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Sound quality SL vs FS1 vs FS2.
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Sound quality SL vs FS1 vs FS2.

Kone 3:14 PM - 21 December, 2006
Hi all,
first, thank everybody participating in this forum, a lot of important information.

Can you please write me exact models of D/A converters used inside those products?

All I could find in internet is FS1 used Phillips converters (model unknown), and that Phillips stopped producing them because of poor quality.
What about SL? Steve M mentioned models used in 57: D/A - AKM AK4356. Are the same models inside SL too?

Somebody here wrote that FS2 sound better and wormer than SL (or is it was just louder?) What others think? Anybody did A-B testing?

Another important question: does those products change sound quality of normal vinyl from phono ins before putting it in phono out?

I own FS1 and sometimes i notice that my vinyls sound bad being passed through the box. More distorted. I often play b2b with another 'vinyl only' DJ, and he don't want his vinyls to be passed through my FS aps, because he feels FS makes his vinyls sound worse. Does SL alter sound from phono ins?

I see its a lot of former FS owners switched to SL here. A agree with them, two DJs from my crew also own SL now. For me scratching is not important, i just play music, beat matching and good sound quality is important. I don't use mp3, only aiff files. FS1 works fine for me in terms of stability, its stable with PowerBook G4 256Mb. (I wont mention all the NI registration and upgrade problems, or this restart-restart-restart thing, you all know, but I can stand it). What sucks is sound quality. Sometimes it's good, sometimes its distorted, even when i play normal vinyls passed through FS aps. Maybe my aps got that defective Phillips chips inside? Strange. I can't believe FS don't do quality control of each product.
I want at least sound not worst than middle class DJ CD players. I already have bought many wav tracks, and don't know what to do now. One solution is to burn CDs and play from CD players, combining with vynils, but beat matching on CD players is something above my possibilities, I tried and it just too unnatural for such an vinyl touch addict.

Sometimes I feel all this Digital Djing thing is too young to be used in clubs, and needs some 5 years before descend product will appear. We're all beta testers for companies, but we even pay a lot!

Still the biggest problem of all Digital DJ products is playing on big sound systems - vibration from strong sub-bass sometimes makes my FS behave strange. When you say things about narrower dynamic range of vinyl comparing to wav, I could say its only technical point of view. We all know vinyl sound better anyway. Probably due to special mastering. Probably due the way vinyl warms the sound. I don't know. It's very human feel, and its hard to describe in technical terms. But I have spoken to many DJs about that. And its much more stable and reliable. It just plays in any circumstances. We all know that music we play is often for some broken factories or rave parties on beach where CD players or computers just don't work because of rain, wind, dust, or vibration from sub. Its not only club thing.

Anyway this all lyrics, please answer my questions about D/A converters and altering sound by passing phono signal through the boxes.

Thanx. Have a good day.
nik39 4:09 PM - 21 December, 2006
UDA1325H/N104 thats the FS1 chip.

download.yousendit.com <- click. Thats the bug report confirming audio dropouts being a inherent problem of the chip itself.

Quote:
Sometimes I feel all this Digital Djing thing is too young to be used in clubs, and needs some 5 years before descend product will appear. We're all beta testers for companies, but we even pay a lot!

I had the same feeling when I used FS1 back in the days. Those days are over. I never had a single crash with any official SSL release.

Quote:
Still the biggest problem of all Digital DJ products is playing on big sound systems - vibration from strong sub-bass sometimes makes my FS behave strange

Take the red pill - you will live your old live. Take the blue pill - you will enter a completely new world with SSL. You choose.
nik39 4:19 PM - 21 December, 2006
Quote:
PROBLEM REPORT
Number Problem Report: 03
Problem Description: Device droppes audio frames during playback
Report issued by: Paul Schaefer
Subject: N104 V1.0.1.16 implementation

