There is nothing wrong with SINAD chasing

[Oddball]

This is neither here, nor there. My monoblock amplifiers clock at nearly 1000 watts yet with my Revel Salon 2 amps, I have a few times run out of power by cranking the volume to max! Yes, it was incredibly loud then, but also very enjoyable until I drove my wife and dogs out of the floor of our house.

The trend today is lower and lower sensitivity speakers as enclosures have become smaller and smaller as to fit in the style of homes today. This is not going away. Nor can one's judgement of how loud they listen translate to another person.

And let's remember that doubling power from 25 to 50 watts is no big deal but getting the same doubling with a 500 watt amp pushes you to 1000 watts! This is why you get a lot of loudness and low to medium level powers but higher SPLs require incredible amount of wattage and speakers that can handle them. For this reason, every time someone asks me if this amp will be loud enough with that speaker, I say I don't know how to answer that *for them*.

Well, I had a particular situation with my neighbour a week or so ago - it goes to personal matters so not really appropriate to discuss here. He is on the floor above me. I was compelled to act unreasonably and just show what is that I can do to inflict the pain by sound.

When I run my system to +5dB to reference my amps just happily do that. Running beyond that would definitely be possible, as have tried before, but not really civil. When this is combined with subs that I turned to 85% as opposed to ART calibrated 40-50%, that is called Mahyam. It's really uncivil and utterly disgusting show of of the power and ability of the bass line. Upping it to +15dB to reference and subs to 100% would probably cause some structural damage to the building. So yeah, I will not crank the volume to max as it might be too destructive.

 

[Oddball]

I don't know how you perform your listening tests. I have specific tracks I use to bring out such distortions and follow specific protocol to detect distortion. Just listening to speakers with ad-hoc content and style is not going to result in any critical data to come forward. Clearly there are easy cases and hard ones. I use hard ones because I want to represent everyone's need, not what would be good enough for some or even many.

It really depends what I am listening for. Usually use REW, but not always. For bridged amps, it's only to good old ear. Measured it once and that seemed to me enough for the whole bunch - at least in my hobby view. Bryston 4SST2 is the same bridged to 1kw or left alone to 300W.

 

[Sokel]

The argue about SINAD is not for the devices themselves.
As long as they follow electrical and safety western standards and a decent after sales support I'm perfectly ok with them.

The argue is about that metric creating expectations. Audible ones.
Expectations who may lead ditching perfectly adequate gear who we already have for those, expecting audible improvements.

You have an amp that does not make your speakers hiss? You're there already, highest SINAD won't improve audibility
(yes, I know hiss is a sensitive matter as some very high regarded active speakers here have it, but...)

So that's what must be clear. If there's no problem with your existing gear there's absolutely no reason to change them.
And by that, yes, even the cheapest of them is expensive at the grand scheme if one don't need them.

Edit: the grand example of this is people here owning 3-4-5 DAC, all above 105dB-110dB SINAD and they claim differences (maybe not in our face but between their lines... )

 

[tineared]

This is neither here, nor there. My monoblock amplifiers clock at nearly 1000 watts yet with my Revel Salon 2 amps, I have a few times run out of power by cranking the volume to max! Yes, it was incredibly loud then, but also very enjoyable until I drove my wife and dogs out of the floor of our house.

The trend today is lower and lower sensitivity speakers as enclosures have become smaller and smaller as to fit in the style of homes today. This is not going away. Nor can one's judgement of how loud they listen translate to another person.

And let's remember that doubling power from 25 to 50 watts is no big deal but getting the same doubling with a 500 watt amp pushes you to 1000 watts! This is why you get a lot of loudness and low to medium level powers but higher SPLs require incredible amount of wattage and speakers that can handle them. For this reason, every time someone asks me if this amp will be loud enough with that speaker, I say I don't know how to answer that *for them*.

