Is the entire audio industry a fraud?

[Purité Audio]

As long as you realise it is simply distortion, go for it, after all you have to listen to it.
Keith

 

[Earthbound]

As long as you realise it is simply distortion, go for it, after all you have to listen to it.
Keith

But, what I don’t agree with is the exorbitant price some charge for their distortion! Dac prices are crazy. I want a bit of softness to m dac but paying $5000. No thank you

 

[Purité Audio]

Place a pair of socks over your tweeters.
Keith

 

[ahofer]

But, what I don’t agree with is the exorbitant price some charge for their distortion! Dac prices are crazy. I want a bit of softness to m dac but paying $5000. No thank you

EQ could be your best and cheapest friend. Get an RME DAC and use the filters to your liking. Also enjoy the dynamic loudness feature, which is fantastic and unusual. (Yes, I own one)

 

[fpitas]

Feedback, if negative, decreases gain of the amplifier. Positive feedback would increase the gain and the chance of instability. Bootstrapping a driver stage would be an example of that.

Yes, I'm not sure where he was going with that. I deeply suspect he is simply jerking our chains.

 

[Spkrdctr]

Yes, I'm not sure where he was going with that. I deeply suspect he is simply jerking our chains.

Chain jerking at ASR ALWAYS gets quite a few responses. We just can't resist. Feed a troll? Heck we serve up a buffet every time they show up.

 

[bkatbamna]

When we talk about hobbies we want to believe. I play tennis and you would be amazed at how much people pay to buy the actual rackets used by the professionals(yes, they don't actually use the rackets that they advertise, the companies paint their rackets to look like the latest models). They keep buying and switching rackets thinking that a new racket will help improve their games.

 

[egellings]

Yes, I'm not sure where he was going with that. I deeply suspect he is simply jerking our chains.

Maybe he just doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

[fpitas]

Maybe he just doesn't know what he's talking about.

Perhaps

 

[Newman]

I believe there is more to good sound than measurements. Apparently, I like a bit of distortion. I find my Topping d90 a bit fatiguing on the ears.

So what DAC do you claim has audible levels of distortion?

99% probability here that you are having a Sighted Listening Effect, and nothing to do with distortion.

 

[atmasphere]

So what DAC do you claim has audible levels of distortion?

99% probability here that you are having a Sighted Listening Effect, and nothing to do with distortion.

I've had several customers claim to me that the Topping D90 was a bit on the bright side.

It sounds fine (I have the D90SE) on my system. Mind you, we've been making tube amps for a very long time. They have lots of bandwidth, well past 100KHz. That aside, works fine with my class D too. I don't think its bright. To me it sounds neutral. Perhaps confirmation bias on my part, but it seems better than a number of DACs I've heard that cost 4 or 5 times more. I don't worry about it...

 

[Spkrdctr]

When we talk about hobbies we want to believe. I play tennis and you would be amazed at how much people pay to buy the actual rackets used by the professionals(yes, they don't actually use the rackets that they advertise, the companies paint their rackets to look like the latest models). They keep buying and switching rackets thinking that a new racket will help improve their games.

Same for gun buyers. Can't shoot worth a darn with your gun, buy a few more and try them. After all, it has to be the guns fault, not that you need more practice! LOL Seen it hundreds of times.

 

[bodhi]

Same for gun buyers. Can't shoot worth a darn with your gun, buy a few more and try them. After all, it has to be the guns fault, not that you need more practice! LOL Seen it hundreds of times.

Seen the same with pool cues. Saturday night players getting 1,5k€ cue and bunch of premium accessories when any semi-competent competing junior player could trash them with a broomstick.

 

[simplywyn]

Can we define where the snakeoil starts? Even on these forums, with audio science, I feel like there's a huge amount of snake oil - for example:

1. What's the limit of Human hearing? Most people can't hear past 16khz, so anything above that is mute.
2. What is SINAD? Can we detect difference between a 50db SINAD vs a 120db SINAD? Is there a program where I can literally listen to a 20db SINAD vs a 120db SINAD?
3. What's dynamic range? Is there a song where I can listen to crappy dynamic range vs full 16bit dynamic range?

