Sure, here you go:One question though: haven't been been about to find anything about gravity waves known to have some effect on clock jitter. Do you have a reference?
https://www.snexplores.org/article/a-new-clock-shows-how-gravity-warps-time-even-over-tiny-distances
Nothing special or special, just the basic rules of routing low-level analog signals in the vicinity of digital signals, all wrapped up in audiophile terminology.From ICS542 Datasheet:
"...Other signal traces should be routed away from the ICS542. This includes signal traces just underneath the device, or on layers adjacent to the ground
plane layer used by the device"
For Topping D90 dac, there were ground plane keepouts under the clocks.
From LT3042 datasheet:
"The LT3042 demo board layout utilizes magnetic field cancellation techniques to prevent PSRR degradation caused by this high-frequency current flow..."
https://ecsxtal.com/crystal-and-oscillator-printed-circuit-board-design-considerations :
"Do not run Digital / RF signal lines or power under oscillators for multi-layered PCB, as this will add noise."
From Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering (Ott):
"For higher resolution systems (18 bits and up), even more ground noise voltage isolation may be required for adequate performance. These converters often have minimum resolution voltages in the single digit microvolt range or less."
"..As indicated in the previous paragraph, a current of only 0.1% or even 0.01% of the total digital ground current may cause a problem if it flows through the analog ground plane."
I don't make this stuff up, and I know how hard it is to get right. Such effects can be audible however they come about.
One question though: haven't been been about to find anything about gravity waves known to have some effect on clock jitter. Do you have a reference?
Yeah this is part of 3rd year undergraduate EE stuff in good universities, even if it then takes 10,000 hours to get good at it. DACs all ought to have a 6 layer board and yet awards are won with designs with 2 layers. You should have realised by now that precision analog and audio are two disciplines seperated by a large gulf.
But once again (and I'll have to write a macro as I type this so often) this has NOTHING to do with a woo and foo L2 switch. If the DAC is suboptimal changing the switch (which in the case of the glowing review does through 3 more reclocking steps before reaching the DAC) will not fix this and if the DAC is good the upstream switch still won't make a blind bit of difference.
You mean "L2 bridge" or " L2 device" ? A switch is a device that makes or breaks an electrical circuit.
"L2" or "L3" is accepted terminology - the L stands for Layer... because why use two syllables
And they do refer to a switch,
I've heard that same sort of confidence from engineers when it comes to various things. At one end of the spectrum, Bybees, and whether or not its possible for them to affect sound. At the other end of the spectrum I have been asked to investigate cases where medical professionals report that a complex medical device intermittently does something it shouldn't. The reason I had to get involved is because the engineers who designed were sure such an event was impossible. To be best of my recollection, rarely if ever were the medical professionals wrong. But they were disbelieved and blamed until the equipment problem was proven real.
To be fair, at that point the engineers suddenly get busy working on the problem and fix it. There was a very small number of cases I can remember where the engineers later lied about the cause of the problem to cover their own behinds.
Bottom line is that experience has taught me to be skeptical, not just of users, but of humans in general. Overconfidence is a well known cognitive bias. So is confirmation bias. In the case of engineers a common problem is that they have a model in their heads of how the system is designed to work. Eventually they start to believe, physical_system = model.
Audio content:
Last edited:
blah blah blah. This is getting silly now and you are descending to troll levels to sure up your shifting sands. Why not just admit you don't understand how ethernet works wrt DACs? Your latest example of 'complex' things is against an incredibly simple 5 port L2 switch using a chipset made by the millions. Hmm order of magnitude difference there.
I work on immensely complicated things so deal with suppliers saying something isn't possible many times a day. But we are not dealing with that.
I work on immensely complicated things so deal with suppliers saying something isn't possible many times a day. But we are not dealing with that.
An L2 switch can't be designed that will reclock packets to minimize packet delay variation? When streaming, the server may be far away. In the short term packets arrive as they do. I would not dispute that on average flow can be controlled, not necessarily done on a per packet basis by a switch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_delay_variation
Didn't I already agree on that point? The problem is nobody is willing to pay extra for a dac feature they don't anticipate needing. If they later find there is a problem when ethernet is connected, people may look for an available fix. What they find on the market for that purpose are some switches intended to help.
Bill, as with other things, in the absence of more information I would withhold jumping to conclusions about that. However, if you are ever out in California and have time, you have a standing invitation to come here and listen. Then you can decide for yourself without having to urgently jump to a conclusion now.
