Cary 6 Measurements and Analysis - Part 2
FFT Distortion Analysis
Unweighted THD+noise at -3dB FS was 0.01%, and the corresponding A-weighted figure was 0.002%, which is slightly better than the 0.003% quoted in the manual:
Intermodulation distortion (based on 70Hz + 7kHz fundamentals) was also very low: 0.01% unweighted and 0.0025% A-weighted:
Based on swept tones, IMD was well below -78dB for 0-48kHz (D-VCR analog in, preamp out):
Finally, stereo crosstalk was extremely low for the preamp output, but rose to around -72dB FS at 48kHz for the Zone 2 output:
Digital Preamplifier Tests (Audio Rightmark)
These are Audio Rightmark results of the Cinema 6 when fed a digital signal via the D-VCR coaxial input at 44.1, 48 and 96 kHz sampling rates (the E-MU 1212M in external analog loopback mode is provided as a reference):
|
Test |
E-MU 1212M (44.1kHz) |
D-VCR coaxial in, 44.1 kHz |
D-VCR coaxial in, 48 kHz |
D-VCR coaxial in, 96 kHz |
|
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB: |
+0.03, -0.20 |
+0.07, -0.03 |
+0.06, -0.02 |
+0.02, -0.04 |
|
Noise level, dB (A): |
-117.5 |
-92.4 |
-92.8 |
-93.3 |
|
Dynamic range, dB (A): |
117.1 |
92.0 |
92.5 |
92.8 |
|
THD, %: |
0.0007 |
0.0005 |
0.0004 |
0.0004 |
|
IMD + Noise, %: |
0.0010 |
0.019 |
0.019 |
0.017 |
|
Stereo crosstalk, dB: |
-117.3 |
-97.9 |
-94.6 |
-94.4 |
The Cinema 6 only managed around 93dB S/N ratio as a digital to analog converter, which is mediocre (corresponding to about 15 bits of effective resolution) but the THD figure of around 0.0005% is extremely good. Stereo cross talk was higher than the analog pre-amplifier figures but still excellent. For the above measurements, the master volume control was set to 0dB (and the pre-amp attenuation level was set to -8dB), corresponding to a preamp voltage output that was closest to reference, down by only around 0.3-0.4dB.
The figures are slightly different when the pre-amp attenuation level was set to the maximum of 0dB and the master volume control reduced to -8dB:
|
Test |
E-MU 1212M (44.1kHz) |
D-VCR coaxial in, 44.1 kHz |
D-VCR coaxial in, 48 kHz |
D-VCR coaxial in, 96 kHz |
|
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB: |
+0.03, -0.20 |
+0.07, -0.02 |
+0.06, -0.02 |
+0.03, -0.02 |
|
Noise level, dB (A): |
-117.5 |
-93.2 |
-93.1 |
-93.5 |
|
Dynamic range, dB (A): |
117.1 |
92.7 |
92.7 |
93.0 |
|
THD, %: |
0.0007 |
0.0016 |
0.0015 |
0.0022 |
|
IMD + Noise, %: |
0.0010 |
0.021 |
0.018 |
0.017 |
|
Stereo crosstalk, dB: |
-117.3 |
-98.6 |
-95.8 |
-93.2 |
As can be seen, this resulted in slightly lower noise levels but at the expense of higher distortion.
The following graphs and measurements all relate to performance at a sample rate of 96 kHz 24 bits.
Frequency Response
The Cinema 6 was flat to 20kHz, but then dips to -1.5dB at 40kHz:
