Page 4 - Listening Tests

Listening Tests

Let's cut of the heart of the Musketeer 3.  I used a Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Music as our reference for the duration of all the tests.  I do have a tube amp, a 100-watt Carvin X-Amp (80's baby), but it's not stereo and isn't made for full range audio.  In any event, the idea is to see how the Musketeer 3 changes the sound, good or bad.  I let the tube burn-in for an hour or so before testing, just to get it warmed up.

I used our trusty Grado SR-125's and Logitech Z-680's to handle the output.

Pizzicato Five

P5 are probably the most famous of the Shibuya pop bands and are totally perfect for the stereophonic tube sound experience.  I used the song I from Made in USA in 320kbps MP3. Nomiya Maki's voice is perfect for the tube, velvety sweet and delicious.  What is evident is that the Musketeer 3 doesn't have nearly the transparency of sound that the X-Fi has.  Sumimasen, Mr. Sparkle.  I also notice that the stereo field is not as deep as the X-Fi, either.  Letting the album play on to the song, Magic Carpet Ride, the Musketeer 3 gives a lot of sparkle to the many wind chimes that zoom around.  Switching back to the X-Fi, it's still no contest.  Not just sparkle, but they even sweep in the stereo field.  Channel separation is not to the level of the X-Fi.  There's a section of the song that is intentionally clipped to give it a 'huge' instrumental sound, but instead it turns into something from Children of Bodom.

Black Sabbath

Speaking of something with a little more bite, I turned to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, from the album of the same name.  This is an unfettered 24-bit / 96 kHz wave file recorded straight from the vinyl by the X-Fi.  The levels are very low, making sure not to overload the Musketeer 3.  Even at maximum everything, the Musketeer 3 was still soft.  It did sound good, however.  The drums had good 'snap' and cymbals were crisp and shiny.  At a matched volume level, the X-Fi and the Musketeer 3 did sound similar.  The X-Fi kills the Musketeer 3 at higher levels though.

Green Day

For an example of a 'hot' mastered song, I used Boulevard of Broken Dreams from American Idiot to see how the Musketeer 3 could handle it.  Not so well, I'm afraid.  At these higher levels, the tube distorts quite a bit, most notably in the chorus where the chords get thick and loud.  This made the sound actually flatten, with little perception of depth or dynamic range.  You can't hear the cymbals until the song quiets down; it all gets mushed together.  You get a little less mush with the X-Fi, but it still maintains a bit of depth to it.

SOAD

Another 'hot' mastered CD, I used ReplayGain in Foobar 2000 to reduce the levels to something more sane on BYOB off of Mezmerize.  This is not so bad at all, the levels are accurate and the Musketeer 3 is not distorting the signals.  However, now we are back to the first example where the Musketeer 3 doesn't provide all the detail that the X-Fi is capable of.  The cymbals are nice though, snappy, crispy and sweet.  The Musketeer 3 is using its tube well.

Bob

I actually forgot to stop the playlist and Bob Marley came on.  I love it when that happens.  Anyway, this is a 24 bit, 192 kHz digitized version of Jammin from the Babylon by Bus double live LP.  This is a low-level detail masterpiece, especially with the live hall reverb, and the electronic echo.  The crowd sounds are exceptionally difficult as it is so much noise.  First thing to notice is that the Musketeer 3 did justice to Bob's voice which sounded a little more realistic.  However the room reverb seemed to be cut short on the Musketeer 3; where you could count room echoes all the way to zero, you couldn't quite do that with the Musketeer 3.

At this point I'd like to offer my sound evaluation of the Musketeer 3.  It is very sensitive to the quality and level of the source material.  Garbage in, garbage out is the saying here.  It is happiest with low level material, and you may sense some irony here, with music recorded before 1990.  Almost all CD's after this date are mastered 'hot' with their levels nearly at maximum.  This will cause the Musketeer 3 to clip and introduce distortion.  The solution is to use ReplayGain or some other digital editing software to lower the levels that would be friendlier to the Musketeer 3.

My guess is that most people won't do this, and you'll be left with distorted music.  But at least it will be a more 'pleasing' tube distortion.  Don't be fooled by the spin however, both even-order and odd-order distortion still sound bad, no matter what.