Everything sounds the same

[PeterSt]

38 minutes ago, firedog said:

Real question: in a digital setup, why would anyone want to use a cable to color their sound instead of DSP?

 

I wrote a very ling essay of which I decided to keep it put not post. So let me stick to :

 

Nothing is coloring. I even said so explicitly, of course assuming that everybody knows what "coloring" as such is.

The Lush^1 is just a cable.

The JSSG 360 tweak is just "a" tweak and it makes the Lush^1 sound better.

The Lush^2 is a 10,000+ cables, with configurations which sound better than the original Lush^1 and also better than the JSSG 360 variant which in the end is only one of those 10,000+ variants.

 

Of course, those who are pertinent about a USB cable not being able to influence SQ anyway, will also not be able to understand. So they didn't even start reading this. OK.

But those who are interested and have the experience that the USB cable indeed influences SQ (or the sound in general) may wonder which situation actually is the one with least distortion. Is it the $1 cable ? is the the Supra ? the Curious ? the XYZ^2^2 ? The Clairixa then ? (it should be because it was made for that).

 

What all of these cables have in common for "variance" is their focus on a frequency range. And these can even be "several". For now think reflections. And yes, I know, it is a digital cable (application).

 

Generally I have been talking about emphasis to the mid, to the low-highs (which I somehow don't call high-mid), the highs and also the bass. Yeah, that seems all together. But the stupidity of the thing is that when the emphasis goes to the bass alone, you may have better bass (not coloring) but less mid and highs because that is how it works out. So the skill is to find a configuration where (e.g.) a voice is not singing on its own because the bass lines are there for a reason just the same.

 

Of course we can't tune for a voice etc. And of course that could better be done with DSP. One thing : DSP destroys (it would be the clear contrary of what I hunt for, starting with non-ringing filters) and this is not destructive at all. Unless, of course, we select a configuration of the shielding where all the highs are muffled.

Anyway, similar to Operating System tweaks, this is nothing like bass and treble knobs and also nothing like the best PEQs and room correction and what not.

So it is just many cables, and one may color more than the other if that is really how you like to interpret it. Ditch the one which colors too much. Keep the one with the best mid, if that is what you're after.

Or wait until someone finds "that cable" which has all good.

 

Having said this all, why would anyone want to use a cable to color their sound instead of DSP? -> because a. I don't like DSP and b. because DSP would be dialing in the blind (unless with room correction which I also don't like) and merely :

c. because we're after the best reproduction. This is not about adding color - it is about removing it.

 

Ad c., example :

If a combo with bass and voice play together, someone (like a sound engineer) should have set them up so that the one does not overvoice the other. And for example, when the bass with say 50Hz shows 2nd harmonic distortion, it will show 100Hz and interferes with the voice which also plays there. This, while in reality both did not interfere. The trick for this example is thus the undistorted bass and not letting the voice come forward. That would work too, but it will not imply the proper balance.

 

Peter

 

 

[marce]

10 hours ago, sandyk said:

 ???

 Are you referring to the photos taken from my TV screen ?

 You do not have any direct copies of my A or V files to make such a claim, and any that may have been downloaded by you WILL have added noise due to  TX and  RX degradation via the Internet as well as added noise from your own PC, which in any event, you claim to be able to correct anyway with your Optical methodology.

noise is not added to digital files, the copied file is an exact copy of the original file, you seem to find this basic fact of digital transfer hard to understand...

[marce]

9 hours ago, elcorso said:

 

I have to go back to my point that listening to music is an art?

 

 

 

So far I realize that not in all cases is a problem of deafness.

 

Well, it seems that for some not ...!

 

Goodbye again,

 

Roch

No creating the music is art, listening is not.

[marce]

8 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 I would remind him of the so often quoted statement by his fellow E.E.s that " Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary Proof"

 

So how does it work then, what is the mechanism at play?

[marce]

6 hours ago, sandyk said:

I have NOT claimed that files are permanently contaminated with noise, although there is always the possibility of embedded Jitter at an earlier stage. ( a worn CD stamper for example.)

