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The latest issue of Hi Fi World (May) contains a review of a standard 4G Mac Mini, a stripped one with switching power suppy removed and some processess disabled, and comments on how these sound different from one to another as well as to the PC.
It is worth spending £1.90 and the points made tally with comments made by people who use both.
It demonstrates also how the poor performance of computer hardware affects MACs as well as PCs.
Follow Ups:
Different DACs using the same chips will have different jitter measurements, because board layout, power supply design, regulators, etc will effect the performance of the devices on the board.
If you are using a DAC that has bad, audible jitter measurements, then you will be more likely to hear differences upstream. If you are using a DAC that is fairly jitter immune, then you will hear little to no difference changing upstream components.
I think that a lot of people have poorly designed DACs that have board layouts that are suboptimal and lead to performance that is not close to the specs of the DAC chip, then try to "fix" the problem with the poorly designed DAC with changes upstream.
@ audioengr: What DAC do you recommend people use? I believe you stated earlier that you do not recommend asynchronous sample rate conversion in the DAC. Couldn't all the money that you recommend people spend on cables and interfaces be better spent on a DAC that has better jitter rejection?
@ Tony Lauck: I believe you also recommended a DAC that does not offer asynchronous upsampling (please correct me if I am not remembering correctly). What DAC would you recommend?
ESS chips, and Meitner DACs both upsample well into the Mhz range, and the ESS chips have excellent jitter rejection measurements. I haven't seen the Meitner measurements, but I would be surprised if they aren't excellent.
-Aaron.
A guy over at Audiocircle compared a 'highly-modded' MacMini vs. the Bryston BDP-1. Anyone care to post comparisons of Computers vs. Digital Streamers or comment on his findings?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mini ingredients:
Mini configuration (bought used on Ebay) $600
Pure Music software player $139
Wireworld Platinum Starlight USB cable $439USB alternative:
April Stello US USB-to-SPIF converter $449Bryston setup:
BDP-1 music player (Street price) $1800
Morrow Dig4 AES/EBU cable $210
3rd party power cord for BDP-1 $100-$400
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I didn't throw bombastic symphonies at it but played Mahler's 4th (Ivan Fischer, Channel Classics 24/192) and Shostakovich's 5th (Cleveland Orchestra, Telarc SACD rip at 24/176k). I also used a Bill Frisell cut from gone, like a train that gets a bit congested (great tonality on that album!!). In each case the BDP-1 sailed through with less fatigue and less congestion and timing issues than the Mac Mini via USB. I simply chalk it up to my jitter argument ; i.e jitter to me sounds like what looking through sunglasses in the rain looks like...slight smearing and halos.""I believe one other aspect that the BDP excels in is jitter, or the lack thereof. I think some of the micro-detail is gained there, but the biggest winner is complex piano music."
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/10/12
Nowhere in the thread did I find evidence of his old eBay Mac Mini being "highly modded". Where did you get that snippet?
He also mentions that newer 2011 era Mini's have been reported to "sound better". AND... it is not clear that he has set up a true A/B Apples to Apples comparison (no pun intended). He has a mix cables, converters, and DACs as best I can tell.
Not to question what he is hearing and the BDP-1 setup my indeed sound better, but again, it is not clear to me exactly what he is comparing. He also lists the disadvantages of the BDP-1 not being able to access music files from his NAS. The setup in his environment is about as confusing, veiled, and smeared as the text excerpt you chose to post.
I was mistaken, it seems to only have a Paul Hynes upgraded PS.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
"I was mistaken, it seems to only have a Paul Hynes upgraded PS."
And I'm not sure that he actually hooked it up. In one post he mentioned that he was waiting for it.
In any case, I would question the benefit of a higher quality (possibly linear) outboard power supply for the Mac Mini. Whatever clean DC from a linear (non switching) power supply you feed into the Mac Mini goes through a number of internal switching regulators anyway to create the various voltage levels required within the little box.
It amuses me that some folks buy into the hype of high quality outboard linear power supplies to feed a device that's just going turn it back into a bunch switching noise using switching regulator modules inside the box.... not to mention all the other switching noise inherent in high speed digital circuits (as found in any Mac or PC).
all about isolation and removal of an oscillator based supply top the MAC,both ways
So you remove an oscillator big deal... so where's the benefit when you "re-oscillate" it all over again immediately as the power enters the Mac? You can put the purest of DC into the Mac but switchers within the box pretty much negate all that you've just attempted to do with the outboard linear supply.
And BTW, this foolishness applies to other gadgets and PC's that use distributed internal switching regulators.
Where's the benefit? (Oh, I forgot about the monetary benefit for those who sell "audiophile" aftermarket outboard linear power supplies).
If you can't understand the 'benefit', there is no point in me trying to explain further.
explain further? Why not begin by explaining it at all. I didn't see you explain anything.
Yes Abe we are all extremely stupid when compared with Fred. Please get with the program!
.
classic fmak
spouts out some incomplete, vague, or obtuse statement and when questioned says you are too stupid to understand so he won't even attempt it
It allows him to feel smug and superior without having to defend anything he says
/
I didn't see you explain anything.
Maybe not but the effect of improved PS on computer audio sound quality IS well established, repeatable and marked. That this is the case has been reported by literally scores of list members; why it is the case has been discussed a score of times by competent commentators. Try spending less time popping at fmak and more using the list's search facility . . .
It's less that a given PSU is linear rather than SMPS and more that it is well designed regardless of technology. One significant issue is that typical stock PSUs are notorious for noise polluting their mains supply (thereby degrading the rest of the system) whereas better units tend not to.
A linear, choke-based design published on the forum by John Swenson for powering small motherboards is pretty basic as far as load regulation goes but focuses on reducing mains pollution. Going from a stock SMPS to the Swenson design gives a major SQ boost on appropriate equipment, snide remarks about "audiophile" pricing notwithstanding. (A DIY design, it costs less than £70 <$100.)
"It's less that a given PSU is linear rather than SMPS and more that it is well designed regardless of technology. One significant issue is that typical stock PSUs are notorious for noise polluting their mains supply (thereby degrading the rest of the system) whereas better units tend not to."
And you've measured this and have screen shots from your oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer to backup this audiophile perpetuated "fact" that stock power supplies are junk and need to be replaced? You know the noise spectrum that needs to be dealt with, the frequency range, amplitude, harmonics, and byproducts, for the Mac Mini as well as most PC power supplies?
And not just on the AC mains, but such noise conducted into and through the quality power supplies built into many of the audio components we use? You've seen this noise appear on the DC output side from the power supplies built by these manufacturers? Don't you think these guys have given thought to implementing noise mitigating measures at the input side of their power supplies as well as the output side where it matters to their gear?
If you are going to attack the switching power supply at the Mac or PC, you had better check every other electronic gadget and appliance in your home and replace their noisy power supplies, too. Based on audiophile paranoia I bet they are all bad and need to be replaced.
Not to diminish the quality of Swenson's power supply design but it is basically just a pi network (been around for several decades) in front of a 3-terminal voltage regulator. And as you know, it won't power a Mac or PC which is what we are talking about.
Hi Abe,
I DID do a lot of checking of all kinds of equipment with scopes, spectrum analyzers etc. In particular how the power supply in one piece of equipment can travel through the mains and affect the power supplies in other components, and yes get through the supplies in other boxes.
The frequency range that was most problematic was 50KHz to 300KHz or so. A lot of the boxes I looked at do NOT attenuate these frequencies well. Many have networks that work well for 1MHz and up, and many have networks that work well in blocking noise in the audio range, it's the range between these that seems to be "wide open" in many boxes.
Unfortunately this is the range that many switchers run at and it's also the range where diode "switching noise" occurs. MANY boxes, both linear and switching have resonances in this range which can be excited from noise in other devices. Unfortunately very few voltage regulators have any attenuation in these frequency ranges either. So if it gets through the main PS, the local regulators are not going to be much help.
I did find that there is a definite distance affect here, noise generated in this region injected into the mains at the other end of the house does seem to get attenuated quite a bit so noise generated by devices outside of the audio system does need to be fairly close by to have an affect on the audio system. Devices "in the rack" are going to cause more problems than devices in a different room or on the opposite side of the house.
Of course I did not test every piece of audio equipment on the planet, just what I had in my house, which ranged from inexepnsive "consumer" gear to very expensive audiophile equipment. It wasn't just audio but things like TVs, satelite tuners, microwave ovens, routers etc. Every single one of these devices injected noise in this range into the AC mains, how much vaired a lot from box to box. ALL of the audio boxes let some of this noise through, none of them did a very good job of blocking it.
The issue of internal switching converters is an interesting one. I did several experiments building one of my liner supplies to drive different digital devices (small computers, routers, switches etc) and found that the amount of noise in this region injected into the mains went WAY down, even though the device in question had internal switching DC-DC converters.
Overall conclusion: power supplies which inject very little noise in this region into the mains are very useful, IF they are near your audio system. Doing this to stuff a room away or more may have a slight affect, but it's probably not worth it.
