Is Digital Audio Transmission Analog? [video]

[Thomas savage]

Can you elaborate on those additional options for "anal logs", please?

Well with DSD the log can be quite big and for me unmanageable but not more satisfying .

Its just one of those things , for old men who are looking and feel dissatisfied...,

What can you do ...., ? MQA .. oh that's just shit right out the box .

 

[pkane]

Well with DSD the log can be quite big and for me unmanageable but not more satisfying .

Its just one of those things , for old men who are looking and feel dissatisfied...,

What can you do ...., ? MQA .. oh that's just shit right out the box .

Despite (or because of?) your current state of inebriation, your thinking is extremely lucid!

 

[voodooless]

They do. On his video that I addressed here, there is a person saying he is going to buy that expensive streamer. And comment after comment saying this is one of his best videos explaining the technical aspects! He has far more subscribers than me currently so his voice carries farther.

One has to wonder how many of these comments are actually real? Basically everything about these reviewers is fake, so why not some of the comments as well..

… I’ll remove my tinfoil hat now …

 

[VidPro]

Amir is helping me clean up my YouTube subscriptions. LOL!

 

[formdissolve]

I don't think Stephen Mejias is at Stereophile anymore, but I recall back around 2014 or so he seemed to be the only "down-to-earth" type writing there. He had great articles on budget audiophile gear for plebes that couldn't afford the "recommended" $15k gear. Sure, he had some flowery language in his reviews as you must in audio world writing, but he actually gave pretty good recommendations for cheapish gear, some of which actually measured decently or well. He also usually had really good music recommendations - mostly modern hidden gems - as opposed to a 14th remaster of a Beatles or Stones record.

I kind of miss these "budget" types that don't have their heads in the clouds and just want something better than Best Buy speakers and an AVR to listen to music on.

 

[Thomas savage]

Despite (or because of?) your current state of inebriation, your thinking is extremely lucid!

Well all good commonwealth and European engineers do their best work shitfaced .

The Americans, its just tea or coffee for them and even then they barely can think beyond some bland coffee.

1-6 pints of ale is where the magic happens .

 

[JayGilb]

Well all good commonwealth and European engineers do their best work shitfaced .

The Americans, its just tea or coffee for them and even then they barely can think beyond some bland coffee.

1-6 pints of ale is where the magic happens .

Studies have been done that show similar results when applied to software programming. 6 pints, I would need to bring my laptop to the bathroom to get anything accomplished.

 

[Thomas savage]

Studies have been done that show similar results when applied to software programming. 6 pints, I would need to bring my laptop to the bathroom to get anything accomplished.

ASR training is avaliable.

 

[lc6]

What a bunch of marketing BS, in many ways:
"Innovative triple-linear power supply with ultra-low noise regulators and premium Mundorf capacitors." At first glance, this would suggest triple in-series regulation, with each stage progressively reducing noise, but that is not the case; as the author of this video said, these are three independent rails (most likely, +3.3V, +5V and +12V).
BTW, an explanation of what capacitor is from Mundorf itself: "Capacitors (abbr. cap) are frequency-dependent resistors." LOL. Have these guys ever heard of real and imaginary components of impedance?
"Medical-grade mains filter." If you make claims like that, you'd better be prepared to show an FDA approval for your device.
"Dual Ethernet ports for LAN and Streamer with dedicated isolation transformers." Every UTP Ethernet port comes with an "isolation transformer" and, naturally, they cannot be shared so they are "dedicated."
"8GB RAM with 4GB in-memory playback." The author initially did not know what that means, but it is simply a cache of audio files; it is used because DRAM is faster than the SSD, so it can better support multiple concurrent streams.
But then this dude goes into showcasing and promoting his own "audio" PC builds with an external PS, "noise absorption materials," separate "server/renderer" motherboards, and USB reclocker, as if any "noise reduction" of that digital equipment resulted in an improved audio production by the DAC. And he says he would not mark up his equipment 4x not to "rip people off." You can buy a perfectly capable fanless NUC and get similar results.

 

[Doodski]

Darko makes a strong statement at ~21:30. Darko states that there is 40 years of digital theory and implementation that backs up his claims that digital transports don't sound the same. He's grasping at straws. Now he's going to use the books against us. lol... I doubt that very much.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

What is there to explain? You are saying that you laugh at the statement: "Is digital transmission analog?" and that whoever claims that has no conception of how digital work.
What I am saying is that Amir clearly state in the video that digital transmission is indeed analog. It was tongue in cheek, I don't think you are disrespecting Amir, but all I am saying is that he agree with this statement that you find laughable.

I don't want to get into a long winded back and forth on this issue, but I think perhaps Amir made an error on that definition.
Just because there are wires and voltages involved, that does not mean the transmission of digital data is analog in any shape or form. Noise can get into the voltages on the wire, making it look like analog signal, but it ain't!
Analog by definition , is a constantly varying voltage or otherwise that changes in tandem with the original varying signal , in this case the audio.
The digital pulses on the conductors or light on optical do not vary according to audio.
Digital data has no direct correlation with audio signal what so ever.
it is just pulses of on or off.
I declare that digital data transmission on USB, optical or electrical spdif is in no way analog! though analog noise can contaminate the pulses, but it won't matter, digital section is immune to such noise, unless the noise size becomes as large as the pulses.
What does matter , is that, if random noise contaminates the ground plane in ground-loop situation, then this noise can mess with the analog section of a dac, or further afield , in the amp that comes after.

