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USB audio cracked... finally!


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1 hour ago, semente said:

 

Detail is realism and that in my view is the same as musicality.

That being so there is no such thing as too much detail where the system is concerned.

 

"Emphasised" detail is either distortion caused by artifacts or colouration, or is the result of near mic'ing.

In the first case one can deal with the problem by identifying which element in the system is causing it and optimising or replacing it, but unfortunately there's nothing we can do about the latter.

I don't think that choosing equipment which masks detail is the right way to go about it.

 

I never talked about "masking".  My gear is the contrary, revealing and harmonic rich.

 

if it comes from the recording I do not listen to it anymore, and if the interpretation is still bad, it ends up in the trash.

 

I don't want to talk about brand names because someone may feel offended...

 

Roch

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8 hours ago, elcorso said:

 

I never talked about "masking".  My gear is the contrary, revealing and harmonic rich.

 

if it comes from the recording I do not listen to it anymore, and if the interpretation is still bad, it ends up in the trash.

 

I don't want to talk about brand names because someone may feel offended...

 

Roch

 

The remarkable thing about recordings, and the human hearing system, is that the latter is very forgiving if sufficient clues, detail is reproduced from those recordings with no extra distortion in key areas added. "Trash" recordings can reveal great riches, and end up being one's favourites, because of what has been captured at the time the microphones were switched on. This in fact is an important indicator of a system's competence; because the better the latter becomes, the more recordings that one rejects as poor come fully to life, and are given full marks as being worthy of being heard.

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11 minutes ago, elcorso said:

 

Strange logic for me ... I hope that my system reproduces what is recorded as it was recorded, not that it does "repairs", because it would not be transparent.

 

Roch

 

The "repairing" is done by our ear/brain, when it has enough 'information' to reconstitute the 'damaged' areas, completely unconsciously. A good example of that happens often for the listeners to music, but they are quite unaware of it happening - you're listening to a crappy car radio, playing too loudly, and on comes a favourite song - your brain puts together how it should sound, and you get a buzz listening it; that's then followed by a song, of a related style, which is completely unknown to you - this in comparison sounds pretty awful, and you're well aware of how terrible the radio sound is, now.

 

What very high grade replay does is similar - you get all the information, good and bad, that's in the recording, and almost no signficant "bad" from the playback chain  - it turns out that there's enough "meat" in the good for our internal DSP to sort it all out - and the listening is a very enjoyable experience.

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43 minutes ago, Bystander said:

I feel like something like this would actually sound better on a less revealing, less neutral (objectively worse and colored) system which would mask the distortions inherent in the recording somewhat.

 

WARNING: Might offend audiophile sensibilities... ! ^_^

 

 

 

Disagree ... this is exactly the type of recording that can present superbly, subjectively - as an example of how far one can take this, Nellie Melba recordings from the dawn of recording can shape up remarkably well - the quaint, caricature quality of operatic female singing one normally hears is replaced by a living, breathing person ...

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6 hours ago, Bystander said:

I feel like something like this would actually sound better on a less revealing, less neutral (objectively worse and colored) system which would mask the distortions inherent in the recording somewhat.

 

WARNING: Might offend audiophile sensibilities... ! ^_^

 

 

I tried playing that on the built-in speakers in my desktop monitors (nice display, terrible speakers). It sounds as dreadful there as it does on my good system.

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Which demonstrates that there are multiple ways of listening to the quality of the sound; mine is to listen for what the potential of the sound is, rather than how it happens to come across on a particular playback chain ... :).

 

Curious, having never heard of Feinberg, I looked around, and found this, https://www.allmusic.com/album/js-bach-well-tempered-clavier-mw0001858981. This provides even more motivation, or should, to elevate a system to the point where the inadequacies of these recording no longer matter, subjectively - it is, after all, all about the music ...

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Having heard live music simultaneously played back in remote speakers in a separate acoustically isolated space, like outside the venue, I am always surprised that one can tell that you are listening to a live event and not a recording. When recording playback hits the same level we have really gotten somewhere. I feel like we are close.

 

;-)

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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19 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Disagree ... this is exactly the type of recording that can present superbly, subjectively - as an example of how far one can take this, Nellie Melba recordings from the dawn of recording can shape up remarkably well - the quaint, caricature quality of operatic female singing one normally hears is replaced by a living, breathing person ...

 

13 hours ago, mansr said:

I tried playing that on the built-in speakers in my desktop monitors (nice display, terrible speakers). It sounds as dreadful there as it does on my good system.

 

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Which demonstrates that there are multiple ways of listening to the quality of the sound; mine is to listen for what the potential of the sound is, rather than how it happens to come across on a particular playback chain ... :).

 

Curious, having never heard of Feinberg, I looked around, and found this, https://www.allmusic.com/album/js-bach-well-tempered-clavier-mw0001858981. This provides even more motivation, or should, to elevate a system to the point where the inadequacies of these recording no longer matter, subjectively - it is, after all, all about the music ...

