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

[Thomas savage]

Thomas, if you aren't interested, don't blame me.

Not 'blaming' you.. For what?
Was simply inquiring if there was some narrative on your part to the links you posted.

Bit hostile there Bob, not sure what your driving at tbh.

 

[NorthSky]

No, but you question the poster without looking @ the content and without discussing on the essence...the content. The first link refers to cable's resistance (and voltage affectation) and length (keep it short for USB cables). Some USB cables are tiny small and I'm pretty sure that the gauge of those four wires inside is pretty small too. And if they are 15, 20 or 30 feet long ...

When looking @ the ifi USB cables they inspire confidence, plus their designers add the proper power supply to supplement their USB cables and improve the poor power supplies in our audio electronics.
{I bet my laptop sounds like crap from its USB ports, and all my BR players, and I have no asynchronous USB ports from all my devices.}
And they go one further, by designing a separate noise rejection device...called 'sound purifier'.
The second link is also interesting because it too includes some measurements.

This ain't about me or you Thomas, it's about cable's discussions. And the accent is certainly on measurements; and it is exactly what the two last links are about.
So, why asking me if it's related in having an argument, right? ...It's an intelligent discussion where we bring various ingredients to advance our higher learning.
That's all.

I am reading very clearly all members's comments from all their posts, and with the utmost consideration and best accommodation effort.

 

[Thomas savage]

No, but you question the poster without looking @ the content and commenting on the essence...the content.
This ain't about me or you Thomas, it's about cable's discussions. And the accent is certainly on measurements; and it is exactly what the two last links are about.
So, why asking me if it's related in having an argument, right? ...It's an intelligent discussion where we bring various ingredients to advance our higher learning.
That's all.

I am reading very clearly all members's comments from all their posts, and with the utmost consideration and best accommodation effort.

No your very wrong there Bob, I clicked on the links and went through some of the information.

The reason Why I asked whether the links posted were in support of a argument was simply because is nice to have a structure to the discussion. Generally information is presented to affirm ones own opinion, to counter the stance of another... Or to start a debate I guess.

"This ain't about me or you Thomas, it's about cable's discussions."

I have no clue what this is in reference to Bob.

In my world presenting abstract information without attaching any kind of narrative of your own or intelligibly adhering to a already established narrative when in direct discussion with others does not amount to " intelligent discussion " .

It's much like walking into a lecture and putting down a text book and leaving the room... Where is the discussion? The dialogue? Maybe it takes place once you have left but then how are you involved?

Walking into that lecture, presenting your reference text and explaining its relevance to the debate and or your own personal view point would be a basis for discussion, how intelligent this would be is entirely dependent on the quality of the participants of said discussion/debate.

I hope that clears things up for you Bob, any further question regarding my post, please take them up with me away from the public areas. It's not my intention to clog this thread with back and forth of this nature

 

[NorthSky]

Yeah, I agree with that too.
So, what do you think on USB cable's resistance, voltage, separate power supply, and noise cancellation...asynchronous?

Me I think it's 'sound' advice; choose carefully. And everything matters; go beyond the science, use your good judgement and your ears too. Examine all the parameters, the combinations and don't measure one separate audio component all by itself, but in sync with its other elements in the chain. That's my view on it.

 

[Thomas savage]

Yeah, I agree with that too.
So, what do you think on USB cable's resistance, voltage, separate power supply, and noise cancellation...asynchronous?

I fall in line with my King Bob, to do otherwise would be tantamount to suicided

At present its not a particularly pertinent issue for me as I just spin cd and sacd.

I would also add, I don't have the nessersary technical knowledge to make a significant contribution to the discussion. My listening impressions would not advance the discussion as they are not submittable evidence at ASR. So without a meaningful narrative of my own or any relevant technical value, my own opinion is irrelevant. I accept this.

If I were to post abstract information I would have to show I understood it's meaning else it's not really a purposeful intelligent contribution.

 

[NorthSky]

This is an article about Jitter. How relevant is it with the digital music we listen to? ...Very.
And no cable can remove jitter that is present in the recording, and that is added up on top of that by most audio products we use @ home.
And how much more serious is it than cables? ...Very.

