Is ASR missing the point? Why still focus on Dacs?

[Power Pop 23]

Check on the current lead time before submitting any gear.

Amir has acknowledged measuring a loudspeaker takes more time than measuring select electronics.

Erin's Audio Corner may be interested in measuring your loudspeaker and have a shorter lead time.

 

[amirm]

Meanwhile how many subwoofer reviews have we seen?

I have only done one. I am not setup to test them. With it raining here most of the year, outdoor testing is not a good approach for me to say nothing of the weight of these beasts. I am also not a fan of current protocols for measuring them as I feel they lack any foundation in proper listening tests. I have some ideas to deal with this but nothing concrete yet.

 

[Timcognito]

My memory is hazy but I think more than 50% of our traffic comes from search engines.

and 280+ robots a moment ago.

 

[amirm]

I'm sure that if Amir wanted to start a business measuring for companies developing speakers and not publishing their data he would make money.

It definitely was not the motivation behind anything I am doing. Was not even a consideration.

FYI I am doing about one such review a quarter or a handful per year (mostly speakers). I am surprised that there is no more interest in it but then again, it is not something I have advertised.

 

[amirm]

What about speakers? Should we not measure a lot more speakers?

I do not have a large backlog of speakers. Fewer come in these days that used to. I also used to buy a lot of them but almost all turned into duds, sitting here gathering dust.

If people sent in more, you would see more of them measured.

 

[617]

I do not have a large backlog of speakers. Fewer come in these days that used to. I also used to buy a lot of them but almost all turned into duds, sitting here gathering dust.

If people sent in more, you would see more of them measured.

Those presonus units were pretty depressing lol, they looked promising though.

 

[EJ3]

I don’t find that ASR is overgrown with DAC discussion. It’s just that they’re measurable and the measurement threads are great fun, eye-catching, and the first thing most people will look at when they pop onto the forum is a new review. The reviews are terrific and well presented by all those that do them.

I also think it’s important to continue reviewing things like DACs, even if the majority of them are now basically transparent, because not all are. And we need to know as a community which ones aren’t.

Also, continuing to review them helps keep the manufacturers from slacking off on performance.

 

[raif71]

 

[Multicore]

Looking at the front page of the site I wouldn't say the focus is too heavily on DACs. Lots of other stuff.

 

[JSmith]

I like DAC test reviews.


JSmith

 

[jkim]

DAC is a solved problem only if it is properly implemented. More and more DAC products keep adopting the Cirrus Logic CS431xx and other custom chips that exhibit peculiar distortion behavior if not properly dealt with in a firmware design. Industry is beginning to realize the issue and provide solutions.

And more and more products bundle PEQ with DAC, but based on my testing so far, their PEQ performance is often suboptimal with respect to accuracy and nonlinear distortion.

So, at least to me, there are reasons why we want to keep testing DACs.

 

[Chrispy]

If you'd spend some time in this group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/328518039319750, you'd notice the dac reviews are still needed It would be among the easiest items to send in as to how many have been done.

 

[Multicore]

DAC is a solved problem only if it is properly implemented.

Just the other day Amir tested a DAC that clips at about -5 dBFS.

 

[mixsit]

Check on the current lead time before submitting any gear.

Amir has acknowledged measuring a loudspeaker takes more time than measuring select electronics.

Erin's Audio Corner may be interested in measuring your loudspeaker and have a shorter lead time.

Thanks. I didn't know about 'Erin's. Contacted him..

 

[Multicore]

Alright, @Jungstar , with the straw man out of the way, your suggestions are worth attention.

The Rooms are also a "mess" - and in my opinion, we should measure a lot more here and understand what can be done in room EQ and what are time domain issues.

Fair point. But we discuss it a lot here. Really a lot. It doesn't show up much on the reviews front page because it's not a product you can put on the bench and measure. But there's lots of case studies, some tutorials and this omnibus thread for people to discuss their measurements.

'Share your in-room measurements?'

May 22, 2020

Would it be useful to have a forum thread where we can gather people's in-room frequency response measurements and discuss them? Those who did something to improve their sound based on measurements might also describe what they did and show the results. I think this could be quite interesting. What do you think?

• thefsb
• Replies: 1,292
• Forum: Speaker Reviews, Measurements and Discussion

• 

I wonder how we could organize it better. No ideas off the top of my head.

One thing we don't see often is bench measurements of EQ. Idk if this is something @amirm is interested in. I suppose his AP can do it. One thing I care about is how a digital product handles gain in a filter's band. For example, my WiiM mini distorts if I move the graphic EQ sliders up (in the phone app), presumably because input signals are mastered relative to zero dBFS and the WiiM doesn't compensate for filter band gain with negative pre gain. So I wonder why the WiiM's graphic EQ sliders go up above zero at all. Bench testing with discussion could be useful.

Another is tone controls. Parametric and graphic EQ are great but they are hard to use. Sometimes you just want good old bass and treble knobs. I want bass and treble knobs. Nice and easy and satisfying. This is something the audiophiles told us were bad for us and they went away. Such rot. Loudness knob is great too. Go Yamaha A-S801! This goes to your next point.

Almost nobody at 40, has a "flat hearing". But what if you could use DSP to fix it - that is basically what a hearing aid are doing.

Tone controls and more easily controlled EQ!

Actually I started a thread a while back about measuring your own tinnitus.

'Measure my tinnitus, or yours?'