Extended Problem Description (optional):
To reproduce the problem we used an Hitex emulator as well as our development boards
We also made sure that the USB signal was as perfect as possible.
This means that we had no bus error at all and a correct stream of ISO packet.
We did the experiment with a 1kHz and a 2kHz sine wave.
We had an investigation into the Firmware.
1) Removal of all firmware that access both the ADIF and ADAC registers
2) Change the sequence of initialisation. meaning starting with DIGITAL IN switch on and later switching to
ANALOGUE Inputs
3) Changing the initialisation sequence.
4) Checking of all the initialisation constant and variables.
We found nothing so far that could explain or solve the problems.
We had an investigation into the hardware, and tried the modifications on our development boards.
We used the emulator, a codec with internal code and one with external memory.
1) HF short circuit of the analogue inputs
2) Change various rc network on the card
3) Checked all values of all components
4) Increase the Reset capacitor from 0uF to 147uF
5) change to IIS input only.
We found that in 4) there is a decrease in the number of dropped frame as the capacitor becomes larger.
The problem does not disappear entirely.
In solution 5) we have observed that there is no Dropped frame during playback unless an IIS signal is present.
In this case the problem of dropped frame reappears.
The problem a) no audio is been investigated in Sunnyvale.
This a very brief summary of all the work we have done so far.
The next step is to look into the IC to find the cause of the problem.

Proposed Solution (optional):
None so far...

The (at that time publicly available report) is from 2001 IIRC. Which means NI+Stanton were aware of that problem since then but declined any problems towards the customers.

Did you know that FS2 has not been developed for almost 2 years? Did you know that NI decided to support FS2 with Traktor 3 line? So you could upgrade for $200 from FS2 to Traktor 3. Did you know that from the 1st of January 2007 Final Scratch Support will be removed from Traktor? Some would call this fraud. So you bought FS1, it didnt work, bought FS1.1 upgrade, it didnt work, bought FS1.5, cause that was supposed to fix the problems (eh... bug fixing - why do I need to pay?? it didnt work in the first place - so the product itself is faulty...), didnt work, bought FS2, still bugs, bought TRaktor 2.6 cause that was supposed to really fix the probkems, still problems, bought Traktor 3, cause that was supposed to really really fix all the problems. In the mean time you bought a MacBook from Apple cause "windows PC never run good - that is because FS crashes". Great, it doest work... so after almost one year of waiting NI finally releases a Apple Intel update. Free? Hey! This was supposed to fix bugs. This aint free my brother! Traktor 3.2. Intel Apple compatible.

From 01.01.2007 no more Final Scratch support from the Traktor software.
Kone 6:10 PM - 21 December, 2006
nic39 thanx for your answer.
I was not going to buy FS2, no way! Your information only makes my opinion deeper.

Still, what you think about quality of D/A converters in SL? And does it alter sound of normal vinyl being passed through it phono in/phono out?
nik39 6:19 PM - 21 December, 2006
Honestly... since using SSL I dont lug around my vinyl crates with me. I did take them with me when using FS1 though... never felt confident enough. Admitted, I always have a backup crate of vinyls with me, but I cant remember the last time when I had to use it.

I heard, that with FS2 the thrus are not good either, esp as they work passively. The SL1 has active thrus, which will of course color the sound a little. When I record my vinyls I still use the FS2 as a recording device, or better, I used to use it. Now there is no need for this because I have the TTM57SL, which is a great device esp. for recording.

Quality of D/A, def. better than the FS1 D/A. I would say there is not much of a difference quality wise between the FS2 and SL1 D/A, but this is a subjective opinion not based on any deeper facts, just listening. Keep in mind the FS2 A/D and D/A have 24Bit/96kHz, not important if you play back (cause I'd say 99% is 48/44.1kHz at 16Bit) but it may give you better results when recording.

Maybe. Maybe not.™
Kone 6:50 PM - 21 December, 2006
nik39,
I don't feel like going to records my entire vinyl collection just for minimizing the stuff I have to bring to club. I don't fly for DJ set buy now. If I change my mind, I will rather use old ProTools system for that.
I prefer to combine vinyl and digital, because some tracks is only deserve to be played couple of times, so digital is perfect for them, other - timeless music I prefer to have on vinyl. Especially live recorded jazz or funk or reggae. Or anything wich is not electro sound.
I agree FS2 24/96 option is really not important, as all the files are 16/44. Also many soundguys report that today's cheap 24/96 converters sound much worse than old expensive 16/44 ones. Recording vinyl at 24/96 and than converting to 16/44 will not give any advantage.

So I wait for other users for their opinion on SL thrus.