MakeMineVinyl
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And sometimes the ultimate performance of a product depends on the selling price target of the design, and that gets determined by the bean counters. Sometimes 'good enough' is all the engineers can do.
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Could we all be wrong about SINAD?
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dshreter
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That’s a different point though. This thread started with the idea that the lower SINAD was part of achieving a sound signature that could possess merits. Quite the opposite of performing transparently enough for SINAD to be unimportant.
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I fully agree with this. OP: also note that dynamic range of 96dB (16 bits) is many times quieter than this.
What this means is the extra dynamic range and bits (SINAD), which presumably are needed to fully benefit from HiRes, are perfectly inaudible. LPs were "good enough" decades ago, and CD has been "beyond" good enough.
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I was an audiophile that had an Oppo 105 as a DAC back in 2013. As “normal” audiophile like the one you mentioned, I aspired to owning such a highly regarded DAC as the PS Audio PerfectWave mk2. I pulled the trigger and bought one from Audiogon.
As soon as it was plugged in, I thought something was off. It sounded very different from my Oppo 105. And I heavily preferred the Oppo. I brought this up with a few fellow audiophiles and was told that it is likely the distortion coloration in Oppo that I prefer. PS Audio was so pristine and transparent that likely was not used to it.
long story short, I sold the PS Audio after 2 months of owning and never looked back. I did not know much about SINAD at the time, but who knew, my ears did not lie. So PS Audio PerfectWave DAC—highly regarded, but sounds awful would describe it better, at least for me.
It is a problem because it is not purposeful. Almost always it is sloppy engineering with no benefit to consumers.
The problem I have found with coloration in audio is that, when it's global, like in a 2 channel playback system, you will ALWAYS be giving something else up. a clean system will be faithful to the program material, while a colored system may make the mids "sweet" or the highs "energetic" but you will likely give up low end speed and weight.
As a consumer of audio products, I do care about the performance of the product. I want to be able to differentiate well-performing product from overpriced junk.
What I don't fully understand as a layman is the threshold beyond which increases in SINAD are vanity pursuits versus something that will be audible, either to me specifically, or to the average person. If there are two products, one with 95 SINAD and once with 105 SINAD, and the 95 SINAD unit has other design factors in its favor, is that SINAD difference going to have been something that is audible? What if there are two units, one measuring 85 and one measuring 87, but the one measuring 87 has a distortion profile that is more glaring or offensive than the lower measuring unit?
I get that this is audiosciencereview and not audioconsumerreports, but as an ignorant consumer of audio products it'd be good to know when these metrics stop representing human-perceptible improvements.
As I said above, SINAD of 60dB or better is inaudible under programme conditions, provided that the -60dB is overwhelmingly distortion, and noise is well below that. That would be typical of pretty much any audio product produced in the past 40+ years. It does depend somewhat on what the distortion is, but again as I said above, there's no natural mechanism that would create high values of the more disturbing higher orders without creating even more of the lower orders. In other words, unless going after real vintage equipment, there's no point in looking to SINAD as all recent equipment will be quite good enough. As others have said, high SINAD figures indicate careful and skilful design, so are worth pursuing if for that reason alone, but not because they would result in better sounding products.
S.
This is to show how 1kHz SINAD may be a totally pointless number. And that is why I insist on 19+20kHz test and THD(freq) test for every analog amp/preamp. Yes, it is the vintage uA741 issue not expected to happen nowadays, when SID is usually not an issue, however it is good to test and not to pretend it could not happen
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It's not worth obsessing over SINAD. Room noise levels, except for some active speakers, dwarf noise from electronics. Speaker distortion eclipses distortion from electronics. Members here go crazy over active speakers driven by amps with a SINAD of around 75 db, and 48 khz DSP, but somehow that's not acceptable in a Crown XLS 1502. Same goes for folks obsessing over preference scores. It's worth measuring these things, but it's not the alpha and omega of enjoying music.
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I struggled to understand how one could have lowish THD, but quite high 19+10kHz IMD, as both are caused by the same process, that of non-linearity. Then I noticed it was a 741, which has a very poor gain/bandwidth product, so the THD at 19/20kHz would also be high, and nothing like the 1kHz number. So yes, in this case a 1kHz distortion measure, whether THD or SINAD, is totally inadequate to characterise the amplifier.This is to show how 1kHz SINAD may be a totally pointless number. And that is why I insist on 19+20kHz test and THD(freq) test for every analog amp/preamp. Yes, it is the vintage uA741 issue not expected to happen nowadays, when SID is usually not an issue, however it is good to test and not to pretend it could not happen
View attachment 152716 View attachment 152717
As you say, fortunately, 741s aren't much used these days. (by the way, my EMT and AEG line stages were implemented with 741s, and that was mid 1980s. Now all replaced by TL071s.)
