The channel gain is done before filtering and volume plus its offsets after. Hence I think there are numerical effects of doing attenuation versus amplification before the filters.
Fedde
Regarding distortion yes. But I do not think the noise floor is 100 dB down at -60 dB input for fusion. Also, this is the 0.05% version which has a higher distortion than 0.01% or 0.02%.
Fedde
What would be the benefit of 100dB signal to noise ratio at digital -60dB. Normally, the digital -60dB is very quiet at the listening spot.
-60 dB is a bit extreme, but I regularly listen between -45 and -25 dB, using amps with reduced gain. Having 100 dB SNR means that you still have 16 bit resolution in such conditions. And 18-20 bits would be better.
Fedde
So before any discussion, I should ask "what kind of coloration do you happen to personally prefer?"?
Correct.
//
You think so, but I think it doesn't matter what the sequence is, only that if we exceed 0dB at the very end or not. If we exceed (and it doesn't matter which way), then the noise floor start to rise in an audible way in my experience. That's all.
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Amir uses a Sennheiser HD650 headphone usually when checking for audibility. He also lacks a properly treated listening room for his speakers (Revel I believe).
I don't hold much value as to the audibility of HD and IMD under those circumstances. With headphones it's an IMD mess and even moreso a lack of natural HRTF which causes enormous (20dB+) fr errors on top of the single driver breakups all over the trebble. And with speakers in an untreated room it's all burried in a wash of reflections and reverb.
Amir primarily measures, which is perfectly OK.
Sometimes a dac has serious (fundamental) design flaws (for example some of the Schiit stuff), and it's good to pay attention to that.
However, even in more or less ideal listening situations, the difference between -80 dB (0.01%) and let's say -100 dB (0.001%) is inaudible as long as we are humans...
High quality loudspeakers have at least -40 dB distortion (1%); properly treated listening rooms don't take away that distortion. Besides, we don't listen in "dead" rooms but in an environment with already a steady state noise level of 20-30 dB for a "quiet" room, most of the time we have 30-40 dB "noise" already when listening to our precious gear... I bet that listening in a virtually dead room is not pleasant at all!
Listening fatigue when listening with headphones has also to do with the fact that we create a sort of "dead" room.
By the way: what is HRTF?
Sometimes a dac has serious (fundamental) design flaws (for example some of the Schiit stuff), and it's good to pay attention to that.
However, even in more or less ideal listening situations, the difference between -80 dB (0.01%) and let's say -100 dB (0.001%) is inaudible as long as we are humans...
High quality loudspeakers have at least -40 dB distortion (1%); properly treated listening rooms don't take away that distortion. Besides, we don't listen in "dead" rooms but in an environment with already a steady state noise level of 20-30 dB for a "quiet" room, most of the time we have 30-40 dB "noise" already when listening to our precious gear... I bet that listening in a virtually dead room is not pleasant at all!
Listening fatigue when listening with headphones has also to do with the fact that we create a sort of "dead" room.
By the way: what is HRTF?
Agreed that Amir's measurements are very ok, great infact.
I don't know where the audibility threshhold lies for distortion. Many papers have been written about it but were tested in far from ideal ways hence largely invalidating the results I feel. Though in general HD is not that audible, but IMD which is almost always closely related to HD (in both DACs and drivers etc) is quite audible.
I do happen to personally listen in a very "dead" room, near true anechoic even my floor is 40cm fibreglass with an open 'raster' (not sure if that's the correct english word, metal fence like structure) on it. You will not believe how far this is from a regular room (or headphones for that matter), you hear everything. I personally can't take any untreated "audiophile" room serious anymore no matter the equipment / speakers. It is really the room that is most important and no big room can come remotely close to a well treated big room. (And though my listening situation is perhaps rare, there are many very well treated mastering rooms and many many more well treated studios. Not without a reason the best pros use for instance Northward Acoustics to build their rooms, those are semi-anechoic)
And for what it's worth, I think the Fusion amps are a game changer at this price. Incredible amps paired with a good enough DAC / digital design and great DSP. If anybody has issues with the soundquality when using these plate amps one should look anywhere other than the Fusion amps for the culprit. They will for sure not be the bottleneck in any way (other than wrong filter setup or choosing too few watts ofcourse..)
Oh and btw, really good loudspeakers will be well below 1% THD at 90dB/1m other than lower bass. More important still is how flat their fr is, on and slightly off-axis. Here almost all are lacking and if one has big roundovers at least the on-axis can be made fairly flat (and with correct time alligned crossovers) with the Fusion amps. Allowing the highest quality active speakers at just a few thousand euro total building cost that totally blow away those tens or hundreds of thousands euro passive "audiophile" systems when designed properly.
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Not sure about beating the hundreds of thousands of euro systems, but indeed the Fusion is a great & very cost effective solution. I may have been a bit critical here and there (and still believe there are aspects of the Fusion that can be improved, though probably at a higher cost), but in the end I am very happy to have acquired the amps.
For a long time I was thinking about active speakers, but buying 6 channels of NC400 with 6 DACs and multi-channel solutions is very expensive. Being able to buy this all under the cost of a pair of NC400 monoblocs is pretty spectacular...
Back to music listening now... :-D
Fedde
p.s. And I agree that the speakers and especially room acoustics are the most dominant factor in the end...
p.s.2. As a side note, I heard the 110.000 euro actively driven Steinway Lyngdorf model B open baffle sound system at the X-fi show in The Netherlands this year. This was amazing... never heard such an accurate piano reproduction from any speaker. Trying to make my own lost cost active baffle speaker solution that hopefully can approach it a little bit..
For a long time I was thinking about active speakers, but buying 6 channels of NC400 with 6 DACs and multi-channel solutions is very expensive. Being able to buy this all under the cost of a pair of NC400 monoblocs is pretty spectacular...
Back to music listening now... :-D
Fedde
p.s. And I agree that the speakers and especially room acoustics are the most dominant factor in the end...
p.s.2. As a side note, I heard the 110.000 euro actively driven Steinway Lyngdorf model B open baffle sound system at the X-fi show in The Netherlands this year. This was amazing... never heard such an accurate piano reproduction from any speaker. Trying to make my own lost cost active baffle speaker solution that hopefully can approach it a little bit..
Well, my Fusion 567 ( Seas DXT tweet, Satori mid and 10" seas woof with digital motional feedback ( like the Grimm sub) with a 253 fusion outplayed with a large extend a set with Vivid G3 driven by Mola Mola amps and dac at Hypex....
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Interesting! Can you elaborate?
A pity that you mounted the Satori mid and Seas tweeter in the center of the baffle; slightly off center would have been better.
Even with DSP you can not correct baffle diffraction.