Is there a way we can actually quantify what these values mean? That's a huge issue with sound today.

I've worked in the display industry for VESA - and they've pretty much standardized what it means to be HDR, brightness in terms of nits, contrast, color accuracy, motion blur etc.

How can we determine what all of these values mean in real life?

 

[BDWoody]

Is there a way we can actually quantify what these values mean? That's a huge issue with sound today.

Some of this is addressed in this thread:

Audibility thresholds of amp and DAC measurements

Introduction A recurring theme on ASR is whether or not the various measured qualities of the devices are audible. In this post, I'll present some clear and visual thresholds for when those imperfections can be considered a potentially audible concern. I will not explain the basics of amp/DAC...

audiosciencereview.com

2. What is SINAD? Can we detect difference between a 50db SINAD vs a 120db SINAD? Is there a program where I can literally listen to a 20db SINAD vs a 120db SINAD?
3. What's dynamic range? Is there a song where I can listen to crappy dynamic range vs full 16bit dynamic range?

@pkane has a program called 'Distort' that can let you play with a lot of parameters to test what you can hear.

Distort audibility tester | Distort documentation

distortaudio.org

Between the first thread that can give you various general thresholds, and the second program where you can determine some personal thresholds, you can get a good idea of how some of these numbers correlate to you personally and when it might matter.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Can we define where the snakeoil starts? Even on these forums, with audio science, I feel like there's a huge amount of snake oil - for example:

1. What's the limit of Human hearing? Most people can't hear past 16khz, so anything above that is mute.
2. What is SINAD? Can we detect difference between a 50db SINAD vs a 120db SINAD? Is there a program where I can literally listen to a 20db SINAD vs a 120db SINAD?
3. What's dynamic range? Is there a song where I can listen to crappy dynamic range vs full 16bit dynamic range?

Is there a way we can actually quantify what these values mean? That's a huge issue with sound today.

I've worked in the display industry for VESA - and they've pretty much standardized what it means to be HDR, brightness in terms of nits, contrast, color accuracy, motion blur etc.

How can we determine what all of these values mean in real life?

For 1 and 2 you can test yourself using this (programmed by @pkane )

Multitone - Loopback Analyzer for Audio | Distort documentation

Multitone is currently in beta test. Use at your own risk!

distortaudio.org

Plus there are studies on human hearing and a large thread here.

Edit. Oops @BDWoody was quicker.

 

[kevinh]

But, what I don’t agree with is the exorbitant price some charge for their distortion! Dac prices are crazy. I want a bit of softness to m dac but paying $5000. No thank you

Or alternately you could you an eq rather than introducing distortion to correct the sound of some recording (actually many recordings see the Cello Palette from the 1980's or the current software equivalent from the same designer (Dick Burwen). Many recognize that speakers electronics room acoustics where recording were created will differ significantly.

However if You prefer some distortion to correct recordings for you r system instead that is more than fine.

 

[kevinh]

When we talk about hobbies we want to believe. I play tennis and you would be amazed at how much people pay to buy the actual rackets used by the professionals(yes, they don't actually use the rackets that they advertise, the companies paint their rackets to look like the latest models). They keep buying and switching rackets thinking that a new racket will help improve their games.

Same with Golf Clubs and especially stifness.

 

[simplywyn]

This is why it's so insanely stupid, anything past the green line is pretty much audibly insignificant since CD music has a limit of 96db, and human hear is probably no better than that.

 

[Vive la dissonance!]

It's an interesting phenomenon around here, and elsewhere, especially in "discussions" about class D amplifiers: bickering over minor distortion in frequencies so high and at such low amplitude that dogs or even bats would struggle to hear any of it.