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RE: JA and reliance upon computer audio

Posted by John Atkinson (R) on August 23, 2015 at 10:36:03

In Reply to: JA and reliance upon computer audio posted by FSonicSmith on August 18, 2015 at 06:28:26:

>I read JA's recent review of the AudioQuest JitterBug (Hereinafter
>"AQJB"). Then I re-read it. I invite all of you to read it once or
>twice. Why? Because it demonstrates that JA is 1) honest, perhaps
>due to not noticing how potentially embarrassing his admissions are...

Of course I recognized the potential embarrassment in this review's
findings. It would have been so easy once I had finished performing
the measurements of the JitterBug on the analog outputs of the 3 DACs
I used, which ranged from miniscule to non-existent, to pretend I
heard no improvement in sound quality. But that would have not been
honest.

>JA's lead line into his reveiw is essentially a boast that he dived
>into computer audio way back in '99 or so when the rest of us were
>still buying CDs like crazy. . .

It wasn't meant to be a boast. Rather, I was setting the stage for what
I was about to describe as the effect of the JitterBug on the sound of
my computer-based audio system.

>when his second Mac Mini died recently he put one of those mothballed
>CDP's back in his system and Whoa Nelly, JA discovered that for the last
>ten years or so he unwittingly had abandoned the greater body, the
>"corporeal" nature of sound emanating from a CDP by which JA apparently
>means greater bass authority.

Not just greater bass authority, please note, but more solidity to the
perceived objects within the stereo image.

>Somehow JA created what I believe to be a strawman premise that even
>the best computer audio can only afford what he calls "ethereal sound
>as opposed to a great CDP's "authoritative" or "corporeal" sound.

"Even the best computer audio" is reading too much. I meant the best
computer audio that I have heard under familiar conditions, ie, in my
room and system with my choice of music.

>how does the Chief at S'Phile account for the fact that by his own
>admission, somewhere along the way he lost track of the fact that he
>was reviewing equipment based on the supposedly sub-optimum SQ
> of his "ethereal"-in a bad way-computer equipment?

The actual difference between good CD playback and good computer
playback is small in absolute terms. That doesn't mean it is unimportant,
and it is a consistent difference that actually emerged over
time. The A/B testing for the JitterBug review brought it into sharp
focus. And I am confident that there has been no effect on any of my
review findings and conclusions.

Thanks for triggering some thoughts on this subject. I needed to think
for a while on what you wrote, hence the tardy response.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Edits: 08/23/15 08/24/15

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