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

[KeithPhantom]

Current equipment can measure more and to more decimal places than before.

Ears still orders of magnitude worse than pretty much any mic, let alone electrical and electronic devices.

Second, equipment can measure good but sound bad and vice-versa, which is why reviews on this forum include both objective measurements and subjective listening comments.

If you want to evaluate how pleasing sound is, maybe. But we can define fidelity in math, and we do not need ears for this or to calculate for it.

Third, human sensory organs, like eyes and ears, are far more sophisticated than most measurement equipment

But still fatally flawed to evaluate fidelity. Preferences and psychoacoustic are another thing, but defining fidelity can be done without the need of flawed organs that are supported by easy-to-fool organs such as the brain.

 

[MaxBuck]

I tried Super best Audio Friends for a while, but sorry, that is a very unfriendly community and not something I could be involved in. Kind of makes my skin crawl actually if I'm to be honest. The whole idea of giving dislikes and ganging up on people is yucky.

Same impression as you, but the Grand Poobahs there really seem to know their shit, from a measurement perspective. I don't like them, but I learn a lot whenever I visit the site.

 

[Zensō]

Third, human sensory organs, like eyes and ears, are far more sophisticated than most measurement equipment.

It’s the brain that makes our eyes and ears unreliable.

 

[A Surfer]

Same impression as you, but the Grand Poobahs there really seem to know their shit, from a measurement perspective. I don't like them, but I learn a lot whenever I visit the site.

I know, there are some knowledgeable and even reasonable members there for sure, but it feels dirty to spend too much time there as you start to see the wolfs circling whenever they smell blood. I remember Marv calling somebody's daughter with a disability a retard and ridiculing the father in a thread. Total douchebag move and that convinced me once and for all that wasn't the community for me. He walked it back, or tried to after he realized what a terrible thing he said, but what really bothered me was that all the sycophants just pumped his tires like he was the voice of the divine. Nope, the whole cult of personality is not for me.

 

[JRS]

Have you tried a test of a series of dac/adc/dac conversions to see where you can actually tell a difference with a particular recording? Seems to be a start as to where to start worrying about it let alone assuming there are particular differences based on subjective claims.

No. but I am sure someone has. Even digital copies degrade after so many generations, so at some point one can infer that bit errors are being made. I don't think anyone here is keen on increasing the number of conversions in the chain. I would see it as a significant compromise even if it made my life way easier. Maybe I need to open my own mind and think about why that should be such a concern.

 

[khark]

Still without any evidence that it is true.

I didn't expect them to cite any public litterature or their own internal research. Still, it's the word of a manufacturer of which their products measure and perform exceptionally well.

 

[Chrispy]

No. but I am sure someone has. Even digital copies degrade after so many generations, so at some point one can infer that bit errors are being made. I don't think anyone here is keen on increasing the number of conversions in the chain. I would see it as a significant compromise even if it made my life way easier. Maybe I need to open my own mind and think about why that should be such a concern.

Sure, but what actual relevance does such "degradation" make? Just hand waving at possibilities is meh

 

[JRS]

You can look into Deltawave. Software for doing exactly as you describe. Pkane a member here wrote it.

Long thread covering it from the beginning until the non-beta release.

Beta-test: DeltaWave Null Comparison software

Folks, Only for the brave: I'd like to solicit your feedback and suggestions on DeltaWave null-testing software. It's an early preview, so please be gentle! Details and software download are available here: https://deltaw.org An example report produced by DeltaWave comparing two USB cables...

www.audiosciencereview.com

You can download it for free here:

DeltaWave Audio Null Comparator | DeltaWave documentation

deltaw.org

There is a long running thread with people doing loopback nulls that is over 10 years old at gearspace (formerly gearslutz).

Evaluating AD/DA loops by means of Audio Diffmaker - Gearspace.com

Originally Posted by didier.brest here's the result with soft limiting Thanks, Didier!

gearspace.com

Nulls aren't quite so deep as you might hope for though we know why. Primarily it is because of phase differences in the upper two octaves caused by different digital filters in use. These tests at gearspace are all 44.1 khz. Deltawave can actually unwrap that and mostly fix it. Once you do that you do in fact get some very deep nulls. When used for other purposes such as running a loopback and changing cables then rerun to compare what differs about cables you typically get nulling down to the thermal noise level indicating the cables all give the same results.

Wow, I knew I landed in the right place the other night. This place rocks! i wondered about the filters on the end and whether that could ripple a bit. Interesting, bloody interesting.

 

[JRS]

It’s the brain that makes our eyes and ears unreliable.

View attachment 156462

Ouch I have a headache, or is it just cognitive dissonance when confronted with the error of our ways?

 

[Blumlein 88]

No. but I am sure someone has. Even digital copies degrade after so many generations, so at some point one can infer that bit errors are being made. I don't think anyone here is keen on increasing the number of conversions in the chain. I would see it as a significant compromise even if it made my life way easier. Maybe I need to open my own mind and think about why that should be such a concern.

What do you have in mind when you say digital copies degrade after so many generations? Because digital to digital copies don't degrade at all unless an error occurs in the copying. Those errors are very rare like as in when sometimes cosmic rays flip a bit in computer memory rare. Plus check sums are able to find out if such a thing has occurred.

