The Decware Pills make things sound more analogue! How do they work?

[AdrianusG]

Heh…the old ‘vinyl sounds better than digital’
There is an easy way to make your set-up sound like vinyl: roll off the top end significantly via eq and get a somewhat muddy sounding amp: tadah!

Of all of my >500 ish. Cd's there's perhaps 8-10 that sound really unpleasant, thin sounding, lacking bass, something's off anyways.
If i play them direct from my CD player, (not ripped) and I use the tone controls
from my Pre-amp I can make them sound acceptable, just not great.
For the rest I never encountered a "digital sounding" CD, and 90% of the time the CD sounds better (to me) than the Vinyl.
At best a good vinyl (new pristine pressing) can sound very very close to a good CD, with my equipment and to my ears

 

[Blumlein 88]

We already know we can record digitally and play back RTR and LP which no one can detect as different. So "digital sound" isn't a thing. It has no identifiable coloration. If it did, it would add to these analog sources and be detectable. I've been hearing this since the mid 1980s about CD and digital. In the 1990s when I got hands on a fairly good cheap ADC the myth was shown to be just that a myth that digital had a sound. Yet here we are 30 years later and the myth just won't die.

So @Westsounds what would convince you digital is transparent and doesn't have a sound? There are so many things going into a recording to lay blanket claim you hear digititis is a bit precious. But what would you propose to find out the truth one way or the other for yourself?

 

[Mr Swing King]

Of all of my >500 ish. Cd's there's perhaps 8-10 that sound really unpleasant, thin sounding, lacking bass, something's off anyways.
If i play them direct from my CD player, (not ripped) and I use the tone controls
from my Pre-amp I can make them sound acceptable, just not great.
For the rest I never encountered a "digital sounding" CD, and 90% of the time the CD sounds better (to me) than the Vinyl.
At best a good vinyl (new pristine pressing) can sound very very close to a good CD, with my equipment and to my ears

I usually only spin vinyl when I get friends over for a couple of beers. I dig the format for that, because it makes it that more annoying for folks skipping tracks…which far too often happens with a digital set-up.
I also love the large artworks of LPs and the fact that I have to be considerate around it….which should be a negative but I find it increases a sort of ‘reverence’ of the medium which is completely bereft from streaming.

As for sound quality? There’s really no contest.
I do understand why some prefer the warmth that comes with the added distortions and rolled-off top end, but those folks often proclaim their personal preference as scientific proof of objectively better sound….which is nuts.
Let’s not confuse preference with actual performance

 

[Westsounds]

What do you mean by exact individual frequencies? You mean like 2500 hz not 2499 or 2501 hz? EQ can be as fine tooth as you like.

Yes. Some call it like a sheen on the music, it makes things sound digital. The older analogue stuff was absent of it. It's like an added bad distortion that digital can bring.

Same principle as this. Of course, modern Hi-Fi's don't come with real time parametric EQ's though. Certainly not to the effect that it can be done here unless you have a specialist DSP that can do it, and even then it's not simple to fine tune.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yes. Some call it like a sheen on the music, it makes things sound digital. The older analogue stuff was absent of it. It's like an added bad distortion that digital can bring.

Same principle as this. Of course, modern Hi-Fi's don't come with real time parametric EQ's though. Certainly not to the effect that it can be done here unless you have a specialist DSP that can do it, and even then it's not simple to fine tune.

It is ridiculous to call this digital fizz. Has nothing to do with digital. Digital is not creating what he is trapping out with those EQ choices. The guitar or amp or something has something he doesn't like in the upper midrange. Nothing to do with digital. He had two different choices for two different guitars. Again nothing at all to do with digital other than it is clean, transparent and doesn't paper over sounds like that. Maybe tape or LP would fail to reproduce that, but that doesn't make it superior and digital bad. You are also going to be looking at the right cut to make for every single recording of every single device. The jump to thinking there is some single cut some device could do to "clean up" that digital sound doesn't even follow logically from any of this.

