The Best for the Least

[sandyk]

30 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

If you’re saying the best measurements are what matters, we can probably find a product with -150dB SNR that will clearly be better than one with -149.  

 

If you do , it will have nothing to do with just the extra 1dB improvement in SNR.

[sandyk]

25 minutes ago, plissken said:

Items like the zero crosding glitch glitch in the Yggdrasil were much ado about nothing to people who listen rather than look. 

 

 Did Mani look first , or listen first ?

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

That was a DAC that was helped considerably by a Regen.  Then again so would some affordable powered USB hubs.  

 

Hmmm.

Is that the first time ever,  that you have conceded that a USB Regen MAY improve USB Audio ?

What makes you so sure that it won't also offer some further improvement in a higher quality system, or after this one-off comment are you going back to quoting the rubbish spouted in another forum by  highly vocal measurement type persons (including Plissken) who believe that USB Regens are a Con Job ?

[sandyk]

10 minutes ago, esldude said:

It is the only instance I know where a Regen helped unequivocally.  The same people tried measuring the Regen to find a benefit with other DACs.  I seemed to recall there was a case where it made a tiny, likely inaudible difference, and was a mixed bag.  Somethings a touch better some worse.  Mostly for all the DACs tested no one could find it did anything except sometimes  cause 60 hz harmonics to show up slightly higher.  

 

 Yet 1,000s of C.A. members love their Regens, including ISO Regens.

You still haven't tried using one with your DAC have you ?

Perhaps if the Meanwell SMPS used to power the Regens originally had their  0 volts rails earthed, the measurements may have been markedly better ?

Actually, I obtain a higher order of performance when powering a Regen via a 12V 15,000mAH Lin Ion battery etc.

USB hates any additional capacitance to Mains Earth via the power supply used !

[sandyk]

39 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

It means it took an objectivist to do what the manufacturer failed to do. This is the same objectivist that showed the original Regen added noise to otherwise competent DAC outputs.

 

It's the same objectivist that showed the LPS-1 supercap PSU added noise to otherwise competent DAC's. 

 

There's a pattern here and and no, you don't get to cherry pick. 

 

This is what has led me to believe that these devices make a difference by 'getting dirty' and that audiophiles like that added distortions. 

 

That's BS.

 Numerous members have obtained markedly improved SQ using a USB Regen simply by either grounding the 0 volts of the supplied Meanwell SMPS, or better still, using a low noise Linear PSU to power the Regen.

Even better is to power the Regen using a 12V Li Ion battery with no connection to mains earth whatsoever.

Even when using an R-Core transformer in a Linear PSU to power the Regen, connecting the transformer's shield wire to Mains Earth causes a small degradation in SQ due to the increased capacitance to mains earth.

 I fitted a toggle switch to this PSU to verify these results readily, simply by connecting /disconnecting the shield to earth connection.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Spacehound said:

Now tell us how many 'numerous members' didn't find any improvement.

 

 Here we go again. Yet another closed minded computer guy who believes that all that matters is that the 1s and 0s are exported in the correct sequence from the USB port or whatever !

It's a waste of time anybody discussing anything with people like yourself.

 Going by your recent posts, it appears that like another member, you have a problem with Audiophiles in general.

BYE !

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

If we didn't know 100%  how computers worked  including the USB port  we wouldn't be able to make them. 

 

 What a load of arrogant codswallop !

 

 Even .wav files with identical checksums can sound a little different, and it mainly depends on the PSU areas.

This also applies to when these same files are burned in pairs to the same CD-R, despite the .md5s still being identical after being ripped to HDD/SSD again.

 As a Pom, and now retired,  you have possibly heard of E.E. and technical journalist Martin Colloms (Hi Fi Critic magazine and Forum)  ?

 Well he has confirmed via 6 positive separate  Blind sessions on different dates, with 8 repeats in each session, from .wav files with identical .md5 checksums that I provided, that the PSU area does indeed matter.

 

 Many C.A.  members are also reporting the benefits of improved power supplies too, even with internal SSDs.

 

If you want further info, use the Search facility.

[sandyk]

8 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

And a lot of the time you tell us how useless most EE's are. But when you find a rare one that happens to agree with your findings   about something he becomes  a 'valued expert'.

 

He is a valued expert , because unlike most of you so called "experts" ,  he went to the trouble of bothering to correctly perform DBTs to prove the issue one way or another.

Most of you just rabbit on about how all that matters is the correct sequence of 1s and 0s being all that matters !

I bet that you haven't even tried a USB Regen with a decent PSU either, yet you are willing to label them as useless !

[sandyk]

8 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

Read  my last line again.