S.
What if? What if NAD and PS Audio engineers deliberately added some odd and even harmonics, with specific magnitude ratios, so the precepted sound to the human ear will be optimized to have these audiophile characteristics, such as “warmth” and “depth”, which cannot be captured by the Audio precision analyzer? Maybe they did some research and came up with this secret recipe for an harmonic contamination pattern that does magic to the sound perception, but results in a cr@ppy SINAD?
What if we are all wrong here? Is it time to shut down ASR and lock Amir up?
Never attribute witty intent which is adequately explained by arrogance or ignorance. There are plenty of products that are mediocre yet ubiquitous...
Above SINAD 60 it is very hard to discern differences for the untrained ear. Sound becomes uncolored, dry, analytic, and uninteresting. Much of the older music, e.g. early CDs and before were not recorded well by today's standards. Having a very revealing system will make such music less enjoyable than those systems which will garnish with distortion and noise.
Now that I have a reasonable "audophile" stereo listening area I can hear these differences, and know that ABBA on my childhood's tube based National phono receiver sounded different, warmer and fuller on its paper cone speakers that it sounds today on the KEF LS50 Metas + sub that are time aligned, linear in FR and phase from 19Hz-17KHz, driven by a SINAD 90 receiver with SINAD 100 built-in DAC. Some Queen albums sound lacking in deeper bass and extended "air"... Great music, but its production and recording could be better.
People infer a performance metric provides a proxy to judge whether a product is well engineered. It doesn't. These metrics indicate how a product performed relative to defined criteria and test conditions, end of. They tell you something about performance, they tell you nothing about build quality, component quality, things like thermal management and any other performance metrics, for example. As others have said, if a product provides all the usable performance a customer is able to exploit then going further has no value to the user outside of bragging rights (to use an automotive analogy, the maximum engine power of power that matters is the power the car can send to the road and use, any more than that is pointless).
As others have said, things like feature set, connection options, user interface, build quality are more important for most users than chasing SINAD. I would add industrial design to that list.
As others have said, things like feature set, connection options, user interface, build quality are more important for most users than chasing SINAD. I would add industrial design to that list.
I admit I am being a little obtuse here, but the point of this forum is good measurements. But it would be good to really show why that matters to people. How does it affect them.
How is it sloppy if it meets the use purpose of great sound for the end user? Don't get me wrong, I think it's good that the the overall state has advanced beyond 80db SINAD. But, how does it really affect anyone? The engineers make a product that sounds great. Customers buy the product and are satisfied. Does it matter if they are significantly behind similarly priced devices in distortion?
MakeMineVinyl
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Some of the photography websites I visit obsess over pixel-level resolutions and distortions which no human could ever see, but for them its all about the numbers. Silly there, silly here.
dshreter
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It’s not all about numbers but there’s little to gain with subjective and qualitative discussion. So instead we focus on the things that can be measured and analyzed instead so at least there is something to gain.Some of the photography websites I visit obsess over pixel-level resolutions and distortions which no human could ever see, but for them its all about the numbers. Silly there, silly here.
It’s not to say the measurements under discussion are the sum total of audio science, but at least there is a common basis. I do think the topic of room acoustics and in room measurements are under explored and a great next horizon.
Marketing people and some enthusiasts love simple " more is better" metrics, or "less is better". It's not just an audio thing, I am a cycling enthusiast and know people who spend serious money shaving a few grams from their road bikes despite the fact all they're doing in adding expense and that in most cases they could lose kilos by eating a few less chips. But lightness is bestest in road bikes. Cameras and the pixel count obsession have been noted. I know cooks who obsess over hardness numbers and metallurgy of kitchen knives despite the fact they know nothing about metallurgy beyond what they read in marketing material and magazines, hardest is bestest.
