Burwen Bobcat promises to turn digital sound into "better than analog" quality
posted August 19th 2005 5:31AM
Here's the deal with Burwen Bobcat: it's sold as a combination software and hardware DAC package, and promises to
convert sound from digital sources such as CDs, DVDs and MP3s into an audio stream that sounds "equal to or better than
analog and SACD." Sounds like a neat trick. The digital audio converter connects to your Windows XP machine via USB,
takes the digital audio signal from your computer and generates what is reportedly a very high quality analog signal
via an RCA connection to your stereo amplifier. The software part of the equation supposedly removes the "digitalness"
of the audio stream, and the Daniel Hertz DAC takes the resulting bitstream and converts it to analog with a "warm,
open, natural sonic quality that music lovers want." The reviews on the resulting sound quality? Well, they're mixed.
And truly, we're a bit skeptical. Do we even know what "better than analog" is supposed to sound like?
[Thanks, Luca]
the only thing that I can imagine sounding better than analog sound is live sound... so unless the DAC poops out a band for me to listen to, dunno what kinda gear these guys are trying to churn out...
...it goes to eleven.
Mr. Levinson is the king of bs. I bet you he literally shits BS. Red Rose Music is nothing but rebranding Chinese made components (about 10x the price as Korsun, same things). The fact that he endorses this made me want to stay away from it.
From his website, "The listening fatigue of PCM digital audio is virtually eliminated." Wow, I have never felt "fatigued" from listening to music.
You forgot to mention the price--$1500! No thanks.
This is like a self help book for problems people don't have...
Do we even know what “better than analog” is supposed to sound like?
um...that would be real sound, the kind that comes out of instruments.
I thought digital was..."better than analog". What am I missing? What is the advantage?
listening fatigue is a real phenomenon. digital audio is just slices of sound (actually a single tone per slice) that our brain pieces together to form what sounds like a full range of music.
i guess what this thing does is just fill in some of the gaps, much like a digital tv fills in the interlacing gaps when you're watching analog programming. CD's are based on 16-bit audio, which was good for when they came out, but they do not sound as full and warm as analog recordings... but SACD's pretty much do the same thing as what the Denon claims to do (only it records all of its information directly from the source, doesnt have to make up and simulate a fuller sound).
did i say Denon? it's early. too many engadget updates.
Another overpriced and pointless piece of gear for dorks like matt (#9) who would rather *listen to the gear* instead of the music.
It's a DAC and... why is this special or different? Because of the snake-oil phrase "Better than analog"? (wtf?)
Now you got all the newbs coming out with their "oh noes teh digital slices... not as warm and full as analog recordings!" and such silliness. If you want to improve your sound quality, invest that $1500 into your speakers and amplifier.
When I was a kid (1970's), I had a neighbor who was an audiophile who had a Burwen dynamic noise reduction unit and their click and pop unit that reduced clicks and pops from LPs (round discs of vinyl with grooves that a teeny tiny diamond ran through to make sound).
Both of those machines were totally awesome!
Ray Dolby's tone-matching noise reduction system was new and the Burwen's ability to reduce noise while letting really crisp tones come off a cassette or 4-channel reel-to-reel was stunning. Even when Dolby B came out, the Burwen gave better sound.
I bet that this unit is tremendous! For those of us who remember and miss analogue recordings thsi could be a great thing!
i wish there were some sample mp3's of this machine in action we could listen to...
err, wait...
better then analog? As in better then the actual band played. so Crass and Bob Dylan cd's will finally be listenable for more then the lyrics?!? awesome. Maybe it can even make my garage band sound good!
heh for 1500 you could get a state of the art record player and enjoy true analog sound.
listening fatugue..hahhahahahahah
the problem is not to sound better than analog, the problem is that when you plug your computer to a decent amplifier with decent speakers : MP3's songs sound like shit. And this is the only device that solve the problem, but I agree quite expensive, but to replace your old high quality CD player and converter is may be worth. Just a shame is not Mac compatible
#16, a $1500 DAC would not solve the problem of bad MP3s sounding bad.
