Poll: Do you SAM and if so, how exactly do you choose to use it.
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SAM 100% all the time
31.53%
64 31.53%
SAM at a fixed % all the time
21.18%
43 21.18%
SAM all the time, but vary the percent
4.93%
10 4.93%
SAM all the time at 0%
3.94%
8 3.94%
Sometimes SAM on or off, but 100% if on
1.97%
4 1.97%
Sometimes SAM on or off, with fixed % if on
1.48%
3 1.48%
Sometimes SAM on or off, and vary the % if on
2.96%
6 2.96%
Sometimes SAM on or off, but 0% if on
0.49%
1 0.49%
I have SAM ready speakers but prefer SAM off at all times
9.36%
19 9.36%
I do not have SAM ready speakers
22.17%
45 22.17%
Total 203 vote(s) 100%
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Do you use SAM?
#61
   
Speakers leaning forward
                                                    Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,                                     
                                                                                                                                                                            Dynaudio C1 MkII.
                                                                                                                                                                              Jim Smith's GBS.
                                                                                                                                                                        Northern NSW Australia.
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#62
(02-Oct-2017, 03:24)Pim van Vliet Wrote:
(26-Sep-2017, 21:34)Pim van Vliet Wrote:
(26-Sep-2017, 13:43)Confused Wrote: The recent posts in this thread remind me of the 'Gui test'.  So no need to worry about jitter or Phase Signal Integrity if you don't want to, it is very easy to try this yourself, and indeed hear for yourself.  The 'Gui test' is as follows:

Test:
To experience for yourself what I'm hearing listen to a recording with no bass but high frequencies (single instrument, woman's voice) and many of room information (best is live recordings). Listen - switch off SAM on RC - listen again. Then you know if SAM alters something in your music...may sound better or worse...your comments.

https://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?tid=3714

I'm going home today for a week without the missus so I'll have plenty of opportunity to give that one a try.

OK, it took a bit longer to get home (bloody work getting in the way of having fun) but I've finally done the 'Gui test'. First last night on a cold system. I played 'Love' by Anouk from the 'The Lost Tracks' album. It's just her and a piano with sometimes just her or sometimes just the piano so it gives a chance to concentrate on the voice and the piano separately as well as together.

I put the song on repeat. SAM off and listened for a while over and over. After a while I started switching SAM on and off (0%) song after song and couldn't hear a difference. 

I just want to mention here how hard it can be; the song starts with just Anouk singing and there's much more spacial information to hear at the start than throughout the song. So if you don't keep that into account it's easy to fool yourself every time you start the song into thinking that it sounds better than before.

So I tried a different approach; I turned SAM on and off during listening. Still nothing. So I left the system on for the night and went to bed.

It's now morning and I tried again. At first I thought that it sounded a tad fuller when SAM was on but after trying on / off blind* for a while it was clear to me that there was no discernible difference between the two.

I also tried with 'It's so Hard' (2 meter session) from the same album. An acoustic very simple honest recording. Again I couldn't tell the difference.

So back to SAM at 100% and a little bump in the 250Hz region on Roon and the music sings again. It's fuller, more enjoyable and the spacial information stays as is. 

This has been an interesting exercise. It's clear to me that with my speakers SAM doesn't fix anything in the phase / timing domain. Maybe that is because Dynaudio has this covered. Maybe it is because I have spent considerable time setting up my speakers. Due to the smallish living room they're in, I had to set them up on top of my CD cabinets. So they're above my head. I made some blocks to lean them forward to line them up properly with my seating position. They don't point straight at me but a little down (probably towards my shoulders). This gives the most natural sound. SAM does give me that extra bit of bass extension and with these small speakers that's a bonus. The extra bump in the 250 Hz region I gave it in Roon again makes the system sound that little bit more enjoyable. 
Both setup and 250Hz bump are things I learned from reading Jim Smith's 'Get Better Sound'. I've read that book through and through and love where it's taken me. Not everyone would agree with Jim about what he's trying to achieve. He's not after the ultimate linearity. He's after the most emotionally fulfilling sound. To him, that's in the tone first and foremost and then in the spacial cues. I'm up with that.

