Is Digital Audio Transmission Analog? [video]

[Raindog123]

…I have three DACs connected to my Roon PC. Two are wireless over raspberry Pi’s and one wired with a USB. All three perform equally great!

 

[lc6]

It reads more like a stream of consciousness altered by a psychedelic drug than anything actually useful.

There is no end to this perceptual drivel:
"That record through this system [a list of components], with this xxx amplification, produced the most realistic piano sound I've ever heard in my room, in every known sound-reproduction parameter and probably a few that are not yet known. [...]
The xxx amp, alone and combined with the yyy preamp, seems to up the pace of everything, as if your turntable is running fast, while simultaneously digging further down into each musical instant, making each gesture live longer, with precise attack, generous sustain, and long decay. The amp simultaneously speeds things up and slows things down."

 

[DonR]

There is no end to this perceptual drivel:
"That record through this system [a list of components], with this xxx amplification, produced the most realistic piano sound I've ever heard in my room, in every known sound-reproduction parameter and probably a few that are not yet known. [...]
The xxx amp, alone and combined with the yyy preamp, seems to up the pace of everything, as if your turntable is running fast, while simultaneously digging further down into each musical instant, making each gesture live longer, with precise attack, generous sustain, and long decay. The amp simultaneously speeds things up and slows things down."

It's probably the amphetamines and quaaludes kicking in at the same time.

 

[fpitas]

There is no end to this perceptual drivel:
"That record through this system [a list of components], with this xxx amplification, produced the most realistic piano sound I've ever heard in my room, in every known sound-reproduction parameter and probably a few that are not yet known. [...]
The xxx amp, alone and combined with the yyy preamp, seems to up the pace of everything, as if your turntable is running fast, while simultaneously digging further down into each musical instant, making each gesture live longer, with precise attack, generous sustain, and long decay. The amp simultaneously speeds things up and slows things down."

When time becomes a loop!

 

[MRC01]

.... The amp simultaneously speeds things up and slows things down."

Musicians call that rubato, used to artistic effect. I am not sure it's something amps do, nor would I want them to even if they could. But I suppose analog tape can do it, shrinking & stretching...

 

[Somafunk]

Musicians call that rubato, used to artistic effect. I am not sure it's something amps do, nor would I want them to even if they could. But I suppose analog tape can do it, shrinking & stretching...

Pfff , my very first Walkman could do that back in the early 80’s

 

[Jimster480]

I got through this entire video as I don't usually watch videos on these topics as I prefer to read.

I think the video overall was quite good, very informative. I sent it to a few friends who could use to learn about this.

 

[Coffee_fan]

A new argument has developed that transmission of digital audio is really analog. And for this reason, everything digital can be subject to audible difference from digital audio cables to digital output of streamers.

Darko's argument are quite feeble to put it mildly. First, digital does not exist and in fact it is a fabrication, that we humans have devised to literally "integralize" sound. To go to the ridiculous, but feasible, I could have a speaker that emits a bark for 1 and to take into account jitter, the absence of a bark means 0 and you introduce a period of .5 sec, so that in case you take a bit longer: Oooh, there's jitter. On the other side a microphone connected to some mechanism notes bark -> 1, no bark -> 0. Hooray, we're in the digital domain with 1, 0s and jitter cause wind you know.

Now, the stupidity of this argument is many-fold. If for example you are using an async USB DAC, then jitter does not matter, because the receiving end will regenerate the signal and has clock information in the stream.

I have also heard similar stupid arguments with respect to power supplies: You buy a $30 raspberry PI and some smart people want to sell you a power supply that costs $500, with super duper capacitors and filters that clean your 60 (or 50) hz power so that your raspberry gets a clean signal and it does not get to your DAC.

My thinking: Hmm, Well, how about if I put just a pack of batteries and feed the raspberry PI with that? How clean are my 60 or 50hz then? -- Oh, and that cost me $5.

 

[Vacceo]

Is it me or all Darko's argument is just pure justification for overpriced fancy streamers?

Because if digital is not digital really, it is subject to all the Anunnaki Technomagic that reviewers love to verse around analogue...

 

[Phorize]

I just saw Amir´s comment about Darko declining to let him talk on his channel. I don´t know about the veils, but the smell of piss on the legs reaches the Mediterranean.

There's some very interesting scientific literature that shows that when it comes to factually false beliefs 'corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group' and that a measurable cognitive “backfire effect” can lead to corrections actually increasing misperceptions even further. I think there is a real possibility that Mr Darko sincerely believes what he is saying. I can empathise as back when I was young enough to know everything I held some highly erroneous beliefs, and looking back no amount of falsification would have helped. I became free of my own idiocy when I realised that I would never be free of it at all, and had to rely on philosophical falliblism instead. Sadly there doesn't seem to be a reliable method of bringing about an epiphany in these situations, aside from maintaining rapport and waiting it out. I just stay in my own objectivist bubble these days, occasionally having a look at Darko or Steve Guttenberg to see what one gets in the box with a particular product.