Dec 28, 2024

I searched (casually) and it seems audiologists are Measuring Tinnitus (American Tinnitus Assoc.) as I would imagine:

• Tinnitus sound matching: The presentation of common tinnitus sounds back to patients, to help them identify their specific perception of tinnitus. The health professional may adjust the pitch and layer multiple sounds to create an exact audio recreation of the the tinnitus. Sound matching provides an important baseline for subsequent tinnitus management therapies, which are often customized for each patient.
• Minimum masking level: The volume at...

• Multicore
• Replies: 10
• Forum: Psychoacoustics: Science of How We Hear

• 

The idea was (a) calibrate your DAC and headphone amp using a resistor and multi-meter to establish the relationship between dBFS in REW or your DAW and RMS Volts, and (b) use the sensitivity that others including Amir and solderdude have measured for yoru make and model of headphones that gives you volts to dB SPL. Now on your computer you can create test signals and run DIY hearing tests one ear at a time.

 

[fatoldgit]

We have two ways to reproduce music (analog [vinyl/tape] and digital [cd/local files/streamed files])

We know in terms of objective audio quality that digital playback (assuming CD quality or better) trumps analog (this from a guy that started collecting vinyl in 1970, had an expensive vinyl playback system and gave it all up for ripped CD's served up from a $200 PC...so I have some experience with this).

At the center of what is the better platform for music reproduction (digital) we have had an ever expanding scope for a "DAC":

- originally just playing spdif from a CD transport
- then playing back ripped CD's from a local hard drive via a PC (from a motherboard's spdif then usb)
- then playing back CD rips stored on an inhouse NAS
- then hi-res file playback
- then cd and hi-res playback from streaming services
- then incorporation of HDMI, e-arc etc
- then incorporation of room correction
- then incorporation of DAC stream control/configuration via tablets and phones
- then increased size/resolution of device screens
- etc etc

NOTE: yes I am conflating a DAC and a streamer but a streamer is a DAC... just with extra "stuff" to obtain the digital file for conversion (outside of the traditional spdif/usb inputs) so I see them as a the same thing.

What other audio playback device has undergone (and still undergoes) massive functionality changes.

Amps?. So we gave gone from class A or A/B to D and a small number of digital amps (PCM to PWM) with some GAN on the side. Not much compared to the humble DAC

Speakers? nothing.... yeah we have gone from non-active to active but thats it. Whatever has been invented in the speaker driver space has been around for decades. Cabinets...nothing new there.

So by happenstance (cause DAC's are easy to send to Amir), ASR is actually focusing on the one area that is:

- at center of a modern high quality audio system (the dac)
- moving the fastest in terms of innovation (the dac)

But ASR is also strongly focused on Class D amps which have also undergone some massive shifts. Not in the topology itself but in the different modules that have been developed (ice, hypex, purifi etc).

So my view is ASR is focusing (again by happenstance due to lack of shipping weight) on the stuff (dac's/class D) that is advancing audio reproduction.

If these two devices are transperant then all that has to happen is for you "salt" your playback experience with your speaker of choice. And the "issue" with speakers is they interact with our rooms and our ears so it's a crap shoot as to which may work for us in our specific situation.

With ASR removing concerns in the upstream devices, we can focus our money/effort on the hard to solve speaker selection

ASR is also focusing on the devices that new audiophiles are concerned with. Leave vinyl and tube amps to the old crusty earred guys who unlike me have not moved on to a digital paradise.

And ASR is also importantly helping new audiophiles select a platform that they can not only afford but that also measures well. Don't need to spend $$$$ but if they read Stereophile or Absolute Sound, that's the impression they would get.

Leave Stereophile or Absolute Sound to do what they do best, create bullshit reviews of overpriced and underperforming audio jewelry while we in the real world savour the content on ASR.

Peter

PS: Of course headphones are a key part of many younger peoples playback experience and again ASR has a stong body of work here as well.

 

[amirm]

One thing we don't see often is bench measurements of EQ. Idk if this is something @amirm is interested in.

I have done this a few times. It always shows what you can predict from the rest of the measurements since it is a linear parameter.

I suppose his AP can do it.

It can but not easily. It won't accept any normal EQ format. You have to create a comma delimited +- vs frequency and then import that.

In the past for headphone testing, I have used Roon as the generator and it did the work but there is a hassle factor in that kind of "asynchronous" measurement.

 

[amirm]

Speakers? nothing.... yeah we have gone from non-active to active but thats it. Whatever has been invented in the speaker driver space has been around for decades. Cabinets...nothing new there.

There are a lot of advances in 3-D modelling of drivers and waveguides. There is also advanced measurement systems and visualization from Klippel which has reduced distortion.

 

[Hal_01]

I believe Amir works pretty hard as it is, and he has completely disrupted the traditional Hi-Fi paradigm single handed.
Not too shabby for one guy.
Keith

Well he has certainly made alot more honest men and companies in quantum numbers in the world of Audio. <chuckles>

 

[RickS]

There are a lot of advances in 3-D modelling of drivers and waveguides. There is also advanced measurement systems and visualization from Klippel which has reduced distortion.

Would add that there is much more optimal use of materials in drivers, better motor designs and other innovations (by KEF, Purifi, Scanspeak and others). Should also mention the CAD and automation has improved results and reduced costs in both design and production. So worth noting that not all advancements just simply achieve better sound.