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

[kumakuma]

On the contrary. Uncompressed zipfiles are a container sometimes used to copy/transmit files, on the thinking that there is less SQ deterioration associated with doing so in that form. I don't know and am not particularly interested in whether this actually works or not.

 

At least one producer whose work I like a great deal, Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast Records, serves audio files that way. Also note that Barry Diament, another producer whose work I greatly respect (he engineered/remastered some of the most sought after Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin reissues, for example), does not offer his files for download at all, but ships them on recordable disc. These folks can of course fool themselves or be dead wrong, but I did think it worthy of note that a couple of folks who have had more opportunity than any of us to compare sound in the studio with sound at further stages of the chain both believe something(s) in the process of storing music on a server and downloading it to a client computer results in SQ changes. (Heh, and you thought power supply-caused differences were controversial. )

 

I think you are right about Cookie's rationale but I think Barry has resisted offering downloads more because of the bandwidth limitations of his web hosting company than because he believes downloaded files causes a drop in SQ. That's my recollection of what he said last time someone asked why he doesn't do downloads.

[Jud]

I think you are right about Cookie's rationale but I think Barry has resisted offering downloads more because of the bandwidth limitations of his web hosting company than because he believes downloaded files causes a drop in SQ. That's my recollection of what he said last time someone asked why he doesn't do downloads.

 

Ah. Well there's at least one other, not as well known, but with a good reputation among those who do know about his work: Pierre Sprey, Mapleshade principal and co-principal of Omega Mikro, has told me in a phone conversation that he does not want to offer his well thought of CDs or the higher res masters for download due to SQ considerations. Of course this may or may not be the actual reason, or one of them; and just as with Cookie, his thinking this does not make it so.

[esldude]

Hey Alex,

 

Get some care for yourself. I have an 87 year old neighbor who is otherwise is good health. Had both knees replaced about this time last year. He knew it would be an ordeal, but the recovery from that is not so bad as it used to be. He was moving around quite well in two months time. Probably about 4 months later he was about to climb a long ladder to fix a rain gutter. I was walking by and talked him out it. So he allowed me to do it for him. He says the nightly pain was worse as he now has little. Of course everyone's condition is different.

 

In any case take care of yourself, and hope you get some relief from it.

[kumakuma]

Ah. Well there's at least one other, not as well known, but with a good reputation among those who do know about his work: Pierre Sprey, Mapleshade principal and co-principal of Omega Mikro, has told me in a phone conversation that he does not want to offer his well thought of CDs or the higher res masters for download due to SQ considerations. Of course this may or may not be the actual reason, or one of them; and just as with Cookie, his thinking this does not make it so.

 

This is a real shame. I have heard good things about Mapleshade's albums.

 

In Barry's case, I keep meaning to order his albums but sites that offer more immediate gratification always seem to win out in the battle for a slice of my music budget. If he offered downloads, I'd be the first in line to buy everything he offers.

[prot]

...

So your contention is that electrical noise encoded on a disk effectively causes jitter at the DAC.

....

 

That would be an interesting investigation. Problem is, it cannot be done by ear and it is prolly too complex for any DIY expert or small shop too. Talking of course about a proper/scientific investigation that will aswer the most important technical Qs: why & how ... and consequently the most important user Q: what can we do about it.

 

This "I heard it, therefore it must be true" garbage that we 'discuss' here is not only useless but outright harmful: people with the right knowledge won't ever react to such bollocks and audiophiles will continue to spend thousands on the useless 'cures' sold by the crooks & vultures who exploit this kind of noise.

[Paul R]

Yep that's why I said "it would seem logical to assume that the signal is completely renewed & any vestige of SI issues wiped clean in this process." You overlooked the second part of what I said (which is the real assumption) & focussed on the first part.

 

Okay, what exactly did I miss?

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this - yes we don't know what to measure (if that's what you mean by "instrumenting"?) to account for these audible differences but that is a failing on our part, not because there is no difference to measure. I'm really not sure what you mean by "All the different players wind up sounding like iTunes. Annoying, but true." as it's not my experience? If you mean they all measure the same, then yes![/QUote]

 

IRT instrumenting a computer. You didn't catch the meaning of this one. When we instrument a computer, we add in all sort of technical goodies, software and hardware, that allow us to examine in detail the execution of the computer, software and data transfers. This is how we would normally tell exactly what the software is doing and what effect it actually has.

