This has been one of the greatest subjective problem areas of digital playback ever since the introduction of the CD. I remember when digitally reproduced cymbals sound like sprays of white noise were mixed in. Also, frequently lacking was the underlying ringing ‘bell’ tonality beneath the ‘splash’ of cymbal hits. Certainly, things have improved along this front, but still rarely round realistic. However, I suspect, however, that it’s not due to high harmonic distortion of the treble. Much of the spectra of which crosses the ultrasonic.
Yeah. I don't think the haters are going to the correct shows and they don't understand the technology that we have now in the live music industry. Modern line arrays are amazing and often sound spectacular.
I experienced once bad sound of a pre group on a concert.
Then the main act came in the sound changing from bad to really good.
And from my listening experience some more sophisticated dsp was activated giving clear and tonal correct sound.
So if wanted it can be done.
But most often live PA sound is disappointing on smaller concerts (big events I rarely attend)
Then the main act came in the sound changing from bad to really good.
And from my listening experience some more sophisticated dsp was activated giving clear and tonal correct sound.
So if wanted it can be done.
But most often live PA sound is disappointing on smaller concerts (big events I rarely attend)
Long time ago, one of the columnists in Audio(?) remarked that he was in NY producing a live concert from Chicago (Chicago Symphony perhaps) and talking with the Chicago engineer on the phone. He said he was blown away by the quality of the sound even over the frequency limited land-line connection, no special mikes etc.
The above includes unproven claims promoted by Amir at ASR. There is no published scientific study showing Amir's pet theories are true.
Here is what bohrok2610 from this forum had to say in response to a claim in some ways similar to the quoted text above:
...SINAD as a number does not tell much and ASR (or AP) is not all there is to measurements. HD profile, noise (including out-of-band noise), close-in PM/AM noise can show differences between high SINAD devices. This fixation with ASR SINAD numbers seems to plague every discussion of measurements here. To state "Anything that is audible to humans can be measured" does not mean that ASR measurements, especially SINAD, are such measurements.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...-board-for-diy-usb-cables.423028/post-7924380
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Agreed its probably not HD. However, probably not simply ultrasonics either. Correlated-noise and close-in random-noise jitter are two elephants in the room at audio frequencies which are not typically measured (including not measured at ASR).
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It's not the tech that sucks often, but the operator.
Does it tell it all? I don't know, but it tells a lot more than whoever else on the internet. I do believe all is measurable, and know that there are a lot of myths and marketing talk in the audio world, i rather prefer measurement than subjective judgement, because i know from experience that they tell more. What measurements don't tell is personal preference and taste, and it is also scientific proven that not everybody has the same taste (and what is the most common taste) by Floyd Toole and Sean Olive (while working for Harman).
Does ASR tell you what you should buy? Certainly not, i do also have a ACA and love it, and idem with tube preamps and amps. Those all measure bad because of the high harmonic distortion. But that is something some like me like. And I like a lot more that does not measure so good (vinyl, single driver fullrange systems, ...) but i can define that in numbers, so measurements can show me what i will like and not (and it works).
For a dac, most are as neutral as it can be today, so the dac is certainly not the limiting factor in any system, if it's a bit a modern one. The speakers are, and in lesser degree the amplifiers. And that is how i like a dac, even if after that some colouring tube or class A stages are colouring the sound.
And i'm not only following ASR, but also others like Erin's Audio Corner, Audioholics, ... and those give me way more usefull info than any review site on subjective judgements, certainly when they are sponsored by the products they review.
I'm not talking about SINAD alone, that is only one of the many factors that are measured. And ASR measures to the standards that are defined by science in all kind of protocols like the CEA/CTA-2034 (for speakers). He uses standardised measurements that are not defined by him, but by general acceptance in the industry.