For example in my main system the squeezebox Touch and the netgear switch are run off linear supplies, and the DAC has one (well actually 5) built in. The preamp and amp both have supplies using these techniques (I can do that because I build it all myself). The result is the AC in my rack is very clean in this region. All this equipment has damped supplies that do not resonate in this region so noise from outside sources which do make it into the system has relatively small effect. I haven't bothered with any of these techniques for computers in other rooms, TVs etc. The listening room does not have a TV, cable box etc and there is no computer in the room other than the Touch.
It's obvious I have not testsed everything in existance, there certainly may be some companies that do produce boxes with low noise injection in this region and supplies that do a good job of attenuating what is on the line. If you have a system that's composed of these, great, you are lucky. But there is a LOT of equipment out there that is not.
On the comment that it is just a PI netowrk, which have been around for a long time, why is that important? I'm not claiming I have created anything new or mysterious, any new physics or anything. The issue is that a properly designed PI network, properly tuned with the right value caps etc will deliver very low noise into the AC mains and will deliver DC to the regulator whose residual ripple has almost no high frequencies. Sure the concept has been around for a long time, but how much equipment uses it? The probability is pretty high that not a single piece of electronics in your house has a PI filter in it, let alone one that has been designed to meet the criteria of mine.
So if a PI network is so good, how come everybody doesn't use them? Price and tradition. It costs more money, space and wieght to do it. The other issue is tradition. PI networks were designed for high voltage tube circuits, and most electronics engineers today if they even know of the existance of such a circuit, assume its only good for high voltage supplies. Since they have never seen one used for low voltage circuits they never even think about using one, it doesn't even occur to them as a possibility.
John S.
Yeah, Pi networks. Described in the ARRL Radio Amateur's Handbook , 1957 edition, as I recall. :-)
Did you try low pass filters at the power supply input of affected audio components to protect them from offensive radiators?
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
And you've measured this and have screen shots from your oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer . . .
Of course not - I no more have a spectrum analyser to illustrate my point than you do to disprove it. If you had, you'd have shown us all your measurements and screenshots. Would you not?
As it happens, I do have a 'scope but it's broken so I have to look for answers to the many reports, screenshots etc etc to be found on the net for those who trouble to look. I also use my ears - you might try the same though I doubt you will.
. . . stock power supplies are junk and need to be replaced
I said no such thing. The SMPS in a typical desktop computer is well engineered and, as anyone who remembers linear PSUs from the mini-computer days well knows, far better suited to general computing tasks than any linear PSU on weight, cost, efficiency and cooling grounds. And they're getting better all the time.
But, in some situations, the picture is less clear cut. Any digital machine performing precision tasks in realtime is sensitive to noise, not just audio boxes.
Someone earlier in the thread made the scornful remark that "I've heard that different computers print to the same printer much differently . . .".
Very droll - but silly with it. I worked for years with high-resolution imagesetters and platemakers (which are essentially large-format laserprinters) in the graphics arts industry where output resolutions are typically 2540 dpi and tolerances much tighter than are called for by the average office printer where ink and toner helpfully cover a multitude of sins. An error of a few microns in the placing of a single line of pixels on a printing plate (and there can be over 200,000 lines on a large plate) can render it useless because the error is readily apparent to the eye.
Manufacturers of top-end imaging kit must therefore pay attention to issues of noise, ground integrity and so on and ensure that their power supplies and the mains power lines that feed them are up to the mark. In short, different computers can and do print differently to the same printer whatever the engineering philistine may think. I'm sure similar points apply in dozens of engineering fields outwith my experience.
. . . you had better check every other electronic gadget in your home and replace their noisy power supplies, too.
As do others, I power my audio kit from a couple of dedicated spurs (one for analogue, one for digital) with no "gadgets" on them, an approach I first encountered in the early 1970s, those halycon days of "clean lines" that suppliers would inspect before delivering kit.
As a parlour trick to illustrate the point, try connecting a commodity-level TV set first to the workaday mains supply then to a proper "clean" line. The difference in picture quality is very marked. I didn't bother installing spurs for years but took the opportunity of other work being done to install them. Yes, they make a difference and, yes, I wish I'd done it earlier.
Not to diminish the quality of Swenson's power supply design but it is basically just a pi network (been around for several decades) in front of a 3-terminal regulator.
Thank you but I do know how it works. Well enough in fact to note that you miss the point that it's a well implemented design, not just any old rework from text books.
I seem to recall from the original discussion that you struggled with some of its basics. Whatever, as JS noted at the time, "I never stated that this was a new, unique, never-seen-before power supply design, just that it was a carefully optimized design targeting parameters I have found to be important for audio purposes".
My experience with it (I've built a couple - have you?) is that John seems to have got it about right.
And as you know, it won't power a Mac or PC which is what we are talking about.
It's not easy to get them to power a conventional motherboard but more than one list member has done so and reports good results. Others report good results from comparable though (IMHO at least) less refined circuits.
I accept that the Mac does not readily lend itself to that sort of approach. In fact, it's one of the reasons I find it hard to take Macs very seriously as devices for decent domestic audio reproduction despite their undoubted merits in other fields.
Not surprising at all...And, to tell the truth, most likely wouldn't make any difference in your case if you did - you do KNOW everything, right? Meaning, only the small part of it your could wrap you head around...
Edits: 04/12/12
I've listened enough to know that many so-called power supply and power conditioning upgrades have little effect on gear that have decent power supplies to begin with.
That's certainly possible - in one of two cases:
- resolution of a system as a whole, or of particular piece of gear, is insufficient to demonstrate the differences power conditioning makes. BTW, the difference can be negative, like for instance with most active conditioners on power amps - but it's ALWAYS there;
- hearing of a person is not discriminate enough, to hear these differences.
Being somewhat familiar with your posts about the (fine) gear you're using - I'll have to go with the reason #2 in your case.
You conveniently misquoted me by omitting the rest of what I said in my previous post. And you ignored or simply cannot comprehend the other possibility that I have already mentioned.... but I've seen you do this many times before so I am not surprised.
The power supplies in some audio gear may already be sufficiently well designed such that additional power conditioning may provide little or no benefit.
But in true audiophool fashion you and many folks here jump to the immediate conclusion that every piece of gear will benefit from a modded or aftermarket power supply and power conditioning. That's fine as it helps to keep those vendors in business.
"every piece of gear will benefit from a modded or aftermarket power supply and power conditioning."
Line cords, don't forget line cords and plugs and sockets and outlet covers and the metallurgy of the screw coupling the latter two and the hanging of tikis on the fuse box and...
On the other hand, have you looked at your powerline with a scope or spectrum lately? Not a pretty picture by any means. And if your stuff is like mine it's all unbalanced and probably designed by an audio guy whose whole RF experience is listening to the game on a transistor radio and doesn't know what EMC stands for.
So what we have are systems that are out of control at the system level and thus almost any alteration to them has the potential to change the performance for good, ill or just different. That's just currently part of the rich pageantry of audiophilism. It comes with the territory. And I'd it didn't, we wouldn't be chatting about it! It's part of the charm of the hobby.
Naturally, believing the above, I believe that what's good for the goose may not actually be good for the gander so he needs to sort out his own nest. It all depends on what the nest is made of, how it's assembled and the environment it's in. Enough metaphores?
Folks who generalize their experience rather than just sharing it bug me. It takes a lot of gall (and a high level of ignorance) to state that "anyone who doesn't find that hanging a rabbit's-foot keychain on their power plug gives their system more hop must either have a 'low resolution' system or bad hearing".
Maybe my system doesn't need it?
Rick
"and the hanging of tikis on the fuse box"
Most likely it's the tiki's. I've provided a link for those who aren't familiar with the concept. (Unless your fuse box is huge, I believe the proper term is Hei-tiki. My Uncle served in the Pacific in WW II and he brought back a tiki that was larger than a pendant but suitable for an inside table.)
Another possibility could be the tassels on oriental rugs in the house. These ward off evil-eye, according to rug experts and merchants. Tassels are undoubtedly why my system sounds good, even though it does not "resolve" differences created by many audiophile tweaks.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"That's fine as it helps to keep those vendors in business."
It's fine only if those vendors are selling products that actually improve their customer's sound. Otherwise, it's not fine. If people waste money on tweaks that don't work they have less to spend on equipment that actually works, and as a result there is less incentive for competent products to be developed and marketed. No one benefits from useless tweaks except the scam artists peddling them. (The fools may think they benefit, but then they are fools.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
You were asked before what those are - and pretty much refused to name them.
So, once again - what are the tweaks that you tried, that didn't work in your system?
Of course, one has to be judicious - in other words, I wouldn't spend any money on, for instance, Coconut Audio products, however I'd be willing to try them for free.
The only tweak that I personally didn't hear any difference with, when tried in my system, was Shunyata cable lifters. Left them in the system anyway, since they didn't cost a lot, and look kinda nice.
Damned if I recall. There are a quasi-infinite number of failed tweaks one might wish to avoid, so unless they fit into some kind of pattern then they tend to evaporate from my mind, just like I tend to forget the bad things that friends have done (but not enemies). You have to understand. Most tweaks do something. At the very least they provide an excuse for one to admit that things are now different. But if this is all they do the effect doesn't last and that's the only thing that is relevant. There are many tweaks that do matter and I remember these. These include all matter of minor changes in speaker positioning and adjustment, adjustment of shades and furniture in the listening room, positioning of tube traps, minute (0.5 dB) volume changes, reversals of polarity, switching from foobar2000 to cPlay, etc., resampling from 44/16 to 176/24 including various settings of Sox or iZotope SRC.
