I do not need lies. Those that need a lie to appreciate something have a big psychological if not psychiatric problem. But it is THEIR problem not mine. I just need audio equipment that I know that it is not lying. I need audio reproduction that does not distract me from the music itself. Then I can appreciate the music. For me it is the awareness that reproduction is fair.
If one needs to pay more for a lie, well, I am very sorry for them.
Agreed. The only thing that makes me annoyed is that lies are sold as "better truths", which is wrong on so many levels, esp since these lies are more expensive.
What I do find amusing is that $$ are often brought into these arguments when trying to make a point about what is right and wrong when really all it does is give the reader an insight into the writers own internal value and judgement systems, social biases and grudges. Most certainly I am not having a go at you, but where one spends their money and how "foolish" we each are in certain situations are surely individual freedoms just like whatever enjoyment we can scavenge from our playback systems.
Lies are fundamentally a question about truths. We would probably all agree that capture and production/mastering are imperfect as are playback systems, especially loudspeakers and rooms. Will "perfect" playback electronics maximise our enjoyment of all sources of music because they tell the truth? What truth? The artists truth? The truth from the mastering studio? The truth (ok subtle lies then) that gives us most pleasure? There are no universal right or wrong answers for this: some err for caution with "perfect" electronics"; others choose whatever gives most satisfaction. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive options and it seems as though you may be someone that sees more value in the former rather than the latter, which is perfectly fine, but others will fall elsewhere on the spectrum depending on how they gauge the success of their playback.
This constitutes the sort of hand-waving that a person does when they don’t expertly know a subject. Not claiming that I do.
You speak from a surprisingly limited viewpoint. You write of euphonic electronic colorations, but I‘m referring to system parameters which are either not holistically considered, or are not quantified as relevant requirements in the engineering specifications, or are simply assumed to be inconsequential. For instance, see PMA’s post #495, where he pointedly provides an example.
I’m still waiting for you to contribute something besides a puzzling hostility.
You’ve completely missed the implied logic of your situation 2. The ear/brain (which contains fewer keystrokes to write than does, psychoacoustics, yes?) part of the reproduction chain is exactly what informs us that something is amiss somewhere in the prior part of the chain. Because the ear/brain element is common to both a live performance and via a reproduction, the fact that the two experiences rarely sound close to the same is the proof that something is not yet optimum in the part of the chain that is prior to the ear/brain. Meaning, In the sound capture, and signal transfer links.
Probably, isn’t an authoritative, or even confident answer.
Perhaps, there are a few, but of all those which I’ve read in reviews, or corresponded with, or personally know desire reproduction which sounds like the live event, had they been there to hear it. Rationally and simply defined. Not only isn’t that too much to aspire to, being satisfied with less is a betrayal of the music.
Last edited:
I can't see any deliberateness on your part to consider #38 true. My question in the above: "Is this an "appeal to authority" argument?" was in relation to your dialog stating that "IMHO diyaudio.com is an engineering site and hobbyists are guests". This suggests to me that "audio engineers" as "non-guests" have greater comprehension, value of input and perspective than non-audio engineers or hobbyists, being the so-called guests. Or alternatively to consider that hobbyists don't have the knowledge, skills or comprehensive ability to provide substantive or valuable input to the site, even though the site does not discriminate against them. This is not to suggest that one does not naturally seeks out expertise to satisfy an objective.
What I see as a fallacy as specific to "appeal to authority" is when a submission, being any presentation by anyone, is pre-weighted of value prior to the contents being known, being solely on the basis of coming from a "guest" or "non-guest" (as the authority) . This is what you seem suggesting as could be taken by others that way.
Last edited:
D
Deleted member 537459
Grudges? No. A person can do whatever they want with their money, however I can point out that it is a waste of money. If the difference between an amplified signal and the theoretically ideal amplification of the input signal is, say, 105Db below signal, then this difference is inaudible unless amplifier and speakers are grossly mismatched – so there is no need to spend more than any of the many inexpensive amplifiers that can do this if your goal is to colour the sound. If you want some distortion you can add it with a digital filter and use the same inexpensive amp. I just point out this.
