Chris, that is exactly what we did - and Ken pointed out a long time even before this thread started that there was work to do - nobody has even suggested "to stop short with any examination."
But when you have usable and practical info to share, then why not do that, this is first DIY and then science. Or we may have to change the name of www.diyaudio.com - and we are not.
Would it be too much for me to say... that I am being slighted for a gift?
If you find something and you know it works and then share it, what would you call it?
My question remains does ANY filtering directly at the DAC/analog world interface achieve the same or similar result.
No one wants to clarify, is tuning the filter to almost exactly -1dB at 20k necessary or do any of the other suggestions over the last 20 or so years have an equal chance of doing the same thing? For instance the trick of using a 50 Ohm or less resistor and a cap with an ultra-low noise amp in lieu of an I to V is OLD. Am I to believe tuning it to -1dB at 20k vs flat to 30k or so is a vast improvement?
Hi Joe,
#2 was in answer to Ken's responses only.
Many DIY folks have quite good equipment, and if they don't they do have some basic stuff to fall back on. You are involved in this hobby rather more completely than the average DIY'er would be. I would expect you to acquire the necessary equipment just to make your own life easier. Once you factor in your other businesses, it stuns me that you don't have any of these things.
I will accept that I have more gear than the average person, and more than you would need. But because I charge for some of my work, I do require a means by which can assure my work is of the quality I say it is. It also really makes study and research much, much easier. It also defends me should questions arise as to the state of anything I have worked on. I also take pictures of my work, before and after.
I don't think you are being slighted for a gift. I think that you agree to have this work be verified by others, yet step backwards when the time to do something approaches. I think that you need to run cleaner and more forthright than the average DIYer, and the big factor is that you charge a great deal to make these changes for those who can't do the work themselves. I will say that the charges you ask for place you in the realm where full instrumentation is expected along with exact measurements and technical study is required.
Joe, your stance on these changes place you rather higher than pure DIY. If you want to walk the walk and talk the talk, you have to be responsible for your work and experimental data that brings you there.
Joe, this is important. Your information on CD clocks is wrong. Take that stuff down and study the material before agreeing to perform any more of these clock changes. This really is a black and white issue and you are in error. Show that you are a responsible DIYer or tech or whatever you want to claim you are.
Best, Chris
#2 was in answer to Ken's responses only.
Many DIY folks have quite good equipment, and if they don't they do have some basic stuff to fall back on. You are involved in this hobby rather more completely than the average DIY'er would be. I would expect you to acquire the necessary equipment just to make your own life easier. Once you factor in your other businesses, it stuns me that you don't have any of these things.
I will accept that I have more gear than the average person, and more than you would need. But because I charge for some of my work, I do require a means by which can assure my work is of the quality I say it is. It also really makes study and research much, much easier. It also defends me should questions arise as to the state of anything I have worked on. I also take pictures of my work, before and after.
I don't think you are being slighted for a gift. I think that you agree to have this work be verified by others, yet step backwards when the time to do something approaches. I think that you need to run cleaner and more forthright than the average DIYer, and the big factor is that you charge a great deal to make these changes for those who can't do the work themselves. I will say that the charges you ask for place you in the realm where full instrumentation is expected along with exact measurements and technical study is required.
Joe, your stance on these changes place you rather higher than pure DIY. If you want to walk the walk and talk the talk, you have to be responsible for your work and experimental data that brings you there.
Joe, this is important. Your information on CD clocks is wrong. Take that stuff down and study the material before agreeing to perform any more of these clock changes. This really is a black and white issue and you are in error. Show that you are a responsible DIYer or tech or whatever you want to claim you are.
Best, Chris
Well, this is a good point. I agree that this it should be clarified. I will take a closer look and do (plan) some experiments, but this not just right now... May you have a suggestion/proposal about an alternative filter/filtering?
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Here is an interesting board
ES9018 32bit Audio DAC PCB kit - DIYINHK. Supposedly based on the ESS9018 reference board and using Scott's finest 8-legs. Now assuming (and huge assumption) that this is legit in terms of not being an ESS RIP off and therefore naughty and (also huge assumption) that the layout is not so awful that good performance cannot be had, would this be a good starting point for experimentation? Certainly cheap enough to be no excuse, even with the USB-I2S or spdif-I2S board needed to get sound out.
ES9018 32bit Audio DAC PCB kit - DIYINHK. Supposedly based on the ESS9018 reference board and using Scott's finest 8-legs. Now assuming (and huge assumption) that this is legit in terms of not being an ESS RIP off and therefore naughty and (also huge assumption) that the layout is not so awful that good performance cannot be had, would this be a good starting point for experimentation? Certainly cheap enough to be no excuse, even with the USB-I2S or spdif-I2S board needed to get sound out.
I did say huge assumption! It didn't look promising but I am not well enough versed in the art! And the official ESS boards are over $600YUK! (Polite way of saying pile of )
That's your own fault for not having any evidence. You would not feel this way if you had measurements that supported your claim.
No, you do not. You have a perception, not a fact. As I have said before, using a bad (DIY or 'audiophile') cable can give the perception of extra detail, when in fact the user is hearing extra RF intermods.Coris said:
Not for those who understand circuits, but don't fully trust their own ears.Ken Newton said:
A test for an genuine audible effect seems to be slipping from our grasp as people do not trust each other. If people report a change in sound then my first question is whether the change in the circuit could plausibly cause that change in sound. Some may prefer to wait for the result of a listening test before exploring the circuit, but I am more curious than that. I may choose to search for a cause even when there is no need to search for a cause as no effect has been demonstrated.
