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Paris sound... Upper Bass Heavy? [message #108100] Tue, 04 February 2014 10:08 Go to next message
excelav is currently offline  excelav   UNITED STATES
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Registered: July 2005
Location: Metro Detroit
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Thought I'd start a new thread so I don't hijack the mixing and upper bass thread.

So, this brings me back to the same old questions about Paris. Are the Paris A to D converters a big part of the Paris sound or not? In the Past DJ and others used modern Word Clock generators to tighten up the bass and to give it more shimmer on top with good results. The Apogee Big Ben being a solid choice out of many. So is it fair to compare 1997 Paris clocking to today's hardware with better clocking? Obviously a better clock will improve the Paris converters, but how much? Can Paris with a better clock stand toe to toe with today's hardware? It would be nice to see and hear Paris up against modern hardware and use the same clock for both and compare them. For most stuff I think Paris would sound better. Your thoughts? The big question again, are the A to D converters a part of the Paris sound?

In the past Chuck Duffy stated that saturation is going on at different stages in the ESP2 chip. Do you think the Paris sound is a result of the ESP2 chips? Do you guys think that you can bypass the Paris A to D converters and still get the same Paris sound? For the guys that are using Paris just for summing and mix down, do you think you are getting the same or better results by importing tracks into Paris as opposed to recording with the Paris A to D converters?

From Steve The Art Guy's archives of Chuck's post.
Chuck - the Paris Magic Sound
http://www.svn.net/artguy/paris.notes/3-10-03

Your thoughts?

James

[Updated on: Tue, 04 February 2014 10:12]

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Re: Paris sound... Upper Bass Heavy? [message #108102 is a reply to message #108100] Tue, 04 February 2014 12:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Doug Wellington is currently offline  Doug Wellington   UNITED STATES
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Registered: June 2005
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
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I'm with Ted on this. I think it's the EDS card.

CLOCK:
I'm a long term Lucid GENx6 user, mainly because I have so many digital devices that I need to have some kind of clock to keep them all in sync. Without the sync, I get nasty digital popping. Without analyzing the analogy too much, I think it's like the fuel you put in your car. If you don't have the octane, the car rattles and underperforms, but once you have enough octane that your car runs properly, a higher octane than that is not necessary and is just a waste of money. So, for example, I deal with cesium and rubidium clocks at the day job. We need them for coherency, but a super accurate 10MHz clock is *WAY* overkill for an audio setup. At some point, your clock is accurate enough...

CONVERTERS:
As for the converters themselves, well, I think the PARIS converters are alright, but not stellar. I'm really hoping to find a dead 8in card to disassemble so that I can reverse engineer the design. My plan is to create another 8in with newer amplifiers and more modern AD converters. Then we'll have a real comparison.

As for the output side, I've known a couple people who use the ADAT outputs into high end DA (Benchmark, etc) boxes and everything sounds great, again making me believe that the PARIS converters are decent enough, but that there is room for improvement. Again, it reinforces to me that the PARIS sound comes from the EDS card itself.

SOFTWARE:
And just to be orthogonal, I think the only time the PARIS software is really involved in the sound is during crossfades. Other than that, it's just a big remote control that hands streams of audio to the EDS card(s)...


Re: Paris sound... Upper Bass Heavy? [message #108104 is a reply to message #108102] Tue, 04 February 2014 13:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Wayne is currently offline  Wayne   UNITED STATES
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Registered: July 2008
Location: Las Vegas
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James,

I believe that the Paris sound is in the EDS too, but I have no technical knowledge to prove it. Just my ears.

By taking Cakewalk, Ableton, Sonar and PT "wave" files and drop'ping them directly in the editor and putting some Paris mojo on them, they sound much richer to me.

So, in my case, "no" (A-D) MEC 8-in module is used and "no" (D-A) is used since I pull my listening from the MEC digital out s/pdif. That about isolates it, I think.

Paris playback is MEC s/pdif out to Benchmark DAC-1 to Adams A7. Paris uses the Apogee Big Ben clock always.

ProTools playback is almost the same. USB M-audio FastTrackPro s/pdif out to DAC to A7. The BB clock is not used.

So playback and mixdown are almost identical and this is how I based my observations.

BB Clock and Benchmark DAC-1
I used Paris w/MEC 8-in for several years and became accustomed to the sound. When I upgraded my Paris playback with Adams A7 I heard more detail. I had been using Yamaha NS-10s. Then I added a clock and DAC. Each by themselves helped in clarity and distinction and tightness by approximately the same amount and it is noticeable. Each component showed improvement over Paris alone. However, all combined together, they did not have a cumulative effect that I thought it would. Great listening but not leaps above the Paris sound. Just better and better and quite enjoyable.

One last note. When I put Izotope's Ozone 4 (all in one mastering suite) on stereo stems in both PT and Paris, PT will pump but Paris transports me . . . !

Wayne
Re: Paris sound... Upper Bass Heavy? [message #108105 is a reply to message #108102] Tue, 04 February 2014 13:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
excelav is currently offline  excelav   UNITED STATES
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Registered: July 2005
Location: Metro Detroit
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I think it's the EDS card too, I also think it is the way the software utilizes the the ESP2 chips.

Hey Doug, you might want to check with thesoniq to see if he has any dead parts. I'd give him a call, he might be a good source of info too.

http://www.thesoniq.com/

James

[Updated on: Tue, 04 February 2014 13:49]

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Re: Paris sound... Upper Bass Heavy? [message #108106 is a reply to message #108105] Tue, 04 February 2014 14:33 Go to previous message
Doug Wellington is currently offline  Doug Wellington   UNITED STATES
Messages: 251
Registered: June 2005
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
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Yeah, tried before several times over the years, absolutely no luck with getting any info from Thesoniq.

I suppose it won't hurt to try again. (Shrug) What do I have to lose...?


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