Does it tell it all? I don't know, but it tells a lot more than whoever else on the internet. I do believe all is measurable, and know that there are a lot of myths and marketing talk in the audio world, i rather prefer measurement than subjective judgement, because i know from experience that they tell more. What measurements don't tell is personal preference and taste, and it is also scientific proven that not everybody has the same taste (and what is the most common taste) by Floyd Toole and Sean Olive (while working for Harman).
Does ASR tell you what you should buy? Certainly not, i do also have a ACA and love it, and idem with tube preamps and amps. Those all measure bad because of the high harmonic distortion. But that is something some like me like. And I like a lot more that does not measure so good (vinyl, single driver fullrange systems, ...) but i can define that in numbers, so measurements can show me what i will like and not (and it works).
For a dac, most are as neutral as it can be today, so the dac is certainly not the limiting factor in any system, if it's a bit a modern one. The speakers are, and in lesser degree the amplifiers. And that is how i like a dac, even if after that some colouring tube or class A stages are colouring the sound.
And i'm not only following ASR, but also others like Erin's Audio Corner, Audioholics, ... and those give me way more usefull info than any review site on subjective judgements, certainly when they are sponsored by the products they review.
But you should see that effect in the frequencies they affect i think. Maybe the effect is there but little so the test methods used today don't show it. But then you will have to prove your point before the industry will take a look at it. It's true that resonances above our hearing can have effects within our hearing, but that is always visible in the distortion or waterfall graphs of a speaker (and often in both)+.
I know that a lot of faults in sound come from production, even quiet big budget productions and are baked into the music recordings. I notice this all the time with music. And if you got revealing spekers, those faults are even magnified in your hearing, while speakers that are (relative) high distortioned or flawed in another way often hide those faults.
I got a set of old Goodman speakers from the 1970's for that kind of music, it's not a clean speaker, but a very good sounding one and it's very good in hiding those little errors that annoy me with revealing clean speakers. But when to much it kills also some albums, while the music and execution by the musicians are good, the sound is so bad done that it makes it unlistenable (often due to digital distortion, overcompression/lack of dynamics and/or a to bright sound).
True. Its not a problem to take measurements. The problem is if there are scientifically unsupported claims about audibility from a limited/incomplete set of measurements.
Some reasons certain dac characteristics are not typically measured is because they can be hard and or expensive to measure, although some recent work published in IEEE shows there is some progress towards developing more of in the way of useful measurements for correlated phase noise and correlated amplitude noise. Correlated noise is different from other reproduction system noise because the noise may become intermodulated with the audio signal in the audio band, and or it may otherwise go up and down with the audio signal. Most other noise, such as noise floor, is additive with the audio signal. The latter type of noise is much easier to measure.
Regarding neutrality of modern dacs such as Topping makes, the last commercial dac I purchased was an original Topping D90 (with AK4499EQ). It had audible flaws reproducing vocals and even more so when trying to reproduce cymbals. That happened within the last decade. Also within the last decade was my purchase of a Benchmark DAC-3. It also had audible problems. IMHO it sounded worse than the Topping D90.
Of course, some people notice the problems and other people don't. For people who like a little pleasant distortion to hide problems with recording quality, there is nothing wrong with that preference. However, the distortion can hide some of the problems with modern dacs too.
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There is also science on what you can hear and what not. And many claims of audiophiles on that are so unrealistic and never proofable that I'm very sceptic on that. Most adults don't hear above 17kHz, and certainly not beyond 20kHz, once your past 40 you probally hear to about 15kHz with a normal hearing. Very few hear to 20kHz but babies,
Idem with dynamic range, an dip of 1dB is not hearable, it needs to be 3dB, distortion is hearable to about -96dB (sinad of hearing), but not obvious when below -40dB. Distortion at -96dB is not hearable, so all that pass that mark is transparant. So no, you don't need a 120dB Sinad to have a transparant dac.
Those are standards with a scientific backing. If you want to claim otherwise, you will have to proof it scientificly it think. Most of these standards are defined by AES, an organisation, which everybody can join and submit papers to (but they need to get approved on science base).
