That's a very strange parameter to pick in this discussion. And if you look at stereophile measurement reports you will see they test amplifiers into a simulate speaker load and you can see the deviations you get due to amplifer damping factor. And yes some of those are far more likely to be audible than a few dbgnatfarts less distortion.
What about it? It links to a post which you shared "my listening impressions and the audibility impressions from other members on this forum." Personal impressions, yours belongs to you and mine belongs to me. Too bad we can't hook up a wire and share like spec numbers and measurement graphs.
Thanks for taking time to search them out however, I only see DAC specs and not amps. Was it a half time report and the other half to be posted soon?
The measurements are clear and incontrovertible.
Do you know what phase noise mean and how it can be measured?
I don't believe.
Regarding listening impressions you can believe it or not believe it, it's not that I care much.
Just keep chasing the number of zeros after the decimal point.
Ok, but why not give him the benefit of the doubt? maybe one person could be wrong, but if a bunch does the same and agrees?
Besides many discoveries are based on pure observations.
But this is only philosophical topic. People have different approaches as already said before. the thing is that this discussion is endless, often produce hardly creative/constructive outcome, and is has a better place in a dedicated thread.
can you be more specific and tell how this is wrong, if you can? I'm sorry i don't have time to read the discussion all over again.
True, but the phase noise plots have been well shared.
Yes, halftime report.
Since you are so smart and quick with your predictions you can start from that.
In the meantime I look for the amps measurements.
These are 2 sides of the same coin and you just asked, as well as made a statement about the other side.
First: Measurements are a great tool, absolutely couldn't do without it. I think it was me who said that comparing measurement data is a slippery slope and that a clear border of audibility isn't easy (if ever) to be found. This applies specifically, but not exclusively to differences found equipment of different makes or models.
Second:
One really can't deny the audibility of the example I made previously, or one must put restrictions on the output impedance range, it is also a scientific fact that different dac chips respond differently to jitter, depending on the topology/structure of the dac in question.
How much this is audible is of no concern, the example was made so to illustrate that for 1 scientificly made, double blind test of audibility of jitter, one better be informed of the dac topology used, or otherwise the data might be invalid for your requirements, e.g. when developing a new, different topology dac.
That should answer both. I'm thinking we both agree on this, right?
Third:
I'm not here to argue about the validity of measurements in general, my case is that too many people believe that in a measurement lies everything they need to know and tell them everything they can expect from equipment, or the building blocks they use to make a dac or amp.
Most people who trust them blindly, seem to look at measurements as if they can hear the better measuring part being more transparent, life like, breathing and pumping music through their room.
This hardly ever happens. I don't think this is wat you were advocating, but what I was responding to.
There ain't no such thing to be expected from any single piece of equipment, or its measurements. The only place that translation happens is in one's head.
Measurements help in getting absolute flaws under control, for advertisement, for faster development etc.
To me, all that matters is the total sum of stuff one puts in a room and see if it sounds anything like the musician you should've asked to play next to it, for comparison.
I have three times and it wasn't funny.
One can call it HiFi, transparency, euphonic, and audibility in blind listening tests for all I care, yet nobody makes the distinction wether the device actually translates recordings to lifelike sound.
Because nobody may do that when measurement data tell them their dac or amp isn't up to spec to be able to and what they supposedly think they hear has been proven unhearable in tests.
To me this is hilarious.
Now, please don't take these words as a strong voice against measurements, ultra low thd, or the validity of double blind jitter tests per se. But if any of those blind tests are anything like the high end audio shows I attended, I'm not surprised people didn't hear things and if there's some fun to be had it's not in proving other peoples wrongs but in discovering, by any means and measurement, that life like sound.
If measurements alone could bring these, we'd only be buying music. Yet we buy and develop more stuff.
P.S. If you haven't tried, please do: when e.g. a musician plays along your favorite guitar song, if you turn the music up just a bit, you hardly notice any difference, no artificiality, it's as good as integrated. When you turn the music down a bit, is when the shocker comes. Frightening. It's even more fun with a violin or a drum. Speakers, in general, are terrible.
You are absolutely right, this discussion is off topic in this thread.
I have already pointed out the right thread
Sound Quality Vs. Measurements
"Adequate amount of sound characteristics can be predicted based on measurements now, especially DACs and amps."
And so? Are you unable to predict the sound characteristics of the DACs whose measurements I have linked?
I had no doubt.
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I don't claim to be an authority, just tethered to reality.
I'm not a jitter fetishist like you, what else can I say.
But that's the problem. No one has any problem with your measurements. What we have a problem with are your listening impressions. You know this and everyone else here knows this.
Until we get beyond this nothing will progress.
I'm surprised almost everyone reads something else in this statement.
I took this example to show that, when comparing measurement data of one amplifier to another, the damping factor of one might be the only thing being different, and when measured with a standard 8 ohms load, frequency response wouldn't deviate between them.
So on paper, one could suspect both amps to have the same tonal character.
Now, in real life, as you know this isn't the case.
Throw in the mix the comparison with a different thd profile and who's to say, from paper, which is the better amp.
This was just to show die hard believers measurement data of the impossibility to predict perceived sound quality by comparing specs on paper, which was, to me, the discussion about, nothing more.
Happy to hear Stereophile does this differently. I'll have a look. It's just not how the standard lab reports are being made.
You noticed that too, eh? Modus Operandi. Must figure the powers that be are not able to catch onto that pattern of abuse.
Sure. You make an observation of some strange phenomena you then go on to prove that it actually exists. We've had the initial observation we haven't had the proof.
You can merely claim that you don't know how jitter (or phase noise in frequency domain) can affect the digital to analog conversion.
Just to tie you to reality.
And the bottleneck is speakers and room acoustics, not DACs, amps and cables.
You would need a recording of that same performance to compare live vs replayed sound. Is that what you did? If not, you should retry it with proper recorded material.