How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

[Ralf11]

there are files with added jitter posted on the internet & IIRC on some Stereophile test discs

 

 

anyone claiming skin effect affects audio signals should be skinned

[esldude]

3 hours ago, davide256 said:

 

That a very 1800's or DC power view of electrical conduction, kind of ignores quantum dynamics. When dealing with AC current, skin effect applies for conductors and junction effects for the joining of two different metals ( cable and terminating cable plug)

Very 1800's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_equations

 

Yes, I should have mentioned Heaviside's influence on this too.  

 

[esldude]

2 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

I agree with that. One thing I like about the Head Fi forum is that they keep the threads focused on practical discussions about equipment reviews and good combinations to try, and the moderators intervene pretty quickly when an off-topic 'cables don't matter' or similar discussion starts.

 

If the thread is in the middle of a 'cables don't matter' argument, it makes it very difficult to recommend specific cables. On this particular thread entitled 'How much does it cost to be an audiophile' you would expect that the main contents of the thread would be recommendations for entry level systems, including cable recommendations, as even if you believe they all sound the same, you still need cables to actually make the system work.

 

I listed such a suggested system on page 2.  It involved the LSR305s listed in your sig.  (happen to have some LX5 btw).  It appeared to generate no interest.  A complete musical system for less cost than a USB cable.  Not expensive enough to convince apparently.  Not even discussion agreeing with or disagreeing.  So I assume most people read it, discounted it completely thinking I don't have an idea what good sound is, and went on to post all this other silliness. 

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

there are files with added jitter posted on the internet & IIRC on some Stereophile test discs

 

I was thinking of a tool that can let me adjust jitter level, and to apply correlated or uncorrelated jitter to a music passage of my choosing would be the way to test my own ability to detect various types and levels. If Yamamoto's utility doesn't quite do that, I'll have to think about how to build it. 

 

Seems to me that a utility that can introduce IMD, various levels of even/odd harmonics, frequency response variations, jitter, phase changes between left and right channel, etc. with some adjustable controls could be very useful in finding out what is truly audible. Maybe with some ABX functionality built in

[sandyk]

8 hours ago, Jud said:

So for example, how many of you have extensive experience or training with the differences in sound caused by varying levels of jitter?  I certainly don't.  How would you ever expect to recognize something like that if you don't know what to listen for?

 

 Hi Jud

The extra points from John Kenny and myself were posted in a U.K. forum some time back. Barrows has also posted an excellent explanation in C.A. some time ago.

Regar4ds

Alex

 

Quote

This is a quotation from Bob Katz, well known recording & audio mastering engineer posted here www.digido.com/audio-faq/j/jitter-better-sound.html

After an engineer learns to identify the sound of signal-correlated jitter, then you can move on to recognizing the more subtle forms of jitter and finally, can be more prepared to subjectively judge whether one source sounds better than another.

Here are some audible symptoms of jitter that allow us to determine that one source sounds "better" than another with a reasonable degree of scientific backing:

It is well known that jitter degrades stereo image, separation, depth, ambience, dynamic range.

Therefore, when during a listening comparison, comparing source A versus source B (and both have already been proved to be identical bitwise):

The source which exhibits greater stereo ambience and depth is the "better" one.

The source which exhibits more apparent dynamic range is the "better" one.

The source which is less edgy on the high end (most obvious sonic signature of signal correlated jitter) is the "better" one.

And a reply:
The better one, and it is better, is also easier to listen to. . . less fatiguing. I would also add to this that the low end just "feels" bigger and more solid. This is perhaps a psychoacoustic affect more than a measurable one. It may be that the combination of a less edgy high end and greater depth and width makes the bass seem better.

All of this makes sense if thought of in terms of timing (that is what we're talking about isn't it ;-]). With minimal jitter nothing is smeared, a note and all its harmonics line up, the sound is more liquid (a term probably from the "audiophile" crowd but one which accurately describes the sound none the less), and images within the soundstage are clearly defined.

