Schiit Gadget Music Tuning Box

[watchnerd]

Well, this is definitely something unusual:

"The Gadget is a signal processor that “dynamically re-tunes the concert pitch of music from an assumed A=440Hz to C=256Hz” but – crucially – without altering the tempo.

According to product designer, Schiit’s Number 2 Mike Moffat, music’s tuning pitch has slowly crept upwards over time. The Gadget corrects for this drift with digital signal processing (DSP). Changes can be applied in real time with the twist of a knob with users finding their own unique “aah” point – one where, according to Moffat, music will sound more fluid and more immersive.



The magic box’s input and output socketry – 1 x USB in, 1 x coaxial in, 1 x coaxial out – points to the digital heart within: a SHARC processor. The Gadget sits between streamer/PC/Mac and DAC and even with no turning applied, it could serve as an affordable USB-S/PDIF converter or S/PDIF re-clocker.

With some retuning dialled in, a defeat switch enables instant A/B comparisons both at home and, stepping outside of the norm once more, also at audio shows like RMAF.

According to Schiit’s press release, the Gadget will sell for somewhere in the region of US$200. And absence of product photos suggests that this year’s RMAF demo will utilise a prototype with availability remaining TBC."

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/10/rmaf-2017-taking-a-neat-schiit-on-a-naim/

Corrects for the drift?

Drift since when?

And how would we know this?

Philosophically, this is a big step beyond EQ/room correction.

 

[RayDunzl]

Some discussion and history of tuning...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_(pitch_standard)

https://jakubmarian.com/the-432-hz-vs-440-hz-conspiracy-theory/

https://ask.audio/articles/music-theory-432-hz-tuning-separating-fact-from-fiction

 

[RayDunzl]

 

[Blumlein 88]

I believe there's already a maker of a similar device named 432. Then again it's all Schiit. And to think I've worried about a few parts per billion in the speed of files?

 

[RayDunzl]

My (newish) Tascam CD Player has a speed knob - comes in handy for those old boom-box live cassette (ripped) recordings from the dim past my Audio buddy keeps coming up with.

For that, though, you want the tempo to change with the pitch, so, not the same concept.

 

[RayDunzl]

And how would we know this?

In case you didn't read the links, one method was to examine the old tuning forks to see what their pitch is.

Way back when, I have no idea how or if they even could measure frequency, just compare to some tuning standard - a bell, a fork, pitch pipe, something that vibrates the same every time.

 

[amirm]

There is some talk about this in this interview with Schiit folks:

 

[Cosmik]

I didn't see that product coming!

There is an extra dimension apart from pitch and tempo, and that is 'formants'. If a human sings at A440, or A460 or whatever, the basic pitch changes but the formants remain fixed. The idea is that the human voice can be considered as an excitation signal feeding into fixed filter banks. If you simply speed up the signal (or effectively break it into granules or re-synthesise it in order to keep the timing constant), you also shift the formants, resulting in the well-known chipmunk sound, but if you somehow identify the formants and keep them constant, you can get a more realistic pitch shift.

Musical instruments like violins will also have formants i.e. fixed resonances that do not change if you retune the instrument.

So if you simply shift the pitch of a whole recording, you will probably be shifting the formants too. So not strictly 'correct', but maybe it doesn't matter too much.

I presume that an idea of the effect can be obtained by using the pitch shifting tools in Audacity.

 

[Vincent Kars]

I believe there's already a maker of a similar device named 432.

There is this guy from Belgium: http://432evo.be/index.php/432-hz-

 

[RayDunzl]

http://proaudioencyclopedia.com/the-history-of-audio-and-sound-measurement/

Frequency Analysis

The Italian scientist, inventor, and experimentalist Galileo (1564-1642) drew a knife edge across the milled (or serrated) edge of a coin and noted the tone produced. He theorized sound to be a sequence of pulses in air. Sliding the knife more quickly produced higher tones, so he realized higher tones required a faster train of pulses.

