Could we all be wrong about SINAD?

[Sharur]

In general it is the other way around. Look at my THD+N tests versus frequency that go up to 20 kHz:

The red diagonal line is the result of a very slow filter. The measured THD+N shoots so high it is off the charts. The high sample rate in green/brown lines eliminates the effect of the filter and shows much lower THD+N.

The reason for the rise is not that the DAC is more distorted but that the spurious components getting through due to slow filter get added into what makes up THD+N and inflates that.

This is the post which brought up my question.

 

[Sharur]

Also, have any successful voltage matched blind tests been documented between an Apple dongle and any other well measuring DAC? The question this thread asks is whether we were all wrong about SINAD. However, I haven't seen anyone get close to the "audibly transparent" IMD threshold (http://www.klippel.de/listeningtest/?page=instructions) with real music.

 

[Tangband]

For the most part though, we have not had to make that compromise here. We have DACs at $100 with incredible fidelity and just as usable as a $5,000 DAC. It is a bit harder to reach the top with amplifiers but we are getting better at that as well.

The problem with audio is that the company takes out all the sound proofing and still gives you crappy handling while charging more!

keep up the good work .
It would be nice If you also could review microphones so the recording gear could be better .

 

[amirm]

keep up the good work .
It would be nice If you also could review microphones so the recording gear could be better .

Thanks. I looked into mic testing but could not find a good system without anechoic chamber.

 

[garbulky]

As badly as some devices measure here, most of them don't really have 2nd and 3rd harmonics shown in the FFT that would be easily audible. For example, the PS Audio DirectStream DAC only has a -80db spike on the third harmonic, which is much higher than the other spikes on the graph.

Some devices do go to recreate 2nd and 3rd harmonics for an effect like the Schiit Vali, Garage 1217 amplifiers, but even those might only peak at most -50db on 2nd harmonics at highest which is still quite low in level. But generally there is distortion that is understood as pleasing, and distortion that is understood as generally unpleasing. A lot of devices which seem to have bad SINAD definitely don't come across like it's being done in a tasteful way on purpose.

As he mentioned all those horrible distortions aren't audible in music. They just look bad because there's a lot of low distortion gear

 

[Jaxjax]

Amirm noted significant operational problems with both units in his reviews, though the problems with the NAD seem more severe and unavoidable. A failure to spot the difference subjectively between a SINAD of 90dB and 94dB is going to surprise no-one who understands what these measurements mean. As @abdo123 said, 'sounds much better' really doesn't mean anything without controls.

As for 'most audiophiles say', it's really just a case of 'most audiophiles are able to echo each other' - it's Stereophile class A+ after all!

I been running a c658 for a couple years, if it sounded even remotely bad it would be straight to the garbage bin. Makes me wonder what the heck.....? My system is no slouch & I'm definitely not new to the hobby. How can it sound good at all with the lousy measurements. ?

 

[antcollinet]

I been running a c658 for a couple years, if it sounded even remotely bad it would be straight to the garbage bin. Makes me wonder what the heck.....? My system is no slouch & I'm definitely not new to the hobby. How can it sound good at all with the lousy measurements. ?

Because our ears/hearing are much less sensitive than the measurement gear. Contrary to what many "audiophiles" will tell you.

 

[Bleib]

Because our ears/hearing are much less sensitive than the measurement gear. Contrary to what many "audiophiles" will tell you.

Also, our headphones and speakers / rooms offer us much worse numbers than a lot of the electronics

 

[amirm]

Also, our headphones and speakers / rooms offer us much worse numbers than a lot of the electronics

Your room has zero distortion unless you have rattles. Its noise floor is under your control and can be made inaudible. Your speakers and headphone have zero self noise so that is not a barrier either.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Just a thought, and probably not a new one, do people like distortion because that is what we hear in reality? Such that a distorted sound is more ‘real’. We very rarely have our heads clamped into position when listening to live music, or even when someone is talking to us. Even slight changes in head position are likely to result in different reflections in the environment becoming dominant as your head moves and as well as different external sources being more or less obvious. With our stationary point source transducers and headphones, and modern close mic’ed recordings played back through bit perfect systems this might well result in something ‘less real’ or engaging to ears and minds used to dynamically changing perspectives.

Mad hypotheses or some merit?