If you want to play around with this just like he did, you can download Reaper DAW and try it for free. It has the kind of EQ capability in that video among its processes. You can do the exact same thing with some of your music files to see if you can make them more to your liking.

 

[Westsounds]

It is ridiculous to call this digital fizz. Has nothing to do with digital. Digital is not creating what he is trapping out with those EQ choices. The guitar or amp or something has something he doesn't like in the upper midrange. Nothing to do with digital. He had two different choices for two different guitars. Again nothing at all to do with digital other than it is clean, transparent and doesn't paper over sounds like that. Maybe tape or LP would fail to reproduce that, but that doesn't make it superior and digital bad. You are also going to be looking at the right cut to make for every single recording of every single device. The jump to thinking there is some single cut some device could do to "clean up" that digital sound doesn't even follow logically from any of this.

If you want to play around with this just like he did, you can download Reaper DAW and try it for free. It has the kind of EQ capability in that video among its processes. You can do the exact same thing with some of your music files to see if you can make them more to your liking.

The effect is overemphasized with the instrument (in this case a guitar), but that sheen is often seen/heard in much recorded material played back on modern DACs. And can be what people think to be that digititus that’s present. As you say analogue whatever, tape, LP may not be capable of it, although I’ve heard many LP’s sounding extremely sibilant, but that’s another story.

Never said digital was bad or inferior. Quite the opposite is true (and a fact). Everything that can be done analogue can be reproduced digitally with no perceived difference, as you gave with the recorded examples earlier.

Not arguing with you, just discussing. And that’s what the original post was about. How did this fancy gismo do it, or claim to. Was intrigued by it and how people actually bought into it and believed it to be so.

 

[Mnyb]

If this works at all the effect must be quite random depending on whats conected ? it could potentially sound very different potentially worse than before ?

But in the audiophile world different=better all the time

 

[Spkrdctr]

I also wonder if Steve et al. ever considered that the sound waves that are ultimately transduced from an input AC signal by a loudspeaker into the listening space are about as analog as it gets (bearing little resemblance to the original datastream from the 'digital source') and that loudspeaker drivers and their crossover networks append all sorts of filtering and contouring that just might take some of the nasty edge off of those digital stair-steps?

I can't believe you brought common sense and facts into an audiophoolery thread! You are a real man (steel balls). I salute you sir!

 

[Westsounds]

If this works at all the effect must be quite random depending on whats conected ? it could potentially sound very different potentially worse than before ?

But in the audiophile world different=better all the time

Very true

And

 

[tmtomh]

The effect is overemphasized with the instrument (in this case a guitar), but that sheen is often seen/heard in much recorded material played back on modern DACs. And can be what people think to be that digititus that’s present. As you say analogue whatever, tape, LP may not be capable of it, although I’ve heard many LP’s sounding extremely sibilant, but that’s another story.

Never said digital was bad or inferior. Quite the opposite is true (and a fact). Everything that can be done analogue can be reproduced digitally with no perceived difference, as you gave with the recorded examples earlier.

Not arguing with you, just discussing. And that’s what the original post was about. How did this fancy gismo do it, or claim to. Was intrigued by it and how people actually bought into it and believed it to be so.

The problem isn't that you're claiming to hear certain issues or that you're describing what you hear subjectively. The problem is that the language you're using to make those subjective descriptions is actively misleading and provably incorrect. Some kind of upper-midrange energy might "sound like added distortion from digital," but it's not "distortion," it's not "added," and it's not "from digital." Terms like "tizzy" or "fizzy" or "goosed" or "overly forward" or simply "unpleasant" are much more useful as subjective descriptions because they don't contain objective claims that are the opposite of the reality.

As to this "pill" product, the marketing text is IMHO the most egregious aspect, and would obviously be self-parody if audiophile culture weren't already so filled with this kind of nonsense. What this product actually does seems straightforward enough: changes source-component output impedance per the manual, and likely introduces phase shifts per a comment earlier in this thread. I can imagine a couple of different ways that phase shifting could "soften" the perceived sound and/or add a perception of ambience or "sweetness" or "taking the edge off." I can also imagine that the change in impedance could produce a small output-volume change, and small volume changes are often perceivable but we sometimes perceive them as something other than volume changes, instead as small changes in sound quality.

