Is Digital Audio A Mature Science?

[sandyk]

9 minutes ago, esldude said:

But the basic digital music tech for playback is mature imo.

 

 Mature , or Manure ?

[Ralf11]

who thinks bits aren't bits??

[sandyk]

kumakuma reacted to this

 

 Down boy !

The photo was about her NOSE job.

[kumakuma]

19 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

the results are still WAY better than the majority of the regular " bits are bits , and nothing else matters"  brigade are listening to in their own systems.

 

 

You have no way of knowing this.

[KeenObserver]

I'm convinced it is mature technology. Any further advancements reach the immeasurable stage and cannot be heard by normal humans.  They make a "huge difference" to a certain group.  If only this group had wings, they could solve the world's mosquito problem.

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

I'm convinced it is mature technology. Any further advancements reach the immeasurable stage and cannot be heard by normal humans.  They make a "huge difference" to a certain group.  If only this group had wings, they could solve the world's mosquito problem.

 

If members like Alex Crespi of Uptone Audio ever have an " open day" perhaps you should pay them a visit.

[fas42]

When a system is working to a high level of SQ it's trivially easy to alter some aspect of the electrical environment, and hear audible changes. Part of the maturing of that setup is evolving it so that this audibility sensitivity becomes less and less, without losing any of the quality of the reproduction.

[KeenObserver]

14 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

If members like Alex Crespi of Uptone Audio ever have an " open day" perhaps you should pay them a visit.

 

I have seen the light!

 

Digital is not a mature technology!

 

There are NO DAC producers that are capable of isolating data from noise!

There are NO DAC producers that are capable of reducing jitter to the level of current clock technology!

There are NO DAC producers that understand post digital processing analog technology!

 

If all of the DAC producers in the world came and sat at your feet and learned, they would be capable of producing a mature product!

[iaval]

The biggest problem with SQ, at least from my perspective, is that a lot of people are chasing it as the #1 priority, and are willing to sacrifice a lot for it. I don't mean necessarily money. But convenience is a factor too, as well as:

• power consumption
• heat dissipation
• longevity
• compatibility
• maintenance required
• durability
• weight
• extra features

There's just no compromise with some. I'm more than willing to trade 5 times lower power consumption of TLE2062IP vs JRC4556AD over extra 6dB of noise, worse THD+N into loads below 32Ohm, worse linearity, etc. because 2062IP still gets the job done reasonably well at 4.5mA quiescent over 22mA drained by 4556AD. It's not a compromise I'd hear, therefore a tradeoff over what's very noticeable (battery life) is definitely worth it. 

[esldude]

I wonder if some posters would realize just how silly they seem to anyone else in the wider world insisting digital audio is not a mature technology? That we have 13 pages of discussion on the subject is by now comical.  

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

If all of the DAC producers in the world came and sat at your feet and learned, they would be capable of producing a mature product! 

A typical sarcastic reply from a deaf know-it-all E.E.  or wannabe E.E. !

 Despite what you may wish to believe , almost ALL commercial products are capable of further improvements using normal technical methods.

 Almost every affordable product has been designed to fit in to a price range, even when the designers are capable of  improving the product with further improvements, especially in shared PSU areas for digital and analogue, and improved clocking where applicable..

[ralphfcooke]

Yes, of course everything is capable of improvement, but if that improvement is 150+ Db below the signal it is very difficult to see any possible advantage in the real world, except for bragging rights.

I guess that's pretty much what 'High-end' audio is all about, it allows the 'golden eared'  among us to justify their excessive claims of being able to discern (notice I do not use the word hear) differences that are statistically almost impossible to either prove or disprove without DBT, which of course the subjectivists deplore. 

 

[KeenObserver]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

A typical sarcastic reply from a deaf know-it-all E.E.  or wannabe E.E. !

 Despite what you may wish to believe , almost ALL commercial products are capable of further improvements using normal technical methods.

 Almost every affordable product has been designed to fit in to a price range, even when the designers are capable of  improving the product with further improvements, especially in shared PSU areas for digital and analogue, and improved clocking where applicable..

 

Yes, you are right!  Any product can be improved!

 

I put together a child's swing set with grade 8 bolts that had been sent to the lab to be tested and proved.  The more advanced children were able to tell that the swing functioned better.  The Luddite children were blithely unaware.

[Ralf11]

only a dolt would use grade 8 bolts - get with titanium now!!

[Jud]

21 hours ago, esldude said:

I agree with this. Analog tech was employed in New and inventive ways for more than a century. Digital is like that now. But the basic digital music tech for playback is mature imo.