Quote

Now tell us how many 'numerous members' didn't find any improvement.

0

 

 This implies that you believe that USB Regens are a waste of time, and would never even bother to try one.

Correct ?

[sandyk]

4 hours ago, BobSherman said:

Here is is quote: 

"Immediately though, there is a major source of concern. Check out the IEC plug:

We have a 3-prong, grounded IEC socket but the ground lug doesn't go anywhere! It must be connected to the case as this is metal and an electrical short can energize it. Only a double insulated piece of equipment can be run on two wires. Which this is not.

This is a major safety flaw! I can't recommend purchasing this equipment on this basis!"

The red herring comment regarding the insulated wire touching the circuit board comes later.

 Does it really matter whether you use a 2 pin socket or a 3pin IEC socket provided that the earth of the 3 pin socket is not connected ?

A 3 pin IEC plug and socket is far more robust, and less likely to have the plug fall out, although it is possible that this is not permissible ?  You also have a further advantage that some IEC 3 pin sockets also have an inbuilt safety type fuse holder.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Spacehound said:

But it you measure it, and find that it  (be "it" a DAC, amp, speaker, whatever) has low noise, a flat frequency response, low phase shift throughout its frequency response, and a high input impedance and a low output impedance so it will work well with whatever is in front of it and behind it:

 

It can't HELP but reproduce the source accurately.

 

 

 You forgot to mention channel separation , which for highest performance needs to be much greater than we originally gave it credit for. A good amplifier can have all those other attributes, but construct it in a dual mono configuration with very good separate power supplies, perhaps with the front ends also having separate voltage regulation, and it will almost always sound more realistic with good source material.

Many are now finding that the use of VERY low noise PSUs results in audible and visual gains in almost all A/V gear.

Many are now obtaining improved results in different gear using  LT3045  .8uV noise voltage regulators, both for the digital and analogue areas.

Even replacing the generic high voltage bridge rectifier diodes in the SMPS of earlier DVD players with fast , slow recovery BYV26E diodes can result in a glossier more saturated picture when seen via a HD projector.

The use of very closely matched Differential pairs (HFE and VBE) in the front end of an amplifier can also result in very worthwhile improvements, despite the devices already being matched to within 1% !

The typical Current Mirror is the culprit here, because it doesn't take into account the bias current of the VAS stage transistor on only one half of the LTP.

 

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/133018-current-mirror-discussion-15.html

[sandyk]

19 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

It wasn't intended to be a 100% complete list,  nor did I want to go into the 'finer points' as while they are all very nice the topic is about getting a 'genuine' hifi system at low cost.

 

 You make a " definitive " statement then become evasive when challenged on it  ! 

 

I agree though, it is off topic.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

If somebody says things at -200 db matters, its on them to explain why and how.  The claim is a stupendous one that one has no reason to take at face value without something to back it up. 

 

 I would like to see Miska's take on this subject.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

I think that he is suggesting that the main difference between SACD and 16/44.1 Redbook is the dynamic range. And if the music recorded has a dynamic range that doesn't exceed 96 dB (the dynamic range of Redbook) that a CD of that music and a SACD of that music should sound the same. What he's overlooking is a lot. Everything about the two formats is different: The Signal to noise ratio, the frequency response and the filters used in each format are totally different on both the recording end and the playback end and and all of that would account for differences in SQ between the two formats.   

 

 +1

 .mp3 may be good enough if you don't know better.

It is O.K. for use in cars and noisy environments though, but not high quality home systems .

 

Not even YouTube encodes their videos in .mp3 anymore, they use .aac encoding which is more faithful to the original provided that the bitrate used is at least 187Kilobits, and preferably higher.

.mp3 is a quickly dying format which is evidenced by the greatly reduced amount of .mp3 material available on the Internet, where .flac has virtually become the defacto standard due to it's ability to be losslessly restored to the original format, and it's lower storage space demands.

40dB to 50dB of channel separation will not give you pin point imaging.

 With some material on vinyl, the central image (e.g. vocalist) appears to be quite unnaturally broad, and a little louder than it should be , although some may like this.

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, STC said:

It is common knowledge that AAC at similar bitrate sounds better than MP3. 

 

 Most discerning C.A. members will also find that CD sounds better than .aac too. 

 

BTW, very few Vinyl cartridges even have a channel separation of 35dB, which is way below optimum.

Many cartridges have very poor channel separation.

 https://www.google.com.au/search?source=hp&ei=ka-HWoeTFcj48gW7uJOoAw&q=typical+moving+coil+cartridge+channel+separation&oq=typical+moving+coil+cartridge+channel+separation&gs_l=psy-ab.2...0.0.15.25.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c..64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.HjbHqfFvtBk

 

[sandyk]

19 minutes ago, STC said:

Precisely, now you know all the extra measurements are just redundant for musical enjoyment.

