Demian,
You raise a thoughtful point thank you. It did occur to me as well that we need a way to find out which dac is right, if either. IIRC, the article I linked to claimed that reverb tail levels were higher on the master tapes than came through on the SD dacs.
It makes sense to me that such would be the case because the reverb tails as rendered on the cheap ladder dac sure made the music much better sounding to my sense of aesthetics (not that arbitrarily more reverb always does, but it is better to me at a higher level if done masterfully). It was the only thing about the ladder dac that I preferred over SD.
Bill: I would agree that the tone of the article linked to comes off as quite petty. It does not mean one is obliged to punitively throw out the baby with the bathwater. There was IMHO probably a small amount of useful signal buried in the noise.
You raise a thoughtful point thank you. It did occur to me as well that we need a way to find out which dac is right, if either. IIRC, the article I linked to claimed that reverb tail levels were higher on the master tapes than came through on the SD dacs.
It makes sense to me that such would be the case because the reverb tails as rendered on the cheap ladder dac sure made the music much better sounding to my sense of aesthetics (not that arbitrarily more reverb always does, but it is better to me at a higher level if done masterfully). It was the only thing about the ladder dac that I preferred over SD.
Bill: I would agree that the tone of the article linked to comes off as quite petty. It does not mean one is obliged to punitively throw out the baby with the bathwater. There was IMHO probably a small amount of useful signal buried in the noise.
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Thank you for asking.
At that time or even before, I was working at Philips Natlab in Eindhoven where the first CD player was still being under development, at that time with only 14 bits to save costs.
I even constructed the largest chip at that time measuring 40 mm^2 for digital processing.
Hans
Hi everybody! I would like to comment on the page that Jim Austin put into Stereophile this month. You know: 'Slow Listening'.
I am glad to see Dr. Jim Austin growing into understanding what real quality audio is all about. I was somewhat concerned when he took over from John Atkinson as the Editor.
You see, he annoyed me about 15 years ago, when he criticized me in print in Stereophile, without my permission, regarding a 'tweak' that I had tried at CES, and thought that it worked as promised. Jim and I had debated this on another audio website at the time, but I was not prepared for his criticism of me in Stereophile, especially without any offer for rebuttal. As far as I was concerned, he was just another engineer/physicist who was not open minded enough to try new things, at the time. I held this opinion until I read his latest 'editorial page' in Stereophile. Now I see maturity in his understanding of audio. That is great!
As far as the 'tweak' is concerned, it probably didn't really work, although it appeared to at the time. Others, like me, tried it and could not make it work. I try to keep an open mind about these things.
I am glad to see Dr. Jim Austin growing into understanding what real quality audio is all about. I was somewhat concerned when he took over from John Atkinson as the Editor.
You see, he annoyed me about 15 years ago, when he criticized me in print in Stereophile, without my permission, regarding a 'tweak' that I had tried at CES, and thought that it worked as promised. Jim and I had debated this on another audio website at the time, but I was not prepared for his criticism of me in Stereophile, especially without any offer for rebuttal. As far as I was concerned, he was just another engineer/physicist who was not open minded enough to try new things, at the time. I held this opinion until I read his latest 'editorial page' in Stereophile. Now I see maturity in his understanding of audio. That is great!
As far as the 'tweak' is concerned, it probably didn't really work, although it appeared to at the time. Others, like me, tried it and could not make it work. I try to keep an open mind about these things.
These "results" are very telling regarding your design skills. Show them to Richard, he may give you a shot
.
It is not that. It is like the comment I received about noise shaping. Noise shaping acts not only on the last bit but at all bits levels. ;-)
I like to make visual comparisons with photography. Random pixel noise, visible on a single frame is greatly reduced when this frame is part of a movie: they average each others with the persistence of our eyes.
I don't wanted to create a controversy about class D amps. And may-be the analysis I gave on the causes is wrong (I'm not so sure it is wrong). This does not make the listening experience of so many people wrong.
Well, It told it seems to me that Class D simplify the signal. Not by removing distortion or noise, but by erasing very subtle little informations to my ears.
Il make the listening easier, more transparent, in a way, but some character of the instruments seems to be less real. I admit it is quite subtle.
I never experienced this when listened to low distortion class A power amps that I found always better than Class AB with the exception of big quiescent currents that allow class B only on fast high levels peak transients where duration is not enough for our ears to feel distortion, but slightly increase a micro dynamic feeling instead. ("spine tingling sensation" ?)
BTW: One of the advantages of horns is their high efficiencies allow near reasonable class A amps (that don't put the city district in the dark).
Again, attacking the persons, never any data or even any argument to support your claims.These "results" are very telling regarding your design skills. Show them to Richard, he may give you a shot
You are probably lot more skilled than I in theoretical electronic. Probably not in matter of audio. Ovidiusly not as an human being. Definitely not a gentleman, which is more important to many than our little professional specialties.
I will not continue to fight with you, it is annoying for the reader. I leave you to your vomit and your sickly jealousy/frustrations.
Thanks John, I laugh my head off every time I hear that one. The fact that I first heard it as an axe story matters not, it's still fantastic.
Cheers.
Already moved on after Hans shot you down?
Ranting about ad-hominems while you commit logical fallacies one after another is quite amusing.
You seem to have a knack for posting huge volumes of incomprehensible text in anger while accusing everyone else of being unhinged. I suggest a look in the mirror.
The CD100 ? Guess what ? It was my first CD player at home at this time, sounding better than most of others on the market. If you participated to his development, congratulations.
In high quality audio design, it should have person who expert at engineering and listening. But it seem many engineer do not train their listening skill and who have better listening skill do not have enough engineering skill.
Analogy in MotoGP:
An engineer pretend to be Valentino Rossi.
Valentino Rossi pretend to be an engineer.
Sometime it need someone in the middle who know both world in general, so he can make communication between engineer and skilled listener easier.
But, I enjoy this thread. Sometime funny, sometime informative, sometime full of bullying 😀 😀 😀
Analogy in MotoGP:
An engineer pretend to be Valentino Rossi.
Valentino Rossi pretend to be an engineer.
Sometime it need someone in the middle who know both world in general, so he can make communication between engineer and skilled listener easier.
But, I enjoy this thread. Sometime funny, sometime informative, sometime full of bullying 😀 😀 😀
yes, 10 000€ for a pair of proximity speakers !
(About kef, I was curious of the coaxial driver as well as the processings (dsp, delay, dacs)
I’m sure you will
. Claimed distortions are -160dB @ 1W, -141dB @100W and -138dB @250W output.
I’m sure you will
No problem for me with measuring that low with high accuracy.
You only need to start with is a 7722A to get to -140. If lower than that, I go to the ShibaSoku 725D and QA401 to -160.
All my most useful test equipment arrives tomorrow 🙂 $11,000 USD shipping bill !!
THx-RNMarsh
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