Sometimes changes that I did not expect to make much difference had a rather dramatic effect. These include replacing the large power supply capacitors in a MOSFET AMP with slightly larger valued units, as well discovering that two "identical" files sounded different and then inspecting them and discovering that, indeed they weren't at all identical, differing in the dithering algorithm used to create them. There are some things that I simply do not hear despite my best efforts. These include offset errors in CD rips, and bit-identical files that were made by ripping the same CD using different optical drives. These differences I consider to be "fringe" but just barely. What would be "beyond the fringe" would be a claim that HDtracks.com downloads are (good, bad, your choice) because of the color of the Ethernet cable used to connect the server to the hosting provider's Internet router. I suspect there are some audiophiles that subscribe to the "everything matters" dogma, in which case I am definitely not with them.
I've heard too many obvious changes over the years that in the cold sober light of day proved to be mistakes to naively trust my ears. Yes, I trust my ears, but only after quadruple checking and carefully using my mind. And yes, I believe some "authorities" but relatively few of them because most of them don't know what they are doing, unless it is liberating money from marks. If I am going to pursue theories based on non-standard science, I'm not going to waste my time on things like high-end audio. There are much more important subjects, such as cold fusion, zero point energy, psycho kinetics and remote viewing that are about equally "out there" with some high end tweaks.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
... it's a perfect music-making machine.
Only those prone to excessive snake oil consumption, can be silly enough to fool around with such nonsense as improved power supply.
No need to try anything, listen etc. either - instead, the best course of action is to demand explanations from strangers on web forums.
Makes sense?
.
Is there anything other than usual non-experiential nonsensical blathering by a garden variety Apple fanboy?
Actually, much of the audible diff with a linear supply has to do with the PS not putting the switching crap back into the AC line and infecting other stuff. May not be an issue for you. May be overwhelmed by all the other effects in the computer though.
See what John Swenson says. He'll give you a good rundown of the *potential* benefits that aren't so obvious to everybody.
OTOH be wary of what people who haven't tried something say...
Some of those people have no sweat with AC powerline filtering etc. *even though it's just going to be DC-regulated anyway*. Where do you draw the line? At on-board switching regs?, so noted for their high quality...just sayin'...
> > > > > Whatever clean DC from a linear (non switching) power supply you feed into the Mac Mini goes through a number of internal switching regulators anyway
Yep, the exact same situation exists with the SB-Touch, switching regulators inside. The power of the mind is incredible.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
...based on past reading, I consider HiFi World to be very sensationalistic in their writings with an extra helping of hype! But I'll go seek out this issue at my local bookstore in hopes that I can find it. thanks
Download pdf and print/save, it's cheaper.
Noel Keywood's stuff is fine.
.
The reviewer stated his soundstage got 20 meters deeper with a $1,000 firewire cable.
I don't think I can take anything he says seriously with a claim like that.
The other thing I find curious is the benefit attributed to replacing the power supply. Since you still feed it 12V there have to be switching DC-DC converters in there. I am curious to try it but not sure it is worth the time and effort.
.
20m sounds like a misprint; 2m more likely. HiFi World: if you are reading please clarifyRemoval of switcher takes a 50-150 kHz oscillator and noisy supply out of the equation and perhaps saves $2900 on a wonder base with an EM field.
I shall borrow one or two of the machines (modified Dell Mini) and Mac Mini to see what they do. This may take a while.
Edits: 04/09/12
Even with a linear PS there are sooooo many nasties emenating from that computer of yours.I hope that there will be no generalizations after you perform this experiment.
Edits: 04/09/12
Of course, but I have always stated this and you seemd to have consistently refused to acknowledge it for your system, claiming that MacBooks 'suppress' or circumvent noise.
If you download the magazine, go to the back and read NK's comments on improvements that have been made by Apple to the digital output. Also note the measured poor quality of spdif on earlier models. This highlights the crap advice sometimes made here (again and again) to take an optical output directly from the Mac Mini.
I didn't say or suggest that MacBooks surpress noise since they don't. I just said that they have less noise than an iMac, Mac Mini, or Mac Pro. They still have a good deal of noise.
I'll look forward to your results.
Try this:
.
Since a real orchestra is what, maybe 10 meters deep, I really want to hear how he added 20 to his soundstage.
.
I guess I could study under this guy for writing my next review :)
I'll have to download the article.
Your reviews are very useful and even though you ARE BOUND to get criticized they help the Audiophile community at large.However I do think you should take the time to come up with a proper and consistent format. I think your gear and your music collection are well suited to provide professional reviews of any product.
All that being said, I think this guy writes excellent reviews and provides a good format that could be emulated.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/10/12
You really want me to embrace this stuff.
Pioneer Elite N-50 network audio player
I'm enjoying what I have.
No I was not saying you should try or get any other device.
I gave the link as an "Example" of a good review style...only.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
I prefer the old Absolute Sound style. A short review and to the point.
Okay...it was only a suggestion.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Two thoughts:
Practically all the modern recordings are done in a computer.
A copy never be better than the original (as much will be equal).
The only thing coming from the computer is data. A good DAC won't be affected by the timing of this data. A bad one will. So, if you hear a difference between computers, or CD transports, or a monkey banging on keys to generate 1s and 0s to send to a DAC, blame the DAC. It really is that simple, but some people continue to cling to superstitions, it seems.How this started:
Back in the old days of computer audio, most external DACs used the S/PDIF protocol for digital audio input, causing them to have a dependency on the timing of the incoming data. People soon realized that doing all kinds of silly things to their computer influenced the sound coming out of these DACs. To this day, people still believe which OS they use, which brand of computer, the "quality" of the USB cable between their computer and their DAC, the number of processes running in the background, whether or not the track is ready entirely into memory or streamed off of the storage device during playback, and the alignment of the sun and the moon and stars, all had dramatic effects of the quality of the sound coming from their S/PDIF DAC...and they are probably right.
But, those dark days are over now, for most of us, because we're using DACs that (should, if designed correctly...steer clear of manufacturers that claims all this stuff still matters!) have no dependency on the timing of incoming audio data. Kind of like a printer...it can deal with data coming in at different speeds without it effecting the quality of the printout it is creating. Or like a hard drive, which can record the data reliably onto the platter spinning at ridiculously high speeds regardless of whether or not the computer that sent the data is configured in the "correct" manner.
Some people cannot get their head out of the sand, however, and are still under the assumption that all those factors that affected their crappy S/PDIF DACs are still in play. Note that these people refuse to take part in any kind of scientific testing to prove these beliefs...they are just certain that everything under the sun (and perhaps the sun itself) affects what they are hearing. Fmak has made it clear on countless occasions that he belongs to this superstitious group of believers.
Edits: 04/09/12
simplitically superstitious reasoning.
I've heard that different computers print to the same printer much differently. And the USB cable, along with the quality of the power supply, and the version of the driver one uses, and the number of processes running in the background, along with many other computer-related configurations, can have a dramatic "night and day" difference between the quality of printouts!In fact, I've heard that a Windows PC, running 64-bit Windows 7 (Home, not Professional!) prints far better than any Macintosh. Maybe I need to create a stand-alone print-only server-style PC just for printing...I bet the results will be amazing!
Edits: 04/10/12
n/t
If Scrith's posts here over the years are any indication, his hearing ability wouldn't allow him to distinguish the sound of his audio system from the sound of early 80's matrix printer, going full bore. In double-blind ABX test, of course.
Then, of course, his posts in this thread take on the whole new meaning...
My hearing will always be better than yours because I am not influenced by expectations, advertising, and manufacturer claims, like the simple-minded folk around here who let the opinions of others dictate how good their equipment sounds. You are a simple follower of this sad crowd, and whenever your comments are questioned, you have no useful reply except to attack the hearing of the individual that questions your basic lack of logic and sense. Sad. Just plain sad. Please get a life and stop attacking members here personally and try to use the brain that resides somewhere between those deaf ears to come up with something original and intelligent to say (I know, this is asking a lot based on what we've seen from you here, but I'm optimistic that at some point in your life you might mature into a respectable human being).
It would even be funny - if it wasn't so sad. Long career in video games development notwithstanding.
regarding his assertion that a “good” DAC should be “immune” to the upstream source (full disclosure: I have the same DAC he does).
Just this winter, I finally got into PC audio after watching from the sidelines for a couple of years. The main thing holding me back was nervosa that it would be difficult to get the “right” combination of hardware and software for optimal sound. Reading these forums gave me the impression that all kinds of stuff makes a big difference . . . and I figured I’d risk “broken” sonics if I didn’t get it just so.
Now that I’ve made the plunge, I’m finding that all these “crazy” tweaks make little to no difference in SQ. In my system/room, I hear only very small differences in: 1) choice of music player (I’ve tried Foobar, JRMC, Jplay, cPlay, and HQPlayer); 2) my dedicated, optimized PC and a generic laptop; 3) the stock USB cable and an expensive aftermarket; and 4) memory play v not. Not that I care to try but I probably could not pass a DBT with any of those. Meanwhile, I can hear no difference whatsoever btw: 1) FLAC and WAV; and 2) music files stored on my SSD v external HDD.
