EDN published a quite interesting article on the challenges for system designers to test combined digital - analog systems.
What is interesting is that they tend to rely on a combination of measurements and listening tests.
The main article is here:
http://www.edn.com/contents/images/6418209.pdf
and a side-bar "Can you even measure that?" here:
http://www.edn.com/article/CA6418209.html?nid=2431&rid=243880419#Can you even measure that?
Excerpt:
Morten Lave, chief executive officer of TC Applied Technologies, offers the following example: A listening test compared the audio quality of a CD player, amplifier, and speaker combination using an analog-through-RCA-plug interconnection scheme and an S/PDIF (Sony/Philips-digital-interface)-through-optical-fiber scheme. Listeners reported that the analog connection produced better sound. The report on the test concluded that this finding was yet another proof of the superiority of good old analog over digital. Lave initially ignored the result.
But looking further, he found that the investigators had conducted a blind test in which the listeners didn’t know which system they were hearing on which passages, and the results were consistent. So, engineers dug further and found that measurable differences existed between the rise and fall times of the optical transducers in the S/PDIF optical link. This difference caused data-dependent jitter, which, on the other side of the DAC, had an audible component. “I believe in blind tests,” Lave says, “but not always in the explanations.”
Jan Didden
What is interesting is that they tend to rely on a combination of measurements and listening tests.
The main article is here:
http://www.edn.com/contents/images/6418209.pdf
and a side-bar "Can you even measure that?" here:
http://www.edn.com/article/CA6418209.html?nid=2431&rid=243880419#Can you even measure that?
Excerpt:
Morten Lave, chief executive officer of TC Applied Technologies, offers the following example: A listening test compared the audio quality of a CD player, amplifier, and speaker combination using an analog-through-RCA-plug interconnection scheme and an S/PDIF (Sony/Philips-digital-interface)-through-optical-fiber scheme. Listeners reported that the analog connection produced better sound. The report on the test concluded that this finding was yet another proof of the superiority of good old analog over digital. Lave initially ignored the result.
But looking further, he found that the investigators had conducted a blind test in which the listeners didn’t know which system they were hearing on which passages, and the results were consistent. So, engineers dug further and found that measurable differences existed between the rise and fall times of the optical transducers in the S/PDIF optical link. This difference caused data-dependent jitter, which, on the other side of the DAC, had an audible component. “I believe in blind tests,” Lave says, “but not always in the explanations.”
Jan Didden
This should debunk the "consumers have no taste" myth once and for all.
The part about portable mp3 players contra old portable cassette tape and CD players was interesting. I haven't read it all yet.
I have a few mp3 on my hdd. As I have posted elsewhere, I think there's less difference between mp3 and CD than there is between my PlayStation and my relatively highly regarded Pioneer DVD player. I'm not sure I could even tell mp3 from CD. And that's when I use the integrated cheapo DAC on the motherboard! I have some excessively compressed mp3s (64kHz?) and they do sound bad. But those aren't relevant.
The part about portable mp3 players contra old portable cassette tape and CD players was interesting. I haven't read it all yet.
I have a few mp3 on my hdd. As I have posted elsewhere, I think there's less difference between mp3 and CD than there is between my PlayStation and my relatively highly regarded Pioneer DVD player. I'm not sure I could even tell mp3 from CD. And that's when I use the integrated cheapo DAC on the motherboard! I have some excessively compressed mp3s (64kHz?) and they do sound bad. But those aren't relevant.
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