  I have found that when I use a low noise battery derived PSU to power an Uptone USB Regen to power a USB memory stick that the Signal Integrity can often be markedly improved , to CLOSE to that of the original recording.

 This is what was done with the photos from my TV screen  that I posted earlier in this thread. The less contrast and less sharp looking photo  was obtained by saving the same .mp4 file to the same folder of a USB memory stick that was plugged into a > 3M long generic USB cable instead of using the USB Regen.

 Jon is claiming that he can use a standard computer and markedly improve the Signal Integrity after it leaves the PC via his S.O.A. Fibre Optic network.

He MAY be correct, but he has not had this claim verified by others.

Many members go to a great deal of trouble to improve the Signal Integrity BEFORE it leaves the PC.

 

 Yet again, you have it wrong, because I use the internal SMPS in my PC, NOT a Linear PSU.

However I do further regulate the +12V to a much cleaner +5V (<4uV noise) for my OS and Music SSDs, as well as further cleaning up the internal +12V and +5V supply rails to my LG GGW H20L writer.

If you don't look at the waveforms, the eye diagrams etc. you have no idea what is happening in terms of signal integrity, same with EMC.

[firedog]

27 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

I wrote a very ling essay of which I decided to keep it put not post. So let me stick to :

 

Nothing is coloring. I even said so explicitly, of course assuming that everybody knows what "coloring" as such is.

The Lush^1 is just a cable.

The JSSG 360 tweak is just "a" tweak and it makes the Lush^1 sound better.

The Lush^2 is a 10,000+ cables, with configurations which sound better than the original Lush^1 and also better than the JSSG 360 variant which in the end is only one of those 10,000+ variants.

 

Of course, those who are pertinent about a USB cable not being able to influence SQ anyway, will also not be able to understand. So they didn't even start reading this. OK.

But those who are interested and have the experience that the USB cable indeed influences SQ (or the sound in general) may wonder which situation actually is the one with least distortion. Is it the $1 cable ? is the the Supra ? the Curious ? the XYZ^2^2 ? The Clairixa then ? (it should be because it was made for that).

 

What all of these cables have in common for "variance" is their focus on a frequency range. And these can even be "several". For now think reflections. And yes, I know, it is a digital cable (application).

 

Generally I have been talking about emphasis to the mid, to the low-highs (which I somehow don't call high-mid), the highs and also the bass. Yeah, that seems all together. But the stupidity of the thing is that when the emphasis goes to the bass alone, you may have better bass (not coloring) but less mid and highs because that is how it works out. So the skill is to find a configuration where (e.g.) a voice is not singing on its own because the bass lines are there for a reason just the same.

 

Of course we can't tune for a voice etc. And of course that could better be done with DSP. One thing : DSP destroys (it would be the clear contrary of what I hunt for, starting with non-ringing filters) and this is not destructive at all. Unless, of course, we select a configuration of the shielding where all the highs are muffled.

Anyway, similar to Operating System tweaks, this is nothing like bass and treble knobs and also nothing like the best PEQs and room correction and what not.

So it is just many cables, and one may color more than the other if that is really how you like to interpret it. Ditch the one which colors too much. Keep the one with the best mid, if that is what you're after.

Or wait until someone finds "that cable" which has all good.

 

Having said this all, why would anyone want to use a cable to color their sound instead of DSP? -> because a. I don't like DSP and b. because DSP would be dialing in the blind (unless with room correction which I also don't like) and merely :

c. because we're after the best reproduction. This is not about adding color - it is about removing it.

 

Ad c., example :

If a combo with bass and voice play together, someone (like a sound engineer) should have set them up so that the one does not overvoice the other. And for example, when the bass with say 50Hz shows 2nd harmonic distortion, it will show 100Hz and interferes with the voice which also plays there. This, while in reality both did not interfere. The trick for this example is thus the undistorted bass and not letting the voice come forward. That would work too, but it will not imply the proper balance.