I guess I could be wrong... ^_^ Thankfully the sound quality of some of his other recordings isn't quite as bad and even very enjoyable at times. I'll always value the quality of a particular performance over the sound quality of the recording, but when the recording contains  obvious defects such as in this one, it still tends to bother me. 

 

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8 minutes ago, Bystander said:

 

 

I guess I could be wrong... ^_^ Thankfully the sound quality of some of his other recordings isn't quite as bad and even very enjoyable at times. I'll always value the quality of a particular performance over the sound quality of the recording, but when the recording contains  obvious defects such as in this one, it still tends to bother me. 

 

 

There's much worse!! ... a needle drop CD of Gene Pitney hits, from eastern Europe :P - this is shocking on a "good system" - the 'noise reduction' artifacts are hideous, it's impossible to listen to ... but, it still amazes me how my hearing just puts this aside when the listening is good enough, and I can "just hear the music" ...

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On 1/31/2018 at 10:36 PM, fas42 said:

 

The "repairing" is done by our ear/brain, when it has enough 'information' to reconstitute the 'damaged' areas, completely unconsciously. A good example of that happens often for the listeners to music, but they are quite unaware of it happening - you're listening to a crappy car radio, playing too loudly, and on comes a favourite song - your brain puts together how it should sound, and you get a buzz listening it; that's then followed by a song, of a related style, which is completely unknown to you - this in comparison sounds pretty awful, and you're well aware of how terrible the radio sound is, now.

 

What very high grade replay does is similar - you get all the information, good and bad, that's in the recording, and almost no signficant "bad" from the playback chain  - it turns out that there's enough "meat" in the good for our internal DSP to sort it all out - and the listening is a very enjoyable experience.

 

I am sorry, but I have not reached that level of enlightenment ... I have worked hard and have been in Yoga disciplines and concentration most of my life.

 

Roch

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4 hours ago, elcorso said:

 

I am sorry, but I have not reached that level of enlightenment ... I have worked hard and have been in Yoga disciplines and concentration most of my life.

 

Roch

 

Ummm, no higher state of conscious required ... it all happens automatically. I managed to fluke getting an audio setup to the necessary quality level three decades ago, and got a huge shock from the difference it made; from then on, all 'normal' playback sounded like, well, hifi - the latter always has the smell of the equipment working, it never really "gets out of the way".

 

My current system has been offline for quite a while - and I finally got it up and running again. It's never hit the heights that I aim for, because I haven't gone through all the steps, looked at all the things that I would see as important - but it got to a pretty decent level. On restart, quite reasonable - but a fair way to go ... . And that means, I can put on a recording, and it's, "Oh Dear!!"; the distortion of the playback chain is obvious, and any "repairing" by the brain ain't gonna fix it! But I'm not fussed ... I've been here so often, and I know it's only a process of elimination of weaknesses until the necessary SQ will be restored.

 

Me wanting it to sound great doesn't make one iota of difference - the ear/brain works by its own set of rules, and it decides when the sound is good enough to accept the presentation, after "repairing", as a convincing illusion.

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  • 10 months later...
6 hours ago, Guidof said:

+1!

 

Guido, it is very good that you posted this (accidentally) because else I wouldn't have recognized you from your Lush(^1) order and you would have missed the 50 euro discount. I mean, you are now using an other email address than July last year, so I just could not recognize you.

 

This counts for everybody. If you use an other email address than for your Lush^1 order, nothing will notice that you should receive the 50 euro discount on the Lush^2. In that case, please drop me an extra email and it will be fine.

 

Happy holidays everybody !

Peter

Lush^3-e      Lush^2      Blaxius^2.5      Ethernet^3     HDMI^2     XLR^2

XXHighEnd (developer)

Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer)

Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer)

Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier)

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3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Guido, it is very good that you posted this

 

Hmm ... in this case it is different. The email address is the same all right, but the sender-name is not. So true, I search for the name and in this case it did not match.

Lush^3-e      Lush^2      Blaxius^2.5      Ethernet^3     HDMI^2     XLR^2

XXHighEnd (developer)

Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer)

Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer)

Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier)

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1 hour ago, Solstice380 said:

 

Is there a definitive connection scheme for the “antennae” yet?  Or at least a consensus?

 

Oh yes, for "months" by now:

A: B-W-Y-R, B: B-W-R

(Lush^2 still goes out daily and nobody feels inclined to try other configs that I can notice - me myself neither 9_9)

 

 

Lush^3-e      Lush^2      Blaxius^2.5      Ethernet^3     HDMI^2     XLR^2

XXHighEnd (developer)

Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer)

Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer)

Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier)

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11 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Hmm ... in this case it is different. The email address is the same all right, but the sender-name is not. So true, I search for the name and in this case it did not match.

 

Strange . . . Neither my name nor my email addresses have changed. But thanks for the discount.

 

Happy holidays.

 

Guido F.

 

For my system details, please see my profile. Thank you.

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