Now some extra points:
- listener fatigue is reduced or completely eliminated
- the sound can be turned up higher without any distortion being evident
- the sound can also be turned down lower & the full dynamics are still retained but at a lower volume

 

[sandyk]

7 hours ago, gmgraves said:

I use the Logitech Squeezebox Touch for that. It also works directly from the internet to select and play most Internet radio "stations" too. The exception, like I said is when I need to access a web-site directly to play something like the BBC FLAC feeds. 

 The SBT is capable of a marked improvement in SQ when using a better PSU such as the attached design from John Swenson which many DIY Audio members constructed.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

So I assume most people read it, discounted it completely thinking I don't have an idea what good sound is, and went on to post all this other silliness. 

 

 Perhaps you don't ?   

[Jud]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I was thinking of a tool that can let me adjust jitter level, and to apply correlated or uncorrelated jitter to a music passage of my choosing would be the way to test my own ability to detect various types and levels. If Yamamoto's utility doesn't quite do that, I'll have to think about how to build it. 

 

Seems to me that a utility that can introduce IMD, various levels of even/odd harmonics, frequency response variations, jitter, phase changes between left and right channel, etc. with some adjustable controls could be very useful in finding out what is truly audible. Maybe with some ABX functionality built in

 

And to possibly train yourself to consciously recognize what was perhaps only subconsciously noticed before.

 

Don't expect quick results.  Academic work indicates a week of training is probably not enough. (In the experiment I'm thinking of, memory was tested for a trope common to Western but not South Asian music.  As expected, Western test subjects did better than South Asian.  A week of training did not enable the South Asian subjects to do any better.)

[fas42]

2 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I was thinking of a tool that can let me adjust jitter level, and to apply correlated or uncorrelated jitter to a music passage of my choosing would be the way to test my own ability to detect various types and levels. If Yamamoto's utility doesn't quite do that, I'll have to think about how to build it. 

 

Seems to me that a utility that can introduce IMD, various levels of even/odd harmonics, frequency response variations, jitter, phase changes between left and right channel, etc. with some adjustable controls could be very useful in finding out what is truly audible. Maybe with some ABX functionality built in

 

I would suggest that everything is audible, to at least to some people, if the level of disturbance was sufficiently high. So, having gone through the difficult exercise of setting it up well enough to confirm audbility what have you achieved in terms of getting normal systems sounding better ... ummm, absolutely zip!

 

None of distortion/noise mechanisms that I tackle are nice, clean, beautifully behaved artifacts like the ones you mention - oh no, they're nasty things which are partly random, partly signal modulated, partly time dependent - they're all over the place; which is one reason why they are disturbing, subjectively - we can't acclimatise to their presence, they are not predictable by the ear/brain.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, esldude said:

I listed such a suggested system on page 2.  It involved the LSR305s listed in your sig.  (happen to have some LX5 btw).  It appeared to generate no interest.  A complete musical system for less cost than a USB cable.  Not expensive enough to convince apparently.  Not even discussion agreeing with or disagreeing.  So I assume most people read it, discounted it completely thinking I don't have an idea what good sound is, and went on to post all this other silliness. 

 

A good way to tackle acquiring understanding of what matters ... I did an exercise some years ago of purchasing similar Behringers, with the intention of ruthlessly eliminating all the weaknesses, to extract competent sound. It turned out that there were so many things that needed to be tackled, just from visual inspection and analysis of the circuit, that I wasn't motivated to proceed with the exercise - it sits there, waiting for the Round Tuit ...

 

The LSR305s sound much closer to being good enough - starting from fresh, I would grab a pair, and hack them to bits, to push the envelope - if they get wrecked on the way nothing much has been lost.

