Coax, optical, ethernet, USB, HDMI....

[Sal1950]

Sal - I think Mch in this go round is quite different from the flop of Quad, which I was smart enough to see through as an emerging dud back then.

Just that I was hoping by now in the popular genre's of music we'd have everything being recorded/mastered in a mch format. Maybe some form of encryption that would offer stereo to those who don't have mch gear, no more multi-cataloging that has been a killer in days past.
I didn't realize that classical had such a large catalog of mch, thousands of mch HDA albums, really? About all there is in rock are live bluray performances.

 

[Sal1950]

Stereophile has measurements too. And this audio website right here is also welcoming subjectivists. ...And not strictly objectivists.

Bought and paid for by their advertisers IMHO.

 

[NorthSky]

Bought and paid for by their advertisers IMHO.

I trust John Atkinson and team.

 

[NorthSky]

I have tested those USB filters and they make no measured difference Bob. I have Michael's high-end USB cable and will do that test soon.

The exact same little sound purifier box that is in the video?
The guy in that video uses it in combination with the power supply and the ifi USB cable, regular and the Gemini.
That guy is putting his reputation on the line, and so are all the pro audio reviewers of the ifi products. I believe his words, till proven he was lying.

Amir, there are several other audio forums on the internet, but this time around I omitted a dozen links or so.
Personally I am nobody important in audio science, I'm here to learn, and learn with fun and positive criticism.
I don't know if that USB cable measures better than the other one, but in combination with its other ifi family allies (power supply and sound purifier/noise killer), this guy is absolutely certain, and the audio pro reviewers concurred.

I am wide open to find out all the baloney in my music passion and audio hobby, and in a friendly atmosphere.
This is a serious business to some, and others can be so passionate about it that they are losing their life balance.

Tim started a great thread in learning about cables (digital stereo) to transmit his music best. I am in the exact same bag. I'm thirsty to learn, be on the right path, not making judgement till it feels and measures right by the top guns//gurus of the unbiased audio world.
There is more than it seems to appear, and before making a decision, a choice, a fair judgement...it takes a lot of true and honest courage, and more. IMO

<<>> There is a lake up high in the mountain, and in that lake there are no trouts, the water is clean; I offer my help to put baby trouts in that lake, so that we can go have fun fishing and eating good food. That's me, my audio philosophy.

 

[Blumlein 88]

snippage.....

• http://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/micro-iusbpower/
snip....

See things like this are deceptive. One of the GREAT strengths of digital is being immune or nearly fully immune to noise. The complete fidelity can get through lots of noise. Sure having 1 uvolt noise seems much better than having 10 or 100 times that much. Yet in digital there likely is no difference at all in the playback with either condition. That is part and parcel of what makes digital work so well.

 

[amirm]

The exact same little sound purifier box that is in the video?

No the smaller version. It has positive testimonials just the same. It is totally ineffective.

 

[NorthSky]

"One of the GREAT strengths of digital is being immune or nearly fully immune to noise."

If only it was so.

" The complete fidelity can get through lots of noise."

Sure is.


"Sure having 1 uvolt noise seems much better than having 10 or 100 times that much. Yet in digital there likely is no difference at all in the playback with either condition. That is part and parcel of what makes digital work so well."

Likely? I just don't know. And if digital works so well why so many audio engineers are working on removing all kind of digital noise, distortion, jitter, other digital deficiencies by designing external power supplies, noise eliminators, better geometry in cables, using solid mathematics and scientifically improved designs over all the audio suffering we have been enduring since the early eighties?
We are living with so many digital flaws that we became addicted. Time to clean up all that digital distortion from better audio designs.

I am not convinced @ all that I am having a good sound; to the contrary, I'm living an illusion that it is good sound.

 

[NorthSky]

No the smaller version. It has positive testimonials just the same. It is totally ineffective.

Like me you watched the video in its entirety, I know you did. He added that little "Sound Purifier" box between the ifi USB cable and the ifi power supply.
It is between two other ifi products; that's how he used it and positively commented in superior sound experience, in that loop.

 

[Cosmik]

* I will no longer participate in this thread (Tim's thread). It is simply too hostile, not friendly, no fun. I'm not having fun.

Generally, "objectivists" are seen as negative party poopers who just want to spoil the fun. But for me, the idea that digital cables costing $2 are audibly and measurably identical to the ones that cost $10000 is the most fun, positive message of all!

 

[Sal1950]

I'm living an illusion that it is good sound

Welcome to the Grand Illusion

 

[amirm]

Like me you watched the video in its entirety, I know you did. He added that little "Sound Purifier" box between the ifi USB cable and the ifi power supply.
It is between two other ifi products; that's how he used it and positively commented in superior sound experience, in that loop.

I did watch the whole video. As with the testing of Audioquest Jitterbug and Regen, I expect that device to also be ineffective. I even tested the Regen with a dedicated power supply made to make it better and it still did not.