 

Less than a decade ago I switched from silver disks playing through a Theta DS Pro Basic DAC limited to 48kHz input and using 8x oversampling, to an Apple Airport Express outputting computer files via Toslink, then through Toslink-to-coax converter and into the aforementioned Theta.  Then to a V-Link USB-to-SPDIF converter inputting computer files and outputting to a Schiit Bifrost with a chip using delta-sigma modulation.  Eventually to a desktop streaming DSD512 converted by software players, via Wi-Fi to a miniaturized device in another room sending it to a DAC that just does the final analog reconstruction filtering.  I have a streaming service that provides a couple of million(!) tracks in up to 24/192 resolution.  I can play any of those, or local files recorded in resolutions up to DSD256, using my iPhone as a remote control.

 

Does it sound better than silver discs through the old Theta?  I think so, but then I would, wouldn't I?

 

Maybe 5-10 years from now we'll have enough inexpensive computer processing power to run much more sophisticated and convenient room equalization software.  Maybe recording technology will take a leap forward.  Maybe filtering will use wavelets or something else different enough from present technology to be audible.

 

I don't know whether such leaps forward, or others, lie ahead in the reasonably near future.  Care to hazard a guess?

[Ralf11]

my guess is Yes - look at the Kii's 

 

and... so if your Airport Express did not kill your SQ, then maybe my Apple TV3 isn't killing my SQ??  Stay tuned - I have a test idea

[fas42]

Yes, look at the Kii's - why do they 'work'? Umm, it's because the whole shebang comes in one box, and there are far less opportunites for the SQ to be undone by poor system integration practices.

 

The inability for people to appreciate that you are always listening to the qualities of the worst parts of the rig - never the qualities of the "best parts" ! - truly amazes me at times ...

[One and a half]

38 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

only a dolt would use grade 8 bolts - get with titanium now!!

 

Link

Link

 

Your fetish with Titanium is really showing. Now I suppose you're after a blind test between the 8.8 and Titanium?

 

 

 

[KeenObserver]

45 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Less than a decade ago I switched from silver disks playing through a Theta DS Pro Basic DAC limited to 48kHz input and using 8x oversampling, to an Apple Airport Express outputting computer files via Toslink, then through Toslink-to-coax converter and into the aforementioned Theta.  Then to a V-Link USB-to-SPDIF converter inputting computer files and outputting to a Schiit Bifrost with a chip using delta-sigma modulation.  Eventually to a desktop streaming DSD512 converted by software players, via Wi-Fi to a miniaturized device in another room sending it to a DAC that just does the final analog reconstruction filtering.  I have a streaming service that provides a couple of million(!) tracks in up to 24/192 resolution.  I can play any of those, or local files recorded in resolutions up to DSD256, using my iPhone as a remote control.

 

Does it sound better than silver discs through the old Theta?  I think so, but then I would, wouldn't I?

 

Maybe 5-10 years from now we'll have enough inexpensive computer processing power to run much more sophisticated and convenient room equalization software.  Maybe recording technology will take a leap forward.  Maybe filtering will use wavelets or something else different enough from present technology to be audible.

 

I don't know whether such leaps forward, or others, lie ahead in the reasonably near future.  Care to hazard a guess?

 

My first cd player 30+ years ago was a Revox B226.  I still have it.  I am presently using a Benchmark DAC3 HGC.  I did a casual listening comparison and think the Benchmark sounds better.  To me it sounds extremely "clean" and precise.  But, it is not "Oh my God, smack me in the face" better.  If the Revox was all I had,  I would use it.

The point is, for the past 30+ years,  audiophiles have been giving glowing reviews to each new system that comes out, touting them as paradigm shifts.  At this point you would think that the Revox would sound like a horrible piece of crap in comparison.  It doesn't.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

 

My first cd player 30+ years ago was a Revox B226.  I still have it.  I am presently using a Benchmark DAC3 HGC.  I did a casual listening comparison and think the Benchmark sounds better.  To me it sounds extremely "clean" and precise.  But, it is not "Oh my God, smack me in the face" better.  If the Revox was all I had,  I would use it.

The point is, for the past 30+ years,  audiophiles have been giving glowing reviews to each new system that comes out, touting them as paradigm shifts.  At this point you would think that the Revox would sound like a horrible piece of crap in comparison.  It doesn't.

 

I owned and enjoyed the Theta system for 20+ years.  Why would I suddenly dislike it just because something else might be an improvement?

 

If I felt that way, I'd hardly dare to listen to high end systems at audio shows, but actually I look forward to it.