 

[antcollinet]

Just a thought, and probably not a new one, do people like distortion because that is what we hear in reality? Such that a distorted sound is more ‘real’. We very rarely have our heads clamped into position when listening to live music, or even when someone is talking to us. Even slight changes in head position are likely to result in different reflections in the environment becoming dominant as your head moves and as well as different external sources being more or less obvious. With our stationary point source transducers and headphones, and modern close mic’ed recordings played back through bit perfect systems this might well result in something ‘less real’ or engaging to ears and minds used to dynamically changing perspectives.

Mad hypotheses or some merit?

Reflections are not distortion.

Distortion is a change in the wafeform shape. Distortion does not mimic the effect of moving your head in a room full of reflections.

Plus you still get a load of reflections in a real room that are just as real and valid (though different) from the reflections you get in a concert hall. Try listening in an anechoic chamber if you want to know what sound is like without reflections. It is weird.

 

[Raindog123]

Your room has zero distortion unless you have rattles.

…or multipath reflection delays — where “earlier [emmited]” sounds arrive to the listening point late, acting as added noise to direct arriving “later” sounds.

@tonycollinet Formally speaking, a signal “distortion“ is deviation from the original signal due to some known effect/reason — amplifier saturation, aliasing harmonic, etc — while “noise” is a deviation due to unknown/multiple/too-complex-to-describe-exactly effects. Thus the “noise“ can have multiple “spectra”, to still describe these effects in some aggregate, statistical way… Yet both the ”noise“ and “distortion(s)” contribute to lowering the effective signal quality/level by increasing the “N“ term in the “SNR” (signal to noise ratio).

 

[paulrbarnard]

Reflections are not distortion.

Distortion is a change in the wafeform shape. Distortion does not mimic the effect of moving your head in a room full of reflections.

Plus you still get a load of reflections in a real room that are just as real and valid (though different) from the reflections you get in a concert hall. Try listening in an anechoic chamber if you want to know what sound is like without reflections. It is weird.

This is what I love about this forum. People so focused on the minutiae they don’t see the picture. Of course reflections are not distortions. Try making an amplifier create reflections…. The point I was making is that there are variations away from the perfect fidelity in real world sound that the ear and mind deals with constantly. If that variation is removed it might make the sound seem wrong. Perhaps this is why some people prefer recordings from just two microphones as the play back carries with it the variation of the original venue.

My question was if distortions/noise or whatever from the reproduction system, especially with close mic’ed recordings, stimulates the brain to consider the sound to be more real or engaging. It’s just my thought on the original question in the thread.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Reflections are not distortion.

Distortion is a change in the wafeform shape. Distortion does not mimic the effect of moving your head in a room full of reflections.

Plus you still get a load of reflections in a real room that are just as real and valid (though different) from the reflections you get in a concert hall. Try listening in an anechoic chamber if you want to know what sound is like without reflections. It is weird.

Just to add: I have spent a lot of time in an aneroid chamber. I did sound testing earlier in my career. I actually used the chamber as a changing room when I cycled in to work. It was the only room without windows

 

[antcollinet]

Just to add: I have spent a lot of time in an aneroid chamber. I did sound testing earlier in my career. I actually used the chamber as a changing room when I cycled in to work. It was the only room without windows

Fair enough. Weird though, isnt it?

 

[paulrbarnard]

Fair enough. Weird though, isnt it?

Very disconcerting. You do get used to it though.

 

[Doodski]

Try listening in an anechoic chamber if you want to know what sound is like without reflections. It is weird.

I've been on mountaintops while skiing and with a freshly fallen thick heavy blanket of snow the sound is reduced in such a way that voices are reduced in volume and there is a lack of reflections making it awkward at times locating somebody. It's weird as you say.

 

[Bleib]

Your room has zero distortion unless you have rattles. Its noise floor is under your control and can be made inaudible. Your speakers and headphone have zero self noise so that is not a barrier either.

Distorsion levels on headphones and speakers are much higher than the electronics. A lot of speakers are not even optimally placed in rooms.
And almost any audiophile that takes pictures of their room have it somewhat empty, so this will naturally create echo which will make the sound less than optimal and can make it almost impossible to detect between a great or semi-great or even good electronics. This often leads to pointless hunting for "better" cables and other things which do really nothing to improve the sound. So it becomes easy for magazines like stereophile to recommend pointless electronics which supposedly improve the audio. Bah.

Recording studios on the other hand have to have plenty of treatment otherwise the room will color anything that is recorded. But even when this is done quite well most recordings are not of superb quality, and even it is then it is ruined by subpar mastering in which dynamics are killed..