Predistortion was discussed in this thread a while back. TL/DR it's theoretically a good idea, but too finicky to be of much practical use.
why don't we use predistortion more in the audio world?
why don't we use predistortion more in the audio world?
Who invented the senseless concept of predistortion? It must have been an engineer. Neither any predistortion technique nor the most accurate superclock can lower the high distortion of the ESS DACs.
You keep saying that - but most of us see you as a business man. Isn't that strange?
In apost above you just said you had unlimited development budget - can't you at least try to keep a coherent story - it is quite distressing to see you dig yourself into a deep logical cul-du-sac...
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It’s a rather hilarious example of the extremely privileged positioning themselves as in a position of being the exploited
Does this mean you think “some” of the expensive cables are actually necessary and not snake oil? You can “hear” the differences between non exotic but properly assembled cables and the ones made with “audiophile conductors”?
So far it has been measured and listened in stereo single driver using lm1875 and a pair of old Sony holey basket. The result has been satisfactory enough for me to decide building 3 way multiamp using discrete amps and more linear drivers. Again this is for personal use, not for sale. Moreover measurement of my system can not directly benefit anyone else unless my setup is duplicated.
Somehow I fail to see why I should forget the approach. It is by no means perfect cancellation, but why should I choose to have a system that both measures and sounds worse when I can afford to have better?
The extremely privileged poor hobbyists do not need to position themselves, positioning is given by results.
But they are not professionals, so it must have been a lucky case.
I am still confident that you will be able to do better.
Maybe unlimited budget means something else to you, but that generally gives one more means than what’s offered to your average “professional” employed by a company.
Unless you’re trying to say you’re at an inherent disadvantage because you lack a formal education in engineering, which would be odd since you keep disregarding every single professional you’ve encountered here who disagrees with you.
Unless you’re trying to say you’re at an inherent disadvantage because you lack a formal education in engineering, which would be odd since you keep disregarding every single professional you’ve encountered here who disagrees with you.
I'm not that typical posters that re-write what I have read. Most of what I have said I couldn't backup with readings. They are the result of my journey (experiments) to chase the holly grail. And of course I can't be sure as this is only (my current) perception.
The effect of the H2 is so dominant while higher order ones, they are even inaudible according to most listeners. So masking does make sense. Unfortunately I think the 'beauty' of H2 has only short time effect on me. Only a few seconds/minutes and I don't want to listen anymore. Partly because I've already know what I'm hearing. So the H2 cannot help me "forget" the issues that I suppose are related with higher order harmonics.
In this case masking is like when you have a headache and you take a hammer and hit your fingers and suddenly you don't feel the headache anymore 😀
BTW, check the amp listening comparison by Andrea. I think it is a surprise that AFAIR amp A (Mauro Penasa's 3886) was found more fatiguing than amp B. But check the FFT. I know that this works but it's just like changing one problem with another (bigger) problems.
Unlimited budget means that we can design audio devices without the constraints imposed by the market.
That's the reason why we can use almost 250 x 0.001% resistors (around 5 USD each) in our DAC project.
Then we are not professionals since we design audio devices for ourselves and not for the market.
And although we are poor hobbyists we are very happy with the results we are getting.
I never said that professionals can't do better, it would also be pretty obvious since we have a different job while they have been in audio for 40 years.
Unfortunately we have not learned much here to get the results we have achieved so far.
We learned from Bruce Griffiths, John Miles, Jeremy Everard, Rick Karlquist, Enrico Rubiola, Pat Di Giacomo (R.I.P.) and so on.
Very smart guys, but above all very humble people.
Don't know about the 'audiophile conductor' description. Do find that cable construction can affect sound. Why? One known effect in line level cables is common mode ground current to differential voltage mode conversion. That effect is uncontroversial. For speaker cables, there is a thread going on right now to try to see if transmission line behavior can affect ITD perception: Zip cord for speaker test
Also: https://web.mit.edu/jhawk/tmp/p/EST016_Ground_Loops_handout.pdf
Are there other possible effects? I suspect so but have not tried working on pinning any down.
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Hi Demian,
Thanks for posting the LH0032 datasheet. This unit uses a pair of NPN and PNP transistors, plus a standard NPN-PNP pair for output. They run warm - as expected. Then there is the LSK389 used at the input. So the LH0032 bear some similarity, but is also very different.
Having another critical listen to it this morning. Temperature drift of the offset seems to run to around 8 mV when cold, then slowly drifts down to sub mV levels. I would use an output capacitor in any case.
-Chris
Thanks for posting the LH0032 datasheet. This unit uses a pair of NPN and PNP transistors, plus a standard NPN-PNP pair for output. They run warm - as expected. Then there is the LSK389 used at the input. So the LH0032 bear some similarity, but is also very different.
Same here. The general circuit just works well.
Having another critical listen to it this morning. Temperature drift of the offset seems to run to around 8 mV when cold, then slowly drifts down to sub mV levels. I would use an output capacitor in any case.
-Chris
Hi Evenharmonics,
I have tested some setups, and with higher impedance circuits both the capacitance and dielectric absorption does affect the signal. That is purely math backed up by measurements. Sadly, these things seemed self evident so I didn't record the findings as I was proving a point to a customer. The customer accepted the findings and agreed he heard a difference. Change the situation by using a low impedance source and the cables did not audibly affect the sound.
-Chris
How about if I back Mark up? Subjectively speaking, I have heard it.
I have tested some setups, and with higher impedance circuits both the capacitance and dielectric absorption does affect the signal. That is purely math backed up by measurements. Sadly, these things seemed self evident so I didn't record the findings as I was proving a point to a customer. The customer accepted the findings and agreed he heard a difference. Change the situation by using a low impedance source and the cables did not audibly affect the sound.
-Chris
Some evidence can be found in a few AES papers.
For example: AES Convention Papers Forum >> Physical characteristics of analog audio cables and their effect on sound quality ...The references at the end also point to some more information.
The author: AES New York 2019 >> Presenters: Akihiko Yoneya
Other possible papers of interest:
AES E-Library >> Audio Cable Distortion is Not a Myth!
AES E-Library >> Perceptually Affecting Electrical Properties of Headphone Cable — Factor Hunting Approach
For example: AES Convention Papers Forum >> Physical characteristics of analog audio cables and their effect on sound quality ...The references at the end also point to some more information.
The author: AES New York 2019 >> Presenters: Akihiko Yoneya
Other possible papers of interest:
AES E-Library >> Audio Cable Distortion is Not a Myth!
AES E-Library >> Perceptually Affecting Electrical Properties of Headphone Cable — Factor Hunting Approach
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But the difference is that you haven't posted things like "Wow! Everything sounded better, less distorted, and the difference was easy to hear! I was basically stunned, never expected it. ". 😱
The only thing I would specifically add to what I wrote about cables in another thread back in 2019, is that the cables I tried then and still use were never made available for sale. IMHO that's too bad, they are quite good.
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Interesting stuff. I got a patent on biasing a cable to improve its linearity (5,307,416) in 1992. This paper would have helped get it through back then.
The technique works and seems legit since with a bias all the change on the cable voltage is small.
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