You are embarassing yourself again here. Go look up L2 ethernet rather than attaching a link that you don't appear to have read. Packet delay variation is an end to end measurement. In a network that is not chronically overloaded the processing overhead of the L2 switch will not only be minimal, it will be constant. A domestic L2 switch will not have any fancy features. It takes in a packet, looks at the MAC address and sends it out the right port to get to that MAC address. QoS is all controlled by the receiving device for streaming protocols and any delays will come from the source PC.
Except these switches don't help and can't help at the ethernet level.
Went over the dCS forum to see what they had to say about switches: https://dcs.community/t/ethernet-switch/3450/3
It appears that a number of people report audible effects from switches that they don't think has anything to do with the ones and zeros getting though. They speculate about some kind of noise problem that affects imaging, etc. IME clock jitter can have that effect.
Also, Iancanada makes some FIFO buffers for diy'ers. Measurements by a former member were posted along with a belief expressed that isolation between the buffer input and output, and or across the digital input galvanic isolation barrier, were not 100% effective. In response to that Ian designed a secondary reclocker board to remove any remaining jitter before sending the digital audio to the dac. Reports from users indicate the additional clean reclocking after the FIFO buffer improves aspects of SQ such as imaging. Impossible? I don't think so.
Changing the subject for a moment, what if the Nordost switches do change reproduced audio for the better, as users claim? Impossible? Not really. What if Nordost really are villains and crooks? What if they doctor the audio stream to make it slightly louder, and or more dynamic (slow attack, fast release dynamics compression)? Impossible?
Still not willing to grant its impossible for there to be audible changes in the sound with or without a particular switch. If people say there is a difference, then just maybe there is and we haven't thought of how that might happen from a technical perspective.
You see, there has been a long history in the forum of engineers making assumptions and using rough and or erroneous intuitions and or back of envelop calculations claiming to show things are impossible that IME have turned out to be quite real. When you hear it for yourself then you know its possible even if you don't know exactly how.
Bill, IIRC you have described yourself as a space junkie. Also IIRC you described hearing for yourself a few reproduction systems where it didn't sound like the music was coming from the speakers. Again IIRC, you said you don't know how they do it. If my recollection is correct, then maybe you were sure something like that was 'impossible' until you heard it yourself. All of a sudden its real, even if you don't know how it works.
It appears that a number of people report audible effects from switches that they don't think has anything to do with the ones and zeros getting though. They speculate about some kind of noise problem that affects imaging, etc. IME clock jitter can have that effect.
Also, Iancanada makes some FIFO buffers for diy'ers. Measurements by a former member were posted along with a belief expressed that isolation between the buffer input and output, and or across the digital input galvanic isolation barrier, were not 100% effective. In response to that Ian designed a secondary reclocker board to remove any remaining jitter before sending the digital audio to the dac. Reports from users indicate the additional clean reclocking after the FIFO buffer improves aspects of SQ such as imaging. Impossible? I don't think so.
Changing the subject for a moment, what if the Nordost switches do change reproduced audio for the better, as users claim? Impossible? Not really. What if Nordost really are villains and crooks? What if they doctor the audio stream to make it slightly louder, and or more dynamic (slow attack, fast release dynamics compression)? Impossible?
Still not willing to grant its impossible for there to be audible changes in the sound with or without a particular switch. If people say there is a difference, then just maybe there is and we haven't thought of how that might happen from a technical perspective.
You see, there has been a long history in the forum of engineers making assumptions and using rough and or erroneous intuitions and or back of envelop calculations claiming to show things are impossible that IME have turned out to be quite real. When you hear it for yourself then you know its possible even if you don't know exactly how.
Bill, IIRC you have described yourself as a space junkie. Also IIRC you described hearing for yourself a few reproduction systems where it didn't sound like the music was coming from the speakers. Again IIRC, you said you don't know how they do it. If my recollection is correct, then maybe you were sure something like that was 'impossible' until you heard it yourself. All of a sudden its real, even if you don't know how it works.
Last edited:
Within what tolerance? fs, ps, ns, us?
How much is too much jitter in a dac clock for optimal imaging of DSD content?
I especially like the comment made by dCS: "Audiophile Ethernet switches are a solution looking for a problem."
So, you still believe that this
Oh no, I’m really silly. 🤦♂️
I forgot that all those audio things related to DAC can’t be measured with any existing equipment. Science is totally clueless when glacially slow audio signals are in question. Audio can be properly judged only by trained ear.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.