Is Digital Audio Transmission Analog? [video]

[Zaireeka]

There's no equivalent concept to analog/digital when it comes to how our brain work, but I have to get my hands again on that paper talking about the auditory system operation, it was quite disturbing.

This is not the one but very similar.

 

[PeteL]

The auditory system actually works with discrete narrow frequency bands, doing FFT like a freq analyser would.

Any references for that?

 

[Axo1989]

'53 was the year I was born so I don't consider that the distant past. ...

You appeared to ascribe @Somafunk's preference for electronic to youth, I was providing a counterpoint.

The most interesting thing I read is how we arrive at our musical tastes. It described how people get fixated on what they liked at the beginning of their primary socialization period, which for most people is early adolescence. I've always been curious about the capacity for music lovers to break out of the initial phase to explore other skeins of audio. Given the ubiquity of so much music, I reiterate my encouragement to explore the roots of techno\dance\techno by exploring other recordings that share those roots. Fela Kuti, Count Ossie, Angelique Kidjo and so much more.

Interesting, yes. Fixation hasn't been my own experience though. I agree with exploration, certainly.

With perspective, our ability to hear music beyond the immediacy of live performance is an amazing innovation of our age. Considering the thousands and thousands of preceding generations who did not share this miracle, I want to consume as much as possible from all eras.

Absolutely.

As for tribal percussion, that arrived on American shores as a forced relocation, the miracle is how that developed into spirituals, worksongs, jazz, blues, RnB, pop, disco and then trance, house and the like.

I should have been more specific. I refer to European/Scandinavian tribes, not African. Probably Inuit and Japanese too. And let's throw in Tibetan. I often find music that doesn't either derive from or carry direct influence of blues more interesting/pleasurable. Blues is kind of soul-crushing.

Although you dismiss the powdered wigs, those compositional components have been woven into those same rhythms to create so much of what we take for granted.

Of course, even though they don't compose/play traditional classical, some of my favourite musos are classically trained.

 

[JSmith]

Going forward, we believe that the correct research question is no longer that of continuous-versus-discrete, but rather, how fine grained the discreteness is (i.e., how many bits of precision). It is very plausible that different parts of the brain (e.g., visual, auditory, cognitive decision-making) operate at different levels of discreteness, possibly based on different numbers of quantization levels.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1805/1805.01631.pdf

JSmith

 

[wwenze]

I'm sorry - what? The brain is not a digital computer.

 

[SoundGuy]

I'm sorry - what? The brain is not a digital computer

The auditory system actually works with discrete narrow frequency bands, doing FFT like a freq analyser would.

Agreed the sound causes hair or cilia movements that trigger nerve impulses roughly in frequency bands. There is a lag time to rest once a hair or cilia is triggered. This is inherently a conversion from analog to digital. There is significant conversion going on and much of the original analog data signal is being thrown out. As everyone surely agrees an FFT Is digital. Anyway we don’t analyze the shape of the entire analogue waveform vibration of the ear drum but only discrete parts of this signal vibration are sampled in a specific manner (this is akin to digital processing but not as simple as taking a specific sample at a specific sample rate). Our brain operates like a computer, an organic one and one not like any computer that has ever been built (so far).

 

[Vacceo]

I wish I had youth (and health) on my side, turned 50 this year so whilst it may be possible to assign a preference for a particular musical genre to age it may also prove rather presumptuous to consider all who like said genre to be young. And no kids so definitely no grandchildren.

All music is valid and expressing my preference for electronic music in no way invalidates any other music that you enjoy, I just like what I like

I have seen plenty of people your age and older, far older, in Extreme Metal gigs. Keep in mind that the genres included (Black, Death, Doom Metal and we could even include Grindcore) emerged in the 80´s, so those guys were already adults when the music developed. Considering your location (well, a bit south of where you are), one of the events I saw a nice amount of seniors was a Godflesh and Pitchshifter gig way back in the 90´s, so go guess...

I´m sure more fellow participants can tell you the same about "youth" genres such as different kinds of electronic music, Hip Hop or pretty much anything. You like what you like, no need to give excuses or explanations.

