The difference I will hear will be a change in volume, and a percieved change in frequency response due to Fletcher-Munson (or whatever it's called these days)...but that change in and of itself has NOTHING to do with the fact that I hear more detail at ANY level, and it's not subtle...OK?
I listen to music nearly every day for a couple of hours, I have many favorite recordings that I am very well acquainted with, so again, I know what I hear.
Mike
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Then read about the ones that are already done. No discernible difference between boutique DAC and cheap DAC. I know that's a dagger through the DAC business you've been shilling for despite your ongoing effort to change it.
Right, for your own livelihood. When you post audibility claims on forums like this, you would need a supporting proof, otherwise your words are seen as what they really are, sales pitch.
Never happened, no peer reviewed study published in a reputable journal, no proof. Just amateur phony BS designed to shock by the ridiculous claims.
Regarding my livelihood, its more honest than yours. I am retired, make not one cent from audio. You on the other hand are a dishonest audio businessman in the room treatment and room EQ business disgruntled because better dacs we have now are showing how crappy sounding your cheap 48kHz digital EQs are!
Regarding my livelihood, its more honest than yours. I am retired, make not one cent from audio. You on the other hand are a dishonest audio businessman in the room treatment and room EQ business disgruntled because better dacs we have now are showing how crappy sounding your cheap 48kHz digital EQs are!
Another claim with no supporting evidence.
Any peer reviewed study published in a reputable journal supporting the following claims?
"That is why I reject the claim that $200 or $500 dacs that measure pretty well sound as good as any dac can ever sound, they don't."
"For instance, there are now some dacs that measure quite well, Gustard offering one example. However, their great measuring dac is quickly earning a reputation for sounding worse than some other dacs in the same price range that do not measure as well."
Only if you can quote my shilling post like the shilling example quoted below.
"Jam, my high end audio designer friend came over one day and pulled out some XLR cables.
...
Wow! Everything sounded better, less distorted, and the difference was easy to hear! I was basically stunned, never expected it.
...
Anyway, turns out Jam had his own wire manufactured based on a lot of trial and error research he did. He also designed and had manufactured some speaker wire. Since then I have had an opportunity to try those too and they sound better than what I was using before."
There was no shilling on my part. Just facts. You don't have to like them and you don't.
You on the other hand are trying to lure in suckers: I would work on speaker quality and room acoustic treatments for more gain in sound quality. I use cheap-ish 300B tube set at 370V and 70mA bias. It sounds good because my speakers are really good (high efficiency horn) and I treated my room. https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tubelab/195361-tubelab-se-xls-tubes.html#post2687493
Sorry, almost forgot about your awful sounding 300B SET distortion machine shilling you do too. Nobody should believe a word you say.
This stuff is rich too: Evenharmonics:
I recently switched from Hammond 1627SEA 2.5K Ohm primary, 160 mA, 30 Watts to Electra-print 3K Ohm primary, 100 mA, 15Watt for my Tubelab SE amp which uses 300B OP tubes. It may not be apple to apple comparison due to different numbers but the impressions between them are as follows.
- Ep (Electra-print) has better imaging between instruments and vocals than Hammond.
- Ep produces little better controlled mid and high (if this is a proper term) and sounded smoother.
Let's see your proof!!!
You on the other hand are trying to lure in suckers: I would work on speaker quality and room acoustic treatments for more gain in sound quality. I use cheap-ish 300B tube set at 370V and 70mA bias. It sounds good because my speakers are really good (high efficiency horn) and I treated my room. https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tubelab/195361-tubelab-se-xls-tubes.html#post2687493
Sorry, almost forgot about your awful sounding 300B SET distortion machine shilling you do too. Nobody should believe a word you say.
This stuff is rich too: Evenharmonics:
I recently switched from Hammond 1627SEA 2.5K Ohm primary, 160 mA, 30 Watts to Electra-print 3K Ohm primary, 100 mA, 15Watt for my Tubelab SE amp which uses 300B OP tubes. It may not be apple to apple comparison due to different numbers but the impressions between them are as follows.
- Ep (Electra-print) has better imaging between instruments and vocals than Hammond.
- Ep produces little better controlled mid and high (if this is a proper term) and sounded smoother.
Let's see your proof!!!
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Summarizing: Mark believes he can hear subtle differences between DACs and Evenharmonics does not believe that. Points taken, if you feel the need to discuss it any further, can you please do it in the thread
If it's purely an engineering challenge why bother designing yet another DAC?
If it's purely an engineering challenge why bother designing yet another DAC?
Jim Morrison is dead.
We think that we have his voice recorded on tapes or on computer files, but we don't have it: they are only some magnetic particles, hills and valleys on a vinyl, or bits.
We take these recordings and convert them in some electrical signals, then to some air vibrations and then we think that we are listen Jim's voice.
We also think that our ears are perfectly tuned, but they are not and they will be more out of tune as years pass.
Surprise, surprise: the air pressure changes are converted back into some electrical signals, somewhere inside our head.
