USB audio cracked... finally!

[Speed Racer]

39 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

@fas42, Frank, remember, I am all with you, but can you tell what is wrong with your system without the Lush ?

 

What? We all need a "Lush" USB cable BEFORE we can improve our systems in other ways?

 

Now I have heard it all.......

[fas42]

53 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

@fas42, Frank, remember, I am all with you, but can you tell what is wrong with your system without the Lush ?

 

Well, for a start I'm not using a USB cable - at all! So, when it comes to pass that I do, then I might have to reconsider ... . I mentioned earlier that I looked at how the typical USB circuits were set up - and, I don't like them!! I might do a major re-engineering of one, or my own design ... something for the future, .

[Jud]

51 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

 

What? We all need a "Lush" USB cable BEFORE we can improve our systems in other ways?

 

Now I have heard it all.......

 

Obviously, without the Lush, you have not.

[Speed Racer]

12 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Obviously, without the Lush, you have not.

 

I guess....since I feed my DAC via S/PDIF coax it doesn't much matter, now does it? I suppose that is the wrong choice too....I am just screwed and doomed to listen to mediocre sound. 

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Well, for a start I'm not using a USB cable - at all!

 

OK, so no further fun to find in my response.

Good answer anyway !

 

What I was stipulating is that especially when we think we're all set (I think this for quite some years by now) there appears always something to improve upon. Maybe my motives are nor the most common, but for now it keeps on working while I see no bugs anywhere.

Still, after the fact of the improvement, the old situation easily testifies as a "bug". So our brain adapts very very quickly to the improvement and even 1 hour later the old situation - no bugs were present - appears to be a complete bees nest. Including the buzz.

[mansr]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

can you tell what is wrong with your system without the Lush ?

It's too cheap.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Speed Racer said:

 

I guess....since I feed my DAC via S/PDIF coax it doesn't much matter, now does it? I suppose that is the wrong choice too....I am just screwed and doomed to listen to mediocre sound. 

 

Don’t know if you’re old enough, but there was the same discussion going on about different SPDIF cables before USB came along.

[mansr]

7 minutes ago, Jud said:

Don’t know if you’re old enough, but there was the same discussion going on about different SPDIF cables before USB came along.

At least with S/PDIF the source is the master clock, so a very noisy signal could conceivably make it difficult for the receiver to lock on properly resulting in excessive jitter. That said, I doubt it's actually a problem with decent cables in realistic situations.

[semente]

On 5 August 2017 at 11:52 PM, fas42 said:

 

If a vocalist is singing directly at you, live, no PA - and then slowly turns around as she keeps singing, the same song - the frequency spectrum of her voice will change dramatically, as received by your ears, as she does this. Does the "timbre" of her voice change such that her voice now sounds artificial, or wrong?

 

Good replay will generate the same subjective experience.

 

I don't agree with this.

 

The mic will pick up changes in the singer's voice as she turns away in a similar fashion to our ears.

If you want to listen to what the mic picked up (and if the mic was flat, to the "real" timbre) then you need a playback with flat response.

 

Imagine you have a recording of a piano where the notes are moving down the keyborad all with the same intensity; can you guess what happens if you use speakers that are not flat (or a mic that is shelving up the top octaves)?

Similarly what do you think will happen to the sound of a cello, a trombone or a bass male singer if there's a depression in the upperbass region?

[elcorso]

5 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Don’t know if you’re old enough, but there was the same discussion going on about different SPDIF cables before USB came along.

 

Hi Jud,

 

I quite agree with you and want to add:

 

I have not been much interested in the age of the posters, but the repetitive issues very widely discussed in this forum and not really belong to the thread. Perhaps the important thing is the time they have to participate in CA, especially if it gives them laziness to do a backward search in the forum.

 

On the other hand, WTF discuss in a thread dedicated to a specific USB cable SPDIF cables or interfaces. Note that I am not with this saying that USB or SPDIF is better or worse.

 

Are there any others members involved in the discussion because someone did not like a Schiit DAC and is taking revenge?

 

Forgive my poor English, but this is what you call in your language "trolling" ...?

 

Roch

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, elcorso said:

Are there any others members involved in the discussion because someone did not like a Schiit DAC and is taking revenge?

 

Well it'd be difficult to take 'revenge' against me as I'm not affiliated with Phasure in any way, shape or form (and have always paid the full retail price for every Phasure product I've ever bought, and will continue to do so because everything Peter produces is SOTA and ridiculously good value for money).

 

In any event, it's probably not worth even pursuing this. Everyone can read this thread and speculate on people's motives for themselves...

 

Mani.

[rando]

5 hours ago, elcorso said:

Forgive my poor English, but this is what you call in your language "trolling" ...?

