{"id":1397,"date":"2018-12-30T02:32:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-30T02:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/?p=1397"},"modified":"2018-12-31T20:23:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T20:23:25","slug":"dac-preamp-headphone-amp-corda-soul-and-oppo-ha-1-7-of-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/2018\/12\/30\/dac-preamp-headphone-amp-corda-soul-and-oppo-ha-1-7-of-8\/","title":{"rendered":"DAC, Preamp, Headphone Amp: Corda Soul and Oppo HA-1 (7 of 8)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is part 7 of an 8 part series comparing the Meier Corda Soul and Oppo HA-1. Click <a href=\"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/2018\/12\/30\/dac-preamp-headphone-amp-corda-soul-and-oppo-ha-1\/\">here<\/a> for the introduction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fri 12\/28; speakers, direct, no EQ<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Beethoven; Early String Quartets; Emerson; Deutsche Grammophon\n<ul>\n<li>both great, only slightly different but equally good<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Brahms; Cello &amp; Piano; Pratt, Bailey; Telarc\n<ul>\n<li>Oppo: slightly darker, muddier<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Dvorak; Takacs; 96\/24: a bright recording with slightly excessive midrange echo\n<ul>\n<li>Same differences observed; the Oppo is kinder to this flawed recording<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Moussorgsky; Pictures at an Exhibition; Oue, Minnesota; Reference Recordings: a superb recording in every way; natural tonality, huge dynamics, depth, detail\n<ul>\n<li>Soul: slightly more resolving, but a touch sterile<\/li>\n<li>Oppo: familiar organic tonality, but details are slightly veiled especially with entire orchestra playing (higher IM distortion?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Schubert; Impromptus; Lupu; Decca: an incredible solo piano recording, and sublime performance.\n<ul>\n<li>Soul: more like a real piano; could be the best I have ever heard?<\/li>\n<li>Oppo: slightly more earthy and veiled (still very nice)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Tabula Rasa; Fleck, Bhatt; Waterlily 88\/24; Tracks 2-6\n<ul>\n<li>Soul: tighter mids and upper bass, incredible micro-detail of finger\/hands hitting the skin of the drums. Plankton!<\/li>\n<li>Oppo: fast transients, slightly looser bass, more organic sound<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Rebecca Pidgeon; The Raven; Chesky: mostly forgettable music, but has a couple of good tracks. Recording is not as good as it first sounds\n<ul>\n<li>Soul &amp; Oppo indistinguishable; both reveal the flaws in this recording. The Raven is a beautiful song, but I don&#8217;t know why audiophiles use this recording. It sounds artificially enhanced; probably sounds great in the car.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Red Stick Ramblers; Bring it on Down; Tracks 2, 11: a fantastic recording, sounds great at first and gets better with deep listening\n<ul>\n<li>Soul: tighter, more clarity, image depth, sweetness &#8211; WOW. I used to think the bass in this recording was less than perfectly tight and controlled, but the Soul changes that!<\/li>\n<li>Oppo: veiled especially in bass &amp; mids; slight emphasis on air &amp; transients (above treble range). Sounds great, but not on par with the Soul.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Gillian Welch; Harrow &amp; Harvest; same as above, dynamically compressed but otherwise great recording with very subtle voicing &amp; details\n<ul>\n<li>Soul: tight, pure, dynamic, microdetail\/plankton<\/li>\n<li>Oppo: a touch more upper midrange edge to voices, softer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Pizzarelli; Kisses in the Rain; Telarc\n<ul>\n<li>Soul, Oppo: very similar, virtually indistinguishable<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Phil Woods; Little Big Band; Chesky: great performances, a good recording but a bit thin sounding\n<ul>\n<li>Soul: cleaner, tighter<\/li>\n<li>Oppo: slight emphasis on harmonics accentuates timbral differences of the saxes and trumpet<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Observations\n<ul>\n<li>Again, a day of listening for musical engagement and enjoyment rather than criticism.<\/li>\n<li>Yesterday I found that I enjoyed and preferred the Oppo on about 2\/3 of the recordings I listened to across a variety of genres.<\/li>\n<li>This was contrary to my expectations. I know the Soul is designed and built to higher engineering standards and wanted to like it more. But my ears told me a different story.<\/li>\n<li>Last night I was almost convinced that the Oppo was a keeper and I&#8217;d be passing on the Soul. The Soul might be a \u201cbetter\u201d amp but I found the Oppo more engaging and enjoyable to listen to.<\/li>\n<li>I almost boxed up the Soul. But I told myself, you have another day, might as well use it.<\/li>\n<li>Today those tables started to turn. On almost all the recordings I had a slight preference for the Soul. Perhaps it takes some time to get comfortable with a different sound.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/2018\/12\/30\/dac-preamp-headphone-amp-corda-soul-and-oppo-ha-1-8-of-8\/\">Next<\/a> (and finally), conclusion and summary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is part 7 of an 8 part series comparing the Meier Corda Soul and Oppo HA-1. Click here for the introduction. Fri 12\/28; speakers, direct, no EQ Beethoven; Early String Quartets; Emerson; Deutsche Grammophon both great, only slightly different but equally good Brahms; Cello &amp; Piano; Pratt, Bailey; Telarc Oppo: slightly darker, muddier Dvorak; &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/2018\/12\/30\/dac-preamp-headphone-amp-corda-soul-and-oppo-ha-1-7-of-8\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DAC, Preamp, Headphone Amp: Corda Soul and Oppo HA-1 (7 of 8)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1397"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1419,"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions\/1419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}