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

I agree with most of his points - they're pretty straightforward.

But here's what puzzles me: he talks about this 'spatial enhancement' feature in his DAC that apparently makes a clear difference to the sound (which I believe), yet it doesn't show up at all in his measurements, not even in the multitone tests.

How can we explain this?

My guess is that it might be working by enhancing the differences between the left and right channels somehow. What do you think?
Freq. dependent delays/phase shifts that differ left to right might do that and I dont think they will show up in in standard measurements. But no one measures these ( which is easy enough) because electronics dont do this unless its deliberatly designed in and probably needs DSP. Its an effects box.
 
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.
This reply is mostly in jest, but to your hand washing example, I have had a patient that had washed their hands to the point they did do damage to their hands out of fear of spreading an infection they had as one of the measures they were told was to make sure they wash their hands. That particular patient was not well mentally.

It somewhat highlights a good parallel. It is a problem when someone makes it a problem. Most people who overdo it (in SINAD chasing and hand washing, as well as many other things) won't do it to the point where it is realistically harmful. It would seem odd to me to throw the baby out with the bathwater because some people are harmed when they take it too far. That would be a high bar to clear for anything. A more realistic approach would be to judge the risks vs benefits of a particular method. Using SINAD as a tool for evaluation seems to carry low risk and provide good benefit. The alternatives (or lack thereof in this case) don't seem to really present a better risk/benefit profile.
 
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.
Hey, you are preaching to the choir here. I think Amir reviews / measures amps / DACs because it helps keep the industry honest and helps people avoid overpaying.

But I think the membership here almost always tries to convince people to spend money on speakers / headphones before other gear. I certainly do when it comes up. And it's common in "tell me what to buy" threads.
Freq. dependent delays/phase shifts that differ left to right might do that and I dont think they will show up in in standard measurements. But no one measures these ( which is easy enough) because electronics dont do this unless its deliberatly designed in and probably needs DSP. Its an effects box.
Could be a simple Mid / Side processor, which would not show up in measurements if you feed it a mono signal.
 
The sad part is that so many people are convinced in such a way and only tend to read/watch that what confirms their belief that there is no point to inform them.
This for the simple reason that they already 'know' they are right.
It is like trying to convince a religious person that what they belief is 'besides the truth'.

All we can do is post info that is correct (that is the difficult part) and explain it like they are 5. They can either learn from this or brush it off like they usually do... and hope that maybe you planted a seed that makes them think.

The goal is noble but just like the search for 'better sound' it is never ending ... until one accepts good enough is good enough.
Yes, this kind of observation applies to either camps...better to be in the middle ie either side have some truths and based on circumstances.
 
unless its deliberatly designed in and probably needs DSP. Its an effects box.
Or there is a board population problem and one channel differs from the other and is not flagged by quality control as it was not tested.
These kind of errors (accidental screw up in the part value) could f' up an entire production run and go unnoticed.
It may not even be very audible yet is measurable (but requires more checks).
Chances of this happening would be small but not negligible.

The Wandla case was clearly measurable (and measured as it was an intended feature) and shown on screen in the explanation.
It was only used as an example that a clearly audible effect is not seen on standard FR, distortion and noise measurements and requires more measurements than the standard ones.
I think that was the point Cameron was trying to get across.
 
It was only used as an example that a clearly audible effect is not seen on standard FR, distortion and noise measurements and requires more measurements than the standard ones.
This was claimed but not shown.
 
Hey, you are preaching to the choir here. I think Amir reviews / measures amps / DACs because it helps keep the industry honest and helps people avoid overpaying.

But I think the membership here almost always tries to convince people to spend money on speakers / headphones before other gear. I certainly do when it comes up. And it's common in "tell me what to buy" threads.

Could be a simple Mid / Side processor, which would not show up in measurements if you feed it a mono signal.
I did preached,didn't I? :facepalm:

No,I didn't meant to blame Amir or the normal members here of course.I just pointed out the side effects of over relying on a number and the fact that audible-measurable has to have a sane line so not to create expectations.And use cases of course.
Even a blur line will do,like the 16-bit which all the music lies in and it's the best case scenario.

I agree,most useful members here do as you say,but there's a vocal number of them with let's say,strange reactions to stuff that are probably inaudible just because they don't clear the 115dB SINAD mark,like AVR's as said above.
 
There is a part of all of us here that respects and admires quality engineering even if inaudible.

I like that my MiniDsp has higher sinad than my Denon AVR. I'm using MiniDsp primarily because of features, but I still like the engineering. Is the same reason people buy cars that go speeds they will never experience.

Some are willing to pay for it. We do this all the time with other goods - buying higher quality that we can appreciate or use.

It might be wasteful, but it's a matter of choice.
 
There is a part of all of us here that respects and admires quality engineering even if inaudible.

I like that my MiniDsp has higher sinad than my Denon AVR. I'm using MiniDsp primarily because of features, but I still like the engineering. Is the same reason people buy cars that go speeds they will never experience.

Some are willing to pay for it. We do this all the time with other goods - buying higher quality that we can appreciate or use.

It might be wasteful, but it's a matter of choice.
I fully agree.
I would really-really like to have a couple of Halcro Eclipse's here to pet,despite their absurd look.
But I don't expect them to sound better than equal power capable amps despite their specs.
 
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.
Yes, fully agree! Which is why it would be good to help those people understand that SINAD is as important as it's not a way of ranking stuff in terms of sound quality, instead a disclaimer that it's all about good engineering and that the audibility thresholds are way lower than what that SINAD ranking would indicate if you wouldn't know any better :)
 
and that the audibility thresholds are way lower than what that SINAD ranking would indicate if you wouldn't know any better
And when they ask what that threshold is, what would I say exactly?
 
And when they ask what that threshold is, what would I say exactly?
The largest real world sample we can have is Klippel's test unless there's others with so much people that I don't know.
Wouldn't be safe to take the best cases there excluding the extremes as is the usual practice?
 
The largest real world sample we can have is Klippel's test unless there's others with so much people that I don't know.
Wouldn't be safe to take the best cases there excluding the extremes as is the usual practice?
No. The klippel test is distortion only and no noise. It is also limited to specific distortion and content. Results are ad-hoc as well.
 
And when they ask what that threshold is, what would I say exactly?
Around 80dB? You could draw that line on the graph, or do a gradient if you want to be less precise than just one number?
 
What is the research to back that?
This one seems like a good article about it but I cannot get into the references to dig deeper.
It seems around the 16-bit mark though with a very rough look,at least for best case young people.


 
In Cameron's video he defends such as tubes sounding good, propagating such myths.
Is this the same youtuber that got yelled at by a maker of a luxury DAC last year? (And then the DAC maker fired the [old?] yeller.) If so then I'll assume the purpose of the video is to create elbow room for the influencer's subjectivity.

Of course we measurement fans grant unlimited space for subjectivity so going to all this trouble to make elbowroom within the measurements is kinda sus.
 
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