Sure. It is the ITU BS1116: https://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BS.1116-3-201502-I/en
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SINAD Measurements
- Thread starter March Audio
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Thanks, I think this is a good model for a scientific comparison.
It absolutely is. It should be read over and over again by anyone wanting to perform blind tests. When I was at microsoft we would commision third-party tests of our codec versus the other using BS1116 as the guideline.
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Thanks for the conversation, all.
We're deep into conference season and crazy R/D, so I'll have to bow out for a while. If anyone is at NAMM, next week, please stop by and say "hi" and see our advanced new product we'll be showing for the first time. Hint: Ethernet audio, redundant AC/DC powering, app-based control, heroic miniaturization, industrial-grade environmentals (>65C), hospital-grade MTBF.
If anyone is truly interested in chatting more, you know where to reach me. As you can tell, I live and breathe bleeding-edge audio geekery, so no conversation is too brash or bold. Science always wins.
Thanks, Amir, for a wonderful audio forum. Even the user interface is superb! Quite a labor of love.
You can make this a "better" (more science-based) community by making a few simple course adjustments. The consumer-level, assumptive treatment of THD here simply has no place in good engineering or science. Yes: show the numbers, but refrain from making qualitative statements and "guarantees" that simply aren't widely accepted by technical peers. We're connected on LinkedIn, so you can also reach out there, if interested for listening tests, etc..
Later in 2020, I hope to have something of importance to audio science that I will share with the ASR community, and the audio engineering world at large (AES paper in the works for 2020). All of my R/D time is focused on this, and has been for the last 4 years.
Be well, be kind. Life is short.
We're deep into conference season and crazy R/D, so I'll have to bow out for a while. If anyone is at NAMM, next week, please stop by and say "hi" and see our advanced new product we'll be showing for the first time. Hint: Ethernet audio, redundant AC/DC powering, app-based control, heroic miniaturization, industrial-grade environmentals (>65C), hospital-grade MTBF.
If anyone is truly interested in chatting more, you know where to reach me. As you can tell, I live and breathe bleeding-edge audio geekery, so no conversation is too brash or bold. Science always wins.
Thanks, Amir, for a wonderful audio forum. Even the user interface is superb! Quite a labor of love.
You can make this a "better" (more science-based) community by making a few simple course adjustments. The consumer-level, assumptive treatment of THD here simply has no place in good engineering or science. Yes: show the numbers, but refrain from making qualitative statements and "guarantees" that simply aren't widely accepted by technical peers. We're connected on LinkedIn, so you can also reach out there, if interested for listening tests, etc..
Later in 2020, I hope to have something of importance to audio science that I will share with the ASR community, and the audio engineering world at large (AES paper in the works for 2020). All of my R/D time is focused on this, and has been for the last 4 years.
Be well, be kind. Life is short.
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Looks like audiophile Ethernet audio is going to be the new trend for this year’s audiophoolery. When will we see audiophool wireless routers cause you know wired networking is getting obsolete these days
Pro audio is fully Ethernet, nowadays.
Dante and the like are real pro-level networking technologies.
16 channels x 24 bits x 192kHz, up and down with a single cable...
That's NO BS !
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amrim should have no trouble telling if the bits are the same bits, no THD involved.
After runing a "Training mode" of Foobar abx for some time, I get this:
Code:
foo_abx 2.0.2 report
foobar2000 v1.4.8
2020-01-09 08:03:24
File A: boston11.wav
SHA1: 5ae8849c8ce3bda8321ffb3f16ad9e797bf736f3
File B: boston22.wav
SHA1: 4955964da2691ab762acf72f25416a7431748109
Output:
ASIO : Creative Sound Blaster ASIO
Crossfading: NO
08:03:24 : Test started.
