 2 / 6th Jan 2019
Location: @SupriyoG 's place
Attendees: Myself, @Sandip Das , @Udayan sen, @newbee (pallab) , @anirban420, and of course @SupriyoG
Base Setup: Quadral Quintas 404 floorstand speakers, Technics SU-V3 Integrated Stereo Amplifier (Vintage Made in Japan Class-A amplifier), Rotel RA-01 Stereo integrated amplifier (vintage). @SupriyoG also has a Bose Acoustimass 2.1 and a pair of DIY bookshelves which we did not in this meet. He uses all regular interconnects and speaker wires which are mostly unbranded.

Additional items brought for the meet

• @Sandip Das : Disco Deewane CD from his eternal collection
• @newbee : IFI Micro battery powered DAC
• Myself : Allo Digione with TIDAL setup, Objective DAC / Audioquest Evergreen 3.5 to 2RCA interconnect, powered USB HDD with FLACs / WAVs, Othelo Co-axial Interconnect (Sound Foundations)
• @Udayan sen : S.M.S.L Sanskrit 6th DAC, MX Coaxial Cable, Sony Blu Ray Player to be used a transport
• @anirban420 : LG DVD Player and generic (read freely distributed ones with STB, DVD players, etc) interconnects and plethora of his manufactured CDs (he knows what I mean)

Objective: To compare various DACs and sources

Summary of observations

• It was a supposed to be a 4 hour session but due to unavoidable reasons myself and pallab reached late so the effective time of shootout was reduced. In the limited time we focused on 2-4 songs and played them multiple times, as much as 7-8 times to compare different combinations. @Sandip Das was frustrated hearing the same song again and again. Apart from Bollywood songs we also played the Duet Album (Tamil Version) for the excellent Saxo by Kadri Gopalnath
• Initial task was to identify which of the two stereo amps to use for the forward path and in short comparison with the same tracks we could identify unanimously that the Technics SU-V3 went way ahead of the Rotel RA-01 in terms of vocals and music both. The Quadral Quintas is a bass heavy speaker as it goes down to 28 Hz and is 89db sensitive. With Rotel the bass was also uncontrolled or too much in proportion.
• The Objective DAC was fed from Allo Digione and played TIDAL and was smooth sounding and being passively powered had less gain so volume of the amplifier needed to be cranked up.
• The Othelo Coaxial cable vs a third priced MX Coaxial cable did not reveal noticeable difference in that setup
• The cheapo interconnects had more sibilance effect in the output than the standard branded interconnects (pointed out by @Udayan sen )
• Between S.M.S.L Sansksrit 6th DAC and the IFI Micro DAC the later one just raced ahead in terms of balance in all frequencies and detail. However @Udayan sen pointed out that his SMSL DAC performed much better at his home.
• I forgot to carry the power supply of the Digione and no one had a 5v 2 amp power adapter handy, luckily there was a power strip available from which we fed multiple devices and had 1 USB charging port which was eventually used to power the digione
• The generic LG DVD player's digital output when playing a CD sounded better than Allo Digione's output of same song FLAC/WAV from powered hard drive in our test. Note this may not have been the ideal result but it is what all of us witnessed and agreed
• Several devices did not perform as expected and we anticipated later on that the power supply may have played a part as a result of which the IFI Micro Dac excelled too as it was battery powered. Similarly the Allo Digione also may have suffered from the input power like the Sanskrit 6th DAC.
• In the interest of time we could not compare various DAc inputs USB / Coaxial / Optical. A more detailed comparison for cheapo DVD player digital out vs the likes of branded CDP / Allo Digione could not be done.

Pictures from the meet

The whole setup at a glance, we made Supriyo da bring out everything from the rack.


The setup in close up, at the bottom the technics SU-V3, on top of it the Rotel RA-01, on top of it Sony Blue Ray Player (we did not use it eventually for time constraint) and on top the black LG DVD player. On top of that (in a very clumsy fashion the from left to right) ODAC, Digione, SMSL Sanskrit DAC and on top of it the white IFI Micro DAC.


@SupriyoG and @Sandip Das from left to right


The whole group, from left to right Anirban (@anirban420 ), Me, Pallab (@newbee ), @Sandip Das , @SupriyoG and sitting on the floor @Udayan sen


One more meet update to be posted will be posting soon.

 

[subhashis_1980]

@haisaikat, great job dude.. Just have to mention the warmth and great food funded by the host should also be mentioned. Great writing.. Whats more amazing is that we were meeting some of the folks for the first time and man did we not strike it to the hilt in our first meet. Also the fact he remembered everything.. Hats off to your mind dude.. Thanks again..

