Measured evidence that bit perfect playback software alters the analog output of DAC's?

[mayhem13]

Okay, get Adobe to Open Source Illustrator and Acrobat Pro. Or even the RIP on most Postscript printers. (Ghostscript is out there and heavily used for a reason...)

 

-Paul

 

I thought we had a higher level of respect for each other. Your example has nothing to do with what I presented as there was no intent to open source. But there's plenty of open source examples that did the primary developers no harm.

 

What I'm trying to convey here is that IF such measured results have been created by ANY of the bit perfect software player developers, making the arguement that not publishing those measurements for protective purposes doesn't make sense. Even worse, some here would present that even discussing the measurements could cause these developers harm.

 

What I find far more probable is that such measurements have either not been done or show no audible difference....and THEREFORE publishing such measurements WOULD cause harm. Stating that the measurements have not or cannot be performed as the technology or understanding does not yet exist would be the least harmful approach.....which is where we are now, speculating over and over as to those measurements nature and existence. Keeping it this way is the far better option for these developers sadly.....until someone cracks the DaVinci code. Lol.

 

Since you're all about probability, does the above make more sense to you?....or is there a more probable or 'likely' scenario?

 

Now IMO, it's OK to say ' I hear a difference in bit perfect playback software' subjectively. For me, it's always been OK to claim anything subjectively. I DO have a problem with trying to substantiate those claims with irrelevant scientific principles and speculation. If you're on the subjective rails, better to stay there for the duration of the journey. Better yet, for those inclined to solely trust their ears and listening experience, WHY even bother to look for or present any supportive information at all? Why should it matter to you? It's a direct contradiction to one's personal philosophy and redundant......" I heard it, and that's all that matters so it must be real (and, but, because,...insert here)........

[mayhem13]

You must live in an alternate universe to the rest of us. (grin)

Many people report glitches during playback due to even mouse or keyboard activity. Playing music with your email program open may result in small clicks through the audio when it does it's scheduled check for emails. Many software playback programs reduce the number of non essential start up and background programs running while playing.Try even recording via a soundcard while normal background processes are running. When you play the recording you may notice the occasional click which if the recording is checked in an audio editing program may show small areas of missing data.

 

I have recorded high bitrate complex music or ripped from disc huge HD video files while performing other complex CPU related tasks......DAILY. I have NEVER had a click, pop or audible artifact compromise any of them. Besides we're not talking missing data or recording, are we? We're talking BIT PERFECT! Stay on point Alex or don't bother replying to my posts........it's tiresome and childish.

[sandyk]

We're talking BIT PERFECT! Stay on point Alex or don't bother replying to my posts........it's tiresome and childish.

Your remarks that I quoted are insupportable and childish. MANY C.A. posters have reported these things happening. I will continue to post rebuttals to statements like that when I know for a fact they are plain WRONG.

Peter St. even pointed me in the direction of looking for glitches in soundcard recordings some time back.

I suspect that Peter knows a great deal more in this area than an E.E. who doesn't specialise in this area.

Likewise with wording like the 1st line of my reply, which IIRC was previously used by you in a reply to me.

Don't like things like that said to you? Then don't say them to others. Simples !

[mayhem13]

Your remarks that I quoted are insupportable and childish. MANY C.A. posters have reported these things happening. I will continue to post rebuttals to statements like that when I know for a fact they are plain WRONG.

Peter St. even pointed me in the direction of looking for glitches in soundcard recordings some time back.

I suspect that Peter knows a great deal more in this area than an E.E. who doesn't specialise in this area.

Likewise with wording like the 1st line of my reply, which IIRC was previously used by you in a reply to me.

Don't like things like that said to you? Then don't say them to others. Simples !

 

Welcome to my ignore list!

[Jud]

This is gonna be a long post. Apologies in advance.

 

I see it quite differently.....and probobly in contradiction to audiophiles by definition.

If a software company produced an illustration program, should they not display the images you could create with it in fear of others copying the idea through reverse engineering?