To be clear, I think Scrith is over-the-top to poo-poo so many consistent reports of improved SQ regarding the various tweaks but I also think the “tweak” crowd is over-the-top in claiming dramatic improvements. IMO, the “truth” lies somewhere in betwixt and starting with a “good” DAC (asych, galvanically-isolated) is a smart way to circumvent most of the nervosa.
"Reading these forums gave me the impression that all kinds of stuff makes a big difference . . . and I figured I'd risk "broken" sonics if I didn't get it just so"
I think we can use this as the standing definition for COMPUTER audiophile nervosa. Every single variable in a living breathing computer OS makes a difference, and there are 1 x 10^237 iterations of these variables. Must try each one in late night subjective listening tests.
Must OPTIMIZE everything. Must SYNERGIZE everything. Must TWEAK everything. And I mean the differences are 'NOT SUBTLE' and 'WIFE HEARD IT IN THE NEXT ROOM' differences. Or, (this is my favorite) 10 or so tweaks or setting changes may not be individually audible but COLLECTIVELY they add up to sonic nirvana.
If this subgroup of AA did not eventually come down to 100% total audiophile nervosa, well, it wouldn't belong on this particular site now would it!! ;)
Cheers,
Presto
> > > 'WIFE HEARD IT IN THE NEXT ROOM'
Or "component X BLOWS AWAY component Y". Of course, *I* think my Ayre AX-7 "blew away" the NAD receiver it replaced . . . I guess I can be as hypocritical as anyone.
> > > If this subgroup of AA did not eventually come down to 100% total audiophile nervosa
The one regret I have about getting into PC audio is that, so far, I've been far too prone to trying to get better SQ thru' the tweaks rather than just enjoying the music.
... as opposed to "just" music lover.
Computer audio simply gives you many more variables to tweak, but even without it, one can keep himself pretty busy with cables, footers, power tweaks, crystals etc.
I know I do - not all the time though. Sometimes I lose interest in tweaking temporarily, and simply enjoy the music. Usually it's right after I get my hands on a new CD by one of my favorite bands - like right now for instance, with new Eisregen CD (ltd. ed. digipack in A5 format), pictured below.
This applies to ALL things audiophile, INCLUDING Computer Audio.I think that us getting nervosa about it means that computer audio has finally come of age and instead of merely just being impressed, we're now on to the NEXT stage:
Obsession.
Cheers,
Presto
Edits: 04/11/12
surprising that this phantom 'analogy' has been taken seriously by experienced audio inmates.
Hi Scrith,
you left out the time element. Do all computers print out the doc in the same time frame? Are the same words printed at the same time after you press print? Or are there some variations based on all kind of os and hardware issues?
Certainly you arent saying that the same printer with 10 differently configured computers ALWAYS prints out in the same time with the same document?
And this "argument" of yours misses the boat much like the argument about flac. Often the example is a zip file of a spread sheet. Like the zip file, flac gives you all the data. Sure you still endup looking at the same spreadsheet but what you have to do to look at it and the time it takes is all different. It isnt the SAME experience. By that logic taking the 405 to I10 is the same as taking 101. I mean they both can get you to LA. Though only a crazy person would equate the to as being IDENTICAL.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
I think we can all agree that having to spend an hour on a congested freeway to get to a concert in downtown LA (vs. walking over to the Lincoln Center from The Plaza) is going to detract from the concert experience. :-)Your question is a good one: will having to unzip a file before printing it reduce the print quality?
Edits: 04/10/12
I never asked about unzipping a file before printing. So I dont know what you are talking about.
Anyhow a better analogy is to have 3 identical computers and 3 identical printers and get them to print the same letters at the same time. To start and stop in unison.
Could you do that if they were running different programs concurrently? Different services?? Different OS?
Would just one computer and printer start and stop at the same speeds if different programs were running? Different services??
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
Very well done but as we all know those of us who play with audio the rules are not the same as they are for other devices.
Just as the ear is far more demanding than the eye - we may think the print quality is the same but the truth could be we cannot perceive the differences so the eye isw oblivious to the very fine differences.
We are cursed with ears that are quite good, especially when "trained" through years of listening to music, and most importantly the voice, at hearing minute differences.
(I am amused that someone would be surprised that A MAC could sound bad. Oh, my, how can that be?)
I have found there is much that can be done to make a computer a good transport. When one is done the computer IS a transport since that is all it can do but it is handy having lots of stuff available in a moment from the HDD.
I cannot imagine an "off the shelf" computer making a good transport.
Saying a computer as a transport cannot make any difference is as silly as saying all transports sound the same. Of course, if they do for you then I consider you lucky since you attain satisfaction for either little money or little effort.
N/T
Bats, dogs, dolphins, etc. have good ears... humans, not so much...
You just have to look at the neuro anatomy to see how much of our brains go into visual processing vs. the little bit going into auditory processing (compare this further to the tiny bit going into olfactory processing). This isn't to say that sound isn't perceived reasonably well with compelling experiences, but human hearing is extremely limited by bandwidth (20-20kHz), dynamic range, and localization in the animal kingdom.
I don't know what kind of 'training' would help perceive the kind of imperfections good equipment is capable of these days. Furthermore, I don't consider hearing to be good enough to feel 'cursed' (LOL).
Not to other animals.
What difference could that make to the discussion?
I thought we were talking about human perception?
Combined with the fact that some audio systems are more revealing than others (sometimes MUCH more revealing), and the fact that some people have more open mind than others - gives you the reason for all this nonsensical "controversy".
Pretty good test, that I suggest everybody performs on themselves, to determine whether your system and hearing are up to snuff:
Flip the direction of a mains fuse in one of the components in your system.
If you can hear the difference in sound quality the flip makes - congratulations. If not - time to think about upgrading, and/or checking the hearing.
Cuz all the power plugs in my system have a ground so I can't willy-nilly flip polarity around.
Only the cheapest Sony boom box I have can do this.
N/T
...120VAC is a symmetrical, sinusoidal alternative waveform, right?
So... the fuse is seeing current flow in both directions irrespective of it's orientation in the fuse holder. The fuse itself may even have largely symmetrical construction.
Don't discount "power of the mind" when doing these tests.
Cheers,
Presto
... you could familiarize yourself with the subject, and the theories why fuse direction affects the sound.The fuse itself may even have largely symmetrical construction. - according to these theories, this is where you're wrong. I'm not a mechanical engineer, and not a specialist in metallurgy - but, apparently, it has to do with manufacturing process of the wire.
But more importantly - why don't you perform this very simple, and absolutely FREE, test, and let us know the results?
Edits: 04/11/12 04/11/12
Then it MUST be true!
Most fuse elements are symmetrical. Some are wound, and in one direction or another. This could represent small DC and AC inductances. However, the applied voltage in a power system is 120VAC, alternating. Each "direction" of the fuse sees current for 1/120th of a second - once in the positive going direction and once in the negative going direction. AC current does not "flow", it's a very messy migration of free electrons in one direction and then the other. Besides, if you look at any "coil" (or just a common spring) from each end, you'll find that it it "wound" in one direction or another, and that direction DOES NOT CHANGE when you flip the fuse/spring/coil around.
So, regardless of "fuse direction", the fuse element sees current in both directions.
Only fuses in a DC system could be said to have a "polarity", but even then it would be arguable that the fuse itself (as a node between two fuse clips) would be electrically identical regardless of orientation. This is barring, of course, theoretical arguments of "micro-diodic action" - in a metal with no semiconductor material in it.
These are people who change socks and hear differences. I am going to leave it at that. This is not the forum for it anyways.
If you like your fuses in a certain "direction" go for it.
So let me ask you this. If you have a double insulated component and there is no ground on the primary
Cheers,
Presto
The link below - fresh post by Unclestu on Tweakers - is as good of a start as anything.But more importantly - have you tried it yet?
Edits: 04/14/12
There are two potential kinds of symmetry and the presence of either one of these will make the other irrelevant. The asymmetry of the wire in the fuse is the first element. For signal wires, there will be obvious asymmetry in the audio signals (due to even harmonic distortion or other polarity effects) and that will provide the second element. Hence it is reasonable to assume that reversing a fuse that's in the signal path might have an effect on the waveform arriving at the speakers and ultimately one's ears.
A power supply fuse is not in the direct signal path and it is processing a nominally symmetric AC waveform. One would expect, therefore that the effect of power fuse polarity would be less than signal fuse polarity . The amount would also depend on the quality of one's AC power, including the time of day and what devices were nearby and connected (especially connected to the same circuit, breaker panel, or distribution transformer). There might also be an interaction with fuse polarity in the holder and AC plug polarity, when using products with two wire plugs and/or cheater plugs. The better the design of the power supply, the less the effect AC fuse polarity should have on the sound. Since the effect of power fuse polarity is likely to be system dependent and vary with the time of day and day of the week, the only way to know what the effect might be is to try it.
