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You want transparency don't you......well DON'T YOU????

Blumlein 88

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Was intrigued by this post from @svart-hvitt :

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-bifrost-multibit-dac.2319/page-20#post-64475

Probably nothing new here in this post, but a place to discuss if it is of any interest.

There is the old idea: Use the finest most true to life microphones, in the most minimalist manner. Record with as much quality as possible. Do nothing to that quality except pass it on to the finest playback over the finest amps and speakers. You'll get genuine high fidelity, high end sound and it will be the best.....a reference.

Except, well no maybe not.

A good many recording professionals will describe inexpensive microphone preamps and ADCs as clean, and transparent. That is sometimes too clean. Clean is a dirty word. They are searching for preamps with character. Good character. Pleasing, beautifying, mesmerizing character. Obviously not simple fidelity. Fidelity is easy these days, quality character is an art.

Microphones are in need of a little mojo. A clean, flat responding mike gets lost in the mix. Adds nothing. Why pay big money for a mike if it doesn't offer something extra?

Now on the other end, though not acknowledge widely, DACs, and most amps are capable of clean, and clear. Speakers aren't, but again audiophiles want character added. Simple fidelity is not a good value proposition. So my idea is everything is inaudibly transparent other than transducers. So get the best transducers possible and then use signal processing DSP to make it like you want it. Otherwise people want character you can hear (which isn't fidelity). They want to have a special sound they are willing to pay for it. Experts declare something audibly perfect, and audiophiles hear a lack of character and say such experts are not to believed or of no help in their quest for great sound.

So use Harman research which claims they can link measures of speakers to listener preference with better than 90% correlation. Pick the best available speaker from measures at every price point and room filling level. Use transparent gear thru out. Get recordings that aren't monkeyed with and everyone has nirvana in audio right?

You didn't really answer that last question with a yes did you?

Everyone wants this:

 

Wayne

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@Blumlein: I may not understand the point you are trying to make, but it seems to be some folks don't want a transparent (read High Fidelity) system, they want "color" (colour for you across the pond.... ;)), exactly opposite of high fidelity sound reproduction.

I always thought that the goal was exact reproduction... at least for my purposes from the CD (any digital source) to the sound produced by the speaker. As a newbie I was surprised (and confused) when I inquired on this forum about the differences and advantages of Vandersteen speakers (I had considered purchasing a pair) and was told that they color the music as part of the design.... and apparently this is what some listeners want.

I just sort of lucked out when several years back I bought a pair of JBL studio monitors. I guess I thought all HiFi speakers were studio monitors, or better.

I do not understand why anyone would want any audio equipment was not as transparent as one could (or wants to) afford.

edit: I do like "Go Your Own Way" by FM
 

Candlesticks

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Audiophiles want a hobby. Everything exists, no matter how stupid, because it allows them to have something to chase and perpetually tweak. Imagine people playing with a color slider endlessly to get just the right shade of red except the actual color was never changing. That is apparently ok to some because they believed it was changing.

Imagine how awful it would be if for a small amount of money you could buy a whole signal chain that is audibly transparent. Imagine if the Apple Homepod was the absolute highest fidelity and sets itself up all on it's own without you having to do anything. Instant high fidelity audio that anyone could get. What hobby could there possibly be when there is nothing to tweak and nothing to chase. How could there even be a community. My experience has been that the audiophile hobby is really an intoxicating mix of faith, consumerism and need of a community to be a part of.

This is why the audiophile hobby, no matter how much it says it cares about high fidelity, wants audio to be broken. If it's broken they've got something to fix. Digital audio is broken they say so buy a Yggdrasil to make it sound analog. If you want to make money you first need to invent a problem and then invent a solution. Same thing for a hobby.

Something to be aware of is that there are people who achieve their system ideal and at that point stop posting. Not surprising because there is nothing for them to care about if the differences from tweaking are not audible. These people become invisible in the constant tide of new forum posts but they still exist even when not seen.
 
