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Review and Measurements of Gustard DAC-X26

Krunok

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What? That is like asking me to give you a link for 1+1 = 2. How much have you studied this to challenge me this way? Even the Wiki tells you this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitter

Thank you for this about random jitter - I wasn't aware such term exists.

Regarding the massive arogance you have shown I think this will be our last sirect communication. I pity persons that have to live around you.
 

solderdude

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I have this theory: Vinyl can remove jitter !

Many vinyl records are made from digital recordings.
Yet I have never heard an audiophile complain about 'jitter' in the case of vinyl so it must remove jitter.
We need to find a way to vynilyze the digital signal ? o_O
 

BYRTT

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...Regarding the massive arogance you have shown...
:)...Hope alright say my speculation is try notice Amir probably been on ASR 24/7 ever since 03 marts in it looks there had been one review released per day plus varius big discussion in between here and there and also another review of 8 channel ESS DAC is announced released later today, can it help say not take it so personal and have a best day as possible.
 

Music1969

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also another review of 8 channel ESS DAC is announced released later today

Which DAC is this?

Edit: I see from another thread it's the Okto Research DAC8
 
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sonci

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I have this theory: Vinyl can remove jitter !

Many vinyl records are made from digital recordings.
Yet I have never heard an audiophile complain about 'jitter' in the case of vinyl so it must remove jitter.
We need to find a way to vynilyze the digital signal ? o_O
Is this jitter thing only on digital to analog conversion process?
There's no D-A conversion in vinyl playing, it's all analog, maybe that's the reason that vinyl rips are not as good as vinyl playing..
 

graz_lag

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Is this jitter thing only on digital to analog conversion process?
There's no D-A conversion in vinyl playing, it's all analog, maybe that's the reason that vinyl rips are not as good as vinyl playing..

The jitter effect occurs only at the stage of digital to analog signal conversion, or back.
Thus, jitter can’t distort the signal in the digital domain, neither in the analog domain.
 

graz_lag

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I checked some dictionaries and couldn't find the word "vynilyze", did you mean vandalize?

@solderdude was perhaps referring to 'vinylize' or To have sex in the back seat of a car.
Usually, cheap, hot, tawdry, sweaty, teenage sex done in a hurry when you have your parents' car and the back seats are, of course, vinyl.
(From urbandictionary.com)
 

solderdude

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Is this jitter thing only on digital to analog conversion process?
There's no D-A conversion in vinyl playing, it's all analog, maybe that's the reason that vinyl rips are not as good as vinyl playing..

Recording is done digital = jittery (digital without jitter does not exist in practice) -> processed digitally (embeds jitter acc. to some individual(s) -> digital master is then converted to analog (DAC which has jitter) -> sent to cutting lathe processor (analog) -> cutting head -> pressed -> reproduced analog

In this process there is jitter involved and MUST have been recorded on vinyl which some folks claim is vastly superior in timing aspects.
As we hear nobody complain about vinyl and jitter it must be ...
A: inaudible
B: magically have been removed by the vinyl part.

As the latter is the most unlikely one it MUST be true... that's how high-end audio seems to work, so this new theory came to me in an enlightened (must be by glowing tubes) moment.
A word has to be invented otherwise it's no fun at all.
Vinyl-ized as in digit-ized ?
So someone has to invent something for the digital reproducing audiophiles that does the same... remove the already present jitter (of the recording process) in a way that vinyl seems to be capable of as no-one seems to hear jitter when playing vinyl.

Graz_lags explanation for this word is better though ... unless real leather back set or cloth.
hmmm can someone be cloth-ilized or leather-ilized ?

Back on topic now..
great performing DAC and thanks Amir for measuring it.
 
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Sangram

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Recording studios rarely complain of jitter. A studio-grade clock will be used as a master clock for all devices, and almost all professional audio has a separate clock input to ensure low (~10fs is typical) jitter.

Jitter is like an orange, noise is like OJ. They are not the same, and one may lead to the other but it may also lead to other things. A lot depends on how well downstream equipment handles jitter. Some will show severe degradation in noise floor. Others will show none, some will be in the middle.

As usual, design is everything and there is just as much terrible analog equipment as there is impeccable digital equipment. It is foolhardy to make sweeping generalisations based on the structure or theme of a piece of equipment, or personal beliefs.

Not sure why there needs to be a distinction since frequency domain is the same as the time domain, over a transformation. Maybe just a question of terminology?

I’ve always thought of noise as some unwanted signal.

Noise is not a signal, it's a quantity. It is present everywhere except in a theoretically perfect vacuum. It is generated by simple movement of particles in any sort of material or space. When designing a circuit, it is possible to mathematically arrive at the noise figure of the circuit and the real device will be somewhat close to the theoretical, if competently designed. Audio is much less critical than say, MRI machines where even the smallest levels of noise can severely degrade the signal and endanger lives.

Jitter is a specific timing error in digital transmission. It exists in every digital transmission, and is hard-coded into the transmission itself. Unlike noise, it is not really possible to accurately model the output jitter of a circuit because much will depend on interconnection and downstream device termination. These variables aren't always well-known, so a target spec is used and device is tested to meet or fail spec.