I am posting that link because I consider it important reading. And if some of you knew it all already that's mighty great, and if it can shine some light in only one reader, it won't be all in vain. Feel free to read it or not. And if you have comments on the article (not on me), this is a good place to discuss, as HDMI's invention was way less than perfect in our audio fidelity.

How much jitter can I hear from my music recordings and through all my chain of HDMI components? I have no exact idea, only that jitter is not present in some of my other music sources, and I like that; the music seems to 'gel' better with my environment and my brain.
I made a choice to live with what I have and don't.

Right now I am still using a digital coaxial connection for my CD listening; only in the now.

Question: Is there more jitter in music recordings from CDs than hi-res music files?
And is there more with USB setups than HDMI ones?

♦ Link: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/jitter.htm

 

[fas42]

We're all different, all with our vision; in science it's the same...scientists have different visions too.
Science is way more than just measuring one thing; all other things around are also related...relativity.

Anybunchway, you guys all understand science and the other stuff related to it, I know that with absolute certainty.

Fun, learning, about everything...about us too.

Bob, you have a style of expressing yourself that others at times have trouble understanding - we're all different, and that's the best thing about life! I'm somewhere between yourself and the others here; in spite of what they may think at times, I'm 100% in the camp of everything being rationally explainable - a key difference is that I don't jump up and down in frustration because I don't have the correct explanation at hand, at the moment.

A working approach, which is extremely effective, is to try something which "sounds silly" - and see if it does something for you or not - trying to measure why that is the case is a fool's errand, for now; the techniques and sensitivity are not sophisticated enough, and will miss the key data. Overall, as I have said many times, the goal is subtractive: you are not trying to make the sound 'better', you should be aiming to prevent the things that make the sound worse.

 

[NorthSky]

Don't we have all.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The audiophile community is sometimes so perverse. Quite often it says measurements tell you nothing about how something will sound (when the reverse is true) and with jitter measurements are everything and lowering it always helps. While in truth other than some true outliers and some HDMI jitter is simply a non-issue.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ast/26/1/26_1_50/_pdf

Here is a listening test finding with music jitter of many nanoseconds (1000 pic0seconds in a nanosecond) is needed to be audible.

Other tests carried out by researchers at Dolby labs (Eric Benjamin and Benjamin Gannon) found with a high level 17 khz test tone sinewave jitter was detectable around 10 nanoseconds. With music it was only detectable at higher levels than that.

Julian Dunn worked out how much jitter could cause enough difference to alter the LSB. With 20 khz it was only 20 picoseconds with 16 bit gear. But is that really audible? The amount to change the LSB is higher as you go lower in frequency. Plus our high frequency hearing isn't very sensitive. In his scenario this is the least jitter can possibly make a difference. And at 500 hz the number is 1 nanosecond to change the LSB, but again not necessarily is this audible. So the amount that matters has to be above 20 picoseconds. Likely well above.

In the files I posted recently jitter would be many times higher than normal in the 8th generation copy (the gear I was using is spec'd to have less than 250 picoseconds). It appears hearing that is not an easy task. As well as the jitter,distortion, noise and FR would be part of it. If jitter were on the edge of being a problem, then several times the norm should have been very audible on that basis alone. If you ever had the chance to hear an 8th generation tape you would hear how much timing fluctuations along with FR and noise becomes an issue. 8th gen tape is an obvious degradation.

So mostly, any decent gear these days is below 1000 picoseconds. 200-500 is very common even in cheap gear. For simple playback other than maybe, maybe HDMI jitter is just not a problem. Since it isn't a problem guess what I think of those selling you a solution ?

 

[Cosmik]

We have a completely human-designed system that exists specifically to be digital i.e. based on numbers.

The very first consumer product for digital audio - the CD player - got it right: a system slaved to a crystal oscillator where the 'quality' of the bits didn't matter in the slightest so long as they were readable. Audiophiles soon 'broke' that system by insisting that the DAC should be in a separate box, being fed by a bit stream with an embedded clock - a theoretically inferior solution, even if none of us would ever hear a problem with it. However, around this tiny chink in digital audio's perfection, audiophiles could inflict massive amounts of misery on themselves.

But we have now restored the system to how it should be, with asynchronous, packet-based systems slaved to the DAC's local sample clock. If there's any jitter, it has nothing to do with the cable/link. It's difficult to accept I know, but sometimes things really do work perfectly, and you can forget about them.