 

[PeteL]

I don't want to get into a long winded back and forth on this issue, but I think perhaps Amir made an error on that definition.
Just because there are wires and voltages involved, that does not mean the transmission of digital data is analog in any shape or form. Noise can get into the voltages on the wire, making it look like analog signal, but it ain't!
Analog by definition , is a constantly varying voltage or otherwise that changes in tandem with the original varying signal , in this case the audio.
The digital pulses on the conductors or light on optical do not vary according to audio.
Digital data has no direct correlation with audio signal what so ever.
it is just pulses of on or off.
I declare that digital data transmission on USB, optical or electrical spdif is in no way analog! though analog noise can contaminate the pulses, but it won't matter, digital section is immune to such noise, unless the noise size becomes as large as the pulses.
What does matter , is that, if random noise contaminates the ground plane in ground-loop situation, then this noise can mess with the analog section of a dac, or further afield , in the amp that comes after.

OK, how about when you have an oscillator generating a square wave or a Variable Pulse width squarewave, as many audio synthesizer do, you amplify this signal and feed it trough speakers, would this signal be analog? If so, why exactly.

 

[DonR]

I don't want to get into a long winded back and forth on this issue, but I think perhaps Amir made an error on that definition.
Just because there are wires and voltages involved, that does not mean the transmission of digital data is analog in any shape or form. Noise can get into the voltages on the wire, making it look like analog signal, but it ain't!
Analog by definition , is a constantly varying voltage or otherwise that changes in tandem with the original varying signal , in this case the audio.
The digital pulses on the conductors or light on optical do not vary according to audio.
Digital data has no direct correlation with audio signal what so ever.
it is just pulses of on or off.
I declare that digital data transmission on USB, optical or electrical spdif is in no way analog! though analog noise can contaminate the pulses, but it won't matter, digital section is immune to such noise, unless the noise size becomes as large as the pulses.
What does matter , is that, if random noise contaminates the ground plane in ground-loop situation, then this noise can mess with the analog section of a dac, or further afield , in the amp that comes after.

No. The first thing you learn in Digital Design 101 (actually 2-something) is that digital is just a special case of analog. That is why as a digital designer you need to be aware of capacitance and inductance as well as noise rejection. The rules that govern digital transfer are all analog (rise time, logic levels, load impedance, etc.). The analog signal simply has more restrictions on it than an audio analog signal.

 

[RandomEar]

OK, how about when you have an oscillator generating a square wave or a Variable Pulse width squarewave, as many audio synthesizer do, you amplify this signal and feed it trough speakers, would this signal be analog? If so, why exactly.

Your example is an analog signal. Because there is no digital information encoded in it. You should not think about or look at the raw signal, it is not helpful. Take a step back: What is relevant is the information the signal carries. If it carries a digital data stream, which meant to be decoded to 0s and 1s at the receiving end, it is by definition a digital signal. If not, it is analog.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

OK, how about when you have an oscillator generating a square wave or a Variable Pulse width squarewave, as many audio synthesizer do, you amplify this signal and feed it trough speakers, would this signal be analog? If so, why exactly.

We have a saying in my native language that says:
A walnut is round, but not anything round is a walnut !
digital data, shows up as square pulses on a scope, but any square signal is not digital data.
is that square signal encoded? does it have error correction bits added? is the timing correct?
are you serious?

 

[pma]

“Digital” is a mathematical representation. Signal transfer is through voltage and voltage is an analog quantity. Digital signal representation is transferred by means of analog quantity - voltage.

 

[pseudoid]

Even a simple button click of the lowly APx500Flex can represent any signal (w/i limits) in either the time or the frequency domain.
Such proven transforms continue to be perpetuated as mystical concepts.

Penn&Teller - Tap water test (@youtube: <2 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2qydjVbLJ

 

[PeteL]

Your example is an analog signal. Because there is no digital information encoded in it. You should not think about or look at the raw signal, it is not helpful. Take a step back: What is relevant is the information the signal carries. If it carries a digital data stream, which meant to be decoded to 0s and 1s at the receiving end, it is by definition a digital signal. If not, it is analog.

Well this definition is Ambiguous. The point is many analog signals are meant to be decoded. FM transmission is the most obvious example. What you point out is that it's not an "audio" signal. and that it can be "represented" digitally, or mathematically. But "Analog" don't relate to audio. At the end of the day your only point is that it's a signal that is not meant to be listened to. But the signal itself. It's a waveform, it has a frequency, it has an harmonic content, it is subject to noise and distortion, it can be represented on a FFT, just out of the audio band. it has all the attributes of an analog signal. What you do with it afterward is not what define the signal itself. The signal is nothing else than a square wave with variable pulse width. It's only digital when you use it that way but "digital" is not an attribute of the said signal.

 

[PeteL]

We have a saying in my native language that says:
A walnut is round, but not anything round is a walnut !
digital data, shows up as square pulses on a scope, but any square signal is not digital data.
is that square signal encoded? does it have error correction bits added? is the timing correct?
are you serious?

I am serious, see my response to the other contributor. It's ok if we disagree. You talk about digital "data" me I am talking about the signal itself.

 

[krabapple]

Sorry if someone pointed this out already in 6 preceding pages, but of course we can measure properties of bottled water. And there is no doubt that some properties, above some threshold, could make a taste difference. Which would be verifiable in a blind difference taste test.

Darko's premise is stupid on its face.