Rocky Bennett

Here are a couple of very basic books that will get you going in the right direction. I own the physical copies of these books, but these links will give you a basic understanding. https://www.arl.wustl.edu/~jst/cse/260/ddc.pdf https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/For Dummies/Electronics for Dummies (ISBN - 0764576607).pdf It is important to understand that the products that you can buy off the shelf will accomplish everything that you need, but these books will provide you with the basics to design them yourself. Also, once you design a circuit, getting it into manufacture could cost more money than you can imagine. But here is the info that you requested. Rocky Bennett

^^^^^ Very good link to a very good book that I have read. It should provide the OP with a starting point to see what he is dealing with.

It certainly sounds like you are ambitious. But as I have mentioned earlier, computers do not process sound, they process digital information. This is a very crucial point that you need to understand before you begin your pursuits. Also I have studied the design of microarchitecture related to designing processors, and it takes years of electronics research to get to the point that you can design circuits. But that is not the problem. Once you get the circuits designed to your specifications, then you must physically build them. This could literally take millions of dollars to be able to build circuits. If that is your plan, then you are in the wrong forum. You can buy pre-built synthesizers, you do not have to design and build one from scratch. Yamaha and other brands have been in the business forever and they build custom synthesizers to a customer's request. It might cost in the neighborhood of $30,000 or more for one of these, but it is a fraction of the cost of designing and building one yourself. The same with IO hardware. Yes it is possible to design and build your own IO hardware, but then again that could take years and cost millions of dollars. If that is your goal, you are in the wrong forum. Off the shelf hardware might cost less than $100,00 and perform exactly the way you program it to perform. Again, the call is yours.

Just one quick note after rereading this very interesting thread. The OP clearly indicates that he is interested in putting together a simple DAW. This might not be the best forum for talk and advice about building a DAW, which is specifically related to recording music. This forum is more or less dedicated to the high fidelity reproduction of recorded music. Also, you can buy all of the parts to put together a DAW off the shelf at your local music store, you do not have create a sound processor which would require many years electrical study in order to do. All of my neighborhood music stores carry every single piece of hardware necessary in order to put together a DAW (except the computer itself) in any price range from just a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. It is a fun hobby and you can make your investment back in just one evening.

You will also need an amplifier to drive your speakers. There are literally millions of choices of amplifiers that you can choose from. I use an old Marantz because I like the warm sound, but you can get anything that suits your personal tastes.

Hello, As a computer engineer I can address a couple of your questions, but other folks here are much more knowledgeable to address other points that I will not touch on. 1. Computers do not "work with sound," they process information. 2. Computers "take in a digital signal and play around with it" through very simple IO circuits, digital interfaces that connect through cables to other hardware. The information is processed by either software or hardware or a combination of the two. This allows the computer to connect to "other systems"which can be hi fi or audio equipment, or studio mixing equipment. 3. You say that your end goal is to create a sound processor. Does this mean that you are an audio engineer and you plan on designing a DAC or are you a computer engineer and plan on creating the a new chip or circuit board? Your dialog is certainly very interesting and it provoked me to post here at the forum which I have not done in months. Rocky Bennett

This does sound like an odd idea. I own approx. 950 surround sound SACDs and Blu Ray Audio discs and there might be one or two in my collection that has equal energy output into all 5 speakers. But that is not the problem. I have down mixed many discs (several hundred) on different systems to see what they sound like and they all sound wonky. Chicago, Blood, Sweat and Tears, America etc. etc. all have a wonky sound when you down mix a surround sound disc to two channels. (DO NOT TRY THIS WITH THE CARPENTERS.) The reverb and the acoustics of a surround sound disc does not translate too well to a two channel reproduction. This is an idea best left to the side of the road for kids to play with.

I have not read any of the comments left after this post but I would suggest that the problem is psychological and not factual. A really good system should render a well mastered 16 bit file to sound pristine, and the resulting playback should sound nearly identical to a 24 bit file of the same material with the same mastering. My suggestion is just to rename your files. For example instead of naming a file Jethro Tull Aqualung, name the file Jethro Tull Aqualung, High Rez. This should fix all of your perceived issues. Rocky

I am an audiophile that has over 50 years of experience setting up and listening to various systems, both analog and digital and I find your statements to run contrary to hands on experience, and also to simple logic. Digital beats the pants off of analog for dynamic range and sound staging every time. Even on a modest system you can hear the benefits of digital over analog, but the better the system the more obvious the difference becomes. Where did you find your silly information, on the internet? Rocky Bennett

Thanks for that link. I had to read the whole report but it sure was educational and fun. http://www.iar-80.com/page170.html

Hello All, I am a long time lurker here but I just wanted to post this little bit of information. I am one of the guys that can be considered to be anti-MQA but I have found a particular album that might make it easy to compare a high rez file to the exact same mastering of an MQA file. Jethro Tull Heavy Horses just came out in 24/96 over at HDTracks http://www.hdtracks.com/heavy-horses-steven-wilson-remix and it is also available in MQA over at High Res Audio https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/hrwzp9/jethro-tull-heavy-horses-40th-anniversary-a-steven-wilson-stereo-remix These are both the Steven Wilson re-mix (which I own in the beautiful box set that includes a nice 5.1 mix). Anybody that is interested can buy both versions and try this little audio test for themselfs. (Sorry if this has been posted before.) Rocky Bennett

I live in the United States and that is exactly how the law is here as well. Without the original CD in your possesion, you have to delete the file from the hard drive. I do not know where the OP lives.

Thanks bigbob for starting this thread. It is very informative since I believe that the DAC is a very important aspect of the final sound quality. I will continue to educate myself on the differences between different DACs that I can afford, and this thread is a great resource to point me in the right direction to understand the importance of power conditioning and other factors that influence sound quality. Rocky Bennett

I leave all of my components on 24/7, including my amplifier. This has been a practice of mine since the late 1960s. Thanks for the advice.