miniDSP Tide16 - Holy Grail with 16 Channel Atmos/DTS:X, high SINAD

[EWL5]

They only cost about $100. Yes that's too much for any AVP costing $ hundreds, and more than the ADSP-21593, 21489 or SC598 used in many audio processors. But it's only about $60 - $70 more, hardly prohibitive for any AVP costing $ thousands.

You say that but you're not on the miniDSP side trying to increase profit margins. Folks laughed (and I laughed with them) but perhaps it does take an MBA to see both the consumer and vendor side and understand where that happy middle ground is that sets the market price!

Case in point: if this were such an easy decision, the PAC group would have included a beefier DSP chip to handle ART in the current gen of products as D&M did (rather than punting to 2027)!

 

[peng]

In the case of music or cymbals or keys, the sounds are more complicated than tones because there's more than one frequency being reproduced, and the sounds are time-varying. In practice that's what we listen to, and transparency of ALL of those sounds is what we need, not just transparency of ONE of those sounds. If all those sounds give you the same answer for the bandwidth requirement, that's fine, but if they give you different answers, then you need to accept the highest requirement, not the lowest.

This point (about ..more than one frequency...) is often cited on audio forums, to me, this is something like a half myth, or what people might call "overrated" point.

As others have mentioned in other threads/posts audio electronic devices, for example, amplifiers, they don't know or care what kind of sound waves they receive at the input, as long as they can output the amplified signal without altering it(the non sinusoidal waveform), their job is done. That is, if output=input X k, with the waveform unchanged then the device has done its job! I am sure that "transparency" in that sense, can be, and have often been verified by many with the advance of oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers etc.

To me, there are ample evidence that we don't need to worry much about the value/validity of audio measurements using sine waves. And, it one worry about that, then logically they are going to find it difficult to make their choice, for one thing, do we know which designers, or manufacturers actually use subjective listening test to verify their products are "transparent" and can quantify transparency? Marantz claim they use their sound masters but that's just marketing right? If their Soundmaster told them to tune for whatever "sound", the results of such tuning, likely by varying some capacitance, resistance kind of minor tweaks should be easily measurable and there should be measurable changes that could be published, yet we have seen none.

There are also metrics that have been thrown around on forums that are not always measured, such as the popular, favorite ones like damping factor/output impedance), slew rate, inter sample peak clipping etc., but there are good reasons (outside the scope of this thread) why those are less often measured on test benches including ASR, Stereophile, Audioholics et.

 

[peng]

As an aside, something I mentioned to @amirm before and am still hoping he might do that test at least once in a while, that is, pre out SINAD with the pre out connected to a power amp or simulated power amp. In the case of AVR, he basically had done that many times on units that don't have preamp mode, but I am really interested in knowing the measured difference for AVPs between the unloaded vs loaded cases.

Case in point, the Tide 16, based on published specs, appears to be the only multi channel AVP that can achieve >115 dB SINAD (1 kHz test), but would it become 105 dB if connected to a power amp that has input impedance of just 10 kohm (balanced) ore a little less? I used the Tide specifically because it is one that, unlike the popular brand/models by Arcam, Anthem, NAD, D+M, Onkyo, Yamaha and probably most brands that make both AVRs and AVPs that use volume control ICs, actually skipped the Vol IC and used the DSP instead so I wonder if SINAD would drop a bit more, or less.

 

[welwynnick]

You say that but you're not on the miniDSP side trying to increase profit margins. Folks laughed (and I laughed with them) but perhaps it does take an MBA to see both the consumer and vendor side and understand where that happy middle ground is that sets the market price!

No argument with any of that. MiniDSP and .............. others have almost certainly done the right thing for their individual cases.

I say that $100 isn't a lot of money, but it is. I used to work in a production environment for 8 years, and the amount of time, effort and money we put into reducing the BoM, touch time and waste was absolutely enormous. Consumer electronics is even more cost-sensitive, and adding one cent to the total cost will be a huge battle.
I'm sure miniDSP have taken the right decisions. StormAudio I'm not so sure about.

As others have mentioned in other threads/posts audio electronic devices, for example, amplifiers, they don't know or care what kind of sound waves they receive at the input, as long as they can output the amplified signal without altering it(the non sinusoidal waveform), their job is done. That is, if output=input X k, with the waveform unchanged then the device has done its job! I am sure that "transparency" in that sense, can be, and have often been verified by many with the advance of oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers etc.

This is a key point. Years ago I would have disagreed with you , but not any more. Now I'm completely satisfied you can assess an amplifier with sine waves.