 

Developers of illustration programs can and do show the illustrations their software can produce. Developers of audio players can and do provide for you the audio their players can produce (pretty much every software player I know of has a free trial, except the free or very low cost ones). The illustration programs don't show measurements except for the pro market ("Here are measurements showing how Program X can speed up your workflow," etc.). The pro audio market is for software that can alter the signal, such as the iZotope SRC bundled with Audirvana Plus. There are certainly measurements available in that market for such software, see SRC Comparisons .

 

I've been interested in, and on an amateur level have looked at, the subject of reverse engineering of software. The following might be helpful in picturing how knowledge of which functions are particularly important to the developer (so he/she measures the software's performance on those functions, e.g., noise on the computer's power rails and its effects on jitter and the analog output) is helpful in that reverse engineering process: Reverse engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Come on Jud, you're a sensible guy and I've always valued your opinion but I feel for reasons undisclosed your either avoiding the question, or the entire topic. Gordon Rankin was quite eloquent in his statement........yes?

 

There are quotes, and there are quotes.... Gordon has been at this a long time and has made lots of statements. He said "Great post, John," in response to John Swenson's comments on Computer Audio Asylum about various ways sound quality can be affected without altering the bits. Later in that same thread, John said this:

 

Not all programs that read files and send bits to a DAC do it exactly the same way. Some may have several buffers the data goes throuigh on it's path, some may only have one or two. Some may be built using a "layered" hierachical approach with different software "modules" that call each other, where others may be fairly "flat" with just one routine that does all the processing.

 

The exact sequence of instructions and memory accesses is guaranteed to be different between the programs. Since it is these instructions and memory accesses that cause the ground plane noise, I hope you can see that differences in how a task is done can produce different noise.

 

And BTW this CAN be measured. I've built a little ground noise analyzer that can easily see the difference in the noise from different programs doing supposedly the same thing.

 

Now for a concrete example. Let's take a simple program that is just coppying audio data from a file to a buffer and then to an simple output port. It has two threads, one reading the file and putting the data in the buffer, and one taking data out of the buffer and putting it on the out port using an external clock to time the opperation. The first thread waits until the buffer is empty then fills it up and goes back to sleep. (in reality there would be two buffers used in a ping pong arrangement, but that is irrelevant to the issue at hand).

 

So lets take this program and make two copies, one which has a small buffer and one which has a large buffer. The total amount of processing is exactly the same, the code is exactly the same, but is the ground plane noise the same? NO!

 

In the case of the small buffer the first thread spends a fairly short period of time waiting since the buffer empties out quickly. It spends a small amount of work often. With the large buffer each time it wakes up it has to handle a lot more data, but it waits a much longer time between sessions.

 

So why does this matter? If you look at the "work performed by the thread" over time the large buffer version shows a very "bursty" activity, but the small buffer shows a much more uniform activity. If you look at this in the frequency domain the small buffer version is dominated by relatively low intensity at high frequencies, mostly above the human hearing range. But when you look at the large buffer version you see higher intensity at much lower frequencies that are right smack dab in the middle of the human hearing range. This latter noise is going to have a much bigger affect on audibility.

 

Now I want to talk about some history that folks seem to keep forgetting. What's even more helpful than measurements in determining exactly what a piece of equipment or software is doing? For equipment, it would be schematics, like those Nelson Pass releases for his amplifier designs. For software, it would be the source code. That's why, when Paul mentioned open sourcing Illustrator, we all felt this was way beyond what you were saying about providing images Illustrator was used to produce.

 

But the developer of the player most popular among the people who frequent this forum did exactly that. Damien went way beyond providing a free trial so we could listen to the audio Audirvana produces, and beyond even providing output measurements. He put the actual source code of Audirvana out there so anyone with the coding chops (think there are a couple of those hanging around a forum called "Computer Audiophile"?) could see exactly what his software does every step of the way.

