Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] How much can transport mechanism affect SQ?
magiccarpetride;584122 Wrote: In engineering terms, when we say 'noise' we don't imply audible noise (in other words, noise is not associated with sound). For example, if you're watching a movie that is streaming from Netflix, and if there are interferences, you may notice that every now and then the picture quality degrades and it becomes visibly pixelated (meaning, the objects on the screen get distorted and start looking chunky and as if made from Lego blocks). This phenomenon is termed 'noise'. It interferes with the original signal, distorts it, and disrupts our viewing enjoyment. There isn't anything audible about that kind of noise. In a similar fashion, interferences that may occur while transporting digital bits that carry audio signal will inevitably result in the degradation of the sound quality. And that will interrupt our enjoyment of the playback. We talk about the signal-to-noise ratio, not sound-to-noise ratio. Do you get it now? I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about output (the sound waves emanating from the speakers/headphones being faithful to the input). In good audio systems, this faithfulness (or, fidelity, if you will) is pretty high. In shitty audio systems, not even close. It is trivial to prove that with a squeezebox there is no corruption of the bits - the process is bit-perfect. The digital TV analogy is not relevant. What does matter are two things: 1) accuracy of clock-recovery from the s/pdif stream which can cause jitter (the impact of this very much depends on the design of the entire DAC) 2) real electrical noise (RFI etc) that can travel between transport and DAC via the digital cabling or transport and amp via the mains wiring and disturb the working of the DAC/amp and appear at the speakers as noise/loss of detail / soundstage etc... There are of course other sources of interference, it's not just the transport. And sometimes this interference can be airborne. -- 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) - TACT 2.2X (Linear PSU) + Good Vibrations S/W - MF Triplethreat(Audiocom full mods) - Linn 5103 - Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Digital,Kimber Speaker Chord Interconnect cables 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=82520 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] S-Booster
michael123;584138 Wrote: Guys Audiophiles _listen_ to music. And this is what matters in the end. The little I learn in this field is that there are no rules. --Michael Absolutely correct. However, we can use some science to help us try and understand and improve the unreliable rules... -- 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) - TACT 2.2X (Linear PSU) + Good Vibrations S/W - MF Triplethreat(Audiocom full mods) - Linn 5103 - Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Digital,Kimber Speaker Chord Interconnect cables 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=81454 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] S-Booster
soundcheck;584112 Wrote: ... You might guess that I expected such an answer. Phil will be the next chiming in. ... No I won't (oh - rats...) -- 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) - TACT 2.2X (Linear PSU) + Good Vibrations S/W - MF Triplethreat(Audiocom full mods) - Linn 5103 - Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Digital,Kimber Speaker Chord Interconnect cables 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=81454 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] S-Booster
soundcheck;584137 Wrote: You hearing an improvement or even a difference is not a hard fact unless the difference can be measured, now that would be a hard fact. Wrong! People who buy 200$ devices usually have to trust their ears. Those ears are known to be better on many aspects then most of the measurement gear out there - especially when it comes to low level details and distortions. If several people independently experience the same result. I call it hard facts. Opinions as expressed over here more then often are worth nothing. I wouldn't state anything over here or anywhere else, what I couldn't prove in a listening session. I'm sure you believe this all to be true. Unfortunately your definition of fact versus opinion is the complete opposite of what is generally accepted. Do you REALLY believe that what we think we hear is fact? Do you REALLY believe that we cannot measure everything that we can hear? (I'm not asking if you think we can make sense of what we can measure - that's a totally different question and is actually what I believe to be the real issue we should be discussing...) -- 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) - TACT 2.2X (Linear PSU) + Good Vibrations S/W - MF Triplethreat(Audiocom full mods) - Linn 5103 - Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Digital,Kimber Speaker Chord Interconnect cables 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=81454 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] How much can transport mechanism affect SQ?