I am exceedingly frustrated about the lack of Purifi or Hypex amps in the 600-1000w range @ 8 Ohms
I'm worried that I won't be satisfied with the current 370w maximum and so have to wait until Hypex releases the NCx1000 next year which is reported to be 1400w @ 8 Ohms.
I'm hopeful that Buckeye will be quick to build a couple of little black boxes for me when they are released so I can rid myself of my wonderful but oversized Parasound amp

Hypex NCx1400 OEM full bridge Class D amplifier module

The NCx1400 OEM provides increased output power, delivering 1400W @ 4 Ohm. The full bridge configuration supports higher voltage swing and output capability while maintaining the performance characteristics of the NCOREx control architecture.

www.hypex.nl

 

[SHB]

What about SINAD chasing for speakers? I read that anything below 1% is inaudible.

That’s a drastic oversimplification.

• 1% distortion is only -40dB. For noise, that’s easily heard. For distortion byproducts, that’s a more complex subject, but I think it’s safe to say that distortion -60dB in level can easily be heard especially if it’s in the audible region where human hearing is most sensitive.

• Even-order harmonic distortion is least displeasing to our hearing because it harmonious to music. The new octaves being added don’t bother us, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t them.

• Odd-order harmonic distortion is another story. Since those overtones are not harmonious, they’re more easily heard.

• Intermodulation distortion is the most egregious since those byproducts have no basis in music. While they are mathematically correlated to the audio signals giving rise to them, IM distortions are the most destructive since they’re generated both up and downstream of tones they’re based upon.

• The music being played is going to have a large influence on whether you can hear distortion. Since popular music genres tend to have a lot of effects in the recording/mixing chain, if your mission is to listen for distortion in the playback system, acoustic music is the best material to use. Solo piano or guitar would be a good choice.

• Everyone’s hearing isn’t the same so what is inaudible to one person may be easily heard by another

• If you lack training in how things actually sound (such as being a musician), you aren’t going to have much or any perspective on whether a signal is distorted.

• While i sincerely doubt that human hearing is so crude that we can’t hear just below 1% distortion, I also don’t believe that hearing can be so good that you can hear the most insignificant/dubious upgrades to your system.

• It would be interesting to see some actual scientific research on this subject.

• If you have good, recently manufactured electronics in your audio system, it’s pretty unlikely that swapping out DAC’s, preamps, amps is going to make any audible improvement in your system. More features, power and such, sure, but not the sound. This is especially so of amps of similar power that are speaker load insensitive.

• It was true 50 years ago and still true today: the biggest upgrade you can make to your system is new speakers.

 

[-Matt-]

 

[Everett T]

Honestly, speakers are the only point in the entire chain where reducing nonlinear distortion can still actually have a meaningful impact on perceived quality. And considering we're getting to speakers that approach electronics-levels of distortion...

It always comes down to the speakers IMHO. We can clean up the single chain to the best of our abilities but the last item in that chain will be the most difficult.

 

[Keith_W]

1. If you are buying a 2ch DAC, then by all means go chase the lowest SINAD you can find at a reasonable price.

2. BUT if you are buying a device that does more than digital-analog conversion, e.g. any DSP box (MiniDSP, AVR, streamer), then it is function which is more important than SINAD. Chasing SINAD in these products is a waste of time unless the SINAD is truly horrendous, and even then it may not be a waste of time. Who cares if your streamer has absolutely pristine SINAD if it is a buggy POS? Does it matter if your AVR has industry beating DAC's if it is hobbled by its DSP? Or worse, make you purchase licenses or subscriptions after hardware purchase to unlock the full potential of the device (I am looking at all those Roon endpoints and Dirac devices here!). "If you don't buy this software, your hardware is a brick" is one of the worst and most insidious trends in this industry. Screw the SINAD, I am avoiding those companies.

 

[JiiPee]

This stuff is meant for music listening. An inaudible difference *when listening music* is inaudible for all practical purposes even if the difference can be objectively detected by measurements, or by purposefully arranged setup designed to reveal a difference with a specific test signal, the volume at a level You never normally use and Your ear less than 1 inch away from the speaker, or something else to that effect...

It is perfectly fine to strive for "engineering excellency", but for music listening, the fundamentalist SINAD crusaders make just as much sense as people who firmly believe that they can hear the differences between power cables.

