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Review and Measurements of Empirical Audio Synchro-Mesh

Blumlein 88

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Ah, then it is a mystery unless somehow the USB interface improves jitter a little each time. It cannot improve other types of distortion can it?
In the past I did measurements with each generation too. This time it was less detailed though I had a couple tones. Noise goes up liked you expect. Near textbook amounts. Distortion goes up like you'd expect having 8 times as much in the end. Jitter I didn't attempt to measure, but it must be increasing with each pass. Phase will be worse as well.

Now regarding a later in the thread comment, how could you hear a preference for one regardless of which it was and not also be able to hear one matching or not matching the reference? If one sounds preferable to the reference and one doesn't you know which is the reference.
 

Blumlein 88

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If i get it right you try to make conclusions why at least 2 of the tracks from @Blumlein 88 test sounded more focused or actually better than the original after a 8x DAC/ADC conversion, in that conclusion all the talk is about digital domain stuff as re-clockers / PLL / Jitter improvement, but how can one know and conclude difference is the digital chain that make the actual improvement when a simple thing as those tracks AC bandwidth (stopbands) are skrinked for each and every DAC/ADC conversion, and in that process will point to that own research show that whenever a track is shrinked a bit in bandwidth then its dynamic range is actual improved a bit and should make a sensed difference. Also myself had run test on those converted tracks and can agree for a few of them one can maybe come to prefeer the converted ones and that thing could be system or personal dependant, but on the other hand when i load test tracks in real ABX test (Foobar) it can really get hard at least it was for me, for example my best score was on J. Warnes track where i hit 6 right out of 8 but for the other tracks it was 3 to 5 out of 8. In the end you and wife could have better or trained ears and better system than mine but will mean little schrinked track bandwidth should be taken into count to what you call a mystery.

If a track were brighter than your personal preference a slight dulling with each pass might sound better to you. Or perhaps added harmonic distortion if it were becoming barely audible might give a sense of enriched fine detail. That is the point of using a reference. Even if you prefer the change, you have to perceive it, and you can tell it sounds different (different better, different worse doesn't matter) than the reference file.

Now I'm not referring to you or anyone in particular. When I have put up such files and asked pick the one your prefer there are complaints you may not always prefer fidelity. So when I put up files and asked to find the different one vs a reference people say they were listening for which was best sounding and maybe fidelity isn't best sounding. I think using a reference is better as you can't hear a preference unless you also hear a difference. I would think the instructions are easy enough. Listen to both vs reference and say which sounds different than the reference. I fail to see the ambiguity.

That difference of worse fidelity can sometimes sound like the better recording simply points to human hearing not being tuned automatically for fidelity. Minor frequency response or noise or dynamic issues can seem pleasing to some when they are definitively of lower fidelity. That puts a big fly in the ointment of heavily ears first reviewing, system evaluation and similar pursuits.
 

restorer-john

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As someone who played piano for most of my adult life, I prefer the sound and action of different pianos for different types of music. For classical, Steinway all the way. For jazz - I like Yamaha.

So do Steinway and Yamaha 'voice' their pianos and set their action to be different to each other for commercial purposes or is it a fundamental belief that they are doing it right and others are doing it wrong?
 

Empirical Audio

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In the past I did measurements with each generation too. This time it was less detailed though I had a couple tones. Noise goes up liked you expect. Near textbook amounts. Distortion goes up like you'd expect having 8 times as much in the end. Jitter I didn't attempt to measure, but it must be increasing with each pass. Phase will be worse as well.

I'm not convinced that jitter will be worse with each pass.
 

Empirical Audio

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If a track were brighter than your personal preference a slight dulling with each pass might sound better to you. Or perhaps added harmonic distortion if it were becoming barely audible might give a sense of enriched fine detail. That is the point of using a reference. Even if you prefer the change, you have to perceive it, and you can tell it sounds different (different better, different worse doesn't matter) than the reference file.

Now I'm not referring to you or anyone in particular. When I have put up such files and asked pick the one your prefer there are complaints you may not always prefer fidelity. So when I put up files and asked to find the different one vs a reference people say they were listening for which was best sounding and maybe fidelity isn't best sounding. I think using a reference is better as you can't hear a preference unless you also hear a difference. I would think the instructions are easy enough. Listen to both vs reference and say which sounds different than the reference. I fail to see the ambiguity.

That difference of worse fidelity can sometimes sound like the better recording simply points to human hearing not being tuned automatically for fidelity. Minor frequency response or noise or dynamic issues can seem pleasing to some when they are definitively of lower fidelity. That puts a big fly in the ointment of heavily ears first reviewing, system evaluation and similar pursuits.