The distinction between jitter and noise is an important one, as almost all digital signals have some level of jitter. It is unavoidable because of the very mechanism of digital transmission.

This is why it is important, you cannot treat something if you start in the wrong place. As above, orange is not the same as juice. Pedantic as it sounds, the word 'Science' leads me to believe that terminology should be exact, even if not convenient.

And no, Frequency and Time domains are NOT the same, not by a country mile. They are both unique in their challenges and require different approaches and treatment. This is applicable not just to jitter and noise floor discussions even if I were to think only of audio.

-----
On a separate note, one sad side-effect of all of this is that in order to reach the numbers Gustard is achieving here it needs to increase output voltage by 12dB (over say a X20U Pro) . Automatically gives it an advantage over units with lower output voltage, but needs careful gain-staging of the system.
 

pkane

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Noise is not a signal, it's a quantity. It is present everywhere except in a theoretically perfect vacuum. It is generated by simple movement of particles in any sort of material or space.

I think I clearly spelled out my definition of noise. You are providing a different definition, and that's fine, but arguing about definitions is silly as long as they are clearly stated.

Jitter is a specific timing error in digital transmission. It exists in every digital transmission, and is hard-coded into the transmission itself. Unlike noise, it is not really possible to accurately model the output jitter of a circuit because much will depend on interconnection and downstream device termination. These variables aren't always well-known, so a target spec is used and device is tested to meet or fail spec.

The distinction between jitter and noise is an important one, as almost all digital signals have some level of jitter. It is unavoidable because of the very mechanism of digital transmission.

All good, except the whole discussion was about the effect of jitter on the analog side of the DAC. Your argument about the origin of jitter being on the digital side is valid, but not what we were discussing.

This is why it is important, you cannot treat something if you start in the wrong place. As above, orange is not the same as juice. Pedantic as it sounds, the word 'Science' leads me to believe that terminology should be exact, even if not convenient.

Definitions vary, and as long as I clearly state mine, I don't see the problem.

And no, Frequency and Time domains are NOT the same, not by a country mile. They are both unique in their challenges and require different approaches and treatment. This is applicable not just to jitter and noise floor discussions even if I were to think only of audio.

Not the same, but equivalent, under an information-preserving transformation and its inverse.
 

Sangram

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I think I clearly spelled out my definition of noise. You are providing a different definition, and that's fine, but arguing about definitions is silly as long as they are clearly stated.

....

Definitions vary, and as long as I clearly state mine, I don't see the problem.

No, they don't. By definition, the word 'definition' can only mean one thing. Noise is what it is, it does not really care what your 'definition' is. No offense.

Not the same, but equivalent, under an information-preserving transformation and its inverse.

They are not same, equivalent, interchangeable or similar. A signal can be represented in both domains but there is nothing common between them. Distortions in time domain and signal domain have different behaviours, and are measured differently, and have different solutions. You are assuming that jitter = noise. This is not true.

1. Jitter may or may not manifest as noise in the output. A good converter will know how to handle the jitter, either by internal buffer and reclock (the ESS DAC chips have this feature, as well as the WM8804/5 transreceivers) or other methods.

2. There are multiple noise sources in the output of a DAC. Jitter is not the only one, and not always the worst offender.
 

pkane

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No, they don't. By definition, the word 'definition' can only mean one thing. Noise is what it is, it does not really care what your 'definition' is. No offense.
None taken. But definition, by definition, must be defined, and therefore, can be re-defined ;)

They are not same, equivalent, interchangeable or similar. A signal can be represented in both domains but there is nothing common between them. Distortions in time domain and signal domain have different behaviours, and are measured differently, and have different solutions. You are assuming that jitter = noise. This is not true.

By your definition, jitter is not noise, but by mine, it is just an unwanted signal, and therefore noise. You define noise as random, to me noise can be random or not. By my definition, noise is any signal (including random) introduced into the reproduction chain that wasn't in the original recording. To me a 60Hz AC line frequency in audio is noise, because it's not part of the signal I want to reproduce. Again, just a question of terminology, so I'll stop here as it's really silly to continue to argue about terms.
 

sonci

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I still don't get this reclocking thing. How does the dac recover the clock, it receives the 0 and 1 and it guess the timing, just by some algoritme?
The old Sony dac or the Linn Karik/Numerik used a separate cable for the clock, why? Because the reclocking was not invented at the time? Sony was making some cost no object at the time, they could have found a better solution..
Why in the studio they still use a word clock?
 

pkane

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I still don't get this reclocking thing. How does the dac recover the clock, it receives the 0 and 1 and it guess the timing, just by some algoritme?
The old Sony dac or the Linn Karik/Numerik used a separate cable for the clock, why? Because the reclocking was not invented at the time? Sony was making some cost no object at the time, they could have found a better solution..
Why in the studio they still use a word clock?

This is currently being discussed in the other thread, related to Synchro-mesh product review. Here's a link that was posted there by @March Audio that should help:

http://audioworkshop.org/downloads/AES_EBU_SPDIF_DIGITAL_INTERFACEaes93.pdf
 
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