* Being home with the dog alone it's hard to change SAM on/off without knowing you're doing it but I used the approach of just twisting the remote button left and right whilst concentrating on the music. After doing this for a while you forget what your left hand is doing and you just listen. It's the closest to a blind test I could do without re-configuring the whole system to have a SAM on/off button on the remote.

Hi Pim,
spot on I've to say.

I hope you all get it right, what I'm going to say.
I know 'Confused' did this same test and heard (quiet) a difference between SAM on/off and for the better when SAM was turned off. But he said that for him it was only a subtle of a difference between on/off.
Now Pim hearing nothing of a difference and that's exactly what I would expect looking at the picture and his signature (please, please, get this the right way...I'm all with you).

I know 'Confused' did a lot of tinkering with his system and so do others. As I see in his picture Pim didn't do much of tinkering (what I'm totally in consent with) and hence his system is less transparent and revealing than the system of others ( 'Confused' in this place).

What I want to say is that when we're discussing issues like SAM, power cords, USB-cables and the like we have to be on a somewhat equal level with our systems. The variables are of so much importance and power quality being the first. How do you claim you have good power quality in your area. I don't know...and the variables go on and on.

I'm aware of what is dormant in a digital signal stored on a HDD/SSD on a PC/Mac and that you can't get to it by 'just plugging' a normal Win-PC or MacMini to a Devialet (or DAC).
These digital signals are very tiny and sensitive and of a quantity that boggles my mind if I only think of it...and there is more to it than just bit precision. For me it's an open field and I learn a lot with every new audio system I've to deal with.

Peace,

gui
"Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
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#63
In fairness to Pim here, he is running an O'dA, which should provide an excellent level of transparency without too much tweaking. Also, I believe Pim is using Roon AIR (I may have got this wrong). In my experience with the 1000 Pro, Roon AIR is far more transparent than the USB input.

So I think there is another way of looking at this, when I did the 'Gui test' I could discern a benefit to micro details with SAM off, but this difference was tiny, vastly smaller than the positive benefits I get from SAM on. So taking two data points (not statistically significant I would agree) , we get one claim of a tiny difference, and one claim and one claim of no difference. This makes the micro detail influence of SAM on / off somewhere between tiny but discernible and nothing. More data needed I think!
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
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#64
(02-Oct-2017, 13:30)Confused Wrote: In fairness to Pim here, he is running an O'dA, which should provide an excellent level of transparency without too much tweaking.  Also, I believe Pim is using Roon AIR (I may have got this wrong).  In my experience with the 1000 Pro, Roon AIR is far more transparent than the USB input.  

So I think there is another way of looking at this, when I did the 'Gui test' I could discern a benefit to micro details with SAM off, but this difference was tiny, vastly smaller than the positive benefits I get from SAM on.  So taking two data points (not statistically significant I would agree) , we get one claim of a tiny difference, and one claim and one claim of no difference.  This makes the micro detail influence of SAM on / off somewhere between tiny but discernible and nothing.  More data needed I think!

Ok. As he has a D200 also in his signature I thought that it's a D200 in the picture not half of an O'dA. Where is the other half of the O'dA?

Pim, if I may suggest an improvement to placing of your Dxxx (D200 or half O'dA)? You placed it on wood what really is adding a good sound signature to the music but try to place it as openly as you can with no (wooden) box around it building an enclosure as shown in the picture. All the sound is accumulating/reflecting in that box giving your Dxxx a hard time handling all this extra vibrations like in a drum enclosure. For double mono (O'dA) treat each channel equal if possible in your environment because if you place a right channel completely different a left channel it would most likely sound odd...but you may not know until you change the situation Wink

@ Confused
You're right with the O'dAs transparency but you can prevent even an O'dA from blossoming if you place it the wrong way (and/or different for each case of right/left channel) or feed it not the best.

