- Joined
- Feb 23, 2016
- Messages
- 20,895
- Likes
- 37,943
yep again. That is why I am a big proponent of carefully matching amp to speaker and picking the speaker first. That way you have a target to work with.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
DACS Have they gone about as far as they can go?
- Thread starter Purité Audio
- Start date
Do you like the term "Rule of Thumb" better then? The point being, power supplies are not nice things, electrically, as far as precision audio is concerned - quite a few manufacturers have worked this out, and pull out amazing stops to try and get this under control, some more successful than others.
If the power supply can be an itty, bitty thing, so much the better for quality audio, anywhere in the chain.
Okay, looking better. The easy way out is to pick a competent, highly efficient speaker with an extremely benign impedance curve - something Klipsch comes to mind here! - and drive it with a half reasonable amplifier - this bypasses so, so many problems.
A favourite memory is finding a fairly low cost Klipsch, tower speaker in an electrical store, and asking for a demo with a very ordinary Jap receiver, Panasonic or something. Okkaaay, let's see what she can do - opened it wide up, and the sound spread throughout the store, but was clean as a whistle. It was Class A PA stuff, blew your typical audiophile "rubbish" into the weeds, in terms of delivering true dynamics - the store chappy came running from the other side of the huge place, in a panic ...
So a simple "solution", that cost peanuts compared to getting equivalent results from street cred audiophile gear ...
Sorry, not really. In very simplistic A power supply needs to supply whatever current is required and be quite in terms of noise and a stable voltage.
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2016
- Messages
- 20,895
- Likes
- 37,943
If that is what you are looking for the simplest solution is a Maggie. Many of them are just all but purely resistive in nature. 4 ohms maybe, but resistive. Otherwise I guess go for the Khorn. Connect to either a 10 watt OTL or 10 watt class D and enjoy.
That's the theory. The reality is that when larger currents are required, and the parasitic parameters of power supply parts are taken into account then power supplies "do behave badly".
Much of my earlier investigating, and refining audio components focused on improving the real behaviours of the power supplies. The result was very dynamic sound, undistorted, to the point of clipping - having that one area under much better control made such a difference, from then I found it easy to pick how "defective" much of the normal gear out there is, with signature distortion artifacts being very audible.
In fact, at the last audio show Maggies, driven by Magtech amplifier, and Lampizator DAC delivered highly competent sound.
I'm not looking for any particular speaker, my example was purely to point to a simple way of getting "big" sound happening, I have plenty of speakers in-house to work through ...
Mivera
Major Contributor
You guys should seriously consider that this thread wasn't meant to be a chat line. How long do you think a guest to the forum is going to read through this thread before deciding that this forum sucks? Take the chats to private messaging, and save the threads for sharing useful data.
To me useful data is:
1:Experiments
2:Spec sheets
3:Measurement results
4 Discussions of circuit topologies
5 Photo's of circuits
6:Subjective feedback.
I know Amir may disagree with #6, but at least it's something.
To me useful data is:
1:Experiments
2:Spec sheets
3:Measurement results
4 Discussions of circuit topologies
5 Photo's of circuits
6:Subjective feedback.
I know Amir may disagree with #6, but at least it's something.
Mivera
Major Contributor
In the first 4 posts of this thread, eons ago, the fight was on - it always been a chat line ...
Well you know some have share photo's, data sheets, experiment results and stuff like that. For some reason, people like reading that stuff much more than senseless blabbering arguments.
Actually, the "problem" may be the name of the forum - "Audio Science Review". Review implies an evaluation of a process, an entity, a performance - criticism is core to the concept ... ie. we're dissecting, Audio Science.
What you might be after would be found in a place called, the "Applied Audio Science" forum,.
What you might be after would be found in a place called, the "Applied Audio Science" forum,
.
Mivera
Major Contributor
Actually, the "problem" may be the name of the forum - "Audio Science Review". Review implies an evaluation of a process, an entity, a performance - criticism is core to the concept ... ie. we're dissecting, Audio Science.
What you might be after would be found in a place called, the "Applied Audio Science" forum,
Well there might only be 3 contributors to the forum soon if the results of this vision persist.
no, its a examination of the science of audio..Actually, the "problem" may be the name of the forum - "Audio Science Review". Review implies an evaluation of a process, an entity, a performance - criticism is core to the concept ... ie. we're dissecting, Audio Science.
What you might be after would be found in a place called, the "Applied Audio Science" forum,
i have no problem with what is going on other than the lack of data. all this talk of 'mystery' fixes for 'broken' systems but no photos and no specifics.
why not post a before and after of the some of these ' fixes' then those qualified can discuss the merits of the works carried out. really all this no different to other forums with guys 'claiming' to be technically competent but just blathering posturations.
Mivera
Major Contributor
Here's an example of competant test results:
Hypex NC-500 with the standard OEM input buffer board:
Hypex NC-500 with an upgraded input board circuit design:
Hypex NC-500 with the standard OEM input buffer board:
Hypex NC-500 with an upgraded input board circuit design:
I find it difficult to differentiate "examination of the science of audio" from "dissecting audio science". If you said, "application of audio science to examining performance" I would see the difference.
