Have you discovered a digital source, that satisfies you, as much as your Turntable?

[picowallspeaker]

The issue with digital audiophilia is that playing music becomes an Electrical problem,

well...diyaudio or electroacoustics...

The more you tame that complex electrical interference matrix, the closer you get to what is contained in the medium.

same...electricity through a wire generates electromagnetic forces
complex as those are vectors...
🙄😕

 

[YashN]

A perceptive comment. I've noticed that people who prefer analog often will say their preferred digital format is DSD.

Yup. For me, in fact, one of my goals of working on my digital rig (still doing so), was to make the digital get the good characteristics of analog. DSD128 and higher do that for me.

 

[picowallspeaker]

same...electricity through a wire generates electromagnetic forces
complex as those are vectors...
🙄😕

Or...electromagnetic forces make electrons move in metals ( & semiconductors & passives& tubes) ?

 

[Jay]

It requires a lot of effort, but its worth it when you get to a level where it sounds fantastic.

I have experience with digital. The bottleneck has always been the DAC chip 😀

I mean I have replaced a switching power supply in a very good CD player (using the newest CS chip at the time) with top quality linear ones. I have tried many I/V converters (discrete, opamp, tube, resistor and combination).

But in general, in any "all-out" efforts I cannot make a "cheap" DAC to sound better than a "good" DAC chip (browse the internet to find out what they are).

But if you don't want to go "all-out", just want to use what you have at hand, then make sure you use good capacitors, and at least 317-based power supply.

When I use cheap stuffs, the cap brands and resistor values are result of tweaking by ears. Unfortunately, the power supply is never cheap (because I have plenty leftover modules).

 

[YashN]

Actually, your position to assume nothing is a smokescreen. In fact, you assume that every part of the chain is possibly faulty. Your machinations then miraculously find a fault and a "fix" improves sonics.

This is classic expectation bias in action.

Well, if you replace 'faulty' by sub-optimal, it makes more sense:

A computer is a multi-purpose machine, wasn't built specifically for digital audiophilia: too much activity and RFI/EMI and ground plane noise going on in a multi-purpose computer.

Their PSUs are mostly switching => cause a lot of trouble when you are doing audiophile playback...

USB wasn't built by people with audiophile goals originally => the packet noise at the USB receiver PHY when signal integrity is impaired affects the DAC chip and DAC clock even in Async USB.

Etc...

 

[YashN]

in particular females can give the fastest and most accurate appraisal of a system.
If a system sounds good they will say so, and if a system sounds 'wrong' they will say so also, and will accurately describe the faults.

Same experience here.

 

[marce]

Well, if you replace 'faulty' by sub-optimal, it makes more sense:

A computer is a multi-purpose machine, wasn't built specifically for digital audiophilia: too much activity and RFI/EMI and ground plane noise going on in a multi-purpose computer.

Their PSUs are mostly switching => cause a lot of trouble when you are doing audiophile playback...

USB wasn't built by people with audiophile goals originally => the packet noise at the USB receiver PHY when signal integrity is impaired affects the DAC chip and DAC clock even in Async USB.

Etc...

Measurements🙂

 

[YashN]

Hi i do not know if this means something, maybe not 😱
but i heard a very good sound from Pioneer cd players with stable platter mechanism that reminds me of a Turntable ...

i like this solution very much indeed. I would buy one if i had a definitive situation at home. Very nice.

Try listening to an Esoteric VRS or VRDS-Neo mechanism if you can.

 

[snup]

just looking out of the small and pearlies.
I see fas42 chewing and fidgeting nervously about.
stake is ready.

 

[YashN]

As to audio packages sounding different, then the data stream will be different easy to confirm I would have thought.

There's a set of assumptions here that do not hold true in digital audiophilia.

 

[YashN]

Therefore, anyone who discusses at length the differences in the sound of software players is displaying their inability to understand and configure their operating system and player(s). When configured properly, they will all sound identical because the bit stream delivered to the audio hardware will be identical.

iTunes can be made to play bit-perfect.

Audirvana as well.

They absolutely do not sound the same on the same file.

Bit-perfection is necessary for good reproduction but not sufficient..

 

[YashN]

I do not know why people are focusing mainly HW while OSs for instance are so important
Usually the problem with OS is that they are overloaded with features.
Not only ... many people still keep the pc connected to the net and get all kind of unwanted programs from it.

Both are important, as are all things within the digital playback chain.

The less noise and RFI/EMI produced and the better the signal integrity during playback, the better the sound.

Every power consumption event, especially in spikes can wreak havoc on the final sound perception.

The digital chain is a complex one (it includes several occurrences of D/A and A/D and more, each with its own imprint of ground plane noise, RFI/EMI, jitter induction, etc...), so people who think everything is solved with bit-perfection are way, way off the mark.

 

[snup]

where is that little rascal ?

 

[YashN]

Maybe a different settings in the Bios or in the OS can have a much bigger impact on sound quality than a component replacement.
Many people are getting very fine sound out of Raspberry mini pc.
The HW is very very minimal but still they get good sound.
There is a big potential in small pc to sound very very good with low prices.
Thanks again, gino

A smaller appliance will generate less noise and interference than a general-purpose computer.

That's why HQ Player in client-server mode can be excellent.

 

[YashN]

This morning I did a quick audition of this open source player software - cPlay.
The site has lots to say about sytem OS affecting PB sound..

And HW as well.

 

[YashN]

Measurements🙂

Go ahead and do your own.

 

[snup]

I have gathered from all of this, that
fas42 has some exceptionally fine measuring equipment.
Maybe we can get him to do a bit of troubleshooting ?

 

[billshurv]

Fas42 has an old laptop with built in speakers. He is about as credible as the other subjective believers on this thread.

 

[snup]

more even !

 

[marce]

Digital is digital, audiophillia digital follows the same physics as any other digital system, if the data from an audio package is the same it will sound the same... noise is a different issue looking at data only. The slight difference in software operation for these packages should not have any effect on the overall noise from a PC anyway.