I've a contradict experience associated with USB signal transmission. In my system USB is clearly the better with more precision, dynamic, emotions to the music. But as always this depends on the source you are running the signal from (and USB cable). I've to admit that USB is much more dependent on the quality of the digital signal than ethernet/wiFi is. On many attempts it first sounded more digital/technical/less fluent/harsh and all the rest (you know it). But if everything is done the right way it delivers this extra of everything you love in your music. The last thing I came across was to close down every port on your PC (laptop in my case). With every port I mean that literally. That takes into account even something like a SD card reader in a laptop (and of course hdmi, usb, dvi, serial, power (if running on accu) )

gui
"Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
Reply
#65
(02-Oct-2017, 13:30)Confused Wrote: So I think there is another way of looking at this, when I did the 'Gui test' I could discern a benefit to micro details with SAM off, but this difference was tiny, vastly smaller than the positive benefits I get from SAM on.  So taking two data points (not statistically significant I would agree) , we get one claim of a tiny difference, and one claim and one claim of no difference.  This makes the micro detail influence of SAM on / off somewhere between tiny but discernible and nothing.  More data needed I think!

And I prefered it with SAM on, when I did it as blind as possible. I used Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega, the dry studio acoustic seemed slightly more accurate*, the difference was very small though. This might be a big speaker vs small speaker thing, or it could be a all in your head thing, it's certainly not a big enough of a change to influence a SAM > 0% vs no sam decision.

*One of the big problems with this is even if you were at the original recording, human memory isn't accurate enough to remember small details like this, so judgments are often made on what sounds best to us, not what is more accurate.
Roon, Rega P9 + Dynavector XX2Mk2 > 440 Pro > Sonus Faber Guarneri Evolution
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#66
Well I gave it another go this morning with Tom's diner. It's just after 6AM so in my town most people are still asleep. Less chance of distorted power. I even put my ear right up to my speaker in different places (woofer, tweeter and a little further away where the sound of both meet) Still I didn't hear ANY difference. I can however clearly hear the studio in the recording.

The picture posted above is an old one when my D200 was still in place. The rack is a little different now but similarly temporary. I'm building a new living room with two 20 Ampere amplifier circuits and another one to power just the rest of the system. I've just received a box of Cat 6A S/FTP (shielded foiled twisted pair) for data cabling. I will also get a heavy duty steel frame welded to hang my Od'A on and some shelving also made from steel. This will hang in between the two cabinets. These cabinets BTW, sit on little doorstops which are drilled into the bottom and only stick out a few mm. The massive weight of the cabinets, the CD's and wine inside, plus the feet should result in very little vibration to the equipment. I wonder though whether all this will result in a better sounding system because the room acoustics will be totally different. And not for the better. But that's a story for another time.

With this test one thing should be kept in mind; SAM profiles are different for every speaker. It is meant to fix timing issues of your speakers so the better the speaker, the less SAM does. So it's very possible to get different results. It would be interesting if someone else with Dynaudio C1 mk2's could try the same.

P.S. no comments on my bass traps?
                                                    Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,                                     
                                                                                                                                                                            Dynaudio C1 MkII.
                                                                                                                                                                              Jim Smith's GBS.
                                                                                                                                                                        Northern NSW Australia.
Reply
#67
"P.S. no comments on my bass traps?"

...sweet and very attractive   Wink ...but you only need them with SAM on, don't you? Big Grin

gui
"Oh, you can buy the other. But then it is a cost intensive learning process"
berlin
Reply
#68
(03-Oct-2017, 07:25)yabaVR Wrote: "P.S. no comments on my bass traps?"

...sweet and very attractive   Wink ...but you only need them with SAM on, don't you? Big Grin

gui

It's been quite a while ago now and I can't remember whether or not they made a difference. My dog likes to rip teddy Bears apart so friends and family give him bears for Christmas. We had a few too many so I just chucked them in the corner.

