Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy_c;242478 Wrote: You wouldn't happen to be the author of that program, would you? AFAIK it is a program that is bundled with the ITunes download. Regards Mister Pig -- mister pig mister pig's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12566 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
mister pig;243299 Wrote: AFAIK it is a program that is bundled with the ITunes download. Hi MP, This is a bit confusing. The post to which I was responding was by a guy who is selling some audio playback software claimed to improve sound quality over programs such as Foobar, etc. He has been spamming his software over a bunch of audiophile forums, and I called him on it. His post has apparently been deleted (and rightfully so I think), making it appear as if my post is responding to yours, which it wasn't. So please carry on :-). -- andy_c andy_c's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3128 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Hi, I was pointed to this thread by Andy74. Now, since this thread is kind of dead already, you just as well might have some fun in the end. Note : I do not want you to get away from your slim device. Not ! Ok. Let's assume your FLACs can be converted back to WAV losslessly indeed (check that by comparing if you don't trust it). Now get XXHighEnd (http://www.phasure.com) of which I state (!) that there is no way you can hear a difference ... just because of the way that player is constructed with eliminating jitter in mind. If you can hear the difference afterall ... ok. Too bad for me. But if not, think further ... It would (no, will) simply prove that a player can be subject to the differences by the means of playback. You could spare your precious time by just believing me. :-) I too easily hear the difference with other players ... Peter -- PeterSt PeterSt's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13973 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
You wouldn't happen to be the author of that program, would you? -- andy_c andy_c's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3128 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
mister pig;239762 Wrote: Helo, This post is a response to an earlier one from Phil about how i configuired my ITunes for use. Lets see, first went into quick time and made sure that 24/96 was the selected sampling rate. Sampling rate? There shouldn't be any sampling involved in playing music on a SB. You rip the CD to a lossless format and then slimserver sends that data to the SB. No sampling involved. -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
opaqueice;239824 Wrote: Sampling rate? There shouldn't be any sampling involved in playing music on a SB. You rip the CD to a lossless format and then slimserver sends that data to the SB. No sampling involved. The sampling rate configuration is an internal adjustment to the ITunes program. Has nothing to do with the Slim Devices software. Regards Mister Pig -- mister pig mister pig's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12566 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Pat Farrell;232914 Wrote: Normalization is evil. Sadly, it is used fairly frequently, with very bad consequences. Why is this any different than digital volume control, which works well for minor adjustments? -- Jitterbug Jitterbug's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4955 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Jitterbug wrote: Normalization is evil. Sadly, it is used fairly frequently, with very bad consequences. Why is this any different than digital volume control, which works well for minor adjustments? If you mean normalization to be just a transient volume control, its no different. Most uses of 'normalization' mean adjust the values in the PCM to make the loudest signal be full range, 0x8fff, and then save the result. This crude arithmetic function makes all of the signal louder, including the noise, and doesn't redither the values. Dithering is very important, it makes easily audible differences. -- Pat Farrell http://www.pfarrell.com/ ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
mister pig;232741 Wrote: Yes headphones are a valuable tool in the recording studio. But they are not the only device used. recordings are mixed down through studio monitors also. Many sound engineers have a variety of systems they use to evaluate the final mix. headphones have their own set of strengths, but are also limited in their ability to present the spatial complexity of music. Personally I am not a fan of them, I dont like the in your head feel to the music. I have to disagree with the point of soundstaging being in the mind of the listener. More than one person can listen to a piece of music on a system and accurately describe the position of instruments and vocalists. It is repeatable. So therefore the phonomenon exists within a recording. How it is achieved is a different issue. Sure some of it is artifical, and at other times it is due to skilled recording techniques. Never the less it is part of the recording, and can't be reproduced by headphones. It is possible to hear the amount of reflection or ambient information in a recording, but the spatial scope of the recording is lost. As you may guess, I am not a fan of headphones. In theory they should eliminate alot of issues. Room reflections are taken out of the equation. bass response has a unique texture to it that loudpseakers cannot replicate. Each ear is fed the precise signal, so it should be better. Yet the scale of amusic presentation is lost. Or the illusion of a musical peformance. So that is why I am not a fan of them. This is a long post. But I am reminded of another matter. A couple of years ago I bought a pair of Acoustat 1+1 speakers. Wonderful condition, and well regarded electrostats. I didnt't keep them because the longer I listened to them, everything sounded the same. Recodings that should have sounded different did not. All music had the same feel or signature to it. I dont know if it was due to the thicker nature of the mylar sheet that Acoustat used. Or if it was due to the transformers that comprised the crossover network(actually more of a filter system). But I do know what I heard. Recordings that should not have sounded the same did. Now it can be construed that I am using the something is wrong with your gear since you cant hear what I hear arguement. Thats a valid point. All I ask, if possible is this. If you listen to the same tracks on a decently set up pair of speakers, are your experiences replicated. I am not sure that headphones are capable of displaying the differences between the two formats. Or at least it makes it harder to hear. This is a long post, but thanks for taking the time to see it to the end. Al I am trying to do is hold an intelligent discussion of what people experience. Not just what is theoretically possible. Some of the posts in this thread have gotten boarderline nasty, although I understand the posters point of reference. I may not have he technical background to understand how the software behind the SB works, but in the end I know what I hear. Personally I would prefer it if the lossless system worked as well. It would save me disc space, and make transfering music to IPODS even more convenient. But in the end, all I want is the best sound possible. Regards Mister Pig [long post] Mister Pig (great name BTW!): 1) I'm well aware of what goes on in studios :o) - my point was that headphones are generally used as an analytical tool for dissecting mixes and spotting problems etc. Of course full range (and nearfield) monitors are used for the final mixdown balancing etc. 2) Stereo is a complete illusion, recreated by the brain which as RB said is doing some powerfull DSP to do this. The less work the brain has to do to achieve what it feels to be a realistic synthesis, the better the listener feels about the sound. This is the underlying cause of listener fatigue IMHO. Remember that single microphones have no concept of left or right (or up and down for that matter!) only louder/quieter, nearer/further. Stereo works because we have two ears and a brain - and by supplying the ears with a suitable signal we can recreate the impression of the original soundfield. Anything that has been close-mic'd or multitracked has to be manipulated to produce a suitable soundfield. In the simplest case this is achieved by positioning an instrument within the soundfield by panning it left/right. At the end of the day, the engineer will position an instrument more left or right by altering its volume - that's all. OK so he/she might delay it and eq it as well. The fact that two or more people can listen to the same track and place the instruments in the same soundfield location is testament to the fact that our ears and brains work in the same ways. For exactly the same reason, we humans can generally agree on the concepts of red, sweet, rough etc. I respectfully ask you read this link as it explains the stereo illusion much more
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Phil Leigh;232872 Wrote: [long post] Mister Pig (great name BTW!): 1) I'm well aware of what goes on in studios :o) - my point was that headphones are generally used as an analytical tool for dissecting mixes and spotting problems etc. Of course full range (and nearfield) monitors are used for the final mixdown balancing etc. 2) Stereo is a complete illusion, recreated by the brain which as RB said is doing some powerfull DSP to do this. The less work the brain has to do to achieve what it feels to be a realistic synthesis, the better the listener feels about the sound. This is the underlying cause of listener fatigue IMHO. Remember that single microphones have no concept of left or right (or up and down for that matter!) only louder/quieter, nearer/further. Stereo works because we have two ears and a brain - and by supplying the ears with a suitable signal we can recreate the impression of the original soundfield. Anything that has been close-mic'd or multitracked has to be manipulated to produce a suitable soundfield. In the simplest case this is achieved by positioning an instrument within the soundfield by panning it left/right. At the end of the day, the engineer will position an instrument more left or right by altering its volume - that's all. OK so he/she might delay it and eq it as well. The fact that two or more people can listen to the same track and place the instruments in the same soundfield location is testament to the fact that our ears and brains work in the same ways. For exactly the same reason, we humans can generally agree on the concepts of red, sweet, rough etc. I respectfully ask you read this link as it explains the stereo illusion much more clearly than I can http://www.ambiophonics.org/App_B_ambiophonics_2nd_edit.htm 3) In the interest of science and to address your concern about headphones, I repeated the test again using speakers (had to wait for an empty house!). I fully understand that you are not necessarily going to buy this but guess what? I could not tell the difference between streamed flac or wav. Test methodology was as before. Replay system was: SB3-Altmann JISCO+UPCI-TACT 2.2x(digital coax i/o, upsampling to 96Khz for output) MF DACX-v3+PSU, MF X-10 Tube Buffer, Linn 5103, 3xLinn LK140 amps with Aktive crossovers fitted, Linn Espeks (ceramic bases, spiked into the floor) Townshend Supertweeters, Linn Seizmik sub, Kimber 8TC speaker cables, Russ Andrews mains leads, Chord Reference i/c's (digital coax is all Kimber silver). Sorry about all the K's :o) Hope you find this interesting Regards Phil [/long post] Hi Phil, That is interesting. I really don't have any vested interest in this debate, personally a lossless format would be more convenient. Makes me wonder if I have a set up issue in ITunes that is creating a problem. Since I store my music in uncompressed WAV does the SB program have to convert to FLAC and then return to WAV? I wonder if I rip with a lossless encoding to start with? I do know that at this time, the two formats do not sound the same. So there must be something responsible for this variation. Any recommendations then on where to look? Regards Mister Pig -- mister pig mister pig's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12566 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Mr Pig, (I laugh every time I type that - I presume that was intentional?) Can you explain how you rip from CD and store your music at the moment, and what part iTunes plays in these processes? I wonder if we can get to the bottom of this. Also, what settings do you have active in File Types in SlimServer when you compare FLAC vs WAV? Cheers Phil -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