By the way, bypassing the fuses completely might further improve sound quality, but doing so could be foolish and might result in loss of the equipment, fire, or even death. It would void the component's warranty and in the event of a fire might void one's fire insurance. So, don't try this at home! Swapping fuse ends ought to be safe enough if done when the component is unplugged. And doing so might improve the sound even if polarity does not prove to be important as a new contact is a clean contact. One must keep this in mind when conducting tests of fuse polarity, otherwise one may confuse cleanliness with polarity.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Sure... Will try next time there's a need to open something up.
.
"In this land right now, some are insane and they're in charge. To hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
Agree.This is why I think those hung up on hardware minutiae are wrong.
Edits: 04/09/12
> > > > It demonstrates also how the poor performance of computer hardware affects MACs as well as PCs.
I've been trying to tell people Computers make horrible sources. Of course I was totally wrong....
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
I agree that most computers are certainly not perfect in stock form, but neither are CD transports. I'll take a computer over a CD transport anytime. I've modded hundreds of CD transports in past years. CD transports are not even close. If you dont experience this, then maybe your hardware is not up to snuff.
> > > > .... but neither are CD transports.FYI, I never meantioned CD transports...in case you had not noticed there are options available to use for digital music streamers. Have you modded or compared products other than the SB lineup?? Cambridge NP30, Pioneer N50, Consonance D-Linear7, Bryston BDP-1, or a Linn Majik DSM?
I don't want to get side tracked on CP-transports or CDP. When I speak of better front ends I am talking about the new and next generation of music streamers entering the market.
Lets not get side tracked on this....
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/10/12
I've had a few here, including Sooloos, Naim Unitiserve, Olive and Qsonix. I personally would not listen to any of them stock. I had them here to add reclockers for my customers, so they wanted improvement as well. With reclocking they are all much better than stock, but even with that, no match for a good Async USB interface IME. The one with decent software is Qsonix.
The problem is clock jitter, and either playback software or ripping software or both. I would rather have control over these elements. I also want to be able to bring in single tracks in any format I want, with or without tags and album art.
If you hear a difference with a different computer configuration, or a transport vs. PC as the source, the DAC is to blame.Your argument is the equivalent of saying the computer is to blame if a computer printer does a lousy job of printing when connected to certain computers.
Edits: 04/09/12
More often than not networked copiers / printers can have a variety of internal issues which would lead to their poor performance.
As a recently retired service technician for a leading copier / printer manufacture I have experienced on many occasions the deficiencies within servers, computers, and or networks, that can have a dramatic affect on the performance of networked copiers and printers which are in working order.
n/t
I am not saying that things dont sound different. I'm saying with the right computer configuration and hardware that no CD transport competes with it.
And in your opinion, what exactly is the "right computer configuration and hardware"? Please be specific. Please do not respond with a link.
Use a USB converter rated A+ by Stereophile in their recommended components. Use a Macbook Pro or newer Mac Mini with SSD and 8GBytes DRAM running Amarra 2.3.2 version 4317 in cache mode or the latest Pure Music. Use a good 1.5m or longer USB cable like the Locus-Design Axis or Polestar, or the Revelation Audio Labs. Use a good 1.5m S/PDIF cable like the Ridge Street Audio Poiema or similar AES/EBU or HDMI I2S cable to your DAC. Use a DAC with minimal or no digital filtering, and no reclocking or resampling.
It takes all of these things to get stellar results, but they are tried and true. Multiple awards from different magazines and multiple best sound of shows prove it.
I bet an expensive USB cable will make my printer create much better printouts also!Do you think I should get a Mac for my printing needs, or will my PC be sufficient?
How much memory should my printing computer have in order to get the best printouts from my USB printer?
Do you think audiophiles at an Audio show will be able to differentiate the quality of printouts between a properly configured computer and a typical printing computer?
Edits: 04/10/12 04/10/12
Unlike USB and Firewire, Blue Tooth is agressively seeking Audiophile implementations and is gaining support. BT is already found in every electronic device which gives them a broad foundation and acceptance throughout the world in by every electronics manufacturer.With BT you can send music to your Dac from anythng, phone, computer, iPad, iTouch, etc. and instead of buying hi-rez content your Dac will upsample to whatever rate you wish...even the DacMagic Plus does 24/384.
In a year or two I would not want to be the one stuck with a worthless $500 usb cable or an expensive USB -only- Dac. These folks are the BetaMax owners of the future....supposedly superior but actually obsolete.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/10/12
> > > I would not want to be the one stuck with a worthless $500 usb cable or an expensive USB -only- Dac
my wired USB DAC from my cold, dead hands. I do not own a cell phone and use ethernet for my Internet connection. I *do* have a microwave oven in my house but, so far, I've not had the occasion to run it 24/7.
BlueTooth is just another wireless technology. As such, it pollutes the local electrical environment, not unlike wi-fi, cell phones, and microwave ovens. This cannot be good for operation of critical electronics located nearby and it may not be so healthy, either.
BlueTooth will not be as low noise as a proper cable and as such it will be more subject to jitter and other degrading effects. I can't imagine this technology being suitable for audiophiles.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
.
As a means of data transfer it can work with no errors so even if your concerns about jitter are valid that can be cleaned up on the DAC end with buffering.
No idea if it will take off as predicted but I see no reason it is any worse than any other means of data transfer.
.
These are a few of the reasons why I think Bluetooth.
BlueTooth SIG is made up of Large Corporations [see below] with enough capital and engineering to make BT work in virtually any short range data transmission senerio. Also with other Large Corporations already on board [Pioneer, Sony et.al] the shear size and momentum of the wireless BlueTooth revolution in all of audio seems 'to me' inevitable.The only reason why Lossless has not taken hold instead of MP3 has to do with 'bandwidth', the bandwidth required to send/recieve large amounts of data vs. cost. Time and technology is chipping away at this from one end and BT along with user-end upsampling via hardware 'within' the products will at least resolve the issue of industrial-sized volume of hi-rez traffic.
Once the lossless hurdle via internet is overcome and 'industry' is able to make profits from selling 16/44.1 via the internet you will see hard-CD's vanish.
Blue-Tooth SIG is:
Ericsson Technology Licensing (founder member)
Intel (founder member)
Lenovo (since 2005)
Microsoft (since 2008)
Motorola (since 1999)
Nokia (founder member)
Toshiba (founder member)Chord Audio, surely a High-Eng company uses BlueTooth, just one of many currently using it.
Added to this a unique Bluetooth digital audio receiver has been designed to enhance connectivity so that you can stream high quality music wirelessly from a Bluetooth enable phone, PDA or personal computer.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/11/12
When did that every stop anything?BT = convenience and wide cross platform usage as well as a selling feature. Step-by-step, inch-by-inch it will slowly turn and BAM!!!! before you know it, its going to be everywhere.
Besides when there is money to be had, sound research and advances will be gained. As far as more wireless pollution goes...hey, welcome to the 21st century, we are already swimming in a sea of pollution both wireless and otherwise. Pollution never stood in the way of profits either.
Profits_rule, with the market being heavily saturated with Dacs and such wireless is the next logical step imo. As far as wireless goes I really think BT is leading the pack. BT stands to make some serious cash if they can get their technology accepted in all those electronic devices. Surely if I had the BT license I would want every wire in the world less that 20ft to be replaced with BT.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/11/12 04/11/12 04/11/12
"Besides when there is money to be had, sound research and advances will be gained. As far as more wireless pollution goes...hey, welcome to the 21st century, we are already swimming in a sea of pollution both wireless and otherwise. Pollution never stood in the way of profits either."
Not where I happen to live, yet. Nearest cell tower is over a mile away and no wi-fi is in range except mine, which is turned on only when I have visitors. Unfortunately, there is talk that the power company is going to install smart meters. Not much pollution here, either, other than the natural kind brought by the floods last fall.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Nice, but that Horse is a heavy polluter! Methane gas....
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Out my window I've I've seen deer, moose, bear, Fischer, coyotes, wild turkeys, plus the usual critters. Here's a typical photo of my back yard, not the ski area promotional photo linked previously.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Very very nice Tony!
Your generation is among the last to realize the American dream.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Tony, that is a stunning yard!!!
You mean to get a decent digital front end you need a good $1000 worth of cables and crap between the Source and the Dac.
Don't you think that there is someting inherently WRONG with a digital source if it needs so many correction devices in order to send a good signal to a Dac?
Come on you can't be blind to this....
I have the best computer available [a Mac] with the best audio software [PureMusic or Ammara] which puts out great music...oh but wait the USB out is crap so I need to speed $500 on a cable to help 'do something' then send it through a USB-to-SPDIF converter to clean up all the jitter, then send the signal through a $500+ spdif cable before I can realize any benefits to my Stellar front-end.
Huh?????
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Exactly. You need a good USB cable and a good S/PDIF cable in order to get the best results.
Just like analog. If you want the best results, you need good cables.
Digital is even more critical than analog I think. Impedance matching, losses, dielectric absorption, metallurgy and skin-effect are the important parameters.
> > Just like analog. If you want the best results, you need good cables. < <
For the cost of the digital cables you recommend, they need to better than "good." They need to be "great."
