Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?

[VintageFlanker]

I know reviewers may be biased

Are biased. There's no "maybe" in that.

 

[fpitas]

Are biased. There's no "maybe" in that.

Yes, even if they didn't make money from product placements, they wouldn't have an audience if every review was, "That one was good, too. Indistinguishable from the last 100 I listened to".

 

[VintageFlanker]

Yes, even if they didn't make money from product placements, they wouldn't have an audience if every review was, "That one was good, too. Indistinguishable from the last 100 I listened to".

Whatever you make money or not. And even when you publish actual data. I am, myself, biased when I review a product. Could be the same objective results and different interpretations of these. Could be excellent measured performance, but a product that fails to please me on usability, features, design... Or the other way around. Etc. Everything has a context. Every review comes with a strong subjective opinion.

Bu at the end, there's the data for people to make a decision about it.

 

[IPunchCholla]

Yes, even if they didn't make money from product placements, they wouldn't have an audience if every review was, "That one was good, too. Indistinguishable from the last 100 I listened to".

Made me think of this.

 

[Mart68]

You could. You could also argue they sound different from one another. For one thing amateur blind testing should not be taken seriously. Human perceptual testing is its own area of expertise. It takes more than just common sense to do it well.

If the measurements show the devices will sound the same it is highly unlikely that they will not - under controlled conditions. At best there could be very minor differences which the typical audiophile would be unable to detect without training in any case. The bold differences reported to exist such as wider and deeper soundstages are unquestionably generated in the minds of the beholders.

Edit - or are a simple failure to match levels.

 

[Killingbeans]

Its not just spectral components, Relative phases of test tones may also be audible. Example files of phase shifts that are audible: https://purifi-audio.com/blog/tech-notes-1/doppler-distortion-vs-imd-7#blog_content

"...The problem is, you can’t easily see from a spectral plot which of the two is actually the case. In fact, you can’t see it at all. That is because spectral plots don’t show phase information."

I think you completely misunderstood the point that blog post is making?

It shows that phase distortion is much, much harder to hear than amplitude distortion. On other words, it tells you to not worry about phase distortion.

 

[SIY]

I guess I was applying the term ‘extract’ to the whole process of turning digital to an analogue line signal.

A process which is routinely done at accuracies several orders of magnitude better than human hearing acuity.

 

[Wanman]

On other words, it tells you to not worry about phase distortion.

Not at all. The link contains the following quote warning against relying on spectral analysis with phase information omitted:
"I’d like to offer up a small demo to caution against this form of Popular Psychoacoustics."

 

[Killingbeans]

Did you actually listen to the two samples?

The amplitude modulation is clearly audible, while the frequency modulation is next to impossible to hear (to my ears at least).

The whole point of the blog post is to stop people from crying "doppler distortion!!!" whenever the Purifi drivers are being discussed.

It's not about omission of phase data. The problem is that phase and amplitude distortion is normally lumped together as one parameter, making the audiblity ambiguous.

 

[krabapple]

After that everyone is by necessity making assumptions. You'll never come to a conclusion this way. It is a big circle-jerk. Of what we know that was described, uncontrolled review evaluations are nearly always meaningless. Did levels even get matched? After that tell us more or there really is not anything worth saying.

Agreed. This is yet another thread that should have shut down pages ago.

Some suggested reading material to start with:
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Also of possibly related interest: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2016.00524/full

Have you critiqued all those papers and decided they're equally credible?

 

[Wanman]

Did you actually listen to the two samples?

Yes.

The amplitude modulation is clearly audible, while the frequency modulation is next to impossible to hear (to my ears at least).

I heard it. Would agree its more subtle than the amplitude modulation.

However, point of the demonstration is that the spectral plots are exactly the same for both files. Exactly. It means you can't tell from a spectral plot what something sounds like, Can't even tell if its distortion or not.

 

[Wanman]

Have you critiqued all those papers and decided they're equally credible?

I don't find them all equally credible. Not all of them were published at a time when perceptual science was at today's state of knowledge. That's one reason why its important to have a sufficiently broad overview of the field. Its so you can judge credibility on an educated basis.

 

[Killingbeans]

However, point of the demonstration is that the spectral plots are exactly the same for both files. Exactly. It means you can't tell from a spectral plot what something sounds like, Can't even tell if its distortion or not.

The point is that you can't tell whether it's audible or not. And no. We can still tell that it's distortion.

Some types of distortion are just more benign than others, but there's nothing hiding in the shadows.

Purifi obviously made a mistake by letting the reader draw their own conclusions. They were assuming we'd take it as hint to not worry as much about phase distortion, and focus on the bigger problems. But here we are... drawing completely opposite conclusions.

 

[fpitas]

I think you completely misunderstood the point that blog post is making?

It shows that phase distortion is much, much harder to hear than amplitude distortion. On other words, it tells you to not worry about phase distortion.

Oddly, I can hear the distortion about equally. It puzzled me for a long time why they put up that demo.

 

[Killingbeans]

That's... interesting.

*Putting my words on a plate and getting a knife and a fork ready, just in case*

I hear a clear wobble in the AM sample. Nothing in the FM sample.

 

[fpitas]

That's... interesting.

*Putting my words on a plate and getting a knife and a fork ready, just in case*

I hear a clear wobble in the AM sample. Nothing in the FM sample.

I keep going back there to see if I really hear it. Yep. Nasty.

 

[fpitas]

That's... interesting.

*Putting my words on a plate and getting a knife and a fork ready, just in case*

I hear a clear wobble in the AM sample. Nothing in the FM sample.

And, it's possible, maybe probable it's just a rare hearing difference. In any event, I'm glad I designed to avoid Doppler distortion lol!

 

[Wanman]

It puzzled me for a long time why they put up that demo.

It was because the audible difference is not easily explained by masking theory, and because the files sound so different despite having identical power spectra.

Why might that be that interesting? Because questions arise as to some of the conventional teachings of psychoacoustics.

 

[all24bits]

The most fascinating part of this entire discussion is how iFi products are mostly/all designed in China, as well as how iFi is intentionally gimping their product quality. I have various iFi products (including the Zen One Signature) and I'm happy with all of them. I also hear a clear difference between their various DACs, with my favorite being the Zen One Signature. YMV

 

[SIY]

I also hear a clear difference between their various DACs.

Really?