You don't hear a difference because there most likely is none, assuming all the filters you compared are at least halfway decent. I can't speak to your OSF bypass because I'm not sure exactly what you fed through and what processing was done to it.
Also, having no analog post-filter is a bad idea. All these DACs have significant out of band noise that should be attenuated. Just because you didn't hear it doesn't mean it's good. There is a lot of crap that people can't hear, in my experience. It could cause problems with other components down the line.
You do need know the basics before you can successfully design something that is state of the art, I would think.
Also, having no analog post-filter is a bad idea. All these DACs have significant out of band noise that should be attenuated. Just because you didn't hear it doesn't mean it's good. There is a lot of crap that people can't hear, in my experience. It could cause problems with other components down the line.
You do need know the basics before you can successfully design something that is state of the art, I would think.
Last edited:
Virtually every single one of your posts is a plea for help to design something you have no clue about, and won't disclose any details about, but want to sell.
Did it ever occur to you that people don't want to be your free labor if you aren't going to disclose anything, and then you yell at them after they don't answer your question exactly as you want?
Everyone here asks questions, and sometimes the answers may end up in commercial products, but it's usually not to this level. I guess it's not against forum rules, but it sure is annoying.
Last edited:
I've been using complex instrumental music with a broad range of instruments as my typical testing material. Although I've also tried simple music such as that with only a violin and flute. I was told by another member to try listening to a well recorded cymbal hit from start to finish which I ingrained into my brain for about 30 minutes before attempting to switch filters. I really can't hear any difference.
Indeed, but if there is no audible difference then clearly the system linearity is not being effected. I might be concerned about potentially blowing up tweeters ultra sonic content but I'm not using drivers with such FR.
I've never once asked for help designing the circuits I refuse to discuss. Every time I've asked for help it has been for an unrelated project or some other complementary circuit like a USB interface or something. Almost always some sort of digital circuit since I am not very experienced with digital design although I'm trying to learn.
You people just can't stop obsessing over my secretive project to the point you perceive everything I say to be related to that one design.
You are proving my point. You are so obsessed with my secretive design you did not even read the words that were actually in my original post. This thread is not about my design or any design. It is about the audibility of digital and analog filters in dacs and the potential reasonings for why I cannot hear the difference between them. I stated some of the traits of my I/V design as a potential factor and at that point that is the only thing you see. You completely ignore what the thread was actually about. It's ridiculous and petty.
Last edited:
I did answer your question.
You won’t be getting any consistent answers here, because there is no authoritative answer. It’s never been studied, nevermind proven, that I know of.
You should reconsider some sort of filtering. You might find it does show itself once you measure. Also, if this is a part of a product you might not meet FCC requirements if your device’s analog outputs are happily radiating the ESS MCLK.
You won’t be getting any consistent answers here, because there is no authoritative answer. It’s never been studied, nevermind proven, that I know of.
You should reconsider some sort of filtering. You might find it does show itself once you measure. Also, if this is a part of a product you might not meet FCC requirements if your device’s analog outputs are happily radiating the ESS MCLK.
Can't understand why you would expect to hear any changes that occur outside of the bandwidth of your hearing. You are setting yourself up for failure, expecting an outcome when evaluating. I try to expect not to hear any change.
Very easy to test your hearing.hhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ocOKvfoZgttp://
Now I am going to use a dirty word here, please cover your ears. Have you taken any measurements of what you have built?
Very easy to test your hearing.hhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ocOKvfoZgttp://
Now I am going to use a dirty word here, please cover your ears. Have you taken any measurements of what you have built?
You brought up a very good point about hearing test Mark. One day I discovered that suddenly the sound of my system changed was wondering what the hell what happened & then I notice something wasn't sounding right on the right channel thought was the speakers till I turn my head. Discovered that my right ear has lower sensitivity. LOL
I can only hear to about 10k on my right & 14k on my left. Getting old & wonder if I should give up building & tweaking audio stuff. Sigh
Cheers
I can only hear to about 10k on my right & 14k on my left. Getting old & wonder if I should give up building & tweaking audio stuff. Sigh
Cheers
I was 14 the first time I tried this, as "expected" my limit was close to 21 kHz. What was also interesting was that at high frequencies, I couldn't hear the difference between sin and square wave. When you realise that a square wave is a sin wave with a lot of distortion and that your golden ears don't work so well.
Yeah 1k distortion
5k distortion
I'm using the QA401.
The harmonics shown are present when the analyzer shorted to itself so they are inherent to the analyzer. I need a notch filter to see what the distortion actually is. I use Victor's oscillators and Cordell's distortion magnifier combined with the QA401 for analog measurements but that's not helpful here. The distortion of the I/V stage itself is lower than you would believe if I told you so I'm expecting the sources of distortion to be layout related if anything. I find the system as it is to be mind shatteringly good and a source of endless amazement so I'm pretty satisfied I could go the rest of my life and not get bored of this sound. I'm just trying to see if there is anything I missed that could be improved upon.