I for one could afford them but won't pay that much. So what are some "decent" lesser expensive digital cables than Poiema, Polestar, Locus Design, and Revelation Audio?
You mean no cable maker has been able to get the technology right for less than $500-$1000 for a 5 foot cable?
Texas Instruments study indicates that increased USB cable lengths increases jitter.What do you say about this?
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/10/12
they are using really cheap crappy USB cable. all bets are off.
Read this:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue14/spdif.htm
This was independently proven in AB/X tests done by UHF magazine in Canada.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Assuming that it is an async USB interface, however the other cable parameters are important, such as common-mode rejection, shielding etc..The test that TI did was about jitter and eye-pattern. That's what we are talking about here.
Edits: 04/12/12
People think so highly of themselves and their deductive reasoning that they disgard facts.Fact IS, Texas Instruments has the knowledge, money, technique, and experience to perform solid experiments and are indeed correct.
Anyone who would rather believe a magazine article over a published experiment by a world renouned corporation is nuts.
Steve seems to wonder why people here disregard most of his claims as pure rhetoric. Well if you are so blind as to dismiss solid experimental data over profit seeking propaganda, then you deserve to be doubted.
This is why when I went searching for methods to improve my Linux machine and sound I went to reputable sources like IBM and Texas Instruments. They helped me lower my OS Jitter, increase process efficiency in Linux and reduce Jitter associated with USB cables.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/11/12 04/11/12
You forget that TI developed the first Adaptive USB interface chip, and they did a really poor job of it. It took them several iterations to get it right.
> > > You forget that TI developed the first Adaptive USB interface chip, and they did a really poor job of it. It took them several iterations to get it right.
But they got it right correct, and they are still doing plenty of studies on USB as well as developing new methods to reduce USB jitter....the right way.
No doubt you believe in your abilities, but TI is more than a bunch of idiot Engineers with crappy test equipment and methods. Surely they spend more on R&D than most Audiophile Dac makers make within a year and their R&D stands to make them Billions.
Pride is good to an extent, you should be proud of yourself and what you have accomplished. I myself think you have done an excellent job with your business -but- if TI says one thing and you say another, don't be offended if I go with TI.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Look, you need to understand what large companies are really like. I designed and managed design engineers for 16 years at Intel and was a design team lead on Pentium 2. I have been doing digital design for 36 years for various computer and computer peripheral companies. The number of really talented designers in this large population was actually surprisingly small. After modding Sony and Pioneer products for many years, I have a really good sense of the caliber of designers they get for consumer products.
I am not saying that the TI plots are not accurate. What I am saying is that a better cable of this length would have a more open eye-pattern. Better drivers at the transmitting end would help also. These are facts.
Big companies are not a panacea by a long shot. Often what happens is the really talented designers become managers too early and then the design work gets done by junior engineeers. This keeps design costs down and they can work them to death without complaints. Its a shame and a waste IMO. Most big companies have major difficulty with innovation and making it happen. You will notice how long we have been waiting for TI to put out another USB chip. It was XMOS who put out the latest generation, not TI. TI could have done it.
> > > > > Look, you need to understand what large companies are really like.You worked at Intel for 16 years
I worked at Ford Design&Engineering for 21 yearsAlthough Ford is named after a family its hardly a mom and pop business...ya think????
I know very well how large corporations work after spending more than 2 decades of my life in one...
Large corps are slow movers, big ships take time to turn. On the other hand they do have talent and they do have solid processes.
> > > > Often what happens is the really talented designers become managers too early and then the design work gets done by junior engineeers.
Perhaps at Intel but not at Ford. Talented Engineers are too valuable to move out of that position. People with less Engineering talent but more people talent get moved up and promoted. To compensate the talented Engineers get nice raises and bonuses and actually make nearly as much or just as much as the Manager. I have spent more than 20 years working with some real talented people, the likes of which I have yet to see on these boards...except for a few...
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/12/12
I found the distinct shape of the two eye patterns interesting after I blew up the images so I could see them.
The connection between the USB jitter as seen on an eye pattern and the jitter in the recovered audio clock is far from clear. USB is packetized and there must be buffering involved to get over the gaps in data caused by the protocol. This will create jitter problems in the output audio samples even if there is zero jitter on the input. Contrast that with the situation with SPDIF where the relationship between the SPDIF clock and the DAC word clock is quite simple and if somehow, magically, there could be no jitter on the incoming waveform a clean clock would be readily available.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Good spdif dacs have as little (or even less) measured jitter as usb async dacs.
Stereophile and other measurements of the outputs show this.
What I don't like is the dpendency of usb dac sound quality on the cable. The overall sonic characters change much more than with good spdif cables.
we would certainly see USB as the 'standard' for digital signal transmission. Industry has a need for the lowest possible way to transmit data...this hits there bottom line in terms of MONEY.
But we know that AES/EBU and SPDIF are the standard in the professional world, this is the case for a reason.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
"But we know that AES/EBU and SPDIF are the standard in the professional world, this is the case for a reason."
These were designed by audio engineers with little knowledge of digital design or data communications. The AES/EBU system was designed for use over existing studio wiring and in utter ignorance that jitter issues might arise that could impact sound quality. SPDIF was a cheaper consumer version. AES/EBU and SPDIF are well established by reason of history, not technical merit. (All of this was according to the general AES focus on mass market rather than quality and its subservience to large scale industry and their marketing slogans, e.g. "Perfect sound forever." IMO the AES is a trade organization with little or no scientific credibility compared to real professional associations such as the IEEE.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"For this theory to work, the particles have to be in a "superposition" of every possible state before they are measured. So instead of just representing ones and zeros, quantum systems can be both at once."
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
So are you saying that USB 'is' superior to Spdif?
I understand the "we do it this way because we always have..." mentality, but is USB truly superior?
If so, then IYO will we start to see USB-to-USB take over the industry for digital transmission. Not just the Audiophile world but industry that truly depends on lowest jitter from point-A to point-B.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
The issue isn't the wire type, it's the method of flow control. The right way is for the DAC to pull data out of the transport rather than have the transport push a stream of timed samples to the DAC. With USB the right way is to use a proprietary protocol and driver for block mode transfer or to use the async protocol, which can use drivers provided by the operating system. With SPDIF the right way is to run an extra wire from the DAC back to the transport to slave the transport to the DAC's clock. If the wrong way is used, heroic measures will be needed to get good results. However, even with the right way results won't be excellent without careful implementation. A good system architecture is useless unless it is well implemented.
It's the entire system that counts and the way it is put together. It is not possible to break a system down into individual components and optimize each of these separately if one wants the best possible results. There is far too much interaction between components. A great SPDIF installation will beat a poor USB implementation and conversely. Note that when a "push" architecture is used the source, the cable and the sink are all in the signal path and hence critical to sound quality. When a "pull" architecture is used only the sink is in the signal path. The source and cable are not in the signal path and if they have an effect on sound quality it is only because of second order effects at the sink, i.e. various forms of leakage such as ground bounce and poor clock design.
Note that with both technologies, jitter on the cable is typically nearly as large as it can be to avoid data errors, since jitter is typically one of the factors limiting the maximum possible data rate. If the wire is conveying audio timing information because it is being run in push mode then the cable jitter will be 10 - 100 times larger than the jitter needed for full resolution reproduction out of a DAC. Jitter down at the level needed for audio quality is not readily measurable with any test equipment, and it certainly can't be seen on the screen of even an expensive scope. DACs that run in push mode must have a phase locked loop or other heroic measures to reduce the incoming jitter down to levels that will produce tolerable sound quality and these measures are neither cheap nor completely effective.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
> > > > With SPDIF the right way is to run an extra wire from the DAC back to the transport to slave the transport to the DAC's clock.
What IF both the Dac and the transport were slaved to the same word-clock?
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
"What IF both the Dac and the transport were slaved to the same word-clock?"
If the word clock were external to both the DAC and the transport and separately buffered outputs were used then the jitter on the cable from the transport to the DAC would not affect the audio quality. However, the quality of the output would depend on the quality of the clock signal received by the DAC. In other words, the sound might not vary much with changes in the transport but it wouldn't be good unless the word clock was very high quality since the word clock would definitely be in the signal path. If the word clock is a separate wire that is isolated from other wires it won't have any signal dependent jitter, which is a problem with systems where the same wire is used for both clock and data. However, there will still be noise of various sorts, so it is unlikely that the word clock as received by the DAC will be as clean as the word clock at the actual oscillator. This problem can be avoided by locating the oscillator in the DAC.
Unfortunately, there is another problem with using an external word clock that affects delta-sigma DACs and other upsampling converters. These do the actual digital to analog conversion at a higher sampling rate than the word rate. If an external word clock is used then the received word clock must be multiplied up to the final master clock rate which will be some multiple of the word clock rate. There is no way to do this frequency multiplication without employing heroic measures (expensive, not completely effective).
The correct way to implement a system synchronized by a word clock is to run a high quality fixed crystal oscillator at the master clock frequency, and send this clean signal directly to the actual digital to analog converter. At the same time, buffer this oscillator signal and send it to a divide circuit (a digital counter) to divide the high master clock rate down to the output word clock. Then send this word clock out of the DAC to the transport. A DAC that works this way will have a word clock output, but not a word clock input.
