Linear Powered Rips & flash drives sound better - Alex was right !

[alfe]

CD/Audio Mastering - Digital Myths?

[Audio_ELF]

Alex... I challenge you (as I have before) to include a false positive. That is in one test you tell everyone that (a) is an ordinary rip and (b) is a "super" rip but infant they are both ripped identically.

 

If people call you on these files sounding identical where they have pronounced the "super" rip to sounding better then I will start to accept there may be something in your claims.

 

Until then I stand by my statements that files stored on the same medium will sound identical if they are show identical using a comparator programme.

 

Eloise

[elcorso]

I believe more on the storage media than in rips.

 

For example, between spinning hdd, SSHD , different (but the same!) SSHD and SD cards.

 

I got better SQ from an internal SSHD dedicated to music library, than from the same brand & size SSHD , internal , but where the OS is installed (running).

 

This is my personal opinion and from a lot music friends and musicians. Blind test? Forget it , it's so obvious , every one catch the difference on the fly. It could be blind, but not deaf...!

 

Regarding fragmentation I don't believe it, both are SS drives with plenty of free room. But please don't ask me the cause. AND I don't have nothing to proof to nobody.

 

Roch

[sbgk]

have you tried opening a linear ripped wav file and copying the data to another wav file ? That would answer the question of whether it's the file container or the data that is causing the effect.

[miguelito]

Sandyk: I am not shocked by this. I suppose a linear supply might make for a more stable spinning motor or read process. There are always issues when reading a CD and error correction is not perfect.

 

By this same token I presume different CD drives will give you different results with the same SMPS. So my question is then: which is the most accurate CD drive one can use? And related to this what is the most accurate ripping speed?

[Jabs1542]

By this same token I presume different CD drives will give you different results with the same SMPS. So my question is then: which is the most accurate CD drive one can use? And related to this what is the most accurate ripping speed?

 

If it were only that simple, if we really want to get down to the hairs on a gnat's ass then we have to accept the fact that manufacturing runs within a product will differ as well. So the most accurate CD drive would have its own fluctuations - since we are all riding the ludicrous train

[sandyk]

Alex... I challenge you (as I have before) to include a false positive. That is in one test you tell everyone that (a) is an ordinary rip and (b) is a "super" rip but infant they are both ripped identically.

 

If people call you on these files sounding identical where they have pronounced the "super" rip to sounding better then I will start to accept there may be something in your claims.

 

Until then I stand by my statements that files stored on the same medium will sound identical if they are show identical using a comparator programme.

 

Eloise

 

I have absolutely no interest in humouring you again. You know what you can do with your flawed DBTs, as so many other members have also told you and others from the Objective camp that they invariably favour a negative result.

You should by now have noticed the dramatic swing away in CA from old sacred cows like 16/44.1 is all that is needed for perfect sound, the proliferation of the bulky and more expensive Linear PSUs in servers, and the marked improvements possible with the Mac Mini as a result of Alex Crespi's investigations, and the John Swenson designed JS2 linear PSU for the Mac Mini, as well as John's fan controller that reduces RF/EMI generated by PWM control of internal fans and further improves SQ , like lifting a fine veil..

 

The simple fact is , whether you wish to believe it or not, is that through the way better than average equipment ( NO entry level SBTs etc.) at the various participants houses, the differences at recent listening sessions have been so damn obvious that nobody has felt the need for DBTs.

If you don't wish to accept the results that Martin Colloms and many others like David L are telling you, then that's your loss, not mine. Barry has also heard differences between comparison tracks on CDs that I sent him a while back.

I presume that I PMd you the results from a listening session with a Sydney EE with wide industry experience including in Stereo FM Broadcasting, with DEQX and Cochlear ?

If you are so mad keen to prove me wrong, then arrange for faculty members from somewhere like Sydney Uni to be involved at a future listening session in Sydney, and I will fully cooperate with them. In the meantime, I will keep demonstrating these things directly to any interested Sydney members.

 

Alex

 

P.S.

Post 30 from elcorso sums up the feelings of many members about Blind Tests very nicely.

If Roch was more a DIY person I would send him a little +12V to +5V regulator PCB incorporating a JLH PSU add-on to power his music SSD. This takes SQ to an even higher level, despite the 0s and 1s remaining the same !.

 

[sandyk]

have you tried opening a linear ripped wav file and copying the data to another wav file ? That would answer the question of whether it's the file container or the data that is causing the effect.

 

Many times. For example, I can take my best rip of a .wav file stored on a Corsair Voyager with it's low noise +5V Linear PSU, copy it to another HDD, internal or external, and it doesn't sound quite as good when played from there via System Memory. If I then copy the file back to the Corsair Voyager again, the new copy sounds degraded a little in comparison with the original.

