Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
Morning Arny! It was this paper https://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html that I was seeking your view on actually... Dave :) Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
ftlight wrote: > I still have this exact setup, and very occasionally play vinyl on it. > > Bill Hi Bill! It sure is a pretty deck (if you can find room for it, lol): you do have to change the damping fluid periodically since it tends to get clogged up with detritus. I'm afraid I stand my earlier comment that the LP12/Ittok with a low compliance cartridge gets a lot more information out of the groove however - the rationale is that the stylus moves, the arm/cartridge body doesn't. Also there's no isolation of the turntable/arm board from the rest of the deck on the Transcriptors. The strobe speed setting is very :cool: in combination with the damping paddle fine tune, however. Ultimately more form than substance: well worth keeping as a work of art though! Dave :) Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
Golden Earring wrote: > I had previously owned a Transcriptors (later Mitchell Engineering) > Hydraulic Reference deck with an SME 3009 arm & a Shure V15 MkIII > cartridge (I'm sure you remember the '70s too) I still have this exact setup, and very occasionally play vinyl on it. Bill ftlight's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5294 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
StephenPG wrote: > Interesting you chose Mahler 2. > > So you're saying having to split the symphony onto four sides of two > lp's, including splitting the final movement into two parts (something > I'm sure Mahler himself would have disapproved of) is a technological > triumph? > > Should I mention wear over time? > > Tracing error? > > End of side mistracking? > > Sure, it needs two CD's so can't be listened to without changing discs, > but with a streamer this is no longer a problem. > > Classical on vinyl was awful and it was no surprise that it vanished in > 1990. Hi Stephen! I happily accept all the above criticisms of LP's, the point that I was trying to make is that we came a long way from Thomas Edison creating a wax cylinder with a (thankfully unlistenable to) rendition of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" around 1886 (that's from memory, so do correct me if I've got the date wrong!) though 78rpm shellac discs played by a literal needle into a horn loaded arm, to the final evolution of the stereo 33 1/3rpm LP with transcription mechanics consisting of magnetic pickups, first MM & then MC, counterweighted arms with precision bearings, with precise tracking weight & bias compensation adjustments & optimised lateral tracking error geometry & record decks providing *-some-* respite from the rumble & wow & flutter inherent in the medium, capable of supplying a stereo signal to utilise (if not take full advantage of powerful solid-state amplification capable of driving low efficiency multi-way loudspeakers (or Quad Electrostatics if you had the room & a very persuasive manner with your domestic goddess). I suspect that the real weak links in most people's systems in the 60's & 70's were actually the loudspeakers. It was an extraordinary engineering achievement comparable to the continuous incremental development of the internal combustion engine which like the analogue disc has some inherent design limitations. Roll on hydrogen fuel cells! When I do get around to hooking my old record deck up again, assuming that the bearings in the arm have survived the long intermission, it will only be to play legacy LP's that I've also kept. I don't expect it to measure up to my NAS/LMS/Transporter/DAC combo at all & I certainly have no intention of acquiring any modern "audiophile" vinyl offerings at their inflated prices. Mahler was indeed very particular about his output, AFAIK conducted his works himself whenever possible & left more instructions about exactly how he wanted the music played than practically any other composer. He also revisited his compositions several times to satisfy his creative vision. I don't think that he would have been impressed by the quality of recorded music on LP, but I should imagine that he would have been astonished that it was possible to do it at all. You know the old gag about the singing dog: it's not that the singing is good, it's that it happens at all that's remarkable. The great advantage of storing your music on lossless files of CD quality is that you can chain all the movements of a long work like Bach's St. Matthew Passion together & not even bother with the changing of CD's. Interestingly, I came across a source that claimed that Sony chose 44.1kHz as the CD sampling frequency in response to Herbert von Karajan's insistence that a CD should accommodate a performance of Beethoven's 9th, although other sources claim that the ready availability of existing 44.1kHz clocks was the real reason. One would have thought that 48kHz (as used for PCM sound on DVD-V's) would have been a more obvious choice, but it wouldn't have allowed the 9th to fit on a 700Mb CD. I also discovered by chance that the original intention was only to use 14bit encoding, although this was changed during development to 16bit before any CD's or CD players were commercially produced. Of course the great advantage vinyl had over CD was that you had to buy it, or suffer the even worse sound of a cassette tape copy. I'm sure they hadn't anticipated the development of CD-R & CD-RW's, but failing to put any copy protection onto CD's was definitely a blunder with hindsight. Bands seem to rely on sell-out tours rather than recordings sales to fund their lifestyles these days... Dave :) Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