 

Edit: I also own a turntable and LPs, some of which are 50+ years old, and greatly enjoy listening to them too.  In fact I loved a cassette of a low-fi Springsteen live bootleg LP and was quite sad when my cassette player gave up the ghost.

[Ralf11]

1 hour ago, One and a half said:

 

Link

Link

 

Your fetish with Titanium is really showing. Now I suppose you're after a blind test between the 8.8 and Titanium?

 

 

 

 

I can post a link to a guy who really does have a Ti fetish; he goes by the name Lichtbauer on a Porsche 911 forum.

 

The bind testing has been done already - Ti is light wt. and resists corrosion.  Analogously, there can be galvanic problems...

[Ralf11]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

 

My first cd player 30+ years ago was a Revox B226.  I still have it.  I am presently using a Benchmark DAC3 HGC.  I did a casual listening comparison and think the Benchmark sounds better.  To me it sounds extremely "clean" and precise.  But, it is not "Oh my God, smack me in the face" better.  If the Revox was all I had,  I would use it.

The point is, for the past 30+ years,  audiophiles have been giving glowing reviews to each new system that comes out, touting them as paradigm shifts.  At this point you would think that the Revox would sound like a horrible piece of crap in comparison.  It doesn't.

 

Thx for posting the comparison, and for properly characterizing it, as in the part I bolded.

[esldude]

11 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Less than a decade ago I switched from silver disks playing through a Theta DS Pro Basic DAC limited to 48kHz input and using 8x oversampling, to an Apple Airport Express outputting computer files via Toslink, then through Toslink-to-coax converter and into the aforementioned Theta.  Then to a V-Link USB-to-SPDIF converter inputting computer files and outputting to a Schiit Bifrost with a chip using delta-sigma modulation.  Eventually to a desktop streaming DSD512 converted by software players, via Wi-Fi to a miniaturized device in another room sending it to a DAC that just does the final analog reconstruction filtering.  I have a streaming service that provides a couple of million(!) tracks in up to 24/192 resolution.  I can play any of those, or local files recorded in resolutions up to DSD256, using my iPhone as a remote control.

 

Does it sound better than silver discs through the old Theta?  I think so, but then I would, wouldn't I?

 

Maybe 5-10 years from now we'll have enough inexpensive computer processing power to run much more sophisticated and convenient room equalization software.  Maybe recording technology will take a leap forward.  Maybe filtering will use wavelets or something else different enough from present technology to be audible.

 

I don't know whether such leaps forward, or others, lie ahead in the reasonably near future.  Care to hazard a guess?

This is similar to what I alluded to earlier.  Basic digital audio technology is mature.  It is hitting near the limits of what is possible in the analog world.  There isn't much further to go. 

 

Now the other things you are describing are finding more ways to use that tech, and using DSP which is not mature in the sense that new ways of using it will make for substantial advances.  The RoomEQ software or software/hardware is happening now.  It has a ways to go until the software matures.  I don't think using wavelets or such will make audible differences, but that is because the better gear already is transparent to the source.  Using more channels or spatial processing like object based audio via DSP will make a difference if they can build a market for it.  Maybe they'll even manage to make speakers with real time adaptive directionality so they can overcome some of the limitations of stereo.  That probably would require more than two channels of recording info, but maybe it can playback with only two channels. 

 

So I've no crystal ball, but things will improve in the future and it won't be via tweaky over-priced audiophile products imo. 

[esldude]

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2018/12/measurements-intel-i7-pc-and-raspberry.html

 

Results here don't look like Asynch USB DACs are incredibly sensitive to the PC involved or the source of the USB. 

[sandyk]

14 hours ago, ralphfcooke said:

Yes, of course everything is capable of improvement, but if that improvement is 150+ Db below the signal it is very difficult to see any possible advantage in the real world, except for bragging rights.

I guess that's pretty much what 'High-end' audio is all about, it allows the 'golden eared'  among us to justify their excessive claims of being able to discern (notice I do not use the word hear) differences that are statistically almost impossible to either prove or disprove without DBT, which of course the subjectivists deplore. 

 

 

 I have never claimed to be " golden eared", but I do have an unusual advantage (?)  in that the hearing in both ears is VERY different and I am sometimes able to notice some differences that others may miss.

 Peter St also hears quite differently between both ears, yet he is the designer of XXHE player software for Windows, the highly respected Phasure NOS DAC and the Lush USB cable.

 

Furthermore, I did have my reports verified by way of 6 separate correctly performed DBTs by a qualified E.E. and technical reviewer/writer.