I think it might make sense sometimes to do a simple A/B and have the listeners indicate whether there was a difference, rather than picking the preferred track. This yes or no result could be very useful for comparing offset, format, phase, inversion and jitter for instance. Any time when only one factor is changing and all we want to know is whether it makes a difference or not, this should be sufficient.

Steve N.
 

Blumlein 88

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I'm not convinced that jitter will be worse with each pass.
DAC and ADC are using free running crystal clocks. Generally the best way, but they'll still be imperfect. Random jitter would build up like noise 3 db per pass, periodic jitter by 6 db per pass. No way jitter won't be worse. There is nothing in this chain doing filtering like in PLL's to reduce jitter or keep it below a certain number.

Yet I believe jitter is so low as to be complete non-concern. The noise floor rises almost exactly as predicted by the build up of analog noise. So jitter is below that it would seem.
 

Blumlein 88

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I think it might make sense sometimes to do a simple A/B and have the listeners indicate whether there was a difference, rather than picking the preferred track. This yes or no result could be very useful for comparing offset, format, phase, inversion and jitter for instance. Any time when only one factor is changing and all we want to know is whether it makes a difference or not, this should be sufficient.

Steve N.
And if with all simple A/B tests the results are random guessing? What then?

The test I posted is what you are describing. Listen to reference and A. Do they sound the same? Reference and B. Do they sound the same? If all three sound the same then you can't hear the difference which is there. If they all sound different, you've got other problems. If one pair is same, and other is different you know which is which by sound alone. What is the problem with that other than some people deciding to ignore the procedure and insist on listening for best sound quality. That didn't make much sense as each listener would already know two of the the three were the same and should sound it. If you believed it sounded better, then it was different. Some people apparently just skipped the reference, listened to A and B assuming the good one was the original one. I can't help it if people don't follow directions.

This sort of multi-generational comparison was not at all about what was best. Nor about what factor it was that causes any difference. The purpose was with all the differences involved can you hear them as different or not.
 

restorer-john

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...Not good for FUD, but great for consumers...

How's this for a photograph, I caught you driving right behind FUD yesterday! (Look at the number plate in front)!

siy following fud.JPG


And the car on the left is parked, so the dog isn't driving it (RH drive here)!
 

SIY

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Holy shit! That's a remarkable coincidence.
 

restorer-john

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Holy shit! That's a remarkable coincidence.

Lucky the cars were stationary (school pickup lineup), I could whip out the phone and snap the pic.

Yep, SIY is hard on the rear bumper of FUD and they have got you in their rear vision mirror all the time. :)
 

SIY

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Yep, SIY is hard on the rear bumper of FUD and they have got you in their rear vision mirror all the time. :)

LOL, @jan.didden , Scott Wurcer, and I (who all get together regularly for music, wine, and fun) got known by the audio cranks as The Axis of Evil.
 

WeHaDude

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Late to the party but came across these exchanges quite by accident. Since the dawn of audiophilia there have always been tension between the naysayers (the “bits are bits and no cable can render measurable performance difference” crowd) vs the converts (sound improvement is out there, subjective and always possible). Count me in the latter camp.

Previous system included a Sonos that fed a Benchmark DAC2-L connected to a Jeff Rowland Continuum S2. Introduced the SM between Sonos and DAC and noticed clear improvement overall. When the time came to upgrade the DAC earlier this year I opted for a Bryston BDA-3. Once again, the SM made an audible difference with the Sonos sound vs Sonos directly connected to DAC. No other change whatsoever to system. And, by the way, my cables and connectors and PS Audio Power Plant P-10 are hardly sub-par.

So, for those of you inclined to disparage or dismiss Empirical Audio’s SM as unnecessary, ineffective, worthless gear unless you have been convinced with substantive data, graphical comparisons, blind tests, and nerd analytics, blah, blah, blah, fine! The specs, no matter how detailed, omit a fundamental sense in this hobby—your ears and how your auditory senses heighten the overall experience with familiar music. So you can keep your blind tests, grouse all you want about Steve‘s unwillingness to satiate your desire for confirming data, yada, yada, yada. The rest of us who are fortunate enough to afford spending reasonable sums to enhance our music listening experience based on real field tests that count will continue trusting our ears and our subjective experiences...and not regret money spent doing so for one minute.

And, those who resort to psycho babble to suggest we are merely justifying purchase should keep in mind that a great many of us have no problem whatsoever returning equipment that fails to perform as advertised or fails to improve/enhance our music listening experience. We don’t buy cars on specs alone; or purchase houses sight unseen based on inspector’s report only; or marry women only on the basis of measurable cup size; or purchase audiophile gear on comparative data analysis only. Except maybe for those favoring magazine brides, the subjective experience in each of those instances is a way more reliable predictor of long term enjoyment. Happy listening.
 

