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In Reply to: RE: What PC audio set up can outperform High end Emmlabs, DCS system? posted by Dawnrazor on August 03, 2007 at 16:42:55
Dawnrazor
I respond to posts to try to help others. They can reject my take, but it is the Promoters who try to discredit what I post. It so happens that these are those who promote products without technical or measurement justifications. They a LOT of money and I don't have the resources or energy to try such products. I too can make euphonic 16/44.1 by putting a Triode stage or whatever after this; many can. But this does not mean that such a setup is so vastly superior that Inmates should be advised to throw away high end boxes.
PC systems are problematic as you and I have found (so have the Promoters)and nobody quite knows what is going out. The fact that some actually promote 96k from 44.1 as being superior in audio terms just shows the underlying problem of using an src which itself is problematic. http://src.infinitewave.ca/.
Not sure what the scale is though. What is iZotope? Anyone tried it? Some of those plots look very good.EDIT: Oh, I see that cics posted the color scale above so it isn't nearly as bad as first thought.
"The fact that some actually promote 96k from 44.1 as being superior in audio terms just shows the underlying problem of using an src which itself is problematic. http://src.infinitewave.ca/."
I dont see anything here that indicates that it's problematic. What do you mean?
I've listened to a half-dozen different hardware upsamplers in various DAC's and none of them compare to the old SRC with Foobar 0.8.3 IMO.
asrc not good; should use integer multiples. Maths difficult especially real time.
src has plenty of images compared to good programs such as Audition. Thus
intermod.
I'm planning to try Audition.
With Foobar 0.8.3 and SRC anyway, 24/96 sounds better to me than 24/88.2
Steve N.
I am not sure if it can be generalized, my preference (not with SRC SW but other upsamplers) was 24/88.2 over 24/94.
Based on my limited experience, I would say I prefer synchronous oversampling over asynchronous.
Also, this is very subjective, for example, an audiophile friend of mine and I converged over time to almost identical systems, we have the same speakers and amplification, but we disagree on digital source. He is in love with sound from his Esoteric player while I cannot stand it. Yet we both agree that his (our) system sounds the best with source being analog tape.
And if you look at previous thread on Lynx L22 sound card, after I set WaveLab with ASIO, I found digital out of PC/Lynx better than my optical transport in many aspects. It has some "analog" qualities. My present optical transport is nothing special of course, yet I found it vastly superior over SB3 at the time I was playing with it, while some consider SB3 sonic heaven.
So I will pursue further PC/Lynx as transport, by isolating sound card in same sort of a cage, will try to find a way to remove switching power supply from PC and replace it with something linear regulated, and will make my own break-out cables out of sound card.
The result will be different with each upsampler and on the computer even each player and plugin for ASIO and KS etc.. will have an effect. Each system is different with it's own set of weaknesses too.
There are no separate clock domains in software upsampling, are there? How can it be asynchronous? And with hardware upsamplers, at least the devices typically labeled as upsamplers in the audio world, unless there is some bypass mode they are always asynchronous since there are two clock domains which will never be exact integer multiples.
Fred,
I am all for debating this and appreciate you taking everyone to task. I just wish i could make some sense of what you are saying.
On one hand you dismiss a product because it won't do more than 16/44 or because a triode is added. But then you deride those who stress upsampling.
What is the deal??
I find it hard to believe that someone who has all that topflight gear and scopes to measure everything doesn't have the resources to try these products.
Personally I haven't found PC audio problematic. Time consuming YES, a challenge to get right some days, yes, but not problematic. Infact, my system improved dramatically since i ditched my trans/dac.
Obviously you have issues with the 3 companies that hang around here on this forum. Why not try a company that doesn't. Zero One audio makes purpose built PC products that maybe more in line with your design philosophies (no usb, upsampling, no switching PSU, etc.) and has gotten some awesome press.
Maybe you could give their approach a try.
Let me explain. I will try products but not on the basis that someone says
:
xxx is vastly superior to yyy and so give up yyy. Goto diyhif.org, look up usb pc audio, and see the technical issues afflicting the usb interface (ie jitter and artefacts). You will also see that the proponents themselves accept the software and hardware problems affecting it. I have repeated some of these here; yet those who admit to them elsewhere will not do so here.
I do not find it justified to spend thousands and more on time in a format that is questionable at present.
As I said, I have responded to a post which asks for opinions; I gave mine and do not expect to be derided by those with a vested interest without cause, just that I have not tried their products.
As for the Triode remark. It is a fact that 16/44.1 non OS has massive technical problems. Triode amplifiers also colour the sound with loads of harmonics. It is a case that two wrongs don't make a right. I have no objection to anyone wanting them; just don't tell me that I should try them when I have and don't like the results.
For the record, I have no problems with the manufacturers who post here, as long as they don't try to tell everyone that my observations are invalid, based on their own empirical observations that are no more valid than mine.
Ok, you have cleared up some things.
But i still don't get your take on upsampling.
Also, did you see the Sasha V post below. He had the same criticisms of the Lynx digital out that you seem to have, yet it looks like he got it configured right and has changed his tune.
Why not try the Zero One stuff?
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