Maybe those who claim to hear differences already have LT3042 inside every ear, but the other ones, only 780x. I think that they are both wrong: They need a discrete regulator, because discrete is better for audio.
Thanks God that this is an audio forum but not a video one. I prefer to speak about Jim Morrison songs instead of Picasso paintings.
We think that we have his voice recorded on tapes or on computer files, but we don't have it: they are only some magnetic particles, hills and valleys on a vinyl, or bits.
We take these recordings and convert them in some electrical signals, then to some air vibrations and then we think that we are listen Jim's voice.
We also think that our ears are perfectly tuned, but they are not and they will be more out of tune as years pass.
Surprise, surprise: the air pressure changes are converted back into some electrical signals, somewhere inside our head.
Maybe those who claim to hear differences already have LT3042 inside every ear, but the other ones, only 780x. I think that they are both wrong: They need a discrete regulator, because discrete is better for audio.
Thanks God that this is an audio forum but not a video one. I prefer to speak about Jim Morrison songs instead of Picasso paintings.
It is a hobby, Mark.
Most of the times, I think that I don't hear any differences, but sometimes, I do. My mind tells me that this is purely subjective, since I lost all my time making circuits and actually there is no remaining time for listen music. Probably my brain decodes music in different manners, and so it really sounds different sometimes, but how can I prove to other people about that? It is a lost cause. Or, other saying, how could I believe other people, without a minimum of proof or a logical explanation?
I didn't feel bothered by your posts, or by other users posts on this forum. This is only my way to say: claiming as a universal truth a subjective perception from one side, and asking for evidences for any such a claim from other side, do not lead to any results.
Most of the times, I think that I don't hear any differences, but sometimes, I do. My mind tells me that this is purely subjective, since I lost all my time making circuits and actually there is no remaining time for listen music. Probably my brain decodes music in different manners, and so it really sounds different sometimes, but how can I prove to other people about that? It is a lost cause. Or, other saying, how could I believe other people, without a minimum of proof or a logical explanation?
I didn't feel bothered by your posts, or by other users posts on this forum. This is only my way to say: claiming as a universal truth a subjective perception from one side, and asking for evidences for any such a claim from other side, do not lead to any results.
If they are facts, it should be easy for you to cite evidence but you didn't. Lets see the fact that "better dacs we have now are showing how crappy sounding your cheap 48kHz digital EQs are!"
I've posted output measurements of my 300B amp. What about you and your DACs?
As for the room acoustics, it's well known that the deviation from input signal is orders of magnitude higher than any components in audio electronics chain and the measurements demonstrate it if you haven't discovered it.
You claimed that "You on the other hand are a dishonest audio businessman in the room treatment and room EQ business" without naming a single company. I wonder why...
There are lots of clues as to what remains to be studied about human auditory perception. Here we are in 2020, it is, or would be a huge assumption to believe we now know all there is to know about the subject of perception. Some people are so predisposed though, lots of examples of people thinking all that can be known is already known. Dumb.
Regarding what is real verses what is not, self-blind testing can offer some pretty good insights into the subject. I was able to sort in order of distortion single opamp buffers designed by PMA, one of the measurement guys who is respected by the other well known measurements guys. That was done double blind by the way. It was hard at the time, but I now have a much lower distortion reproduction system, so less masking getting in the way now.
In addition, I have been able to pass AB or ABX testing that other people couldn't pass. It isn't my extraordinary hearing that makes it possible. Its by being analytical and figuring out what I can memorize about a sound long enough to answer the blind tests correctly, and practicing the skill of actually doing it.
Fortunately for me I have other people around me who are in some ways better at listening that I am, mostly because I have more hearing loss now. Because of those types of experiences and because I pay attention to what lots people say about how audio gear sounds, I know some of the claims are real and some are clearly false.
Moving along to how the foregoing applies to us now, the reason we need to learn to use subjectivity in audio design is because we are not presently equipped to measure and model all of the small and sometimes complex effects that can be heard. There is not enough time for one person to investigate them all and provide explanations for each one.
Take cable for example. We can easily measure LCR, maybe Z0, but transfer impedance starts to get a little less used. Common mode to differential conversion effects can be harder pin down, especially when cables are used to interconnect uncharacterized pieces of equipment with unknown grounding loop paths, unknown AC line noise incursion, unknown radiated EMI/RFI incursion, etc. Much can be heard, however. Quick experiments can be performed by changing cables, cable routing, grounding, swaping out audio gear boxes, and listening to what changes in the sound of one reference track that is very well known.
The bottom line for me is that when we want to deal with lots of little low level problems and we have limited time available to deeply investigate every little one, we need to use every clever way we can to make design progress. Using good engineering practices helps a lot to start with, measurements follow but sometimes they lead people astray when people overdo corrections to optimize one popular metric but unknowingly at the expense of something else. At some point then subjective evaluations are simply another tool to learn how to use in selected cases. It means some skill development is required. Like other things, be it sports, academic potential, playing musical instruments, etc., people vary in natural potential. Can't help that, but people can learn to improve their skills from whatever starting point they find themselves. Avoiding getting fooled is one big lesson to learn. Level matched blind testing is not the only way to usefully listen, despite people with one-track minds who seem to think so.