In March 1676 the great British scientist Robert Hooke (1635-1703) described in his diary a sound-producing machine. Five years later he demonstrated it to the Royal Society. A toothed wooden wheel was rotated, and a card or reed was held against it. Children still do something like this today, with a playing card held against the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Hooke noted a regular pattern of teeth produced music-like sounds, while more irregular teeth produced something that sounded more like speech.

Hooke’s work wasn’t published for a quarter century (1705) and wasn’t used for further study for 150 years. However, by 1834 the Frenchman Félix Savart (1791-1841) was building giant brass wheels 82cm across, with 720 teeth. Savart’s contribution was a mechanical tachometer connected to the axis of the toothed wheel. He calibrated a rotational scale with the tooth rate, and for the first time demonstrated that specific tones were associated with specific frequencies (Figure 1).


Figure 1. Savart’s wheel allowed frequencies heard in air to be compared with the buzz of the toothed wheel (1830).

He could determine the frequency of a tone heard in air by using his ear to match it with the toothed wheel and reading the frequency from the tachometer. He was using his ear and brain to do what a modern electrical engineer would call heterodyne analysis.

History is sometimes casual about assigning names. These great toothed wheels, the part invented by Hooke, are today called “Savart’s wheels,” while Savart’s having contributed the tachometer is forgotten.

 

[watchnerd]

There is this guy from Belgium: http://432evo.be/index.php/432-hz-

I have a philosophical problem with both this and the Schiit Gadget.

Namely, it is the job of a music reproduction system to reproduce what is on the recording while adding as little signature as possible.

The drift in musical tunings as definitely an interesting area of exploration for musicologists and musical historians, and I would welcome recordings made with period tunings, just like I've enjoyed recordings made with period instruments.

But it's not the job of the audio reproduction chain to do this. It's the job of the performers.

I find this to be a significant step beyond the subjective preferences for euphonic audio gear (tubes, vinyl), which introduce sometimes pleasing distortions that are still derived from the original audio signal.

This, in essence, is changing the original signal.

I also find it hard to reconcile with those who decry DS/SD DACs/ADCs because they 'throw away' the original samples when compared to multibit/R2R DACs (to paraphrase Schiit's marketing). So DS DACs are bad, but actually manipulating primary musical tunings via DSP is somehow okay?

I'm sure such boxes are interesting and fun to play with, especially for students of music history, but they're a clear break from high fidelity.

Also, for modern music (post ISO 16, in 1955), aren't such devices pointless?

 

[watchnerd]

I believe there's already a maker of a similar device named 432. Then again it's all Schiit. And to think I've worried about a few parts per billion in the speed of files?

This could get really interesting if the "bit perfect" crowd starts using this kind of device.

(So you obsess about bit stream perfection that is probably below hearing thresholds, and buy USB scrubbers and re-clockers to fix jitter you can't hear, all in the name of preserving signal integrity....then intentionally introduce a device that manipulates signal integrity?)

 

[tomelex]

I might come at this from a little bit different angle. I know how stereo "tries" to work, and how it while OK, is not the right approach. Like when DeForest invented the vacuum tube, it departed us from the path of semiconductors for a long long time. Stereo, has departed us from reproduction of music via binaural method for a long time.

So, if someone makes a box, that give you a little bit of control over the defective stereo system, and you like what it does, then by all means add it to your system. That would be as simple as a tone control, a parametric equalizer, digital signal processing, sonic hologram generator, image expanders, sub harmonic synthesizers, reverb, etc, all things I have tried and found there is a place for them, when you want their effect.

Would not the ultimate be that you did the mastering and engineering on a song you liked, using your stereo system? Of course we don't have time to mess about like that, but no issues "tuning" anything in plain old stereo to make it more enjoyable. Pure accuracy in stereo may not be what "sounds" best to all our personal preferences.

Don't get me wrong, I agree we want as accurate a system as we can get or afford, but there is nothing wrong with salt and pepper to taste in my book.

 

[watchnerd]

I might come at this from a little bit different angle. I know how stereo "tries" to work, and how it while OK, is not the right approach. Like when DeForest invented the vacuum tube, it departed us from the path of semiconductors for a long long time. Stereo, has departed us from reproduction of music via binaural method for a long time.