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Wayne

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This is why the audiophile hobby, no matter how much it says it cares about high fidelity, wants audio to be broken. If it's broken they've got something to fix. Digital audio is broken they say so buy a Yggdrasil to make it sound analog. If you want to make money you first need to invent a problem and then invent a solution.

Thank you for your comment.

I think I understand your point (see quote above). It makes sense to me based on what I see on other forums, custom cables, ground boxes. cable elevators. etc.. but how do colored speakers fit into this? This seems to be the "ultimate" in that it is the final link. Like taking good city tap water and poisoning it as it comes out of the tap.

As a person with a science background, it is hard for me to understand....
 

svart-hvitt

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A friend of mine likened a candle with audiophilery. You can turn on the electric lights but you light imperfect candles for coziness.

Still, a nice candle is, say, a dollar a piece, while audiophile products cost thousands...
 

Candlesticks

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Thank you for your comment.

I think I understand your point (see quote above). It makes sense to me based on what I see on other forums, custom cables, ground boxes. cable elevators. etc.. but how do colored speakers fit into this? This seems to be the "ultimate" in that it is the final link. Like taking good city tap water and poisoning it as it comes out of the tap.

As a person with a science background, it is hard for me to understand....

Speakers are the same as everything else. Swap them out until the music sounds just right based upon emotive properties. It's got to sound euphonic and give the feeling of enjoying music again like it once did. It's inevitably why the hobby becomes endless because you are chasing an emotion. Trying to fix a marriage that has gone stale with age.
 

stalepie

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I really like what Candlesticks said. I think too though that the human ear always wants to hear things a little differently each time; it wants to be surprised. This is "organic." A perfect recording is an inherently unnatural thing, and so is perfect repeated playback of it! For thousands of years if a person sang or played an instrument it was always a little different and then along came recordings, even bad analog ones are very much "perfect" in this regard and digital just made it all too perfect and easy.

So how to mix it up? Create surprise? Relive a favorite song from 1977 ("Go Your Own Way")? Well you can try live recordings, but those are recordings too! You can only enjoy them a few times before they reveal themselves to be dead, as all recordings are. Plus the singers age and then they don't sound the same or as good perhaps when they're older. So they can't keep producing new live recordings to digest, I mean. There's usually a peak where the band was at their best, and oftentimes it was all too long ago.

So you can try mixing it up in the playback chain - maybe some of those devils out there selling super expensive R2R DACs (Mystique V3 or whatever) and silver cables... all that... those possible lies... they help create the unease that keeps the ball rolling. So people have something to talk about and fuss over. Otherwise I'll just go back to realizing I can't tell the difference between my Sandisk Clipjam or Realtek PC hardware and any other more expensive source I try. And that's boring.

Maybe this is a better song, for this?

 

March Audio

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Transparency?

latest


 

rebbiputzmaker

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As it seems you would like to continue a conversation brought over from the multi bit Fiasco, no problem.

I understand the strong feelings here that measurements are the only thing that should matter to us and they clearly must be the only arbiter of sound quality. Sadly to many here I will express my opinion no matter how unwelcome it seems to be.

When you understand technology from many different angles, and then apply it, utilizing experience that you have garnered over many years IMO it helps to better understand what is going on here. Again I do apologize for the opinion that will not be appreciated, but some here do not have the experience nor seem not want to have the experience of listening and understanding music reproduction and the chain that we are trying to appreciate with our systems. Another thing I found amusing is that a dedicated PC almost seems to be frowned upon here. Yes maybe for a desktop system in an office or home office you will use your general PC with a DAC Maybe desktop speakers headphones excetera. But who is going to use that same system to drive their two channel dedicated Hi-fi. Before computer audio were other pieces of equipment given dual purpose in one's household? Was that class A power amps also used to heat food? Inquiring minds would like to know.