 

[fpitas]

Is it me or all Darko's argument is just pure justification for overpriced fancy streamers?

Because if digital is not digital really, it is subject to all the Anunnaki Technomagic that reviewers love to verse around analogue...

Bingo. It's good that more people understand this stuff, but he has his own agenda.

 

[Jimbob54]

Bingo. It's good that more people understand this stuff, but he has his own agenda.

Which one can only assume is the enrichment through either ad revenues and/ or discounted equipment of one John Darko esq.

 

[fpitas]

Which one can only assume is the enrichment through either ad revenues and/ or discounted equipment of one John Darko esq.

I doubt it's an altruistic urge to teach.

 

[Jimbob54]

I doubt it's an altruistic urge to teach.

His gift is making viewers think it is though- he is on a voyage of discovery!

 

[fpitas]

His gift is making viewers think it is though- he is on a voyage of discovery!

That snake oil won't sell itself.

 

[DonDish]

Darko is a smart guy. He is just doing the talk to keep people showing up at his YT channel. If a signal is AC which a digital signal is, Its an analog wave. Look up square wave. Point is the one´s and zero´s is extracted from this, ideally at 100%. The digtal signal needs to be of such quality that the converter kan lock in time and phase. This is not a problem to achieve with modern equipment.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Darko is a smart guy. He is just doing the talk to keep people showing up at his YT channel. If a signal is AC which a digital signal is, Its an analog wave. Look up square wave. Point is the one´s and zero´s is extracted from this, ideally at 100%. The digtal signal needs to be of such quality that the converter kan lock in time and phase. This is not a problem to achieve with modern equipment.

Does a digital signal have both negative and positive content? Always thought it was zero or one which is always shown as being positive above zero.

 

[DonH56]

Does a digital signal have both negative and positive content? Always thought it was zero or one which is always shown as being positive above zero.

Depends on the format, and how strict your definition of "binary" as a digital number. One or two's complement encoding has positive and negative numbers. Many of the converters I designed used straight binary (0 to 2^n - 1) or some other type of encoding (e.g. Gray) to save power (conversion was done elsewhere in the processing chain, at lower speed). I remember decades ago a couple of professors debating if two's-complement was truly "binary" or a different number format (semantics). Me, I just did what they told me...

Two's complement - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Most digital number representations in general use, or at least as I use them, have the means to represent negative numbers in fixed- or floating-point schemes.

Some digital filter and modulation problems are easier to analyze using -1 and +1 instead of 0 and 1. Still binary, only two levels, but the math works out better since you can produce "0". Heck, what is life (or math) without zeros?

HTH - Don

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Depends on the format, and how strict your definition of "binary" as a digital number. One or two's complement encoding has positive and negative numbers. Many of the converters I designed used straight binary (0 to 2^n - 1) or some other type of encoding (e.g. Gray) to save power (conversion was done elsewhere in the processing chain, at lower speed). I remember decades ago a couple of professors debating if two's-complement was truly "binary" or a different number format (semantics). Me, I just did what they told me...

Two's complement - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Most digital number representations in general use, or at least as I use them, have the means to represent negative numbers in fixed- or floating-point schemes.

Some digital filter and modulation problems are easier to analyze using -1 and +1 instead of 0 and 1. Still binary, only two levels, but the math works out better since you can produce "0". Heck, what is life (or math) without zeros?

HTH - Don

Thanks Don a great technical post.
Ron

 

[tomtoo]

Depends on the format, and how strict your definition of "binary" as a digital number. One or two's complement encoding has positive and negative numbers. Many of the converters I designed used straight binary (0 to 2^n - 1) or some other type of encoding (e.g. Gray) to save power (conversion was done elsewhere in the processing chain, at lower speed). I remember decades ago a couple of professors debating if two's-complement was truly "binary" or a different number format (semantics). Me, I just did what they told me...

Two's complement - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Most digital number representations in general use, or at least as I use them, have the means to represent negative numbers in fixed- or floating-point schemes.

Some digital filter and modulation problems are easier to analyze using -1 and +1 instead of 0 and 1. Still binary, only two levels, but the math works out better since you can produce "0". Heck, what is life (or math) without zeros?

HTH - Don

Ahh this math people, some even go so far with there love to 0. That they say two of them exist a +0 and a -0.