 

[haisaikat]

Meet 3 / 2nd February 2019
Location: My place
Attendees: Myself, @subhashis_1980 , @rpugalia (Rajneesh Da)
Base Setup: Morduant Short Aviano 6 Floorstand speakers, CA 840W power amp, Little Dot Mk II Pre Amp , All interconnects from DAC (ARX01A), CA 851C as Source and DAC, Allo Digione with TIDAL and Lossless files over LAN

Additional items brought for the meet

• @subhashis_1980 : Schiit Modi DAC, HTPC, ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card
• @rpugalia : Emotiva DC-1 DAC (he was still not owning it, had got from someone for evaluation, needed some more ears), his huge music collection

Objective: To compare DACs and Various Sources

Summary of observations

• This was probably the longest meet we have had so far from 11 am till 8 pm. Had its fare share of glitches, due to my power strip problem the HTPC setup never worked and hence unable to test the Xonar Essence STX sound card
• Because of the time we were able to listen to loads of tracks some played multiple times and varying over different genres and different formats be it Bengali Pop, Various forms of Rabindra sangeet, Western (Phil Collins, George Michaels, etc), Hindi
• Between the same song when we listened from TIDAL vs the Digital Lossless version over LAN via Digione, in some cases the LAN version sounded better when rest of the chain remained same. We did not compare a lot of files (1/2 Bollywood numbers) and another observation was that the TIDAL output was of lesser volume by default. Not sure of this prevails for majority of tracks.
• Between same file from CD vs Lossless version over LAN, no audible differences found, again with rest of the chain same
• When it came to comparing Digital outputs the Allo Digione playing a file over LAN and CA 851C CDP playing the same CD giving Digital coaxial out and both fed to the Schiit Modi DAC sounded identical. This goes to show that Digione Digital output is indeed quite good.
• There was a slight increase in detail of what we heard if we switched from standard power supply of the Digione to Powerbank based power. I used a Mi 20,000 mah powerbank. Guess the quality of power does matter. This was observation of @subhashis_1980 and the track used was the opening water stream sound of Tose Naina Laage / Zaveda Zindagi from Anwar
• We made comparisons over similar tracks between Inbuilt DAC of CA 851C, Schiit Modi DAC and the Emotiva DC-1, the lows / bass was marginally punchier in Modi DAC and the CA 851C, but the Emotiva had marginally smoother vocals and as I write here the difference is very minute and can only be found when you listen back to back. From this we drew the conclusion, if one is spending upwards of 18-20K INR in modern DACs the sound is upto a minimum standard that makes the listening experience more than joyful and little can be gained by moving upwards provided the source is good enough
• @rpugalia was considering the Emotiva dac since it had XLR out to feed his Crown Amplifier that powers part of his open baffles. He later on did purchase it eventually.

Pictures from the meet

The Emotiva Dac DC-1


From left to right, myself, @rpugalia (Rajneesh Da), @subhashis_1980


They Emotiva Dac playing with rest of the chain, the only short video clip from the evening, guess the track if you can (listen with headphones if possible)

 

[subhashis_1980]

Meet 3 / 2nd February 2019
Location: My place
Attendees: Myself, @subhashis_1980 , @rpugalia (Rajneesh Da)
Base Setup: Morduant Short Aviano 6 Floorstand speakers, CA 840W power amp, Little Dot Mk II Pre Amp , All interconnects from DAC (ARX01A), CA 851C as Source and DAC, Allo Digione with TIDAL and Lossless files over LAN

Additional items brought for the meet

• @subhashis_1980 : Schiit Modi DAC, HTPC, ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card
• @rpugalia : Emotiva DC-1 DAC (he was still not owning it, had got from someone for evaluation, needed some more ears), his huge music collection

Objective: To compare DACs and Various Sources

Summary of observations

• This was probably the longest meet we have had so far from 11 am till 8 pm. Had its fare share of glitches, due to my power strip problem the HTPC setup never worked and hence unable to test the Xonar Essence STX sound card
• Because of the time we were able to listen to loads of tracks some played multiple times and varying over different genres and different formats be it Bengali Pop, Various forms of Rabindra sangeet, Western (Phil Collins, George Michaels, etc), Hindi
• Between the same song when we listened from TIDAL vs the Digital Lossless version over LAN via Digione, in some cases the LAN version sounded better when rest of the chain remained same. We did not compare a lot of files (1/2 Bollywood numbers) and another observation was that the TIDAL output was of lesser volume by default. Not sure of this prevails for majority of tracks.
• Between same file from CD vs Lossless version over LAN, no audible differences found, again with rest of the chain same
• When it came to comparing Digital outputs the Allo Digione playing a file over LAN and CA 851C CDP playing the same CD giving Digital coaxial out and both fed to the Schiit Modi DAC sounded identical. This goes to show that Digione Digital output is indeed quite good.
• There was a slight increase in detail of what we heard if we switched from standard power supply of the Digione to Powerbank based power. I used a Mi 20,000 mah powerbank. Guess the quality of power does matter. This was observation of @subhashis_1980 and the track used was the opening water stream sound of Tose Naina Laage / Zaveda Zindagi from Anwar
• We made comparisons over similar tracks between Inbuilt DAC of CA 851C, Schiit Modi DAC and the Emotiva DC-1, the lows / bass was marginally punchier in Modi DAC and the CA 851C, but the Emotiva had marginally smoother vocals and as I write here the difference is very minute and can only be found when you listen back to back. From this we drew the conclusion, if one is spending upwards of 18-20K INR in modern DACs the sound is upto a minimum standard that makes the listening experience more than joyful and little can be gained by moving upwards provided the source is good enough
• @rpugalia was considering the Emotiva dac since it had XLR out to feed his Crown Amplifier that powers part of his open baffles. He later on did purchase it eventually.