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It's interesting. These same sort of questions regarding perceived DAC resolution are still debated today regarding perceived preamp resolution, etc.. I think that in both cases, the objective measured performance is typically well beneath the established limits of human hearing acuity. I suspect then that the pursuit of ever greater measured performance has no end, simply because it not actually what's responsible for improving the perceived performance. What usually follows, however, is the logical assumption that improved perception requires improved measured performance - requires reduced objective imperfection.
I personally subscribe to the notion that it is a component's DEPARTURES from measured perfection which make is psycho-acoustically perceived as more realistic. Makes it sound like it presents more musical resolution, better tonal balance, more realistic soundstaging, wider musical dynamics, etc. I feel fairly convinced that the human ear perceives certain dynamic behavior of analog parameter imperfections as making reproduced music sound more like live music. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that all error behavior, such as IMD, contributes to a more realistic perception. Only certain behaviors, such as harmonic distortion monotonicity.
So, after non-scientifically controlled DIY tinkering in my basement lab :rollseyes: over the years, I've come around to the conclusion that any remaining perceptual differences among DACs is due to essentially analog system blocks surrounding the quantizer core. Such as clock recovery, I/V and post quantizer filters and amplifiers. One notable exception is digital anti-imaging filterer design and implementation, which can produce unpleasant errors
I personally subscribe to the notion that it is a component's DEPARTURES from measured perfection which make is psycho-acoustically perceived as more realistic. Makes it sound like it presents more musical resolution, better tonal balance, more realistic soundstaging, wider musical dynamics, etc. I feel fairly convinced that the human ear perceives certain dynamic behavior of analog parameter imperfections as making reproduced music sound more like live music. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that all error behavior, such as IMD, contributes to a more realistic perception. Only certain behaviors, such as harmonic distortion monotonicity.
So, after non-scientifically controlled DIY tinkering in my basement lab :rollseyes: over the years, I've come around to the conclusion that any remaining perceptual differences among DACs is due to essentially analog system blocks surrounding the quantizer core. Such as clock recovery, I/V and post quantizer filters and amplifiers. One notable exception is digital anti-imaging filterer design and implementation, which can produce unpleasant errors
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AB or ABX of what?
"There are no legitimate peer reviewed scientific publications proving" that.
What kind of blind testing, single blind, double blind or triple blind?
Useful to whom and for what purpose? Vagueness is one of the ways to cover things up spread FUD. Salesmen use that a lot.
When it comes to human perception many things cannot be measured or quantified directly, they can only be inferred based on the personal perception(s) of an individual...perception that only that individual has access to. On top of that is the fact that everything we hear goes through a lot of audio processing within our brains, and being human we are prone to both internal and external influences that can and do affect what we hear. If one has a cold for example, that can affect or ears physiologically and/or psychologically affect our mood. There are many other things that affect what we hear too, not the least of which is expectation bias, and no one is immune.
So when you demand measurements and facts to prove someone's claim for what they hear, at some point you just need to accept it, or agree to disagree and move on. I can't prove to you what I perceive personally any more than I can prove to you that unicorns don't exist...sorry, I just can't.
Mike
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When it comes to human perception many things cannot be measured or quantified directly, they can only be inferred based on the personal perception(s) of an individual...perception that only that individual has access to. On top of that is the fact that everything we hear goes through a lot of audio processing within our brains, and being human we are prone to both internal and external influences that can and do affect what we hear. If one has a cold for example, that can affect or ears physiologically and/or psychologically affect our mood. There are many other things that affect what we hear too, not the least of which is expectation bias, and no one is immune.
So when you demand measurements and facts to prove someone's claim for what they hear, at some point you just need to accept it, or agree to disagree and move on. I can't prove to you what I perceive personally any more than I can prove to you that unicorns don't exist...sorry, I just can't.
Mike
Pseudoscience NONSENSE. Mods, please move to Lounge.
Not so. Non-experimenters are immune by definition. Please see the entry for 'expectation bias' in the list of known biases: List of cognitive biases - Wikipedia
For those who would rather not have to look for it, the entry says: "The tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations."
Obviously, expectation bias is a bias affecting experimenters (professional researchers), including those researching what people can or can't hear.
It should be understood that any notion of a cognitive bias to the effect that 'you hear what you expect to hear' is non-scientific nonsense. There is no scientifically recognized bias to that effect. Makes not one bit of difference that you see people erroneously misusing the term in audio forums either, they are mistaken.
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Not the case with electronic audio reproduction, which is what I was referring to when mentioning the measurement.
What you perceive is your own business. If you want to post claims of audible sound quality on forums like this one, backing it up with evidence would help your credibility.
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