 

Unfortunately, the sonic differences between players must be somewhat fragile, as they tend to disappear in this case. I am not saying the differences don't exist, just that they are deucedly difficult to measure.

 

I do not think that the analog output from players that sound different, or even the digital output, is identical. Proving that is a whole different kettle of fish.

 

Yea, I'm confused - what different topic did I switch to? [/Quote]

 

You switched the topic from descriptions of how electrical noise recorded on media could possibly make its way to a DAC, impose itself on the DAC power supply, and from that point, cause jitter at the point where digital information is transformed to analog. That is, like it or not, where SI could enter the topic. Avoiding of course, all the other effects, like cables and so forth.

 

I do not think anyone is arguing against electrical noise at the DAC being the cause of all sorts of audible effects. Just how exactly those effects are stored in and transmitted from a RIP.

 

 

Again (the second time in this post), you are demonstrating a tendency to pick only elements of what I post & ignore the cogent part - I said the relationship between SI & PS noise - you left out the PS noise part of what I said & by so doing re-framed my comment into one that reads as if I'm maintaining that SI is something new, to which you then reply. I'm beginning to get tired of this & wish that you would either read more carefully, if this re-framing of what I say is not your intent.And just in case you say the relationship between SI Vs PS is nothing new - I'm talking about in digital audio.

 

Pot, Kettle, Black type of thing. If you wish to believe you have discovered something new, instead of something that has been known about for quite some long time, more power to you. You don't want to accept that fine, but digital audio has been around for *decades* now - ask Mike Moffat, or Gordon Rankin, or other folks who were building DACs in the early days. Take Pacific Microsonics for example...

 

Or if you want to talk about digital audio, go back and look at when PCM was developed and what a T1 phone line really is. (Hint- digital audio - in the late 1950s.) That is when almost all these concepts were developed. A little later for optical transmissions of course, lasers had to come along first.

[wakibaki]

Hi Alex, sorry to hear you are ill. It is with some reluctance I have entered into this discussion, I no longer feel the fire which drove me to disagree with you so remorselessly and uncompromisingly, but the logic which drove me is intact. The fact that this forum is becoming an island of financial support to vapourware, all supported by cargo-cult science, is quite a serious matter to my mind. I mean, there's no banner headline on the homepage saying, Computer Audiophile - Welcome to the Cult.

 

Fred

[esldude]

snippage

 

And I am beginning to sound like Dennis (esldude), whom I like but can argue for months with about small details. (grin! We become that we oppose, I suppose...)

 

Oh, and "signal integrity" is relatively newspeak for stuff that has been well known for a long time. It's application to digital (computer) audio is still very new though. Not really a new field of knowledge though.

-Paul

 

Yeah, one of things I would wonder about all this, is show me the difference in the analog signal we listen to. Digital by its nature, and one of its advantages, is it can operate well in a noisy environment. All of this complex stuff happening in computer can be endlessly wondered about. One method of simplification is what if any of it changes the analog output. Some of these effects are measurable, but don't show anything we should hear. Other things fretted over don't seem to show up at 20 khz. and below.

 

Which is where I suppose Paul and I disagree. This is so complex, and the results seems so minor in a measured sense I tend to believe unless some good double blind testing is done there isn't anything to hear. Have the same opinion of software players that are bit perfect sounding different. In all this jitter, from a myriad of potential and real sources is treated like the Devil in medieval times.

 

[Paul R]

Yeah, one of things I would wonder about all this, is show me the difference in the analog signal we listen to. Digital by its nature, and one of its advantages, is it can operate well in a noisy environment. All of this complex stuff happening in computer can be endlessly wondered about. One method of simplification is what if any of it changes the analog output. Some of these effects are measurable, but don't show anything we should hear. Other things fretted over don't seem to show up at 20 khz. and below.

 

Which is where I suppose Paul and I disagree. This is so complex, and the results seems so minor in a measured sense I tend to believe unless some good double blind testing is done there isn't anything to hear. Have the same opinion of software players that are bit perfect sounding different. In all this jitter, from a myriad of potential and real sources is treated like the Devil in medieval times.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15778[/ATTACH]

 

We actually agree a lot more than I like to admit, I am just not ready to make the same conclusions you have made, yet.

 

Cool (D)devilish (A)udio ©omponent in that picture. Really keeps those bits in line...