 

[fas42]

Along the way there were a number of 'proper' solutions to this in the CD world, whereby the DAC had an interface to send the DAC clock to the player, slave it to the converter - I particularly remember a simple but effective unit by Stax, by piggybacking underneath the player box and using a simple direct connection for passing the clock signal.

The "perfection" only comes about when all the digital data signals are presented to the conversion parts as cleanly as possible - here there is "sexual" ambiguity; should they be considered digital, or analogue, in nature?

 

[NorthSky]

We have a completely human-designed system that exists specifically to be digital i.e. based on numbers.

The very first consumer product for digital audio - the CD player - got it right: a system slaved to a crystal oscillator where the 'quality' of the bits didn't matter in the slightest so long as they were readable. Audiophiles soon 'broke' that system by insisting that the DAC should be in a separate box, being fed by a bit stream with an embedded clock - a theoretically inferior solution, even if none of us would ever hear a problem with it. However, around this tiny chink in digital audio's perfection, audiophiles could inflict massive amounts of misery on themselves.

But we have now restored the system to how it should be, with asynchronous, packet-based systems slaved to the DAC's local sample clock. If there's any jitter, it has nothing to do with the cable/link. It's difficult to accept I know, but sometimes things really do work perfectly, and you can forget about them.

We know that cables don't contain jitter, neither they introduce it.*
Jitter is in the digital recording machines, and then introduced in our music recordings. We cannot remove it from our CDs and other digital sources, it's just too late.
But what the music recording engineers can do is to use better digital equipment and stop inserting jitter in our music recordings.
That would be a very very good start.

* Correction: Actually yes, they can contribute some minimal jitter. See posts below ↓

 

[amirm]

We know that cables don't contain jitter, neither they introduce it.

Believe it or not, they actually can introduce it. Here is an actual measurement of what cable induced jitter on AES/EBU (sister of S/PDIF) when driven on a long, low bandwidth coax cable:

You can see that at "zero crossing" the signal is jumping back and forth and hence inducing jitter. Indeed the J-test signal was generated by Julian Dunn to cause this to happen better. The graph is from AES recommendations on digital audio.

That said, I have tried to induce such a distortion by stringing two super low-quality audio RCA cables and could not measure any induced effect.

 

[NorthSky]

Hmmm..in one of those previous links I provided an audio guru mentioned that cables don't cause jitter.
Let me find it ...

8. Digital Cables
"Cables don't actively add jitter to the signal, however they can slow the signal transitions or "edges". When the edges are slowed, the receiver or buffer at the cable destination is less likely to detect the transition at the correct time with certainty, which results in jitter."

• http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/jitter.htm

Ok, I've read it too quick.

 

[amirm]

Hmmm..in one of those previous links I provided an audio guru mentioned that jitter is not caused by cables.
Let me find it ...

8. Digital Cables

"Cables don't actively add jitter to the signal, however they can slow the signal transitions or "edges". When the edges are slowed, the receiver or buffer at the cable destination is less likely to detect the transition at the correct time with certainty, which results in jitter."

It is not a clear statement but he is saying the same thing I said in the second sentence.

 

[Sal1950]

Bob, you do have to beware who you put forward as being "audio guru's" Some of the crowd writing for positive-feedback leave much to be desired when it comes to being able to listen without bias.
Lord Save Us from this insanity,

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/green_pen.htm
"Next I greened many more SACDs and CDs and in every single instance the difference after greening was a marked improvement and often a very profound difference. This stuff actually works, It increased ambiance, soundstaging, transit response and overall enjoyment of the music on every single SACD and CD I've treated and I have decided to treat my whole collection. On some discs I noticed an increase in volume. The attack of both low frequency and high frequency percussion instruments was increased and more lifelike on greened SACDs. I didn't really notice this effect so much on greened CDs, could it be the greater "base" resolution of SACDs?"

 

[TBone]

Terese's hate for CD is legendary ... so the moment she joined PF, that told me everything I ever wanted to know about the Robinson Crew. They shilled DSD and those early Sony sacd players way beyond reality, as they do much gear today. Lived with the Sony sa777es for months, used to lumber it about town(this beast weighed ~45 pounds, but felt like 100) and couldn't find any local buyer, in the heat of its popularity. Those players never stood the test of time, and those early SACD/DSD remasters were just as compressed as the CD remaster, but some of those dual disks they used for comparison ... they compressed the CD layer even more.

