Well I realized after I posted my 'false dichotomy' remark that your meaning for 'real' I may have misunderstood. So depending on your explanation I might take the remark back.
Actually, no. I suspect a cheap amp would be just fine. My current amps are an exceedingly old Sony 3200f running my subs, and an original Phase Linear 700 running my KEF r101s. Back when I owned an audio store, I was never actually able to hear amplifier differences, so I don't worry about amps.
Chalk it up to too may top-down rides in the old Alfa, or too many years in the orchestra when I was young... Yes,we were a high-end shop, carried Audio Research, Crown, Mac, etc.
Here is perhaps a place for Frank to begin looking into the challenge of configuring MediaMonkey to achieve bit-perfect playback.
MediaMonkey Website • View topic - Setup advice for audiophile WASAPI and USB (or SPDIF) DAC's
It doesn't look very promising. Apparently this is not a priority over at MM, even if it is a priority for some of their users.
I guess this is moot, because Frank will never pursue this anyway.
MediaMonkey Website • View topic - Setup advice for audiophile WASAPI and USB (or SPDIF) DAC's
It doesn't look very promising. Apparently this is not a priority over at MM, even if it is a priority for some of their users.
I guess this is moot, because Frank will never pursue this anyway.
Actually I was worried you did blind test your expensive amps with some ebay $3 digital amp and found no sound difference...
Lightweight class-D amps are so practical. You can then secretly have them and sell the expensive ones to the audiophools.
I don't know whether in hi-end audio shop you developed some kind of knowledge that certain amps are fine for long time listening and some others are quickly boring or fatiguing. Or may be only audiophools have that knowledge 😀
The concept of "bit perfect" is the "brilliance" - that it transcends everything else ...
And how do you know that?
Some of the options I vary I think I can be quite certain don't "alter the bits" - such as, adjusting delays, in no. msecs.
Data integrity has nothing to do with it - the qualities I chase are revealed in low bit MP3, decoded before use; and, obscured in the very best hi res files, with a poor setup.
I have that already - it's called "ears" ... this is objectivist thinking at its very best - unless a machine can be made to come with some numbers a phenomenon can't possibly be real - the possibility that a) something is, and b) no readily accessible, easy to use means are at hand to "measure" the "is'ness" - does ... not ... compute ...
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Not clear enough to me now, on reflection which is why I have asked for clarification. Don't want to give that ? If you don't that's fine.
Thanks for your honesty, I share the gist of your conclusion, although sometimes amplifiers do sound differently. Mostly because they are broken or ill conceived.
abraxalito said:
BigE said:
Clear about what is real here? If not, it is that the switch was a dummy, and had no effect. Only the SS amp was driving the speakers.
I agree.
That's where I disagree. It's much easier for a digital source to do precision reproduction. Why else would playing a recording of vinyl playback trough a digital source sound exactly like the actual vinyl playback?
It suggests that the colouring from vinyl playback enhances the perceived "quality" of the sound, despite the fact that the precision of the reproduction is not optimal. If colouring is not a part of the equation, then the "quality" of LP becomes completely imaginary.
I'm fine with that conclusion, but I know that it will make most vinyl lovers red hot furious, so I'm trying to come up with a more diplomatic explanation.
Frank;
Did you listen to these:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/273330-low-level-detail-experimental-search-test-2.html#post4298626
As of this posting the files appear to have only 2 views. I know that I downloaded them. Listening to the two tracks small differences are only audible when low level mixed in track is peaking. This is with only -30dB attenuation of the mixed in track.
In the above thread the bit mangling is intense, yet the audible difference is small, very small.
Only way to verify bit perfect playback is with soundcard with digital I/O that lets you capture same data that the DAC receives.
Ears alone will never suffice in confirming bit perfect playback.
I've gotten bit perfect playback from Windows MP, Audacity, Cool Edit, JRiver Media, Foobar, and other software as well.
