• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Is SINAD important? - "Myths" about measurements! [Video YT]

I do see a pattern here, and that is NOT misinformation
Probably not. But on the off-chance you decide to peek at my reply, you might want to do a bit of self reflection as to why that pattern exists.
 
I think this is mostly a strawman. Can you point me to a few regular posters sincerely making this argument?

Finding examples would take far too much time, which I do not have enough of right this moment for sure.

I would recommend you look under the last dozen AVR reviews as a start. A lot of reading, so not expecting you to actually do this, but for sure a somewhat common thing I have seen numerous times.

Mostly an attitude of purely "Discounting" certain products as completely substandard, based on merely reading Amir's measurement of SINAD.

That alone is what drew me to this thread, and made me watch the video:)
 
Finding examples would take far too much time, which I do not have enough of right this moment for sure.

I would recommend you look under the last dozen AVR reviews as a start. A lot of reading, so not expecting you to actually do this, but for sure a somewhat common thing I have seen numerous times.

Mostly an attitude of purely "Discounting" certain products as completely substandard, based on merely reading Amir's measurement of SINAD.

That alone is what drew me to this thread, and made me watch the video:)
Yes,the AVR threads are disappointing lots of times.I stopped reading them for this reason.
People seem to feel that SINAD is a metric than applies equal to all and they compare a simple thingy like a DAC with an AVR without thinking the added complexity.

On the other hand though they don't like reading that a touch of a half-baked EQ embedded in a DAC can crumble its world by 20-30db.
 
...also,the most absurd of all has to do with voltage.
SINAD race by the manufacturers has brought things to ridiculous gain ability ,stuff like 10-15dB.And by that sources have to be able to do 4-5-10V.
Sure,old pre's did that with ease but the sources back then did 0.3V outputs.

Now the irony,that 4-5V sources have high SINAD just because of their voltage (and partly the ability to play with AP's soft spot) so they have become a-cure-to-all no matter if the majority of amps do healthy 25-29dB gain.

Thus a whole brand new market of attenuators and threads coming every now and then.Or systems having to go -40db to go to sane listening level and living in the fear that a glitch at the (usual digital VC) these days can leave them deaf.

It's not ASR's fault,is the fault of the vocal new found faith zealots who blanket and generalize everything thinking only 0dB,something that will never happen in a healthy system.
 
On the other hand though they don't like reading that a touch of a half-baked EQ embedded in a DAC can crumble its world by 20-30db.

If it’s not too much trouble, can you point me to some review or thread discussing this issue?

Reason is that I am considering for future upgrade, DAC with built in PEQ. I want to learn and understand more about this issue, and the root cause.

Thanks
 
Well he totally missed the situation where you can very easily tell 2 amps (or DACs) apart that in a measurement both have 110 SINAD.
The reason being frequency response. He could have shown that in 3 short clips as well (low, high and no roll-off) but some people with rolled off gear (like on a phone) would not hear it)
SINAD is measured at 1kHz and an amp (or DAC) can have a considerable roll-off in the lows (and/or highs) that is audible yet have very low distortion at 1kHz AND very low noise for instance.

All that is needed is a little disclaimer displaying what SINAD can show (as explained in the video, that can be short) and what it does not.

The same goes for the Harman score. Even the inventor states that one should not look at single digits but rather at differences >10 and even then the tilt is more important.

People need education what measurements mean (can and can not show). This can be as simple as a page with this info and a link under each plot pointing to it.
Your bold portion is important. It's important to not "oversell" what a particular measurement represents. That can allow someone to leverage it against the basic tenants of science.
This was one reason why I had focused my efforts on finding the edge cases, and understanding them. "Yes, it may sound different in this case. But here is why ..." is more powerful than "you're wrong, everything is always absolutely the same".
 
If it’s not too much trouble, can you point me to some review or thread discussing this issue?

Reason is that I am considering for future upgrade, DAC with built in PEQ. I want to learn and understand more about this issue, and the root cause.