 

[NorthSky]

Sal, the link I posted contains some of the high names in audio, and I also read all the comments from that link.

We have to be careful with EVERYONE in this audio world.

I try my very best to use an intelligent judgement, and balance life with it. We all work together in making our world the best as it can be.
Life is short and there's no time to waste and for wrong judgement. A fair assessment is primordial in all things.

I am not an audio expert, I am not an audio engineer, I am not an audio cable manufacturer; I'm just a small guy like everyone else.
I do the best I can to participate in audio discussions of interest. ...And it's one of them, among many many others.
We discuss for the better advancement. I am not preaching, I am not taking everything for granted, I just try the best to learn, to share, to be happy, to live life with balanced passion and solid direction. The respect I have for others is the same respect I have for myself. And it's important to have that respect and an open mind, very.
________

Now, back to the topic; digital cables, and their various uses for different systems, and how they behave with the music we love from our computers, etc.
It's not as easy as ABC. We all bring some important aspects; Amir, Fitz, you, Bob (me), and everyone else. It is that overall totality of knowledge from all of us and sharing that helps us all to progress in the right direction...I sincerely believe. The small disagreements that we might have occasionally are not cause to change the audio signal transmission in our digital cables.

I look for the best balance, the right compromise, the intelligent approach, the true essence. ...In audio cables as in everything else contained in the universe.
I'm a firm believer in science, in concrete results, in complete analysis, in theories, in mathematical equations, in geometry, in biology, chemistry, geology, economy, geography, philosophy, photography, hi-fi, human sociology. ...And everything else.

And with time music reproduction from our audio products evolve and improve.
The search for higher quality sound is worth it.

 

[TBone]

The very first consumer product for digital audio - the CD player - got it right: a system slaved to a crystal oscillator where the 'quality' of the bits didn't matter in the slightest so long as they were readable. Audiophiles soon 'broke' that system by insisting that the DAC should be in a separate box, being fed by a bit stream with an embedded clock - a theoretically inferior solution, even if none of us would ever hear a problem with it. However, around this tiny chink in digital audio's perfection, audiophiles could inflict massive amounts of misery on themselves.

Yep, in those days, contrary to belief, separating the DACs did little to improve digital. Funny, most of my peers used separate/expensive dacs and transports, mixing and matching, attempting to catch some elusive digital genie in a bottle, adding third party "clocking" devices such as the Genesis Digital Lens ... while I may have much preferred 1 box players, that notion was rare within my "hi-end" circles ... perhaps because near every local audiophile boutique store pushed and stocked separates based on "superiority" ...

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

I agree in part. The one box player could minimize jitter by having one master clock governing both disc reading and d-a processing. The separate DAC could improve on the DAC chip and analog output circuitry vs. those internal to the player, albeit often with higher jitter because of the separate player and DAC master clocks. Which approach was better? It all depended on the specifics. But, I agree, audiophiles were railroaded into the mindset of separate DACs as automatically being "best" before the jitter problem was well understood.

The good news about that era is that it gradually taught equipment designers greater awareness about the jitter problem, how to measure it and how to better control it. Some of that knowhow benefits us today, such as with the computer-to-separate DAC interface.

But, one wonders, by hindsight, why the elegantly simple asynchronous USB or some similar technology took so long to come to fruition. I think the problem was that the audio industry was long dominated by analog-oriented engineers, and that they had to feel their way for quite some time by trial and error in the new world of digital audio. That is far less true today.

I remember a lengthy analysis by J. Peter Moncrieff in his old International Audio Review somewhere in the late 80's on the topic of jitter. It was the first analysis I had encountered of the problem that I could really begin to make sense of. I was then still naive about digital audio, but quite conversant with digital processing from my computer experience. I sent him a note saying, OK, I see the problem, so why don't they just reclock the data out of a buffer inside the DAC? He did not reply. It was only much later that I came to realize how difficult that idea was to implement at the time, given the state of knowledge, available chipsets and "building blocks". Now, that idea is routinely embodied in asynchronous USB, in widespread use with PCs and even with inexpensive USB DACs.