26-Feb-2016, 19:17
(Thanks Antoine)
>>> 1st Place Award: Devialet, last decades most disappointing technology purchase. <<<
Why is digital audio so complicated? Where did it all go wrong?
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26-Feb-2016, 19:17
(Thanks Antoine)
>>> 1st Place Award: Devialet, last decades most disappointing technology purchase. <<<
26-Feb-2016, 19:53
(25-Feb-2016, 19:56)Antoine Wrote: What makes it all complicated and confusing is discussions like these and the want to be able to fully understand and explain it all. No offense! Well I enjoy the hobby too but mainly just listen to music nowadays, I gave up messing around with kit much about 20 years ago after a fairly intense period to find the best sounding kit I could afford and evaluating which bits of kit mattered most by listening extensively at home.. I worked on record players in the mid '70s and nothing new has come up which I did not know then, and funnily a lot which was well known back then seems to have been forgotten in the new resurgence of interest in LPs. The basic science on the electrical side of a hifi system is trivial compared to things like radar and microwaves so I am intrigued what you think will be laughed at in the future. Nothing that was going on 40 years ago has turned out to laughable or ridiculous yet - though I suppose we still have 60 years to go. My oldest recording was made in 1903, so well outside the 100 year ridiculous criterion you espouse, and nothing that they were doing then was ridiculous or laughable, it was using the current materials and knowledge quite ingeniously actually IMO. Yes it was not up to the accuracy of today but it was the best that could be done back then and they were pretty well aware of the shortcomings. I think the same is still true today. Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire
26-Feb-2016, 22:28
Here is a video related to digital sound processing, distorsions, jitter, aso...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsVqCID029g. Very instructive in my opinion.
26-Feb-2016, 23:22
(26-Feb-2016, 19:10)Antoine Wrote: Krisp suggested it to be error free from source to DAC OUTput. I'm saying it is at best error free up to the D to A conversion. And with error free I mean bit perfect while we're in the digital domain. Sorry I was not precise when I wrote output of the DAC. I meant till the end of the digital path which ends inside the DAC. And I agree with the noise that is injected especially from the digital curcuits (I read the articles and the postings to the articles), but the noise is just noise (because the modulations of the 1 and 0 are in the megahertz range and the fourier spectrums of those modulations are even higher). All these modulations add up to an irregular random oscillations and the level at which they oscillate can (hopefully) only be heard ( well just the part up until approx. 20kHz or less) when you are close to your speakers and not in your listening position. As I said, it makes sense to concentrate the "quest" to the analog path after the DAC (if it is a well designed DAC ). Cheers, Krisp
Nowadays source and transport are equally important to me as whatever's behind that DAC and the DAC itself. Of course in the beginning bigger jumps in quality can be made elsewhere but at a certain point you'll reach a plateau. It's a classic discussion; what's more important the source or the speakers. All I know is that those speakers of mine (and I guess of many) are perfectly able to portray even the smaller changes in the area of the source even though those speakers (and in fact all speakers) have much higher distortion levels. They operate on a electromechanical level after all.
I'd like to suggest to those reasoning using textbook knowledge only, to experiment a little. I know an easy one; try to lend a Mutec MC-3+ USB or Intona USB isolator for example, put it in between your source' USB output and the Devialet and report your findings back here. I'll guarantee you: same bits, more music! OK, with all due respect, now I am really retiring from this topic. Yes I know I returned by own choice but I already regret it. There's nothing in it for me personally to convince nay sayers. In fact it's worse; it's an energy drain for me. People can all believe what they want to believe, please don't mind if I'll do just the same.
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.
The Netherlands
27-Feb-2016, 08:29
The most complicated and less mastered element in the whole digital chain is our brain....
Jean-Marie MacBook Air M2 -> RAAT/Air -> WiFi -> PLC -> Ethernet -> Devialet 220pro with Core Infinity (upgraded from 120) -> AperturA Armonia
France
27-Feb-2016, 10:05
The Mutec MC-3+ USB can reduce jitter on a SPDIF source, as long as the source has a less good clock than the Mutec, and may improve a USB source if the clock in the receiver is less good than the Mutec.