 

[kawauso]

I am exceedingly frustrated about the lack of Purifi or Hypex amps in the 600-1000w range @ 8 Ohms
I'm worried that I won't be satisfied with the current 370w maximum and so have to wait until Hypex releases the NCx1000 next year which is reported to be 1400w @ 8 Ohms.
I'm hopeful that Buckeye will be quick to build a couple of little black boxes for me when they are released so I can rid myself of my wonderful but oversized Parasound amp

Hypex NCx1400 OEM full bridge Class D amplifier module

The NCx1400 OEM provides increased output power, delivering 1400W @ 4 Ohm. The full bridge configuration supports higher voltage swing and output capability while maintaining the performance characteristics of the NCOREx control architecture.

www.hypex.nl

How about using the NC502MP in BTL mode?
At 8 ohms, the maximum output reaches 1200 W.
The gain becomes relatively high at 32 dB, but it is still sufficiently quiet.
With high-capacity SMPS power supplies, you sometimes hear transformer hum or power-supply noise, but there is nothing like that here.

 

[amirm]

Well let's take the example of one of Topping amps, can't recall the model - they potted the amp circuits, presumably in an attempt to hinder their competitors from reverse-engineering their clever circuits, and from my understanding of the failure mode, this caused them to overheat and fail.

That's orthogonal to the discussion we are having. A lower SINAD device could very well have failure modes of its own. One has nothing to do with the other. Indeed, later iterations of Topping amps don't have this issue and still have excellent performance.

 

[kawauso]

I am very clear. Noise is audible at lower level than members say is inaudible. And as I have explained repeatedly, in almost all high SINAD products, it is noise that dominates SINAD, not distortion. Your comment reminds me of a technical reviewer reaching out to me, surprised that even a well measuring amplifier had noise coming out of the tweeter of his speakers. To get silence there, you need to be way up the SINAD chart than commonly stated levels here. I have done an entire video on this topic:

Besides, in most cases, you don't pay extra for higher SINAD. It comes for free when the design is highly optimized. It need not have a lot of extra parts to get there. Just good engineering and that is what I promote.

I don’t need the very highest SINAD, but audible noise would be a problem for me.
Thank you, amirm, for always testing so many different aspects.
With headphones, noise and distortion are easier to hear, so a higher SINAD than expected may be necessary.
I am satisfied with the DX5 II.

 

[amirm]

It is perfectly fine to strive for "engineering excellency", but for music listening, the fundamentalist SINAD crusaders make just as much sense as people who firmly believe that they can hear the differences between power cables.

That is not the case at all. One has measurable differences and the other does not. One can be shown to be audible, and the other not. Did you not watch my videos I post in the previous page???

 

[amirm]

This stuff is meant for music listening. An inaudible difference *when listening music* is inaudible for all practical purposes even if the difference can be objectively detected by measurements, or by purposefully arranged setup designed to reveal a difference with a specific test signal, the volume at a level You never normally use and Your ear less than 1 inch away from the speaker, or something else to that effect...

You have no proof of inaudibility. It is a hand waving argument. You have no idea how sensitive one's speaker or headphone/IME is. you have no idea how loud someone listens. You have no idea of accumulated noise prior to that stage. And you are not even specific. Is the threshold 80, 90 or 100 dB? How can you prove which one is the case?

In sharp contrast, if you keep noise and distortion to threshold of hearing, the system will have inaudible impairments for everyone, in any system and any usage (up to SPL limit). Now if this breaks the bank and the system with higher noise doesn't, sure, make a decision. But it is a rare thing when someone gives you a discount for a noisier/higher distortion system. This is because the cost of a low noise system is engineering talent, not material cost.

To that end, you can put together a superb system with state of the art performance for comparatively little money when it comes to electronics. A $200 headphone amp+DAC will be the starting point. And $500 to $1000 for a speaker system.

You all are also forgetting that many people are buying new systems, not upgrading. For them, there is no reason to settle for less than excellent system. If you have something that is already good, then sure, stay with it. This is what I tell people when they ask me. But some still want to have the peace of mind that they have an absolutely transparent system and money is not a concern so might as well upgrade.

Finally, remember, if we didn't have this focus on SINAD, we would not remotely be sitting here, overwhelmed with this incredible array of superbly performing audio electronics. it created a race that has improved performance year over the year while keeping costs very reasonable. This is a gift. I am not sure why you all look at this gift horse in the mouth, other than feeling bad about what you already own.

