SQ or SNAKEOIL

[beerandmusic]

What do you think?

Select only one from each group A-H

[Fluffytime]

I went with "no improvement can be heard using anything above industry standard cables".

 

Because it's the truth.

[Spacehound]

I did not vote and don't intend to. However,

1) There are a high number of people here who are totally ignorant of science and engineering. It tends to be an expensive hobby so many of them will have made a considerable amount of money in other fields.  (Science and engineering tends no to pay well.)  Making lots of money   (being 'successful')  tends to make them think they are experts on  everything. (I can think of a well-known US 'servant of the people' who is the absolute epitome of this mental disorder, and thus is the most unservant-like person I have ever heard of.)

 

2) There at some who believe in magic and tend to  be not only ignorant of science and engineering but actively against it, despite that they use it  to considerable  effect in almost every  area of their lives.

As  a group they tend to see alien flying saucers a lot, and the individuals  that do see them frequently. There is an exact parallel in audio of course, the more snake oil the better.

 

Your  (incomplete) list seems to be entirely snake oil  with one exception  that  I deem 'possible' as I am not a point 1  person.  You have missed some sorts of snake oil out, but no matter.

 

It reminds me very much of a joke poll I once saw -  Which is the best ineffective medicine?

[beerandmusic]

36 minutes ago, Fluffytime said:

I went with "no improvement can be heard using anything above industry standard cables".

 

Because it's the truth.

I voted everything makes a difference except for usb reclocker....but i could be wrong...i bought into the concept that usb toys make a difference because of noise, but not sure how reclocking the bits can make the transfer of bits any more "accurate", but i really never researched, so I am "open" to the possibility of reclockers, but again, i think all usb toy circuitry should be built into the dac itself.

 

[Fluffytime]

What really makes a difference is the price tag.

 

Just ask GUTB.

[Spacehound]

36 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 Wehve recently iproved tis defence mechanisiI voted everything makes a difference except for usb reclocker....but i could be wrong...i bought into the concept that usb toys make a difference because of noise, but not sure how reclocking the bits can make the transfer of bits any more "accurate", but i really never researched, so I am "open" to the possibility of reclockers, but again, i think all usb toy circuitry should be built into the dac itself.

 

Bits come in all shapes and sizes, run fast, and end to wobble about a lot while doing so. Zeros and ones often look identical and touch each other  in an  often successful attempt to disguise their names from the inexpert. We have recently improved this ability by making them able to have both names  at the same time  if they want

 

The only thing that matters is whether you shoot 'em or not. A 'miss' is declared by a load  crackle or pop.

[beerandmusic]

In regards to pc optimization software I am referring to software made specifically to lower the noise or even manual stopping of unneeded services (like fidelizer or pc optimizer pro, etc....)

 

I am not sure that these software programs are still "effective" if you use a "usb toy" or not?

[Spacehound]

11 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 You said thry weren't effective in thr first place.In regards to pc optimization software I am referring to software made specifically to lower the noise or even manual stopping of unneeded services (like fidelizer or pc optimizer pro, etc....)

 

I am not sure that these software programs are still "effective" if you use a "usb toy" or not?

No they aren't

[beerandmusic]

1 minute ago, Spacehound said:

No they aren't. 

 

Well you don't think "usb toys" are effective either, so you don't count (wink).

[Spacehound]

17 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

Well you don't think "usb toys" are effective either, so you don't count (wink).

Sure I do. A USB toy will have no effect on something that had no effect originally.

 

Galvanic isolation I  think is a 'maybe'. Most DACs don't use USB power and so its wire is not connected inside the DAC. So there is only the 'ground' left. And that will be connected  to other things  whether you have galvanic isolation or not.

It's real easy and only takes a minute or two  to test if galvanic isolation has any effect or not   but I can't be bothered.

[beerandmusic]

As far as cables go, i know that silver cables sound different...but my guess is that they just have a different volume because of different impedance...not necessarily better sq.  But i did vote that expensive cable can improve SQ, but i wouldn't buy them.  I do have a a couple pair of silver cables that were "donated" to me, but i don't even use them.  I did try them and "i think" they sounded better, but the quality doesn't look very good and once i smelled something "burning" using them, so i have been reluctant to try them again.

[Spacehound]

5 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 As far as cables go, i know that silver cables sound different...but my guess is that they just have a different volume because of different impedance...not necessarily better sq.  But i did vote that expensive cable can improve SQ, but i wouldn't buy them.  I do have a a couple pair of silver cables that were "donated" to me, but i don't even use them.  I did try them and "i think" they sounded better, but the quality doesn't look very good and once i smelled something "burning" using them, so i have been reluctant to try them again.