So, if someone makes a box, that give you a little bit of control over the defective stereo system, and you like what it does, then by all means add it to your system. That would be as simple as a tone control, a parametric equalizer, digital signal processing, sonic hologram generator, image expanders, sub harmonic synthesizers, reverb, etc, all things I have tried and found there is a place for them, when you want their effect.

Would not the ultimate be that you did the mastering and engineering on a song you liked, using your stereo system? Of course we don't have time to mess about like that, but no issues "tuning" anything in plain old stereo to make it more enjoyable. Pure accuracy in stereo may not be what "sounds" best to all our personal preferences.

Don't get me wrong, I agree we want as accurate a system as we can get or afford, but there is nothing wrong with salt and pepper to taste in my book.

I think the intent of the technology application matters:

1. EQ, applied to correct for room or speaker deficiencies to get closer to a flat response, is high fidelity.

EQ applied because you like the results may float your boat, but it's not necessarily high fidelity. Nothing wrong with that, per se, as long as we don't confuse preferences (whether EQ, euphonic tubes, or whatever) for accuracy.

2. Yep, stereo is an artificial. But if the recording is mixed to 2 channels then reproducing it on 2 channels is appropriate reproduction. The same for multi-channel.

3. Music tuning boxes are just another type of distortion inducer, not in the THD/IMD sense, but in the 'deviating from the original' sense. They may have place in a creative recording production chain (along with other effect boxes), but, again, they're not high fidelity and they're deviating from the goal of accurate reproduction.

I think this is an example of the age-old schism in audio:

Do hobbyists want a system that is an accurate reproduction chain, or something that sounds good to them and reflects their personal "flavorings", real or imagined?

For me, personally, since I also do recordings and know how much manipulation happens at the mixing and mastering level, and therefore deviates from simple raw presentation of 'what the mics heard', I feel there is already enough creative license taken in the production process and feel that the job of the system is to reproduce that creative intent.

Otherwise, it's like going to an art museum and saying all the paintings would be much better if only they were viewed through colored lenses.

 

[Cosmik]

Would not the ultimate be that you did the mastering and engineering on a song you liked, using your stereo system?

Why stop there? Why not write and create your own music?

 

[tomelex]

Well, if I had time, and the ability, I would love to create my own music. Now, wife can play piano, and she also has one of those Yamaha keyboards that you can choose what drums, beats, blah blah. Once in a while I sit down at that and have a blast creating a tune I like. I have no musical training. Its fun.

So, around 1977 or so, when I learned real electronics, not play stuff at home dinking around with things, it became so obvious how you can manipulate playback most any way you wanted, and I like that ability. The amount of processing done by mix and master engineers can be crazy. My son owned a recording studio for about a year and a half, and let me tell you, there is a lot of manipulation needed to for example get a drum to sound like a drum on playback across speakers.

So, you are looking at a person here who has no fear of manipulating whatever I want whenever I want to suit me. I am still an objectivist, but I would like to think that even the most straight wire with gain folks here, would not turn their nose up at an add on device that eliminated compression or provided dynamics without an unnatural effect on the music. I could be wrong

Basically, I am not slaved to a flawed stereophonic playback process.

 

[tomelex]

I think the intent of the technology application matters:

1. EQ, applied to correct for room or speaker deficiencies to get closer to a flat response, is high fidelity.

EQ applied because you like the results may float your boat, but it's not necessarily high fidelity. Nothing wrong with that, per se, as long as we don't confuse preferences (whether EQ, euphonic tubes, or whatever) for accuracy.

2. Yep, stereo is an artificial. But if the recording is mixed to 2 channels then reproducing it on 2 channels is appropriate reproduction. The same for multi-channel.

3. Music tuning boxes are just another type of distortion inducer, not in the THD/IMD sense, but in the 'deviating from the original' sense. They may have place in a creative recording production chain (along with other effect boxes), but, again, they're not high fidelity and they're deviating from the goal of accurate reproduction.

I think this is an example of the age-old schism in audio:

Do hobbyists want a system that is an accurate reproduction chain, or something that sounds good to them and reflects their personal "flavorings", real or imagined?

