Can someone tell me why this is?
I recently bought a DVD player that does DVD-Audio.
I also recently bought a DAC1 converter.
One of the first DVD-A discs I bought is S. Dans latest.
I also own it on CD. I was interested to compare the sound of the two so i fed the digital out of my CD player into the optical input of the DAC-1. I also fed the DVD-A stereo mix to the coaxial inputs on the DAC-1. Then i switched the inputs on the Dac-1 to toggle between the two sources. The DVD was outputting 192/24bit. The signals then went thru an adacom power amp driving Bose 901'S (this is in my family room not my studio)
I expected to hear more depth- perhaps better imaging and, perhaps, some subtle differences in tone/timbre with the DVD-A.
I note that both the CD and the DVD-A were mastered by the same person at Sony Studios.
What I got was a drastic difference between the two.
The DVD seemed as if it was mastered completely differently. The lows were deeper/more extended and the highs on the DVD were much smoother - not as strident.
The EQ curves seemed to not even be close to one another.
Why would this be? Perhaps the DVD stereo mix is some derivative of the surrond mix rather than being a clone of the CD stereo mix? Even if so, why would the same mastering engineer cause them to end up in such different states?
In any case, the DVD version was much more balanced and listenable IMHO.