 

Peter

 

 

Thanks for your thorough answer. 
We will have agree to disagree on one point: I'd still call what the cable does coloring. I understand why you don't. We have a different definition of what the word means in this context.

[PeterSt]

Just now, firedog said:

I understand why you don't. We have a different definition of what the word means in this context.

 

That's OK. If you only got to the end where I turned it into the removal of coloring.

My essay was not 100% consistent as I also wrote the first (not posted) and this is never a good thing.

 

All cables will color, so our hunt should be for the one doing that the least.

 

With all of this, also please keep in mind that everything which really colors as such, is killing for me. I can only work with "neutral" and if even two songs sound the same, it is not right. This started with the DAC, which sadly is an extension of USB these days. Haha.

[marce]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

Real question: in a digital setup, why would anyone want to use a cable to color their sound instead of DSP? With  DSP you can see exactly what changes you are making and understand the relationship between the changes and what you hear.

With the cable you never understand exactly what is happening and why, and whether the result is a one off applicable only to a very specific setup. 

A cable should be as transparent as possible to the signal and studying cables and their effects on signals has been going on since Oliver Heaviside added inductors to telegraph lines for improved signal integrity, so for a 140 years or so. As to shielding, a shield should shield the signal from EMC, we've also had a few years of understanding that, here I would recommend some like Henry Ott. A cable is the equivalent of a PCB trace, it is a conduit for the signal to travel down, it is not an active component of the system, it is a signal conduit with known parasitics that effect the signal that are catered for in the design stage. Some (in fact quiet a few) Audiophile cables cost more than many aerospace cable looms...

[Rexp]

38 minutes ago, marce said:

No creating the music is art, listening is not.

Yeah and appreciation of art is subjective. So until you come up with a way of measuring sound quality, us audiophiles will stick with what we think sounds best. 

[mansr]

53 minutes ago, marce said:

noise is not added to digital files, the copied file is an exact copy of the original file, you seem to find this basic fact of digital transfer hard to understand...

If noise accumulated in digital transfers, the internet would a complete cesspool by now. Oh, wait...

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, marce said:

, you seem to find this basic fact of digital transfer hard to understand...

 

 I am able to prove what I say, but you simply aren't interested in anything that doesn't agree with your own narrow view of things, even when the proof is offered to you to see for yourself..

 In the photos that I have shown, that aren't definitive proof in themselves, you should be able to clearly see that one version is lacking a little in contrast and detail. The BR discs themselves are the proof.

Of course, you didn't even bother looking at those I linked to in this thread, because just like mansr ("Troll" ) you refuse to accept the possibility that you may be incorrect in certain areas, just as Mansr did with Mani.

 Your gear is probably so lacklustre that you can't see any difference between these 2  TV screen photos either !

 With a decent monitor, one version is markedly more glossy looking.

 Look at the images directly from Image Shack

https://imageshack.com/a/img923/937/KG8zVO.png

https://imageshack.com/a/img924/2209/DpWTK4.png

 

 

 Another couple:

https://imageshack.com/a/img923/6046/VqrpVC.png

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/7790/fijBKk.png

[pkane2001]

2 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

I wrote a very ling essay of which I decided to keep it put not post. So let me stick to :

 

Nothing is coloring. I even said so explicitly, of course assuming that everybody knows what "coloring" as such is.

The Lush^1 is just a cable.

The JSSG 360 tweak is just "a" tweak and it makes the Lush^1 sound better.

The Lush^2 is a 10,000+ cables, with configurations which sound better than the original Lush^1 and also better than the JSSG 360 variant which in the end is only one of those 10,000+ variants.

 

Of course, those who are pertinent about a USB cable not being able to influence SQ anyway, will also not be able to understand. So they didn't even start reading this. OK.

But those who are interested and have the experience that the USB cable indeed influences SQ (or the sound in general) may wonder which situation actually is the one with least distortion. Is it the $1 cable ? is the the Supra ? the Curious ? the XYZ^2^2 ? The Clairixa then ? (it should be because it was made for that).