But that's not what this is about. It's not about using sine waves to measure the performance of an amplifier against the requirements.
It's about whether to use sine waves to establish what those requirements should be in the first place (and then you can test with sine waves to verify performance).
For the reasons given in post #1598, I think you get a different requirement for transparency (1) when you test audibility with sines and (2) when you test with other signals.
I don't really why that would be, and it absolutely doesn't matter why.

For the sake of argument, suppose you listen to a wide range of sine waves varying from 10kHz to 40kHz, and you vary the bandwidth of the system reproducing them. You would find that when you extend the system bandwidth beyond 20kHz, it no longer makes a difference to what you hear.
However, if you test with other sounds that have an actual spectral composition extending well beyond 20kHz, I think that when you extend the system bandwidth from say 20 to 25 kHz, there would be an audible difference (and not just from young ears). I'm suggesting you would get a different answer to what the bandwidth requirement should be for transparency. I don't know what it would be. 21kHz? 40kHz? I've no idea. The point is that bandwidth needs to be enough for transparency for all sounds, not just one sound.

Suppose you establish that the requirement is 30kHz. You can go ahead and specify that for your system. Then you can test the bandwidth of each component in the system using sine waves, and that will prove transparency in that respect.

 

[peng]

I say that $100 isn't a lot of money, but it is. I used to work in a production environment for 8 years, and the amount of time, effort and money we put into reducing the BoM, touch time and waste was absolutely enormous. Consumer electronics is even more cost-sensitive, and adding one cent to the total cost will be a huge battle.
I'm sure miniDSP have taken the right decisions. StormAudio I'm not so sure about.

This is a key point. Years ago I would have disagreed with you , but not any more. Now I'm completely satisfied you can assess an amplifier with sine waves.

But that's not what this is about. It's not about using sine waves to measure the performance of an amplifier against the requirements.
It's about whether to use sine waves to establish what those requirements should be in the first place (and then you can test with sine waves to verify performance).
For the reasons given in post #1598, I think you get a different requirement for transparency (1) when you test audibility with sines and (2) when you test with other signals.
I don't really why that would be, and it absolutely doesn't matter why.

For the sake of argument, suppose you listen to a wide range of sine waves varying from 10kHz to 40kHz, and you vary the bandwidth of the system reproducing them. You would find that when you extend the system bandwidth beyond 20kHz, it no longer makes a difference to what you hear.
However, if you test with other sounds that have an actual spectral composition extending well beyond 20kHz, I think that when you extend the system bandwidth from say 20 to 25 kHz, there would be an audible difference (and not just from young ears). I'm suggesting you would get a different answer to what the bandwidth requirement should be for transparency. I don't know what it would be. 21kHz? 40kHz? I've no idea. The point is that bandwidth needs to be enough for transparency for all sounds, not just one sound.

Suppose you establish that the requirement is 30kHz. You can go ahead and specify that for your system. Then you can test the bandwidth of each component in the system using sine waves, and that will prove transparency in that respect.

Understood, but what’s the evidence? Is the evidence in dbt test results you previously linked?

 

[welwynnick]

Understood, but what’s the evidence? Is the evidence in dbt test results you previously linked?

It was hearing the difference between 6kHz sine and square waves that did it for me. I can't hear an 18 kHz tone in isolation, but the sine and square sound slightly but distinctly different, like they're at a different pitch. I always encourage everyone to hear it for themselves.

One way to do it is to download and install REW, use the signal generator to produce a sine wave, then add generous quantities of 3rd and 5th harmonic distortion. Even if those harmonics are inaudible in isolation, you can hear the difference when they're on top of a fundamental.

It was very difficult to get my head round that. Instead of pushing back with all my reasoning, once I started going forwards with that idea, I looked around and found the other things that I mentioned in post #1598. They told a similar story - you can't hear ultrasonics in isolation, it's got to be on top of audible sounds.

 

[peng]

It was hearing the difference between 6kHz sine and square waves that did it for me. I can't hear an 18 kHz tone in isolation, but the sine and square sound slightly but distinctly different, like they're at a different pitch. I always encourage everyone to hear it for themselves.

One way to do it is to download and install REW, use the signal generator to produce a sine wave, then add generous quantities of 3rd and 5th harmonic distortion. Even if those harmonics are inaudible in isolation, you can hear the difference when they're on top of a fundamental.

It was very difficult to get my head round that. Instead of pushing back with all my reasoning, once I started going forwards with that idea, I looked around and found the other things that I mentioned in post #1598. They told a similar story - you can't hear ultrasonics in isolation, it's got to be on top of audible sounds.

Square vs sine is too extreme though.

 

[-Matt-]

It was hearing the difference between 6kHz sine and square waves that did it for me. I can't hear an 18 kHz tone in isolation, but the sine and square sound slightly but distinctly different, like they're at a different pitch. I always encourage everyone to hear it for themselves.

