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Extreme Snake Oil

-301dB noise shaper accuracy
I found a ratio of real-world objects that works out to 301dB, believe it or not. It's the diameter of one atom vs. the WIDTH OF THE STATE OF TEXAS.

So this guy is saying that if Texas got one atom wider, he could hear whatever the audio equivalent of that is? Or what?

I think this guy went out to lunch, never came back, and ended up living under the diner.
 
I wonder if -300 dB is important, why this distortion at -118 dB is not:

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Or this kind of noise floor variation:

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This is noise changing from -107 to -112. He is serving food on dirty dishes yet washings the spoon 100 times and claims he is being very hygienic.
 
I wonder if -300 dB is important, why this distortion at -118 dB is not:

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Or this kind of noise floor variation:

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This is noise changing from -107 to -112. He is serving food on dirty dishes yet washings the spoon 100 times and claims he is being very hygienic.
Harmonic distortion is in phase so not as noticeable as filtering taps being phase messed up at minus 301 db. ;)

Cannot help you with the bad channel. Maybe your review sample was faulty. :)
 
Cannot help you with the bad channel. Maybe your review sample was faulty. :)
Maybe he should use all that room in the FPGA for fault detection!
 
I see for Mojo 2 he said he's used up nearly all FPGA available room, for the EQ feature
 
I think this guy went out to lunch, never came back, and ended up living under the diner.

This stuff is making him a lot of money. He has a loyal following

Why would Rob stop at 1 million taps if knowing many of those people will upgrade for more taps?