For me, personally, since I also do recordings and know how much manipulation happens at the mixing and mastering level, and therefore deviates from simple raw presentation of 'what the mics heard', I feel there is already enough creative license taken in the production process and feel that the job of the system is to reproduce that creative intent.

Otherwise, it's like going to an art museum and saying all the paintings would be much better if only they were viewed through colored lenses.

I am hearing what you are saying and while viewing through colored lenses might be a bad idea if stereo was a perfect system to start with, maybe viewing an imperfect system through colored lenses might not be such a bad idea. Try this experiment one time for me, play your system in mono for three or four days, then on the fourth day, just after playing a song you like, switch back to stereo and listen to that song again....and I am 100% positive you will hear just how artificial stereo is. Not saying it aint fun, but it is weird though, never the less.

 

[watchnerd]

I am hearing what you are saying and while viewing through colored lenses might be a bad idea if stereo was a perfect system to start with, maybe viewing an imperfect system through colored lenses might not be such a bad idea. Try this experiment one time for me, play your system in mono for three or four days, then on the fourth day, just after playing a song you like, switch back to stereo and listen to that song again....and I am 100% positive you will hear just how artificial stereo is. Not saying it aint fun, but it is weird though, never the less.

I do this all the time -- I have several albums that are mixed in both mono and stereo (most of them of the early "dual mono" type with drums hard pan left, piano hard pan right).

I even have mono phono cartridges for playing back mono LPs.

But I don't see what the point is...yes, stereo is an artificial medium, and a 2 channel playback system is designed to reproduce that artifice as laid down by the production engineers, no matter how fake it might be relative to reality.

And "reality" doesn't even enter the conversation with certain genres. What is the real world reference sound for a Deadmouse or Daft Punk album?

So in summary:

Mono recording => Play back on mono system
Stereo recording => Play back on stereo system
Multi-channel recording => Play back on multi-channel system

This allows reproduction to be true to the original intent of the creators.

 

[Blumlein 88]

This could get really interesting if the "bit perfect" crowd starts using this kind of device.

(So you obsess about bit stream perfection that is probably below hearing thresholds, and buy USB scrubbers and re-clockers to fix jitter you can't hear, all in the name of preserving signal integrity....then intentionally introduce a device that manipulates signal integrity?)

For some reason, your delightful comment reminds me of this movie scene.

 

[tomelex]

I do this all the time -- I have several albums that are mixed in both mono and stereo (most of them of the early "dual mono" type with drums hard pan left, piano hard pan right).

I even have mono phono cartridges for playing back mono LPs.

But I don't see what the point is...yes, stereo is an artificial medium, and a 2 channel playback system is designed to reproduce that artifice as laid down by the production engineers, no matter how fake it might be relative to reality.

And "reality" doesn't even enter the conversation with certain genres. What is the real world reference sound for a Deadmouse or Daft Punk album?

So in summary:

Mono recording => Play back on mono system
Stereo recording => Play back on stereo system
Multi-channel recording => Play back on multi-channel system

This allows reproduction to be true to the original intent of the creators.

"But I don't see what the point is...yes, stereo is an artificial medium, and a 2 channel playback system is designed to reproduce that artifice as laid down by the production engineers, no matter how fake it might be relative to reality"

Well, I think we are talking past each other here, my point is that it is a fake medium, and therefore, it is not a problem to play or tweek it to sound better to our taste. To color it any way we want. Now, as I have always maintained, I like gear to be as faithful to the signal as it can be, then, I can tweek it the way I want, so for example, playing my SET amp, that gives me a more engaging sound, a nicer color, and when I want that sound, I turn to it, no problems. the rest of the system is still as accurate as it can be, and therefore, the add on unit, is allowed to be heard accurately.

Where we may disagree some, is that the original intent of the creators is not all that good, but some tuning on my part can make what they messed up sound better to me. You have to understand, I have a full featured preamplifier, old school. I even sometimes run my signal through the reel to reel (well I used to) to get more odd order sound on the peeks, more presence if you will.