 

  Only if you want them to be, and you appear to desperately want them to be to justify your silly claims about 99.9% of people being perfectly happy with .mp3.

The use of .mp3 carts with FM stereo for automation purposes, which dumbed down the SQ of the majority of commercial FM stations substantially,  is just another reason why the AM radio band, NOT SW (Surely you don't mean Short Wave radio ? ) hasn't had it's spectrum recovered for other uses.

The vast majority of the general population who own CD players don't even rip CDs or use .mp3 !

 

[sandyk]

Do you drag those stupid figures out of thin air ?

 

Quote

and Yes, short wave  spectrum has been reclaimed by audiophiles to stream their hi Rez files.Every kids oi there carry their precious hires files in their phone or iPods. 

 

Do you even know what the International Short Wave spectrum is ? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortwave_bands

 

  Very few people will be storing " their precious hires files"  in their phone or iPods due to storage limitations.

The vast majority will be storing normal resolution files,  in a Lossless format where possible, to conserve storage space and increase the amount of music stored.

 

 

 

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, STC said:

Sorry no time to respond further. You cannot  see the elephant in the room. 

 

 Perhaps not, but I can see the TROLL in the forum !

[sandyk]

33 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

Sure, i believe they are a lot biased, but a company that is as big as SONY could be sued for making false marketing claims.

 

The same applies to BluSpec which is available in Japan ,however Sony originally supplied 4 sets with 2 comparison CDs of the same material, WITH identical checksums, for the consumer to compare standard RB CD against the Blu Spec version, which was not only created using a Blue Laser for the stamper , but is claimed to use a different polycarbonate formulation for improved reading.

Yes, the Blu Spec version does sound better, but as the price of the CD player used for playing them gets much higher, the

audible differences generally decrease. ( e.g. The audible differences heard with a Marantz SA11 were considerably less than with typical consumer grade CD players.)

 The rival format SHM also sounds a little better than a normal CD with the same material.

 

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/music/hfcd/

[sandyk]

46 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

It is also very LOGICAL to me that higher sampling means more accuracy.

 

Higher sample rates permit more relaxed filtering above the audible range.

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, mansr said:

There is still some point beyond which an increased sample rate will not improve anything whatsoever.

 

 Of course.

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, jabbr said:

 

This is a DAC implementation detail that can be entirely handled in upsampling e.g. if DSD1024

 

 I don't like upsampling of the original music format in general, as it is additional, often intensive,  processing.

I will never use room correction software for the same reason.

In a PERFECT computer that didn't generate additional RF/EMI that may not matter though.

I also note that several members have reported a smoothing off of HF detail when this is done.

 

Personally, I prefer well recorded 24/96 or 24/192, with 24/192 seeming to be generally a little further improved,

although at my age I shouldn't be able to hear these differences according to currently accepted theory !.

 

[sandyk]

4 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

Every Sony product I've owned in last 40 years had some "feature" that made me want to pull my hair out.

 

 Did it result in an improvement ?  

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

I wished that Internet radio would quit using MP3 for music. I got a taste for better with last summer's Proms which the BBC streamed in 16-bit/48KHz FLAC. Left me wanting more. Of course, 24/88.2 or 24/96 would be even better. 

 

 Yes, 16/48 .flac can sound pretty good, however it would almost certainly sound a little better again if directly downloaded instead of streamed, and played from System Memory.

[sandyk]

48 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I suspect that you are correct, but downloading directly isn't really the way "radio" works. Radio is streaming, by definition. I hope that in the near future, Internet radio might be the best way to get "broadcast music"; especially WRT live concerts from around the world. I look forward to hearing the Boston, Chicago, San Francisco symphonies live in Hi-Rez audio along with the London Symphony, The Berlin Philharmonic, The Vienna Symphony, Moscow Symphony, The Sydney Symphony, etc. All live, in concert in my listening room! To me that is an exciting prospect. 

George

 That is assuming that they are actually LIVE, and not previously recorded due to Time Zone restrictions.

 Even then, it will still be far superior to most Internet material, with normally only up to 187Kilobits .aac , or the abysmally low Bitrate of DAB. What a farce, and no wonder most people have never heard of DAB, at least Downunder.

 Still, the original FM Stereo could also sound pretty damn good before they tried to make their stations the loudest on the FM band to attract travellers in  cars, and started using those infernal .MegaPoop3 carts for automated and unattended broadcasting ! (no more Night Shifts !)

 

Alex