Thanks
Sure,take it from an EQ champion like miniDSP who struggled even after so many years and still partial fixes are in place.
Now imagine "newbies" at the EQ field.
Here:


There's more,but it's a good start.

On the other hand we have to bow to the excellence of RME for example but that's not surprising.
 
Here is the problem with this kind of "let me save you from yourself video." Our top problem in audio is subjectivity and random assessment of audio. Any video that wants to save people needs to focus on that. The unreliability and randomness of ad-hoc listening tests. To take on SINAD instead means losing sight of real issues in audio evaluation.

Even if someone goes an upgrades a $300 DAC to a $500 DAC for better SINAD, not much is lost. Contrast that with spending $1000 on cables, $2000 on power conditioners, $1000 for footers, $10,000 for a DAC, etc. That is where massive damage is done to people's pocketbooks, and understanding of audio performance and fidelity. In Cameron's video he defends such as tubes sounding good, propagating such myths.

There are real problems in audio and there are nits. SINAD overreliance is the latter. No different than someone washing their hands multiple times a day.
 
Here is the problem with this kind of "let me save you from yourself video." Our top problem in audio is subjectivity and random assessment of audio. Any video that wants to save people needs to focus on that. The unreliability and randomness of ad-hoc listening tests. To take on SINAD instead means losing sight of real issues in audio evaluation.

Even if someone goes an upgrades a $300 DAC to a $500 DAC for better SINAD, not much is lost. Contrast that with spending $1000 on cables, $2000 on power conditioners, $1000 for footers, $10,000 for a DAC, etc. That is where massive damage is done to people's pocketbooks, and understanding of audio performance and fidelity. In Cameron's video he defends such as tubes sounding good, propagating such myths.

There are real problems in audio and there are nits. SINAD overreliance is the latter. No different than someone washing their hands multiple times a day.
I totally agree with the above with one exception.
Take a $10k DAC like Mola-Mola for example which coincidentally also delivers.It gone out the market 10 years ago?No newer one by those since then.
And that was the practice,get a DAC from your favorite company,keep it 5 years or until they do the next better and so on.

Now we see people pilling one on top of the other every six-months or so,same one,no new features,no nothing.Just couple of dB SINAD better.
Multiply that with the years one use to have a DAC at the older days and the sum won't be far.

We HAVE to point out that sure,get the newer and better if you're after a DAC,but there's absolutely no reason to chance your 6 months older one for a newer.
That's the difference.
 
It's not ASR's fault,is the fault of the vocal new found faith zealots who blanket and generalize everything thinking only 0dB,something that will never happen in a healthy system.
Something else that would help here: systems. Hi-fi components screw everything up by forcing consumers to be systems engineers. All the fuss over choosing an amp goes away when you buy active speakers. Let's finish the job and get everyone on Dante or something.

Or...
1736381117502.jpeg
 
We HAVE to point out that sure,get the newer and better if you're after a DAC,but there's absolutely no reason to chance your 6 months older one for a newer.
That's the difference.
Yes, but to Amir's point, there is always a bigger scam out there. Upgrading your DAC to go from 90 to 110dB SINAD is pretty much never worth it. On the other side of the street, we have Audioquest coming out with new, improved, fancier cables that are supposedly worth upgrading to from your previous set of wildly overpriced cables.

Upgrading to go from great SINAD to still-great SINAD is pointless, but at least the SINAD improvements are real...
 
Finding examples would take far too much time, which I do not have enough of right this moment for sure.
I will wait. Not interested in researching it myself either. But I think when charges are leveled they should be substantiated.
 
We HAVE to point out that sure,get the newer and better if you're after a DAC,but there's absolutely no reason to chance your 6 months older one for a newer.
The psychopathology of shopping for treats isn't going to go away if we do.

Anyway, I did that once. I tried to turn it into an elaborate joke but the chance of getting any part of your post read diminishes rapidly with its length so it was a waste of time.