mister pig;232884 Wrote: Hi Phil, That is interesting. I really don't have any vested interest in this debate, personally a lossless format would be more convenient. Makes me wonder if I have a set up issue in ITunes that is creating a problem. Since I store my music in uncompressed WAV does the SB program have to convert to FLAC and then return to WAV? I wonder if I rip with a lossless encoding to start with? I do know that at this time, the two formats do not sound the same. So there must be something responsible for this variation. Any recommendations then on where to look? Regards Mister Pig You've probably checked this, but replay gain is an obvious possible culprit. Sometimes ripping programs alter the audio data (even when you're ripping to a lossless format) - they apply a level adjustment during the ripping process, so that the file is permanently altered. Other times slimserver (or itunes or whatever) will apply a volume adjustment when the file is played (there can be a tag in the FLAC data for that), so that the audio data is unaltered, but when it's played with replayagain switched on the level will be different than a WAV file. -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Yes and you'll recall that tripped me up the first time I did the test, since replaygain tags only work on FLAC files and not WAV... -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Phil Leigh;232900 Wrote: Yes and you'll recall that tripped me up the first time I did the test, since replaygain tags only work on FLAC files and not WAV... ...yet WAV can still be influenced by those awful normalization schemes! And iTunes is the sort of program that might do this without asking you. -- Mark Lanctot 'Sean Adams' Response-O-Matic checklist, patent pending!' (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=200910postcount=2) Mark Lanctot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2071 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Mark Lanctot wrote: ...yet WAV can still be influenced by those awful normalization schemes! Normalization is evil. Sadly, it is used fairly frequently, with very bad consequences. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
On 10/4/07 6:15 PM, Pat Farrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: opaqueice wrote: Have you ever listened to a binaural recording over headphones? You'll find yourself looking over your shoulder for the person you heard walking behind you. The illusion is far, far beyond anything I've ever heard with speakers. However there seem to be very few such recordings, for reasons I've never understood. Maybe it's because wearing headphones for an extended period is annoying and uncomfortable... They are very interesting. They are rare because they sound great with headphones, but not so good elsewhere. In the olden days of last century, most music was heard on car radios. The binaural recordings are not that hard to make, but you can't do the usual 'fix it in the mix' stuff, you have to have real musicians. Plus the record stores would have to carry two versions of each CD, and at least half the time, they'd sell the wrong one. Here's a contradiction to the assertions that you need 'real' (OK, at least 'alive') musicians and that you can't 'fix it in the mix'! http://zenph.com/sept25.html (New digitally posthumously 're-performed' stereo recordings of Glenn Gould's 1955 performance of the Goldberg Variations - optionally available as a binaural recording from Gould's position at the keyboard!) ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Pretty much any headphones are capable of revealing more about a recording than speakers can. You can hear things on phones that simply are not apparent otherwise, which is why they are an invaluable recording/mastering tool. As far as the limitations of the Stax set that I own...you might accuse them of being a bit light in the bass. With regards to soundstaging...aside from a few well defined circumstances (dummy head etc) soundstaging is in the mind of the listener. It can be influenced by the mic techniques used (assuming that we are not talking about multitrack stuff, in which case it is completely artificial) and the ability of the replay chain to accurately recreate what was recorded in terms of ambience, levels etc. Remember that the ONLY tool one has to alter soundstaging is level. You can make a signal louder or quieter on the right channel compared to the same signal in the left. I'll ignore phase manipulation and EQ because those are effects. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Phil Leigh;232525 Wrote: Pretty much any headphones are capable of revealing more about a recording than speakers can. You can hear things on phones that simply are not apparent otherwise, which is why they are an invaluable recording/mastering tool. As far as the limitations of the Stax set that I own...you might accuse them of being a bit light in the bass. With regards to soundstaging...aside from a few well defined circumstances (dummy head etc) soundstaging is in the mind of the listener. It can be influenced by the mic techniques used (assuming that we are not talking about multitrack stuff, in which case it is completely artificial) and the ability of the replay chain to accurately recreate what was recorded in terms of ambience, levels etc. Remember that the ONLY tool one has to alter soundstaging is level. You can make a signal louder or quieter on the right channel compared to the same signal in the left. I'll ignore phase manipulation and EQ because those are effects. Yes headphones are a valuable tool in the recording studio. But they are not the only device used. recordings are mixed down through studio monitors also. Many sound engineers have a variety of systems they use to evaluate the final mix. headphones have their own set of strengths, but are also limited in their ability to present the spatial complexity of music. Personally I am not a fan of them, I dont like the in your head feel to the music. I have to disagree with the point of soundstaging being in the mind of the listener. More than one person can listen to a piece of music on a system and accurately describe the position of instruments and vocalists. It is repeatable. So therefore the phonomenon exists within a recording. How it is achieved is a different issue. Sure some of it is artifical, and at other times it is due to skilled recording techniques. Never the less it is part of the recording, and can't be reproduced by headphones. It is possible to hear the amount of reflection or ambient information in a recording, but the spatial scope of the recording is lost. As you may guess, I am not a fan of headphones. In theory they should eliminate alot of issues. Room reflections are taken out of the equation. bass response has a unique texture to it that loudpseakers cannot replicate. Each ear is fed the precise signal, so it should be better. Yet the scale of amusic presentation is lost. Or the illusion of a musical peformance. So that is why I am not a fan of them. This is a long post. But I am reminded of another matter. A couple of years ago I bought a pair of Acoustat 1+1 speakers. Wonderful condition, and well regarded electrostats. I didnt't keep them because the longer I listened to them, everything sounded the same. Recodings that should have sounded different did not. All music had the same feel or signature to it. I dont know if it was due to the thicker nature of the mylar sheet that Acoustat used. Or if it was due to the transformers that comprised the crossover network(actually more of a filter system). But I do know what I heard. Recordings that should not have sounded the same did. Now it can be construed that I am using the something is wrong with your gear since you cant hear what I hear arguement. Thats a valid point. All I ask, if possible is this. If you listen to the same tracks on a decently set up pair of speakers, are your experiences replicated. I am not sure that headphones are capable of displaying the differences between the two formats. Or at least it makes it harder to hear. This is a long post, but thanks for taking the time to see it to the end. Al I am trying to do is hold an intelligent discussion of what people experience. Not just what is theoretically possible. Some of the posts in this thread have gotten boarderline nasty, although I understand the posters point of reference. I may not have he technical background to understand how the software behind the SB works, but in the end I know what I hear. Personally I would prefer it if the lossless system worked as well. It would save me disc space, and make transfering music to IPODS even more convenient. But in the end, all I want is the best sound possible. Regards Mister Pig -- mister pig mister pig's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12566 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Have you ever listened to a binaural recording over headphones? You'll find yourself looking over your shoulder for the person you heard walking behind you. The illusion is far, far beyond anything I've ever heard with speakers. However there seem to be very few such recordings, for reasons I've never understood. Maybe it's because wearing headphones for an extended period is annoying and uncomfortable... -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
mister pig wrote: I have to disagree with the point of soundstaging being in the mind of the listener. Mister Pig, Our entire auditory system is in the mind - it is one big illusion. Stereo imaging - the ability to tell where in a sound stage an individual sound is coming from - is done entirely in the mind. Our brain is one helluva DSP! R. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
