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audiophile optimizer?

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fas42

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If the integrity of the digital signal has been maintained, the computer away from the DAC.. The noise is irrelevant.

It's what happens in your dac and what gets through to the analogue side.. So unless your computer is infesting your dac it's all bollocks.

Watchnerd can walk you through the science of bollocks , I'm watching the semifinals of the world darts championship :D
The integrity of the digital is fine, yes, the computer away from the DAC, yes - but the noise is irrelevant, no. This is all about engineering, and the level of the impact - 20dB down sound is totally corrupted , 120dB down you would need the hearing of angels. But what about effects if 60-80dB down? 'Fraid to say that distortion is not like a big switch, On, or Off, in terms of audibility - it's the stuff right at the edge of one being aware that it's there that causes that long term dissatisfaction with an audio playback setup ...

May the bulleyes be with you ...

BTW:
Also by the same reasoning of "digital processes create electrical noise" the very process of playing a file would create noise so you could never escape to nirvana

is part of the problem, but all it requires is good enough engineering to cover the bases. Of course, if the engineer doesn't believe that this problem can happen, then he's not going to do a bang up job of getting the engineering good enough, you see.
 
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watchnerd

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The integrity of the digital is fine, yes, the computer away from the DAC, yes - but the noise is irrelevant, no. This is all about engineering, and the level of the impact - 20dB down sound is totally corrupted , 120dB down you would need the hearing of angels. But what about effects if 60-80dB down? 'Fraid to say that distortion is not like a big switch, On, or Off, in terms of audibility - it's the stuff right at the edge of one being aware that it's there that causes that long term dissatisfaction with an audio playback setup ...

See preceeding table:

Noise was at -112dbA
 

fas42

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Measured in a particular, highly conventional manner - underneath all this back and fro is the disagreement that current measuring is good enough to tell one everything about what matters. Can you measure a working system, and guarantee that you know whether the next person to hear it will find something lacking, or not, in the subjective quality?
 

amirm

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Noise was at -112dbA
Because of the FFT process improvement, the actual noise floor is well above this. Need to back out the effect of FFT size and window to get at the real noise floor.
 

watchnerd

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Measured in a particular, highly conventional manner - underneath all this back and fro is the disagreement that current measuring is good enough to tell one everything about what matters. Can you measure a working system

If you want more data comparing different platforms, you can find it here. Table also included below:

16-44_Summary.png


guarantee that you know whether the next person to hear it will find something lacking, or not, in the subjective quality?

Guarantee it? No. But I'd definitely place a bet on it if we're talking about these kinds of numbers.

Given other data we have about human hearing limits on noise (let alone music masked noise), I don't see a strong need to DBT this.
 

fas42

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Given other data we have about human hearing limits on noise (let alone music masked noise), I don't see a strong need to DBT this.
Which is why movement forward in the audio game is dreadfully slow ... one side is absolutely certain they know it all, they can always measure what's relevant - and the other side says, yes, bollocks !!!
 

watchnerd

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Which is why movement forward in the audio game is dreadfully slow ... one side is absolutely certain they know it all, they can always measure what's relevant - and the other side says, yes, bollocks !!!

It's because extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

You are essentially making extraordinary claims regarding the audibility of noise that conflicts with other known data. Okay, fair enough -- now please share your extraordinary proof to refute the prior precedent.
 

fas42

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I want "proof" that the current set of measurements methods are sufficient to tell one what the subjective quality will be. Every time I've investigated what the AES crowd, etc, do to "determine something" the poor quality of their methods amazes me - they will completely ignore whole sets of confounders - I would have almost zero faith in any research coming from that area, to tell me whether something was audible or not.
 
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watchnerd

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I want "proof" that that the current set of measurements methods are sufficient to tell one what the subjective quality will be.

For electronics, these exist. It has been proven in multiple DBT tests that when a certain level of quality is achieved, as measured by current distortion, noise, etc measurements, the tested electronics items will be transparent to one another.

Even The Absolute Sound is saying things like this:

"I know this is not the sort of thing we’re supposed to say about products, but it has been evident for a very long time now that solid-state electronics, particularly linestage preamplifiers and power amplifiers, have reached a point where they are effectively a solved problem such that it is exceeding difficult to tell one from another even in the most exacting A/B comparisons."


Transducers are a completely different story, but this thread is about computers, not speakers or microphones.
 

fas42

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For electronics, these exist. It has been proven in multiple DBT tests that when a certain level of quality is achieved, as measured by current distortion, noise, etc measurements, the tested electronics items will be transparent to one another.

Even The Absolute Sound is saying things like this:

"I know this is not the sort of thing we’re supposed to say about products, but it has been evident for a very long time now that solid-state electronics, particularly linestage preamplifiers and power amplifiers, have reached a point where they are effectively a solved problem such that it is exceeding difficult to tell one from another even in the most exacting A/B comparisons."


Transducers are a completely different story, but this thread is about computers, not speakers or microphones.
Hmmm ... some tested components, in some setting, to some listeners - were transparent. Therefore, all components that pass these tests, in all circumstances, to all listeners will be indistinguishable - nice stretch if you can do it ...
 

Thomas savage

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Hmmm ... some tested components, in some setting, to some listeners - were transparent. Therefore, all components that pass these tests, in all circumstances, to all listeners will be indistinguishable - nice stretch if you can do it ...
Shiiiit Frank watch out!
image.jpeg


I'll save you.... Meh, no I won't :D
 

watchnerd

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Hmmm ... some tested components, in some setting, to some listeners - were transparent. Therefore, all components that pass these tests, in all circumstances, to all listeners will be indistinguishable - nice stretch if you can do it ...

@fas42 I can lead you to water, but I can't make you drink, man. That's all on you.

Personally, I think it's awesome that good electronics and proper computer based systems have reached the point of being solved problems. That leaves more time to work on hard stuff like rooms and speakers.
 

fas42

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fas42

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@fas42 I can lead you to water, but I can't make you drink, man. That's all on you.

Personally, I think it's awesome that good electronics and proper computer based systems have reached the point of being solved problems. That leaves more time to work on hard stuff like rooms and speakers.
Looks like I can't save you either ... 30 years ago I realised that the audio world has things arse over tit - and it's still stuck there ...
 

watchnerd

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Looks like I can't save you either ... 30 years ago I realised that the audio world has things arse over tit - and it's still stuck there ...

No, we can't all be The Chosen One, able to bend audio reality to our will using skills too mystic to be understood by mere mortals.

The rest of us ungifted troglodytes have to deal with measurements.
 

watchnerd

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I want "proof" that the current set of measurements methods are sufficient to tell one what the subjective quality will be.

P.S.

If you seriously want to know the answer to this for the transmission of digital audio (and not just flap your head about it) the test is called The Mask Test. Any device passing it will transparent for purposes of digital audio.

Agilent wrote a nice white paper about it: http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5968-9249E.pdf
 

amirm

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Hmmm ... some tested components, in some setting, to some listeners - were transparent. Therefore, all components that pass these tests, in all circumstances, to all listeners will be indistinguishable - nice stretch if you can do it ...
Measurements are not pass fail. They show data. We compare that data to results of listening tests that show threshold of detection by listeners. That analysis shows that our measured response is usually way, way better than we can hear in those listening tests.

Furthermore, there is little out there to show that people can hear what cannot be measured. All attempts by advocates have failed when everything is removed other than the sound the equipment makes.

For these reason the position you hold is not valid unless you can show new data we don't know about.
 
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