I can however copy .flac files to a crappy SMPS powered external HDD, or even a CD-R, then back to the Corsair again without further degradation when converted to a wav file stored on the Corsair. The resulting .wav file still sounds better than the .flac when played, although as I further improve the PSU areas the differences become .flac and .wav files become much harder to detect. Note also that Cookie Marenco from Blue Coast supplies her files for DL as UNCOMPRESSED Zips to help reduce degradation.

 

Alex

[sandyk]

which is the most accurate CD drive one can use? And related to this what is the most accurate ripping speed?

 

I use EAC , and the speed of extraction depends on the actual CD itself. MAM Gold CD-Rs and "gold" CDs from some audiophile brands rip considerably faster. I have found that a .wav file ripped at a fairly constant higher speed with minor read errors tolerated , from a difficult to read CD , sounds better than where the ripping speed goes up and down like a YoYo, perhaps even as low as 0.1 times for degraded areas of the CD, DESPITE the difficult to read track eventually resulting in the correct checksum. I prefer to rip at the lowest possible fairly constant speed, which does increase a little in a CD in good condition for the higher numbered tracks. I use an internal LG BR writer for ripping, but it's power is first cleaned up by the use of an internally mounted JLH PSU add-on which has low impedance, a noise level of around 4uV and is highly stable with varying load demands from the writer. This add-on also helps to prevent interaction via the power supply with other areas of the computer.

 

Alex

[sbgk]

just tried different bit refresh methods on the control part of my player, for 16 bit applying or 0 to each byte as it's loaded into ram seems to make an improvement in sq, multiplying by 1 seems to reduce the treble. strange, but there you go.

[sandyk]

Miguelito

Please check your PMs

Regards

Alex

[blownsi]

Alex/sandyk, I was not calling you out and apologize if it sounds like I was doing so. I must not of been around here when the files were uploaded in the past. I have spoke with you in the past on another controversial subject and you were absolutely right. I for one applaud your efforts.

Remember everyone, all of this computer audio stuff was hokus pokus just a few years ago and now there are quite a few things that have became common knowledge. I thinks it's unreasonable for anyone to assume Alex is wrong just because we may not be able to explain what he claims with what we know currently.

[elcorso]

------------------

 

Alex

 

P.S.

Post 30 from elcorso sums up the feelings of many members about Blind Tests very nicely.

If Roch was more a DIY person I would send him a little +12V to +5V regulator PCB incorporating a JLH PSU add-on to power his music SSD. This takes SQ to an even higher level, despite the 0s and 1s remaining the same !.

 

 

Is imposible to install internally the JLH regulator in my Mac Mini as it is now: Two internal SSDs, but it has an external transformer and internal linear regulation from Mojo Audio that I believe it helps a lot regarding SQ. Some time ago I got the parts to implement an external SSD for music storage (because Santa sent me some JLH a long time ago) , but the resulting setup was ugly and fragile wit a lot of external cable mess. But honestly I never finished this project.

 

Roch

[sandyk]

Is imposible to install internally the JLH regulator in my Mac Mini as it is now: Two internal SSDs, but it has an external transformer and internal linear regulation from Mojo Audio that I believe it helps a lot regarding SQ. Some time ago I got the parts to implement an external SSD for music storage (because Santa sent me some JLH a long time ago) , but the resulting setup was ugly and fragile wit a lot of external cable mess. But honestly I never finished this project.

 

Roch

 

Hi Roch

Even if you were experienced with DIY, the Mac Mini is a little too cramped for this kind of thing. I also ran out of PSU molex socket outlets and had to put together a special power supply splitter.

There are likely to be 3 servers with Linear PSUs put together in Sydney by David L. , perhaps in February, and we will trial this little PCB in the first one, then another couple will be made if there are further worthwhile gains.

Regards

Alex

[Audio_ELF]

Alex... You are talking complete rubbish. There is absolutely no mechanism where information can be stored within files in this way.

 

I have no further interest in discussion unless you perform the simple double check (not a DBTest as you claim just a double check) but I will call you and others on such bullshit as you write it!

 

Eloise

[sbgk]

Alex... You are talking complete rubbish. There is absolutely no mechanism where information can be stored within files in this way.

 

I have no further interest in discussion unless you perform the simple double check (not a DBTest as you claim just a double check) but I will call you and others on such bullshit as you write it!

 

Eloise

 

there is no known mechanism, I am satisfied that the effect is real.

[sbgk]

Have played about with the load code a bit more, it appears that the load code affects the sound of the bits in ram, so is probably a similar mechanism to using safe mode/linear supplies when ripping. Somehow the noise at the time of loading is affecting the final sq.