 

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Reductive physics, yes.  But as anyone who's ever experienced a ground loop knows, there are other characteristics of that bit of cable's behavior as part of a system that can on occasion be plainly audible.  Can a different type of cable in the same orientation change something like a ground loop?  They were RCA rather than coax, but yes, I've had the experience of significantly diminishing a ground hum just by switching out RCA cables to my turntable.

 

Now rather than diminishing an audible ground hum to a less plainly audible ground hum, could different cables change something like, for example, a ground loop current from subconsciously irritating to undetectable?  Conceivably.

Yes Jud, but a ground loop isn't, strictly speaking, a cable characteristic. It's a configuration problem.

[fas42]

5 hours ago, Jud said:

 

This is exactly why fights like "Cables don't matter! Yes they do!" don't help, and why simple explanations like the one you just gave can allow anyone who pays attention to get better sound without spending a hell of a lot.

 

There is an incredibly simple technique for assessing whether it's advantageous to try tweaking, modifying a system - there are hundreds of suggestions, on countless forums and blogs, etc on doing simple things which may alter the sound. Try any of them, with an open mind, and if you can hear a difference then the rig will benefit from doing work on it - DON'T go down the ""It must pass the DBT test" route!! Doing the latter will almost guarantee getting a null result - if the immediate, instinctive response is that the SQ altered, then - it has.

 

I've spent peanuts over the years, to get my results ... the answers don't require money, unless you want someone else to do all the work for you.

[Jud]

44 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Hi Jud

The extra points from John Kenny and myself were posted in a U.K. forum some time back. Barrows has also posted an excellent explanation in C.A. some time ago.

Regar4ds

Alex

 

 

 

On the other hand, there was a test posted on CA with three or four pairs of music files, asking members to pick the one that had the least jitter in each pair.    @bluesman a professional musician with decades of experience (as well as being an accomplished physician), whose ears are so well trained he was able to discern the size of the piano used in one of @Mario Martinez' high res recordings purely by listening, picked the file with more jitter in each case as sounding more natural.  (As did I, but I'm not a musician and make no claim to golden ears.). So it's no good having an idea of what sounds better or more natural to you.  First you need the training to know quite specifically what the distortion sounds like, *then* you may be able to recognize music that has less of this added distortion.

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, davide256 said:

 

That a very 1800's or DC power view of electrical conduction, kind of ignores quantum dynamics. When dealing with AC current, skin effect applies for conductors and junction effects for the joining of two different metals ( cable and terminating cable plug)

There is no skin effect at audio frequencies. Quantum dynamics? In audio cables? Gimme a break! Remember, video signals go through connection junctions too as do radar signals, Internet signals, fly-by-wire aircraft control signals etc. Those signals don't get changed in any measurable or noticeable way by and they all connect to one another by connectors. 

 

You are grasping at straws and most of you keep ignoring the elephant in the room. These phenomenon that you keep associating with audio cables never detectably affect other types of signals. The reason why there is no explanation for why cables change the signal that passes through them, is because no serious study of cable behavior has ever turned-up any hard evidence that they do so and no one has ever seen such a phenomenon in any other field electronics. In short, cables change signals in predictable ways, governed by the well known rules of electronics. And none of this rules apply to short runs of coax at audio frequencies

[Jud]

14 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Yes Jud, but a ground loop isn't, strictly speaking, a cable characteristic. It's a configuration problem.

 

But a configuration problem that can be relieved by changing cables.   (In my particular case, nothing else I tried first worked.)

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

16 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Yes Jud, but a ground loop isn't, strictly speaking, a cable characteristic. It's a configuration problem.

 

But its the interaction of the cable in the system that manifests the change, No ?

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

If the thread is in the middle of a 'cables don't matter' argument, it makes it very difficult to recommend specific cables.

If cable's don't matter, why recommend specific cables? If cables do matter, one person can't recommend a cable to another anyway, because people's taste in sound are different, and from what I read, cable aficionados say that the same cable sounds different in different applications. But another characteristic of cable believers seems to be that there is no such thing as a bad boutique cable, and the more you spend, the better the cable sounds - as if that's not fishy!

