Jump to content
IGNORED

Michael Lavorgna strikes back.......


Recommended Posts

2 hours ago, plissken said:

 

Read the "The Antenna Myth" by Siemons.

 

CAT6 UTP is basically noise immune up to 30 MEGA hertz. It's CMNR and there are transformer couplings at both the switch and the NIC card.

 

Plus I put a $233 per foot Nordost Heimdall II (3 footer) up against $0.30 a foot CAT5e (315 foot) threw that under a running microwave and then proceeded to capture the output into an ADC, post it here at CA and no one could tell when the cables were swapped.

 

 

OK.. I took a look at the Siemons article.. so what you are promoting is that although there is some antenna effect, it is not audible ?

Link to comment
55 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

What is more,  these 'network players' and servers are grossly overpriced, and limited. (You have to wait until the manufacturer decides to support some new streaming service, for example. Mine,  purchased in a foolish moment, doesn't even support Tidal yet.)  Also there is no way whatsoever that they can 'sound' better  than a regular PC or a Mac. And further, these various audio software  'optimisers' that claim to cut down the 'overhead'  are a total nonsense as audio is extremely trivial for even a low powered home computer.

Do you think this is true for serving via USB, or only via Ethernet ? I think most the hardware and software optimizer stuff I have encountered is more relating to USB.. I am only starting on Ethernet with the standard SMS200, but there are options for advanced clocking available, as well as power supplies. Software changes when using a USB path is obvious in my system, and I have seen posts relating to Rednet use that imply software tweaking at the source is audible, although seems to me not as profound as the USB path.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, Spacehound said:

 

It's easy to say, I know, but I genuinely think most of these 'differences' are expectation biases, particularly  when we have put time, and maybe money,  into them. And for the same reason, if tried , they are always said to be an 'improvement', which makes me even more suspicious. And I have tried some of these things, it's very easy to convince yourself they are 'better'. Humans don't like doing things and finding out their efforts were futile.

....

It's very easy to be stuck in an 'analog' paradigm and many people are. 'Digital'  is completely different. 

 

An interesting reality check #1

is to go back to what was supposed to be wrong with S/PDIF in the first place ie "jitter". But by the time the Benchmark dac1 had been invented jitter was demonstrably not a problem even with cables 200ft long. or with a coat hanger as a cable. And there was no reason why it should be. After all the sample rate of the file is not a secret. There never was any reason why the data transmission rate (or any jitter in it)  had to affect the conversion clock.

Electrical noise Toslink.

But that causes jitter. See above.

So if we have a toslink interface and a buffer or asrc which enables us to transmit the J test signal with pretty much zero artefacts. Then what effect does the transport have? 

But it still sounds different to me. Yes that's because you are a human being. 

But my hobby is buying new bits of electrical kit and enjoying the fact that having makes me listen to my music with renewed interest.

Proceed as before. 

Can I have some stuff that sounds like science to go with that?

 

 

You are not a sound quality measurement device

Link to comment
7 hours ago, vmartell22 said:

... there is nothing wrong with any individual hearing a difference. However (and I repeat):

 

It cannot be accepted as evidence that there is a difference.

 

5 hours ago, Spacehound said:

Quite frankly I don't hear the slightest difference between Ethernet and USB ...

 

It cannot be accepted as evidence that there is no difference.   :D

"People hear what they see." - Doris Day

The forum would be a much better place if everyone were less convinced of how right they were.

Link to comment
7 hours ago, vmartell22 said:

 

I posted this over at part-time audiophile in the discussion of a Nordost ethernet cable review:

 

 

 I repeat - there is nothing wrong with any individual hearing a difference. However (and I repeat):

 

It cannot be accepted as evidence that there is a difference.

 

v

 

 

 

 

That’s a very reasonable and kindly worded post. If only everyone presenting facts or opinions took the same route :~)

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

Link to comment
29 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

 

It cannot be accepted as evidence that there is no difference.   :D

True.

Simply because it is impossible to prove a negative.

And you can't even find 'evidence'  for non-existence either  :D 

 

Cables:

I recently saw a 'report'  in a well-known US hifi magazine on a short USB cable costing 10,000 dollars!  And it isn't even USB certified, which certification  most DACs are designed to work with.

 

It wasn't a Nordhost but if Chris thinks I'm (or most other reasonably sane people) are  going to look on such stuff "kindly" he's got far too much faith in his fellow human beings :P

Link to comment
3 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

It wasn't a Nordhost but if Chris thinks I'm (or most other reasonably sane people) are  going to look on such stuff "kindly" he's got far too much faith in his fellow human beings :P

 

No need to personally look on such stuff kindly, only a request that comments are reasonable and kind towards others. 

 

I’m all for people loving or hating things and expressing opinions. 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

Link to comment
7 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

No need to personally look on such stuff kindly, only a request that comments are reasonable and kind towards others. 

 

I’m all for people loving or hating things and expressing opinions. 