This is BS. Once audio is dithered down to a lower bit rate you can't get back higher. Alot of stuff in the studio is at 24 bit through most of the process these days. Most engineers now are recording through vintage discrete electronics to tape(if you can get it) or hard disc and putting it Pro Tools or tother. It's mixed in the box totally digital or flown out to a mixing desk and recorded to a master which is usually CD or DVD; still at 24 bit. It then goes to the mastering house which puts it in Sadie or other and using multi-thousand dollar discrete analog gear or very high end digital, they dither it down to 16 bit for the final master. Once the bits are gone, they are gone. The only thing that can be added is harmonics of the original content; such as devices by Waves, BBE, Aphex and a few others. Those devices can make a difference. It makes things sound fuller by adding top and bottom freqs. that usually get lost in dithering. But they can also make things muddy if too much gain is added. All his box probably is, is an upgraded analog front end going into the latest Bur Brown DAC. Maybe a better internal clock; probably made by Apogee or Lucid. There is no magic box. Good sound is acheived by tuning your room and your system with the best components you can afford. If you don't do that, you really don't know what your listening to. Of course not many people can afford or know how to do it, or even know what a good set of speakers sounds like. And that...is why we have MP3.
Be humble about sound. Sound reproduction is still a real matter and since 100 years of evolution it is the first time with Mp3 that technology rimes with regretion. For exemple if you did, once in your life, eat a "Poularde de Bresse" instead of KFC, you may understand that this experience was the only way to appreciate the difference. So, first of all, before any theorical divagation just try to listen to that stuff thru a good hifi system. And after that...let's talk !
Anything to get us away from those terrible mp3's. I can't stand listening to mp3's anymore. They lack so much warmth.
To those of you who are laughing about the ear fatigue thing, it's true. What they are talking about is when you listen to mp3's for a long time, it just becomes annoying to the ears. It doesn't happen nearly as quickly with cd's. I can't wait till they come up with a better way for me to listen to digital music on my computer.
Anything to get us away from those terrible mp3's. I can't stand listening to mp3's anymore. They lack so much warmth.
To those of you who are laughing about the ear fatigue thing, it's true. What they are talking about is when you listen to mp3's for a long time, it just becomes annoying to the ears. It doesn't happen nearly as quickly with cd's. I can't wait till they come up with a better way for me to listen to digital music on my computer.
David, humility is a virtue, but it can also be a weakness to be exploited by the unscrupulous. Audiophiles must be especially vigilant about detecting BS. Those who loudly insist upon a "fair hearing" first must realize that even trying out a new product usually involves paying for it. Most likely, this product does nothing more (at best) than interpolation and adding a "tube sound" to provide warmth at the expense of accuracy - and if they want that, buyers would be better served by achieving such results through a CD player, software (for MP3s), and/or an amplifier they like better, rather than shelling out for a specialized component.
I use the Apogee Mini-DAC with a pretty high end system and it sounds awesome. It makes a huge difference playing MP3s.
This replaced the M-Audio Transit USB which already made a big difference compared to the standard output.
The Apogee Mini-DAC does connect to both Macs and PCs via USB. No additional drivers are needed for the Mac.
I'm not sure how much better the Bobcat is, but saying "better than analog" doesn't me "live" or "better than live" as some scoffers here are implying. They're just saying that they think they can make music sound closer to live than analog.
I won't be trying it since my audio setup is through my Mac. It'd be great if they came out with a Mac version, although I don't like adding additional drivers etc onto my OS.
Bhavesh,
I read about your experience with the Apogee mini-DAC USB. I was tempted to get this DAC, until I read about the Burwen Bobcat DAC/software combo. At $1500, it comes to about the same as the Apogee mini-DAC (with USB) list price. What is your experience with the Apogee ? I'm planning to use to stream MP3 audio to a high-end system.
It's a difficult choice for me because both Apogee and Burwen has been associated with Mark Levinson. The latter modified an Apogee DA-2000 DAC to make it their "Cello Reference DAC", while Burwen worked with Cello to design probably the only audiophile equalizer to date, the Cello Palette (preamplifier or audio suite). It looks like Burwen has done with the Bobcat DAC combo what he did with the Cello Palette.
Many thanks !