Originally Posted by syn08 View Post
That's a technical detail, my favorite is "One thing that seems to be missing from the best digital I have heard is the same level of room sound that can be heard on a good record. DSD seems to help with reproduction of room sound." which comes into collision with the First Principles, the digital format adds information to a digital stream .
Hearing more room on vinyl is likely thanks/due to compression - either on purpose (cant fit amplitude wise onto vinyl) or via signal chain deficiencies. So one can play less loud than original SPL and still retain "room" which is good considering the amount of distorsion in forte from vinyl (high levels and distorsion is nasty). For digital the problem is speaker quality - to play out original levels and dynamics that the media is capable of, it requires speakers of extraordinary capability in terms of SPL and at the same time providing really low HD/IM. So in general, levels are kept down during CD replay - either due to that it simply sounds to bad due to speakers faults or practical aspects of not disturbing neighbours - and thus, less or no ambiance is allowed to come trough. An other problem is the trend to close mic that skews the relation between instruments and room. I'm as usual talking about reproducing a non amplified musical event like an orchestra in a big hall.
It is all a mess.
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That's a technical detail, my favorite is "One thing that seems to be missing from the best digital I have heard is the same level of room sound that can be heard on a good record. DSD seems to help with reproduction of room sound." which comes into collision with the First Principles, the digital format adds information to a digital stream .
Hearing more room on vinyl is likely thanks/due to compression - either on purpose (cant fit amplitude wise onto vinyl) or via signal chain deficiencies. So one can play less loud than original SPL and still retain "room" which is good considering the amount of distorsion in forte from vinyl (high levels and distorsion is nasty). For digital the problem is speaker quality - to play out original levels and dynamics that the media is capable of, it requires speakers of extraordinary capability in terms of SPL and at the same time providing really low HD/IM. So in general, levels are kept down during CD replay - either due to that it simply sounds to bad due to speakers faults or practical aspects of not disturbing neighbours - and thus, less or no ambiance is allowed to come trough. An other problem is the trend to close mic that skews the relation between instruments and room. I'm as usual talking about reproducing a non amplified musical event like an orchestra in a big hall.
It is all a mess.
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Thanks but no thanks, I'm not going anywhere near that landmine.
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On second thoughts maybe I can approach it without it detonating.
Did he replace the '360 because the Meizu sounded better or because it measured better? Or is it a case of better measurements is better sound ?
Did he replace the '360 because the Meizu sounded better or because it measured better? Or is it a case of better measurements is better sound ?
WHOA!
I have found a way to widen the soundstage upwards 😀
Today I bought a pair of very used, beat up and cheap JMLab's. For a quick test I put them on top of my floorstanding speakers. They sound nice. I will put them in my office tomorrow. Then I connected the floorstanders back again. And the magic happened: since I put some speakers on top of my speakers, my brain thinks my speakers are taller, so the soundstage expanded upwards!
Gonna start a product line of Quantum Loudspeaker Extenders, or perhaps Quantum Loudspeaker Stilts.
I have found a way to widen the soundstage upwards 😀
Today I bought a pair of very used, beat up and cheap JMLab's. For a quick test I put them on top of my floorstanding speakers. They sound nice. I will put them in my office tomorrow. Then I connected the floorstanders back again. And the magic happened: since I put some speakers on top of my speakers, my brain thinks my speakers are taller, so the soundstage expanded upwards!
Gonna start a product line of Quantum Loudspeaker Extenders, or perhaps Quantum Loudspeaker Stilts.
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What seems to you would mean nothing to others who weren't there. Let us know once you've confirmed your perception.
That would be a good philosophical definition of noise, if one would add "deterministic" before "signal" (since noise is a signal too). Too bad is useless for engineering purposes.
That's a very good question.
I don't know, he is the prophet of measurements.
I am a heretic.
So I am the least suitable person to answer you.
But there are plenty of followers here who could answer you.
And I'm certainly not referring to the open minds who write "I did get a system based on its schematic (preliminary) and knowledge of the manufacturer. Didn't even see any specs before I decided."
I hope you’re joking, searching this board might seriously deflate that ego.
