Just got a Yggdrasil!

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

When I first quoted him in this thread, I did say:

 

 

I didn't feel it needed to be said again.

 

Mani.

 

The bits I thought were intriguing were where he says (1) there are board-level "tricks" to get around the glitching energy, and (2) that the chip is "unbeatable for noise."

 

Edit: I don't know whether the "tricks" he refers to were used in Yggy, and whether the measurements with some level of glitching show either that said tricks weren't used or that this is the level of glitching one would expect to measure after the tricks *were* used.

 

As usual, it's all perfectly clear to me.

[Jud]

11 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

 

 

It seems strange to me to use an ultra-low noise DAC chip, if the chip's THD remains high due to glitching. Of course, it could be that the reason the AD5791 was chosen had nothing to do with its ultra-low noise, but for other reasons. Perhaps the (lack of) availability of audio R2R chips?

 

Mani.

 

If I'm remembering right, Jason and Mike have pretty well said as much (lack of availability of favored R2R chips) at Head-Fi, or maybe that's just me remembering my own "reading between the lines."

[Jud]

If anyone wonders what all this glitching is about and what are some techniques for helping to make it go away, here are a couple of blog posts from TI's web site:

 

https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/analogwire/archive/2013/06/14/what-s-with-all-this-glitch-ing

 

https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/analogwire/archive/2013/07/01/dac-essentials-glitch-be-gone

 

[Jud]

4 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Yep. Achieving better resistor trimming than the PCM1704 is not cost effective. New DAC chips have different specs: http://www.analog.com/en/products/digital-to-analog-converters/high-speed-da-converters/ad9164.html#product-overview and just think: the other day they might have sold 59 or whatever of those in like one hour  

 

Mike Moffat has said he prefers the PCM63 to the PCM1704.  (Actually he said the PCM1704 "sounds like ass.")

[Jud]

1 minute ago, audiventory said:

If each DAC work on own half of amplitude (positive or negative) such overload 7fff > 8000 and 0000 > 7fff are very probable as glitch reason.

 

Right, overshoot due to transitions in M(ore)SB's caused by changes in L(ess)SBs.

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, jabbr said:

maybe what he really doesn't like is the DF1704 DSP chip that is what has the 96k limitation

 

Ah.

[Jud]

Whereas you, Larry, have contributed so very much knowledge to the thread, talking to us about your conversations with Mike Moffat about a chip that might have been considered for the Yggy - oh wait, that was Mani.  Or when you provided us actual samples of Yggy's analog product to listen to - oh wait, that was Mani.  Gosh, I'm sensing a theme here....

[Jud]

8 minutes ago, crenca said:

The above links seem to discuss this transistor behavior (which all transistors exhibit)

 

Since no transistor is perfect, all exhibit some overshoot.  In DACs this glitching/overshoot can be associated with a value transitioning from less significant bits to more significant bits, as Yuri (audiventory) mentioned above.

[Jud]

35 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if it's an ignorant one!

 

 

Didn't you at one point believe your review sample had new and different parts without the glitching problem?

[Jud]

21 minutes ago, jabbr said:

otherwise the comparison is only about the interaction between the yggy and your ADC vs the interaction of the Phasure with your ADC. This isn't a simple math.

 

If I'm understanding, one of the things you are saying here is that the filter interactions may not be simply "If I listen to A filter plus C filter and B filter plus C filter, since I've added the C filter in both cases I can tell the sound of A filter versus B filter."

[Jud]

9 minutes ago, manisandher said:

The Yggy and the control DAC captures through the ADC are nowhere near indistinguishable. This implies to me that the ADC had enough resolution.

 

Or that, to use jabbr's language, one or more non-linear interactions between the ADC and Yggy diverged significantly from the non-linear interactions between the ADC and the other DAC.

 

Does this overcomplicate things?  Possibly.  On the other hand, you have two files whose common measurements diverge very little that sound very different to you.  So it's difficult to say that what's causing the difference that isn't being measured is definitely *not* some non-linear interaction (or something to do with the differences in USB inputs, more prosaically).

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, mansr said:

I seriously doubt there's any interaction between the DAC and the ADC at a level detectable by the ADC.

 

I guess then we'll vote "Yes" on "Does this overcomplicate things?" 

[Jud]

3 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

It sounds like you've never heard an actual soundstage.

 

Please try to avoid coming off like someone we can't have a decent, interesting conversation with.

 

Soundstage depends on the recording.  If you have equipment that imparts a 3D soundstage to every recording, it isn't being faithful to the music.  I find I eventually tire of such "one-trick ponies."  Do you have a different opinion?

[Jud]

32 minutes ago, the_bat said:

 

Interesting. I've never really got this concentration on soundstage.  I've often come away from a concert thinking "that was some performance - they really sang and played well".  I've sometimes come away thinking "that Gibson Hummingbird is a beautiful sounding guitar".  I don't think I've ever come away thinking "what really impressed me was where they were standing".

 

!!

 

No one ever came away from a Pavarotti recital raving about soundstage, great bass or treble response, huge gobs of detail....  If you notice it constantly, it's a characteristic of the equipment, not the music.  Equipment shouldn't have a sound of its own as far as possible, rather than having an identifiable sound that at first blush is impressive.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

 

Proper soundstage reproduction depends mostly on speaker placement. DACs and amps make very little difference in this regard assuming they are reasonably competent pieces.