opaqueice wrote: Have you ever listened to a binaural recording over headphones? You'll find yourself looking over your shoulder for the person you heard walking behind you. The illusion is far, far beyond anything I've ever heard with speakers. However there seem to be very few such recordings, for reasons I've never understood. Maybe it's because wearing headphones for an extended period is annoying and uncomfortable... They are very interesting. They are rare because they sound great with headphones, but not so good elsewhere. In the olden days of last century, most music was heard on car radios. The binaural recordings are not that hard to make, but you can't do the usual 'fix it in the mix' stuff, you have to have real musicians. Plus the record stores would have to carry two versions of each CD, and at least half the time, they'd sell the wrong one. Of course, record stores exist only in history books. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
opaqueice;232749 Wrote: Have you ever listened to a binaural recording over headphones? You'll find yourself looking over your shoulder for the person you heard walking behind you. The illusion is far, far beyond anything I've ever heard with speakers. I've heard that in many good systems. Actually, it's not so much the quality of the system components, but the speaker placement and room treatments that enable such eerie imaging. The thing I can't stand about headphones is that music-inside-your-head feeling. Very unnatural. Headphones are nice for some uses, like listening to the iPod while walking the dog, but not for serious listening enjoyment. -- JJZolx Jim JJZolx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
JJZolx wrote: Headphones are nice for some uses, like listening to the iPod while walking the dog, but not for serious listening enjoyment. I can understand you having this opinion, but I disagree that it is universal. Many folks get serious listening enjoyment from headphones. There are serious audiophile headphones, headphone amps, etc. I see it as more like a personal preference, for single malt scotch vs a grand cru wine. Clearly different. Appeals to different folks. But one is not absolutely better than another. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Havent had much time to come back to this thread. But I did notice one thing that needs to be mentioned. Another member ran a comparison of WAV vs FLAC and experienced no differences between the formats. This did not coincide with a similar listeing test I ran, so I was curious to know what the differences were. I read a bit more, on the test, I believe Phil Leigh ran it. Then I noticed all the listening was done through a pair of Stax headphones. While Stax makes some of the finest headphones known to audio, they do have their limitations. WhatI heard in the differnce in FLAC vs WAV was primarily related to the size of the soundstage, and the change in the reveberation patterns found in the acoustics of the recording venue. I do not believe a set of headphones can accurately present these differences. Of course thats my opinion, and others may not agree with it. I think the SB is a great way to listen to music, and am keeping mine. Although I have sent it off to Bolder Cable Company for a set of mods from Wayne. I am very curious to see what can be accomplished with this unit. Regards Mister Pig -- mister pig mister pig's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12566 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
mister pig;232485 Wrote: Another member ran a comparison of WAV vs FLAC and experienced no differences between the formats... Then I noticed all the listening was done through a pair of Stax headphones. While Stax makes some of the finest headphones known to audio, they do have their limitations. WhatI heard in the differnce in FLAC vs WAV was primarily related to the size of the soundstage, and the change in the reveberation patterns found in the acoustics of the recording venue. I do not believe a set of headphones can accurately present these differences. I can't vouch for Stax headphones, but I have extensive listening experience on AKG K1000 and Grado GS1000 headphones, both of which are stellar at reproducing soundstage and the acoustics of the recording venue. In fact, they're better at it than any speakers I've heard other than Magnepans and similar planar designs. -- TiredLegs TiredLegs's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6201 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Meatwad650;228940 Wrote: If WAV and FLAC output the same PCM they how could they sound different? The theory - and it is pure speculation backed up by no facts at the moment - is that somehow even though the bitstreams are provably identical something is different when decoding FLAC vs WAV. It could be: additional noise from the CPU getting onto the SPDIF signal and finding its way to the DAC timing changes in the clock (jitter) These things should be measurable phenomena - but AFAIK no-one has yet managed to do that. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Phil Leigh;228960 Wrote: The theory - and it is pure speculation backed up by no facts at the moment - is that somehow even though the bitstreams are provably identical something is different when decoding FLAC vs WAV. Sorry, but I gotta call BS on that. I think the only real signal loss for some of this stuff is between the auditory nerve and the auditory cortex. :) For those that would suggest the digital path sounds different then basically you're suggesting that something is causing signal errors when decoding flac? And if the analog path sounds different then it sounds like your DAC is faulty. Input of the same bitstream to a DAC (and the bitstream is provably the same) will cause the same output. Maybe I need to get out of this audiophile forum - I can't turn off the engineer side of my brain enough to drink the kool-aid. :) -- Meatwad650 Meatwad650's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9725 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Meatwad650;228970 Wrote: Sorry, but I gotta call BS on that. I think the only real signal loss for some of this stuff is between the auditory nerve and the auditory cortex. :) For those that would suggest the digital path sounds different then basically you're suggesting that something is causing signal errors when decoding flac? And if the analog path sounds different then it sounds like your DAC is faulty. Input of the same bitstream to a DAC (and the bitstream is provably the same) will cause the same output. Maybe I need to get out of this audiophile forum - I can't turn off the engineer side of my brain enough to drink the kool-aid. :) No, the hypothesis is not that there are decoding errors. The hypothesis is that since the CPU must perform different work when processing FLAC than it does when processing WAV, that that difference results in different physical properties (e.g., differences in radio frequency emissions), which then results in audible differences. FWIW, I am extremely skeptical. However, there is nothing wrong with the logic of the argument. -- jeffmeh jeffmeh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3986 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Meatwad650;228970 Wrote: Sorry, but I gotta call BS on that. I think the only real signal loss for some of this stuff is between the auditory nerve and the auditory cortex. :) For those that would suggest the digital path sounds different then basically you're suggesting that something is causing signal errors when decoding flac? And if the analog path sounds different then it sounds like your DAC is faulty. Input of the same bitstream to a DAC (and the bitstream is provably the same) will cause the same output. Maybe I need to get out of this audiophile forum - I can't turn off the engineer side of my brain enough to drink the kool-aid. :) To be clear - I've tested this and found no difference at all in my system. I wasn't claiming to AGREE with the theory - you asked what it was! Others (who you are free to call BS on as much as you like) find differently. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Wombat;229031 Wrote: Now i got curious and was doing this wav and flac thing. Hard to do a real abx just from the handling, leave alone detecting a difference. I hope everybody knows if you play Flac-Flac and switch to Flac-Wav you have to restart the song completely otherwise the decoding you choosed before goes on. I wonder how many compared flac to flac and found a difference :) If you use the method I described above (make multiple flac and wav copies of the same tracks, create a random playlist etc) its actually very easy to do this test -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
I should read more before posting! Thanks for the hint. -- Wombat Transporter - monoblocks - self-made speakers Wombat's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4113 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Phil Leigh;229027 Wrote: To be clear - I've tested this and found no difference at all in my system. I wasn't claiming to AGREE with the theory - you asked what it was! Oh, I was aware that it wasn't *your* theory and I agree with your testing so far. I was just informing those that might agree with the theory that it sounds like horse hockey to me. -- Meatwad650 Meatwad650's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9725 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
If WAV and FLAC output the same PCM they how could they sound different? -- Meatwad650 Meatwad650's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9725 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
