TerryS;629503 Wrote: > I wish we could eliminate the "what you can hear" issue from the > discussion. What you can hear, what I can hear, what a person that has > dedicated huge amounts of time and money perfecting his equipment and > hearing acuity can hear... who is to say? > I was just trying to understand the effect of dithering on the > distortion levels. Without dithering, the situation is easy to > understand. For every bit below full scale, the distortion doubles. > And each bit is worth 6dB of dynamic range. So if you plot the > distortion (due to quantization error) versus the number of bits below > full scale, it reaches about 1% when the level is 54 dB below full > scale and doubles for every additional bit below that. So at 60 dB > below full scale, the distortion would double (1.56% actually). That > is the situation if dithering is not applied. > What I don't know, is how much dithering during the recording process > or playback changes that. I've just never seen a good description > anywhere . > If you are saying that distortion exceeding 1% at 54 dB below full > scale is acceptable, I have to say that is your opinion. It doesn't > sound like it is much better than a good tape deck could have achieved > instead of the quantum leap in performance we were told CDs would > provide. > Again, I am looking at it from the "Audiophile" perspective, not some > "what's good enough for me" perspective. > 96 dB of dynamic range sounds great. But if the truth is it only gives > 96dB of dynamic range if you are willing to accept unbounded levels of > distortion, I gotta respectfully disagree. > > Terry
1) This is a discussion about audio. The ONLY thing that matters is what can be heard and what can't! In the 70's, Sansui made an amp with (essentially) ZERO % distortion - it didn't sound great. 2) 16-bit digital has 96dB of dynamic range / SNR. Analogue has (at very very best) <70dB. The net result is that digital has a seemingly silent background and analogue doesn't (the analogue noise floor at source is much higher). This means that it is much easier to hear certain quiet sounds via digital that are simply buried in the noise floor of analogue. To put it another way, the "distortion" at -54dB in analogue is MUCH greater than 1%! 3) Dither is simply not relevant to the core of this discussion. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... Touch(wired/XP) - Audiolense 3.3/2.0+INGUZ DRC - MF M1 DAC - Linn 5103 - full Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Belden Digital,Kimber 8TC Speaker & Chord Signature Plus Interconnect cables Stax4070+SRM7/II phones Kitchen Boom, Outdoors: SB Radio, Harmony One remote for everything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=87175 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
