I think his point was that it is used in audio all the time. You seemed to suggest otherwise. Perhaps you misspoke.
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Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?
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Since my first job after my post-doc was working for the Chief Scientist at Nicolet in the 1980s, and I teach a course in its use for seniors and grad students, I have a fair familiarity.
Fourier Transforms are the backbone of EVERY audio analysis package, including REW, ARTA, Virtins MI, you name it. The idea that it's exotic or only rarely used is a perfect demonstration of not having the faintest clue about audio measurement.
NattyLumpkins
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The point I was making is that they are used literally everywhere, not just in audio. They are used in every discipline of engineering, finance and economics. It was very late for me when I made that post so if I implied something incorrectly, my apologies. I can't even remember the post.
Why are you being so pointy? You know nothing about me.
NattyLumpkins
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I did and it was a mistake. I was implying fft is used in other ways we don't think about like economics, finance and my friend used them in materials engineering. I can't remember exactly what I said.I think his point was that it is used in audio all the time. You seemed to suggest otherwise. Perhaps you misspoke.
I'll remind you since you also can't use basic forum features.
Now that evokes an old audio memory.
Charlie Kittleson of Vacuum Tube Valley bought my Klipsch Forte II's when I downsized in 2005 and moved from a house to an apartment.
I drove the 70 miles north to Clear Lake (Lakeport) to deliver the speakers. When I got to his office, and he and a friend were excitedly sorting through boxes of NOS tubes that the friend had scored from a long-ago closed TV-Radio repair shop in a small town somewhere in the Western U.S.
Charlie's VTV magazines are definitely interesting if you are into tube audio. All 20 issues are available free for download as pdf from at least a couple of websites.
NattyLumpkins
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Thank you Mr. Salty for offering your expertise, I appreciate it. Total brain disconnect on my part regarding FFT, I was thinking something else. I'm getting in this habit of thinking ahead of my writing and either transposing things or just leaving words out. I used to never do that. Oh well, I used to never lose things and now I do all the time. My brain just doesn't work near as well as it used to.
I provided a link up above for Vacuum Tube Valley issues 1-20 if you're interested.
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That's DR. Salty.
I just got Sinxer SA-1 balanced headphone amplifier, used. Just because why not.
It's quite a beast, heavy and imposing. And boy it packs a punch. My DCA Aeons gained more forceful bass, there's more detail and air. If I had wife she would have heard the change, from the kitchen, with water running...
...and tomorrow I'm going to test it against humble Topping and find it does not actually have these extra features. It's always sobering to notice one is not immune to the biases even if you know they exist.
It's quite a beast, heavy and imposing. And boy it packs a punch. My DCA Aeons gained more forceful bass, there's more detail and air. If I had wife she would have heard the change, from the kitchen, with water running...
...and tomorrow I'm going to test it against humble Topping and find it does not actually have these extra features. It's always sobering to notice one is not immune to the biases even if you know they exist.
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My wife hears the difference from her office half a mile away. She has Chord-level hearing.
Measurements only capture parts of the music. There are attributes within the music below 20Khz that contribute to good sound between one DAC and another (e.g., realism, 3D, details, tight bass, tonality, attack/power, fullness/thinness, decay). Just because one Dac can go higher Gigahertz than another doesn't mean that it sounds better.
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It's not music though is it? Until it reaches the drive unit on the speaker it's electrical current. After that it's air molecules moving about.
It only becomes music when it reaches the brain and the pattern is recognised as such.
There's nothing in the electrical current that can't be quantified, what the DAC does with it is entirely predictable.
Think about it that way and it makes it a lot clearer as to why there's no hidden secret to audio electronics.
pinpoint_oxford
Active Member
The hidden secret is our brains and how we think something sounds
Au contraire mon frère, I think that the iPhone 12 Pro Max with its 6.7in screen, high resolution screen is better than standalone streamers with their remotes that generally don't even have a display. The iphone's big screen shows me the song lyrics that I can karaoke to.
The Apple Music app shows the album art cover, lets me browse the genere, album, artist, makes suggestions for new songs.
I've also read that battery powered devices have less noise than a/c electrical outlets that feed standalone streamers.
Reasonably priced (under $600 USD) standalone streamers that can play Apple Music use Apple Airplay2 via wireless streaming which can only decode Apple Music normal lossless, not Apple Music hi-res lossless. Airplay2 would just be mirroring my iPhone so the standalone streamer would be a waste. There are european streamers (Magna Hifi Mano Music Streamer) that have an i2S port and can play Apple Music format ALAC natively instead of using Airplay2 but they cost $1300 + shipping cost to the US.
Not to mention that with the money I saved from not buying a standalone streamer, I used that money to upgrade my Arcam AVR5 to the Parasound 2250 V.2 amplifier.
In the future I might add the Denafrips Iris which is a DDC to cleanup the digital source before going into the DAC and I'll be able to use the i2S port:
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Count Dacula
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I can tell which denomination coin was dropped on the floor. Not even difficult for most here... hopefully. Maybe a fair test would be to see how many different coins you could hear at once.
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solderdude
Grand Contributor
My wife doesn't care about the denomination of coins as long as she can spend it.
zepplock
Active Member
e.g., realism, 3D, details, tight bass, tonality, attack/power, fullness/thinness, decay - just your feelings. None of that is relevant to audio quality.
Well maybe decay does, but it's not part a dac anyway.
pinpoint_oxford
Active Member
My streamer is just a PC I built with USB out to the DAC running Roon as an endpoint. I use my phone or laptop to do all the same things you describe. My comment was more that I would not want to have my phone tethered to my hi-fi to listen, that is what seems bananas to me.
If it works for you, cheers mate!
My system is really a home theater (7.2.4 setup with 150in screen) with the equipments located a foot behind my couch in a 6' bookcase with the projector on top, and I'm really listening/paying attention to the music's sound quality and not walking around the room so I don't mind being tethered by the USB cable.
If the music were just playing in the background (I don't care about sound quality as much), then I would want wireless to move freely around the room/house; for that I use the 7 Denon Heos (with builtin amp/streamer) spread throughout the house.
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That's incorrect about the maximum sample rate speed of 48 kHz. Wikipedia says that for digital audio via HDMI can go up to 192 kHz:
So maybe a future AppleTV4k will give us hires lossless music (AppleTV4k currently can only play normal lossless).
HDMI - Wikipedia
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