I should add, it didn’t *need* to be brought up in the past the same way it needs to be brought up now, the kind of discourse spouted by snake oil advocates usually wasn’t found so often here like it was on Head-fi. Some members who offered products seem to have taken marketing cues from that site 🙁
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Bob Ludwig's noise experiment should not be much of a surprise. The ear is subjected to a higher energy profile. The salient point is that the experiment was conducted in the digital domain. Developments in digital processing have come a long way supported by rigorous measurements. This enables convincing modelling of analog signal paths. Recorded material is open to endless manipulation. If you don't like it, you can change it.
Guitarists are now using dedicated amp simulators, or even just the pedal board simulator for performance, where the signal goes direct to FOH mixer. No amp stack. Progress is not linear. I have a TDA1541 DAC. Until I heard the ESS9018, nothing I came across sounded appreciably better, and most often worse.
Guitarists are now using dedicated amp simulators, or even just the pedal board simulator for performance, where the signal goes direct to FOH mixer. No amp stack. Progress is not linear. I have a TDA1541 DAC. Until I heard the ESS9018, nothing I came across sounded appreciably better, and most often worse.
There are many important points here that I think are true and should be the basis for conducting further experiment/research to find the answer to Jacob/Mark's question.
A mess probably but I think the bigger problem is in the DAC area itself due to many factors that has to be isolated or studied independently but is not easy unless someone is working professionally in that area.
We can safely throw professor Kosko`s definition in the garbage bin where it belongs. Numerous types of noise are identified at the molecular level, quite impressive, if you ask me.
The magnetic dipole moment has a direction. The dimensionless number used to express the average current density calculated from a measured voltage says nothing about the amount of randomly oriented charges or the amount of charges suitable for forming a signal. There are good reasons to be humble in our expectations. Ohm`s law collapses quickly with increasing frequency, but still has some practical usefulness.
I suppose everyone has to find an approach that works for them. The problem arises when you insist all others must follow that approach and ascribe corrupt motives to those who choose not to.
My take is that people (incl. me) have a hard time judging if a DAC sounds correct or not due to the gross faults in the electro mechanical conversion step in the system chain.
For some reason, quite a few choose the DAC to be the one function that should take the blame for all evil in their system performance and subsequently be forced to compensate for said performance problems.
Once you have a stellar speaker system, you will want a as theoretically perfect DAC as possible - that I'm confident of. If the recordings to match, exists.
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TNT this is the opposite of reality: vinyl is overall less compressed/limited than in digital for 99% of recordings made.
You can't cut a master on a lathe with too high an rms level as you run into the risk to destroy the cuting head which cost an arm and a leg and there is very few people on earth able to repair this kind of damage.
There is other technical limitations on lathe: as the signal is matriced you can't cut out of phase signal until you reach 150/300hz so the low end is monoed.
In digital you don't have this limitations so there is use of heavy limiting and out of phase signal on low end.
Limiting smear transients, out of phase signal on low end make some important infos about the room were recording was performed disappear.
Of course you may find recordings done in digital without compression and by people taking care about phase issues but those are really a minority ( even in classical music).
Multi mic techniques in acoustical events ( orchestra): yes you'll see lots of mics ( one or a pair for each familly of instruments - i don't know the word in english but in french it's called a 'pupitre') but don't be fooled: they are not all used at mixdown.
Each 'pupitre' is miced as a backup in case you need to reinforce something during some passages at mixdown but usually there is one main couple ( located either on ceilling - grand A/B- either at conductor place above his head) which is the reference and the one you ear the most.
I've been part of mixing session where there was 64 chanels used on desk ( for orchestra alone) but where only the main couple was open with occasional support of one or two mics.
Results can sound different from what you would hear if you were present at performance but it is not a technical issue but an aesthetic choice as there is 'convention' about that wrt labels and what listener wants to ear ( or labels think that is what the listener want to ear).
I have built a lot of speakers too to understand the issues. Amplifiers too. What I have difficulty with is the recording. I don't know what is exactly in the recording. If there seems to be more room reverberation in chain A than B, should that reverberation "illusion" come from the recording or not is hard to determine. It is not easy/possible for microphones to get that actual room reverberation. Mostly engineered. There are so many live sound characteristics that I have never heard reproduced in any system.
As for DAC I have no complains. I can accept that the more bit the lower the SNR and the better the sound. Anyhow, surrounding capacitors and power supplies can be big issues for me.
I think that digital limitation is too exaggerated. I see more issues with speakers and surprisingly with amplifiers too.
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