I think I am reasonable kind about people. But I don't have to be kind about short lengths of  'domestic' wire costing 10,000 dollars - I don't think 'They' even spend that much  taxpayers money on short lengths wire for the F-35!!!

Link to comment
7 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

I think I am reasonable kind about people. But I don't have to be kind about short lengths of  'domestic' wire costing 10,000 dollars - I don't think 'They' even spend that much  taxpayers money on short lengths wire for the F-35!!!

I’m certainly not defending it, but if there was a gov customer willing to pay that much for an F35 cable, there’d be a company willing to sell it at that price. Doesn’t make it right, wrong, or indifferent. 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

Link to comment
8 hours ago, Spacehound said:

And further, these various audio software  'optimisers' that claim to cut down the 'overhead'  are a total nonsense as audio is extremely trivial for even a low powered home computer. I run JRiver 23, Tidal, and Duet Display (thank you Chris for drawing my attention to it) and CPU usage has never exceeded 6% and that only when changing tracks. 

 

Funny you mention that. I took a fresh Windows 10 install and stripped it down of un-needed services. I then went into perf-mon and turned on all the different cache counters/tracing. 

 

Even with a system dragging along at maybe 1% CPU usage you could see all the system I/O still going on as cache, paging, irq processes. 

 

I posted a screen shot in another thread here and it was 'Silence of the Subjectivists'. 

Link to comment
23 minutes ago, mansr said:

S/PDIF does require that the receiver somehow synchronises its clock with the sender. The standard simple solution is a PLL, which necessarily passes through jitter below its cut-off frequency, and even if the source is perfect, the PLL output will never be as stable as a good crystal oscillator. 

Yes this was an exciting discovery because it opened out the possibility of solving this problem. Then they did and it changed nothing.

You are not a sound quality measurement device

Link to comment
6 hours ago, motberg said:

Do you think this is true for serving via USB, or only via Ethernet ? I think most the hardware and software optimizer stuff I have encountered is more relating to USB.. I am only starting on Ethernet with the standard SMS200, but there are options for advanced clocking available, as well as power supplies. Software changes when using a USB path is obvious in my system, and I have seen posts relating to Rednet use that imply software tweaking at the source is audible, although seems to me not as profound as the USB path.

I don't know, I've only tested a few things and except for streaming, when AFAIK  there is no alternative from the service providers router to your box  I rarely use local ethernet for  data transmission of what eventually will become sound.

 

And with some software players including JRiver (which I use) you can detach the Ethernet cable completely and the music will continue until the music has ended, even if it is more than an hour long, so Ethernet is out of the picture and it's going from computer RAM (16 Gb in my case)   via USB to the DAC. Even the computers disks are usually stopped. 

 

Software 'optimizers'  work on shutting down non-relevant parts of the operating system, but as the total load including any music player software  rarely exceeds single digit percent CPU load without such 'optimisation'  I don't think it can achieve much.

 

Personally I don't know what a 'network player' does with ethernet data (as my only 'professional'  dealings with ethernet was as a 'cable layer' at weekends for extra pay :D).

But my 'network player' is a regular USB DAC too so I can listen either way with a flick of the input selector switch  and a matching  JRiver 'zone' change. As I said earlier, I don't hear any difference no matter how much I fiddle about.

 

As I am sure you know, 'digital' either works or it doesn't. Unlike 'analog' there is no gradual degradation as the signal gets worse. And noise is not carried over from one part of the process to the next, any noise is 'new' noise at each stage, though there can always be noise pickup from the external surroundings and on ground leads.  In my case it is always totally inaudible even at full volume, and even in  the worst case which is JRiver playing 'silence' (thus placing a load on the computer as 'silence' still consists of bits to process)  and my ear against the speaker. 

 

I have a feeling we 'tweak' simply because in the days of 'analog', particularly with a vinyl turntable,  you could  tweak endlessly, often having an effect, and we miss that pleasure :)

Link to comment
1 hour ago, plissken said:

 

Funny you mention that. I took a fresh Windows 10 install and stripped it down of un-needed services. I then went into perf-mon and turned on all the different cache counters/tracing. 

 

Even with a system dragging along at maybe 1% CPU usage you could see all the system I/O still going on as cache, paging, irq processes. 

 

I posted a screen shot in another thread here and it was 'Silence of the Subjectivists'. 

Got that link? I missed it. 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

Link to comment
12 minutes ago, motberg said:

third sentence

 

The fact is that both screens and shields and the copper balanced twisted-pairs in a UTP cable will behave as an antenna to some degree.

You need to read the article in full and then gain appreciation for that 3rd sentence and the context it is written in. 

 

"The good news is that the balance performance of the cable itself is sufficient up to 30 MHz to ensure minimum susceptibility to disturbance from these noise sources regardless of the presence of an overall screen/shield"

 

Anyways I'm a huge proponent of wireless. 

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...