 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
88.108.44.64
In Reply to: High-End Analogue Soundcard Shootout: LynxTWO, RME DIGI96/8 PAD and Delta 1010 posted by Robert Joe on December 13, 2006 at 23:57:20:
Having read it, and owning a Lynx AES16, the RME, dCS972/954, M Audio 'Audiophile??????joke' I would seriously question the basis of the comparison tests. There is no way that the RME can even come close to the dCS, but the Lynx driving the dCS makes very very good music. Getting used to a soundcard as the basis of the tests seem very odd indeed.Ultimately the analogue stages of sound cards are compromised by the cheap op amps and coupling capacitors used and simply cannot touch the quality of audiophile boxes. The poor quality of power suppplies from the computer is another important factor.
Follow Ups:
Ultimately the JITTER introduced by the flawed and obsolete S/PDIF interface compromises the sound. It is possible that the spectrum of this jitter is euphonic.Some people like the sound of mp3 too.
The jitter from SP/DIF is far from euphonic. It is exactly the sound that people criticize digital for. It adds glare, grain, and a flat quality to the sound.
"Ultimately the JITTER introduced by the flawed and obsolete S/PDIF interface compromises the sound."All interfaces introduce jitter, to some degree.... A lot of it has to do with impedance matching, the terminations of the cable, and the precision of the characteristic impedance of the cable.... Not to mention the various devices themselves don't necessarily work best with the same type of interface....
"It is possible that the spectrum of this jitter is euphonic."
Possible, but highly unlikely. The common sonic flaws with jitter are a "vagueness" in the upper frequencies and a reduced sense of "dynamic scale" (gradations from soft to loud).
"Some people like the sound of mp3 too."
I think most people in the mainsteam aren't even aware that MP3 has reduced resolution relative to CD. And many that are aware don't think it's a big deal. Part if it could be that with a lot of modern pop recordings, via typical consumer grade audio, it is difficult to discern the difference in resolution between MP3 and CD playback.
If I went back to the early 70s, I could take this back-and-forth discussion and replace the words, "jitter", "mp3", et al, with the discussions around LPs vs cassette/8-track tape media.The key to the issue back then as it is today is the tradeoffs between portability of music and quality of reproduction.
Clearly, the consumer world has voted and Steve Jobs won.
Cheers,
David
The previous poster had denigrated the sound of an inherently asynchronous interface, the PCI soundcard. Yes, any clock intoduces jitter, but why compound it with separately clocked source with gnarly cables and terminations.Of course, most of these soundcards are cheap consumer wares, but that doesn't affect the concept here. A truly asynchronous USB interface or a high-end Squeezebox-type interface is what we are all looking for.
Maybe soundcards have cheap capacitors and the like, but maybe "high-end" products have them too.
I said nothing of the sort; merely that the comparison methodology was weird.In my experience, whatever output method is used, there needs to be relocking of some form. The dCS 972 and other boxes do this in my system. No output method seems to be better than others as I2S is just as cable dependent as spdif. USB doesn't sound that good to me either.
The prasied Lynx AES16 clock isn't actually that great either. It's OK.
We all need to try to avoid common hype and blame everything on jitter. The analogue output stage is very important.
Which is why some of us say that Lynx cards (Lynx 2, L22 etc.) ARE good. They do not require the extra stages of outputting to an external device (no matter how good that device is) translation to SP/DIF, reclocking etc.IMHO, the minute to run the signal through an SPDIF interface, you have compromised the signal, and no amount of reclocking etc. can restore it's signal integrity.
Why do you say the AES16's clock is not that good?
The AES16 is best linked to an external Lynx box, using their proprietary Synchrolock technology. But few people have heard or experimented with this in the audiophile community.
I had a look at the clock signal, and unlike the better external to pc clocks, it has some noise spikes. The synchro lock feature is also troublesome and does not lock reliably.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
