Ones and zeros are generally used to reference digital bits! didn't know there were analogue bits as well, I thought analogue signals were infinitely variable (or near depending on the measurement resolution).
Also shocked that engineering is not perfect...
If a recording is bad then an accurate replay system will present it as bad, not mask the fact that the mix is horrendous, or am I missing something here.
Also shocked that engineering is not perfect...
If a recording is bad then an accurate replay system will present it as bad, not mask the fact that the mix is horrendous, or am I missing something here.
Your interpretation of "bad" may be different from mine ...
Analogue is a bit of all right, if you know what I mean - meaning sometimes 0 right, sometimes 1 right.
I do understand mixed signal layout/design/signal integrity and EMC problems very well and do an awful lot of it.
There are many ways to optimise these sort of designs, not seen often enough though in some (quite a lot) of Audio equipment, so while I was having a dig at Frank, I do agree that in some audio gear there is a lot of room for improvement... And for what some gear costs I am disgusted often with what I see inside.
The fact is that many designs are mixed signal as we do still live in an analogue world so many interfaces are analogue with core digital control, even the humble modem has an analogue section and signals that have to be isolated from the digital heart of the device.
I don't think engineering is as gloomy as our Australian Fiend implies though🙂
There are many ways to optimise these sort of designs, not seen often enough though in some (quite a lot) of Audio equipment, so while I was having a dig at Frank, I do agree that in some audio gear there is a lot of room for improvement... And for what some gear costs I am disgusted often with what I see inside.
The fact is that many designs are mixed signal as we do still live in an analogue world so many interfaces are analogue with core digital control, even the humble modem has an analogue section and signals that have to be isolated from the digital heart of the device.
I don't think engineering is as gloomy as our Australian Fiend implies though🙂
And neither do I, really ... in fact usually it's mighty close to being good enough in the audio world with the latest stuff, provided the setup isn't really messy - just worry about half a dozen or so things, and that will likely get it over the line, 🙂.
The Australian F(r)iend ...
The Australian F(r)iend ...
From my perspective, I had already answered that, so anyone paying attention and reading properly can take that and test in their own setups. Nothing needs to be taken as face value, but any claim can be independently tested.
I don't necessarily think we'd agree: he can't even formulate intelligibly why something sounds good.
What I do is different: I pay attention and listen for precise things, so that when I tweak something, I know how to characterise the tweak: either it has no effect on what I'm listening for or else it does. Hence, I can describe each tweak in terms of what sound characteristic it changed (and I did that in a previous post). That's the subjective part, but often it is shared by fellow listeners in my rig.
Now, what can happen as well is that I ask for confirmation with another listener, usually my significant other, who has a very good ear. So, in a scenario where I think the dynamics are great, but if she tells me after a while to turn the volume down, I know it's fatiguing although it sounds good, so I can tweak further until I reach a good balance (it's currently a tad too bright and fatiguing at louder volumes, so further tweaks are necessary).
So testing and listening can be social: not only is this helpfu, it is also healthy.
Much more so than:
"This is good"
- Why?
"No idea."
One day, if you have the opportunity, take a known very good recording on CD and try it in an Esoteric payer with VRDS or VRDS-Neo or one of their more recent mechanisms...
Missed this. Yes, correct, that's exactly what I meant! 🙂
So, here's what happens:
Vinyl: I can get transported by the music, but a loud glitch like a loud pop or click or scratch, negates the experience. The negation can last for a short time to a much longer time. In fact, it can actually spoil my enjoyment until the end of the LP side if the glitch occurs at the start of the first track. By that time, I am conscious of listening to good sounds, yes, but not a really hi-fi sound. Do you hear loud clicks and pops in a live rendition or when recording in a studio? No? Neither do I.
My Digital rig, especially DSD128: I (and others) get transported by the music. Most of the time, this remains for several albums in a row.
I am not saying here that in the second one no glitches ever occur, nor that when they occur they don't 'get me out of the music'.
It's just that this phenomenon happens relatively very rarely with digital.
With vinyl, it's a given.
Lukasz from Lampizator published a lot of cool modifications for old CD players in the past.
The biggest one I see is that some think bit-perfection is the alpha and omega...
Doesn't even begin to address what kind of noise happens in the DAC at the USB receiver level and the subsequent effects on the DAC chip and DAC clock...
Watch the guys at Uptone Audio (Alex, with John Swenson), they are doing great things, and I can foresee more great things in the future.
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Unfortunately that wasn't the case for me. I bought my hi-end system a few years ago and the quality was an astounding increase over what went before. I then discovered that the truly good recordings sounded, truly good. The rest of them went off to the charity shop.
I think a big part of our disagreement lies in our definition of "good" sound vs "bad" sound, be it vinyl, CD, or files played from a server.
I think we need to create some separation here, between "performance", "mastering", and "sound of the medium". I have some quite old vinyl recordings that have stunning performances, but rather poor sound quality. I listen to them for the performance, but there's only so much you can do with pre 1950 vinyl. I have some reasonably modern vinyl that sounds really clean, and I listen to those as well. I have modern CDs that also sound "good" to me, with decent dynamic range, clean strings, etc.
Honestly, I've gone well beyond picking nits about "is it digital, CD, or vinyl". I rip my vinyl to digital files, and they're on my server right next to my CD rips. I enjoy each for what it is.
I think we need to create some separation here, between "performance", "mastering", and "sound of the medium". I have some quite old vinyl recordings that have stunning performances, but rather poor sound quality. I listen to them for the performance, but there's only so much you can do with pre 1950 vinyl. I have some reasonably modern vinyl that sounds really clean, and I listen to those as well. I have modern CDs that also sound "good" to me, with decent dynamic range, clean strings, etc.
Honestly, I've gone well beyond picking nits about "is it digital, CD, or vinyl". I rip my vinyl to digital files, and they're on my server right next to my CD rips. I enjoy each for what it is.
Not the alpha and omega, but if you can't get it right, then most of the rest is a waste of effort.
As do I. What I worry about is not whether something is "better", but rather whether a disturbing, 'incorrect' quality in the sound in a particular recording has been reduced in apparent volume, or completely disappeared. So, I use recordings which "stress" the system, which in some area of the sound canvas cause the reproduced sound to be unpleasant, faulty. It's the elimination of "wrong" artifacts that I chase - if this is done on one's "worst" recordings, in the right fashion, then every recording you have in your collection benefits ...
This says to me that there is still work to do, with the digital, 😀. Unlike Bigun, 🙂, I've hung on to my 'clunker' recordings, because they tell me so, so much about where a system is at ... if a pretentious system makes a complete mess of these, subjectively, then it has significant problems - it is possible to bring out the recorded content on these recordings without being aware of the deficiencies in the recording itself while listening - but it requires a setup in a very high state of tune to achieve this ...
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I do rather wish I had held on to my vinly, clunky or not, because it had some memories for me but for ages I didnt have the means to play it so I gave it to charity. There wasnt much of it but probably hard or impossible to find it in good condition. Now Its just too expensive to get back into vinyl because it got trendy :-(
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