This is straightforward and well known for decades digital technique, though the product is new. I bought one after reading about it here. I have not done a rigorous compare with it yet, so I don't know either whether the Mutec clock + digital connection is lower jitter than the clock in the Devialet right next to the DAC or whether the jitter threshold is below audibility already if it is. In the case of my digital recorder where the output of the ADC/DAC is audibly indistinguishable from the microphone feed, the ADC and DAC share a clock, pcb etc. and the signals are internal and short path, so best case scenario, but there are no exotic parts and no fancy box so it is less expensive than most audiophile stuff and is, I can assure everybody, completely transparent for the type of music (classical) I listen to and record (to my ears) and that has rarely been the case. Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire
(25-Feb-2016, 18:31)Hifi_swlon Wrote: Very interesting thoughts so far….. +1 But I would like to put the system together by myself. I think the problem with double blinds is that they are done by people that are expecting to hear no differences. So they lack of skills to put the system together the right way. No offence, but let it be done by someone who knows the gears. For example I would give full trust to the experience/knowledge of Antoine to put together such a sytem. Let the nobelievers do the whole administrative procedures, I'm ok with that. If you got a perfectly tuned system playing at top level there is no chance you prefer a mp3-file against a 16/44.1, even if the "normal people testers" degenerated to only listen to mp3 nowadays. So these popular double blinds on the net are a nonsense and only feed the nobelievers expectations. They are like your local doctor doing a heart transplantation. Sure he's a doctor, but he will/has to fail (this includes some nobelieving pros, recording studio engineers, etc.). This field is a very wide one and it has to be worked out by experts ("heart specialists") and even the experts run into occasions they have a hard job to deal with. It's no black and white at all and we can fall into traps just by chance. I see that every day. gui "Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
29-Feb-2016, 11:38
(25-Feb-2016, 12:37)Hifi_swlon Wrote: So, I've been thinking about this quite a bit over the past months, following topics all over the place on various forums etc - including here obviously - as well as from my own experimentation. Back on topic. I think that the process and handling of digital data is kind of more difficult than the inventors thought. I mean, it's like having the tools to cut a banana into pieces and glue it together again...we know we have the ability to do that...but it nevermore is the same banana again. We just don't have the skills to get back to its origin (until we are on the USS Enterprice and use the replicator ). There is so much time-phase sensitive processes in digital audio data, so the ADC/DAC can not glue the pieces to the right place in time beside loosing some pieces (CDP) and interpolate them. If you use a complete analog system you have only minor problems with time-phase. There is a continuous music signal and it's not cut. I think that's the first obvious you get when you are listening to analog music...and due to lack of words you call it naturalness. All the rest like distortion and frequency characteristics are not that much disturbing your ears/brain like that one with the time-phase. For me it's the major reason why so many swear that LP sounds best for them and I have the same quaint feelings when I listen to it. One other thing is that a digital signal in its origin still is an analog signal. And this is made of frequencies and electrons and... There are so many things that are carried with the digital signal. It's by far not only the 1s and 0s. Sure you can filter some of the junk but all of it? Hard core scientist even discuss the possibility that an electron could have a memory. So there you go...if an electron not only having a charge/spin but also some other characteristics you can merely imagine on the consequences for your audio signal being made of it. So far we come, the less we know . gui "Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
29-Feb-2016, 15:56
(29-Feb-2016, 11:38)yabaVR Wrote:(25-Feb-2016, 12:37)Hifi_swlon Wrote: So, I've been thinking about this quite a bit over the past months, following topics all over the place on various forums etc - including here obviously - as well as from my own experimentation. Oh dear Gui, what a shame the internet has no peer review or knowledgeable editor. What you write here has been, more or less, repeated many times on the internet forums but repeating something which is not true over and over again will not make it become true, however plausible the erroneous statement may appear to be to those who do not understand. The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem is not a theory, it is mathematically proved. There are plenty of reasons why digital audio may not be to somebodies liking and there are plenty of ways in which it can be implemented imperfectly, but what you write is completely imagined gobbledygook. I am not religious either nor do I believe that homeopathy or acupuncture are anything other than placebos. Blind faith and belief in the implausible is not my thing, so excuse my being blunt. Some of this is my opinion, some my experience of 50 years recording and some is straightforward mathematics (I concede that very few people have any mathematical aptitude though) And don't think I have not listened, I am very sceptical and have always believed both that if theory and practice differ that the theory is incomplete and that if 2 things measure the same but sound different the wrong thing is being measured. I always check everything from first principles myself and have done many listening evaluations over the last 45 years. Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire
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