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 hours ago, esldude said:

I listed such a suggested system on page 2.  It involved the LSR305s listed in your sig.  (happen to have some LX5 btw).  It appeared to generate no interest.  A complete musical system for less cost than a USB cable.  Not expensive enough to convince apparently.  Not even discussion agreeing with or disagreeing.  So I assume most people read it, discounted it completely thinking I don't have an idea what good sound is, and went on to post all this other silliness. 

 

Dennis, General forum discussions IMO can Generally all be renamed "let's just pick up where we left off in the last thread". The topics tend to lend themselves to the same line of arguments, there are no moderators to keep strictly on topic (not saying we should have them, been there done that), and there are no real answers to the topic question anyway.

 

 

[Ralf11]

which cable are you guys talking about?

[Nordkapp]

5 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

I agree with that. One thing I like about the Head Fi forum is that they keep the threads focused on practical discussions about equipment reviews and good combinations to try, and the moderators intervene pretty quickly when an off-topic 'cables don't matter' or similar discussion starts.

 

If the thread is in the middle of a 'cables don't matter' argument, it makes it very difficult to recommend specific cables. On this particular thread entitled 'How much does it cost to be an audiophile' you would expect that the main contents of the thread would be recommendations for entry level systems, including cable recommendations, as even if you believe they all sound the same, you still need cables to actually make the system work.

 

In my opinion, Head-fi is way to militant in their policing of threads. It's gotten so bad over there that I hardly post anymore. At the first sign of any heated debates, they shut it down. Personally, I don't mind guys settling it themselves. There's just too much sponsor money there dictating discussions. God forbid anyone trashes Schiit. I've seen guys get shut down immediately at that point. Too P.C. for me. My 2 cents......

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 The SBT is capable of a marked improvement in SQ when using a better PSU such as the attached design from John Swenson which many DIY Audio members constructed.

That's a fact. If you use the analog portion of the SBT. I have an HP/Harrison Labs Model 6201A low-noise laboratory power supply that I often swap out for wall-warts to see (hear?) what difference it makes. If I use the DAC/audio output driver on the SBT, the HP supply makes a night and day difference in SQ. If I come out of the SBT's coax or Toslink SPDIF outputs to an outboard processor, (which is my normal mode of operation), I don't hear any difference. 

[gmgraves]

21 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

But its the interaction of the cable in the system that manifests the change, No ?

Sure, but that's irrelevant to the point because if you take that cable out of the ground loop position and put it somewhere else, it probably won't cause a ground loop. It's not a characteristic of the cable, because it's not the cable per se that's the problem

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

10 hours ago, mansr said:

There is also this possibility:

 

Re the red pill/ blue pill -the possibly of chance occurrence is true as is the other explanations; that there is no audio measurement identified that explains the perceptual difference (aka you are measuring the wrong thing); that a reason for the audible difference has/is being identified;  a new measurement specification will be identified.

 

None of this changes the evidence as it stands when dealing with these possibilities and that is 100:1 against it being a chance occurrence.

 

Even if it was 1,0000,00000: 1 against a chance occurrence there remains that  possibility of chance.One has to set the acceptable significance levels before entering into an experiment or otherwise, by definition, nothing will be accepted.

 

As said previously, if that 100:1 could be reproduced by @manisandher  one more time it would be approaching conclusive (for want of a better word and avoiding "proof"). As it is, IMO, it is very significant (p=0.01).

[gmgraves]

27 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

But a configuration problem that can be relieved by changing cables.   (In my particular case, nothing else I tried first worked.)

Yes, and????

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

4 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Sure, but that's irrelevant to the point because if you take that cable out of the ground loop position and put it somewhere else, it probably won't cause a ground loop. It's not a characteristic of the cable, because it's not the cable per se that's the problem

 

And yet in the instance described you still hear a difference by changing the cable