Define low end....
Why are his conclusions wrong, because it is what you term low end....
Is high end any better...
Analogue/digital design is done best when know and accepted engineering practice is used not fashion audiophile design practices, the same devices are used in both low cost and high cost modules....
Why are his conclusions wrong, because it is what you term low end....
Is high end any better...
Analogue/digital design is done best when know and accepted engineering practice is used not fashion audiophile design practices, the same devices are used in both low cost and high cost modules....
Agreed but the use of a laptop by Frank might be part of the problem here. Many laptops models have problems with noise at their analog outputs, due to poor grounding and power supply routing. On an Elitebook I had (not exactly the cheapest laptop), pretty much any activity created various analog noise at the headphones jack.
So if foobar has a different strategy of access to the cd drive, that might explain some difference in sound. Not because the digital output is any different of course. Pure analog noise problems.
So if foobar has a different strategy of access to the cd drive, that might explain some difference in sound. Not because the digital output is any different of course. Pure analog noise problems.
Note that I am only using the internal sound - no analogue out, no headphones, just the tiny inbuilt speakers. Why so "low end"? Purely as an experiment, to see if it could produce acceptable sound, that is, not so unpleasant that I would be irritated after listening for a few minutes.
It was a surprise to me that it did so well; no bass, not loud, but within those limitations it is highly competent sound - that is, I get the full picture of what's going on in the music, it's not blurred, it has real depth to the soundstage, images nicely. But ... only if the player software is exactly right - otherwise it just produces somewhat annoying, typical small speaker sound.
It was a surprise to me that it did so well; no bass, not loud, but within those limitations it is highly competent sound - that is, I get the full picture of what's going on in the music, it's not blurred, it has real depth to the soundstage, images nicely. But ... only if the player software is exactly right - otherwise it just produces somewhat annoying, typical small speaker sound.
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Frank, does your Foobar use WASAPI? In Foobar this API should be installed as separate plugin, unlike MediaMonkey.
Foobar with WASAPI has been tested on Windows to be "bit-perfect" capable, but as far as I have seen only between WASAPI input and sound card output. When I listened to the players using DirectSound I deliberately choose a complex audio file (with complex header information) where simplistic decoding may create differences.
Foobar with WASAPI has been tested on Windows to be "bit-perfect" capable, but as far as I have seen only between WASAPI input and sound card output. When I listened to the players using DirectSound I deliberately choose a complex audio file (with complex header information) where simplistic decoding may create differences.
Whereas I agree with you that it is useless to pay extra for fashion caps, isn't it so that ESR which rises with frequency is customarily referred to as ESL?
Jay, WASAPI was what I using when I got unsatisfactory results - latest with foobar is ASIO, and that, fluke or otherwise, is giving me quite decent sound. It's all a tangled web with this layering of driver software - my only real interest is in getting at least one player working well enough in concert with this very low cost hardware, to "prove the point" ...
Okay thanks, I thought you have some kind of "ultimate" version like your power supply 😀 Mine is designed for specific drivers (and enclosure) implementation, just like passive crossover.
I think I didn't see schematic in your Ozone DAC posts. Will find out more later and might post there if I have request. Now I need to find where I have put my DAC chips 😀
Depends what you mean by 'semantics'. I use that term to mean the study of meanings but you might be using it in a different sense. So do please clarify. To me there's a clear difference between 'opinion' (what someone thinks) and 'experience' (what a person hears).
Hahaha! And each driver has versions, some with bugs. And sometimes you don't know where you can find genuine ones, without encapsulated malware 😀
ESRs of all the electrolytic caps I've measured has decreased with frequency. Ditto for all graphs of ceramic caps I've ever seen below their fundamental self-resonance. ESR is a loss component, whereas ESL is orthogonal in phase meaning no loss. The modulus of the ESL component of a capacitor's impedance does indeed rise with frequency.
The difference isn't so clear when it comes to sighted listening. Unless under controlled conditions, there is no pure experience in this domain. Furthermore, even if Frank just told us what he heard, it's still just what he thinks he heard, something closer to an opinion than an experimental fact.
The same applies to everyone of us in sighted listening btw, not picking on Frank.
The plasticity of the human brain makes it possible for us to lots of wonderful things, but it has the side effect of making unbiased perception a practically impossible feat.
The line between 'opinion' and 'experience' will always be a bit fuzzy.
Why would controlled conditions affect whether there's 'pure experience' ? Do please provide some support for your claim.
That's your opinion no doubt.
Take some class in experimental psychology. What Frank is reporting here is experience + bias + a posteriori rationalization. Nothing we can build on.
What gets me in all this wordplay, is that our eyesight is supposed to be terribly defective as well; so, defective hearing + defective eyesight = bias; defective hearing alone = truth; QED, defective eyesight + defective hearing = bias; defective eyesight alone = truth; Then, we could bring defective sense of smell on board, too - the combinations get mighty interesting, fast ...
I think my head is spinning ...
I think my head is spinning ...
Frank if you believe the high priests of 'experimental psychology' you can't trust your own experience. Its all defective, you just gotta admit it and bow to the inevitability of being hopelessly flawed, kind of 'original perceptual sin'. Your redemption though comes from embracing controls, except that's an arcane art and you'll have to apply for initiation.... 😀
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