"The truth from the mastering studio", because that is what you get on the medium.
You misunderstood me for a "purity" zealot. I am more of a grammar nazi, in this case semantics nazi. If one states "DAC A is better than DAC B" I want to know why, and the answer "it has more detail" is not going to cut, because "more detail" usually is associated to emphasised or irregular treble response. Therefore, the one with "less detail" is actually better from a technical point of view. Subjective criteria for evaluating amps tell us a lot - but it is about the character of the DAC and the sonic tastes of the listener. Both are perfectly fine. But the fact that this type of evaluation is subjective is the reason that it cannot be used as an absolute quality criterion. We can discuss whether numbers can be such an absolute quality criterion – and you would be surprised to hear that I am not entirely sure, because there are so many coordinates. But at least numbers do not lie. A statement like "I prefer DAC A because it gives me the impression of more retrieved detail than DAC B" is totally fine for me (even "because it retrieves more detail than DAC B" is wrong because minimally competently designed DACs at the end of the story all retrieve all details).
I do not claim to understand this science completely of course. But I am confident that people that design the most modern DAC chips take this knowledge into account.
Of course.
I am perplexed by your use of "holistically". I am not sure this is the proper adverb. So, PMA says
Which is something I agree 100% and I am perfectly aware of this, as I try to design speakers so that they have very controlled impedance, with no dips, and chose my amplifier modules so that they can provide plenty of current and voltage (and for this reason I like Bruno Putzey's designs, that provide both). I also take care of proper impedance matching (I like to have a ratio of source output impedance to sink input impedance of at least 100 between electronics, just to be on the safe side, paranoid-level).
I am only hostile to unsubstantiated claims. Which have been made here, like Andrea's obsession with oscillator phase noise, and I haven't seen (or I may have missed) a study on the effect on the sound of the very low levels he speaks about.
D
Deleted member 537459
Maybe deserves some explanation.
There is a tendency for engineers and non-engineers to see the world through a different lens. (Both can be great people or not). There is, IMHO a tendency for engineers to view opinions from the rest as something ill-informed that should be corrected or dismissed. Sometimes add an insult without consequence. This thread has been well behaved. As always, I appreciate the insights that I gain from the incredible talent present.
It is faulty arrogance, or possibly naïveté to be confident about facts which you can only presume. Such presumption and assertion are not factual knowledge.
Fine, now, tell me where on a specifications sheet I may find this clearly, and accurately communicated.
You’ve been making as many suppositions and assertions, which are unsubstantiated, as anyone else here. Including, some rather self-righteously confident sounding ones. You should, then, be very angry at yourself, but I doubt it. Pleased with yourself, feels closer to the truth.
So, basically, any DAC is not worthy ... or everyone at diya is extremely difficult to please. Alright then, good to know... 😆
... I exactly know where our hobby will drive us : we will make group buys to ask factories to make us special parts and ic from road-maps, bakelite pcbs damped with carbon powder from selected meteroits washed with sake at Kobe while the young reccording engineers that pop up now were just growing with mp3 !
LOL... I remember one of the earlier replies stating that one are not only listening to the chip but also the surrounding parts and how it is put together or the implementation. So a year ago I started a collab to redesign the DDDAC 1794 NOS and use among the best grounding technics known in PCB design, low inductance capacitors and state of the art film resistors, all in an effort to push the component and hardware noise down to a minimum. Along the way, I was also going to construct some IV transformers out of nanocrystalline cores which is a spill-over from my passive preamplifier research which I concluded with is best to use inductive volume attenuators.
Use 8 paralleled insert cards to and get the data via Engineered Electronics SA network or USB interface - but I might as well spare the time and money and get a RME dac.
Use 8 paralleled insert cards to and get the data via Engineered Electronics SA network or USB interface - but I might as well spare the time and money and get a RME dac.
Its under development - so only theoretical atm. Without building one, I can't say if this truly is a better version or better DAC in general, and not knowing sucks since everything cost money.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.