If someone likes this effect, whatever it is exactly, applied to 100% of their music played from whatever source component these things are connected to, so be it - they should enjoy. But what they're doing there is quite clearly installing a permanent sound effect in the signal chain to counteract something they consistently dislike about (a) music recording, production and mixing, (b) their speakers' performance or placement, (c) the qualities of their listening space at their listening position, or (d) some mixture of all of the above.

Again, that's fine - but the two things we know for sure they are not correcting or compensating for are: (a) fidelity deficiencies in digital sampling systems, and (b) fidelity deficiencies in any competently engineered DAC or DAC-containing component.

 

[somebodyelse]

Friends would see the vinyl playing and tell me how much better it sounded than digital. It was interesting to see the reactions when I pointed out it was going through the ADC and DAC in the PC on its way to the amp and speakers.

 

[mhardy6647]

The problem isn't that you're claiming to hear certain issues or that you're describing what you hear subjectively. The problem is that the language you're using to make those subjective descriptions is actively misleading and provably incorrect. Some kind of upper-midrange energy might "sound like added distortion from digital," but it's not "distortion," it's not "added," and it's not "from digital." Terms like "tizzy" or "fizzy" or "goosed" or "overly forward" or simply "unpleasant" are much more useful as subjective descriptions because they don't contain objective claims that are the opposite of the reality.

As to this "pill" product, the marketing text is IMHO the most egregious aspect, and would obviously be self-parody if audiophile culture weren't already so filled with this kind of nonsense. What this product actually does seems straightforward enough: changes source-component output impedance per the manual, and likely introduces phase shifts per a comment earlier in this thread. I can imagine a couple of different ways that phase shifting could "soften" the perceived sound and/or add a perception of ambience or "sweetness" or "taking the edge off." I can also imagine that the change in impedance could produce a small output-volume change, and small volume changes are often perceivable but we sometimes perceive them as something other than volume changes, instead as small changes in sound quality.

If someone likes this effect, whatever it is exactly, applied to 100% of their music played from whatever source component these things are connected to, so be it - they should enjoy. But what they're doing there is quite clearly installing a permanent sound effect in the signal chain to counteract something they consistently dislike about (a) music recording, production and mixing, (b) their speakers' performance or placement, (c) the qualities of their listening space at their listening position, or (d) some mixture of all of the above.

Again, that's fine - but the two things we know for sure they are not correcting or compensating for are: (a) fidelity deficiencies in digital sampling systems, and (b) fidelity deficiencies in any competently engineered DAC or DAC-containing component.

You know... now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen/heard an audiophile use the term goosed, at least as part of a sonic assessment -- I think I'll adopt that one into my lexicon!

 

[tmtomh]

You know... now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen/heard an audiophile use the term goosed, at least as part of a sonic assessment -- I think I'll adopt that one into my lexicon!

Interesting! I've heard it in the context of the phrase "goosed treble," which to me refers to the perception of excess treble across most of the entire treble range, or at least a range more than a narrow peak here or there.

One of my personal favorites, in situations when subjective language is useful, is "treble halo," which I think I first saw used at the Hoffman forums. I think the sensation of that one comes from some excess energy somewhere in the 3.5-5kHz region, although I'm far from certain. I guess it could be used in reference to hardware (like speaker voicing), but I've only seen it used in reference to the mastering of individual albums or tracks.

To me it sounds like what is sometimes called nice "air" in the lower to mid-treble, but taken noticeably too far. The classic example for me is several tracks scattered throughout many of the 1980s Smiths CDs.

Come to think of it, I would almost say it's the converse of "chesty" - instead of vocals sound like they have too much energy at the lower end of the range, they have too much "breathiness" or "air" towards the upper end.