Forgive my French.  You were close.  Trolling is what others would do to Mani to reduce his thread into bedlam.  Shitposting is more subtle in slowly pulling things off topic until the meat being discussed has been reduced into waste nobody has any interest in touching any more.

 

Admittedly the subjects surrounding this USB cable have been the defining topic.   

[barrows]

I ordered a LUSH, as i have been looking for more USB cables of interest to try.  I know Peter has no love for blurry sound, so I am hopeful for good performance with this cable.

[Speed Racer]

5 hours ago, elcorso said:

On the other hand, WTF discuss in a thread dedicated to a specific USB cable SPDIF cables or interfaces. Note that I am not with this saying that USB or SPDIF is better or worse.

 

Are there any others members involved in the discussion because someone did not like a Schiit DAC and is taking revenge?

 

What do you mean, WTF? I didn't bring up S/PDIF cables and no one is really discussing them. Jud was trying to bring some lightheartedness to the thread and I played along.

 

Now, as far as revenge is concerned and since I know you are referring to me, that's BS! As I have stated multiple times, I don't care who likes or dislikes Schiit DACs. What I don't like is the special joy certain people have picking at them.

 

I am incredibly dubious in regards to "Lush" USB cable because how it tweaks the sender/receiver should be implementation specific. One size fits all makes zero sense. So excuse me if I don't buy into the "expectation bias" that has been so clearly displayed here. Peter could send some of the people here urine labeled as perfume and they say it smelled wonderful!

[k-man]

@PeterSt opened his Webshop earlier today so ordering the Lush cable will be a bit more simple to the previous registration/ sales email.

 

I hope to see more products added that will benefit more than just NOS1a owners 

[elcorso]

8 minutes ago, k-man said:

@PeterSt opened his Webshop earlier today so ordering the Lush cable will be a bit more simple to the previous registration/ sales email.

 

I hope to see more products added that will benefit more than just NOS1a owners 

 

 

Great, I just ordered my second one!

 

Of course not NOS1a only DACs, but all the USB I have.  (I own seven DACs, not because I'm a DAC collector, but because they are hard to sell in my Rainforest and everyone wants the last version of each).  All of them improved thanks to Lush® ...

 

Roch

[mansr]

5 minutes ago, elcorso said:

I own seven DACs

Now get seven ADCs and connect them all in series.

[fas42]

8 hours ago, semente said:

 

I don't agree with this.

 

The mic will pick up changes in the singer's voice as she turns away in a similar fashion to our ears.

If you want to listen to what the mic picked up (and if the mic was flat, to the "real" timbre) then you need a playback with flat response.

 

Imagine you have a recording of a piano where the notes are moving down the keyborad all with the same intensity; can you guess what happens if you use speakers that are not flat (or a mic that is shelving up the top octaves)?

Similarly what do you think will happen to the sound of a cello, a trombone or a bass male singer if there's a depression in the upperbass region?

 

You ignored a key point in my post, to wit, "no PA"! - the singer is 100% au naturel ... yes, Virginia, it is possible for someone to sing without using a microphone, even though in this day and age it seems almost inconceivable for such to happen ...

 

A huge part of the reason I chase this "special quality" of sound is because it passes the burden of getting the sound 'right' over to the ear/brain - the speakers, etc, no longer need to be "perfect". This is because our human mind is interpreting, and equalising the sound to "fix" the moment by moment variations in actual sound intensities - the mind knows what the sound "should be", and completely unconsciously compensates on the fly. This behaviour is actively being studied in the field of Auditory Scene Analysis, ASA.

 

Another example of a "real" example, apart from the singer turning - you're listening to live music, and a person or major physical object momentarily passes, and even stops, directly in front of you, and then moves on - between yourself and the direct sound. Does the subjective experience collapse when this happens? OK, now consider the situation of someone blocking most of the direct sound of one speaker ...

[fas42]

13 hours ago, PeterSt said:

What I was stipulating is that especially when we think we're all set (I think this for quite some years by now) there appears always something to improve upon. Maybe my motives are nor the most common, but for now it keeps on working while I see no bugs anywhere.

Still, after the fact of the improvement, the old situation easily testifies as a "bug". So our brain adapts very very quickly to the improvement and even 1 hour later the old situation - no bugs were present - appears to be a complete bees nest. Including the buzz.

 

I first heard a mostly "bug-free" system 30 years ago - it was a shock to my system, that's for sure! Ever since, all normal stereo, etc, playback is a huge bees hive - the buzzing is deafening! Which has always made it easy for me for pick the presence of bugs - but not necessarily the cause, note!! - it was incredibly frustrating in the early days, I knew what I was after, but I didn't have the key parts of the knowledge on tap to get there. Things have enormously improved, but I'm still not at the end of the journey, of getting to the postion of "understanding everything".