 

[Addicted to music]

im going to say that you can do certain test and measurements on those 2 containers of water.

You can measure the PH levels in each bottle to determined acidity and the alkaline concentration
You can scan for different chemicals
you can also scan for microorganisms
All this will determined the taste of water even though you cant see it.

THANK YOU Amir for a detailed presentation that will help the masses to understand digital to analog conversion and how important it is to demystify some of the BS marketing that floats around

 

[Somafunk]

Given the ubiquity of so much music, I reiterate my encouragement to explore the roots of techno\dance\techno by exploring other recordings that share those roots. Fela Kuti, Count Ossie, Angelique Kidjo and so much more.

Yeah for sure, I like a lot of “so called” Mali music such as Tinariwen, Ali Farka Toure, Songhoy Blues, Toumani Diabate, Tamikrest, Amadou & Mariam along with other Tribal beat artists from Pakistan/Afghanistan,India etc.

My first ever self-bought music was a cassette of Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast back in 83 as I got a Walkman for my birthday (primarily because I thought the cover artwork looked cool, From there I mostly listened to rock/heavy metal till I was 18ish then got into other stuff like trad Scot music as a friends brother was in a rather famous Scottish band, the one thing that ruined me/opened my eyes was that dose of mdma back in very early 90’s at a rave in a forest - I’d never heard any thing like it and I guess I’ve been chasing that experience ever since

 

[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.

Here is more BS:
"There, Gomes [Director of Sales] switched between two Innuos Statements, one of which was a prototype that contained the Next-Gen PSU upgrade."
"The Jonas track revealed that the new PSU moves the soundstage back and lends presentations greater depth and a more realistic sense of space. There was less edge on voice and a tighter, more focused percussion. With the Prokofiev, I heard how much thicker and veiled the original Statement sounded, and how more intense colors were with the upgrade. The difference was huge. 'The new one sounds as if a spotlight is shining on every instrument, bringing out all it has to offer,' I scribbled in my notes."

We are talking about a 35 W peak (i.e. relatively small) 8-rail linear power supply for a digital server, essentially a glorified small PC with "reclocked" Ethernet and USB ports:
"Custom-designed Ethernet and USB Reclockers with 3bpp OCXO clocks".
First, the unit should have been ppb (parts per billion) not "bpp," so this is clearly marketing nonsense. Second, the IEEE 802.3 standard specifies Ethernet clocks to be within ±100 ppm (parts per million). For USB, clock tolerance is 480.00±0.24 Mbps (±500 ppm), 12.00±0.03 Mbps, and 1.50±0.18 Mbps; USB Audio Class 2 uses 480 Mbps. So a 3 ppb accuracy is completely unnecessary and an overkill by several orders of magnitude; it falls into the category of "we do it just because we can, to impress audiophools". Also, an off-the-shelf 3 ppb OCXO costs only ~$180.
That external PSU will set you back $5k, on top of the $16.7k base price for a server model with a 1 TB SSD; each 1 TB upgrade costs $400. Even assuming that the dealer's margin is ~50%, the manufacturer's margin on this device is exorbitant.

 

[DonR]

Here is more BS:
"There, Gomes [Director of Sales] switched between two Innuos Statements, one of which was a prototype that contained the Next-Gen PSU upgrade."
"The Jonas track revealed that the new PSU moves the soundstage back and lends presentations greater depth and a more realistic sense of space. There was less edge on voice and a tighter, more focused percussion. With the Prokofiev, I heard how much thicker and veiled the original Statement sounded, and how more intense colors were with the upgrade. The difference was huge. 'The new one sounds as if a spotlight is shining on every instrument, bringing out all it has to offer,' I scribbled in my notes."