Initially I didn't. But there is an individual on this forum who I won't name, that is far more knowledgeable than I about DSP and all things digital and he insist filters can and do affect the distortion and sound. Combining that with so countless anecdotes of people discussing the sound improvement when making tiny adjustments to analog filters or switching to DSD (which uses a better filter than PCM most of the time) I was almost convinced they knew something I didn't.
Well, I'm 29 so not that old yet. A couple of years so I had this crazy ear ache and reduced hearing in my left ear for a short period of time so I went to an ear specialist and it turned out my hearing was above average. I still get annoyed when mosquito tone is played. So I think I'm okay in the hearing department.
Last edited:
Very important HelloKitty try not to listen too loudly on your system.
Last year my hearing was not too bad but this year it changed & I do believe that its due to playing too loud when I was tweaking my set up. Think the most damaging to our ears are splashing of cymbals & high hats etc. I was listening to lots of it mainly because its not easy to get this to sound right & realistic.
Cheers
Last year my hearing was not too bad but this year it changed & I do believe that its due to playing too loud when I was tweaking my set up. Think the most damaging to our ears are splashing of cymbals & high hats etc. I was listening to lots of it mainly because its not easy to get this to sound right & realistic.
Cheers
Hmm. I haven't found any problems with the symbols, I can hear all of the delicate overtones and how they change and disperse as the cymbal deforms and decays.
I wouldn't say I'm an expert at knowing all the details of how a cymbal is supposed to sound though.
Is there something I should be looking for to make it "right and realistic"?
No I haven't gotten around to booting up my system yet.
The link is also full of errors and doesn't lead anywhere. After correcting them I get to a page that says "video is unavailable".
You might want to repost the proper link.
Last edited:
Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
very interesting topic - I could imagine that Mark has the answer in post #25, i.e. so long as the ultrasonics don't have the opportunity to mix-down into the audible range and the filters don't directly impact the audible range (e.g. roll off too early) it may turn out that in your system the filters are not relevant.
I always use Shefield Lab Drum cd. Think this part of it is very speaker & room dependant.
My friends owns a high end shop so I get the liberty to listen to all sorts of equipment when I have the time to visit him. The crux of it is every instrument has body & weight to their sound regardless of what frequency they produce. In high resolution set up you’ll hear what you describe HelloKitty but what’s missing many a times is the body & weight that I describe. It’s really a catch 22 situation to try & balance the whole system to sound realistic. Given the varied genre of music that we listen too & the difference in recordings it’s a compromise that we’ve got to accept at the end of the day.
My friends owns a high end shop so I get the liberty to listen to all sorts of equipment when I have the time to visit him. The crux of it is every instrument has body & weight to their sound regardless of what frequency they produce. In high resolution set up you’ll hear what you describe HelloKitty but what’s missing many a times is the body & weight that I describe. It’s really a catch 22 situation to try & balance the whole system to sound realistic. Given the varied genre of music that we listen too & the difference in recordings it’s a compromise that we’ve got to accept at the end of the day.
So was i in post #2. In case someone thinks i'd undergone a religious transformation or gone deaf.
I think it is a huge mistake to use speakers as a testing tool for that very reason.
I use the HD800 headphones for all system optimizations. No speaker will ever be able to touch the detail of a high end pair of headphones and headphones aren't affected by the room.
It's better to minimize the potential variables as much as possible when optimizing equipment. If you become satisfied with the result over headphones then you know what exactly the speakers are doing to the sound.
I would never have guessed
Wow ! The longest sweep in my life ! And now ?
Some considerations:
-till 180 Hz, my desktop resonates
-350 Hz...hey, that should be a mid-bass, I thought it was already trebles
-1500 Hz, some dare to cut the tweeter at this frequency ( must be some robust tweeter ! )
-2500 Hz - That's were I cross mine
- Oh, but 5 kHz is far better thinking of a 3 way...
-10 kHz ha-ha! that's the frequency where I crossed the little dayton mini AMT
-12 kHz suddendly there's no sound -Peace !
Some considerations:
-till 180 Hz, my desktop resonates
-350 Hz...hey, that should be a mid-bass, I thought it was already trebles
-1500 Hz, some dare to cut the tweeter at this frequency ( must be some robust tweeter ! )
-2500 Hz - That's were I cross mine
- Oh, but 5 kHz is far better
thinking of a 3 way...-10 kHz ha-ha! that's the frequency where I crossed the little dayton mini AMT
-12 kHz suddendly there's no sound -Peace !
Just tried it.
The browser had major aliasing at the end of the spectrum so I downloaded the video as a flac file an played it in Foobar. My hearing according to the video starts at 20hz and ends at 17,627.
Although technically we can hear way below 20hz, it's just that there really isn't much available that can push out sub 20hz. It's hard to do.
Be careful, browers are not designed for that kind of thing and youtube cuts anything above 16k off unless you enable HD.
There's a lot of variation in results when attempting to do this kind of thing over a browser. It's best to play it as a file on the hard drive.
It depends on what you are attempting to optimize. Speakers and headphones have different advantages and these advantages should be taken into account when attempting absolute optimization.
IMO/IME.
Last edited:
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.