Golden Earring wrote: > I do think that extracting anything approaching a convincing rendition > of (say) Mahler's 2nd symphony from a spiral groove on a thin vinyl disc > is more of a technological triumph than performing the same trick from > zillions of individual "0"s & "1"s, although both are pretty astounding > really - I wonder what Gustav himself would have made of it all. Interesting you chose Mahler 2. So you're saying having to split the symphony onto four sides of two lp's, including splitting the final movement into two parts (something I'm sure Mahler himself would have disapproved of) is a technological triumph? Should I mention wear over time? Tracing error? End of side mistracking? Sure, it needs two CD's so can't be listened to without changing discs, but with a streamer this is no longer a problem. Classical on vinyl was awful and it was no surprise that it vanished in 1990. StephenPG's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=48249 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
Lots of very useful information & insightful comments in your last post. I haven't got anything concrete to add, so I've saved myself the trouble of pulling our multiple quotes & mumbling! :D I do think that extracting anything approaching a convincing rendition of (say) Mahler's 2nd symphony from a spiral groove on a thin vinyl disc is more of a technological triumph than performing the same trick from zillions of individual "0"s & "1"s, although both are really pretty astounding really - I wonder what Gustav himself would have made of it all. I'm a little surprised by the dynamic range you ascribe to an orchestral concert performance, but again you've probably got more experience of measuring it than me. I'll put it down to the bloke with the cough 3 rows back. Why they don't issue cough pastilles at the box office has always baffled me. All I can say is that I've heard some pretty loud crescendos at the orchestral concerts I've attended to listen to (as opposed to record & hence measure in the process). If you could get the audience to keep quiet you could save a lot of trouble by using Blumlein's crossed-pair stereo recording technique from the 1920's using figure-of-eight response pattern microphones. And for good measure you could make a simultaneous "dummy head" recording for headphone fans. Both of these techniques can give very good stereo images from minimal equipment *-as long as you put it in the right place-*... The analogy in photography is that you should always use your *-feet-* first (without actually falling off the nearby cliff) to get the light and aspects of the image correct rather than stay rooted to the spot & fiddle about with your zoom lens - that won't put good leading lines into your picture or correct for poor lighting. Nikon stuck to their "12MP is enough" philosophy for longer than most before bowing to the demands from their marketing department to shoehorn more into the same size sensor (which can actually harm image quality) because everyone else was doing it. There's just as much idiocy in photography as in audio: many of the truly great photographs of the 20th century were taken with quite rudimentary cameras. Unless you are doing hyperfocal landscape shots or literally want to put your image on the side of a bus (in either of which cases a medium-format camera would be more appropriate anyway), you really don't need a 25MP sensor... However I think the economy would collapse pretty quickly if we all only bought what we need, rather than what we've been bamboozled into thinking that we want. It can only end in tears eventually (& probably sooner). Apparently average unsecured debt per household in the UK is now £13,000 :( Dave :) Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
Golden Earring wrote: > Morning Arny! > > I wondered if you had any direct comments on the research paper that I > referenced (which may or may not prove to be good science depending on > whether the claimed results are confirmed independently). The test > results were intriguing if valid. > On the plus side Bill Waslo is one of the good guys and knows audio technology reasonably well. On the minus, I see the need, but also am highly critical of the analysis of difference signals. If you are dealing with irrational audiophiles, then tools like the Diffmaker make some sense because at the very lowest levels, difference-taking can be used to enhance the sensitivity of *REAL* audio analysis hardware and software which is typically FFT-based. *The problem with differences is that they are inherently non-discriminatory.