Is Digital Audio Transmission Analog? [video]

[Guido]

Very interesting , as usual.
About your advice to spend not less that 150€ for dac i note that the awesome Khadas Tone board is priced 98 € on Amazon. With some friends of mine we have done several listenings tests and comparisons and we have not found anything better.

 

[sq225917]

Darkos a clueless clown for sure, and the mechanisms he wishes for don't exist.

Is morse code digital or analogue? It's on or off, it requires decoding, so surely it's digital?

Spdif is an analogue carrier used to transport digital data, so what is it?

An electrical sinewave is just constantly varying voltage, surely its analogue?

Seems like theres no clear cut definition in the middle ground, just the extremes.

 

[PeteL]

I just read the title and laughed!
Whoever claims it, has no conception of digital data and the transfer.
I strongly recommend looking up the meaning of the phrase Analogue .

Amir claims it.
You are laughing at your host.

 

[fpitas]

Darkos a clueless clown for sure, and the mechanisms he wishes for don't exist.

Is morse code digital or analogue? It's on or off, it requires decoding, so surely it's digital?

Spdif is an analogue carrier used to transport digital data, so what is it?

An electrical sinewave is just constantly varying voltage, surely its analogue?

Seems like theres no clear cut definition in the middle ground, just the extremes.

It's in how you process it. Every signal is just a varying voltage, it's true. But for digital you have a decision level where you say it's 1, or 0. In addition, with digital you often can determine bit errors and correct them.

 

[Pablo27]

The jig is almost up for these YT reviewers. Worse still (for them) they have kind of immortalised themselves online, telling lies. They'll end up being laughed at by the overwhelming majority soon enough.

 

[voodooless]

it requires decoding, so surely it's digital?

Your AM and FM radio signals require decoding, that doesn’t make them digital.

 

[fpitas]

The jig is almost up for these YT reviewers. Worse still (for them) they have kind of immortalised themselves online, telling lies. They'll end up being laughed at by the overwhelming majority soon enough.

I hope you're right. But perhaps you underestimate the ignorance and credulity of the buying public.

 

[lcarlotto]

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. This was emphasizes in a video by Darko Audio saying this explains his subjective opinion of streamers sounding different. I address this in this video and how there is some validity in what he says but his end conclusions are incorrect:

I don't think Darko has an electronics or computer science degree ...... at least there is nothing to this effect on his LinkedIn profile.
In Italy we use this expression ( I don't know if there is something like this in English ) :

"It's like shooting on the Red Cross"

Great job Amirm ... as always!

 

[Puddingbuks]

So in line with this, there can be no audible difference between say a 400 euro bluesound node 2i and an auralic aries G1?

 

[PeteL]

Sorry but at 7:30 "there is no such things as subtle degradation, I can assure you the sounds degrates substantially, there are glitches, pops"
It is not correct. You can have many bits in error before starting to hear glitches and pops. It's easy to check. Take any audio editor that can edit down to the sample. You can put two or even three whole samples and put their level at zero play the file back and you won't notice a thing. That's literally 32 skipped bits. A few bits in errors in a sample you won't hear it. it takes massive sync problems for degradation to become obvious.

 

[JayGilb]

So in line with this, there can be no audible difference between say a 400 euro bluesound node 2i and an auralic aries G1?

The bluesound has a d/a converter whereas the auralic is purely digital, so it's not an apples to apples comparison.
But on the digital to digital side, unless one of the units is very poorly designed, no, there should be no audible difference if both units are streaming digital to the same d/a converter.

 

[Vacceo]

I think people like Darko, Robinson, Guttenberg... the whole lot of them... seek to mystify and make audio a dark art... and not a science.

Many people here would be network engineers, cablers, radio engineers and the basics of digital transmission would be central to your profession. So this has analogues (LOL) to delivery of digital audio thru copper or fiber... the whole thing of tcp/ip over cable... it should seek to demystify this.

FURTHER... we now have transmission of digital audio over wifi etc.

How is anyone taking Darko's word seriously on this matter. I admit I dont mind watching the occasional Darko or Robinson video on a particular product... there is value in that subjective opinion but its 99% light entertainment.

Even traditional art (music, paint, sculpture, jewellery...) has a set of methodologies that can be scientific. Since they deal with material realities, those material realities can be analized, measured, designed and repeated. Of course there is variation and originality, but that originality also has a material basis that can be re-analized. Those reasons are precisely why art creation can be tough and is, indeed, tought.