 

Now when Nelson Pass puts out his amp schematics for free (he doesn't quite do what Damien did; Damien put out his then-current software, while Nelson puts out older designs), his proviso is that DIYers are welcome to use them for their own enjoyment, but not for commercial gain. And that's what happened to Damien - his freely available software got ripped off and used for commercial gain. Understand that for a second: Another coder looked at Damien's code, saw it was valuable, and used it.

 

So next time folks talk about how there's no evidence these players are doing anything, and speculate that maybe they're actually doing nothing and the developers know it so they're afraid to show measurements, remember this: The developer of the most popular player put his actual code out there, available to the closest inspection and understanding by anyone in the world, including every member of this forum; and someone did inspect and understand that code, knew it had real value, and ripped it off for personal gain. That's why Audirvana Plus is now proprietary.

[sandyk]

Welcome to my ignore list!

Great

Unfortunately for you, you won't be on my ignore list. (smile) You brought this on yourself when you decided to join in esldude's "Get Alex" thread. That rather nasty one about standing in shit from you was the final straw. Up till that time I had quite a deal of respect for you.Nevertheless, I will only post replies like the previous when my own experience, combined with the reports of others, tells me that you are mistaken.

[Paul R]

I am sorry - but I am missing your point here. Illustrator is nothing more or less than a software illustration program. I thought it a very apt example! Mayhem did ask for a software illustration program example!

 

Illustrator uses several patents and trade secrets, and is copyrighted to boot. Have to ask the legal minds how all that works out, but the end result is that code is not open. People have duplicated the output from it through in other programs.

 

And Postscript is pretty much a programming language that the RIP uses to produce output. Knowing Postscript does not give one much of a clue to how the RIP works really, which is why commercial RIPS are just that, commercial. Adobe's RIP is patented I think, and certainly contains many trade secrets. And yet, people took Postscript and the output from Postscript processing and duplicated it.

 

The point being in both cases, they had to have the output to successfully duplicate the products, even poorly.

 

 

Edit - I reread the thread and the comment I made still makes sense to me. But I probably have a bit of tunnel vision there. To me, of course you use the output from one to engineer a compatible product. And given the compatibility of the non-Adobe RIPS, such as Canon's RIP... well - I see the original point too.

 

The comment about Ghostscript is that it took a lot of people working open source quite some time to get a compatible RIP together, and then everyone basically started using it, which did and does give Adobe fits.

 

Anyways, that is from a very narrow point of view that just happens to intersect with my professional life. Especially this time of year when we have to fill out and print or email a bunch of IRS forms.

 

Come on Paul ... what Mayhem is saying is nothing to do with your analogy, well actually maybe the RIP engine on a Postscript printer but in a completely different way...

 

If you have access to the Postscript code, and a copy of the output from a HP Laserjet does that give you any indication on how HP's RIP engine works? Take it a step further, if you scan a page output from a Epson printer and a HP printer and show the differences; does that help Epson develop their driver further ... I really don't think so.

 

Eloise

[mayhem13]

Great

Unfortunately for you, you won't be on my ignore list. (smile) You brought this on yourself when you decided to join in esldude's "Get Alex" thread. That rather nasty one about standing in shit from you was the final straw. Up till that time I had quite a deal of respect for you.Nevertheless, I will only post replies like the previous when my own experience, combined with the reports of others, tells me that you are mistaken.

 

While I find John's quote relevant to the discussion, the low midrange burst noise created that he states can effect audibility?....is he speaking in theory or has he or someone else determined audibility? If the measurement is as significant as proposed, I'm sure he has a screenshot of it......why not post it in a relative scale? I'm fearful that again, it might be 50-60db down from the fundamental....or in other words less significant that the lowest orders of unavoidable harmonic distortion which at -40db are irrelevant.

 

.....but I remain open minded to the possibility........post the graph.

[Paul R]

See previous reply to Eloise - I misunderstood or rather, took an uncommon understanding of what you said there.