* The real-world situation is that signals where the errors are reliably perceptible by humans, everything is clear and readily measurable. Remember, the threshold of audibility for all audible artifacts is on the order of 60 or 70 _or_less__ dB down if you get your gains set right. At those levels one can measure things to the point of exhaustion with low cost readily available gear and software. Any artifact that is say 100 or less dB down is not that hard or expensive to analyze to death. A lot of people don't know this but almost all modern audio test gear first digitizes the signal, often with an off-the-shelf analog-to-digital converter. Almost all modern pro audio signal processing gear with analog inputs works in a similar fashion, converting the signal to the digital domain, and then using processing in the digital domain to obtain the desired audible effects. Currently, pro audio gear costing $200 and up can be front ended by an ADC that has about -113 dB artifacts of its own. For testing purposes, you don't need anything better. So the question becomes do we need any better measurements than these to do technical tests with. In almost every case in the rational world the answer is *no*. So then, differencing becomes a solution that is looking for a problem because all of the realistic problems are already solved by other, highly conventional means that give more precise and more detailed answers. With differencing and other add-ons, measurements in the -140 to 160 dB range are possible. In this range, even ordinary copper wire and resistors have measureable distortion. But pinch yourself, we are talking twice the normal regular threshold of hearing *on a logarithmic scale*. Fun, but mostly to impress people who don't know any better. Correct me if I'm wrong here but I believe Shannon's sampling theory proof based on Nyquist's earlier conjecture (which only concerned Morse code, a digital source) if the sampling frequency is not completely regular is dependent upon the noise components mixed with the signal being "i.i.d." (independent & identically distributed) & that if that is *-not-* the case there may be theoretical problems in the interpolation process necessary for the reconstruction of the original analogue signal (I think that the Cheung-Marks Theorem covers an extreme aspect of this, where they show the addition of an arbitrarily small amount of *-non--*i.i.d. noise, such as that arising from quantisation errors, may make the reconstruction process "ill-posed" which is maths jargon for saying it no longer has a unique solution), IOW -the precise job that the DAC is attempting-, and in particular that suggestions made by Shannon in attempting to generalise his results to irregular sampling intervals are not correct. Even small instabilities might have some effect following this line of thought. This is all rather heavy stuff, & I'm guessing that any audible differences would tend to arise in the quiet passages of source material with a high dynamic range where the difference between the signal amplitude & the noise floor is reduced. Just perhaps some people may be attuned to "digital jitter" in this wider sense of including clock drifting inaccuracies, in an analogous way to the fact that you found early CD's (which did have some problems of their own in terms of engineering quality of recording) preferable to analogue, whereas at that stage I definitely preferred my (mature technology) analogue set-up. It's just a thought. Obviously we don't capture the full concert hall dynamic range of an orchestra even with our digital recordings, & if we did either the quiet parts would be smothered by ambient noise or the loud parts would make our ears bleed in the context of domestic listening. It's a question of producing a subjectively satisfying illusion of the underlying musical performance ultimately which may leave -some- "wriggle-room" for individual preferences yet. Still staying open minded atm this side of the pond. Dave :) arnyk's Profile:
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
Wombat wrote: > Whatsbestforum fits your agenda pretty well. Are you sure you are not a > long term member over there and forgot about it because of all these > pills? > > Edit: When we are at it. Mysterious flashes are neither jitter nor > aliens. It is ice crystals! > https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/05/15/mysterious-flashes-of-light-from-earth-captured-by-nasa-satellite/ Hi Wombat! Speaking personally, I can get 5 miles high with a stiff JD & Coke with ice, so one of those flashes might be one of mine... :D Dave :cool: Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] External DAC on Transporter: best output option
Golden Earring wrote: > Hi Julf! > > I've finally caught up with you - this is a very interesting concept. > > The discussion at section 5.4 in the AES paper (& the accompanying Fig. > 7) got me thinking that clock drift not captured by a jitter measurement > *-might-* be a rational explanation of the phenomenon that I am > (subjectively) experiencing... > I can't recall what you reported, but I can tell you that in general the clocks of audio products are very accurate and very stable and fall miles within the relatively poor human ability to perceive long-term or short term changes in pitch. That's what changes in clock frequency show up as, changes in pitch. arnyk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=64365 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
