Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SeeDeClip/TxtDeClip
cliveb;421451 Wrote: > > Secondly, the 89dB reference level is derived from an SMPTE standard > which states that pink noise at -20dB RMS should be played at 83dB SPL. > (Replaygain started out using 83dB as its target loudness, but that's > been adjusted up to 89dB for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. > Most software that performs Replaygain calculations will let you set the > reference level to whatever you like: 89dB just seems to have become > some sort of de-facto standard). So in other words, if you use an 89dB > reference level for Replaygain, you'll get the same perceived loudness > as you'd get listening to pink noise at -14dB RMS. The reference level is not used at all in ReplayGain calculation, it is just an arbitrary offset that some people like to add the level adjustments. The only thing that matters is the filter, which I believe is still matching 83dB SPL ear sensitivity (the casual comment in HA forum that it was changed to 89 due to popular demand indicates to me that just the number was changed, not the algorithm.) -- tot Teemu tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57872 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SeeDeClip/TxtDeClip
Phil Leigh;421144 Wrote: > > That's exactly why I'd like to be able to use this software in a > non-destructive way (like SOX). Then I could just pipe everthing through > it and let it decide what to do on a track by track basis. I am using shell scripts to process albums. Some random things I have noticed and wasted some time if you wish to avoid unnecessary work: By default declip will decide the final level and channel balance by track. Since I wish to keep relative levels of the tracks in each album the same, I am effectively running declip with -J -V -k -l6.5 options. I have seen that in the case of very bad clipping 6.5dB is not enough and declip may decide the go even further down on some tracks, but those are not generally "quality" albums in the first place that I care that much. You can also leave the output as 16 bit (and possibly dither -Z), or make it 24 bit (-C24). -- tot Teemu tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57872 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SeeDeClip/TxtDeClip
Phil Leigh;381299 Wrote: > I'm going to try it at the weekend but almost certainly it will have to > lower the overall level of the track in order to buy some headroom to > try and recover the clipped peaks. > By default it lowers the overall level to have room for the maximum peak, but there are many options to control the level drop. I personally use fixed 6.5dB level drop to have all tracks in the album the same level after the processing. > > By the way, heuristic algorithm is code for " a guess, based on some > rules we invented" > I tested once with full scale sine wave amplified by 1dB to cause clipping and then restoring it with DeClip. The resulting wave looks on a editor like a sine wave, but still does not sound like a pure sine wave. But it sounds smooth, not unpleasantly harsh like the clipped one. -- tot Teemu tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57872 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SeeDeClip/TxtDeClip
bhaagensen;381294 Wrote: > Cool, I then have a first sanity-check type question. Does the DeClip > software leave non-clipping parts of the music 100% unchanged? Or does > it do its thing with parts that are e.g. just heavily compressed? It just drops the level of to have the room for restored peaks, no other processing unless you ask it (dithering, resampling, 24 bit output are possible). You can also just do RMS level matching, even without peak restoration. -- tot Teemu tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57872 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SeeDeClip/TxtDeClip
I have been using DeClip Pro since last summer. I use it on Linux to batch process clipped recordings, which means pretty much everything released last ten+ years. Even though the restored waveforms look impressive, I have tried to ABX the result and I can't tell the difference on short tests. It is mostly that on the long run non-clipped versions are less fatiguing to listen. You can download a limited demo version and try yourself. -- tot Teemu tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57872 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Advice please hi-fi geeks
mikeruss;233197 Wrote: > Now if I had my way I would do that. can you imagine what my missus > would say if she walked in to see the original sb by the stereo and > another by the sofa. They look the same, how could she be suspicious? :) -- tot Teemu tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39067 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DAC & studio monitors: please indulge me and read this...
brjoon1021;217607 Wrote: > > 2. active and passive monitors for home audio. Also, these powered > monitors have XLR inputs, my preamp does not have that output. Have you > seen a decent cable or adapter that would allow me to run my pre-amp > into the powered monitors ? > Pro audio shops sell different RCA/XRL adapters and/or cables. At least here in Europe www.thomann.de has all kinds of suitable stuff for this situation. Decent, I don't know, but they work. -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37168 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
seanadams;217098 Wrote: > Close - you're only off by a factor of a thousand. :) I had a gut feeling something was terribly wrong, but went ahead regardless .. :-) -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
Phil Leigh;217066 Wrote: > When we get down to nanoseconds my brain starts to hurt because isn't > the interval limit of what a human can discern in the single-digit > milliseconds? I can't even imagine what a nanosecond is. I know people > go on about 20pS of jitter - and I know you've often rightly questioned > what they mean by that. I just don't think jitter lends itself to a > measurement-audible quality correlation in the same way as (say) THD or > IMD. 20kHz is 50ns for full cycle, or 25ns for half cycle. Some parts of the body are clearly quite fast reacting. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Have you tried Studio Monitors (Pro Audio gear...) at home?
Phil Leigh;216842 Wrote: > > ...and then you go and put them in a room... Yeah, sure. I played a sweep on them to see if the bass attenuation was about right since they are wall mounted and the sweep sounded really interesting... concrete walls. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37059 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
This has been very informational thread, thank you all. I found a copy somewhere :-) of "An Introduction to Digital Audio" by John Watkinson. Very interesting and actually understandable, but hardly an "introduction." However, back to where this started. As Watkinson says in the book: if the effect of changing the cable can be heard, the DAC is a dud. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Have you tried Studio Monitors (Pro Audio gear...) at home?