In almost all cases there seems to be a fundamental difference in attitude between people who see gear as a tool to facilitate an activity (listening to music, photography, cycling, cooking etc) and those for whom the gear is a hobby in itself. Those in the first group may spend a lot on equipment and have a keen interest in gear but generally don't obsess about it and maintain a sense of perspective. The second group often seem to become increasingly detached from what the gear actually does and become fixated on metrics. And of course for some it's about status and spending. I have no issues with the idea of the gear becoming an interest in itself, but in most of these fields the gear has long past a point where these metrics really matter and the problems have been solved. But, that is not the same as saying people shouldn't think about what they buy
Take cycling, bike fit is way more important than weight for almost all use cases. How durable is it? What are you going to use it for? Does it have eyes for mudguards and racks if you want them? Are the gear ratios right for you (is single speed a good choice)? Tyre choice is hugely important. The thing is most of these things are determined by use case and preference, not weight, frame stiffness etc yet cycling magazines and marketing are obsessed with frame stiffness and weight.
I see a lot of similarities with audio. It's harder to get an amplifier or DAC that isn't audibly perfectly fine than examples with audibly degraded performance. Speakers and headphones are different but FR tuning is a personal preference and speaker/room set up is a bit like bike fit in being hugely important. For most people feature set, user interface, build quality, industrial design and whether or not they just like it are what matter as audible performance is fine. However there are still some things to consider. Amplifier power needs to be appropriate for the load and desired listening level, it's like bike gearing in not being a right or wrong issue but one in which the specification has to be suitable for the application/use case.
I think we are subjective people. Chasing metrics beyond the point of relevance is a subjective choice, choosing gear for its industrial design, UI or feature set is subjective. Ultimately in audio the gear really doesn't matter. I can listen to the music I love on anything and enjoy it. I think in any hobby there is a certain minimum standard that makes things easier or more enjoyable but that level is invariably way way below what most hobbyists would look at. Most of the musicians I know have very little interest in audio gear as they listen through the equipment.
In almost all cases there seems to be a fundamental difference in attitude between people who see gear as a tool to facilitate an activity (listening to music, photography, cycling, cooking etc) and those for whom the gear is a hobby in itself. Those in the first group may spend a lot on equipment and have a keen interest in gear but generally don't obsess about it and maintain a sense of perspective. The second group often seem to become increasingly detached from what the gear actually does and become fixated on metrics. And of course for some it's about status and spending. I have no issues with the idea of the gear becoming an interest in itself, but in most of these fields the gear has long past a point where these metrics really matter and the problems have been solved. But, that is not the same as saying people shouldn't think about what they buy
Take cycling, bike fit is way more important than weight for almost all use cases. How durable is it? What are you going to use it for? Does it have eyes for mudguards and racks if you want them? Are the gear ratios right for you (is single speed a good choice)? Tyre choice is hugely important. The thing is most of these things are determined by use case and preference, not weight, frame stiffness etc yet cycling magazines and marketing are obsessed with frame stiffness and weight.
I see a lot of similarities with audio. It's harder to get an amplifier or DAC that isn't audibly perfectly fine than examples with audibly degraded performance. Speakers and headphones are different but FR tuning is a personal preference and speaker/room set up is a bit like bike fit in being hugely important. For most people feature set, user interface, build quality, industrial design and whether or not they just like it are what matter as audible performance is fine. However there are still some things to consider. Amplifier power needs to be appropriate for the load and desired listening level, it's like bike gearing in not being a right or wrong issue but one in which the specification has to be suitable for the application/use case.
I think we are subjective people. Chasing metrics beyond the point of relevance is a subjective choice, choosing gear for its industrial design, UI or feature set is subjective. Ultimately in audio the gear really doesn't matter. I can listen to the music I love on anything and enjoy it. I think in any hobby there is a certain minimum standard that makes things easier or more enjoyable but that level is invariably way way below what most hobbyists would look at. Most of the musicians I know have very little interest in audio gear as they listen through the equipment.
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For me, the value of this site is not about obsessing with SINAD and similar metrics, nor is it to promote modern products like Topping and SMSL to the detriment of (insert your favourite DAC/amp here).
It is about educating me and anyone else who may be interested in all sorts of audio and music topics, and ultimately helping us navigate the enormous choice of products out there in order to achieve our personal goals to our personal tastes, while also optimising budgets required to do so. And, of course, it is about spending time virtually with a group of people all over the world who share similar interests as I do -- and let's be frank, there are not that many of us out there who share the passion.
It is about educating me and anyone else who may be interested in all sorts of audio and music topics, and ultimately helping us navigate the enormous choice of products out there in order to achieve our personal goals to our personal tastes, while also optimising budgets required to do so. And, of course, it is about spending time virtually with a group of people all over the world who share similar interests as I do -- and let's be frank, there are not that many of us out there who share the passion.