It would be nice if the non believers here at least have the civility to have a reasonable conversation. Being aware of the original poster here and this thread he is one that can have that type of conversation but there are some others here, just a few that make it rather distasteful, and that really shouldn't be, as this is just a hobby it's not necessary to be so pained when discussing topics that you might disagree with. Sadly this just seems to be life on the internet.

Now getting on a bit I would just like to present this and hopefully maybe discuss this further. Notwithstanding measurements different converters do present different sonic signatures. What I have found with the multi bit is a certain naturalness which is not present in many of the delta sigma converters. There is a harmonic envelope, or presentation which is better sounding and more natural /accurate / real to the ear. This is my opinion this is what I hear this is over many years of experience this is not just buying something today and turning it on and spouting nonsense. The only way you can truly understand this actually listen for yourself. I found it a bit difficult to understand why when Amir had access to this DAC and did listen for a couple of hours he did not listen critically at all, why wouldn't you it's sitting right in front of you, it didn't seem like it was much more of a task to get some feel for what it really sounds like. The sense I get is that if some people who are totally objective and measurements are the absolute arbiter of all, the end of the world, the only thing that matters. Would be disturbed if they're listening actually gave them something else to think about, they would just not believe their ears they would claim we need double blind testing and God knows what else to disprove what they just heard. That's a sad state of affairs in my opinion as we are all human and once the human element is removed, we are nobody. I myself prefer to be somebody. Your mileage may vary and you're more than welcome to have a totally different opinion.

P.S. Please don't go down the added harmonic distortion road. There is more to it than that. It also takes a trained listener and appropriate material to properly make a honest assessment.
 
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Purité Audio

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Any issues with the Schitt product may be below the threshold of aubability, but it is still poor engineering.
Re Blu’s original post the artist can do whatever they please to create a sound, personally I just want to reproduce it as accurately as possible .
Keith
 

svart-hvitt

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SOFTWARE VS HARDWARE

To me, audio is (also) a puzzle of choices and routes that are illuminated and others that are black boxes.

It wasn’t before I just recently installed HQ Player by Finnish engineer Jussi Laako that I was able to formulate for myself in an intelligent way some of the vaguer choices we face. I like this comment by Jussi:

«Performance of DAC is roughly divided to three parts. 33% digital filters, 33% the delta-sigma modulator and 33% the conversion and analog implementation. DSD allows me to cover 66% of this in software».
Source: https://community.roonlabs.com/t/why-do-audiophiles-like-hq-player/6210/61

HQ Player and Jussi made it clearer for me than before how software and hardware interact (and not only in audio). It is a more intelligent, robust choice design wise to let a dedicated computer do the computing instead of letting the DAC do the resampling and filtering. So a more specialized design in terms of stricter distinction between SW-HW duties is intelligent in my eyes.

My point is this: You may have s DAC that measures excellently but you don’t know what filter and sampling techiques are used, and if you do know this, you can’t control it. You’re stuck forever with the DAC designer’s choices.

Jussi is the first person I have seen who focuses on this SW-HW distinction. I have never seen a producer of audio gear who has thought of this in a coherent way. Have you?

Which probably can be explained by the fact that this SW-HW focus is about putting standardized modules together rather than making proprietary stuff.
 

blackmetalboon

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Firstly, a little about me to add some context...

I spent just over a decade out of the hifi scene ( before you ask, I wasn’t in prison!), when I returned from my self imposed exile the world of audio had changed dramatically. $500k cable looms, grounding boxes, mains treatment etc... to be honest I was a bit bewildered by it all.

The reason I got back into the scene was computer related audio but by now I was so lost, what did I need? A server or streamer? Would a laptop or PC do? What’s a renderer? What does my DAC need input wise? Lossy, lossless or HD? What the hell are all these little boxes everyone seems to plug their cables into and why would I need another power supply, that costs as much as this gizmo, to run it?