And i know that a colouring tube amp like i have with a sinad of 60dB sound great, different than my Ncore amps with a sinad of 96dB, but as good because the distortion is harmonic. But you don't want that sinad in a dac or class D amp where the distortion is not harmonic. That is one of my big critics of ASR, they tread all kind of distortions the same, while in reality their effect isn't. And they don't measure all factors, that is true, but the most important often tell you what to expect with the others also for people who know how to read them. That is not good explained at ASR altough i know Amir and some others know that.
But measurements are key in objective judgement of gear. Your ears are very subjective and you can imagine more than you think. Also that is studied on scientific level and proven. Bias and myths run the audiophile world sadly, and sites like ASR try to do something about it. It may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what was there before.
Idem with dynamic range, an dip of 1dB is not hearable, it needs to be 3dB, distortion is hearable to about -96dB (sinad of hearing), but not obvious when below -40dB. Distortion at -96dB is not hearable, so all that pass that mark is transparant. So no, you don't need a 120dB Sinad to have a transparant dac.
Those are standards with a scientific backing. If you want to claim otherwise, you will have to proof it scientificly it think. Most of these standards are defined by AES, an organisation, which everybody can join and submit papers to (but they need to get approved on science base).
And i know that a colouring tube amp like i have with a sinad of 60dB sound great, different than my Ncore amps with a sinad of 96dB, but as good because the distortion is harmonic. But you don't want that sinad in a dac or class D amp where the distortion is not harmonic. That is one of my big critics of ASR, they tread all kind of distortions the same, while in reality their effect isn't. And they don't measure all factors, that is true, but the most important often tell you what to expect with the others also for people who know how to read them. That is not good explained at ASR altough i know Amir and some others know that.
But measurements are key in objective judgement of gear. Your ears are very subjective and you can imagine more than you think. Also that is studied on scientific level and proven. Bias and myths run the audiophile world sadly, and sites like ASR try to do something about it. It may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what was there before.
Respectfully I disagree. This is where the can/oil drum of worms is opened... DACs are mixed signal devices and I don't think mixing RF that is both correlated and uncorrelated with the fragile analogue output in the same circuit is ever going to be a completely solved problem. Solved enough? We can debate that till the cows come home.
I just saw, I think it was yesterday, that some people can hear a FR change of .2dB.
Now, 1dB or 3dB may have been published somewhere as an estimated average value for the average person (i.e. a published threshold). In any case, its not a hard limit and should not be represented as a hard limit.
IME that simply isn't true as a hard limit. Again, it may be true for the average person on an average system with average distortion speakers.
Also, it is well known that it is not highly unusual for some people to hear quantizing distortion if a CD were to be made without using dither noise. CD quantizing distortion is roughly around -93dBFS. I haven't seen any evidence that number is considered a hard limit for every human on earth. Moreover, some people can hear triangular dither noise down around the same level. The latter fact has led to the development of adaptive noise shaped dithers which are mostly what are used for CD production today.
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Those who claim to hear dither noise is mostly sighted tests; whiere bias is key. I never seen double blind test (the standard for unbiased hearing tests) where they could make this hard evidence. If i missed one, feel free to correct me. But with sighted tests, the bias plays a huge role in this kind of tests.
And sighted tests is what most use to make their subjective claims. But unprovable in double blind tests that are way more objective on such subjects.
And sighted tests is what most use to make their subjective claims. But unprovable in double blind tests that are way more objective on such subjects.
There are some measurements and discussion at ASR: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/noise-shaped-cds.49893/post-1787382
Some more info at: https://craiganderton.org/can-you-r...t=For example, you won't,back from 16-bit CDs.
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All the concerts I went to sounded horrible, live events, jazz fests, rock fests, folk music fest, etc etc etc.
Last time I listened to PA line arrays (the very best, brand new some 5 years ago) they played thunder and orchestral music, it was horrible fake and bad, ear bleed, sawing your tympany.
hifi home audio all the way!!!