 

What all of these cables have in common for "variance" is their focus on a frequency range. And these can even be "several". For now think reflections. And yes, I know, it is a digital cable (application).

 

Generally I have been talking about emphasis to the mid, to the low-highs (which I somehow don't call high-mid), the highs and also the bass. Yeah, that seems all together. But the stupidity of the thing is that when the emphasis goes to the bass alone, you may have better bass (not coloring) but less mid and highs because that is how it works out. So the skill is to find a configuration where (e.g.) a voice is not singing on its own because the bass lines are there for a reason just the same.

 

Of course we can't tune for a voice etc. And of course that could better be done with DSP. One thing : DSP destroys (it would be the clear contrary of what I hunt for, starting with non-ringing filters) and this is not destructive at all. Unless, of course, we select a configuration of the shielding where all the highs are muffled.

Anyway, similar to Operating System tweaks, this is nothing like bass and treble knobs and also nothing like the best PEQs and room correction and what not.

So it is just many cables, and one may color more than the other if that is really how you like to interpret it. Ditch the one which colors too much. Keep the one with the best mid, if that is what you're after.

Or wait until someone finds "that cable" which has all good.

 

Having said this all, why would anyone want to use a cable to color their sound instead of DSP? -> because a. I don't like DSP and b. because DSP would be dialing in the blind (unless with room correction which I also don't like) and merely :

c. because we're after the best reproduction. This is not about adding color - it is about removing it.

 

Ad c., example :

If a combo with bass and voice play together, someone (like a sound engineer) should have set them up so that the one does not overvoice the other. And for example, when the bass with say 50Hz shows 2nd harmonic distortion, it will show 100Hz and interferes with the voice which also plays there. This, while in reality both did not interfere. The trick for this example is thus the undistorted bass and not letting the voice come forward. That would work too, but it will not imply the proper balance.

 

Peter

 

 

 

Peter, I guess I know the answer, but did you or are you planning to measure Lush^2 at some of the ‘best’ reported configurations? At this point, I would even take a USB eye pattern plot.

 

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

 I am able to prove what I say, but you simply aren't interested in anything that doesn't agree with your own narrow view of things, even when the proof is offered to you to see for yourself..

 In the photos that I have shown, that aren't definitive proof in themselves, you should be able to clearly see that one version is lacking a little in contrast and detail. The BR discs themselves are the proof.

Of course, you didn't even bother looking at those I linked to in this thread, because just like mansr ("Troll" ) you refuse to accept the possibility that you may be incorrect in certain areas, just as Mansr did with Mani.

 Your gear is probably so lacklustre that you can't see any difference between these 2  TV screen photos either !

 With a decent monitor, one version is markedly more glossy looking.

 Look at the images directly from Image Shack

https://imageshack.com/a/img923/937/KG8zVO.png

https://imageshack.com/a/img924/2209/DpWTK4.png

 

 

 Another couple:

https://imageshack.com/a/img923/6046/VqrpVC.png

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/7790/fijBKk.png

 

1) are those files identical?

2) the resolution is terrible. They both have heavy processing artifacts — the imaging equivalent of a very low bitrate mp3

 

Why are you showing us such poor quality photos? They really are painful to look at close up. Send RAW or uncompressed TIFF that haven’t been clumsily processed.

[jabbr]

Those two files aren’t the same and the zoomed areas above show that the second has slightly more contrast and that they aren’t pixel identical — what is the point?

[PeterSt]

17 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Peter, I guess I know the answer, but did you or are you planning to measure Lush^2 at some of the ‘best’ reported configurations? At this point, I would even take a USB eye pattern plot.

 

Paul, maybe (the latter),

 

 

maybe not (the latter).

[jabbr]

13 hours ago, sandyk said:

 ???

 Are you referring to the photos taken from my TV screen ?

 

OMG! These are “photos” taken from your TV screen!