Measurements of a grounding box are what led me to discover this site and I’m glad I did, from a technical point of view I’m way behind the majority of posters here but I’m slowly learning. If it wasn’t for this site I probably would have spent money on boxes that required additional power supplies, that required an isolator, that probably required another power supply, that all needed a grounding box!

Published specifications and measurements from manufacturers are hard to come by so I don’t see the problem with sites such as this help provide them for consumers.

For me I personally, I hope measurements will eventually show some sort of correlation to help us understand more about our hobby and provide answers such as;
  • Are certain products are popular because of marketing and aesthetics and not due to excellent measurements?
  • Can we identify a link between subjectively pleasing sounding equipment and measurements?
  • Do certain tweaks actually do anything positive or nothing at all? Or are they possibly detrimental?
The objective/subjective listening argument has been done to death on most forums and there isn’t really a wrong answer, some people want a transparent system other want a system that sounds enjoyable to their ears. I’m fine with that, but I do struggle with the concept that a measurably transparent piece of equipment can sound bad, surely that is the fault of the recording not the equipment?
 

Cosmik

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some people want... a system that sounds enjoyable to their ears.
A perfectly valid outcome of that would be a system that plays their favourite records continuously, or can automatically replace the recordings they don't like with their favourite records.
 

rebbiputzmaker

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Firstly, a little about me to add some context...

I spent just over a decade out of the hifi scene ( before you ask, I wasn’t in prison!), when I returned from my self imposed exile the world of audio had changed dramatically. $500k cable looms, grounding boxes, mains treatment etc... to be honest I was a bit bewildered by it all.

The reason I got back into the scene was computer related audio but by now I was so lost, what did I need? A server or streamer? Would a laptop or PC do? What’s a renderer? What does my DAC need input wise? Lossy, lossless or HD? What the hell are all these little boxes everyone seems to plug their cables into and why would I need another power supply, that costs as much as this gizmo, to run it?

Measurements of a grounding box are what led me to discover this site and I’m glad I did, from a technical point of view I’m way behind the majority of posters here but I’m slowly learning. If it wasn’t for this site I probably would have spent money on boxes that required additional power supplies, that required an isolator, that probably required another power supply, that all needed a grounding box!

Published specifications and measurements from manufacturers are hard to come by so I don’t see the problem with sites such as this help provide them for consumers.

For me I personally, I hope measurements will eventually show some sort of correlation to help us understand more about our hobby and provide answers such as;
  • Are certain products are popular because of marketing and aesthetics and not due to excellent measurements?
  • Can we identify a link between subjectively pleasing sounding equipment and measurements?
  • Do certain tweaks actually do anything positive or nothing at all? Or are they possibly detrimental?
The objective/subjective listening argument has been done to death on most forums and there isn’t really a wrong answer, some people want a transparent system other want a system that sounds enjoyable to their ears. I’m fine with that, but I do struggle with the concept that a measurably transparent piece of equipment can sound bad, surely that is the fault of the recording not the equipment?
Oh so you were in Bellevue, Bedlam for Thomas. We must have been roommates! :)

You bring up some points.

One thing that bugs me is, if there are usb grounding /power issues it is a caveman like approach as some here seem to take.

Ground noise dac bad me get new dac ooooo now no noise, dac good me happy!

How about addressing the issue at the noisy computer side. Many ways to do this, better usb cable split cable, etc, etc. Separate power, isolation. Does the dac even need usb power? Maybe just for the handshake, power can be pulled after that with a split cable. If it is CPU related, check cpu bios power/speed settings/ throttling. etc.

If everyone here is really about the testing, how about testing to identify the issue and then solve it. Otherwise I would just deem it sloppy science. Not to be confused with sloppy steve bannon. :)
 

rebbiputzmaker

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A perfectly valid outcome of that would be a system that plays their favourite records continuously, or can automatically replace the recordings they don't like with their favourite records.
You are using the word "record" I hope you don't literally mean record, like in spinning vinyl. That would be blasphemous. :)
 

Candlesticks

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Oh so you were in Bellevue, Bedlam for Thomas. We must have been roommates! :)

You bring up some points.