It is a tough, tough area to try to add value Bob. One of the problems is that removing noise also softens the signal. The way you get a square wave is to have infinite bandwidth. Any noise removal will think some of the high frequencies are noise and removes them. And with it, it can also damage the pulses itself. You probably know of this effect in video where studios attempt to remove film noise and wind up with a softer looking video.

Now, you could try to clean up the power line. But there, every DAC out there as a regulator. The regulator already cleans up the USB power. Try to clean that signal again while in theory can show some measured improvement, would require incompetence on behalf of the DAC designer. The designers know that the USB power is very dirty so they try hard to clean that up. Try to wash the power a second time is not going to have that much of an effect.

We are so used to using our own gut feeling that we go astray here. We think "analog" in these matters. But that is not the case here. We must not use our intuition in evaluating these products.

 

[NorthSky]

I don't use my headphones very often, almost nil (I got a dozen pairs). But some people do, maybe Tim too.
But where we plug our headphone cable has consequences too on our sound quality, and depending of the source (digital or analog).
♦ http://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/micro-idac/ → ESS is a good DAC brand.
___________

<> This, Tim might find interesting (other readers too): http://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/why-usb-cables-can-make-a-difference/

* I won't post other links to other audio forums and where members are discussing the very same subject as Tim brought up right here in this thread.
If I find an interesting post, yes, that I will share here.

 

[NorthSky]

Generally, "objectivists" are seen as negative party poopers who just want to spoil the fun. But for me, the idea that digital cables costing $2 are audibly and measurably identical to the ones that cost $10000 is the most fun, positive message of all!

Then the second video I posted in my prior post (previous page) is more for people like you, I and Tim.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Just that I was hoping by now in the popular genre's of music we'd have everything being recorded/mastered in a mch format. Maybe some form of encryption that would offer stereo to those who don't have mch gear, no more multi-cataloging that has been a killer in days past.
I didn't realize that classical had such a large catalog of mch, thousands of mch HDA albums, really? About all there is in rock are live bluray performances.

Sal - single inventory, "hybrid" discs with stereo CD, stereo hi rez and Mch hi rez all compatibly on one disc are what SACD has been mostly all about for about the past 15 years, although some hi rez DSD remasterings of older material are stereo-only.

You can play back music in whichever of those formats you choose from a single disk. In a universal player like an Oppo, Sony, etc., you can choose which of those three playback modes you want, and that is what the player delivers via HDMI digital or analog outputs. But, to an ordinary CD player, an SACD looks just like a plain old CD. It will not know or care that there is also hi rez stereo and Mch on the disc in DSD.

SACDs also have been the largest source of Mch music, and new releases keep coming. Yes, it is a drop in the bucket compared to CD releases and SACD failed to replace the stereo CD in the marketplace. But, SACDs are quite available and coexist with CDs and BDs. They have been the backbone of my Mch library and music experience for the past 8+ years.

As I said earlier, most are in the classical niche, the Mch ones having been natively recorded in Mch. Some classic rock titles were remastered into Mch by repanning from the multi-track original master, but the format never took off for rock and other popular genres. Some remasterings from the Quad era are also on SACD. Even some old 3-channel RCA and Mercury recordings from the 50's are available on SACD with their stereo counterparts.

BDs are not nearly as numerous for music in either BD-A or BD-V. But, I have never encountered a Blu-Ray with Mch that did not also offer the option of a stereo mix. But, unlike SACDs, BDs are not compatible with CD-only players.

See this excellent complete SACD and BD-A catalog at this site:

http://www.hraudio.net/

 

[amirm]

This, Tim might find interesting (other readers too): http://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/why-usb-cables-can-make-a-difference/

I read the first post and glanced through the rest. Out of a dozen or so theories presented, none, let me repeat, none come with any kind of measurements. What they talk about are technical theories. The effects can be easily measured. Yet none is provided. Measurements are quick and easy. Fact that are not presented means to me that they are not valid arguments.

 

[NorthSky]

I did watch the whole video. As with the testing of Audioquest Jitterbug and Regen, I expect that device to also be ineffective. I even tested the Regen with a dedicated power supply made to make it better and it still did not.

It is a tough, tough area to try to add value Bob. One of the problems is that removing noise also softens the signal. The way you get a square wave is to have infinite bandwidth. Any noise removal will think some of the high frequencies are noise and removes them. And with it, it can also damage the pulses itself. You probably know of this effect in video where studios attempt to remove film noise and wind up with a softer looking video.

Now, you could try to clean up the power line. But there, every DAC out there as a regulator. The regulator already cleans up the USB power. Try to clean that signal again while in theory can show some measured improvement, would require incompetence on behalf of the DAC designer. The designers know that the USB power is very dirty so they try hard to clean that up. Try to wash the power a second time is not going to have that much of an effect.

We are so used to using our own gut feeling that we go astray here. We think "analog" in these matters. But that is not the case here. We must not use our intuition in evaluating these products.