 

[JiiPee]

You have no proof of inaudibility. It is a hand waving argument. You have no idea how sensitive one's speaker or headphone/IME is. you have no idea how loud someone listens. You have no idea of accumulated noise prior to that stage. And you are not even specific. Is the threshold 80, 90 or 100 dB? How can you prove which one is the case?

In sharp contrast, if you keep noise and distortion to threshold of hearing, the system will have inaudible impairments for everyone, in any system and any usage (up to SPL limit). Now if this breaks the bank and the system with higher noise doesn't, sure, make a decision. But it is a rare thing when someone gives you a discount for a noisier/higher distortion system. This is because the cost of a low noise system is engineering talent, not material cost.

To that end, you can put together a superb system with state of the art performance for comparatively little money when it comes to electronics. A $200 headphone amp+DAC will be the starting point. And $500 to $1000 for a speaker system.

You all are also forgetting that many people are buying new systems, not upgrading. For them, there is no reason to settle for less than excellent system. If you have something that is already good, then sure, stay with it. This is what I tell people when they ask me. But some still want to have the peace of mind that they have an absolutely transparent system and money is not a concern so might as well upgrade.

Finally, remember, if we didn't have this focus on SINAD, we would not remotely be sitting here, overwhelmed with this incredible array of superbly performing audio electronics. it created a race that has improved performance year over the year while keeping costs very reasonable. This is a gift. I am not sure why you all look at this gift horse in the mouth, other than feeling bad about what you already own.

There is no need to prove the inaudibility in this case, because it is already given as prerequisite in my argument. Either Your piece of HiFi equipment is in practice transparent to the listener "when listening music", or it is not. It is about the transparency in the listener's use-case and regarding the listener's hearing capability, whatever they are. If something is already inaudible, making it "even more inaudible" is pretty much pointless.

BTW, I feel quite good about my stuff. Why would I read this forum, if it would make me feel bad?

 

[Mort]

BTW, I feel quite good about my stuff. Why would I read this forum, if it would make me feel bad?

Because you challenge your biases, and the adherence to rigorous honesty feels good.

 

[Holmz]

That's orthogonal to the discussion we are having. A lower SINAD device could very well have failure modes of its own. One has nothing to do with the other. Indeed, later iterations of Topping amps don't have this issue and still have excellent performance.

I’ll never know as the first ones were hissing out of the packaging,
And all that I read about their customer service.

 

[Sokel]

Because you challenge your biases, and the adherence to rigorous honesty feels good.

Not that I disagree but the utmost honesty about audio is about audibility.
And anything else is secondary.

Also conditions matter, a lot.
We talk about a DAC's SINAD at its full level, right? Who will ever listen to it like that?

The combined music spectrum level of music at nice recorded works measures mere mV at line level.
High SINAD can help gain-staging but only if one has the means to measure while building its system unless there's something really simple like DAC-Amp with the right gain to reach the standard reference level.

Or, throwing it in front of a high emitting screen, its usual cable spaghetti is a mess, etc.
We have to face it, most people buy those expecting miracles.
Nope.

 

[amirm]

There is no need to prove the inaudibility in this case, because it is already given as prerequisite in my argument. Either Your piece of HiFi equipment is in practice transparent to the listener "when listening music", or it is not.

You are already wrong in stating that. Noise that is audible without music is quite annoying. We once had a $110K system driving active line array speakers. I was amazed how noisy the ICE powered amp was. You could easily hear it from 6 feet away with nothing playing. With multichannel systems, which this one was, the noise gets multiplied, making it quite annoying. And once you have heard the noise, it is much easier to detect it.

For your test of "either it is audible or not," I can prove systems that are inaudible. You can never prove that using your hand waving.

 

[amirm]

I’ll never know as the first ones were hissing out of the packaging,
And all that I read about their customer service.

And my $25,000 amps are crackling as soon as they warm up. And as I noted, there is no customer service. They are telling to go find my own repair shop. So if you don't mind, we are discussing a specific topic rather than someone's rant about reliability.