I am using SB with Behringer B2031A's in one setup. Since it is not for serious listening I wanted a cheap solution (about €350 for the pair) and for the money I think they are great. The sound quality is not the best possible, of course, but at least frequency response is flat *-- they come with measurement results. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37059 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
Thanks John, very informative reply and definitely not boring. It simply raises few other questions. If the recovered jittery clock drives the DA conversion in the receiver sure, jitter can and will lead to non-perfect waveform. I would naively think that DAC's would do something better to be immune to bit-by-bit jitter? For USB, it is still packets that get send out and not bit-by-bit stream, so jitter of the USB sender/bus/cable shouln't be a problem because the digital stream must be clocked on the receiver to convert packet chunks into something usable? Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
Phil Leigh;216673 Wrote: > ...over TCP/IP NONE of what we are talking about is relevant, and anyone > who says otherwise is a liar or a fool (or a snake oil merchant) ! Hmm, come to think of it, there might be a market for gold-plated premium $1000 ethernet dispatch cables (or "premium" air conditioner if using wireless..) :-) Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
Phil Leigh;216676 Wrote: > 1) The pitch won't vary but the sound will be harder for our brains to > process. It's a bit like the "cogging" effect on direct drive > turntables - hard to pin down but ultimately rather disturbing. > Wouldn't any variance in turntable speed cause pitch to change, that being pure analog signal speed change? Are there any numbers about clock stability about SB vs. Transporter (how much variance, how ofter)? It would interesting to know what kind of differences we are talking about. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
Phil Leigh;216670 Wrote: > My only remaining window of doubt concerns the clock signal. It may be > affected. In my experience, really messed up clocks do indeed give rise > to audible clicks and other distortion. My concern is regarding clocks > that are not completely broken - but are not as "good" as they should > be. What happens if the sending clocks varies slightly, but the DAC can still get bits reliably. The outgoing analog pitch varies or what? > > Oh and if ANYONE suggest we get better USB cables they should be taken > out and shot. Like ethernet. they either work or they don't in a given > application. True if the USB audio streaming is a packet protocol with error correction, but is it? I know it is a separate thing in USB world, but what kind of animal. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
Timothy Stockman;216668 Wrote: > > In this regard, the performance of a device like the Transporter should > excell. It has its own, very stable clock source. The Transporter's > clock controls the rate at which data is requested from Slimserver. > When using an S/PDIF input, the Transporter has to deal with the same > problem as any other DAC, recovering the clock and servo'ing its > internal clock to the recovered clock. Transporter and SB are both computers which request data in some format from slimserver over tcp/ip and decode and buffer internally. I don't see how the clock affects at all this stage of the computing. I have no idea how the internal DAC or digital out is controlled in hardware level though, never been into audio hardware/drivers. I understand your statement in the context of relaying SPDIF from one source to another, but not when the source is a computer. (Sorry about the rantish feeling of my posts, bit too much beer in the system.) Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
Phil Leigh;216665 Wrote: > Oh Teemu - I'm with you all the way (I'm also a computer guy) - the > problem is not the bits but the embedded clock that carries the timing > (unlike async standards like TCP/IP). Everything now hinges on the > clock recovery. If it is not perfect we get "jitter"... But all the problems should be rather clearly audible though. Either it just causes bits to be interpreted wrongly giving high-frequency noise (harshness) or in extreme case pops or clicks. If the bit errors are rare it might be difficult or impossible to hear them. To record the digital out and compare might be best way to really see how common these things are. And to see what a twisting of optical cable does or even hammer (if it still works). No offense, but when someone says a digital cable gives "more solid bass" or something similiar that is absolute bollocks. Btw, does anyone know how USB audio streaming works? I understand it is somehow SPDIF based and seen someone saying one USB cable being better than another one. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Really controversial idea...
Phil Leigh;216649 Wrote: > 1) if this was the case then ALL transports would indeed sound the same > (he said, being very carefull not to commit himself on this yet!) Isn't this the point of digital audio -- any signal degration in digital does not affect the sound as long as bits get through unmodified whereas in analog everything changes the sound at least a a little bit. The computer guy in me (for 25 years) says that you should always get bits back as they were sent. I know SPDIF is a lousy standard, but what the heck, even in the 80's you got 10Mb/s ethernet (even 24/96 digital is less than 5Mb/s) and nowadays you get 100x faster with just twisted pair cable. That tells you the advancement in signal processing and cable quality over 20 years. Of course in networks you have error correction, but you can not have constant errors or the performance goes way down. In this context though digital audio should be peanuts nowadays. I have thought of proving this to myself (and maybe others) by playing for example something through SB and recording the digital out with different length cables (I have UA-25 that takes cox/optical in) and see if I have a bitwise identical copy... never got around doing this though. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37044 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Bit Rates and Sample Rates
IvanSlade;210534 Wrote: > Do you know of any other program(s) that might work and could at least > let me hear the difference in output? I have used sox (sox.sourceforge.net) on Linux to successfully resample files. Windows downloads seem to be also available. Use polyphase if changing sample rates and/or dither if changing sample bits. Teemu -- tot tot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11843 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=36326 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