08:03:50 : 01/01
08:04:16 : 02/02
08:04:29 : 02/03
08:04:47 : 03/04
08:05:05 : 04/05
08:05:38 : 05/06
08:05:58 : 06/07
08:06:18 : 07/08
08:06:30 : 07/09
08:06:42 : 07/10
08:06:42 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 7/10
Probability that you were guessing: 17.2%
-- signature --
be1c42344ce9725cf5ba40ebd94fe706a6da2662
Code:
foo_abx 2.0.2 report
foobar2000 v1.4.8
2020-01-09 21:24:48
File A: boston11.wav
SHA1: 5ae8849c8ce3bda8321ffb3f16ad9e797bf736f3
File B: boston22.wav
SHA1: 4955964da2691ab762acf72f25416a7431748109
Output:
ASIO : Creative Sound Blaster ASIO
Crossfading: NO
21:24:48 : Test started.
21:25:09 : 01/01
21:25:19 : 01/02
21:25:29 : 01/03
21:25:49 : 02/04
21:26:01 : 03/05
21:26:20 : 03/06
21:26:34 : 04/07
21:26:43 : 05/08
21:26:55 : 06/09
21:27:13 : 07/10
21:27:13 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 7/10
Probability that you were guessing: 17.2%
-- signature --
b6514321df42df307fdfd400195430bbd81423f3I’m referring to Ethernet reclock/filtering like Uptone Etheregen stuff not the Dante AoIP interface
Hi folks, probably not the best place to pop in a first post but I could do with a little help understanding SINAD. So we get the highest figure at full output? And the level is set to 4v to make all things equal? So how does this affect me if I purchase one of these DACs with a built in digital volume control and I can never hit 4v? My monos are .7v for full power, this looks to me like I can never have that magic number that makes the DAC transparent? In fact I am miles away because I don't even listen loud and my amps are 250wpc, I forget the speaker sens. So am I missing something? Forgive me if I've totally misunderstood all these tests, I have been a subjectivist for over 30 years but I think the SINAD is very useful. Oh I sent back my PS Audio Stellar DAC which replaced a Teac UD501 which replaced a Schiit Gungnir. Now looking at the NuPrime DAC-10, really hope it's on the bench waiting to be tested!
solderdude
Grand Contributor
Consider that most DACs (and certainly amps) produce the lowest distortion below 0dB FS as shown in the plot below
So no need to worry about that. The seemingly higher distortion levels aren't caused by a higher distortion. It is the noise floor creeping relatively closer to the signal amplitude as the noise floor is constant.
Don't get hung up on distortion at 1khz and full output voltage and noise levels relative to it.
Worry about actual noise levels and transducers instead.
SINAD is just a generated number under specific conditions.
So no need to worry about that. The seemingly higher distortion levels aren't caused by a higher distortion. It is the noise floor creeping relatively closer to the signal amplitude as the noise floor is constant.
Don't get hung up on distortion at 1khz and full output voltage and noise levels relative to it.
Worry about actual noise levels and transducers instead.
SINAD is just a generated number under specific conditions.
Was this an answer for me, sorry there's a lot going on in this thread. Lol. Thanks if it is, so are you saying that if the DAC hits the magic number at 4v it will still be totally transparent at say .2v? I can't get my stupid head round that. I did ask John Westlake about digital volume when he was designing the mdac, he said yes there will be an impact in signal quality even with his 32bit volume when it's at low level. I won't go into my subjective findings here, so I think your saying if it measures that good at full output it should remain totally transparent at any level?Consider that most DACs (and certainly amps) produce the lowest distortion below 0dB FS as shown in the plot below
So no need to worry about that. The seemingly higher distortion levels aren't caused by a higher distortion. It is the noise floor creeping relatively closer to the signal amplitude as the noise floor is constant.
Don't get hung up on distortion at 1khz and full output voltage and noise levels relative to it.
Worry about actual noise levels and transducers instead.
SINAD is just a generated number under specific conditions.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
At lower output levels the distortion products (depending on the used circuit/components) is generally also lower or drown in the noise floor.
So when the noise floor is say 110dB down opposite 0dBFS then at -40dB FS, due to digital attenuation, the resolution will still be quite the same but the noise floor will be 40dB higher so 70dB (40 dB attenuation is a LOT).
Assuming you will get the DAC-10 (eying it usually means buying it) means 0dBFS = 2V as the 0.7V input efficiency does not appear to be an XLR input but rather RCA.
So full power is -9dB in your DAC. This means that assuming 115dB S/N ratio of the DAC you will end up with a S/N ratio of 105dB.