Silver ones sound silvery, the 'experts' tell me. .  Not that I have ever known  silver to make a noise.

 

I have played with them in a mad moment myself,   as if you don't buy them  from an audio shop they don't cost much. As I  remember I paid about twenty dollars  UK equivalent for a yard of 5-way plus screen  (USB)   100%  silver cable from my local electronics store. I put the connectors on myself, you have to use 'silver solder' which isn't notably  expensive either.

[Summit]

1 hour ago, Spacehound said:

No they aren't

 

They do! Take software like Asio or Wasapi that are bypassing the windows kernel mixer as an example.  Other computer tasks in a computer have the same degrading SQ effect because of more computer work and data to handle at the same time as playing music. More unrelated processing, everything else kept equal, create more data traffic, heat and noise from hard drives, RAM and processor.

[botrytis]

There are a million different answers to this., depending on the audiophile you ask.

 

I mean there is a thread here about how to improve the SQ of a computer audio system and there are some kooky things in that thread. Why is this different?

 

I didn't vote, btw.

[Spacehound]

40 minutes ago, Summit said:

 

They do! Take software like Asio or Wasapi that are bypassing the windows kernel mixer as an example.  Other computer tasks in a computer have the same degrading SQ effect because of more computer work and data to handle at the same time as playing music. More unrelated processing, everything else kept equal, create more data traffic, heat and noise from hard drives, RAM and processor.

There is some truth in what you say. At IBM   we can make  a portable radio play  tunes   by putting it  on top of a CPU and 'programming to suit'.)

 

However (there's always at least one  however).

1) 'Music' (which isn't music at the time)  processing is such a light load that that as long at the digital output is bit perfect it doesn't matter how it gets there.

2) Timing is not important as it's all done by the DAC's clock so what else is going on doesn't matter.

3) The 'shape' of a bit is not important (and often zeros and ones are exactly the same electrically and there is NO gap between them so 'edges' don't matter as they don't exist so cannot be detected)   unless it's so bad it is detected incorrectly which result in a loud 'click'. There is no  'gradual degradation'. Which is the whole point of using 'digital' at all.

[firedog]

the choices are too binary. The real answer for me is "X can make a difference, sometimes, depending on setup"

[semente]

I see no mention of vaccines...

[mansr]

4 hours ago, Spacehound said:

Galvanic isolation I  think is a 'maybe'. Most DACs don't use USB power and so its wire is not connected inside the DAC. So there is only the 'ground' left. And that will be connected  to other things  whether you have galvanic isolation or not.

It's real easy and only takes a minute or two  to test if galvanic isolation has any effect or not   but I can't be bothered.

It's easy enough to construct a setup where differences with various types of isolation are readily measured. Actually hearing a difference is another story.

[fas42]

I didn't see an option: ??) Locating and resolving implementation flaws improves SQ

 

Hence, didn't vote, because all the rest are quite trivial in comparison.

[Spacehound]

8 hours ago, mansr said:

 

 

It's easy enough to construct a setup where differences with various types of isolation are readily measured. Actually hearing a difference is another story.

I agree with that and didn't intend to imply any different. Maybe you didn't either.

 

(My not being bothered is a 30 mile  round trip and the signing of a chit for the security man.)

 

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

I agree with that and didn't intend to imply any different. Maybe you didn't either.

You said you hadn't bothered setting up a test. I have. That's all.

[beerandmusic]

so far 12 to 1 believe that SQ above 44.1 is possible.

[diecaster]

5 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

so far 12 to 1 believe that SQ above 44.1 is possible.

 

Do you mean it is possible to attain better sound quality at higher sampling rates than 44.1 kHz? There really isn't any valid argument to suggest otherwise.

[mansr]

6 hours ago, beerandmusic said:

so far 12 to 1 believe that SQ above 44.1 is possible.

According to the tally at the top of the page, it's 12 to 5. You rather confusingly listed both CD and redbook. Those are one and the same.

[mansr]

6 hours ago, diecaster said:

Do you mean it is possible to attain better sound quality at higher sampling rates than 44.1 kHz? There really isn't any valid argument to suggest otherwise.

The argument is that we are unable to hear anything above (at most) 20 kHz. Sampling at 44.1 kHz thus allows a filter transition bandwidth of 4.1 kHz without creating any audible aliasing.

 

Counterarguments are that these filter requirements are impossible to realise and that we might possibly, somehow be able to perceive higher frequencies. With oversampling ADCs and digital filters, the former is longer an issue, and there is precious little evidence in support of the latter.

 

Of course, storage is cheap, so if you're even the slightest bit worried that CD resolution is insufficient, by all means go for high-res.