I suspect He will keep going until he can no longer physically code
 
For those that don't want to waste time watching the video;
hi everyone so I'm very excited because of all the interviews or footages that I've collected so far I mean I've met a lot of wonderful people icons in the hobby but perhaps no one is more iconic than this gentleman see the next to me Mr Rob Watts who's dacs with a bunch of us and all of us would have known by now would have heard of by now robs I just want to catch you and you know just have you sort of talk to my viewers about you know some of the Innovation that is in store because when we hear of God we do you know look forward to a lot of the most Innovative products in the industry so what's coming what's coming up and if you want to take us through some of the newer stuff that we can expect to see in the coming months and years so what what we've got that's coming up um is the new scalar to to match Dave the Dave scaler rumors are true the rumors are true awesome um John Franks leaked the information so I can talk about it sure so is it the same sort of form factor as a date which is exactly the same form actors as a Dave so that in itself is causing me headaches yeah because of power dissipation and heat dissipation issues but that's that's another story so the Prototype I've been listening to for about the last two years yeah um and I'm in the process of fine-tuning it matching it to the metal work changing the metal work changing the pcbs into and and getting that that right sure so we kind of hope that by the end of this year we'll be launching it okay wonderful hopefully but you know I would say touch wood but this isn't wood it doesn't work but Josh Marvel what have you yeah so so it's going to have more uh what more Taps then it's certainly going to have more Taps um it's one of the benefits or the only benefit I have with covid was the fact I had two years where I wasn't running around sure and could spend a lot of time on fundamental research thinking through thinking things through listening to things measuring things trying things out um and so this this program has has been going on since 2018. nice um so there's a lot of work that's gone into it um one of the things that worried me was um the questions I was asking myself was how many Taps do we need yeah yeah before we've perfectly reconstructed things sure sure um and you can share with us how many tabs this new product will be or approximately no I can't I would I would but um because because of thermal consideration sure sure um it might be a little bit larger it might be a little bit smaller I don't want to give a number it's substantially more than than what we've got with the end saying that's for sure um and um but what's more important is the what else has gone into it because it's not just about Taps sure um it's about the algorithm itself okay yeah and I've been spending a lot of time researching into why these things are important and how we can improve upon it and how many Taps do we need to get the Ultimate Sound sure and it turns out to be an awful lot an awful lot okay and a huge amount so um answering these questions and solving them and it's been really fascinating amazing so in terms of the science sound signature these um devices in part the M Skiller for me the Deva is precise and as revealing as it is just added a lot of sort of naturalness if I'm interested expression to the Dave so for example uh there was even an even greater sense of spaciousness there was a slight I think change in Timbre yep for me for my preferences it was just a very welcome change as well as great as the Dave is you mean a little bit warmer a little bit warmer perhaps smoother warmer what have you yeah so what about this new uh so I think the I mean it's got all of those things again um but the the quality that most draws to you is Timbre variation um and the Improvement in Tomba variation is is immense it's immense yeah it's it's not a small change okay so um I'm really excited about that it's amazing so we have the module two here yes which is a very cute little device I've tried this very impressive performance for the price this is where I fail and not manage to get the thing out we go yeah so a lot of people know already the Mojo was a classic the Mojo 2 is by all accounts even better I've heard it and I can verify that it's even better with very amazing EQ and perhaps Rob I'm going to talk a bit about the EQ functionality yeah so um this is also another thing that happened during class actually this happens slightly before covert um everybody knows about with Dave the reason that Dave is so much more transparent with much better depth perception is about small signal accuracy and um before Dave I used to work on the basis that noise Shapers which are an essential part of a Delta Sigma DAC noise Shapers only needed to be 200 DB performance that's 32-bit accuracy so that means in the audio bandwidth you've got 200 DB Distortion and noise so yeah pretty low I couldn't imagine that you would need better performance than 200 DB because no one can hear at 200 DB um but the the crazy thing about Dave was that when I started playing around with the noise shape but I tested that my assumption that 200 DB was good enough and I listened to a 220 DB noise shaper and you've got better depth and then I went from 220 to 240 280 and eventually I hit 350 DB and even when you were going from 330 to 350 DB which is just crazy numbers you could still hear a change in depth so that led me to just you know as a requirement for a digital module sure must be able to reproduce minus 301 DB perfectly yeah yeah with um absolute you know within 0.001 of a DB amplitude and zero zero one okay accuracy so that's a formal spec and any module I do has got to pass that test sure otherwise it's not transparent and I've done lots and lots of listening tests since coming up with this and every single time it it fails the listing test it'll be because it's failed to 301 DB so it's proved to be something really useful but you mentioned earlier about when you had the M scaler the depth got better and it opened up yeah um and that was really weird because depth to me before the abscaler was only about amplitude getting the amplitude correct so that you're very very Ultra small signals of the correct amplitude and by having the filter changing which never happened before on a WTA filter when I increase the tap length it never changed in terms of Sound Stage depth you get changes from left to right lateral imagery but never in terms of depth and so that led me thinking well this means that timing is important for depth perception so timing means phase so I then started to look at the phase shift of a small signal against a large secrecy okay and I found that there was a difference in in digital circuits in the very very small signals and particularly if you're filtering you'll get a phase shift and then that phase shift will change when it becomes a small signal so it's like you've got a really tiny tiny signal and the DSP cannot resolve that signal and the filter stops functioning as a filter so your phase you're going to phase shift um and I could do listening tests where I had um noise Shapers that had a phase shift error and when you remove that phase shift error the depth got better yeah that then led me to latch on to well the thing about phase shift is that you've got a huge phase shift when you're using EQ absolutely because that's what you're doing when you're changing the frequency response you're changing the phase as well sure um and that led me to think right what we needed to do if we want a completely transparent EQ would be to be able to have this minus 301 DB performance in amplitude and in Phase um and so I spend a couple of years working on how to get a DSP core to work so that pass this test and eventually I came up with a solution so that's why the DSP core inside here is 104 bits sure and it's running at 768 kilohertz so it's running at a much higher rate um when it's doing the DSP in 705 when it's 44.1 um and it's noise shaped as well you have to noise shape it for sure sure so the beauty of this is that you get EQ that is is transparent it is it is in fact I was just talking to some friends of mine about how the only two devices on the planet that I've heard so far in a similar form factor in which EQ has been life-changing for me one is the Sony wm1 zm2 dab okay great EQ no interaction of fuzz or you know you know volume change changes whatever and this guy and this guy does it in even an even smaller form factor yeah which was eye-opening for me yeah and it's really really useful the ability to to tune yourself hit the sub bass or you know yeah because the problem well I have with Mojo we wanted to improve the performance put cross feed on there which and I think CrossFit is absolutely essential for headphones yeah yeah um and uh we wanted to get it closer to the sound of the Mojo of sorry the Hugo 2. yeah which meant making it DC coupled which meant losing the coupling capacitor and the coupling capacitor is the thing that gave the original Mojo the warmth interesting so making it more neutral would make it sound brighter yeah and the problem it doesn't sound bright though it sounds yes what what you've got is you've got the ability of making it sound warmer sure if you need to um and you've still got that and yet it's still a neutral if you want it to be neutral wonderful thank you so much Rob um this is an amazing device and I I dare say it's an amazing device for any price point but at this price point it's ridiculous yeah it's crazy you know what I mean and now according to make them yes and now Court can make them that's good so uh one last question for you rob something else is coming out some an even more exciting new kind of a product yes the ultimate app the Ultima Ultima deck ultimate deck ultimate support I've got a range of ultimate power amplifiers all right you do yeah absolutely so this is the the top end um and uh it'll be a you know quite a substantial unit okay um so that again is a project I've been working on for a long time I've been working on it can be expected to come out this year or not this year not this year um it's it's slated for next year okay um so uh but covered in some sense this was good because I had lots of time to play around with things sure sure do things you wouldn't normally do um and to investigate good for us it's great but getting hold of prototypes was a nightmare I can imagine thanks for all your trouble so the the the Prototype took two years for them to build oh wow because the parts weren't available sure and uh there's no point in building a shelter that doesn't have the right parts in it so uh yeah um but now I've got that prototype so I can actually test it out what I have been doing in the meantime is is the coding for the dark there are a large number of modules have been improved and I know how those actually sound and it is a it is quite a big big improvement from the Dave from the a big improvement from what I've been doing in the past yes wow so it's not going to be a small change but then one would hope so given given the price of the unit given yeah absolutely and any any sort of uh indication on what it may sound like with regard in relation to the Dave warmer more resolving I'm sure yeah it's it's more resolving a time of variation is is one big thing okay another big thing um is that sharp attack being able to hear little sharp fast events which is something that digital doesn't do very well sure in fact analog does very poorly as well it's not it's a reproduction issue when you listen to Live unamplified sounds things can sound explosively hard and sharp and fast yeah yeah and reproduced audio softens everything sure it loses that transparency loses that edge so what we want is the ability to things sound fast and sharp and explosive and Rich and warm yeah and uh so a lot of the focus you know little improvements I've been making has been on this ability to to sharpen things up and make things sound sharper and faster and with more weight and more density as well at the same time so it's a warmer sounding and sharper sounding quite quite weird and once you latch on to that sound it's very very addictive and distinctive so yeah Ultima is going to be something really interesting super exciting Rob thank you so much for all your time so far and thank you mostly for innovating as much as you do and we hope you never stop innovating me too but that's the only thing that worries me is is um I don't know what's worse me running out of new ideas or not having the capability of new ideas or managing to close the gaps so that live sound and reproduce sound there's no difference my job is done but I have nothing to do I don't know which worries me most well these are all good worries for us to have um but thank you thank you all for your time and hope to catch you again soon yeah we'll do