The fixes aren't magical, not in the slightest - it always, always depends on the actual system in question. For example, on my latest project, the NAD integrated was nominally competent, but in raw form was very dirty in the sound. Turns out, and it's all detailed in my blog - no secrets here! - the path through the unit was full of crappy switches, junk connections; simple solution, hardwire throughout, it effectively becomes a raw power amp, no functions on the front panel work any more. The inputs were in turn hard-wired to the CD player, no rubbishy RCA anywhere, also, output relay bypassed and speakers hard-wired through to the drivers. The other issue is that, typical of all audio gear, the power supplies are very sensitive to interference, so when I do serious listening I effectively dedicate separate power spurs in the house to each box.
This alone gives me pretty good sound - I have examples on my YouTube channel - and I have still miles of things I can do; again, it's about identifying the flimsy weaknesses that normal audio equipment is afflicted with, and eliminating them.
ok, well this sites direction seems to be a audio science magazine with a forum in the back. so the title is perfect as it is.
what you have written makes ok sense, i have doen some similar things myself. have you any measurements of before and after? any reason why you dont link these pictures and videos from you post so we dont have to go searching round the net?
not sure how critically effective using different spurs is? it all links up back the consumer unit.
maybe we can start another thread for these types of upgrades your speaking about as this is about the limits in genuine advances in DAC technology.
what you have written makes ok sense, i have doen some similar things myself. have you any measurements of before and after? any reason why you dont link these pictures and videos from you post so we dont have to go searching round the net?
not sure how critically effective using different spurs is? it all links up back the consumer unit.
maybe we can start another thread for these types of upgrades your speaking about as this is about the limits in genuine advances in DAC technology.
Your last comment is very reasonable; however, this thread has devolved into a general thrashing about what's important in audio in general, hence where we are now. Of course, my point would be, was that in DAC units that are considered highly, and are expensive, is that the very things that I worry about are often also worried about ... QED.
Measurements, no. It has never made sense to me, I only measure what I believe is relevant - so I will carefully measure the parasitic characteristics of a transformer to get a power supply right - because it makes sense to.
Different spurs are a fudge to gain some, hopefully sufficient separation, using distance - this works, otherwise everyone on your street would be thrashing your mains quality to a pulp; the proper, long term solution is to apply filtering right at the component, and I've tried many variations of such over the years.
The goal is do what is sufficient, to get the quality you're happy with from the system; of course, all audio components should be engineered well enough so there are no such issues ... but ...
All the links follow from the link in my signature.
Measurements, no. It has never made sense to me, I only measure what I believe is relevant - so I will carefully measure the parasitic characteristics of a transformer to get a power supply right - because it makes sense to.
Different spurs are a fudge to gain some, hopefully sufficient separation, using distance - this works, otherwise everyone on your street would be thrashing your mains quality to a pulp; the proper, long term solution is to apply filtering right at the component, and I've tried many variations of such over the years.
The goal is do what is sufficient, to get the quality you're happy with from the system; of course, all audio components should be engineered well enough so there are no such issues ... but ...
All the links follow from the link in my signature.
great! can you define what you mean by 'parasitic' artifacts and identify it in measurement(the real world) their origin and present your solution to this 'problem' and provide some evidence its working as claimed beyond you own subjective assessment as this carries no weight. .
searching through your site for these ' links' that directly reference what you're talking about here is most unhelpful. it's rather amusing to me you go to great length to make your signal path direct and without unnecessary impediment but you dont seem to have this same philosophy in this instance. i am mystified as to why.
present you ideas and present your evidence, directly.
oh and yes everyone is thrashing my mains to death, when they all bugger off to bed things sound even better (subjectively). this must be measurable i would think, i invite ideas to this end.
Last edited:
I see you haven't met fas42 before... You will never get any clear answer to any of your questions. Nor will you ever get any data. fas42 is able to transform any system even a $20 Home Theater In a Box to surpass anything. You will never know however how he does it because either he won't tell you or you wouldn't understand even if he were to tell you and don't feel bad because no one else would understand either.
I'm referring to all electronic parts having parasitic characteristics, a standard terminology in the Spice world. A transformer is a real bundle of stray inductances, capacitances and non-linear behaviours - these impact on its ability to perfectly "transform" the input - what I was concerned about at the time was stray inductance, I wanted to snub the ringing of the secondary winding at rectifier switch off as effectively as possible. Which worked - no measurements, but good ol' subjective assessment said it was a worthwhile exercise.
But you say this carries no weight. Therefore, I should do nothing to reduce electrical misbehaviour, unless I can get a number on some instrument which says that there was a change, is what you're saying. And if I get a number change, what will be a relevant change? 1%, 5%, 25%, 200%? The dance of numbers is interesting, but I don't want to spend my life obsessing about them unless they have genuine, and useful, meaning.
Sorry about not being more clear about links, it is a blog, after all. Probably the best one to go to is http://artofaudioconjuring.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Tweaking.
But you say this carries no weight. Therefore, I should do nothing to reduce electrical misbehaviour, unless I can get a number on some instrument which says that there was a change, is what you're saying. And if I get a number change, what will be a relevant change? 1%, 5%, 25%, 200%? The dance of numbers is interesting, but I don't want to spend my life obsessing about them unless they have genuine, and useful, meaning.
Sorry about not being more clear about links, it is a blog, after all. Probably the best one to go to is http://artofaudioconjuring.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Tweaking.
Similar threads
- Poll
- Poll
