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

Status
Not open for further replies.
The assumption is that the DAC and the analogue circuitry following is not affected in any way by any interference generated by all the other circuitry, power supplies and digital in that environment. Considering this is low end consumer equipment, designed for minimal cost, with no interest in audio quality, that seems a rather long bow to draw, 🙂.

No such assumption exists at all. If the only variable that changes is the software player, then all of the interference generated by all the other circuitry will be the same, and will not contribute to differences in sound. You keep repeating this, but it makes no sense. It seems you are actually suggesting that the function of the software enables it to modify the noise/interference of the circuitry inside the PC. This is perhaps the most ridiculous assertion regardling digital audio I have ever heard.
 
If the only variable that changes is the software player, then all of the interference generated by all the other circuitry will be the same, and will not contribute to differences in sound. You keep repeating this, but it makes no sense. It seems you are actually suggesting that the function of the software enables it to modify the noise/interference of the circuitry inside the PC. This is perhaps the most ridiculous assertion regardling digital audio I have ever heard.
I'm a touch confused by what you say I keep repeating - what I am repeating, is that different software drives the hardware differently; if the hardware operates differently, then the pattern of electrical behaviour varies - just like a oscillator changes in frequency when a relevant parameter is affected.
 
...all of the interference generated by all the other circuitry will be the same

The above is your assumption which does not seem to me to hold. If a different software player uses (say) a different percentage of CPU cycles of the total available then the assumption does not hold. A hotter CPU is one generating more interference - the voltage regulator (which is normally a polyphase switcher) has to work harder, maybe the fan kicks in.
 
I think we're descending into the Herd Mentality, no Free Will land ... the human race is a vast tribe of meat endowed robots - who when the Grand Poobah runs at full speed head first into the brick wall, all perfectly mimic this 'required' behaviour ...
 
Most people working with psychology would disagree.

Our senses are not as evolved as we'd like to believe.

I'm not trying to induce paranoia. I'm just saying that you'll get a more reliable set of data when using a well orchestrated blind test.
 
Last edited:
So they taught you there are (at least) two kinds of experience, useful and some other kind(s)?

What's the point ?

Usefulness is a relative concept. An experience useful in one framework can be useless in another and vice versa. Furthermore, experience is not a passive reception, we shape it actively.

To go back to Frank's laptop. The subjective feeling that it sounds different with different media players can be useful to start an investigation of what's going on. It cannot however prove anything in the technical realm and is thus useless at a further stage of the investigation. You need other kind of experiences at those stages: some kind of bias control to establish you're not dreaming (at least some kind of blind testing, repeatability by third parties, etc) and then some technical measurements to accurately describe the problem and to be able to link it to a particular mechanism.

Otherwise we're going to poke randomly and link phenomena just based on our guts feelings. Just like this discussion...
 
What's the point ?

No point, other than I'm curious how such (apparent) nonsense gets put out. Or perhaps I may learn something and get my understanding sorted out.

Usefulness is a relative concept. An experience useful in one framework can be useless in another and vice versa. Furthermore, experience is not a passive reception, we shape it actively.

This doesn't answer my original question, rather it looks like a distraction. Which of course is fine.

To go back to Frank's laptop. The subjective feeling that it sounds different with different media players can be useful to start an investigation of what's going on. It cannot however prove anything in the technical realm and is thus useless at a further stage of the investigation.

When has experience proved something? Science in my understanding has not been about proof, that belongs in math. Also does 'the technical realm' have a falsifiable definition?

You need other kind of experiences at those stages: some kind of bias control to establish you're not dreaming (at least some kind of blind testing, repeatability by third parties, etc) and then some technical measurements to accurately describe the problem and to be able to link it to a particular mechanism.

Dreaming? Is this some special 'experimental psychology' use for the word or its normal use?

Otherwise we're going to poke randomly and link phenomena just based on our guts feelings. Just like this discussion...

This isn't the first time you've used 'we' - Frank seems to have distanced himself from what you're saying so who is included in the 'we' ?
 
The above is your assumption which does not seem to me to hold. If a different software player uses (say) a different percentage of CPU cycles of the total available then the assumption does not hold. A hotter CPU is one generating more interference - the voltage regulator (which is normally a polyphase switcher) has to work harder, maybe the fan kicks in.

All else being equal, if one software player is working so much harder than another that it uses dramatically more CPU power and system resources which causes system-wide interference, the software (or the OS, or both) is severely broken or misconfigured.

But let us assume the worst; one player is using 2% CPU and another is using 80%, or even 100%. Can you hear it?

I have simulated this by running CPU torture tests (mprime) while playing back music. There is absolutely no impact to the resulting sound. I can switch between the two while sitting on my couch while SSHed into my player from my tablet, by running a simple command or stopping the command. The audio does not change even in the slightest when I ramp the CPU, cache, and RAM up to 100% in a matter of milliseconds. Again, the sound does not change when I kill the process.

This is all running on an Asus EeeBox with standard brick-type supply. Audio output is not isolated (intentionally so, in this case), and to create a "worst case scenario" both the USB-to-I2S converter (CM6631A) and DAC (ES9023) are powered directly from the USB port of the EeeBox. In fact the DAC board is piggy-backing power off the CM6631A board.

Of course, switching player software makes absolutely zero difference under these conditions as well. They all (MPD, DeadBeef, Clementine, etc.) sound excellent, regardless of whether I am running mprime or not.
 
Last edited:
So what do 'most people working with psychology' believe then about our perceptions?

Well, I don't work with psychology, so I can only describe the bits and pieces I've picked up here and there. Some of it is probably nonsens, so if anybody here has a deeper understanding of psychology, feel free to step in and correct me.

I've been told that perception is only partly composed from the actual "data" from your senses, while most of it is just an educated guess made by our brain. These guesses are easily colored by both expectations and past experiences. Or to put it another way: It's fairly easy for both memories and imaginings to "bleed" into perceptions. Having a ballance between these things is what keeps you from becoming schizophrenic.

Ah from your edit I see you're after data, whereas I'm after something qualitative.

In my book those two don't exclude each other.
 
All else being equal, if one software player is working so much harder than another that it uses dramatically more CPU power and system resources which causes system-wide interference, the software (or the OS, or both) is severely broken or misconfigured.

We do have the case (with the previously mentioned module that has a known bug) where Foobar including the ABX module can result in 100% CPU utilisation. It is a case of broken software which appears to be the norm given the number and frequency of updates to OSs.

But let us assume the worst; one player is using 2% CPU and another is using 80%. Can you hear it?

So then you're now accepting that your earlier assertion was mistaken? I mean that there's no way there could be a difference in interference levels to the analog outputs between two software players?

The question of whether its audible is a separate issue which will depend on the specific hardware - it may be inaudible on one but introduce artifacts on another. Finding a lump of hardware where there's no change is fine but doesn't legislate for all other boxes.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.