• 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!

Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

NattyLumpkins

Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2019
Messages
39
Likes
11

SIY

Grand Contributor
Technical Expert
Joined
Apr 6, 2018
Messages
10,383
Likes
24,749
Location
Alfred, NY
I can't remember exactly what I said.
I'll remind you since you also can't use basic forum features.

That is cool. Fourier transform is just stupid useful. You can pretty much use it for analysis of anything with a wave or a number array. I'm surprised it is not used in audio more often. Maybe it is used a lot in the design phase of huge companies like Harmon. I had an engineer buddy that worked for Raytheon and even though there were other mathematical ways to solve things they always used FFT "just because" if it was at all possible.
 

Xulonn

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 27, 2018
Messages
1,828
Likes
6,311
Location
Boquete, Chiriqui, Panama
VTV is great because it had a combination of history and measurements, so it wasn’t just hand waving
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

Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2019
Messages
39
Likes
11
I'll remind you since you also can't use basic forum features.
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.
 
Last edited:

SIY

Grand Contributor
Technical Expert
Joined
Apr 6, 2018
Messages
10,383
Likes
24,749
Location
Alfred, NY
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.
That's DR. Salty. :D
 

bodhi

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 11, 2022
Messages
971
Likes
1,370
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. :)
 
Last edited:

ahofer

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 3, 2019
Messages
4,947
Likes
8,694
Location
New York City
If I had wife she would have heard the change, from the kitchen, with water running...
My wife hears the difference from her office half a mile away. She has Chord-level hearing.
 

funnychap

Active Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2023
Messages
108
Likes
28
That's the best definition of this hobby there's. As long as you don't try to prove it to others with your anecdotal evidence. Enjoy music!
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.
 
Last edited:

Mart68

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 22, 2021
Messages
2,609
Likes
4,860
Location
England
Measurements only capture parts of the music.
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.
 

funnychap

Active Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2023
Messages
108
Likes
28
I'm happy to hear you're enjoying your setup! I am curious about your use of the iPhone like this. That would drive me bananas. You may be well served by getting a dedicated streamer to use with your Ares II.

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:
 
Last edited:

Count Dacula

Member
Joined
May 24, 2023
Messages
82
Likes
36
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.
 
Last edited:

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
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.

My wife doesn't care about the denomination of coins as long as she can spend it.
 

zepplock

Active Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2019
Messages
230
Likes
259
Location
San Jose, CA
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.
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
Joined
Jan 15, 2022
Messages
222
Likes
255
Location
Midwest, USA
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.
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!
 

funnychap

Active Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2023
Messages
108
Likes
28
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.
 
Last edited:

funnychap

Active Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2023
Messages
108
Likes
28
New Apple TVs have no digital out anymore. Only hdmi. And the hdmi is limited to 24bit 48khz.
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).

 
Last edited:

Snoopy

Major Contributor
Joined
Jul 19, 2021
Messages
1,628
Likes
1,206
That's incorrect. Wikipedia says that for digital audio via HDMI:

If an HDMI device has audio, it is required to implement the baseline format: stereo (uncompressed) PCM. Other formats are optional, with HDMI allowing up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio at sample sizes of 16 bits, 20 bits, or 24 bits, with sample rates of 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 176.4 kHz, or 192 kHz

So maybe a future AppleTV4k will give us hires lossless music (AppleTV4k currently can only play normal lossless).



The Apple TV hdmi port for apple music is still limited to 24bit 48khz.
So it's correct.

What future updates might do or not is not important at this moment for someone that wants to use apple music with high-res tracks trough a apple TV.


For apple music I would just use a iPad with usb out straight into a DAC.
 

HarmonicTHD

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 18, 2022
Messages
3,326
Likes
4,829
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.
:facepalm:

If I had a dollar for everytime I heard that nonsense. ….

Any hard facts or still spreading anecdotes and hearsay?
 

funnychap

Active Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2023
Messages
108
Likes
28
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!
If I were to get a streamer, which ones work with Apple Music via Airplay2 and has a USB output?
The ifi zen streamer is the cheapest device I can find that has both Apple Music via Airplay2 and has a USB output.
 
Top Bottom