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

[Thorsten Loesch]

Indeed. And also, human ears (e.g., "hearing") are an unreliable collection of transducers with a wide array of random frequency responses, while measurement microphones are very reliable, easily calibrated, and quite consistent in their "perception" of sounds.

But we are not listening to music using microphones.

We are listening with the old imperfect 'MK1' ears issued to us by evolution or the demiurge (depending on your faith).

For better or worse. And my whole lengthy missive was about fooling the MK1 ears and all the cognitive machinery attached to them.

Now that, arguably is a very different objective than "most SINAD" (way past what is audible).

Thor

 

[zajogungster]

Indeed. And also, human ears (e.g., "hearing") are an unreliable collection of transducers with a wide array of random frequency responses, while measurement microphones are very reliable, easily calibrated, and quite consistent in their "perception" of sounds.

We go right beyond that here, to catmatic.

thank you very much gentlemen! It's time to expand your vocabulary

 

[fpitas]

thank you very much gentlemen! It's time to expand your vocabulary

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

 

[Thorsten Loesch]

and here it is, after this thread, even my speakers no longer play as I imagined ...
it's time to buy some serious calibration microphone, so I'm asking for some suggestions
totally serious!

I use the Minidsp USB mic. It is cheap, calibrated and good enough for most jobs.

Remember, a mic is just a tool. It's the hairless monkey using it the right way that makes the difference.

Thor

 

[Blumlein 88]

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

So when I say I await transparent cables, I don't need to explain, I'm waiting for the time loop where Scotty comes back to San Francisco and leaves the plans for making transparent aluminum at which point we can have see thru aluminum cables? Or would people somehow misunderstand me despite the obviousness of what I had in mind in my mind?

 

[DonR]

So when I say I await transparent cables, I don't need to explain, I'm waiting for the time loop where Scotty comes back to San Francisco and leaves the plans for making transparent aluminum at which point we can have see thru aluminum cables? Or would people somehow misunderstand me despite the obviousness of what I had in mind in my mind?

Aluminium oxynitride

 

[Thorsten Loesch]

What is the ‘anything’ that ‘improves the illusion’

Literally anything. I find that hanging harmonce plates both inside and outside the angle subtended by the two stereo speakers improves the illusion.

Somehow, high efficiency speakers, despite usually lacking the frequency response smoothness of low efficiency "HaiEnte" speakers improve the illusion, if not as badly designed as some speakers you used to sell, Keith.

There are more factors.

Me, I prefer to make a cheap product that delivers "the illusion" than an overdesigned and overpriced piece of "High End" well, piece.

it sounds a lot like the bullshit I have endured for the last twenty years.

You mean the BS you used to sell very enthusiastically and use to make money. I remember you walking into my room in Heathrow and shitting verbally all over what I exhibited. Meanwhile, when I walked into yours, I was I polite despite the sound being somewhat underwhelming next to a Bose Wave radio.

May I suggest that you suffer from reverse Stockholm syndrome?

Thor

 

[Blumlein 88]

Aluminium oxynitride

But that is a compound that does not have electrical conductivity.

 

[Robbo99999]

What amplifier are you using? The increased volume position required for the Apple dongle will only become a problem if you switch to other high level sources (like STB/Cable box/DVD etc). If it's an AVR, many offer input level trimming (+/-) so you could conceivably accomodate the low dongle output by throwing some gain on it.

Otherwise, just use it as an emergency DAC until you get something with a decent output. Having your phone/tablet volume cranked and the amplifier volume up way past where you are comfortable, is off-putting.

I have one I never use, as the dongle cable is too short, fragile and the volume maxxed with decent headphones is unacceptably inadequate. As an example of miniaturization- it's amazing, but that's all. I also picked up one off the footpath recently and it works perfectly.

I'll just add that Apple Dongle European outputting just 0.5V max is fine for me with my K702 with a -11dB negative preamp and also fine with me for my HD560s with -9dB Negative Preamp, and the European version is even less than the 1V output you're talking about re the USA version. I use my K702 around 65% volume and the HD560s around 24% volume, that's with all the Negative Preamps in place. So, for me, the Apple Dongle is more than adequate for my headphone listening, and that's the lower powered 0.5V European Version even. (I know it's not the subject of this thread, but figured I should just give my experience re Apple Dongle considering you mentioned it). (I connect the Apple Dongle direct to my headphones, don't join it up to any other amp).

EDIT: I remembered you have the K702 too, it certainly used to be your favourite headphone from what I remember. You liked it for the soundstage IIRC.

