I could hear the difference. But why.

[JRR]

Could u describe the differences u heard?

If u bypassed their internal DAC then level are not likely in play, and the AVR uses the same EQ settings, I might guess clock? If the AVR buffers/re-clocks internally then all bets are off.

Flatter soundstage (yes, it is a thing) and a less clear and less relaxed sound.

 

[Purité Audio]

‘Clearer’ usually means that one is a little louder.
Keith

 

[JRR]

Not if they were level matched.

 

[August West]

How did you level match?

 

[guy48065]

You know what I'm going to say folks . NO POLITICS!

Ears vs meters isn't politics, it's religion.

 

[Jimbob54]

Ears vs meters isn't politics, it's religion.

Yeah but I deleted posts about politicians.

 

[JRR]

How did you level match?

I asked my wife if she could hear a difference from the kitchen.

REW+UMM6

 

[Verig]

Flatter soundstage (yes, it is a thing) and a less clear and less relaxed sound.

Well, enough distortion makes me feel uneasy and you lose some clarity and perceived soundstage. But that requires a lot.

 

[JRR]

Just making sure, output should be set to bitstream on both right?

 

[JustJones]

What you you playing, CD or SACD? Is the Sony set to DSD or PCM, is DRC on or off ? There's other audio settings as well which might cause a difference.

 

[JRR]

SACD. They are both set to DSD. Initially the sony was set to PCM which sounded quite bad. Switched to DSD which improved things but still fell short of what I heard from the Magnetar. Subjectively. Both are connected through HDMI. One thing to keep in mind is that the AV10s ability to filter out noise from HDMI seems abysmal. I was getting HDD sounds from my ROCK through the speakers regardless of input until i installed a “HumX” device. Something to this effect was also demonstrated by Amir in his reviews I believe.

 

[voodooless]

REW+UMM6

What is not good enough. The best and most practical method is via DDM and a test tone.

 

[Mnyb]

I have a Sony BDP-5100 blu ray player and a Magnetar UDP blu ray player. I think the Sony was $109 new and the Magnetar (Oppo clone?) is $1600.

For some reason I can hear a difference between them with the magnetar being the better player. I’m bypassing the DAC in both running HDMI to my AV10. What do you think would cause the discrepancy?

it's basically finding out which experimental error you made ,the overwhelmingly likely case . As a distant second option , one player is broken in some funny way .
If the player functions correctly they should output exactly the same thing at the HDMI output then there is no physical mechanism to influence the sound .
It could be some weird setting where you decode the disc in the player and output multichannel PCM vs letting the AV10 decode the material

 

[Mnyb]

I asked my wife if she could hear a difference from the kitchen.

Trolling or joking ?

 

[SIY]

REW+UMM6

It's actually both easier AND far more accurate to level match electrically. All it takes is a simple/cheap DMM.

 

[JRR]

Trolling or joking ?

Joking

 

[JRR]

It's actually both easier AND far more accurate to level match electrically. All it takes is a simple/cheap DMM.

Noted. However, if were going to claim, as is usually done, that we cannot distinguish 1/2db increments I think we can apply the same tolerances to A/B tests.

I can so far conclude that the membership deems that there could be no likely reason that one transport would sound different than the other.

I will try DBX when time permits to see if I actually can distinguish between the two according to those standards.

 

[SIY]

However, if were going to claim, as is usually done, that we cannot distinguish 1/2db increments

We absolutely can. At that level, you don't perceive the difference as volume but generally as clarity. 0.1dB is the usual standard. Again, really easy to do electrically.

Also, I think you mean either ABX or (more generally) DBT (double blind test).

 

[JRR]

Thank you for the explanation.

 

[boxerfan88]

I asked my wife if she could hear a difference from the kitchen.

You gave me a very good laugh

REW+UMM6

Someone is gonna tell you that it’s not good enough. And that must be done electrically (i got that thrown at me before). In my view REW+Mic matching can work if measured near field and the device has stepped volume control (coz we can’t set the volume in between steps anyway). REW+Mic is a lot more convenient to measure compared to electrically where we need to go to the snake pit, disconnect the cables and hook up a DMM.