All right, DB or even SB testing isnt going to be anywhere close to easy to set up for me. But I did use my daughter to choose between FLAC and WAV on the puter...its upstairs while I was listening to tracks downstairs. These were my results. Indian Woman by Brent Alan. Vocal and 1 acoustic guitar. Very easy to hear the difference on this track. Scored 9 out of 10 correctly, and missed the one right at the beginning. FLAC is more two dimensional, and the voice has less extension...its sounds thinner. Luka by Suzanne Vega. A bit more complex, but well recorded. 8 out of 10. Still easy to hear differences in the depth of the music. That was what I cued on. Whole Lotta Love by Led Zep. Thought I would try this to see what happens with rock n roll. Not good, 6 out of 10. There was nothing I could reliably cue on to hear the differences. I used the SB3 into the Audio Magic Kukama DAC w the Illusions 4D digital cable, and the Bolder modified ELPAC power supply. No time to do the SB as a stand alone player. I will ty to do that next month some time. Why there are differneces I am not sure. But I do know what I hear. In the past there have always been products that measured close and yet still sounded different. Digital cables are a good example. Since the music is still in bits, there should be minimal differences between cables. Yet they do sound markedly different. But in the end, I still find that I prefer uncompressed WAV through the SB in my system. Regards Mister Pig -- mister pig mister pig's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12566 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Hi MP, Thanks for your time. I was doing my tests on M. Jackson ultimate collection 4 cds and Black Sabbath Best of 2 CDs Andrey -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Dear original poster - a few myths and mis-understandings I think in the replies you have might have read (I do love it so when someone says FLAC might 'sound' different from say WAV or indeed anything :-) 1) WAV files can contain metadata, it's just that nobody much puts it there so you will be hard pushed to find software that reads it - not a 'standard' implementation like MP3 - incidentally AIFF does also support metadata and this is read by at least iTunes and Slimserver (I am transcoding to AIFF from WAV as it seems iTunes can read the tags - handy if I somehow delete my iTunes library file and want to re-import - like I did a couple of weeks ago!!! Don't even ask!:) 2) Yes I have conducted a blind test (recently as wanted to be sure before choosing AIFF to transcode to for the reasons above), and yes I can hear the difference between my SB3 decoding WAV/AIFF, FLAC and the Apple Lossless file formats I tried. AIFF and WAV both using built-in player decoding were identical, ALAC was discernibly different whether streamed as WAV or FLAC (down to Quicktime decoding on the server?) and I managed to identify this format 4 out of 5 times using random setting and identically named files (on deciding I could hear a difference I would open my eyes and right arrow to the file format for confirmation, then flick on several files to avoid 'knowing' where in the 'random' playlist I might be and have another go!). FLAC was harder to differentiate, but 3 out of 5 got me a hit. What this means who knows (just the extra digital activity on the SB player interfering with my poor sensitive preamp analogue circuits!?) I did get bored after an hour or so - but at least the ears are still working reasonably well after 40 odd years of listening to hi-fi! 3)One poster says claiming to hear a difference is a result of a simple inability by some people to fathom that there could such a thing as mathematically lossless compression hmm, a wee bit condescending that but missing the point a bit - we are not discussing lossless compression and it's mathematical efficiency (thank God!), but rather if in this context, with this network situation, we can hear a difference in the result that emanates from our 'speakers. If anyone is thinking that FLAC or ZIP or TIFF or any other lossless file compression technique is missing bits when it puts it back together then our music and pictures are in trouble big time in this modern digital world! 4) Engineers, please don't get angry, anger is a defence mechanism. You don't need to defend your measurements or understanding of this principle. Lossless compression works great - it does what it says on the tin, it isn't complicated, the concept is really very logical when you start talking in bits and bytes, and furthermore even if I can hear a difference in the execution of the decompression in this instance, that difference doesn't effect my files, they are stored, safe, intact and I am sure could be played elsewhere in a different system situation with no discernible difference on the result to anyone's ears. Anyway - as the engineers don't trust the audiophile's ears (seeing the huge lump of wax just extracted from my left ear yesterday afternoon I am amazed my own small test worked at all!) then I have a suggestion. What we need is a soundproof chamber, and actually measure with microphones what comes out of the speakers in both formats...who's up for that :-) -- Timbo Timbo's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=933 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Timbo;228057 Wrote: I managed to identify this format 4 out of 5 times using random setting and identically named files (on deciding I could hear a difference I would open my eyes and right arrow to the file format for confirmation, then flick on several files to avoid 'knowing' where in the 'random' playlist I might be and have another go!). FLAC was harder to differentiate, but 3 out of 5 got me a hit. What this means who knows (just the extra digital activity on the SB player interfering with my poor sensitive preamp analogue circuits!?) It's great that you did a blind test - as opaqueice likes to say, it's fun. Remember though that probability isn't intuitive. Consider that if there is no difference between formats, your wouldn't score 0 in your test. Instead you'll score random successes that make the most likely outcome either 2/5 or 3/5. (You'll score a 2/5 31.25% of the time and 3/5 31.25% of the time - combined chance 62.5%). 3/5 (as far as it can) *supports* the conclusion that FLAC is the same! But more samples are needed to draw a conclusion. I know blind tests take AGES...I did a blind test (on other subject) with only 4 samples and then I ran out of time sadly. But I got 4/4 :-) Darren PS: See http://onlinestatbook.com/chapter5/binomial.html -- darrenyeats SB3 / Inguz - Sony DAS-703ES DAC - Krell KAV-300i - PMC AB-1 Dell laptop - JVC UX-C30 mini system (old, cheap, loved) darrenyeats's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10799 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
cliveb;228066 Wrote: What it means is that there is a 50% chance you were guessing. 5 trials is hopelessly inadequate to draw any meaningful conclusions. What would a statistically significant result require? 50 tests? just wondering before embarking on something similar... -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
darrenyeats;228071 Wrote: (You'll score a 2/5 31.25% of the time and 3/5 31.25% of the time - combined chance 62.5%). Right - and by the same token, a score of 4/5 or better will occur 37.5% of the time, so that result doesn't count for much either. Even 4/4 (or 0/4, which is the same if you're just looking for differences) happens 1/8 = 12.5% of the time. Unfortunately the only way to be sure is to do quite a few more trials. -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Phil Leigh;228068 Wrote: What would a statistically significant result require? 50 tests? just wondering before embarking on something similar... The minimum number that yields reasonable statistical significance is 30 tests. -- TiredLegs TiredLegs's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6201 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
TiredLegs;228130 Wrote: The minimum number that yields reasonable statistical significance is 30 tests. Thanks (gulp...heads to shop for extra bottle of wine...) -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
TiredLegs;228130 Wrote: The minimum number that yields reasonable statistical significance is 30 tests. Surely it depends on the consistency of the results? For example, if you do just 10 trials but score 10/10, then you can be over 99% confident that it wasn't just down to luck. -- cliveb Transporter - ATC SCM100A cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
OK here goes nothing... Using a track I know and love well - Bloody Well Right by Supertramp from Crime of the Century (remastered CD - accurate EAC rip) I created 15 WAV and 15 FLAC duplicates by copying the files. File Types are set to WAV-WAV and FLAC-FLAC only in SlimServer. Then I used Music IP to create a 30 song playlist which was then randomly shuffled many times over and sent to the SB. During this the SB display is turned off and I cannot see the randomised playlist content - so I have no idea what is playing. Then I let the playlist play and skipped with the remote after 30 seconds of the intro to the next song, marking on a piece of paper as I go whether the track is the same as or different to the preceding version. When I got to the end of the 30-song playlist I checked my results against the playlist... The first odd thing that struck me was that I was hearing differences...and Wow - 100% accuracy. I could tell the difference between FLAC and WAV every time with NO mistakes. Note that I didn't know which was which - merely that it was the same or different to the previous version. This rather stunned me as it wasn't what I was expecting. Then it hit me - I'd left replaygain on and I could clearly hear the -1.5db cut on the FLAC version - doh!. So starting over with replaygain disabled and a freshly blindly, randomly shuffled playlist... This time I got through all 30 tests and marked each and every one as A - in other words, I couldn't hear any difference at all. Test rig was as below but using STAX SR-202's wired to my Linn 5103 record outs...( and with the TACT RC disabled). Anyway, that does it for me. As far as I am concerned there is NO discernable difference between streamed FLAC or WAV using the digital out from the SB. There may be a difference on the analogue outs...but I'm not bothered because I don't use them. Someone else can test that hypothesis. More than happy to learn of anyone else's experiences with this, but personally - that myth is busted ! -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
cliveb;228159 Wrote: Surely it depends on the consistency of the results? For example, if you do just 10 trials but score 10/10, then you can be over 99% confident that it wasn't just down to luck. Of course, you are correct in the case of someone scoring 10/10, but in that case, nobody needs statistics. The minimum number of 30 is for a general case, averaged out over all the possible outcomes. -- TiredLegs TiredLegs's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6201 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Objectively, if a 100 persons does not hear the difference in the test of 50 trials. And there is one who does all 50 tests with 100% right answers. This means that there is difference doesn't it. And it also means that those 100 persons do not simply hear it. -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;228197 Wrote: Objectively, if a 100 persons does not hear the difference in the test of 50 trials. And there is one who does all 50 tests with 100% right answers. This means that there is difference doesn't it. And it also means that those 100 persons do not simply hear it. Theoretically, yes, but if there actually was a difference, it would be extremely unlikely that only one person out of 100 could hear it, and hear it every time. (That person would have to be a freak of nature to have hearing that much better than everyone else.) People like to make up hypothetical examples of extreme cases, but reality almost never happens that way. -- TiredLegs TiredLegs's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6201 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