Pictures from the meet

The Emotiva Dac DC-1
View attachment 34456

From left to right, myself, @rpugalia (Rajneesh Da), @subhashis_1980
View attachment 34455

They Emotiva Dac playing with rest of the chain, the only short video clip from the evening, guess the track if you can (listen with headphones if possible)

Too good @haisaikat.. All the nuances captured beautifully

 

[Sandip Das]

This is a synopsis of 3 audio meets we held in Kolkata between Q4 2018 and Q1 2019 at different places. It was great fun having these sessions where so many ideas and suggestions and even surprising findings happened. The idea to post the happening is not to come to a conclusion but to report the observations to help others

Meet 1 / 1st September 2018
Location: My place
Attendees: Myself, @subhashis_1980 , @Sandip Das , @Udayan sen
Base Setup: MS Aviano 6 Speakers, CA 650A Integrated Amp (my old amp, I no longer have this) , CA 851C CD Player, Zeus Z1 interconnect (Sound foundations), Allo Digione / RPI 3 pulling FLAC / WAV from LAN and connected with CDP Digital input via Othelo Coaxial cable (Sound foundations)
Additional items brought for the meet

• @subhashis_1980 : Sony 337-ESD CD Player (vintage CDP from 80s), Schiit Modi DAC, Jitterbug, MX 2RCA interconnects
• @Sandip Das : He is rightly termed as our eternal CD collector, brought some rare collector CDs from his precious collection of the likes of Mohra, Akele Hum Akele Tum

Objective: To compare various DACs and sources

Summary of observations

• It was a 4 hour session, 2 hours pre lunch and 2 hours post lunch. Over the course of this duration we listened to FLACs, WAVs, CDs of mostly Indian Bollywood origin including Saagar, Zubeidaa, Mohra, Akele Hum Akele Tum
• The different interconnects did not make any noticeable difference in limited swapping we did
• The Vocal of the Sony 337-ESD CDP sounded the most natuaral when its internal DAC was used
• Schiit Modi DAC and the internal DAC of CA 851C had more sharpness / brightness in their treble including female vocals but were better in bass department
• It is worthwhile noting that this Sony 337-ESD CDP being sourced from Japan is a 110 Volt version and hence had a separate 220-110 step down transformer
• The bare USB out of RPI for feeding to DAC is improved in aspects of detail in the music by the addition of the Jitterbug
• Another suggestion came up from the meet was to raise my stereo speaker to ear level at normal seating position to improve on highs.
• We could not make comparison of Jitterbig / Digione due to time, nor a detailed comparison of Schitt modi vs CA 851C CDP inbuilt DAC
• Because of my integrated setup could not utilize the in-built preamp of the Sony 337-ESD CDP.

Pictures from the meet

From left to right, myself, @subhashis_1980 , @ Sandip Das , @Udayan sen
View attachment 34424

The mighty Sony ESD 337 on the floor, on top of that the Schiit Modi DAC (This was my old setup rack, so had limited space, so apologies for the clumsy appearance). On the left the silver CA 851C CDP has the Allo Digione tucked in vertically on one of the sides. On the top left, its the RPI with Jitterbug on its USB feeding to USB DAC input of the CA 851C when this pic was taken. On the top left its the step down transformer of the Sony CDP.
View attachment 34425

Note: at the bottom left corner of this pic, its thumps up in summer heat, nothing suspicious

it was a nice experience.. specially the Sony 337-ESD CD Player. its amazing. also the cambridge and modurnt short combo are great.

 

[Naturelover]

eto kichu mone rakha sotti taff..

English or Hindi please

 

[Nikhil]

Great writeup @haisaikat! Thanks for sharing!

It is always fun to get together and hear gear. That is what this hobby is all about.
The more you share these experiences the more we all learn about audio.

It looks like you have a great group of guys in Kolkata!
Look forward to more such writeups and get togethers.

Regards



.

 

[haisaikat]

Great writeup @haisaikat! Thanks for sharing!

It is always fun to get together and hear gear. That is what this hobby is all about.
The more you share these experiences the more we all learn about audio.

It looks like you have a great group of guys in Kolkata!
Look forward to more such writeups and get togethers.

Regards



.

Thanks for the appreciation Nikhil, we do have enthusiastic folks here in Kolkata and I am sure this forum has even more all over the globe . The intent to write out is to encourage more people to conduct such meets and share the experiences. I learn so many things and am sure others will do that too. We have some meet planned for April. If that happens will surely post.