Understanding USB

[fas42]

Just to emphasise what opus101 is saying, all electrical signals are always analogue - it's just in computers, digital processing that the signals are treated as representing data, 'pure' information. In audio the only thing that really matters is how our ears perceive the sound - this is an analogue process, not digital. And, unfortunately, it turns out that our ears are very sensitive to disturbances in those analogue waveforms which can be caused by those parts of circuit processing which are called, "digital".

[fas42]

Just now, beerandmusic said:

 

Even in music, it is digital (and useless) until it is converted.

 

And that conversion process needs to be as "perfect" as possible. Again, the reality is that the circuitry doing this particular job has to be pristine in implementation - if it's not, you can hear it; and this is why CD sound got such a bad rap for decades ...

[fas42]

The issue appears to be that you think that digital circuitry thinks "digital" - no, it never, ever does - it's just us humans decide that it produces an output which is pure data - we choose to interpret it that way.

[fas42]

3 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

AMen +1

 

Do you agree that even a "noisy pc" will not be an issue provided you are using a decent dac (e.g. gungnir w/usbgen5 & audioquest forest cable)?

 

 

 

The trouble with your thinking is that in terms of what's really important for optimum SQ there are very few "decent dac"s - yes, they all meet the spec's and measurement wise they are brilliant ... but that's not the same thing as being 100% robust - note, not using the word "accurate" here - in terms of generating a precise analogue representation of the music digital data. Dismissing the issue as something that engineers and designers should have under control is not helpful in appreciating the situation ...

[fas42]

8 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

Well that is my point of the thread.  That we are here today with technology (albeit extremely slow to the gate), where with proper DAC engineering of buffering, isolation, that the hardware source transmitting the binary file should no longer matter.

 

 

Yes, I agree entirely. So, we have 2 approaches:

 

1) Treat the DAC as being extremely fragile - the slightest flapping of butterfly wings on the other side of the world causes palpitations in the circuitry, affecting the sound.

 

2) Make the DAC incredibly robust - plug a working, heavy duty arc welder into the same mains circuit and it should have zero impact on the SQ.

 

I favour approach 2), but the world is largely running with 1) ...

[fas42]

1 hour ago, beerandmusic said:

thank you, i trust everything you have said as factual. 

I do believe more expensive cables "may" help where older non-modern dacs may not have properly isolated noise, but I believe that in a well designed modern dac with noise isolation, that neither the cable or the hardware source really matters much, if at all, anymore.

 

Depends upon how fussy one is about the quality of reproduction - in the realm that I'm interested in, one needs to be 'fanatical' about every tiny aspect of the system and its environment, to achieve and maintain that level - if one is happy with a "lower standard" then there would be plenty of components, casually set up, that would do the job ...

[fas42]

20 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

referring to Schiit yggi and gungnir with usb gen5.

Kind of ridiculous in my mind to have to chain toys instead of properly designing a DAC.

I hope others follow suit of managing noise issues without needing a chain of "toys" or stupid cables....surprised it has taken this long.

 

This is sorta the whole problem with current audio ... systems, which are almost always a hodge podge of boxes and cables, are not "properly designed" - so, "noise issues" are rampant. Why it's taking so long to fix the situation is that, firstly, the people who have the necessary technical skills don't recognise or accept that there is a problem; and secondly, the measuring equipment to put numbers to what's going on are not on every test bench, or the correct methodology for deriving useful data is not known.