TiredLegs;228181 Wrote: Of course, you are correct in the case of someone scoring 10/10, but in that case, nobody needs statistics. The minimum number of 30 is for a general case, averaged out over all the possible outcomes. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong :-). Can you clarify? Where the heck did the number 30 come from? andy74 Wrote: Objectively, if a 100 persons does not hear the difference in the test of 50 trials. And there is one who does all 50 tests with 100% right answers. This means that there is difference doesn't it. And it also means that those 100 persons do not simply hear it. Yes, you're right - it does mean that. The odds of anyone randomly getting 50/50 correct are about one in a thousand trillion. And that would be seen immediately in anything other than the most cursory statistical analysis of the results. The best thing to do then would be to isolate that person, and anyone else that did exceptionally well, and test them on their own. Most, if not all, blind audio test experiments are well aware of this golden ear possibility and look for it. -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
seanadams;228190 Wrote: Well done. This surprise result from the first run is actually very good to know, because it indicates that your test was quite free of bias and that you probably would have picked up a difference in the next run, had there been one. Thanks Sean. I must say it was rather against my nature to do this test but I'm glad I did it. Now, if only some other things were as easy to test - things that require phsyical intervention are hard to organise! -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
seanadams;228190 Wrote: Well done. This surprise result from the first run is actually very good to know, because it indicates that your test was quite free of bias and that you probably would have picked up a difference in the next run, had there been one. Now if only everyone that believes there *is* a difference would take a few minutes and do the same... -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
opaqueice;228204 Wrote: Can you clarify? Where the heck did the number 30 come from? Google the phrase central limit theorem. -- TiredLegs TiredLegs's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6201 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
these tests would work and show some results only if the persons wants to hear the difference. 1. If a person wants to hear the difference 2. able to hear it 3. there IS a difference. Only with these 3 condition present at the same time the high score (100% or close of the right answers) is possible to achieve. If one the 3 above is not met. the test won't show anything. And I am personally doubt that Phil really wants to hear the difference. If he does not then no matter how many times he does the test he will not hear it. -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
TiredLegs;228212 Wrote: Google the phrase central limit theorem. I'm quite familiar with the central limit theorem. What's it got to do with 30? -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;228214 Wrote: And I am personally doubt that Phil really wants to hear the difference. If he does not then no matter how many times he does the test he will not hear it. Andy, Yeah but, as has been said: seanadams;228190 Wrote: Well done. This surprise result from the first run is actually very good to know, because it indicates that your test was quite free of bias and that you probably would have picked up a difference in the next run, had there been one. opaqueice;228211 Wrote: Now if only everyone that believes there *is* a difference would take a few minutes and do the same... So it's up to you :-) Darren -- darrenyeats SB3 / Inguz - Sony DAS-703ES DAC - Krell KAV-300i - PMC AB-1 Dell laptop - JVC UX-C30 mini system (old, cheap, loved) darrenyeats's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10799 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;228225 Wrote: I have just done 10 trials (I am getting tired from 6 already) it took me an hour and a half. Result is 101110 - 8 out of 10 right answers. this is my second test. The first one was 7 out of 10 (the first 7 in a row). After changing the setting I was playing a couple of songs to make sure. It takes a while for one trial. BTW I am changing the setting using AutoHotKey macros with random function to change or not to change the setting and I am turning away form monitor until the screen changes and I hear the MessageBox popup. So it is a blind test:) -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;228214 Wrote: these tests would work and show some results only if the persons wants to hear the difference. 1. If a person wants to hear the difference 2. able to hear it 3. there IS a difference. Only with these 3 condition present at the same time the high score (100% or close of the right answers) is possible to achieve. If one the 3 above is not met. the test won't show anything. And I am personally doubt that Phil really wants to hear the difference. If he does not then no matter how many times he does the test he will not hear it. Is this the bit where I actually take the time to do reasonably well-controlled test and then get told that it's not valid because I don't want to hear the differenc? - sheesh... You are correct in so far as I wasn't expecting to hear a difference (it's not a case of wanting - I don't really care or not!)...when I did the first test due to my own stupidity I invalidated the test. Now, if I really wanted to hear no difference - then I wouldn't have heard one on that first invalid test, right? argh! -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
TiredLegs;228222 Wrote: I'm sure you are capable of Googling it. Look, I understand statistics rather well - in fact I teach it in some of my classes. There is nothing special about 30, or any other number. There's no magic number of trials you need to do. You do n trials, and you get the correct answer, say, m times. Then you use the binomial (in this case) distribution to determine the probability p that you obtained that result, or a more extreme one, by random guessing. 1-p is then the confidence with which you can reject the hypothesis that you were guessing. That sounds more complicated than it is, but there you have it. -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Can you describe your setup please? - are you using an external DAC? -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Phil, You will be surprised. I am using headphones shure 210 with the shure attenuator directly from SB3. so no digital level control. The power supply is the HP E3620A ( :) It is in my office). One amper max so the SB does not power up if I try to use both ethernet and wifi.:) what else... SlimServer Version: 6.5.4 - 12568 -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;228286 Wrote: Phil, You will be surprised. I am using headphones shure 210 with the shure attenuator directly from SB3. so no digital level control. The power supply is the HP E3620A ( :) It is in my office). One amper max so the SB does not power up if I try to use both ethernet and wifi.:) what else... SlimServer Version: 6.5.4 - 12568 well, we are using the same software... So, you are using the analogue outputs - so your test and mine can both be equally valid. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
As I said before if just one test shows that there is difference and many others shows that there is no difference it means that THERE IS difference andy74;228197 Wrote: Objectively, if a 100 persons does not hear the difference in the test of 50 trials. And there is one who does all 50 tests with 100% right answers. This means that there is difference doesn't it. And it also means that those 100 persons do not simply hear it. -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;228292 Wrote: As I said before if just one test shows that there is difference and many others shows that there is no difference it means that THERE IS difference What I am trying to say is this: 1) you can hear a difference using the analogue outputs 2) I can hear no difference using the digital output Both tests are valid tests...of two different things. So, I'm right AND you are right. OK? I look forward to others repeating these tests so we can build towards a concensus on these two separate issues. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Oh I see what you are saying. Yes you are right, test seem not to interfere with each other. -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
No I was completely honest. I know what you are saying, There are couple of trial that I would like to have thrown away but I kept them, so they are all in those 20. I would happilly do 20-30 in one set, But I am getting tired of it. The way I prefer it to be done is for one trial to listen to music in the background while I am doing something else (You know the saying The jogging starts when you forget that you are jogging) and then the decision comes to me:). So it takes a lot of time. Those 2 tests was taken yesterday and today in the mornings, one day away. -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Phil, I agree with you both tests are valid. There is an opinion, that the influence I can hear (let's say I can for now) on the analog outs may influence the digital out, let's say by adding a little jitter to it or simply changing it (the jitter not the stream). But in your case it is either very little change of jitter or your rig gets rid of it easily. -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;228306 Wrote: Phil, I agree with you both tests are valid. There is an opinion, that the influence I can hear (let's say I can for now) on the analog outs may influence the digital out, let's say by adding a little jitter to it or simply changing it (the jitter not the stream). But in your case it is either very little change of jitter or your rig gets rid of it easily. Andy - you may be right, my system seems to be (thankfully) quite resistant to jitter. Whether this is due to the fact that the jitter from the SB is already low or whether my Altmann boxes are helping I cannot say. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
I just finished doing my testing. I played Dire Straits 'Your Latest Trick' twice. Once in FLAC and once in WAV. It sounded great both times. The good news is that I got to hear a great song twice. The bad news is that I had to waste my time re-ripping the track to WAV. Actually I had to be careful because I own the original and remixed copied of 'Brothers In Arms' so I had to make sure to use the same source twice. Funny thing is that I prefer the original to the remix - maybe because I owned and listened to the original for over ten years before getting the remix. I guess that's why I bought the Benchmark DAC1, because I had preffered the sound of my Adcom GCD-575 to any CD player that I've ever heard. I figured that the GCD-575 probably isn't the best CD player in the world - I think that I preffered it because I was most familier with it. So I bought the DAC1 figuring that once I got used to it it would be my preffered digital source and I could use it with the SB3, SB4 and even the SB5:) Actually, I'm not really sure what I am trying to say. Maybe I should have just kept these thoughts to myself. -- fred7 fred7's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6523 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Audiphiles get too emotional ? You are joking, right ? -- tomjtx tomjtx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7449 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
