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HDTracks Offers 352/8/24 Downloads


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Similar in price to a DSD download from Blue Coast

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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True. Blue Coast is also expensive. If you like the music, you sigh and pay the piper.

Aurender N10, Esoteric F-05 Integrated Amplifier, Synergistic Active USB, Oppo 203, Synergistic Atmosphere Level 3 UEF Speaker cables, Legacy Audio Focus SE, Rega Planar 10 turntable with Aphelion 2 cartridge.

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Yawn.

 

2L (directly) offer the DXD format since just about inception, since it's the format they record in. HighresAudio offer DXD as well as DSD of the titles shown and a few more. Anyway DSD is a smaller download, you'd be very hard pressed to pick the differences.

 

 

HDtracks aren't going to offer DSD, forget them, I have, just add them to the Anti-DSD Hall of Shame. Languish in the mire of their creation.

AS Profile Equipment List        Say NO to MQA

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A bit of an aside, but you can download free sample tracks of these 2L recordings in different formats and have a listen for yourself

 

2L - the Nordic Sound

Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not." — Nelson Pass

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Thanks, I just downloaded the 1GB Mozart snippet. Looks like 96kHz sampling would have been ideal.

 

Bill, being a bit of an "Audacity Cowboy" :) again?

Again, the argument for hi-res is not necessarily that useful/exteme high frequencies exist on the recording, but that the lighter processing and filtering going on in the DAC produce a better analog sound after conversion. DXD can be played back on capable equipment with very light/basically non existent filtering that results in no digital artifacts anywhere near the audible band during conversion to analog. Not true for some of the lower sample rate digital versions.

 

I don't have a DXD capable DAC, so I can't tell you if this is true. I do have some small interest in DXD, b/c it can be converted to DSD or double DSD with little or no damage to the sound and I do like the sound of DSD. For some pieces that are favorites, I can imagine myself buying the DXD for archive purposes and listening to some conversion to 176 or DSD.

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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Don't think of it as 'filling' something, rather it's more like brail on a curve, the more data points the more accurate the reproduction. More data points are always better, this is the concept behind sampling the curve at 2.8MHz+ (DSD). The curious fact that generating an aiff file format generates data 'noise' at higher bit rates is simply a product of the math. If your system produces frequencies above 50,000hz, and you can hear it, perhaps you're the only canine member of CA? Note the first audacity picture you posted shows, accurately, an output of 'real data' from the file only up to about 48khz.

 

whatsHraBlock3Img.jpg

 

From Sony's website: High-Resolution Audio

rMBP (PCM)->iTunes bitperfect->Anedio D2->XLR->Rotel 1552 MkII->B&W 805n

(DSD)->iTunes bitperfect->Herus+->Denon D2000

2TB HD (DSD 5.1)->BDP-S6200->Yamaha Receiver w/native DSD playback->B&W CDMSE surround (biamped)

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Filling a huge file with noise from 50kHz to 350kHz is better than applying a digital filter?

 

A good question.

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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Don't think of it as 'filling' something, rather it's more like brail on a curve, the more data points the more accurate the reproduction. More data points are always better, this is the concept behind sampling the curve at 2.8MHz+ (DSD). The curious fact that generating an aiff file format generates data 'noise' at higher bit rates is simply a product of the math. If your system produces frequencies above 50,000hz, and you can hear it, perhaps you're the only canine member of CA? Note the first audacity picture you posted shows, accurately, an output of 'real data' from the file only up to about 48khz.

 

whatsHraBlock3Img.jpg

 

From Sony's website: High-Resolution Audio

 

I think that must be from Sony's marketing department, 'cause Shannon-Nyquist doesn't work that way.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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Filling a huge file with noise from 50kHz to 350kHz is better than applying a digital filter?

 

It's "applying a digital filter" whether the conversion to DSD-type format occurs in a PC or your DAC chip. Your DAC and pretty near everyone else's has a sigma-delta modulator in the chip that's applied after the initial interpolation filters convert the signal from whatever the input is to 352.8 or 384kHz. So it's conceivable that if what firedog is using does a better job than the sigma-delta modulator in the chip, the result would be better sound.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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I think that must be from Sony's marketing department, 'cause Shannon-Nyquist doesn't work that way.

I'm not sure what you mean. How does it work then?

 

If you can overcome the potential timing errors of more data (and the original analogue signal is accurate), higher sampling rates are always better. Lower sampling is more susceptible critical frequency errors: more wave forms possible for the same digital data (the original is thereby obscured):

220px-CriticalFrequencyAliasing.svg.png

Nyquist

rMBP (PCM)->iTunes bitperfect->Anedio D2->XLR->Rotel 1552 MkII->B&W 805n

(DSD)->iTunes bitperfect->Herus+->Denon D2000

2TB HD (DSD 5.1)->BDP-S6200->Yamaha Receiver w/native DSD playback->B&W CDMSE surround (biamped)

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Note the first audacity picture you posted shows, accurately, an output of 'real data' from the file only up to about 48khz.

 

So in other words, 2L is selling something that has no more real data than 24/96 as super-high resolution?

 

This was precisely my point:

 

Looks like 96kHz sampling would have been ideal.

 

I didn't convert anything. This is their example os a super high res file.