 

I was sceptical about what I was hearing with Alex's linear ripped sample files, but am satisfied there is a real affect now.

 

Alex if you want to use my code in your demos then I'm happy to help.

 

Am going to write a program that loads a wav and saves it back to a wav using optimised code to see if the effect can be heard in the saved file.

 

should add that people have tried the new load code and reported back that it is different, they don't like the effect, but I think it's smoother which is a problem for some people.

[sandyk]

 

Alex... You are talking complete rubbish. There is absolutely no mechanism where information can be stored within files in this way.

 

 

I have no further interest in discussion unless you perform the simple double check (not a DBTest as you claim just a double check) but I will call you and others on such bullshit as you write it!

 

Eloise

 

 

Who the hell do you think you are to demand such things, (Eloise who ?) dismiss outright,confirmation by members such as Martin Colloms, Barry,David L, Roch, and even Peter St. who confirmed these differences in a post 5 years ago ?

Just because your training is unable to explain these things. does NOT mean they are BS.

[sbgk]

Many times. For example, I can take my best rip of a .wav file stored on a Corsair Voyager with it's low noise +5V Linear PSU, copy it to another HDD, internal or external, and it doesn't sound quite as good when played from there via System Memory. If I then copy the file back to the Corsair Voyager again, the new copy sounds degraded a little in comparison with the original.

I can however copy .flac files to a crappy SMPS powered external HDD, or even a CD-R, then back to the Corsair again without further degradation when converted to a wav file stored on the Corsair. The resulting .wav file still sounds better than the .flac when played, although as I further improve the PSU areas the differences become .flac and .wav files become much harder to detect. Note also that Cookie Marenco from Blue Coast supplies her files for DL as UNCOMPRESSED Zips to help reduce degradation.

 

Alex

 

I mean't opening the file in an editor eg notepad ++ and copying and pasting the data from a good file to a bad file.

 

Doesn't matter now as the difference seems to be in the bits whether they are in the wav file or when loaded into ram.

[sandyk]

Have played about with the load code a bit more, it appears that the load code affects the sound of the bits in ram, so is probably a similar mechanism to using safe mode/linear supplies when ripping. Somehow the noise at the time of loading is affecting the final sq.

 

I was sceptical about what I was hearing with Alex's linear ripped sample files, but am satisfied there is a real affect now.

 

Alex if you want to use my code in your demos then I'm happy to help.

 

Am going to write a program that loads a wav and saves it back to a wav using optimised code to see if the effect can be heard in the saved file.

 

sbgk

Thanks for the offer, but we are highly unlikely to ever convince members of the " bits are bits" brigade with anything less than a direct demonstration where they can hear these things for themselves. Feel free to try though !

Unfortunately, living on different continents is not conducive to these direct demonstrations. Likewise with convincing the same know-it-alls that high resolution LPCM and double rate DSD is clearly better than 16/44.1.

 

Kind Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

sbgk

Please check your PMs

Regards

Alex

[elcorso]

Well, the moon has two faces for us. The dark (do not know) and bright (which is what we see of it, or think we see).

 

In the case of digital audio many want to place Alex on the dark side, especially those who think they're experts in digital audio, and believe that scientific theory contradicts demonstrated by Alex. For this they attack him.

 

I personally want to place Alex on the right side: The reality, if the reality of what we hear and believe sounds better.

 

I also want to applaud him, I learned a lot thanks to him, for example, the importance of power regulation and now I understand why manufacturers of good audio invest heavily in good power regulation, that in the end consumers have to pay if they like or want a good SQ.

 

By personal experience I know that several DACs builders and music players are listening to Alex.

 

Please Alex continue in your research, and your a brave men having to endure so much negative criticism with stoicism, which ultimately builds nothing, only destroys...!

 

Roch

[Audio_ELF]

there is no known mechanism, I am satisfied that the effect is real.

Final word... I am sure you are hearing something; I am also sure that what you are hearing cannot be accounted for by what Alex claims!

 

It's claims like this which leads to ridicule and speeds up the dead of HiFi (IMO).

[sandyk]

FWIW, some time back John Swenson posted that when he was working in a HDD manufacturing establishment, that he found that system noise was saved to the HDD along with the binary data, but he doubted that it would have an effect.

Perhaps John could correct that statement if I have misinterpreted him ?

[Audio_ELF]

FWIW, some time back John Swenson posted that when he was working in a HDD manufacturing establishment, that he found that system noise was saved to the HDD along with the binary data, but he doubted that it would have an effect.

He also said that there was no mechanism where this "noise" could be reproduced when transferring / copying from one device to another.

 

The point where you claim these effects can be transferred across internet transmission is where everything falls down!!