I've ben listening to my gear upside down for years, I thoght everyone did that :-) Kinda makes my head hurt though. -- tomjtx tomjtx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7449 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
fred7;227820 Wrote: Years ago there was a clock that you plugged into ANY outlet in your listening room and it was supposed to make your digital sources sound better. It was called the Tice audio clock and it cost $350 back in 1991. That was a total rip off but people bought it. The Tice clock was only at the lunatic fringe end of tweaks. At least it had some sort of physical connection into the electrical system which at an extreme stretch of the imagination might be considered some kind of conduit back to the stereo. There were other tweaks that were even crazier. Remember the one that claimed books needed to have an odd (or was it even?) number of leaves, and that you could improve the sound of your system by inserting a piece of paper into those which didn't comply? The same nutter (a HiFi journaist, of course) also had bottles of specially treated water in his kitchen and claimed it made a difference. (Peter Belt probably noticed that some people believe this stuff, and developed his business model based on that). -- cliveb Transporter - ATC SCM100A cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
fred7;227716 Wrote: I am glad that Sean clarified the fact that the SB does indeed draw slightly more power when decoding FLAC since someone was disputing this. Actually, I'm not sure he *did* explicitly say that. What I read was that although the Squeezebox has no power saving features, it does suspend processing in the threads when there is nothing to do. I guess the argument is around whether FLAC uses more processing and so there are less idle moments for the decoding thread than when decoding WAV, resulting in different power consumption profile. -- CardinalFang CardinalFang's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=962 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Hi, I did the blind testing. I asked a friend to write down a sequence of 0 and 1 in his random order not showing me and set the built in flac off and on correspondingly. I listened to 2 or 3 the same songs everytime he changed (or not changed the setting) and wrote down my own set of 0 and 1. I answered 7 times correctly in a row (the first 7 out of 7) And the last 3 I did wrong. He plugged some device in the same power strip right before the last 3 trials. you can laugh here... I will probably do more tests. Don't want to bother my friend too much.:) Andrey -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
fred7;227473 Wrote: I am assuming that you are saying that your Squeezebox is drawing slightly (very slightly) more current when streaming FLAC. I would imagine that this is very possible since the SB has to work a little harder because it has to decode the FLAC. I think that this has been brought up before, that since the SB has to decode the FLAC it may change the sound because it is working harder. False. There are no powersave or overdrive modes for the CPU - it's not a portable device. Unused cycles are not going to make the Squeezebox consume less juice, they just don't do any useful work. I think the term is idle. The box is working no less hard when playing WAV instead of FLAC. -- EFP EFP's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6651 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Is there a difference. Unfortunately I don't have a silver SB. Do you think I should give that a try? So you think that playing wavs and decoding flacs consume the same amount of power? I highly doubt that. And if flacs consume more power. Then it influences the power fed to the dac. If you ignore that then you ignore the difference between stock and elpac power supply. If that the case. I am out of here. Andrey -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Leave the poor flac alone. You should have tried to listen to SB3 on audiopoints with coupling discs (a must!). The difference is unbelievable - highs become higher, lows -lower, mids - ... midder, sun - brighter, mood - lighter! Also, high fidelity power cord helps as well. And if you manage to fix a heavy granite plate on it, it will eliminate all negative vibration altogether, and if it's heavy enough it'll eliminate them together with SB3. Sorry, couldn't hold it. The thread is so... so funny! -- 325xi 325xi's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5661 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
EFP;227505 Wrote: False. There are no powersave or overdrive modes for the CPU - it's not a portable device. Unused cycles are not going to make the Squeezebox consume less juice, they just don't do any useful work. I think the term is idle. The box is working no less hard when playing WAV instead of FLAC. I hate to add fuel to this ridiculous fire, but you're actually incorrect on this point. In many microcontroller systems, the CPU does spin in a loop when there is nothing to do, possibly polling pins or just actively doing nothing while it waits for an interrupt. You're correct that the power usage during this kind of spinning is no different from doing useful work. However, this is not what Squeezebox does. Although the Squeezebox CPU has no true power management features like a laptop or PDA might have, it does in fact use slightly less power when idle, because it is event driven at the hardware level. It is running eight hardware threads, each of which only executes instructions when there is work to be done. When a thread has no more work to do, it issues a suspend instruction which halts it until it is sent an interrupt from another thread telling it to resume. Since CMOS logic uses very little power when static, there is some reduction in amperage. Also the PHY and SDRAM are going to use more power simply due to more data going between them. However, the notion that CPU usage materially impacts the audio circuits one way or another is not supported by any controlled listening test or measurements - both of which have been done. I give zero credit to someone who latches on to some abstruse phenomenon like this, but refuses to actually put their theory to the test. -- seanadams seanadams's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
...and wow an extra whole 8-9mA draw! Makes you wonder about those power amps we have...wonder what happens when the music gets louder...hmmm. To Pat: I'd be happy to be contradicted by Josh C. or Sean et al on this but I'm pretty sure that a FLAC decode error would produce garbage rather than something that still sounded like music. The FLAC's are checksummed to ensure integrity like any RLE-encoded compression system. Replaygain appears to check these and will report an invalid FLAC...which sounds like music right up to the invalid bit at which point playback stops. This tells me that the SB must be decoding FLAC properly. What you state might happen to a buggy DSP alogrithm (eg a bad dsp filter or FX plugin - or even to an MP3 encoder) but not to a straight file compression algorithm like FLAC. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
opaqueice wrote: I'm not sure I follow you. The question was whether FLAC decodes properly on the SB. For that all you need is to record the digital out of the SB - the S/PDIF output. No ADC necessary. Oh, perhaps I was confused. Clearly if you want to check the SPDIF output, its nearly trivial to feed it into about any sound card. If you want to check the SB3's DAC, then it isn't nearly as easy. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
seanadams;227600 Wrote: I hate to add fuel to this ridiculous fire Yeah I thought I'd just gently troll it :) seanadams;227600 Wrote: abstruse That's a great word. I don't think I've used it this year. I will endeavour to do so before my next birthday, which is just a few weeks away. Anyway c'mon guys, this is such an easy test to do - you just get someone to check and uncheck the box in settings and you try to guess whether it's FLAC or WAV. Then you get to switch, and he/she gets to guess. Then you have beer. It's clear that decoding FLAC -could- have some effect on the sound, but unless you can show that you can hear it consistently (and I don't mean 6 out of 10), I see no reason to harp on about it. If you can hear the difference blind, I'm sure Sean would be keen to investigate. -- adamslim Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others http://www.last.fm/user/AdamSlim/ 'Last.fm group: people who don't listen to any of last.fm's top artists' (http://www.last.fm/group/People+who+don%27t+listen+to+any+of+last.fm%27s+top+artists) SB+, EAR 859, Heybrook Sextets plus some other stuff SB3, Shek d2, Ming-Da MC84-C, Harbeth HL-P3ES adamslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7355 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
seanadams;227600 Wrote: I hate to add fuel to this ridiculous fire, but you're actually incorrect on this point. In many microcontroller systems, the CPU does spin in a loop when there is nothing to do, possibly polling pins or just actively doing nothing while it waits for an interrupt. You're correct that the power usage during this kind of spinning is no different from doing useful work. However, this is not what Squeezebox does. Although the Squeezebox CPU has no true power management features like a laptop or PDA might have, it does in fact use slightly less power when idle, because it is event driven at the hardware level. It is running eight hardware threads, each of which only executes instructions when there is work to be done. When a thread has no more work to do, it issues a suspend instruction which halts it until it is sent an interrupt from another thread telling it to resume. Since CMOS logic uses very little power when static, there is some reduction in amperage. Also the PHY and SDRAM are going to use more power simply due to more data going between them. However, the notion that CPU usage materially impacts the audio circuits one way or another is not supported by any controlled listening test or measurements - both of which have been done. I give zero credit to someone who latches on to some abstruse phenomenon like this, but refuses to actually put their theory to the test. Even though I am the one who brought up the fact that the Squeezebox would draw very slightly more power when decoding FLAC I personally don't believe that this would cause any audible effects. I am glad that Sean clarified the fact that the SB does indeed draw slightly more power when decoding FLAC since someone was disputing this. There are all kinds of claims about people hearing differences in things that really shouldn't matter but who knows. Personally I think that it is most likely the placebo effect. On the other hand I have the attitude if it works for you than have fun with it. If you want to spend more money on a power supply for a device than the device itself and to you it sounds better then enjoy it. If you think that your $1000 interconnects make a huge difference, it's your money so have fun with it. I've personally bought fairly mid-fi equipment and have been very happy with it but I do spend a lot on speakers because to me they make the largest difference. I actually do hear difference between a lot of equipment (such as amplifiers) but to me they just sound 'different' from each other and one doesn't necessarily sound 'better' than the other except for my individual taste. Anyway, I think that people tend to get too emotional about all of this stuff. Enjoy your equipment, but more importantly, enjoy the music. -- fred7 fred7's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6523 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
