(ES9038 on Coax & RCA)
Tedeschi Trucks Band Live from the Fox, Oakland (96kHz/24-bit FLAC) –
I have seen Derek Trucks in both of his former groups, The Derek Trucks Band (twice live) and The Allman Brothers (four times live). I am going to see Tedeschi Trucks Band for the first time in July (in the town of my old engineering school, Raleigh, NC!) and I am excited to hear this duo finally in person! Basically, I know how Trucks sounds when he plays live and I have listened to his studio work for hundreds of hours, maybe thousands (car trips add up fast). Without further ado, these are my thoughts on the performance of these components during this excellent live high res album.
We begin with the ES9038P + FUN01 going into a SMSL sAp-10 balanced headphone amplifier, although we are using RCA for fairness sake. I have considered comparing balanced (the hardware interface) out of the sAp-10 once I have the “Blue Dragon” cable and EL-8 connectors from Moon Audio to a 4-pin XLR from Neutrik. This is the balanced output from the sAp-10 that is offered alongside the ¼” jack.
Back to the music at hand, this is one of the most lively and upbeat live albums I have had the pleasure of listening to in a while. This will be my first opportunity to listen to this album, for the sake of the review! From the start of the first track we hear the crowd noise tumble into our sound field, the drum rolls left to right, everything seems just how you want it. Flat curve with complete neutrality throughout the frequency spectrum and even though they jam out hard at The Fox, it’s not fatiguing. I know that my EL-8s definitely help in that area, though, also having the Kenwood C-2 really is a life saver and worth every penny. The C-2 comes alive further when we take the time to mod it for modern discrete op-amps! Giving the tone control the V5i-Ds from Burson Audio was an easy call, these tone controls are a crucial part of my rig. Each album has its own EQ and I have an EQ that I want to create for my system, so a pre-amp caters to this need. At least if you get one with decent tone controls like we have on the C-2. All final impressions are done with the tone neutrality (tone controls disabled/off).
The guitar is placed right in the center of the sound stage, the crowd seems to encircle the guitar during the track “Keep on Growing”. If you listen, close your eyes and really listen, the crowd is all around you and the instruments come from dead center, if the stage was a 360 sphere in front of your face. We get to the bluesy, slower “Bird on a Wire” piano opening, which I love. Growing up with Aretha Franklin and Led Zeppelin, creates an eclectic ear. An ear that loved Zeppelin’s “Trampled Underfoot” because of the keyboard solo! This album hits so many genres without having to try, it transplants you. Then in comes Susan Tedeschi, who delivers all the vocal sweetness and texture like the great ones from the past. Ever since I heard her sing “Midnight in Harlem” at Eric Clapton’s 2010 Crossroads on Blu-Ray, I was sold. The fact she married one of the top touring guitarist in the world, was definitely a plus! “Bird on a Wire” is such a powerful track, Tedeschi gives a soulful and church hymn inspired tune a modern feel, with her own special touches at every chance she gets. The sound of Tedeschi coming in the EL-8s compared to the piano, drums and backup singers, almost seems to be coming from “above” you, like an angel singing down
It’s time to switch over to the Burson Play after I have a good sense of the ES9038P and its performance on coaxial. I can’t deny it, I listened to “Within You, Without You” twice, once with the ES9038P + FUN01 and once with the Play (both setups were using the SMSL sAp-10 headphone amp into the EL-8 open-backs). I put the Play on and closed my eyes, in order to imagine this sound field and pick up on the details I noticed a change with. The first thing was the jump in decibel (which I had to correct obviously), but it is worth noting that the Burson Play overall has so much more gain than my ES9038P, maybe 4x. The Play is loud enough to easily damage your hearing, especially when you are using things like a pre-amp with a power amplifier. Be safe with your gain levels and protect your hearing!
What I noticed first was the goose bumps on my arms when using the Play, honestly. The first time I played the first track, it was like I was actually there (when I closed my eyes and focused on the sound). I’m doing it now with the track “These Walls”. The guitar seems to originate from some ancient stone cave due to the sound of the instrument and the echo captured, but there is a large crowd of people around too. This strange instrument being played, not one I can name (sorry guys/gals), it seems to grab your attention and sort of tickles your brain with a melody almost hypnotic in its timing. Derek Trucks starts to play along with them, sounds like he is using a slide guitar on this track. The drum comes in, slowly at first, with a jazz type sound and all of a sudden we have Susan singing again. This is a song I absolutely love, titled “These Walls”. It’s so easy to pick out each instrument when you open your ears and just sit and focus on the track. The Play has so many strengths and I’m not just saying that for the purpose of this review, I plan to prove it actually. We will eventually put the Play and the ES9038P + FUN01 into RightMark and my oscilloscope to see what is going on!
This will probably be the longest listening test of this review because this band means a lot to me and I hope this review will help to expose this album as one of the few great modern releases by a real rock band. They always say, write about things that are meaningful to you, well here you go! Susan Tedeschi is able to build up the momentum of the track so well, but then we transition to a slower paced slide guitar and what sounds to be an acoustic slide of some sort. Then Derek Trucks is just playing normally, he just sounds like that on a normal guitar. The man is a genius when it comes to playing, you can quote me on that.
The Play comes away here really cementing the way I feel about how it stacks up. I only hope this continues once the ES9038P is running on I2S also! That will be something that should interest people who may not be interested in the overall review topic! Is I2S that important where a DAC/Amp combo can compete against using all discrete components? The placement and dynamics that the Play is able to achieve, really creates an impressive sound field to get lost into. The track returns to what it opened up with and then it closes out as smoothly as it came in. I’d probably have to give the Burson Play the win (while the album was playing through coax on the ES9038P setup).
Table of Contents:
- Review Main Page
- Competition Hardware Descriptions:
- Review Hardware Info v2.0 vs. v1.6 Burson Audio Play:
- Digital Noise/Mouse Distortion + Solution: (USB Ground Headaches)
- Opening Thoughts on Voicing of Burson “Play” vs. ES9038Pro:
- Listening Tests Streaming: ES9038 on Coax + RCA out
- A Closer Look at Oversampling & Noise Filtering: (It’s Not Magic!)
- Listening Test Music (Pt 1): (Adele with ES9038P on I2S)
- Listening Test Music (Pt 2): (Tedeschi Trucks Band with ES9038P on Coax)
- A note on Converting PCM to DSD with Foobar2000: (DSD64 Clicking)
- Balanced vs. Unbalanced: (Understanding the ES9038’s Performance)
- Adding I2S Input To ES9038 DAC: (Power Tools and Soldering Irons)
- Measurements/Technical Page
- Closing Remarks: (The Verdict)