 

I rather disagree with the logic you presented in the post this in reply to (not duplicated below) mostly because it assumes that a great percentage of the folks making software players have no integrity or honor, and I do not think that is likely at all. Some, perhaps. Certainly not most, and I deeply doubt *any* of the ones who are members here and we know from their postings.

 

It isn't speculation that processor activity causes significant and easily measured changes in the emitted electrical/RF noise output of a computer. We literraly have known that for decades, even going so far as to make use of that to amuse ourselves.

 

It follows that it is quite reasonable that such noise can affect the digital input and thus the analog output of a DAC. I believe the measurements Miska posted, among others available on the 'net, show that possibility very clearly. John Atkinson for example, shows electrical noise in the DAC measurements he does on just about every DAC reviewed in Stereophile.

 

Finally note that the "simple" idea of just measuring the analog output is indeed, pretty much anything but simple in execution! I took note of that when you were talking about speaker measurements. It is difficult to make analog measurements that are definitive, at least today, for various reasons as noted by several folks in previous comments.

 

I am not sure why you are equating such as subjective or totally subjective reasoning, all that is rather objective reasoning to me. However, I grant that I might have confused the issue with the discussion using an illustration program as an example. (See Jud's excellent post for a much better explanation. )

 

-Paul

 

 

I thought we had a higher level of respect for each other. Your example has nothing to do with what I presented as there was no intent to open source. But there's plenty of open source examples that did the primary developers no harm.

[mayhem13]

Great

Unfortunately for you, you won't be on my ignore list. (smile) You brought this on yourself when you decided to join in esldude's "Get Alex" thread. That rather nasty one about standing in shit from you was the final straw. Up till that time I had quite a deal of respect for you.Nevertheless, I will only post replies like the previous when my own experience, combined with the reports of others, tells me that you are mistaken.

 

Who said this was a 'get Alex' thread? Lay off the paranoia and self importance please. It's not flattering at all. Dennis is looking for measurements to support a claim that you made but were unable to support. Now that's flattering for you that Dennis, myself and so many others have engaged in this quest in an attempt to support your subjective experience. If it bears no fruit, instead of reexamining your experience, your solution is to become defensive and cry foul?

 

.....and you complained about getting shat on, so I merely pointed out that should or could have been a learning experience for you. You do know the definition of insanity, yes?

[mayhem13]

See previous reply to Eloise - I misunderstood or rather, took an uncommon understanding of what you said there.

 

I rather disagree with the logic you presented in the post this in reply to (not duplicated below) mostly because it assumes that a great percentage of the folks making software players have no integrity or honor, and I do not think that is likely at all. Some, perhaps. Certainly not most, and I deeply doubt *any* of the ones who are members here and we know from their postings.

 

It isn't speculation that processor activity causes significant and easily measured changes in the emitted electrical/RF noise output of a computer. We literraly have known that for decades, even going so far as to make use of that to amuse ourselves.

 

It follows that it is quite reasonable that such noise can affect the digital input and thus the analog output of a DAC. I believe the measurements Miska posted, among others available on the 'net, show that possibility very clearly. John Atkinson for example, shows electrical noise in the DAC measurements he does on just about every DAC reviewed in Stereophile.

 

Finally note that the "simple" idea of just measuring the analog output is indeed, pretty much anything but simple in execution! I took note of that when you were talking about speaker measurements. It is difficult to make analog measurements that are definitive, at least today, for various reasons as noted by several folks in previous comments.

 

I am not sure why you are equating such as subjective or totally subjective reasoning, al that is rather objective reasoning to me. However, I grant that I might have confused the issue with the discussion using an illustration program as an example.

 

-Paul

 

With sincere humility, I apologize and grant you that you are correct, we can correlate levels of noise within a CPU and related circuits that can effect the analog output...........but is it audible and/or measurable? If the differences are too small to be significant to the purpose, is there anything to be gained by verifying their existence?