quietdragon;227313 Wrote: I am merely saying that there are many reasons why showing that wav-flac-wav on Windows is -not- sufficient to prove (100%) anything about the outcome on the SB3. It does increase the probability that the SB3 is also doing the -expected- thing. The SB2/3 hardware has been on sale for 2 1/2 years now and has had dozens of fimware updates (currently as rev 81). Don't you think that if there had been a decoding problem that it would have been corrected by now? If you are still in doubt, do the test. -- funkstar funkstar's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2335 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
opaqueice;227319 Wrote: It's trivial to verify that the SB3 decodes FLAC perfectly and it's been done many times (both by SD and others). I'd be interested in reading about the methodology. Do you have a reference to the thread or post? -- quietdragon quietdragon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10412 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
quietdragon;227448 Wrote: I'd be interested in reading about the methodology. Do you have a reference to the thread or post? Why? Read this carefully: If the FLAC decoder algorithm in the SB was anything less than 100% perfect then what would come out would be total garbage. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Hi there, I am one of those looney audio reviewers. If you don't hear the difference FLAC streaming vs WAV steaming, It does not mean that there isn't one. Ignorance is bliss! I use HP power supply to feed the SB3 which shows 3 digits after the point for current value. When I stream Flac the current value changes in range 0.930-940 A But when I stream WAV it changes in range 0.925-0.926A no more. So there is the diference between 10mA and 1mA. Why in the world wouldn't I able to hear it in the end. Andrey -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;227466 Wrote: Hi there, I am one of those looney audio reviewers. If you don't hear the difference FLAC streaming vs WAV steaming, It does not mean that there isn't one. Ignorance is bliss! I use HP power supply to feed the SB3 which shows 3 digits after the point for current value. When I stream Flac the current value changes in range 0.930-940 A But when I stream WAV it changes in range 0.925-0.926A no more. So there is the diference between 10mA and 1mA. Why in the world wouldn't I able to hear it in the end. Andrey I am assuming that you are saying that your Squeezebox is drawing slightly (very slightly) more current when streaming FLAC. I would imagine that this is very possible since the SB has to work a little harder because it has to decode the FLAC. I think that this has been brought up before, that since the SB has to decode the FLAC it may change the sound because it is working harder. Personally I think that the difference would be extremely slight if there was any at all so for me I will continue to stream FLAC (it works better than WAV over marginal wireless networks). The good news is that your files can still be stored as FLAC, and have Slimserver decode to WAV that is sent to the SB. That way the files are smaller and can accomodate tags. My main gripe with all of the FLAC vs WAV debate is that many people don't understand what lossless compression is. They see the word compression and in just about everything that they experience in life it means some sort of compromise. They can't grasp how data can be stored in a compressed format that can be decoded to the EXACT bit for bit copy of the original. Maybe they are just skeptical. As a computer programmer it is kind of frustrating for me that people just don't seem to understand that it it is truly lossless. -- fred7 fred7's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6523 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
andy74;227466 Wrote: I use HP power supply to feed the SB3 which shows 3 digits after the point for current value. When I stream Flac the current value changes in range 0.930-940 A But when I stream WAV it changes in range 0.925-0.926A no more. How often does that display refresh? I ask because you may be missing much bigger momentary peaks in the current drain that may be occurring. Ignorance really IS bliss! TD -- tyler_durden tyler_durden's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
quietdragon;227448 Wrote: I'd be interested in reading about the methodology. Do you have a reference to the thread or post? There've been quite a few - try searching the forum. The simplest method is to record the S/PDIF output of the SB using (say) a computer soundcard, and then compare the resulting WAV file with the FLAC file decoded to WAV on the server, or with the original WAV file the FLAC was encoded from. I have not tried this, but several on this forum have, as of course has SD during development and testing. Early versions of the firmware did have a bug - they inverted polarity in the output. That was caught and fixed a long time ago. And as Phil keeps pointing out, it's hard to imagine a bug in FLAC decoding that would produce a sound anywhere close to the original. FLAC is a highly compressed format, which means if you modify it slightly the decoded file will be changed a lot. -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
opaqueice wrote: The simplest method is to record the S/PDIF output of the SB using (say) a computer soundcard, and then compare the resulting WAV file with the FLAC file decoded to WAV on the server, or with the original WAV file the FLAC was encoded from. This is actually not a very simple thing to implement properly. First, you need to record on a better ADC than you are using to feed it, or you can't tell which is causing any errors. With good cables (Grinning, ducking and running) Second, it is unlikely that you will have the gain on the input ADC exactly match the gain of the sampled DAC. If the gain is off by a small fraction, you will find that every byte is different, so it will appear to be 100% different. It is trivial to verify that FLAC will decompress a file to exactly the same data as the source. If I was going to prove that the bits - DAC to ADC to bits chain was identical, I'd probably use a variation of a zero knowledge proof. Make up a sequence of pure tones, say a second long at 20hz, 30hz, 40hz, 60hz, etc. play it and record it, run each section through an FFT and make sure that the frequencies are exact, and that the amplitudes are highly correlated. Once that works, try some simple mixed samples, say a 40 hz + 300 hZ + 700 hz But this is getting pretty serious, and most reviews are not close to this serious. I'm also not sure I agree with a comment up thread that if it wasn't right, it would sound like random noise. I could easily imagine a hardware or software bug that caused all frequencies to be, say 1% low, so A 440 would be 435 hz. I would bet that most folks won't not even hear that it was off. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
tyler_durden;227474 Wrote: How often does that display refresh? I ask because you may be missing much bigger momentary peaks in the current drain that may be occurring. Ignorance really IS bliss! TD Hey TD, It is very hard to estimate the refresh rate by just looking at it:) I need to look it up on the internet I am away from it right now (the HP PS I mean). But it might be that the peaks are bigger. And the other thought. I tried the ethernet connection. And the current seems a bit more stable. (I lied in my previous post it was not a 1mA straight it is 2mA but very seldom, But in the ethernet case it IS stable 1mA, honest). But I do not like how ethernet sounds. it probably produces other kinds of noise, which I don't like. The cause may be that ethernet have a wired connection to the PC hence grounding not isolated. Andrey -- andy74 andy74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12990 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
mister pig;226944 Wrote: Fair enough. I went back and listened once again to FLAC vs uncompressed WAV, and still prefer uncompressed. The differences are subtle in this area, although still noticable in the songs I listened to. I understand why the many aherents of lossless feel the way they do, can see their points. John, I am not sure you are seeing the point. I don't doubt you hear a difference!!! But I (and several other posters here) question *why* you hear a difference! Because of the technical issues involved (plus the vast majority who hear no difference) the idea that it's due to psychological factors is more plausible than the idea this subtle difference is real! So until you do a proper blind test I am going to assume it's due to psychological factors. Yes, you really DO hear a difference. No that does not mean there is a difference. *That's* the point. Darren -- darrenyeats SB3 with Inguz - Sony DAS-703ES DAC - Krell KAV-300i - PMC AB-1 (home-made room treatments and supports) darrenyeats's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10799 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
fred7;227211 Wrote: When I do a FC /B on Windows the wav files are exactly the same - No Differences Encountered. This proves that wav-flac-wav transcoding on -Windows- is lossless which is an expected result. This result doesn't necessarily mean that the 2nd half of the transcoding (flac-wav decoding) on the SB3 will produce the same result. There's a good chance that it should, but there's also a chance that it might not because the flac-wav implementation on SB3 cannot be identical to your Windows version. Differences would likely include different source code, different source version, different compiler, etc. -- quietdragon quietdragon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10412 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
quietdragon;227253 Wrote: This result doesn't necessarily mean that the 2nd half of the transcoding (flac-wav decoding) on the SB3 will produce the same result. There's a good chance that it should, but there's also a chance that it might not because the flac-wav implementation on SB3 cannot be identical to your Windows version. Differences would likely include different source code, different source version, different compiler, etc. This is easy to check though. Connect the SBs digital output to a PC sound card and record when a wav is played and when the FLAC is played amd then compare the results. Don't you think this would have been tested by SlimDevices while they were designing this unit? -- funkstar funkstar's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2335 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