[semente]

18 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You ignored a key point in my post, to wit, "no PA"! - the singer is 100% au naturel ... yes, Virginia, it is possible for someone to sing without using a microphone, even though in this day and age it seems almost inconceivable for such to happen ...

 

I knew you meant live and unamplified.

 

18 minutes ago, fas42 said:

A huge part of the reason I chase this "special quality" of sound is because it passes the burden of getting the sound 'right' over to the ear/brain - the speakers, etc, no longer need to be "perfect". This is because our human mind is interpreting, and equalising the sound to "fix" the moment by moment variations in actual sound intensities - the mind knows what the sound "should be", and completely unconsciously compensates on the fly. This behaviour is actively being studied in the field of Auditory Scene Analysis, ASA.

 

Does your mind know what the colour balance in this image should be and can it "fix" it?

 

 

Wouldn't it look better or more realistic if it had been shot/processed with a flat response?

[fas42]

50 minutes ago, semente said:

Does your mind know what the colour balance in this image should be and can it "fix" it?

 

 

Wouldn't it look better or more realistic if it had been shot/processed with a flat response?

 

This is an interesting example, because it demonstrates some of the principles. The image is static, and it's low resolution - the mind has very limited "data" to work with, and will just go with the blue-green look of that "grab". If one was there, in the situation with the girl on the bike live, there would be immensely more information to tap into - it may be that there was a very intense coloured spotlight in operation - it's easy these days to blanket large areas with very powerful colour ... and if such a measurable colour balance shift was constantly happening, yes, the mind would adjust to quite a degree, after some period of time.

[PeterSt]

 

4 hours ago, semente said:

 

Wouldn't it look better or more realistic if it had been shot/processed with a flat response?

 

Maybe an unexpected answer : no. This is because I can't see whether it is snow I see or just too much light. So my mind stalls on this.

This is exactly how I am not able to witness amplified live music any more (this was discussed in another thread). But this is also how I can't listen to any 0.00001% THD ESS because all what should be square is too much sine and violins are closer to flutes. So mind you, this works as long as you did not hear the real violins through your system; it stops ones and for all after you heard the violins. After that you can't go back.

 

The even better example :

Most systems that I know are these days able to show the cymbal quite alright and sufficiently loud, but can not show the attack well (the cymbal of course has first to be hot before it can make its sound). This is something we can 100% live with, no matter in a live situation we will naturally hear how different it is in reality. We don't even think about it. The brain thinks "so be it". However, the minute your system can show the attack, there is no way you will ever be able to listen to speakers (also not your friend's) without that attack.

 

The fun of this hobby is and remains that you thus don't know about all of these things, unless you are spoiled.

I think this is a crucial part of the bugs story, because when suddenly no attacks are there on the cymbal, there has to be a bug somewhere ...

[fas42]

56 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

The even better example :

Most systems that I know are these days able to show the cymbal quite alright and sufficiently loud, but can not show the attack well (the cymbal of course has first to be hot before it can make its sound). This is something we can 100% live with, no matter in a live situation we will naturally hear how different it is in reality. We don't even think about it. The brain thinks "so be it". However, the minute your system can show the attack, there is no way you will ever be able to listen to speakers (also not your friend's) without that attack.

 

The fun of this hobby is and remains that you thus don't know about all of these things, unless you are spoiled.

I think this is a crucial part of the bugs story, because when suddenly no attacks are there on the cymbal, there has to be a bug somewhere ...

 

Yes, violins and cymbals ... very good "measuring sticks" - and, attack is what it's about. A chap up the road has full blown best drivers open baffle, and sealed subwoofers, in an all active, completely DSP corrected ensemble - meaty, tweaked Naim amplifiers - should do the goods, eh?!

 

First time I listened - oh so soft, where's the volume?! Had to prod and push - more volume, more volume - finally got to the end of the travel, and now we were starting to do good things ... at its best, it did a fine job, but the attack wasn't happening, in some of my key test CDs ... work to be done!!

[bibo01]

@PeterSt, does your cable have some similarity with AntiCable? i am thinking of the dielectric and the "air" you talked about...

[PeterSt]

36 minutes ago, bibo01 said:

@PeterSt, does your cable have some similarity with AntiCable? i am thinking of the dielectric and the "air" you talked about...

 

Some times I wonder how people come to certain ideas. 

The answer is No, but you don't know how close you are with your suggestion.

 

One of my "analogue" approaches was just this and it gave indeed the same kind of sound as doing this with loudspeaker cables. But then I don't like that sound ... So it went into the trash bin.

The intriguing thing is about how it is possible that this sounds similar via an USB cable ?

Some times I am think that certain approaches travel through the mains or air and impacts everything in the same fashion. FWIW and this is probably 0.00.