 

I dunno Paul, maybe you're right and I should just leave this all alone. I'm all about perception and what's relevant to me isn't the standard of relevance in audio. Continue on please. I'll contain my posts to things that are relevant to me going forward. If anything, I'll have more time to listen to music instead of arguing inane points with strange beings from down under! Lol. Besides, speakers are far more interesting!

[Paul R]

With sincere humility, I apologize and grant you that you are correct, we can correlate levels of noise within a CPU and related circuits that can effect the analog output...........but is it audible and/or measurable? If the differences are too small to be significant to the purpose, is there anything to be gained by verifying their existence?

 

I dunno Paul, maybe you're right and I should just leave this all alone. I'm all about perception and what's relevant to me isn't the standard of relevance in audio. Continue on please. I'll contain my posts to things that are relevant to me going forward. If anything, I'll have more time to listen to music instead of arguing inane points with strange beings from down under! Lol. Besides, speakers are far more interesting!

 

Nope - I don't think you should leave it alone at all. Very often I appreciate the unique view you bring to the discussions.

 

I think I should remember not everyone in the world has a software/network/database/systems/mathematical engineering viewpoint. My boss and the CEO of our company often manage to remind me of that.

 

It takes some little effort for me to surmount that mindset. I get greatly amused when I am called "that IT guy from Austin" in an insulting manner. To me, that is actually a bit of a compliment, at least in a way. I am an "IT Guy", but that just doesn't happen to be all I am.

 

For example, I am indeed, a hobbyist in Audio - not a professional. (Unless you want to discuss underwater sound ray path theory, which Jussi and I think Julf know a lot about too. )

 

What that does mean is I have an "odd" view point on audio to someone like you who *is* a professional.

[Audio_ELF]

I think I should remember not everyone in the world has a software/network/database/systems/mathematical engineering viewpoint. My boss and the CEO of our company often manage to remind me of that.

He doesn't have pointy tufts of hair does he?

[Paul R]

He doesn't have pointy tufts of hair does he?

 

Mmm--- I think they are loosing hair, and unfortunately, so am I!

 

Here's a great XKCD that might have some bearing on this conversation....

 

-Paul

[sandyk]

.....and you complained about getting shat on, so I merely pointed out that should or could have been a learning experience for you. You do know the definition of insanity, yes?

It's quite interesting that the more support I get, and the more other people post findings that can't presently be explained by people like yourself, such as those threads with the long names from AlexC where even John Swenson is scratching his head a little about some of the surprising findings ,that the more sarcastic and unacceptable the replies become from the 2 chief head kickers on your side of the fence.. In a well moderated forum this would not be permitted.

[esldude]

This is gonna be a long post. Apologies in advance.

 

 

 

Developers of illustration programs can and do show the illustrations their software can produce. Developers of audio players can and do provide for you the audio their players can produce (pretty much every software player I know of has a free trial, except the free or very low cost ones). The illustration programs don't show measurements except for the pro market ("Here are measurements showing how Program X can speed up your workflow," etc.). The pro audio market is for software that can alter the signal, such as the iZotope SRC bundled with Audirvana Plus. There are certainly measurements available in that market for such software, see SRC Comparisons .

 

I've been interested in, and on an amateur level have looked at, the subject of reverse engineering of software. The following might be helpful in picturing how knowledge of which functions are particularly important to the developer (so he/she measures the software's performance on those functions, e.g., noise on the computer's power rails and its effects on jitter and the analog output) is helpful in that reverse engineering process: Reverse engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

 

There are quotes, and there are quotes.... Gordon has been at this a long time and has made lots of statements. He said "Great post, John," in response to John Swenson's comments on Computer Audio Asylum about various ways sound quality can be affected without altering the bits. Later in that same thread, John said this:

 

 

 

Now I want to talk about some history that folks seem to keep forgetting. What's even more helpful than measurements in determining exactly what a piece of equipment or software is doing? For equipment, it would be schematics, like those Nelson Pass releases for his amplifier designs. For software, it would be the source code. That's why, when Paul mentioned open sourcing Illustrator, we all felt this was way beyond what you were saying about providing images Illustrator was used to produce.