[wakibaki]

As long as we continue the pretense of being gentlemen we will find it difficult to call each other liars.

[mmerrill99]

OK, Paul I see your propensity for misreading posts (in your favour, of course) & the intransigence of your viewpoint (that you are always correct), is unassailable. So any further interaction with you is not worth my time & effort (I'm sure some are wondering why this dawning took so long )

[prot]

1) What do you mean by "zipping a file without compression"? This is an oxymoron.

 

...

 

"Zipping a file without compression" does sound a bit like 'compression poetry' but it is 100% technically correct ... techies even have a word for that

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28computing%29

Tarring a single file is something only an audiophile will do, but lets just forget about that

 

All in all, this may be the very first time I fully agree with sandyk on a technical matter. There is always a first

[kumakuma]

OK, Paul I see your propensity for misreading posts (in your favour, of course) & the intransigence of your viewpoint (that you are always correct), is unassailable. So any further interaction with you is not worth my time & effort (I'm sure some are wondering why this dawning took so long )

 

This is ironic as I stopped interacting with you for exactly the same reasons. I guess this is proof of the old adage that is far easier to see the faults in others than the faults in ourselves.

[Paul R]

OK, Paul I see your propensity for misreading posts (in your favour, of course) & the intransigence of your viewpoint (that you are always correct), is unassailable. So any further interaction with you is not worth my time & effort (I'm sure some are wondering why this dawning took so long )

 

(*sigh*) Why don't you tell us who you are and why you believe you have so much expertise in this area?

[esldude]

This business of people afraid to transmit FLAC files because they sound different, yet by ear determining that non-compressing zip files is fine is sure fascinating. Have yet to see an explanation of how one is bad, and the other good. Any idea about how the same bits in a wav format resulting from them will sound different upon playback. But hey this is the high end sensibility. It isn't suppose to make sense. Look at the pony, not the man behind the curtain.

[wakibaki]

Some things are possible, some things are not possible.

 

If a man tells me "I saw a fish give birth to a kitten", I know that it cannot be true. Some things are not possible.

 

You have (generally and severally) lost the ability to decide that something is untrue.

 

No audio quackery is so extreme that it can't find support here.

 

That's why in some way I welcome this discussion. It sorts the wheat from the chaff. There are only 2 right answers, 'don't know' and 'never happen'. Anybody who answers different (Martin Colloms was it?), is shown to be a flake.

[prot]

...

The fact that this forum is becoming an island of financial support to vapourware, all supported by cargo-cult science, is quite a serious matter to my mind. I mean, there's no banner headline on the homepage saying, Computer Audiophile - Welcome to the Cult.

 

Fred

 

I wont go into those financials, that kind of stuff gets people banned.

But I fully agree about the computer audio occultism being harmful, especially on the long run. If this thread continues long enough I'm sure some goldenears 'guru' will discover the real explanation: it is actually the time of day when you do the rip that matters and the time of year when your CD drive was produced.

And he'll become a zillionaire selling Computer-Astrology books... gladly signed by M.Colloms and all sorts of other 'respected' digital luddites who talk with their ears.

[Daudio]

The fact that this forum is becoming an island of financial support to vapourware, all supported by cargo-cult science, is quite a serious matter to my mind. I mean, there's no banner headline on the homepage saying, Computer Audiophile - Welcome to the Cult.

 

If you feel that way you should just lurk quietly, or leave and find some other online community where your negativity is more welcome. I'm putting you on Ignore right now, since I don't see any useful contributions coming from your posts

 

 

But, the main reason for my single post in this thread, is to help me more easily find it in the 'New Posts' result list, so I can continue to lurk here on this 'train wreck with possibilities'

[Jud]

This business of people afraid to transmit FLAC files because they sound different, yet by ear determining that non-compressing zip files is fine is sure fascinating. Have yet to see an explanation of how one is bad, and the other good.

 

It does give one to wonder, yes. It's interesting that Pierre is at one and the same time -

 

- An aeronautical engineer pretty famous for hard-headed thinking behind military aircraft projects that met mission requirements, and resisting "gold plating," "mission creep," "specmanship," etc.

 

- A well thought of music producer, making recordings using products he's designed.

 

- Designer of products that sound great to me.

 

- Designer of products based on ideas that sound ridiculous to me.