This is (depending on speaker efficiency) an inaudible level unless you put your ear against the tweeter perhaps.
This also means that the audio signal will always be transparent when digital volume is used as all distortion products most likely will drop below the noise floor which you can't hear.
So when the noise floor is say 110dB down opposite 0dBFS then at -40dB FS, due to digital attenuation, the resolution will still be quite the same but the noise floor will be 40dB higher so 70dB (40 dB attenuation is a LOT).
Assuming you will get the DAC-10 (eying it usually means buying it) means 0dBFS = 2V as the 0.7V input efficiency does not appear to be an XLR input but rather RCA.
So full power is -9dB in your DAC. This means that assuming 115dB S/N ratio of the DAC you will end up with a S/N ratio of 105dB.
This is (depending on speaker efficiency) an inaudible level unless you put your ear against the tweeter perhaps.
This also means that the audio signal will always be transparent when digital volume is used as all distortion products most likely will drop below the noise floor which you can't hear.
Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Some DACs start to saturate and raise their distortion at full level.
Thank you for explaining that, this is very kind of you. Do you not think it would be good to have some testing at these low levels because I am sure there are many people like me that choose a DAC with volume to control power amps? I know there are too many variables to know what is an average listening volume but maybe one at say 10% and one at 30% for example? Just to see how the circuit performs at the other end?
The Stellar and the NuPrime both have an analogue volume control all be it done in completely different ways, in my head this takes away any chance of signal degradation, in my head..... But of course we have seen thanks to Amirm and others here that this can bring its own problems, I took a vid of the DC offset at the output of the Stellar during volume changes and it fluctuated to over 100mV, when switching to AV mode there was a massive thump, I never measured the offset at that stage but it must of been bad, this is unacceptable in my book for any dac let alone one at this price. To be honest I probably wont buy a DAC with digital volume because I want 2 analogue inputs but I find it very interesting to understand how things work.
Just to be fair, I purchased the Stellar off ebay and it was 2 years old yet PS Audio reached out to me and offered to replace parts that in there words would reduce the thump by a lot, they offered to pay postage from the UK to America too, I did find this very refreshing and I dont think any other manufacturer would of done this on a second hand product so my hat goes off to them for that.
Thanks Amirm, actually yes i have seen you mention this in some reviews, I just dont think I have seen any tests at around minimum output which is possibly how a lot of these DACs with digital volume will be used in the real world?
Thanks for opening my eyes by the way.... I really appreciate the time you take to bring us honest and useful information, it appears you are making manufactures stand up and pay attention with these tests and I for one agree with your use of "higher is better" for SINAD, I understand that its from an engineering point of view not that its a better DAC all things being equal, IE top section SINAD. I would still recommend people audition first more than one product in the same category of what they want, even if its just expectation bias, what is wrong with choosing one well measured and recommended product over another using there ears? Just as long as they don't tell anyone here.
What's wrong with feeling good about your choice because subjectively it sounds better to YOU. I dont tell religious people there is no such thing as god just because I am an atheist, religion/faith has the power to make people feel happy and fulfilled, that's how i justify being a subjectivist. I have found this a thread very enjoyable to read.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
PS audio DAC had a design flaw (obviously) and its a good thing they offered to fix it for free.
There isn't much difference in performance between (properly executed) digital volume control and that of the D10.
Resolution will be the same and noise most likely will be dominated by the background noise of your power amps.
Ultimately that and your hearing threshold will determine the resolution that can be had.
And the limitations of the hearing are worse than that of the DAC
There isn't much difference in performance between (properly executed) digital volume control and that of the D10.
Resolution will be the same and noise most likely will be dominated by the background noise of your power amps.
Ultimately that and your hearing threshold will determine the resolution that can be had.
And the limitations of the hearing are worse than that of the DAC
The problem with PS is there "fix" hasnt gone down well with some users on there forum, the problem still remains, as they said to me, it reduces the thump by a lot, I would of prefered it if they had said eliminated. But yes kudos to them all the same in my case. One dealer has told a user there must be a problem with his mains as it has been back and forth to PS, how sad is that.
Cheers soldedude.
Seems one of my posts is still waiting approval, I must of been red flagged by the software.
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