 

I've done A/B tests in my system where I've been able to identify soundstaging differences between minimum phase and linear phase filters; I believe it's due to interaction with my particular speakers.  So I suppose in instances involving specific DAC/speaker pairings soundstage might be affected, though I agree this won't usually be the case.

[Jud]

8 hours ago, GUTB said:

Soundstage is important to me. I want it wide (i.e., at least a couple feet beyond the edge of my speakers), and I want it three-dimensional -- with DEPTH. I'm coming to learn this is a difficult challenge. It seems to be related to room acoustics, speaker power handling and amp coherence / linearity.

 

I've got a recording I use for testing soundstage.  It's Tom Waits' decidedly industrial take on the old Disney classic "Heigh-Ho," where Waits thinks about what short persons spending days in the confines of underground coal mines might *really* sound like, especially if they were recorded on the job.  If the soundstage on this gets up further than your knees, your system is embellishing, not reproducing, what it's being fed.  (This isn't on any Waits album I know of, it's on an album of Disney movie music by various artists called "Stay Awake.")

 

There seem to me to be at least two major groups of audiophiles, those who are devoted to the "sonic spectacular," and those who are devoted to the "absolute sound."  Folks in the former group love a certain sound or sounds from a system - lots of bass, big soundstage, huge dynamics, detail.  Those in the latter group like a "sound" that varies with the recordings played through the system and calls attention to the music and artists rather than what the system is doing.

 

There are some things in common - no one wants sound that's fuzzy or muddled (more than what's on the recording), and adequate bass, detail, soundstage and dynamics are part of fidelity.  But there does seem to be a difference in ultimate goal.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Albrecht said:

some beat-to-shit Peavey PA, with a bunch of fat North Americans screaming in a cheap beer stupor

 

That was certainly my impression of the last Jordi Savall CD I listened to.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

 

Dr. Fine sounds like he knows what's he talking about. Of course, when he says you need $20k of gear, he is likely to lose most of us here

 

It's good to see that depth of soundstage is actually something that should exist, in stark contrast to what many on here seem to believe.

 

Would you expect soundstage width from a mono recording?  So a system that gave width to a mono recording wouldn't be giving a faithful rendition, right?  Same with a system that provides soundstage depth to a recording that has none.

 

If it's in the recording I want to hear it.  If it's not, I don't.

[Jud]

Why do you keep making these ludicrous generalizations?  While you were listening to headphones, which are notable as you say for not producing a realistic soundstage, I was listening to Vandersteen speakers, designed specifically with production of an accurate soundstage as a priority (time and phase correct).  Talk to me about this again after you've spent three decades listening to a system that's time and phase correct.

[Jud]

13 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I suspect that he really liked some aspects of binaural listening and that speakers fail to recreate that.

 

Since that's what he just said ("3D image"), yeah, I "suspect" it too.

[Jud]

5 hours ago, PeterSt said:

Statistics may tell to some degree that you (all) too never heard the phenomenon of opposite of the pancake but in negative sense (at least that is what I think). The truth will be somewhere in the middle, but nobody knows where it is (varies per recording, per playback system, per room).

 

Right, a bit of a philosophical dilemma - Is there a recording where "opposite of the pancake" or even "disappearing of speakers" does not happen?  For ordinary stereo or mono, "disappearing of speakers" is very typical for me because of the Vandersteens.  But take the early Beatles' Capitol-mangled hard-panned "stereo" with vocals on one side and instruments on the other, and if your system makes the speakers disappear there, then my guess is it's an effect and not true to the source.

[Jud]

39 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

here are the effects of 2 factors...  note the interaction of delay time & SPL

 

 

 

Masking?

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

I picked two tracks that were close to extremes in my library between depth and soundstage and no soundstage. I can perceive depth in I Get a Kick Out of You, but it's mild, perhaps in just an artifact of my 845 SET. I agree with your assessment that it's a traditional left-right mix with no depth information to speak of. Tea Picking is the opposite extreme. In my system, you get a clear sense that that the steel percussions are floating from a far distance away, as if you were sitting well back from the stage of a hall.

 

Other comments by others here seems like they aren't used to hearing depth in the soundstage. But, doesn't common sense dictate that we perceive depth because our brains process time/phase cues? To record depth information, all you need are mics that pick up the depth cues and mixing that doesn't destroy that.

 

 

 

I don't know whose posts you've been reading, but you've just agreed with what a lot of people in the thread have been saying for ages.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

here are the effects of 2 factors...  note the interaction of delay time & SPL

 

 

 

Something interesting is that if you look at http://src.infinitewave.ca/ , the ringing of minimum phase filters is on the order of 1-2 milliseconds.  This would be just at the very edge of, or perhaps just shy of, where the "spaciousness" area on the graph above begins, if as @Miska has said from time to time, this ultrasonic ringing also causes "smearing" of the signal itself.

 

Just some possibly interesting speculation.

[Jud]

17 minutes ago, esldude said:

Notice the frequency of the ringing?

 

 All above 20 khz.  So yes Miska says smearing, but if smearing is ultrasonic will you hear it?

 

Right - exactly why I noted the ringing is ultrasonic and that there could only be a "spaciousness effect" (if at all) if the "smearing" occurs in the (audible) signal itself.