SIY

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Late to the party but came across these exchanges quite by accident. Since the dawn of audiophilia there have always been tension between the naysayers (the “bits are bits and no cable can render measurable performance difference” crowd) vs the converts (sound improvement is out there, subjective and always possible). Count me in the latter camp.

Previous system included a Sonos that fed a Benchmark DAC2-L connected to a Jeff Rowland Continuum S2. Introduced the SM between Sonos and DAC and noticed clear improvement overall. When the time came to upgrade the DAC earlier this year I opted for a Bryston BDA-3. Once again, the SM made an audible difference with the Sonos sound vs Sonos directly connected to DAC. No other change whatsoever to system. And, by the way, my cables and connectors and PS Audio Power Plant P-10 are hardly sub-par.

So, for those of you inclined to disparage or dismiss Empirical Audio’s SM as unnecessary, ineffective, worthless gear unless you have been convinced with substantive data, graphical comparisons, blind tests, and nerd analytics, blah, blah, blah, fine! The specs, no matter how detailed, omit a fundamental sense in this hobby—your ears and how your auditory senses heighten the overall experience with familiar music. So you can keep your blind tests, grouse all you want about Steve‘s unwillingness to satiate your desire for confirming data, yada, yada, yada. The rest of us who are fortunate enough to afford spending reasonable sums to enhance our music listening experience based on real field tests that count will continue trusting our ears and our subjective experiences...and not regret money spent doing so for one minute.

And, those who resort to psycho babble to suggest we are merely justifying purchase should keep in mind that a great many of us have no problem whatsoever returning equipment that fails to perform as advertised or fails to improve/enhance our music listening experience. We don’t buy cars on specs alone; or purchase houses sight unseen based on inspector’s report only; or marry women only on the basis of measurable cup size; or purchase audiophile gear on comparative data analysis only. Except maybe for those favoring magazine brides, the subjective experience in each of those instances is a way more reliable predictor of long term enjoyment. Happy listening.

Shorter version: "I can't hear any of these marvelous effects unless I peek."
 

Frank Dernie

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Late to the party but came across these exchanges quite by accident. Since the dawn of audiophilia there have always been tension between the naysayers (the “bits are bits and no cable can render measurable performance difference” crowd) vs the converts (sound improvement is out there, subjective and always possible). Count me in the latter camp.

Previous system included a Sonos that fed a Benchmark DAC2-L connected to a Jeff Rowland Continuum S2. Introduced the SM between Sonos and DAC and noticed clear improvement overall. When the time came to upgrade the DAC earlier this year I opted for a Bryston BDA-3. Once again, the SM made an audible difference with the Sonos sound vs Sonos directly connected to DAC. No other change whatsoever to system. And, by the way, my cables and connectors and PS Audio Power Plant P-10 are hardly sub-par.

So, for those of you inclined to disparage or dismiss Empirical Audio’s SM as unnecessary, ineffective, worthless gear unless you have been convinced with substantive data, graphical comparisons, blind tests, and nerd analytics, blah, blah, blah, fine! The specs, no matter how detailed, omit a fundamental sense in this hobby—your ears and how your auditory senses heighten the overall experience with familiar music. So you can keep your blind tests, grouse all you want about Steve‘s unwillingness to satiate your desire for confirming data, yada, yada, yada. The rest of us who are fortunate enough to afford spending reasonable sums to enhance our music listening experience based on real field tests that count will continue trusting our ears and our subjective experiences...and not regret money spent doing so for one minute.

And, those who resort to psycho babble to suggest we are merely justifying purchase should keep in mind that a great many of us have no problem whatsoever returning equipment that fails to perform as advertised or fails to improve/enhance our music listening experience. We don’t buy cars on specs alone; or purchase houses sight unseen based on inspector’s report only; or marry women only on the basis of measurable cup size; or purchase audiophile gear on comparative data analysis only. Except maybe for those favoring magazine brides, the subjective experience in each of those instances is a way more reliable predictor of long term enjoyment. Happy listening.
There are plenty of forums where technically illiterate enthusiasts write complete bollox about things they imagine which can't possibly exist. Placebo effect. Sugar pills can cure illness in those susceptible to it, it is very powerful.
You could stick around here and learn something from people who are experts in their field or go (back?) to one of them, where ignorance is bliss and happiness doesn't require any aptitude(s) whatsoever.

IMO I am glad this place exists, it is the only hifi web site I have found so far which isn't overloaded with largely delusional opinion based on an absence of understanding basics.
 
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