 

[JRS]

What do you have in mind when you say digital copies degrade after so many generations? Because digital to digital copies don't degrade at all unless an error occurs in the copying. Those errors are very rare like as in when sometimes cosmic rays flip a bit in computer memory rare. Plus check sums are able to find out if such a thing has occurred.

That's informative. I simply remember hearing it decades ago when there was so much concern about digital audio making music worthless (to the star makers and money machine), that unlike analog copies, one could make dozens of generations before it was noticeable. I never stopped to consider it until you rightfully called me on it. I mean at some point entropy might enter the picture, or cosmic rays. Or both. But yes. Of course gear back then wasn't as good, but still. Is it true then if I were to burn CD's successively in a chain--that the n'th would be the same as the first?

 

[raistlin65]

Yes, even I once a darling of the community, sought out by equipment manufacturers to do reviews of gear am now often accused of being a troll because I struggle to hold to the rules of the community. I actually had the label of Contributor at head-fi which was a mark of respect and was granted to me by Jude and the admin team. I don't buck the rules at head-fi because I am an ass (or at least I hope not) but I find myself unable to hold my tongue. I tried Super best Audio Friends for a while, but sorry, that is a very unfriendly community and not something I could be involved in. Kind of makes my skin crawl actually if I'm to be honest. The whole idea of giving dislikes and ganging up on people is yucky.

I have found a new home here, but sadly my technical knowledge is nowhere up to the level of many members here so my value to the community is not particularly high, but I love being here anyway.

If you are looking for an additional place to participate, come help us out some at r/headphoneadvice on Reddit. It leans very objectivist among the regulars who tend to help out the most.

And then a majority of advice requests are coming from people fairly new to better headphones and getting their first external dac/amp. So it's a great opportunity to get them on the right path before they discover Head-Fi. lol

 

[Julf]

Is it true then if I were to burn CD's successively in a chain--that the n'th would be the same as the first?

Burning a CD is a very primitive process involving mecanical parts. It can be imperfect. There is some redundancy built in, but there are limits.

Modern digital storage systems have lots of redundancy and error checing built in, so no bits should get lost.

 

[danadam]

equipment can measure good but sound bad

Ah... this mythical creature again...

 

[BDWoody]

I didn't expect them to cite any public litterature or their own internal research. Still, it's the word of a manufacturer of which their products measure and perform exceptionally well.

Why not expect actual data, rather than prose? They don't give it because they don't have it. No one does.

It's the word of a manufacturer, that capitalizes on ignorance to make money.

 

[A Surfer]

If you are looking for an additional place to participate, come help us out some at r/headphoneadvice on Reddit. It leans very objectivist among the regulars who tend to help out the most.

And then a majority of advice requests are coming from people fairly new to better headphones and getting their first external dac/amp. So it's a great opportunity to get them on the right path before they discover Head-Fi. lol

I wonder if I already am involved there? I have posted I am pretty sure, but I spend so little time on Reddit. If I remember correctly, one of the things somebody needs to accept about Reddit is the threads can and do get very personal when people don't agree. Or maybe I am not remembering correctly. In any case maybe I need to spend a little more time there and see how things go there.

 

[Jimbob54]

Try and find out.

Life is too short

 

[xaviescacs]

That's informative. I simply remember hearing it decades ago when there was so much concern about digital audio making music worthless (to the star makers and money machine), that unlike analog copies, one could make dozens of generations before it was noticeable. I never stopped to consider it until you rightfully called me on it. I mean at some point entropy might enter the picture, or cosmic rays. Or both. But yes. Of course gear back then wasn't as good, but still. Is it true then if I were to burn CD's successively in a chain--that the n'th would be the same as the first?

The issue here is not that a bit can't change due to some electromagnetic interaction or any kind of hardware error, the point is that computers protect against errors when copying files. Therefore, if there is more than one copy of the same file, distributed among different places on earth, as all major platform do, and unless there is a major global catastrophe, it's very (very) unlikely that those files loose information with time. Of course, all supports suffer from degradation, but the strategy here is to keep coping the files indefinitely. It's like if you ask HBO if there is a possibility that they loose Game of Thrones. They will tell you that only if all earth is obliterated simultaneously. In the case of storage at home, the support degradation time is far more than a human life span in a general case, so no worries about it.

 

[Killingbeans]

Third, human sensory organs, like eyes and ears, are far more sophisticated than most measurement equipment.

I smell hubris. The kind that makes any snake oil vendor giddy

 

[solderdude]

That's informative. I simply remember hearing it decades ago when there was so much concern about digital audio making music worthless (to the star makers and money machine), that unlike analog copies, one could make dozens of generations before it was noticeable. I never stopped to consider it until you rightfully called me on it. I mean at some point entropy might enter the picture, or cosmic rays. Or both. But yes. Of course gear back then wasn't as good, but still. Is it true then if I were to burn CD's successively in a chain--that the n'th would be the same as the first?

I just wondered and maybe someone with DeltaWave, who knows how to use it properly, can do the following experiment:
Use a 44.1/16 recording. Upsample it to 176.4/24 and then downsample the file back to 44.1/16 and find out how much changed.
Maybe also to 192kHz/24 but this would create more problems.

How much does this differ (depends on the up and downsampling algo's) from the original.
It will be less loss than D>A>D loops.

Digital copies don't degrade (though some people are convinced they do) which is very easy to check.