I don't believe it is possible to tell whether a given DAC has implemented the clock architecture correctly from reading spec sheets and manuals. At the very least one has to open up the device and do a little reverse engineering, something that can be difficult these days due to a high degree of integration, programmable gate arrays, etc. One can look for crystals and ascertain their frequencies, etc. (I haven't reverse engineered any audio devices, but I have reverse engineered data comm devices as part of patent lawsuits, which involved a combination of various system tests, measurements, reading of chip numbers with a flashlight and magnifying glass, Googling, reading various company literature, technical, legal, and marketing.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"the jitter on the cable from the transport to the DAC would not affect the audio quality"
True, but the cable still might affect audio quality due to commmon-mode noise or RFI differences from one to the next.
I practice, this is what happens, and I can prove it with a USB common-mode filter.
Common mode noise on the UBS cable shouldn't couple into the DAC. It should be blocked by the USB receiver circuitry and the buffering circuitry inside of the DAC that connects the USB receiver to the converter.
As to RFI, the cable might act as an antenna and radiate EMI. The DAC and other audio components and cabling should suppress this interference which isn't in the audio band.
In either case, if the cable affects the sound quality it is not the fault of the cable, it's due to a defect downstream of the cable.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
I have the full pdf stored on my computer and will make it available on my site. Recently they have been doing some house cleaning so the original document is a little hard to find.
I think a word-clock generator being shared between the source and the dac would really resolve the jitter issue.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Word-Clock will not solve it. If you use WC to sync a system, then by definition the clock in that system must be a PLL. WC frequency is not Master Clock frequency. Its the MC, which is typically 256 times the WC that must have low-jitter.
This is why in my discontinued Pace-Car reclocker, I distributed Master Clock not WC. If WC is used to control a local oscillator in the DAC, the jitter will be significantly higher than using a Master Clock in the DAC and distributing it to the source.
Steve N.
Forget AB/X we are talking a world renouned Engineering and Technology company with tons of money and staffs of Engineers with way more knowledge and experience than P-Feedback.Surely you can not think Texas Instruments is wrong or don't know what they are doing.
Fact IS, even IF a $1000 USB cable was used the overall results will still be the same. Shorter runs of wire would still give small jitter numbers. IF the quality of wire were an issue we would see even more reduced jitter, but the results would still be consistent across the board.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/11/12 04/11/12 04/11/12
"Fact IS, even IF a $1000 USB cable was used the overall results will still be the same."
No, they would not. The eye would be more open and the jitter component smaller. The difference between a long $1K cable and a long $20 cable is huge. The losses, dielectric absorption, metallurgical discontinuity reflections and impedance variations are the reason.
Steve N.
I'm sure that Belden has plenty of inexpensive cable that has a very nice eye pattern in lengths that fit within the USB protocol's timing budget. There is no science behind the mega-priced cables USB, it's marketing BS. The people marketing these cables undoubtedly lack sufficient knowledge of cable design, transmission line theory, driver and receiver circuitry, logic design, etc. There is real expertise in digital cables, but it resides in IC chip manufacturers such as Intel and cable manufacturers such as Belden.
Real engineers do not associate themselves with snake oil marketing.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Tony - you need to compare a $20 Belkin Gold (Which I incidently include with my USB converter) to the same length of Locus-Design Polestar playing music. The Polestar is not an expensive cable and not even the best out there, but absolutely kills the Belkin, and its more flexible. It's not marketing BS. I dont know that they even advertise this.
Belkin cable is a lot like all of the other "by-the-foot" cables on big spools made in China. Belden 1694A 75 ohm coax is the same. I have this too. They meet the specs for these types of cables, but it does not take much design skill to make something that sounds a lot better. Metals, dielectrics, shielding and geometries can all be improved.
Steve N.
There should be no audio signal going over a USB cable, only data. If there is an audio signal (i.e. a timed waveform that is correlated with the music) the design is broken, e.g. running in adaptive mode. If a USB cable effects the sound quality of a USB DAC then the USB DAC is not well designed. It may be that the best available USB DACs are not up to snuff, but if so the way to fix this is not a bunch of add-on band-aids. It is to do a better job of basic engineering. (But this is unlikely to happen because of the hockus-pokus snakoil nature of the high end audio mariet. I would look more to the pro-audio market, where the end users are technically knowledgeable so there is less room for nonsense.)
It's the same situation as with power cables. If a power cable affects the sound of the component attached it's because of poor design on the part of that component. A power cable is not supposed to be in the signal path. The situation is completely different with interconnects or speaker cables, where these wires are definitely in the signal path and have direct effect on the audio signal as well as directly interacting with the components on either end of the cable that are processing the signal.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"If a USB cable effects the sound quality of a USB DAC then the USB DAC is not well designed."
This is what I though as well when I designed-in a multiple reclocked ASync USB interface. I had really hoped that this would be the case, but I learned different.
The reality is that these cables still matter, maybe not as much as when the interface was Adaptive, but they still matter. I dont know if its just impedance, shielding or common-mode rejection, but they still matter. Every single USB converter and DAC using async or block mode still improves by using a good USB cable.
I challenge you to design an async or adaptive interface that is completely immune to cable effects. Good luck.
All you have done is to indicate that you haven't been able to figure out what is going on. If changing the cable makes a real difference in the sound, why can't you track down what is going on?
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Why doesn't somebody just fix it? Because nobody knows what the problem is. All the obvious primary effects have long been taken care of. Secondary effects have been hypothesized, tested, determined which are causing problems and those dealt with, and still its not perfect. We are now in a situation where whatever is causing the issue is not obvious, and is almost certainly something difficult to measure.So someone comes up with a wild idea as to what it might be and tries to see if its possible to measure with existing test equipment. They come to the conclusion that it can't be measured by what's currently out there. So you go to a test equipment manufacturer and they say it will cost 20 million dollars to build such a piece of test equipment. The problem is we don't even know if the hypothesized effect is what is causing the issue. That's a lot of money just to find out if it is or is not the problem.
So what happens is people try and use existing test equipment that was designed to measure something else and see if its possible to coerce it into measuring what YOU want to measure, sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't.
What frequently winds up happening is that you give up on trying to measure whatever it is and try and figure out a way to mitigate whatever it is (assuming that it exists), then build, that and listen, did something change? This process can take a long time and a lot of money, so you don't get to try out too many hypothesis per year. This process can take a long time to find the issue.
As an aside on this, my day job is designing chips that handle HUGE data rates. I can't tell you how many tera bits per second we are talking about, but it's a LOT of data. The cable that goes between boards that these chips are on costs $150,000, I kid you not. When you are working on the edge cables just plain cost a lot.
But I know you are going to say, but audio isn't going anywhere near as fast, so expensive cables are not necessary, BUT as Steve mentioned the level of the cable effects which are AUDIBLE are MUCH lower than the level which renders the link inoperable. These levels are in the same ballpark as what renders a link inoperable in the chips I work with. Why are such small levels audible? That's what we don't know yet. We do know that test equipment to work at these levels is extremely expensive, way out of reach of most audiophile companies. This makes going to the next level very slow.
It will happen, but it's going to take a lot of effort and wild goose chases to figure out.
John S.
Edits: 04/12/12
Thanks, John. I could not have said it better. At least I'm trying to resolve this. How many other manufacturers have a USB common-mode noise filter? Try zero. I'm the only one.
Steve N.
Right. The problems are elusive. And there's no real money in audio. And there are lots of scam artists, so that even if someone did happen to solve the problem there would be people out there "demonstrating" that the problem was still present, and this would diminish the already limited audiophile market. Another way of saying this is that the emperor has no clothes. Where is the little child?
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
You also need a $2900 Tranquility anti EM base.
Not too long ago, he was telling everyone that Foobar 0.8.3 was the best that could be had.
How long is "too long ago"? Try 5 years ago. Foobar was the best sounding solution at that time.
I could say a lot of derrogatory things about yours posts here too, but I wont.
Stretching it to 5 is typical. Check your own posts and your own historical web advice
What is with you anyway? Is your life dedicated to discrediting me?
If you were a reasonable person.....
are doing it to yourslf. Stop snipping at me.
Actually Fred, the base with the upgraded power supply retailed for $2400. You can go with the Baskik for $995.
I'm a little surprised that you are so negative about the Base without even having listened to one. That's not like you.
not adverse to trying one.
However, I am adverse to BS marketing and inflated prices for products whose functions are disguised in crap language.
I don't post here about what I do in terms of setup but for many years I have used an EM detector to space out components to avoid particularly magnetc interference. There are also EM shielding products which are much cheaper than $1000 which you can place around components.
The point in question is the ad hoc nature of the Base and some of your other hit-miss changes, whilst not addressing the basic nature of possible improvements to digital audio tranmsission and playback (such as fan noise and high speed hdds n+v). I have detailed these in the past and this typically resulted in emotive responses from you; eg: you take components which are not EM shielded sufficiently, you put a EM and grounded 'shield' around it; What do you end up with? I just don't believe that the Base can always improve SQ as claimed. Hence my reservations.