One thing that bugs me is, if there are usb grounding /power issues it is a caveman like approach as some here seem to take.

Ground noise dac bad me get new dac ooooo now no noise, dac good me happy!

How about addressing the issue at the noisy computer side. Many ways to do this, better usb cable split cable, etc, etc. Separate power, isolation. Does the dac even need usb power? Maybe just for the handshake, power can be pulled after that with a split cable. If it is CPU related, check cpu bios power/speed settings/ throttling. etc.

If everyone here is really about the testing, how about testing to identify the issue and then solve it. Otherwise I would just deem it sloppy science. Not to be confused with sloppy steve bannon. :)

Fixing a computer is far harder and more expensive than buying a DAC that is not susceptible to the problem in the first place. If a $99 Wyrd is required to fix your $99 DAC it's no longer price competitive to another DAC that costs $99 but doesn't have the problem in the first place. Consumers don't know how good their USB ports are and the point of buying a decent DAC is that you know that it's good and should not be affected by the USB power supply quality like the Modi 2 and Bifrost was.

If you really think the Bifrost sounds audibly different then just buy a $99 Wyrd to fix the issue but that isn't how people recommend or evaluate products here. The Bifrost doesn't have a feature advantage to make it worth buying over a cheaper DAC anyway.

If everyone here is really about the testing, how about testing to identify the issue and then solve it.

The engineers who designed the product can fix their own garbage because it's their responsibility. It's not the job of people here to diagnose the cause of problems in a manufacturers product.
 

sergeauckland

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Regarding microphones, there is no such thing as the perfect microphone, insofar as large capsule microphones have good sensitivity, and therefore low self-noise, and can have switchable polar responses, but have frequency response anomalies. Microphones which have very flat frequency responses are physically small, and therefore are less sensitive and have higher self-noise. They also tend to be omni-directional, which gives greater practical difficulties in their use.

Recording engineers are also mostly trying to create a sound that pleases, not necessarily capturing accurately a specific performance, and so will use whichever microphone provides them with the attributes they need. Just as examples, microphones used for vocals often have a presence boost, as that enhances the perceived sound of the vocalist. Microphones used on, say a kick drum, needs to be able to withstand huge SPLs, a flat top-end response or even polar response isn't especially important.

Once a recording is made, unless it's a purist single pair recording made straight to stereo, with no dynamic compression or equalisation, it will be mixed, manipulated, equalised, compressed, limited etc etc to create what the recording engineer, artist and producer collectively consider to be the finished 'work'. That is what we're then trying to reproduce at home.

My approach has then been to take that recording and reproduce it at home with the least possible change to what was on the recording. I look for perfect transparency in the equipment I use, easy for electronics, more difficult for loudspeakers more difficult still for the room, but nevertheless, that's the aim. Whether I like the result, whether I might prefer a different sound is, for me, besides the point. I want to hear the audio as close to what the data on the recording describes as possible. If I like something else better, I still wouldn't use it because then I would be adding my own sauce to taste, and I don't do it with food, so don't do it with recordings.

I get a lot of stick from those who say that they use HiFi to give them pleasure, so they don't give too hoots for accuracy, they want pleasure, and if something sounds better to them, i.e. gives them more pleasure, that's what they'll use. Hence valves, horns, vinyl and all sorts of stuff that isn't anywhere near accurate, but they like it. I suppose it's their money, so they're free to enjoy themselves in whatever way suits. I just take a different approach.

S.
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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A perfectly valid outcome of that would be a system that plays their favourite records continuously, or can automatically replace the recordings they don't like with their favourite records.
They are called Playlists, and there must be hundreds of different PC/Mac apps or music servers that can do precisely that from rips/downloads, permitting easy selection of what to play in what order or via random track selection. I do not use any streaming services, but I am quite certain the same thing can be done with those via the Internet.
 
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