We are talking about a 35 W peak (i.e. relatively small) 8-rail linear power supply for a digital server, essentially a glorified small PC with "reclocked" Ethernet and USB ports:
"Custom-designed Ethernet and USB Reclockers with 3bpp OCXO clocks".
First, the unit should have been ppb (parts per billion) not "bpp," so this is clearly marketing nonsense. Second, the IEEE 802.3 standard specifies Ethernet clocks to be within ±100 ppm (parts per million). For USB, clock tolerance is 480.00±0.24 Mbps (±500 ppm), 12.00±0.03 Mbps, and 1.50±0.18 Mbps; USB Audio Class 2 uses 480 Mbps. So a 3 ppb accuracy is completely unnecessary and an overkill by several orders of magnitude; it falls into the category of "we do it just because we can, to impress audiophools". Also, an off-the-shelf 3 ppb OCXO costs only ~$180.
That external PSU will set you back $5k, on top of the $16.7k base price for a server model with a 1 TB SSD; each 1 TB upgrade costs $400. Even assuming that the dealer's margin is ~50%, the manufacturer's margin on this device is exorbitant.

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

 

[Axo1989]

Agreed the sound causes hair or cilia movements that trigger nerve impulses roughly in frequency bands. There is a lag time to rest once a hair or cilia is triggered. This is inherently a conversion from analog to digital. There is significant conversion going on and much of the original analog data signal is being thrown out. As everyone surely agrees an FFT Is digital. Anyway we don’t analyze the shape of the entire analogue waveform vibration of the ear drum but only discrete parts of this signal vibration are sampled in a specific manner (this is akin to digital processing but not as simple as taking a specific sample at a specific sample rate). Our brain operates like a computer, an organic one and one not like any computer that has ever been built (so far).

I think your quoting got messed up @SoundGuy but assuming this is your part, that's an interesting way to look at it.

 

[Axo1989]

It reads more like a stream of consciousness altered by a psychedelic drug ...

So maybe worth it then? $5K is a lot of MDMA though.

 

[DonR]

So maybe worth it then?

Depends on the quality of the trip. Oddly enough, unlike the acid trips of my youth, I have never heard reviewers have anything negative to say about very expensive gear. There always seems an improvement. There are no bad trips.

 

[TNT]

Of course it is. It's just that the signal that it carrhesis so smartly coded that it is impervious to the analogue quality to a peerage extent. As long as bit integrity is maintained and no clock that shall be used untreated at the end of the transmission - its fine and one need not worry about anything really except that the analogue transmission line might carrie noise etc that might impact the receiving side in a bad way - but the digital information, it is perfect ;.)

//

 

[Gee2]

on top of the $16.7k base price for a server model with a 1 TB SSD; each 1 TB upgrade costs $400. Even assuming that the dealer's margin is ~50%, the manufacturer's margin on this device is exorbitant.

Maybe they pay premium money for the legacy Intel Pentium N4200CPU.... All that money to find that the thing runs https://innuos.com/kb/access-the-internal-logitech-media-server-lms-software-settings (nothing wrong with LMS). By the way: the price setting for storage sounds like Apple.

 

[antcollinet]

I think your quoting got messed up @SoundGuy but assuming this is your part, that's an interesting way to look at it.

FFT - may be digital.

But also FFT - if it is anything at all in this discussion - is just an analogy for how the brain is working, and I - for one - am somewhat doubtful it is an accurate one. For one thing - no one on the planet actually understands in detail just how the brain is working.

One thing though we can be certain of - the processing in the brain in no way creates numbers (digits) of any sort and hence is not digital. It has evolved out of the primordial swamp and to pretend it is working in any way like a designed digital computer is laughable.

 

[lc6]

Maybe they pay premium money for the legacy Intel Pentium N4200CPU.... All that money to find that the thing runs https://innuos.com/kb/access-the-internal-logitech-media-server-lms-software-settings (nothing wrong with LMS). By the way: the price setting for storage sounds like Apple.

But that is an "audio-grade" flash, which creates wider, deeper and taller soundstage, along with more accurate placement of instruments, agile bass, silky smooth mids and crystalline highs, all the while sounding like the artist intended.

 

[Addicted to music]

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

Tell me what drugs he’s on so I can trial it out!

 

[Gee2]

But that is an "audio-grade" flash, which creates wider, deeper and taller soundstage, along with more accurate placement of instruments, agile bass, silky smooth mids and crystalline highs

That is the mantra yes but wider/deeper/taller compared to what? Do these reviewers have a reference system and do they state which brand/models are in it or are they afraid of the hand that feeds.....