To be clear, if that's at all possible, you are not agreeing that music is more than sine waves?
You seem to be confusing observations (which is the genesis of all science) with pub talk.
The quote from Bruno is "The trick is to pick a set of measurements that have a modicum of relevance to psychoacoustics (in the case of amplifiers, accepting that hearing goes south beyond 20kHz and that music is more than sinewaves)."
So he's obviously talking about psychoacoustics as he says elsewhere that two sine waves as test signal "pretty much gives all there is to see". Of course I would be interested in those words "pretty much" as I suspect Jakob would too. Others show they are not so much interested in that qualifying phrase "pretty much" 😀
You still need to understand the possible differences between mathematical modelling, how we apply & test it & the reality of how auditory perception perceives the signals
Ok, it's not about the fact that music is not more than sine waves, that's clear then, thanks.
If we are going to talk about the good of some device, may as well include the limitations when we do. Otherwise, we tend to only remember the good parts which is a type of distorted memory of the more complete reality.
Sure, he panders to both sides at the extremes enough to be found acceptable by both. Very clever guy. Also lucky in way, having worked on SD modulators at Philips a long time ago. Sort of being in the right place at the right time to foresee possible application to power amps.
True, some patterns are starting to emerge about how he likes to play his game. However, I don't think he sees that his FUD is FUD is much as he thinks your is. He doesn't want to think about that possibility, he rejects the premise before getting that far, most likely.
What internal driver. There is a switched resistor network inside that needs to operate into an I/V stage. Same with AK4499. To ultimately sound better than 48k PCM can sound, its hard and takes a lot of circuitry. A few people are willing to pay what it costs to do that so they can enjoy the better sound quality.
I agree the little dac is cute and may be nearly ideal for playing back native 48k content into a power amp (although I would still have to listen to be sure). 48k is a much smarter sample rate than 44.1k, in terms of filtering issues. Anyway, 48k native means its good for playing movie soundtracks while watching them on a Mac, I guess. One could resample CD audio to 48k to get the best out of the dac, but then we are back to a more powerful computer somewhere in the chain if we want the resampling to sound its best.
Last edited:
Possibly if the post had been of the measurement of a $9 DAC and headphone amp. But with the clarification of it being tested as a $9 line level DAC there it's pretty impressive what you can get for the price of a gallon of petrol (Euro prices). For sure better is possible but for those with idevices it would be interesting to see what a wider range of people think. Sadly I have nothing 'i' in the house.
No modelling, just reality. Of course, we have to find out how our ears perceive all these sine waves but doing that does not mean that we no longer believe in Fourier theory. Science works by building on what has gone before, only discarding that which is demonstrably false. You won't get far in investigating sound if you are either ignorant of or dismissive of Fourier theory.mmerrill99 said:
Trained listeners are more easily aware of the onset of clipping than they are of compression. During our amplifier testing we set up a DBX Overeasy limiter with a 20:1 slope at a couple of dB below clipping on one amp, and no compression on an identical amp. Our mastering engineers guessed the one with compression was twice as powerful as the uncompressed one at the point where they felt the amp was running out of steam, I concurred. They commented it had better behavior in clipping, but none detected the compression until it was well into action. Our hearing mechanism similarly becomes increasingly non-linear as volume increases so compression is a normal attribute of listening at higher levels.
We did a similar thing with our cassette mastering systems; we placed a 2nd order HP network in the detector sidechain of the compressor set up to mirror the tape saturation characteristics. Even our most picky customers (Sheffield, DMP, Telarc) preferred the resulting limiting to the rather benign tape compression. We concluded the presence of distortion products, even the H2 typical of tape saturation was more objectionable than broadband compression.
As I have repeatedly stated here, the way an amp sounds in clipping can largely determine it's sonic signature and people typically do not buy or build an 800 W amp to listen at low levels. Especially with low efficiency speakers and with HD files with ~20 dB average to peak ratios, clipping can occur at relatively low listening levels. In our mastering systems we had to put 1.2 kw of amp on each channel to eliminate all clipping at high mastering levels in our largest room with modded UREI 815s.
It's the old maxim: give someone enough rope and they will hang themselves. The trick is making the rope appear longer than it actually is...
Cheers,
Howie
Hmmm. Smoke and mirror testing?
Distortion and s/n can seem really great with digital products --- even a $9 one but we do not listen to them at max output level. And, since we listen at much lower levels, the "real" distortion and s/n etal is quite a bit poorer.
THx-RNMarsh
Last edited:
Nothing new, for example you are attempting exactly the same, the major difference is that nobody has seen a shred of M4 practical information.
Please point to examples of my FUD. Otherwise, you are again spreading FUD
.True. Please take a look at the distortion curve for Pass HPA-1 shown at: Pass Labs HPA-1 headphone amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com
It's another approach to doing something similar, 'dial-a-distortion' to taste one might say. No accident its that way, IMHO.
Attachments
Last edited:
And this is why I pointed out that Bruno mentioned he had put a lot of effort into clipping behaviour in both voltage and current domains. 400W into 8 Ohms is however more than enough for most of us in a domestic setting. A good 10dB more than I ever need.
Well you mentioned the 32 tone test. And generally the DAC is run at max output. There is little love on here for digital volume control after all.
Actually, bits of practical information are in threads around the forum. This thread isn't where people come to talk practicalities of building and modding dacs.
Regarding your own FUD, you would deny it is FUD without even stopping to think about it, so why should I help you play your game.
Actually, ESS does theirs quite well. Mostly true for AK4499 too. Where resolution gets lost is when digital volume controls are implemented before the dac. It has to be done internally to avoid that problem.
One man's FUD is another man's DUF - whatever that means - just thought I'd say it anyway 😉
Something along the lines of one man's ceiling is another man's floor (especially in apartment living )
Got it, no data in this respect, just another attempt to smear what doesn't fit your agenda. You are pretty bad at this, BTW, your buddy Jakob(x) is much better at this kind of exercise.
For example, instead of responding right away, you should take Jakob's method and delay a response for at least a few days. Then come back and distort/obfuscate the original message, since meantime nobody recalls what was really said and in what context, and nobody has the time and/or patience to follow up 10 pages back. Using a convoluted language, quoting out of context, and insinuations instead of going to the point and addressing the issue is also useful.
Last edited:
- Status
- Not open for further replies.