Confirming interference from computer, display, and power supplies and relative levels is easy. Ears work well for this in conjunction with measured output from DAC.
If I where you I would cancel my internet service and save the money until I could purchase a soundcard that has mic preamp, and digital I/O that supports loopback.
How does accurate digitization and reproduction of vinyl say anything about vinyl playback? That's l like saying photographs of a farm tractor says something about farming.
So you are suggesting that the "quality" of an LP is defined by distortion... what if the mastering on the LP is superior to the mastering of a similar CD?
I suspect that is applicable to those die-hard vinyl fanatics that cannot accept any sort of digitization in their systems.
"Bit-perfect" is not a concept. It is a term used to describe a very real situation in which the bit stream of ones and zeroes is retrieved from a file and delivered to a DAC or sound card in such a way that integrity of data is maintained.
Furthermore, I have never said it transcends everything else. In fact I specifically said "it is not the Alpha and Omega". It is simply one part of the puzzle. Without it, all bets are off.
I know this because I have done the testing. One type of bit mangling that is commonplace is sample rate conversion (SRC). All mainstream operating systems do it by default, and they generally do a pathetic job of it by default (in the name of efficiency). The result is often obvious degradation of the audio. If one does not specifically address this issue and take some simple steps to avoid it, the result will very likely be "digitalitis". Stack digital volume control, digital EQ, and any other "enhancements" on top of the SRC and the "digitalitis" is exacerbated. People with average ears can hear this. I have confirmed it.
I have also tested your "noise pattern" hypothesis and described it earlier in the thread. Apparently, you did not understand me. Ultimately, I listened to my system under dramatically different load conditions. The "noise patterns" inside the PC due to extremely different CPU, cache, and RAM utilization during my testing would be orders of magnitude greater than the difference in "noise patterns" inside the PC due to using one software player rather than another. During my testing, there was absolutely no audible effect of dramatically higher system activity. The test was repeated with 3 different software players (all configured for bit perfect output) and the results never changed.
These tests show that bit mangling has far more potential to degrade sound quality than the miniscule differences in system activity from one software player to another, because an average listener can hear the most commonplace bit mangling, whereas experienced listeners cannot hear the effects of "noise patterns" caused by dramatically different system loads, much less very subtle differences caused by different players.
If this logic does not compute for you, then I have one emotion left; pity.
Have you confirmed that the bits are not altered by that feature, or are you making an assumption?
Without data integrity, you are left with a facsimile. Often the facsimile is of considerably lower quality and it is polluted with audible artifacts. To get a visual representation of how different SRC algorithms perform (for example), look here SRC Comparisons By default, the site shows Ableton Live 9.11 vs. Acon Digital. You can use the drop-down menus to select from a huge variety of SRCs. The cleaner the sweep, the more "perfectly" the SRC is performing. If you take some time to look at various SRC performance, you will quickly realize that some perform vastly better than others, and that many of the "usual suspects" do not perform very well at all. Apple apparently realized this somewhere between Tiger and Leopard.
The point here is to illustrate why attention should be paid to if and how SRC is applied in your digital chain. One solution is to ensure that the SRC algorithm is of very high quality (and devote appropriate CPU resources). A simpler and more effective approach is to ensure that SRC does not occur at all. It is trivial to do so.
SRC is merely one form of bit mangling to be avoided (or at least optimized).
OK Frank.
OK.
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It says that whatever qualities are present in vinyl playback are accurately conveyed by digital reproduction. This means as a minimum that digital reproduction is at least not inferior to vinyl in terms of sound reproduction.BigE said:
The converse test (taking a digital source and reproducing it via cutting and playing an LP) would be interesting. I suspect that it would be fairly easy to distinguish the difference between digital and digital-cut-play. Even if some prefer the latter, this would confirm that vinyl is inferior to digital for sound reproduction.
Mastering quality is irrelevant to the innate quality of the medium. The question is simply this: which is better at reproducing a pair of music voltage signals, vinyl or digital?
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