One way to do it is to download and install REW, use the signal generator to produce a sine wave, then add generous quantities of 3rd and 5th harmonic distortion. Even if those harmonics are inaudible in isolation, you can hear the difference when they're on top of a fundamental.

This assumes that the square wave is composed only of (higher) odd harmonics of the sine wave. Which is mathematically correct but it could also be too simplistic.

If there is any nonlinearity in the audio reproduction system, there are processes such as intermodulation (sum/difference mixing) or digital aliasing which could create tones within the audible range. It could be the presence of these that allows you to hear a difference between the sine and square wave (even if the harmonics are outside the audible band).

 

[peng]

This assumes that the square wave is composed only of (higher) odd harmonics of the sine wave. Which is mathematically correct but it could also be too simplistic.

If there is any nonlinearity in the audio reproduction system, there are processes such as intermodulation (sum/difference mixing) or digital aliasing which could create tones within the audible range. It could be the presence of these that allows you to hear a difference between the sine and square wave (even if the harmonics are outside the audible band).

We covered the IMD related ones already, I think he is looking to other factors (yes that would include the digital aliasing stuff) that have more to do with "bandwidth related" and that sampling rate higher than 48 kHz, such as 88.1, 96, 192 would, while not eliminate the issues totally, but might be enough to make audible differences. My point it, while that could well be true for extreme cases such as artificially created square wave, cymbal (or a few other instruments) heavy contents, otherwise the audible differences due to 48 kHz and 96 kHz sampling rate will likely be subtle at best.

 

[welwynnick]

Square vs sine is too extreme though.

I'm not sure why square vs sine is too extreme? Are you saying they're so different that it should be trivial to distinguish them?
If anything I think a sine is quite extreme. In the frequency domain it's just a single vertical line - a total contrast to a music spectrogram for example.
Hypothetically, if you can assess audibility by just considering sines, then you have to consider a 6 kHz square as being a set of sines at 6, 18, 30, 42, 54 kHz etc. And if your hearing ends at 15 kHz, then you can only hear the fundamental, can't you?

If there is any nonlinearity in the audio reproduction system, there are processes such as intermodulation (sum/difference mixing) or digital aliasing which could create tones within the audible range. It could be the presence of these that allows you to hear a difference between the sine and square wave (even if the harmonics are outside the audible band).

When I first described my sine v square comparison, there were a few sceptics at that time, as well. One of them pointed out that my replay system can't have been of good enough quality and was interfering with the result. On the contrary, if the replay system was curtailing the bandwidth, it would have been exacerbating the effect of my hearing, and my observation was actually being reinforced. If the replay system was causing intermodulation distortion, the products would be spaced at 12 kHz, so all those products would be inaudible as well. At the time I was sceptical as well, I didn't believe it. I tried repeating the listening test with completely different hardware at every point in the chain - different PC, DAC, amp and headphones. I later tried it with a different source - REW - and added odd harmonics that way. None of this made any difference.

Ultimately the square / sine test was just the beginning of this. There are other test results in post 1598 that all point to the same thing.

None of this is heresy. I'm not suggesting that objectivity or Nyquist-Shannon or measurements or digital audio or science & engineering don't work. They all still work.

 

[peng]

I'm not sure why square vs sine is too extreme? Are you saying they're so different that it should be trivial to distinguish them?
If anything I think a sine is quite extreme. In the frequency domain it's just a single vertical line - a total contrast to a music spectrogram for example.
Hypothetically, if you can assess audibility by just considering sines, then you have to consider a 6 kHz square as being a set of sines at 6, 18, 30, 42, 54 kHz etc. And if your hearing ends at 15 kHz, then you can only hear the fundamental, can't you?

When I first described my sine v square comparison, there were a few sceptics at that time, as well. One of them pointed out that my replay system can't have been of good enough quality and was interfering with the result. On the contrary, if the replay system was curtailing the bandwidth, it would have been exacerbating the effect of my hearing, and my observation was actually being reinforced. If the replay system was causing intermodulation distortion, the products would be spaced at 12 kHz, so all those products would be inaudible as well. At the time I was sceptical as well, I didn't believe it. I tried repeating the listening test with completely different hardware at every point in the chain - different PC, DAC, amp and headphones. I later tried it with a different source - REW - and added odd harmonics that way. None of this made any difference.

Ultimately the square / sine test was just the beginning of this. There are other test results in post 1598 that all point to the same thing.

None of this is heresy. I'm not suggesting that objectivity or Nyquist-Shannon or measurements or digital audio or science & engineering don't work. They all still work.

It is extreme vs most musical instrument’s don’t you think?