um but the the crazy thing about Dave
was that when I started playing around
with the noise shape but I tested that
my assumption that 200 DB was good
enough
and I listened to a 220 DB noise shaper
and
you've got better depth and then I went
from 220 to 240 280 and eventually I hit
350 DB
and even when you were going from 330 to
350 DB which is just crazy numbers
you could still hear a change in depth
:facepalm:


JSmith
 
I’ll wait for the billion taps :) and the night and day obvious difference.....
Yes, you will need to wait for about 1300 seconds before you’ll hear the first sound.

And the difference is so massive that even just a little stress will suddenly not make you hear it:
Listening in unusual circumstances reduces sensitivity by an order of magnitude - double blind testing, where stress is put on listeners can degrade sensitivity by two orders of magnitude.
 
I clicked the link and searched for "cables" and what do you know:

Of course, the idea that immeasurably small things can have a difference to sound quality won't be news to the majority of Head-fiers - you only need to listen to the big changes that interconnect cables can make to realize that.

That should seal the deal for even for the most negative objectivist.
 
I have to admit, I've never heard things 300 db down while doing blind listening. OTOH, a little hallucinogenic help makes it very easy to hear, and then some.
I also don't know how this stress story rimes with the "my wife heard it from the kitchen" trope? She must be super relaxed there :rolleyes:
 
Anyone heard of this practice of placing stones and/or crystals around the listening room and/or in speaker enclosures? Has it been covered here already?
A client was telling me about a friend of his who demonstrated it to him and managed to convince him of the differences he could 'hear'.
Personally, I don't believe it and the claim sounds spurious to say the least. I'd suggest that has more to do with someone else trying to exert psychological influence over someone else and we all know how effective that can be.

It reminds me of someone who was placing small lumps of an unknown material on walls claiming to change the tuning of soundwaves.
I call snakeoil.
 
Anyone heard of this practice of placing stones and/or crystals around the listening room and/or in speaker enclosures? Has it been covered here already?
A client was telling me about a friend of his who demonstrated it to him and managed to convince him of the differences he could 'hear'.
Personally, I don't believe it and the claim sounds spurious to say the least. I'd suggest that has more to do with someone else trying to exert psychological influence over someone else and we all know how effective that can be.

It reminds me of someone who was placing small lumps of an unknown material on walls claiming to change the tuning of soundwaves.
I call snakeoil.
I bought a chunk of crocoite because, well, I've always like the looks of it. But after placing it on my horn amp, the soundstage enveloped the whole house, and every sound is crystalline. True story ;)
 
I left a bar of Toblerone on a speaker once. I didn’t really get a chance to decide if it improved the sound as my kids ate it.
Keith
 
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