My audio us guided by the need to have basic grounds for doing something. I am not adverse tro trying anything new, but I am adverse to being bambozzled with pseudo science.
A reasonable response.
I'm with Fred on this one. We're both engineers and don't like BS.
I'll try out a cheap tweak for amusement purposes, but I'm not going to spend more than an hour's pay for something that doesn't come with a credible description of what it does and how it works. I wouldn't have the slightest interest in even listening to it in the absence of evidence of some sort. That evidence would have to come from someone who has technical experience of component interaction and system setup and some experience conducting scientific experiments. Without a description of the physical principles behind a device, I wouldn't begin to presume how to even conduct a valid experiment to see if a gadget worked. I have enough experience with listening tests to know how easily they can fool someone.
I were going to investigate some new physical principles embodied in some device that I consider having a low probability of working, I would expect there to be a huge potential payoff involved before I would waste my time on it. (It might make sense to experiment with cold fusion devices, but not some audiophile tweak that has been reported to expand a soundstage beyond the size of an actual concert stage. So what?)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"I wouldn't have the slightest interest in even listening to it in the absence of evidence of some sort."
Actually, I'd love to try it, if I couldn't hear any effect, that would be fine, if I could that would be interesting.
Evidence-wise Steve is a pretty good witness in my book and he likes it. Actually that's the only thing lending this device any credibiliity. Of all the audiophilish things I've heard of, this one seems to be at the limit, even it's putative function is fuzzy!
So if you happen to come by one of these bases treat it as the black box that it is. Not knowing what it does should remove all sorts of biases from your test...
Regards, Rick
+1
Clear to me Steve has no vested interest in the product and is willing to share his experience. That's what this place is partly about.
Regards,
+2
Absolutely he is not trying to promote the product even with glowing reviews. But I do think Steve is right when he said he is "out of step with this forum" because few if anyone here is willing to spend $1k for the product.
Conversely there are dirt cheap products that I try like crystals, that I will never come on 'this' forum and explain the benefits of simply because I know no body here is interested in trying them...
Of course people will be dubious, especially when a product does not adequately describe how it works. Surely no body would expect people to openly accept this without question.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
I'm sorry I wasted you time."It might make sense to experiment with cold fusion devices, but not some audiophile tweak that has been reported to expand a soundstage beyond the size of an actual concert stage"
I never stated that.
Enough.
Edits: 04/10/12
You don't like the price of the device in question - and neither do I. But...
There's pretty good probability that crystals are involved, in one form or another, in construction of Tranquility base. There's also pretty good theories WHY piezo- and pyro-electric crystals affect sound quality.
How many times did someone mention here, on Tweakers etc. that crystals make audible difference, including in computer audio applications?
Time involved is less than 30 min. to complete eBay order, and however much you need to conduct listening test. Money involved - around $10-15.
Is the fact that you haven't bothered to try them ALSO explained by the reasons that you mentioned in your post?
tried crystals and can certainly hear a difference. Not always good like the 'a-typical' claim but a difference non-the-less. With the right crystal the audible change is nothing short of outstanding.
I too thought crystals were involved based on the explaination of the sound improvements.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Besides the $1K plus for cables and crap we also need a magic base to get the best out of the Mac.
Who said Computers don't make for great sources....as long as you invest a few thousand bucks to fix them.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
It probably would benefit that Bryston BD-1 as well. Many opinions with no actual first hand experience.
Have you tried it under your Dac or other components?
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
They say it makes a big difference under DACs, etc. But no, I haven't tried it yet under other components.
Your DAC has all kinds of fancy circuitry to attenuate jitter and other noise coming from the computer. One would think therefore that your DAC has reduced the amount of effect the base might have on it's output when the base is used on the computer.
I was rather amazed that the first place to start with the base wasn't under the DAC or under a downstream preamp or amplifier. Indeed, the idea that putting the base under the computer was a suitable place was the very first sign that something was wrong. I haven't been so put off by BS since the initial Amarra episodes two years ago. (Before Amarra was The Memory Player.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
The device originally was made to condtion computers. I thought this would be a good place to start. And I was right.
The big problem I see is that I'm out of step with this forum. Big time.
No one else tries this stuff here, and by the looks of things, no one wants to hear about it.
I did aquire a degree in psychology along the way, so I have some appreciation for what you are discussing.
The big problem here is that you haven't heard the Base. And if you did, you wouldn't trust yourself to believe what you're hearing.
Adios Amigo
Ho ho!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think if Merc truly believes in this product he will buy one for each of his components.
Nothing like putting your money where your mouth is....
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Or get a Bryston BDP-1, a $90 external HDD and a decent AES/EBU cable to connect to your DAC and be done with it. Use your computer for word-processing, storing iTunes and photos and for surfing the Internet -- what it was intended for. Until, of course, it is infected with a virus or worm, or otherwise crashes and burns.Neal
Edits: 04/10/12
Okay, Why dont you bring all that to the Newport Bay show June 1 and we'll have a shootout. Bring your wallet too.
> > > > Or get a Bryston BDP-1, a $90 external HDD and a decent AES/EBU cable to connect to your DAC and be done with it.
Some people won't see the truth simply because they don't want too. I think anyone who argues against the simple and straight forward solution is one of those people.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
doesn't know
> > > > And in your opinion, what exactly is the "right computer configuration and hardware"?
No doubt, its the computer configuation he has and only his hardware.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
I believe audioengr is right.
I have had little difficulty making computers sound as good or better than some pretty decent CD players. I have owned the Cary 306/200, Cary 303/300, Cary 308T, Sony XA7ES, and presently own the Accuphase DP-65v - all excellent players.
Yet, my computer setup is on par or better sounding and that was with very little effort.
Thats fine...but...I am talking about computers vs. music streamers like the Pioneer N50 etc.I never said anything about comparing computers against cdp in this thread but instead stressed how the new generation of digital audio streamers are better suited for digital audio vs. computers.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Edits: 04/10/12
The only music "streamer" I have experience with is the Squeezebox and while it sounds pretty good it doesn't match the performance of my music server setup.
Which "music streamers" have you owned that sound superior to a good music server?
'Fraid so :)
Galileo was wrong too:
"Galileo was accused of being a heretic, a person who opposed Church teachings. Galileo was cleared of charges of heresy, but was told that he should no longer publicly state his belief that Earth moved around the Sun."
I would say that I am not in bad company.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
We get the point. Remember this is a computer forum. Many inmates enjoy using a computer as a front end.
Obviously you have been unable to "connect" with this group for proclamation of Messiah.
I'm all for observation and science over faith :) I find computers make great (data) sources, not so great as music sources for all sorts of reasons but that's why I plug a good DAC in.
I'm going to stick my neck out on this....
I actually see Bluetooth as taking over from USB. The makers of BT are continuously improving the technology with regards to trasmitting lossless audio, even high rez. Furthermre, from a business stand-point this Computer-audio 'streamers' trend is wide open for implementation of technilogical advances. Cutting wires has always been the mantra for technology, this goes back to wireless phones, wireless remotes and so on...so it is inevitable that digital transmission will be wireless too. To this end, profits [the motivator for all things] will drive BT to fill this need. As we all know, technology moves quickly so I don't think we will have to wait 10 years...
Not only that, but as of this year there are probably nearly 100 variations of streamers on the market that seek to take the place of computers. Its only a matter of time before the ergonomics and features are stream-lined to suit consumers needs, then down come the prices. This will mark the end of Computers as front-ends as we know it.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
No reason at all why it shouldn't work perfectly. There's also no reason why a 'PC' couldn't look more like a USB memory stick, or a phone or a wrist-watch or whatever. I think it's only the people who can remember their PCs as big boxes in the corner that still tend to think of them as big boxes in the corner. It's all just data processing and communication though, you still need to convert it to something interesting.
What you say probably applies to audio, but not video.
These small media centre things are rubbish. One need a quad core with good graphics to do video really well.
A sexy Zotac dual core I bought with ATI graphics is crap when it comes to video quality and I don't understand how they can sell it as a media machine.
Point (or at least this thread) is that PCs used to be easily defined and easily recognised. Now where is the processing going on, where is the interaction? How are you going to define a PC? If you have a display or a DAC with lots of DSP that just needs to be networked then where is the PC? The discussions that go on here that one platform or transfer protocol is better than another is completely missing the point. You need as much processing as is necessary to turn data into HD video, you don't *need* a quad-core box with dedicated graphics.
Sorry, don't know whatyou are saying.
You are WRONG about quality video replay and rendering not requiring a powerful cpu and a high quality graphics card.
I thought I was pretty clear. You don't need a high power CPU and dedicated graphics if the PC is just streaming data. I don't need a high spec PC to get high quality audio from my DAC, data without dropouts will suffice. I'm pointing out the obvious which is that processing is not limited to the CPU or the motherboard or dedicated chipsets, it's also in the networked devices. The PC may well be contributing very little indeed.
I was not talking about the PC streaming video but driving it
It's OK I realise you didn't really get what I was on about.
Actually, there were a lot of abusive posts from MAC pushers 3-4 years ago when the subject was first raised here.
A typical one was 'Your PCs are no good for audio, buy a MAC and stick loads of RAM in and Use iTune (before all these wonder packages came in).
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