quietdragon;227253 Wrote: This proves that wav-flac-wav transcoding on -Windows- is lossless which is an expected result. This result doesn't necessarily mean that the 2nd half of the transcoding (flac-wav decoding) on the SB3 will produce the same result. There's a good chance that it should, but there's also a chance that it might not because the flac-wav implementation on SB3 cannot be identical to your Windows version. Differences would likely include different source code, different source version, different compiler, etc. erm...no. If any of the things you mention were indeed incorrect, what would come out would be a stream of garbage, not music. You won't get subtle audio degradations! FLAC is like PKZIP - you get either perfect decompression or a random stream of bits... -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... ...SB3+TACT+Altmann+MF DACXV3/Linn tri-amped Aktiv 5.1 system and some very expensive cables ;o) Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Differences would likely include different source code, different source version, different compiler Hmm, not so sure. If you run Excel on a PC and Mac and enter '=2+2' you'd expect the answer to be '4', although the source code, version and compiler is different. Decompression of FLAC is defined by a algorithm, so the output must be same unless there is an error in the program logic. -- amcluesent amcluesent's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10286 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
amcluesent;227273 Wrote: If you run Excel on a PC and Mac and enter '=2+2' you'd expect the answer to be '4', although the source code, version and compiler is different. You're partly right, however -expectations- and -reality- are different. I know from hard won experience that having a program or algorithm execute successfully in one environment (eg Windows x86) merely increases the probability that it will execute successfully on another (eg Linux PowerPC). Decompression of FLAC is defined by a algorithm, so the output must be same unless there is an error in the program logic. The algorithm (ie theorectical operation) dictates that the output should in theory be identical. But the algorithm requires a physical manifestation (ie an implementation comprising actual code written in some programming language). For each implementation, there are likely several versions of the implementation as bugs get fixed, or new features get implemented. This is even before we get to the physical nature of the cpu, etc. I'm not trying to argue whether there is or is not a difference, audible or not. I am merely saying that there are many reasons why showing that wav-flac-wav on Windows is -not- sufficient to prove (100%) anything about the outcome on the SB3. It does increase the probability that the SB3 is also doing the -expected- thing. -- quietdragon quietdragon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10412 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
quietdragon;227313 Wrote: I am merely saying that there are many reasons why showing that wav-flac-wav on Windows is -not- sufficient to prove (100%) anything about the outcome on the SB3. It does increase the probability that the SB3 is also doing the -expected- thing. It's trivial to verify that the SB3 decodes FLAC perfectly and it's been done many times (both by SD and others). Case closed - can we talk about something more interesting now? -- opaqueice opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
TiredLegs;226819 Wrote: I know the results should be the same. I was asking if that's what fred7 actually found. I just wanted to re-confirm what I had written so I ran another test tonight. I just did the following test using dbPowerAmp: Ripped a track to FLAC named ORIG_FLAC.flac (Compression level 5) Ripped the same track to WAV named ORIG_WAV.wav Converted ORIG_FLAC.flac to ORIG_FLAC.wav The end result is: ORIG_FLAC.flac 23,492,868 bytes long ORIG_FLAC.wav 44,262,464 bytes long (flac file converted to wav) ORIG_WAV.wav 44,262,464 bytes long When I do a FC /B on Windows the wav files are exactly the same - No Differences Encountered. I had done this a long time ago evaluating FLAC and comparing EAC to dbPowerAmp. My CD's arre pretty much pristine so when I ripped a bunch of discs and compared EAC to dbPoweramp the results were the same but I found dbPoweramp much faster and user friendly so I went with it. Since I had over 2,000 CD's to rip I didn't mind paying a few bucks for the program. -- fred7 fred7's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6523 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
westernboy;226835 Wrote: I've found the SB3 analog output to be almost as good as that from the (expensive for me) Marantz CDP I was previously using - though there's no comparison as far as ease of use is concerned, of course. SD have absolutely transformed the way I listen to music, for the better :-) I've heard a Benchmark DAC1 in a much better system than my own, A/B'd against the abovementioned Marantz CDP. Overall, the system owner and myself agreed the DAC1 was a little more detailed/revealing. So, DACs in increasing order of fidelity (in my opinion): SB3 - my CDP - Benchmark DAC1. Based on this, I'd be prepared to say that you would notice an improvement (but not a huge one) by going down the path you're considering. I'd probably do so myself if I could afford one. Instead, I've just bought a used, and well priced, Channel Islands VDA.1 DAC (and matching PSU) that I'll be listening to next week. I'll probably post my opinion of it here somewhere, so watch this space... Thanks for sharing your opinion, I have the same thought, I would buy Benchmark DAC1 when I affordable, meanwhile, I really enjoy music produced from analog output of SB3, no regret! -- auronthas Auronthas Digital Sources: Squeezebox 3 / Cambridge Audio 540C V2 Integrated Amplifier: Cambridge Audio 540A Loudspeaker: Acoustic Energy EVO One Cables: Interconnect: Van den Hul The Source Cables: Speaker : Van den Hul Goldwater Accessories: Tajima Power Conditioner auronthas's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12394 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
Of course I can, that's what this forum is all about. I'll just point out on the first page he misspells Allison Krauss, refers to the Squeezebox as having an LED display, and incorrectly hyphenates and capitalizes iTunes. It's hard for me to take what's supposed to be a careful review of anything seriously when the reviewer's attention to detail prevents him from making sure things are spelled correctly and that he's properly identified components. -- mrfantasy --Mike mrfantasy's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1127 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
I found this thread very interesting to read. I have never claimed to be an expert in computer audio. Matter of fact, my article is aimed at individuals who are interested in testing the waters of PC audio. I know without a doubt, that there are many members of this board that have a far broader knowledge base of the software behind the Squeezebox than I do. With that being said, I know what I hear. I have been aroud audio for the last 25 years, and listening to music is one of my great pleasures in life. In my college years, I worked part time as an audio salesperson for a very good store. I know several writers and manufacturers, and have been fortunate enough to be exposed to a large array of gear, and systems. My personal views are somewhat middle of the road. I do not believe in audio mysticism, nor do I embrace the dogmatic teachnings of the audio establishment. Although I do believe that the measurements crowd has a better handle of what is going on in audio reproduction than the other side. The main point of this thread appears to be centered around my comments regarding my choice not to use FLAC. Fair enough. I went back and listened once again to FLAC vs uncompressed WAV, and still prefer uncompressed. The differences are subtle in this area, although still noticable in the songs I listened to. I understand why the many aherents of lossless feel the way they do, can see their points. But, if there is no audible compromise with FLAC, then what I hear from the SB will be the equivilent to what they are hearing. So my comments about the sonic abilities of the SB will still have the same frame of reference. Now about power supplies. Even this board has its adherents to upgraded power supplies for the SB. There are a myriad of reasons why people think a power supply leads to improved performance, but in the end, well they do believe it to be an improvement. I have no political agenda regarding the SB. Frankly there is nothing for me to gain for saying positive or negative things about it. I am just trying to relay my listening experiences. That simple. Now regarding the JVC as a digital piece. Some people took exception with its use. As a stand alone player the JVC is no longer competitive in the audio world. As a transport, it is still very good. My personal system has a diverse mix of components that tries to embody the spirit of Affordable Audio. Certain pieces are truly high end, and not inexpensive. The Electra-Print amps sell for 2.5K, the Kukama DAC for about the same. The Audio Magic illusions 4D cabling is the most expensive piece of the system. Yet all components are judged on their individual merit, not price, not age, not popularity. The pre-amp is based around a pair of transformers that sell for $59 each. The Audio Nirvana drivers retail for $199 a pair. The JVC XL-Z1050TN is still a fine transport. These components still offer high quality sound reproduction, and ar capable of showing the differences between other associated electronics. Now for the nit picky stuff. Yes Allyson Krause was incorrect. My middle daughters name is Allison, and I made an error that got through my proof reading. So the display of the SB is liquid crystal, whatever. Will this stop someone from buying it? Yes my use of iTunes is incorrect, it will be changed. I stand by my opinion that a stock SB is at best an average digital source. It can be improved upon. Actually I enjoy using it, and appreciate its convenience. Mark Marcantonio publishes Affordable Audio, and I believe he would be more than willing to give space to an alternate point of view regarding the SB. If you wish to take the time to present your thoguhts, then drop him an email at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Regards John Hoffman -- mister pig mister pig's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12566 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Affordable Audio review of SB3
mister pig;226944 Wrote: So the display of the SB is liquid crystal, whatever. Wrong again. It's a VFD, Vacuum Fluorescent Display. Which means it is far more readable than cheap LCD display. -- funkstar funkstar's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2335 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38258 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