I agree; it's not easy to evaluate. There is a balance, I firmly believe, that each one of us find to live in harmony, the balance between the audio science and the art of mastering our level of happiness in life through music listening.

Me, I don't think analog, I think "comfort zone", smooth marriage between nature and music reproduction.
I am listening to Tracy Chapman @ this very moment (her very first album - 1988), from the CD, and using the coaxial digital output of one of my CD players.
I'm in a Pure Audio mode; full range stereo, no subs, no bass management, no EQ.

In another time, I would still listen to her in the analog domain, digitally massaged.
Our intuition; it is human nature...we balance it with everything we have learned and still learning in our lives.
It's not in black and white, it's in colors, many colors...like audio science.
________

 

[Thomas savage]

I agree; it's not easy to evaluate. There is a balance, I firmly believe, that each one of us find to live in harmony, the balance between the audio science and the art of mastering our level of happiness in life through music listening.

Me, I don't think analog, I think "comfort zone", smooth marriage between nature and music reproduction.
I am listening to Tracy Chapman @ this very moment (her very first album - 1988), from the CD, and using the coaxial digital output of one of my CD players.
I'm in a Pure Audio mode; full range stereo, no subs, no bass management, no EQ.

In another time, I would still listen to her in the analog domain, digitally massaged.
Our intuition; it is human nature...we balance it with everything we have learned and still learning in our lives.
It's not in black and white, it's in colors, many colors...like audio science.

I don't think amir ment it was hard to evaluate Bob, quite the opposite. It's a hard domain to find any proven performance gains emerging from these kind of devices your referring to.

It's not about harmony or some kind of greater physiological balance of nature. It's just 1's and 0's going from one physical space to another in a way that loses no information.

So in that sense it is very black and white, at least according to the general Consensus of the participants of this thread.

Some times a nut is just a nut.

Going beyond that, last time I checked nature was a succession of violent contrasts, the entirely human constructs of balance and fairness seem of little relevance.

 

[Blumlein 88]

"One of the GREAT strengths of digital is being immune or nearly fully immune to noise."

If only it was so.

" The complete fidelity can get through lots of noise."

Sure is.


"Sure having 1 uvolt noise seems much better than having 10 or 100 times that much. Yet in digital there likely is no difference at all in the playback with either condition. That is part and parcel of what makes digital work so well."

Likely? I just don't know. And if digital works so well why so many audio engineers are working on removing all kind of digital noise, distortion, jitter, other digital deficiencies by designing external power supplies, noise eliminators, better geometry in cables, using solid mathematics and scientifically improved designs over all the audio suffering we have been enduring since the early eighties?
We are living with so many digital flaws that we became addicted. Time to clean up all that digital distortion from better audio designs.

I am not convinced @ all that I am having a good sound; to the contrary, I'm living an illusion that it is good sound.

Look digital data (including audio) can be transmitted in channels so noisy it is barely possible. Yet if the data is received uncorrupted there is no difference vs the cleanest channel possible. I am not saying noisy or dirty is good, but if a plain USB cable causes no issues at the analog result and for a few hundred dollars more I can have a clean signal which still produces the same analog result I think I will keep my few hundred dollars for something that matters. That is without things like the Regen which claim to clean up the signal yet appear to actually increase noise in the analog result.

Why do people work on this? Well some of it is probably got to do with money. The Regen was talked up over months at CA forums. I thought they snookered CA's owner and were doing marketing. They certainly tip-toed near the limits of that in my opinion. Talk of how it worked, that Mr. Swenson was working on the design. Glowing prose about how much it helped. Eventually when the principles were ready to pay someone to make them 150 units, they sold out in about 36 hours. Pretty slick whether by accident or intent. No marketing budget as CA was used for marketing . So they offered to get up an order for 150 more units also sold within hours. Rinse and repeat. In a few months they were right near $1 million in sales. I am sure they have exceeded that and then some by now. Plus now with all the buzz Stereophile has reviewed it. Early reports were generally very positive. Eventually it became common knowledge the sweet spot was to use two in series. Now lost in all this was a number of people reporting it made no difference or was harmful. As there was a backordered situation these people reported their findings and then sold their units at no loss. Then later Amir and others measure the units and contrary to claims it does not help jitter and in fact adds noise to the analog output. I guess two add twice the noise. Are we supposed to believe somehow it adds measurable noise, somehow improves sound quality yet we can't measure improvements and just say well things are mysterious and this is great otherwise no one would work on such things? I not trying to be hostile NorthSky, but this doesn't make sense in ways that are well worked out technically.

Check your conversations btw.

 

[NorthSky]

• http://www.yoctopuce.com/EN/article/usb-cables-size-matters
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?3465-USB-cable-measurements

 

[Thomas savage]

• http://www.yoctopuce.com/EN/article/usb-cables-size-matters
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?3465-USB-cable-measurements

Is there a point your trying to make here Bob?
A argument?