 

But the developer of the player most popular among the people who frequent this forum did exactly that. Damien went way beyond providing a free trial so we could listen to the audio Audirvana produces, and beyond even providing output measurements. He put the actual source code of Audirvana out there so anyone with the coding chops (think there are a couple of those hanging around a forum called "Computer Audiophile"?) could see exactly what his software does every step of the way.

 

Now when Nelson Pass puts out his amp schematics for free (he doesn't quite do what Damien did; Damien put out his then-current software, while Nelson puts out older designs), his proviso is that DIYers are welcome to use them for their own enjoyment, but not for commercial gain. And that's what happened to Damien - his freely available software got ripped off and used for commercial gain. Understand that for a second: Another coder looked at Damien's code, saw it was valuable, and used it.

 

So next time folks talk about how there's no evidence these players are doing anything, and speculate that maybe they're actually doing nothing and the developers know it so they're afraid to show measurements, remember this: The developer of the most popular player put his actual code out there, available to the closest inspection and understanding by anyone in the world, including every member of this forum; and someone did inspect and understand that code, knew it had real value, and ripped it off for personal gain. That's why Audirvana Plus is now proprietary.

 

First off, I am not a lawyer, I don't get to play one on TV, and didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn last night.

 

But have there not been cases where gpl open source licensing has allowed people to stop or get paid by folks who take the code and then use it for commercial gain? Perhaps Damien didn't use the proper license (I don't know the details of how he released his source code).

 

The latter part of my reply is about Gordon's comment. The one I posted where he says he gave up on why players sound different is recent. Within the last month. And like Mayhem13, his comments about the burst activity being in the middle of the hearing range didn't include him saying he found it at the output. It lacks enough detail to know otherwise. I think he didn't see it at the output as his most recent and several past comments indicate he can't find any measurable reason for sound differences among bit perfect players. Those would be contradictory or the former was just a comment on possible correlation without measurement of results.

[Superdad]

I think he didn't see it at the output as his most recent and several past comments indicate he can't find any measurable reason for sound differences among bit perfect players.

 

Saying he can't find a measurable reason for sound differences is not the same as saying he can't hear the differences. And he has NEVER said that.

[esldude]

I didn't specify all this at the beginning of the thread, but I had asynch USB in mind.

 

Why?

 

I never got firewire to work without glitches. I know people do, but I couldn't. Maybe it was the computers I used.

 

I never got non-asynch USB to work without glitches. I came close, it would be glitch free for long periods, but not always.

 

By glitches I mean, the sound would stop (not common), there would be dropouts momentarily or pops.

 

In none of these have I heard obvious examples of computer activity leaked through. It may have been there, but wasn't obvious.

 

With sound cards I have never heard sound that didn't bleed thru computer activity. Either HD artifacts or video activity noise, keyboard use or mouse movement. Some were awful, some not too bad, but all would do that. The only exception was one of the pro quality sound cards that cost as much or more than most people's computers. And even that one would hold up to a cell phone within 5 feet of it cleanly.

 

With asynch USB, I have never heard any bleed through from the computer. I have never heard a dropout. I have listened to them in several brands and several systems. Even barely functional Netbooks will play music at the highest bit rates with no obvious issues. I have run test signals of 30 minutes in length a number of times while loading both the computer and the USB in every way I could come up with, and always gotten digital output that check-summed perfectly. There still may be noise from the activity leaking through on grounds, that has been measured and shown. Different hardware combinations have different noise floors (though all I have seen are low enough to question it being an audible difference, but a difference it is). But I haven't seen those differences when changing only the software used for playback if all the hardware was unchanged.

 

So if the output bits are perfect, and the other parameters of the analog result are unchanged in any consistent way, then how are they sounding different? As very well described by Eloise up-thread, I am assuming for speakers to put out a different sound, the signal from the amp has to be different, and the signal to amp from the DAC has to be different.

 

Now John Swenson's description of doing measurements up-thread should be familiar to anyone who has done many.