BTW, I've decided not to give up on the Gui test yet but i'm going to change the ingredients a bit. Instead of listening to one song (that I don't listen to all the time) over and over, I'm going to listen to some of my favourites tonight and see if there's any difference in emotional connection. After all, it's about enjoyment and nothing else.

Interesting times ahead  Smile
                                                    Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,                                     
                                                                                                                                                                            Dynaudio C1 MkII.
                                                                                                                                                                              Jim Smith's GBS.
                                                                                                                                                                        Northern NSW Australia.
Reply
#69
(02-Oct-2017, 14:53)yabaVR Wrote:
(02-Oct-2017, 13:30)Confused Wrote: In my experience with the 1000 Pro, Roon AIR is far more transparent than the USB input.  

@ Confused

I've a contradict experience associated with USB signal transmission. In my system USB is clearly the better with more precision, dynamic, emotions to the music. But as always this depends on the source you are running the signal from (and USB cable). I've to admit that USB is much more dependent on the quality of the digital signal than ethernet/wiFi is. On many attempts it first sounded more digital/technical/less fluent/harsh and all the rest (you know it). But if everything is done the right way it delivers this extra of everything you love in your music. The last thing I came across was to close down every port on your PC (laptop in my case). With every port I mean that literally. That takes into account even something like a SD card reader in a laptop (and of course hdmi, usb, dvi, serial, power (if running on accu) )

gui
Actually, I think I was guilty of over simplification in my above post.  I actually fully agree that with the Expert you can obtain better transparency via USB than is possible via AIR, assuming you have a decent quality USB source of course.  This certainly matches my own experience with kit like the Melco N1Z and CAD CAT.  I think the point I was tying to make above is that with the Pro range (and Od'A which already has V6 ADH), AIR has taken a significant leap forward in terms of transparency and is now a match for what would previously been considered some pretty decent sources for the Expert.  Although this is off topic here, I think it is worth mentioning that with the Expert range, although a decent source via USB can beat AIR, many have found that even better results can be obtained via AES/EBU.  A good example of this is the Aurender N10, which can output via USB or AES/EBU, and with a Devialet Expert is generally agreed to sound better AES/EBU.  Another example is of the many reports of people trying the Mutec MC3+USB to convert the USB source to AES/EBU, together with much re-clocking goodness and galvanic isolation.  gui - I seem to recall you had thoughts of trying a Mutec MC3+USB?  I may have got this wrong, but either way, I would strongly recommend you consider trying this.  The Mutec works superbly with the Expert, you can retain all the goodness of your current optimised USB source, and indeed I noticed one for sale on this very forum yesterday, which is also located not far from yourself.  (I am not after a commission here, just trying to be helpful Shy )

OK - Most of the above was very off topic, for which I apologise.  So, getting things back on topic......  

Well done to Pim and Soniclife for trying the 'gui test'.  I have to say I am surprised that others have not tried this simple test and chimed in with their observations.  The thing is, this is an incredibly easy test to try.  It is just a case of select some music to play, set SAM to 0%, and toggle SAM on and off from the comfort of your favourite chair whilst listening.  It's that easy!  Also, as Pim mentioned above, you can easily do this as a pseudo blind test.  If you rapidly and repeatedly press the SAM on off button on the remote you soon loose any notion as to if on or off is selected, then simply listen, occasionally toggle the SAM on / off button, if you find a preference one way or the other, or notice more micro detail one way or the other, you can check the amp to see if SAM is on or off.  Then repeat to see if your results are consistent or not.  It's fun for all the family, why not give it a try!
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
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#70
(03-Oct-2017, 13:24)Confused Wrote: It's fun for all the family, why not give it a try!

To be honest mate, last night I was a little bit over it and just went back to listening for fun. Life's too short to spend my nights looking for problems I didn't know I had. Especially now the missus is away for a few days. Cranck it!  Big Grin
                                                    Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,                                     
                                                                                                                                                                            Dynaudio C1 MkII.
                                                                                                                                                                              Jim Smith's GBS.
                                                                                                                                                                        Northern NSW Australia.
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