Considering that one can not get the details of the DAC or amplifier innards I would think you would search in vain. OTOH if one implements a filter at 20k or 30k the difference is easily measured and if the listening remains uncontrolled and/or anecdotal we get nowhere.
Having done a decent read of transimpedance circuits, I *think* I have a better idea what Scott is talking about (please indulge me some kindness for my relatively sophomoric circuit-fu--and correct me when I'm mistaken).
E.g.:
- Transimpedance-amplifier-noise issues | EDN
- Transimpedance Amplifier Signal to Noise (and the associated links)
- Transimpedance Circuit Noise
Just to be clear, the circuit provided on 371 is NOT ESS's suggested design but comes from a GB here on DIY (I have the link as a note in my .asc, don't feel like digging it out now). I'll post that circuit with your (Scott's) suggested modifications as well.
Those 10uF caps sitting on the output of the LM4562's, which I guess is for DC blocking, don't sit particularly well with me, but that may be my inexperience showing? The ESS datasheet has a decidedly different passive output filter scheme that makes (personally).
We'll see how far I get into simulations. My head still doesn't have a good wrap around how to simulate the source from the ES9018--a ~3 mA current source with only a ~700 ohm source impedance?
I'm working off of http://www.ti.com/lit/an/sbaa150/sbaa150.pdf and the nice app note in the AD8625's datasheet.
Again, feel free to guide me back to center if I'm out to lunch (that goes for anyone). Thanks.
Well, I will not be myself so categorical when to appreciate another`s perceptions. You can definitely not know better than myself what I perceive myself. Ones perception is not only a receiving of informations, but an overall and very complex amount of appreciations of these informations. These complex appreciations are based on large amount of informations, accumulated in time, learned, based on different kind of vary experiences, based on faults and corrected faults, and so on, and so on. Such appreciations and perception it is a much more complex approach than it can be described here.
I can appreciate myself when some of my perceptions are facts, and every healthy and enough balanced individual can do so. You can for sure perceive yourself one or another of received informations as facts, and this is huge important for you (as for everybody) as entity. You have also your system of appreciations to discern which of your perceptions are facts and what it may not be so.
However, let`s go away for a while from these above explanations, and supposing I`m wrong, and I perceive in this case something else than it is in fact. First I may say that I did this experiments on different DAC systems, heaving the same "perceptions".
Even more, these experiments was made by different people, in completely different circumstances, on even different circuits, using very different caps types, by complete different individuals with very different appreciations systems, and experiences history.
These peoples have reported the same kind of improvements, with the same characteristics for their very different perceptions systems.
It is this cap so magic to produce exactly the same side effects, RF intermodulations, HF artifacts, or who knows what, to generate the same perceptions for so different peoples in so different circumstances?
You only take wrong, heaving this logic for your explanation, caused in a part by your lack of complete experience in this case.
Yes the information is in several of those references. The effect is like trying to put a 1uF photo-diode on a trans-impedance amplifier.
Don't you realize that what warrants skepticism is precisely those supposedly identical results in completely different situations ?
It's more logical to assume that the perception arises from the experimenter's bias rather than from technical reasons.
It should be noted that the listening test proposed by SY can only have a null result which is only applicable to the test. It cannot prove the mod does not work, only that the mod does work.
The test also pushes the listener into a different state of mind, of listening. I have seen good, logical arguments that say that invalidates the test.
A proper test would have the subject not know they are being tested, and to measure listeners response directly by measuring something like brain response.
dave
I
Not really.
What you perceive as facts are the external stimulus filtered through or modified by your unconscious. You cannot tell how much of your perception is due to unconscious effect on the original stimulus. Because, by definition, you cannot be aware of unconscious effect.
It is the exact same phenomenon as pronouncing oneself as sane. An insane person could feel quite strongly that they are sane, but be completely delusional.
IMHO, opponents of DBT in audio must allow their unconscious to modify the stimulus into something that fits their world view. They must allow their unconscious to define what they ought to hear -- it is more comfortable going into a "test" when you already have the answers!
How does this apply here? All anecdotes say precisely the same things. The observations were probably made *after* the anecdotes were read. So that the effort of creating this buffer was rewarded by the reaction "I hear that too! I did it right!"
It is impossible without measurements or ears-only ( level matched and blind ) tests to guarantee that the unconscious effect does not overwhelm reality.
Not really.
What you perceive as facts are the external stimulus filtered through or modified by your unconscious. You cannot tell how much of your perception is due to unconscious effect on the original stimulus. Because, by definition, you cannot be aware of unconscious effect.
It is the exact same phenomenon as pronouncing oneself as sane. An insane person could feel quite strongly that they are sane, but be completely delusional.
IMHO, opponents of DBT in audio must allow their unconscious to modify the stimulus into something that fits their world view. They must allow their unconscious to define what they ought to hear -- it is more comfortable going into a "test" when you already have the answers!
How does this apply here? All anecdotes say precisely the same things. The observations were probably made *after* the anecdotes were read. So that the effort of creating this buffer was rewarded by the reaction "I hear that too! I did it right!"
It is impossible without measurements or ears-only ( level matched and blind ) tests to guarantee that the unconscious effect does not overwhelm reality.
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