Phil Leigh;184095 Wrote:
>
> This is one of the "great audio myths of our time".
To paraphrase Jean Luc Picard in First Contact, "The physics of the
audiophile world are somewhat different".
Here are some of the principles I have perceived since my recent
introduction to the audiophile world (and all I thought I was doing was
ripping my CDs and buying some nice speakers and a good amp).
1. If a listener claims an audible difference, then it exists. ("I hear
it, therefore it is")
2. If it exists, any amount of new physics or engineering is plausible
to explain the audible difference.
3. Audible difference is never due to suggestion, placebo perceptiual
illusion or confirmation bias. Ergo DBT is not required.
4. The obligation to refute audible difference is on the skeptic not
the perceiver.
5. All devices, regardless of physical or engineering principles to the
contray, influence and colour sound.
6. There is no known threshold of engineering beyond which changes no
longer impact sound (corollary of (5))
In the classical world of high end computer networking which deals in
orders of magnitude higher signal rates, and is vastly more senstivity
to small error rates, and is carefully instrumented to measure bit
error rate, the thought that optical connections are inferior to
coaxial induce fall off the chair hilarity.
As a point of calibration on this topic, I have seen a paper assessing
the limits of audibility of jitter in a controlled listening blind
study to be around +-.5us using a syncrononous clocked environment. I
am having difficulty understanding how even the cheapest s/pdif
transmitted could not hold that, but I do admit to not having spent any
time looking at the engineering of S/PDIF circuits.
As Sean has measured this kind of stuff all the way down to
picoseconds, which deeply impresses me as a sort of uber-geek thing to
do I suspect he has the definitive word on this subject buried
somewhere in the SD forum postings. Site specific google searches would
help this. Kudos to Sean for at least characterizing it.
Now, full well knowning ps level jitter control likely well exceeds the
"don't care" thresholds, I still bought a Transporter because I so
admired the engineering precision that went into it. Its like buying a
Swiss watch: you don't really need that level of precision to get to
the meeting on time, but you sure do admire the engineering work that
went into it.
I know I will get flamed for this posting. But I sure do like the
clause in Hydrogen Audio's forum AUP that requires DBT to support
claims of improvement or difference. And I really do think I have
fairly summarized the position of the subjectivist community on this
stuff. To be fair the intensity of (2) varies.
Its really hard not to answer the OPs question without dealing with
this point.
In summary, the short answer is that in the classical networking wold,
even in syncronous bit transport clocking, there is no known mechanism
that could cause a properly engineered optical connection to be in any
way inferior to a coaxial one. But reading a spec sheet on the
transmitter/receiver chipset and internal clock circuit would resolve
this question conclusively.
In the world of audiophile physics, if you hear a difference, then by
all means use coax over optical.
--
Eric Carroll
Transporter-Bryston 3B SST-Paradigm Reference Studio 60 v.4
SB3-Rotel RB890-B&W Matrix 805
SB3-Pioneer VSX-49TXi-Mirage OM7+C2+R2
ReadyNAS NV+
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=33146
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