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In Reply to: RE: Thanks for the good wishes. posted by Ted Smith on January 09, 2011 at 12:46:12
"all real engineering involves compromises."
Why limit the scope to engineering? I reckon it's an attribute of life...
The beleaguered Design Engineer has done his job if the thang he designed meets specs, is under budget and on time. Usually he's doing damn well to hit one them. My take is that home audio is far more plagued by systemic definition difficulties than implementation problems, hence the 'system synergy' effects. No one knows how to specify what 'properly designed' is. On AA it's usually synonymous with perfect.
On the bright side it all makes for a great hobby. If everything sounded the same it wouldn't be interesting!
Regards Rick
Follow Ups:
Howdy
Thanks.
It would be nice if some of the "standard" audio interfaces were replaced with sane/well-engineered interfaces. But downward (or backward) compatibility also has many benefits - it's another of those compromises.
I originally didn't have any PCM interfaces on my DAC but one day I woke up and realized that I had plenty of extra pins on the FPGA so I "graphed" on DSD ST glass, TOSLink, S/PDIF and AES/EBU inputs. Then dealing with these signals was a software problem and I can deal with those :)
Even if I were designing a DAC from scratch and intending to market it I'd probably still meet essentially the same interfaces: for a while it'll still be more useful to most people to have TOSLink, S/PDIF, AES/EBU, USB Audio 1.0 and other "legacy" interfaces than a random custom "perfect" interface. If I can get my jitter susceptibility to near that of which a "perfect" interface could provide, so much the better.
I also suspect that even if I were to decide to allow myself to use some custom software on the PC and a custom "perfect" hardware interface I'd still have essentially the same results by using some software to carefully downsample any 24/196 to 24/96 (or 176.4 to 88.2) and use a standard hardware interface and apply my creative energy elsewhere. Beyond a certain point, if time or money matter, there are more important things that absolute sample rates. (I know that marketing concerns would tend to a different direction.)
One thing I do know for certain is that every time I listen to music it's so relaxing and involving that I don't get much work done :)
-Ted
"...every time I listen to music it's so relaxing and involving that I don't get much work done :")
Seems like a character risk alright, there's just nothing like success to sap a man's motivation! The cool thing is that you, far more than most of us, have really 'earned' it.
I was actually thinking more of the analog and power interfaces, EMI issues, that sort of thing. The spectre of folks spending thousands of dollars on power cords fascinates me. It's sort of like having the engine fail in your car so you solve the problem by renting a team of elephants from the circus to pull it around. Yes, you do get there, but you know, the solution just isn't very elegant, albeit expensive and impressive.
Regards, Rick
Howdy
I agree, even tho I have aftermarket power cords on almost all of my equipment and silver interconnects and speaker wire :)
For interconnects the two obvious (to me) technical things are differential connections and connections which are (accurately) terminated at the receiving end. Both make technically sound differences and are available on some equipment.
But truthfully I get more of a difference with swapping power cords and/or power conditioning. But I'm not about to hack my amps to get rid of their sensitivity to power cords :) Someday I might build my own amps or power conditioners, but I doubt it. I do find a sweet spot with medium cost cords and conversely have experienced some real stinkers: both cheap and expensive.
The most surprising thing like this that I ever heard was a quality DAC and cheaper transport connected with ST glass hooked up with the DAC being the clock master and separate clock and data connections coming back from the transport (A Meitner DAC but not a Meitner transport). Even with the transport and DAC on separate dedicated AC feeds and the galvanic isolation of the interconnects, a change of power cords on the transport caused a very noticeable difference in the perceived loudness of the bass :) What the...?
In my current DAC I have no components which were selected by ear: all decisions were based purely on my preconceived notions of the desired specs and the parts meeting them :) I'm not adverse to selecting components by ear (assuming they meet the technical specs), I just don't have the time or inclination: I'd rather spend my time making bigger differences with technically sound modifications.
I do get a lot of satisfaction of having done something real and even tho it didn't change my view on most audio matters I feel I can speak with a little more experience/authority on the subject.
-Ted
"I'm not about to hack my amps to get rid of their sensitivity to power cords"
Me neither! Leastwise without a pretty severe problem which fortunately I either don't have or am not aware of. Yet I'm not bothered by just changing interconnect cables and don't feel obligated to redesign the interface. No accounting for audiophiles...
"For interconnects the two obvious (to me) technical things are differential connections and connections which are (accurately) terminated at the receiving end."
Yeah, prolly more important for digital although even for analog I ended up mostly using 300ohm open lines with terminations and build-out resistors. The driver load ends up ~600ohms which is a bit low but seems to work OK with most gear and they eliminated the mild 'tiz' that I ended up with after switching to open lines but the, well, the 'openness' remained. My premise was that the most likely problems with interconnects were dielectric absorption and stray currents on the ground lead and for speaker cables skin effect and current loop area. Since the stuff I did to try and address those concerns perked up the sound I'm happy. However that's not conclusive and there is clearly more going on, some of it related to the wire itself. Even though I'm just using magnet wire (had a roll on hand) I don't scoff at folks using silver or specially pulled, treated or forged wires. However I suspect that the 'problem', whatever it is, could be ameliorated in other far less expensive ways if well understood.
Guess I have a small but finite cynical side that believes that there is more interest in selling (and buying) essentially linear jewelery for audio systems than in identifying problems and implementing efficient solutions. Heck nowadays they actually have jewels strung on those necklaces! If there's anything to that it might be a better way to clean up reflections than terminations. One thing about audiophiling, there is never a dearth of things to explore!
Regards, Rick
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