 

I HAVE actually tried to do such measurements, but the results have been quite inconclusive, the results were not "no difference" but the difference moved around, it was changing from test to test without any obvious correlations.

 

I have seen this before, and this usually means there is something in the test you are not taking into account, something changing you do not realize is changing. This generally means you don't understand the issues well enough.

 

There is another case which explains that, and one also seen if you have done measurements. There really isn't a connection because you were looking for something that isn't there.

 

Now this might be real, and we just don't know what is happening yet. But I also have to think something so elusive is likely to be a fairly trivial sound difference in absolute terms. For instance moving your speakers 6 inches would probably change sound a couple of orders of magnitude more.

 

Now such things as this, are exactly where DBT is golden. With no knowledge of what could possibly be happening, if a series of properly done tests get consistent significant results it is real. We can know it is real, and know there is something somewhere going on. But this thread is about measurements. Measurements are easier by a large margin. And enough is known about hearing to have a good probability of correlating them with what is heard.

 

But please stay on target or supply some really nice measurements for us to mull over. That would be very interesting. We are discussing asynch USB and bit perfect bit-streams from software players sounding different over the same exact equipment.

[esldude]

Saying he can't find a measurable reason for sound differences is not the same as saying he can hear the differences. And he has NEVER said that.

 

No it doesn't, and I may have a faulty memory. But I do believe he has described them sounding different himself. Not just that others say they are different.

[Superdad]

Saying he can't find a measurable reason for sound differences is not the same as saying he can hear the differences. And he has NEVER said that.

 

 

No it doesn't, and I may have a faulty memory. But I do believe he has described them sounding different himself. Not just that others say they are different.

 

Aackkk! I meant the sentence to say "can't" not "can"--as in Gordon never said he could not hear a difference even though he can not measure a difference. (I have to be more careful in typing! Was still in the editing-time window so post is fixed above.)

[Don Hills]

...

 

That was a perfect summation.

[Superdad]

That was a perfect summation.

 

Great, so we can close this thread now? ;-)

[esldude]

Great, so we can close this thread now? ;-)

 

Sounds good to me. Seems like as good a place to end it as any.

[Superdad]

Sounds good to me. Seems like as good a place to end it as any.

 

I hope you took my suggestion in the spirit it was meant--and I hope I did not seem snarky.

 

Actually, I wish to thank everyone here for what on balance (with some typical divisiveness between individuals) was about as reasonable a discussion as could be had on the topic. Maybe we all learned something; Maybe we can point towards the future; Maybe some s/w or h/w developers will eventually step forward with tests and measures to explain what is going on. Like it has always been in audio, our ear/brain can discern things even if the facts of why are initially elusive even to the engineers. It was that way when transistors arrived, it was that way for a long time with CD players.

 

I think that current computer audio playback and DACs are really pushing the envelope of home audio playback. Never in my life have I been able to get such tactile and realistic performances from both new and old material. All the little steps along the path add up as they have always done, but a number of the latest advances in the computer/DAC front end are amplifying (pun not intended) the qualities of the rest of the system. Thus it seems certain that something is going on--with software, computer, etc.--but the full answers and facts may not become part of general audiophile knowledge until another couple of years pass.

(E.g. Compare the general awareness now of the importance of digital filter design versus say 5-8 years ago; Designers were working with those things, but there was not a huge awareness or understanding of the effects--not even with many of the more savvy, and sometimes not even in the high-end firms themselves.)

 

It is always fun to talk and discover. So carry on…

 

Best,

Alex C.

[Don Hills]

... (E.g. Compare the general awareness now of the importance of digital filter design versus say 5-8 years ago; Designers were working with those things, but there was not a huge awareness or understanding of the effects--not even with many of the more savvy, and sometimes not even in the high-end firms themselves.) ...

 

Just last night I was reading through a series of posts made in 1997 on Gabe Weiner's Pro Audio list. It was a (relatively) heated debate between design engineers about jitter and filter topologies...