Phil Leigh;584243 Wrote: It is trivial to prove that with a squeezebox there is no corruption of the bits - the process is bit-perfect. The digital TV analogy is not relevant. What does matter are two things: 1) accuracy of clock-recovery from the s/pdif stream which can cause jitter (the impact of this very much depends on the design of the entire DAC) 2) real electrical noise (RFI etc) that can travel between transport and DAC via the digital cabling or transport and amp via the mains wiring and disturb the working of the DAC/amp and appear at the speakers as noise/loss of detail / soundstage etc... There are of course other sources of interference, it's not just the transport. And sometimes this interference can be airborne. Completely agree. In this particular case, while everything else remains the same, I am still experiencing substantial differences in the sound quality when switching from the Duet receiver transport to the Touch transport and then back to the Duet (it's one of those things that you can quite easily hear even if you're in the other room). Does that mean that, in the end, we're talking jitter? -- magiccarpetride magiccarpetride's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37863 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82520 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] How much can transport mechanism affect SQ?
magiccarpetride;584293 Wrote: Completely agree. In this particular case, while everything else remains the same, I am still experiencing substantial differences in the sound quality when switching from the Duet receiver transport to the Touch transport and then back to the Duet (it's one of those things that you can quite easily hear even if you're in the other room). Does that mean that, in the end, we're talking jitter? I think we are talking jitter. The quality of the s/pdif waveform from the Touch is superior to that of the Duet so it is easier for the DAC to recover the clock accurately... -- 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) - TACT 2.2X (Linear PSU) + Good Vibrations S/W - MF Triplethreat(Audiocom full mods) - Linn 5103 - Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Digital,Kimber Speaker Chord Interconnect cables 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=82520 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] How much can transport mechanism affect SQ?
Phil Leigh;584295 Wrote: I think we are talking jitter. The quality of the s/pdif waveform from the Touch is superior to that of the Duet so it is easier for the DAC to recover the clock accurately... Thanks Phil. That finally explains it (in my head, at least:) -- magiccarpetride magiccarpetride's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37863 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82520 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Best 300 US$ DAC for Squeezebox???
You bump up the amount from 300 to 400 and you can get a Cambridge Audio dacmagic. For 400 bucks at amazon ,its a steal. -- jhonsber...@msn.com jhonsber...@msn.com's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4438 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82539 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DAC Resolution Test and Don't EVER use Digital Volume Control
This thread has got some track-shun! I got nothing. I ditched the digital volume control idea a while ago. Big fan of the Alps Blue Velvet. -- earwaxer9 System: modified Winsome Labs Mouse, modified Maggie MMG's, Transporter, HSU sub 12, MSB DAC to 500 watt sub slave amp, JPS labs power cords, Silver audio interconnect, Audioquest Granite speaker cable. earwaxer9's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=39527 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=77725 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] How much can transport mechanism affect SQ?
magiccarpetride;581590 Wrote: Now I want to reach out for the final 2% improvement, inching my way toward musical Nirvana. As a fellow Maggie fan - I'm diggin ya. Those babies lay it all bare! - If you havent done anything to your Maggies you can look for more than 2%! I dont know what your relationship with her is like, but, if you're not too squeamish I suggest hacking her crossovers and wires. Dont bark up the digital transport tree until you take care of your own. Dont get me wrong! I love the folks at Magnepan! They send me all kinds of tweaking hardware for free! They tend to be kind of old school in some ways. Not much for wires, inductors and caps. Thats ok. China (and the US)is cranking out a TON of awesome audiophile components these days, from tubes to caps. Great prices, all you need is a soldering iron and a little patience! Sure - I only spent $600 on my MMG's. I dont know what you have, but you would be surprised how accessible all this stuff is! -- earwaxer9 System: modified Winsome Labs Mouse, modified Maggie MMG's, Transporter, HSU sub 12, MSB DAC to 500 watt sub slave amp, JPS labs power cords, Silver audio interconnect, Audioquest Granite speaker cable. earwaxer9's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=39527 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82520 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] How much can transport mechanism affect SQ?
Phil Leigh;584295 Wrote: I think we are talking jitter. The quality of the s/pdif waveform from the Touch is superior to that of the Duet so it is easier for the DAC to recover the clock accurately... Yes, although a DAC that cannot attenuate the jitter from the Duet sufficiently to render it inaudible is very poorly designed. That said, there are plenty of poorly designed DACs out there, so it's possible. -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82520 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] How much can transport mechanism affect SQ?
Introducing that much jitter that someone can quite easily hear the difference even if you're in the other room is a new Superlative i sadly never came across. Impressive! -- Wombat Transporter - RG142 - Avantgarde based monoblocks - Sommer SPK240 - self-made speakers Wombat's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4113 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82520 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