The best I think we can do is redirect the $$ someone wants to spend on compensatory consumerism on something else, like music, or wine, or concert tickets, or a pretty rug, idk.
 
Last edited:
Yes, but to Amir's point, there is always a bigger scam out there. Upgrading your DAC to go from 90 to 110dB SINAD is pretty much never worth it. On the other side of the street, we have Audioquest coming out with new, improved, fancier cables that are supposedly worth upgrading to from your previous set of wildly overpriced cables.

Upgrading to go from great SINAD to still-great SINAD is pointless, but at least the SINAD improvements are real...

Additionally, upgrading based up actual scientific measurements (even if the difference is so minor as to not be audible) at least has a limiting principle. "upgrading" based upon bad-science has no limiting principle. If one was "unhappy" with the "sound" of an objectively near perfect cable which costs $1,000; the odds are great they will eventually be "unhappy" with the next $2,000 cable. And thus is a never ending cycle.
 
I think where I find "Issue", is many posters I have seen, Value SINAD over everything, which is their prerogative. But to me it hints at an issue, when said posters, put out blunt statements about "I would never even CONSIDER that product based on SINAD alone it will sound unlistenable".........but NEVER reference that they are simply reading a number that was measured, and have never even HEARD the item in question.
Evaluating the merits of equipment is not necessarily a "two way street" with SINAD.
Rather, it is a threshold litmus test as in many (most?) here would not seriously consider a device which has a terrible SINAD in relation to other choices.
 
Play a 0dB test tone (NOT AT FULL LEVEL-BEWARE!) and attenuate it at -80dB (better with an analog way so noise will go down too if there's any)
Tell us what you hear,either noise or distortion.
Please let us not become like the IASCA (car audio sound competition) of the 90s where they became so infatuated about gnat farts at maximum and minimum volume settings, they started sprinkling noise gates throughout the signal chain.
 
Sure,take it from an EQ champion like miniDSP who struggled even after so many years and still partial fixes are in place.
Now imagine "newbies" at the EQ field.
Here:


There's more,but it's a good start.

On the other hand we have to bow to the excellence of RME for example but that's not surprising.

Thank you for the link.
I read a few pages, and my initial feel is that it could be DSP engine limitation (#taps, FixedPt vs FloatingPt, etc..) resulting in insufficient LF resolution.
I need to spend time later on to read the rest of that thread to better understand the issue and discussions around it.
 
Yes,noise is one of the most telling clues at ABX and general.
I often found that specifically designed time-domain transients can significantly increase the audibility threshold between two devices. Especially since time-variant signals generally are not properly captured/characterized in purely the frequency domain.
 
Yes, but to Amir's point, there is always a bigger scam out there. Upgrading your DAC to go from 90 to 110dB SINAD is pretty much never worth it. On the other side of the street, we have Audioquest coming out with new, improved, fancier cables that are supposedly worth upgrading to from your previous set of wildly overpriced cables.

Upgrading to go from great SINAD to still-great SINAD is pointless, but at least the SINAD improvements are real...
Why don't we do neither of them (specially the cable,except if one likes the looks,suit with their rug,or something) and push people (God forbid,not me,I'm far too one to do that) to the one most meaningful upgrade of all,speakers.

Yes,it is the harder update,for lots of reasons but the only one one can safely bet that will hear something different.And not go from one small two-way to another,the next day will be like nothing changed,but bigger,etc.Or claim a room for themselves.

Fighting the urge for small upgrades is good for the soul ;)

And coming to think of it,I think it's time to think seriously why people want this upgrades.What's missing that they try to find?
They clearly don't find it through SINAD races,as much as they don't find it through cables or anything else inaudible above a certain quality.
They both can fail the (audible) expectations big time and that's the sad part.

And I'm not sorry about the guy who spent 5k on cables when he has the deep pockets to afford it as a joke.But I do feel sorry about the minimum salary guy who spends 300 after saving 2 months to get something that will give him nothing.

So...
 
Back
Top Bottom