For example, I have never seen any amplifier that ever produce a near perfect square waveform on Stereophile, nor is it neceassary for an amp to be considered transparent, not that it is relevant, or not, just an example in terms of “extreme..”

 

[welwynnick]

It is extreme vs most musical instrument’s don’t you think?
For example, I have never seen any amplifier that ever produce a near perfect square waveform on Stereophile, nor is it neceassary for an amp to be considered transparent, not that it is relevant, or not, just an example in terms of “extreme..”

Oh I see. Well it definitely wasn't a perfect square wave. It was close at low frequencies, but in the area of interest (5 to 7 kHz) it was probably fundamental plus just the 3rd and 5th harmonics.

 

[peng]

Oh I see. Well it definitely wasn't a perfect square wave. It was close at low frequencies, but in the area of interest (5 to 7 kHz) it was probably fundamental plus just the 3rd and 5th harmonics.

Clearly understood you heard the difference loud and clear (not 100% literally I guess..) but try to understand the reasons would likely be not too easy!
I tend to argue on both side, while I am very skeptical of the claimed audible benefits about >48 kHz, given that modern DSP, ADC, DAC are really good vs those available 25 years ago, so digital filtering should be much of an issue, I still wish manufacturers up their game a little on their higher end models. That's why my biggest beef with D+M is about their choice of cheapening out on the DAC chip in their otherwise high value Denon AVR X series and Marantz Cinema series. They still manage better than expected pre out SINAD, that tells me they are very good in implementation, yet "wasted" (just my opinion) to some extent on the inferior (relatively) PCM5102 DAC IC.

For those lucky/wise owners of the AV10/20, C30, I am very sure sampling rate of 48 kHz is not an issue at all, and your square wave vs sine wave at 6 kHz isn't relevant (the 48 kHz sampling rate part) in this case, and I know you are not saying that it is relevant.

 

[peng]

Oh I see. Well it definitely wasn't a perfect square wave. It was close at low frequencies, but in the area of interest (5 to 7 kHz) it was probably fundamental plus just the 3rd and 5th harmonics.

May be try the triangular wave lol..
Edit: forgot to mention, even if you input a perfect square wave it is still going to sound much different than a sine wave, you can’t hear the harmonic frequencies but the shape matters too.

 

[EWL5]

That's why my biggest beef with D+M is about their choice of cheapening out on the DAC chip in their otherwise high value Denon AVR X series and Marantz Cinema series. They still manage better than expected pre out SINAD, that tells me they are very good in implementation, yet "wasted" (just my opinion) to some extent on the inferior (relatively) on the PCM5102 DAC IC.

D&M did that in response to the supply chain issue (AKM fire). If they continue w/the same DACs in the 3900/4900 next gen lineup, then we can call it laziness and D&M clearly taking advantage of the changeover.

 

[peng]

D&M did that in response to the supply chain issue (AKM fire). If they continue w/the same DACs in the 3900/4900 next gen lineup, then we can call it laziness and D&M clearly taking advantage of the changeover.

Agreed, I bet 2:1 the successors of the X3800/4800 and C50/40/60/70 will use the ES9007 or something that offers similar specs.

 

[RichB]

As streaming becomes the norm, eARC makes a lot more sense – just one player (the display) and a single cable going to the AV processor.

For a device of this caliber, a dedicated streamer is more likely.
LG promises 5 year support for their Smart TV software, but this does not apply to all streaming services.

- Rich

 

[Oddball]

For a device of this caliber, a dedicated streamer is more likely.
LG promises 5 year support for their Smart TV software, but this does not apply to all streaming services.

- Rich

What a generous offer from LG. Full 5 years. Luckily there are outside Smart TV boxes or sticks that one can change at leisure at fraction of the cost while keeping the same TV.

 

[RichB]

What a generous offer from LG. Full 5 years. Luckily there are outside Smart TV boxes or sticks that one can change at leisure at fraction of the cost while keeping the same TV.

LG advertises 5 years support, but others do not...

Since my family uses iPhones, an ATV4K is connected to each TV.
HDMI-CEC works very well powering the device on and off and controlling the volume, which takes the system back to a single remote control.
This has huge (FAF), Family Approval Factor.

The Tide16 specification includes eARC but does not explicitly support HDMI-CEC.
It likely does support HDMI-CEC because LG (and likely others) require HDMI-CEC for eARC.

- Rich

 

[Oddball]

They'd probably be best served as well keeping quiet. Transparency is a value, but bad news is always bad news.

As noted Apple and Andorid devices can fix this so not a biggie - but also nothing to brag about.

No CEC, no love, at least for me. It comes before the FAF, which has even more rigorous requirements.