[alfe]

Kinda of, and that is a reasonable way to think about it in general. The exact values and what a value consists of (voltage, light pulse, etc.) varies by the media layer, but you could say that a digital "zero" is often represented by a signal that stays below the detection threshold for a specified period of time.

 

Noise is almost always present at both states, and on top of the noise, the value of the state itself can vary. I don't have time to draw an explanation, and a picture is worth 1000 words, so.... I just pulled a raid on the Internet and found a couple pictures that explain it much clearer. The articles the pictures came from are also linked, and make good (if light) reading.

 

In both pictures, all the variations in the square wave are caused by noise of one kind or another, and jitter is shown well in the second. The signal basically is zero below the line, and one above the line, but it can and does vary anywhere below or above the line without distorting the digital data. If it distorts across that middle line, you have data errors.

 

The ringing showing in the first picture (right after a transition) and the jitter shown in the second are sort of what we are going back and forth about.

 

My friend Mmerrill99 is concerned that the signal is distorted in transmission (by one of the factors I named above) and can cause errors or audible differences. iN that he is correct of course.

 

The issue I have been digging at, and what the topic is focused on, is that one of our members claims that one RIP can sound better than another RIP, when the data (the ones and zeros) in the data file on the disk are identical. One of the possible mechanisms is storing electronic noise on the media along side the digital data. The equivalent of the data looking like one of the pictures below on the media. That is also true, but for technical reasons, it is so unlikely to be the cause that it makes a lot of people, including me, want to too look for other reasons.

 

Hope that helps a bit, and that I answered your question. I am sure if I screwed something up, someone will jump in to correct me.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15766[/ATTACH] Signal Integrity

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15767[/ATTACH] Digital Interfacing

 

 

You didn't screw up:), that help to explain that most of the time noise and data share the same bed but never have sex:)

[jhwalker]

Tom

Thanks. I expect to go to casualty, most likely by ambulance as I can't presently walk, on Tuesday or Wednesday when my son and D.I.L. return. 3 grandchildren are assisting me at present.

My friend Dr. David L has given me some very helpful advice on possible treatments too.

 

Alex

 

Alex -

 

Sorry to hear of your difficulty, and best of luck to you.

 

I'm in my early 50s, and already am experiencing substantial pain and reduced mobility from arthritis in both hips, both knees, and both ankles, so have a good deal of empathy for you.

 

Please keep us advised as to your condition and treatment - I'm sure we all wish you the best.

 

- John

[kumakuma]

You didn't screw up:), that help to explain that most of the time noise and data share the same bed but never have sex:)

 

In other words, they have a platonic relationship?

[alfe]

In other words, they have a platonic relationship?

 

most of the time and if the noise get horny they still use a condom to keep the data protected

[elcorso]

Alex -

 

Sorry to hear of your difficulty, and best of luck to you.

 

I'm in my early 50s, and already am experiencing substantial pain and reduced mobility from arthritis in both hips, both knees, and both ankles, so have a good deal of empathy for you.

 

Please keep us advised as to your condition and treatment - I'm sure we all wish you the best.

 

- John

 

Hi John and Alex,

 

I destroyed my wrists through my life as a farmer and hobbyis in wood working, mechanics, electronics, electricity, et al. Now 15 years on Bonsai…

 

Doctors gave me cortisone, heavy pain killers and some acupuncture. Pain went out for very short time, but my stomach finished like bad rips in the wrong media…!

 

This saved my life, but takes some time to notice the big difference (2 pills a day at breakfast= 12 Mgrs.):

 

http://www.amazon.com/Nutrex-Formulas-BioAstin-Supreme-60-v-gels/dp/B0039ITKUQ/ref=sr_1_23?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1418068279&sr=1-23&keywords=astaxanthin+12mg

 

Best,

 

Roch

[jabbr]

"Zipping a file without compression" does sound a bit like 'compression poetry' but it is 100% technically correct ... techies even have a word for that

tar (computing) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tarring a single file is something only an audiophile will do, but lets just forget about that

 

All in all, this may be the very first time I fully agree with sandyk on a technical matter. There is always a first

 

I am in error! I had known that "tar" could be a container only (i.e. not using "gzip" for compression) -- "zip" correctly encompasses both and not just "gzip" as I had assumed.

 

Nonetheless... the fact that "zip files without compression" are sent via the internet (e.g. the SMTP protocol) does not alter the fact that they are encoded and decoded.