We are in the XXI century, it is about time we ditch the Romanticism bullshit about the genius and all the outerworldly mysticism about it.

I think is actually quite precise:

usually mythical : existing only in the imagination : FICTITIOUS, IMAGINARY
constructed a mythical all-star team

Definition of MYTHICAL

based on or described in a myth especially as contrasted with history; existing only in the imagination : fictitious, imaginary; having qualities suitable to myth : legendary… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

Myth is one of the most complicated words I have ever encountered. The common usage is that: false. But at the same time, myth indecates what is profoundly true (Myth of the Cave in Plato) or what is deeply meaningful and the basis for what we derive meaning from in a culture (elements such as "human nature", "happyness", "democracy", "freedom"...).

Darko appeals to the second aspect, the capacity to provoque emotions that often times, are hard to turn into articulate, conventional language. In that sense, music and sound lead our brains to belive there is more in the medium than just waves; and in fact it is possible that those waves lead someone to act considering that there is more to them (Wagner and invading Poland is a cliché, but it works very well as example). So let us keep our heads grounded, get a good understanding of the phenomenon and be critical about the cultural subtexts; precisely what we like to do in this house.

 

[voodooless]

Take any audio editor that can edit down to the sample. You can put two or even three whole samples and put their level at zero play the file back and you won't notice a thing.

But that is not what happens in reality, is it. You’ll need to change the sample values at random, not just make them zero. That will make it much easier to hear.

Would be fun to do an ABX test to see at what bit error rate it becomes audible

 

[JayGilb]

We are in the XXI century, it is about time we ditch the Romanticism bullshit about the genius and all the outerworldly mysticism about it.

Isn't the scientific/technical side incredible enough ? Why do people seek to drag it back into the caves of the unenlightened ?

 

[Duckeenie]

I have a remedy I can sell you. It will not only clear up the toxicity in your life, but cure your acne, baldness and TAADAAA your ED (while relieving you of all your excess cash). As a bonus, reboot your sense of humor.

Your snake oil made his condition worse.

 

[Vacceo]

Isn't the scientific/technical side incredible enough ? Why do people seek to drag it back into the caves of the unenlightened ?

Uncle Charles said it damn great:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

 

[PeteL]

But that is not what happens in reality, is it. You’ll need to change the sample values at random, not just make them zero.

Well "In reality" transmission should be bit perfect. But extreme jitter problems will drop samples and it is actually what drop outs sounds like if there are insufficient buffering or clock rate mismatch. It's not voodoo, my point is that it takes a lot of drop samples to hear it, not random drop samples here and there. That's whole samples. Now, I don't agree that the fact that drop bits (not samples) are more audible because they are random. Why would that be? In a sample there is a "significance" grading. random means that bits with low significance are just as likely to be dropped than the most significant ones. Yes at least theoretically a most significant drop bit in a sample should be "more" audible" but if you can demonstrate than dropping a whole sample is not audible, it's not a far stretch to assess that a odd bit inside a sample will not be neither.

 

[KMO]

But that is not what happens in reality, is it. You’ll need to change the sample values at random, not just make them zero. That will make it much easier to hear.

Would be fun to do an ABX test to see at what bit error rate it becomes audible

Even a one bit error can be extremely audible - it just depends what bits you hit and hence how loud the "click" is.

PeteL seems to be confusing a couple of things - sure, skipping or repeating a single sample likely won't be terribly audible, because that doesn't introduce a large waveform discontinuity.

But actually changing the value of a single sample to something different from the surrounding waveform can be extremely audible as a click, depending on how much you changed it. You're potentially injecting a huge spike.

 

[Vacceo]

like most of @amirm 's videos, this is one, too, is well-reasoned and insightful and therefore thoroughly enjoyable. While being harsh in its criticism, it also mostly stays on the side of arguing against opinions, not people. Sadly, the same can't be said about the comments on this forum, which are, as so often, personally insulting, hostile, rude, more typical of a cult than a scientific community. In short: it's toxic here.

First of all, it´s "kult"; and second, I owe nothing to Darko.

 

[American Pie]

Let's do a test. While I'm not a fan of mqa - I avoid it as much as possible - mqa is great for doing this test.

Play an mqa through a 2 500 $ streamer, the mqa dac will display the logo.
Play it through a 100 $ streamer, the dac will still display the logo.

Both examples show the bits that were received are exactly the same, no matter if the analogue square wave was beautiful or not.

I'd invest in a good dac (mqa free in my case), dealing with jitter.
Darko probably wants me to rob a bank to get the more expensive streamer.