 

[Thorsten Loesch]

I don’t think he meant that at all Thor is peddling the ‘there is some as yet unidentified quality that current measurements have not yer revealed’ line.
Keith

Keith, I am Sassanach. I am very literal. I say what I mean and I mean what I say.

I have no need to play games.

I was in the bloody jungle with a Russian sniper rifle and the job to get the targets out and keep my own people safe. Lucky I was not in charge of this bloody mess.

I walked through a village full of women and girls obviously raped and men who had bloody stumps for a right hand. Looking at us, with our native porters, us, well fed, in body armour and asking "when they did that to us, where were you".

TBH, I don't give a pair of fetid dingo kidneys...

I do care about music. I care about making people happy and about making sure nobody ever again has to walk through that village.

All else is optional.

There are way bigger problems out there than audio, and ideally we first keep things civil, secondly real.

End of public information broadcast

Thor

 

[Robbo99999]

unfortunately, some things cannot be seriously and above all accurately expressed from Slovak to English. unreasonable was translated by google as stupid. even though unreasonable is also not quite a meaningful expression.
how to express and describe in one word someone who does not want to see wider connections, regarding science for example?

You could use the word "narrow-minded" to describe that person.

 

[Sokel]

Warble tones?

I can do better torture.see the IMD and SNR:

 

[voodooless]

You could use the word "narrow-minded" to describe that person.

 

[DonR]

But that is a compound that does not have electrical conductivity.

bah!.... I assume you decide on conductivity by using your "measurements"... I use my ears (and my imagination.)

 

[voodooless]

But that is a compound that does not have electrical conductivity.

It will make for an excellent optical cable then

 

[zajogungster]

bah!.... I assume you decide on conductivity by using your "measurements"... I use my ears (and my imagination.)

when my grandmother was still alive, she asked me something... I answered her, explained, and after 10 minutes she said: I hear, but I don't understand what you're saying try this ear...

 

[atmasphere]

I don't think that's entirely settled. At any rate, you are asserting something else (re. transients), and in order to verify it, we have to isolate it from other signal changes. Otherwise, it is indeed just a hypothesis.

I may be misunderstanding you, but to attribute preference causation to a single measured difference (among several measurable differences) without testing each in isolation doesn't seem scientific to me.

I suspect you really are misunderstanding me as that single measured difference isn't my sole metric by any means...

When I was in school I read a study done by GE in the 1960s. They showed that people would not object to 2nd harmonic distortion as high as 30% while they could not get to even 0.1% of the 7th harmonic before objections were risen. Unfortunately I've not been able to find that study online.

Unfortunately, there’s still no evidence that this is true. And no one making that claim has, as far as I have seen, separated out frequency response effects.

BTW, the CD you sent has arrived, and many thanks! I’ll do the processing this weekend and post the files for you (or anyone else) to ABX.

Any chance you can get the author of the software to release the bit that does the increasing distortion with frequency thing? He says he has it but simply held it back. Otherwise the simulation will not describe the Adcom amp. I hope you enjoy the music!

 

[Spkrdctr]

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

I wish I could do that. Many times responses to my posts are not what I expect as they have misunderstood my world class writing skills. I then fall back to re-writing it and hoping the second version is understandable. My brain gets ahead of my typing fingers and gobblygook comes out.

 

[Doodski]

I wish I could do that. Many times responses to my posts are not what I expect as they have misunderstood my world class writing skills. I then fall back to re-writing it and hoping the second version is understandable. My brain gets ahead of my typing fingers and gobblygook comes out.

My favorite gobbledygook is when I type out something and change things several times and it ends up being word salad because I never error checked it before posting it....Lol.

 

[jae]

As a manufacturer I've had to field a lot of questions about the 2nd order harmonic of tube equipment (FWIW our tube products produce a 3rd harmonic as dominant rather than the 2nd). So this isn't hypothesis. I've never bothered to look since over the last 50 years of doing this, the usual challenges I've gotten in this regard have come from the 'objectivist' camp rather than the 'subjectivist' camp. So I've always taken it that the measurements, which do show most tube products as having more 2nd harmonic, are also showing us why they sound different.

A general thing to consider is that regardless of what harmonic distortions appear in some electronics with tubes, the audibility of said distortion products at the order in which they present also have to be considered. There are many devices that have the characteristic harmonic spray that one may assume are euphonic but are perhaps are well under the threshold of audibility for a particular signal to begin with, or vice versa. Differences in audibility could be other resulting or compounded forms of distortion like IMD rather than the simple detection of harmonic distortions in and of itself.