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I'm not sure what you mean. How does it work then?

 

If you can overcome the potential timing errors of more data (and the original analogue signal is accurate), higher sampling rates are always better. Lower sampling is more susceptible critical frequency errors: more wave forms possible for the same digital data (the original is thereby obscured):

220px-CriticalFrequencyAliasing.svg.png

Nyquist

 

Hence the need for applying the filter above the sampling frequency.

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So in other words, 2L is selling something that has no more real data than 24/96 as super-high resolution?

 

If music was a perfect sine wave, your interpretation would be accurate. But, because of critical frequency errors (see above) in reproduction, more resolution is always better. Although, because human perception of sound varies on an individual basis, you alone must determine whether it has value.

rMBP (PCM)->iTunes bitperfect->Anedio D2->XLR->Rotel 1552 MkII->B&W 805n

(DSD)->iTunes bitperfect->Herus+->Denon D2000

2TB HD (DSD 5.1)->BDP-S6200->Yamaha Receiver w/native DSD playback->B&W CDMSE surround (biamped)

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If music was a perfect sine wave, your interpretation would be accurate. But, because of critical frequency errors (see above) in reproduction, more resolution is always better. Although, because human perception of sound varies on an individual basis, you alone must determine whether it has value.

 

That's still not quite correct. But since the answer is counter-intuitive, it needs some time and care that I don't have right at the moment. I will try to provide a good explanation to you tonight or tomorrow.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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So arw: Think of a sample as a point on a graph. There are an infinite number of waves which can include that point. (We are including not just simple sine waves, but those with harmonics as well.) Now take two samples. You have two points, and that limits the number of waves below a given frequency that can be drawn through the points. As soon as you have a third point, given that the wave (including any harmonics) is below a certain frequency, there is only one wave that will go through all three. Thus with three samples you have completely specified the entire path of the waveform. That's what Shannon-Nyquist says: If the sample rate is just above twice the highest frequency of interest - i.e., as soon as you are able to get that third sample point for the given frequency - you have perfectly specified the entire path of the analog waveform, and theoretically you can perfectly reconstruct it. So the intuitive idea that having more points (samples) along the waveform does a better job of specifying the waveform path is not correct. It is mathematically provable that once you have three points, you're done. So why higher sample rates? Because the filters used for digitizing the signal and for reconstruction operate in the real world, not the theoretical one (they are not instantaneous, and one does not have infinite time to apply them), which means application of the filters unavoidably creates artifacts; and it is easier to avoid audible artifacts of the filtering at higher sample rates.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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You do realize all of those signals have the same frequency. They have amplitude/timing differences, however. But I would not say that there are "frequency errors".

 

I'm not sure what you mean. How does it work then?

 

If you can overcome the potential timing errors of more data (and the original analogue signal is accurate), higher sampling rates are always better. Lower sampling is more susceptible critical frequency errors: more wave forms possible for the same digital data (the original is thereby obscured):

220px-CriticalFrequencyAliasing.svg.png

Nyquist

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I understand your position better now. Thanks for taking the time to make that clear. I found a couple more things to take a look at, if you are interested that speak more to the benefits of higher frequencies and capturing complex wave forms.

 

Understanding nyquist and its application. See 'Nyquist and signal content' Pg 10-13: http://www.wescottdesign.com/articles/Sampling/sampling.pdf

 

Square waves and sampling frequencies: Craigman Digital - PCM vs DSD

rMBP (PCM)->iTunes bitperfect->Anedio D2->XLR->Rotel 1552 MkII->B&W 805n

(DSD)->iTunes bitperfect->Herus+->Denon D2000

2TB HD (DSD 5.1)->BDP-S6200->Yamaha Receiver w/native DSD playback->B&W CDMSE surround (biamped)

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I understand your position better now. Thanks for taking the time to make that clear. I found a couple more things to take a look at, if you are interested that speak more to the benefits of higher frequencies and capturing complex wave forms.

 

Understanding nyquist and its application. See 'Nyquist and signal content' Pg 10-13: http://www.wescottdesign.com/articles/Sampling/sampling.pdf

 

Square waves and sampling frequencies: Craigman Digital - PCM vs DSD

 

You are fighting a loosing battle son - even though I think you may understand very well what you are talking about. Anyone could do a whole lot worse than to study the Tim Wescott material.

 

But this battle is an old old fight, best buried deep and forgotten. :)

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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You are fighting a loosing battle son - even though I think you may understand very well what you are talking about. Anyone could do a whole lot worse than to study the Tim Wescott material.

 

But this battle is an old old fight, best buried deep and forgotten. :)

 

Since computer audio reproduction is digital sampling, this is a topic worth discussing at CA. Even though certain members are prolific in posts, CA has a wide audience. And I write for them equally. Saying 2L is ripping people off because they don’t know what they are doing may be right or wrong, but keep in mind that the sign says forum, it doesn’t say fight.

rMBP (PCM)->iTunes bitperfect->Anedio D2->XLR->Rotel 1552 MkII->B&W 805n

(DSD)->iTunes bitperfect->Herus+->Denon D2000

2TB HD (DSD 5.1)->BDP-S6200->Yamaha Receiver w/native DSD playback->B&W CDMSE surround (biamped)

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