 

Thats just so convoluted ... what are you attempting to show? The TV was not designed to display photos and of course will have tons of artifact — so we’ve “proved” thst TV has artifact when displaying photos?

 

useless.

13 hours ago, sandyk said:

 You do not have any direct copies of my A or V files to make such a claim, and any that may have been downloaded by you WILL have added noise due to  TX and  RX degradation via the Internet as well as added noise from your own PC, which in any event, you claim to be able to correct anyway with your Optical methodology.

 

I just have what you are showing here — you are trying to “prove” some point but your techniques are so messed up that it’s useless. This says nothing.

 

Look this if you want to pursue digital photography, get yourself a good high contrast monitor which has been recommended for photography, then get the “i1” of similar color calibration system. Profile your monitor. Use software such as Lightroom or DXO or CaptureOne along with Photoshop and only use RAW or uncompressed TIFF — then return to us with something that’s not pointless.

[pkane2001]

50 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Paul, maybe (the latter),

 

 

maybe not (the latter).

 

This is what, a wave propagation plot? Why is this significant?

[charlesphoto]

57 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

OMG! These are “photos” taken from your TV screen!

 

Thats just so convoluted ... what are you attempting to show? The TV was not designed to display photos and of course will have tons of artifact — so we’ve “proved” thst TV has artifact when displaying photos?

 

useless.

 

I just have what you are showing here — you are trying to “prove” some point but your techniques are so messed up that it’s useless. This says nothing.

 

Look this if you want to pursue digital photography, get yourself a good high contrast monitor which has been recommended for photography, then get the “i1” of similar color calibration system. Profile your monitor. Use software such as Lightroom or DXO or CaptureOne along with Photoshop and only use RAW or uncompressed TIFF — then return to us with something that’s not pointless.

 

As a thirty year pro photographer, I really do have to ask what he’s been smoking there down under - because we all need some as well! 

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

 

OMG! These are “photos” taken from your TV screen!

 

Jonathan, it makes no sense to comment on a single post, not having read the context elsewhere. And you know it is there unless you type blinded. Haha.

 

42 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

I really do have to ask what he’s been smoking there down under

 

It occurred to me that this time Alex did not mention once again what this is about. That is good, because now it shows up in this thread. It shows up everywhere. And if we'd ask Alex to put it in its own thread, he doesn't do it.

 

Anyway, it is not about smoking, but about how the TV's quality (VQ ?) is subject to where the file is played from. Like the worse pics where iniially on SSD, then copied to RAM and from there displayed, and the better pics were copied from a HDD, then copied to RAM and from there displayed. In both cases the source (which could also be a USB stick) was removed.

So depending on what the source originally was, the picture is more poor or better.

 

To me this is a more "normal" show case of the situation, but I am sure that in here not much people can be found who ever can believe this is happening. For me it is how XXHighEnd's workflow of playback would - or would not attack such degrading anomalies. But mind you, in between when it resides on the source only and when it was copied to RAM, a lot can have happened which now influences (continuously) the D/A (it is still about that), which makes all plausible. But since I don't pretend to now also work with TV's and video (this was pre-Phasure alright), it would be very wild guessing. Anyway, I am not surprised.

 

@sandyk, if I have it all wrong, you should have stayed up. 

[PeterSt]

PS: It has nothing to do with changing bits etc. And this is what's beyond Alex.

So now everything is beyond everyone. Nice eh ?

[jabbr]

4 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Anyway, it is not about smoking, but about how the TV's quality (VQ ?) is subject to where the file is played from. Like the worse pics where iniially on SSD, then copied to RAM and from there displayed, and the better pics were copied from a HDD, then copied to RAM and from there displayed. In both cases the source (which could also be a USB stick) was removed.

So depending on what the source originally was, the picture is more poor or better.

 

Riiiigght ...

 

Lets just say that my own expertise, and where I’ve learned electronics & signal processing is from image analysis and digital optics. Not professional photography but I’ve learned enough along the way about that. 

 

So sorry, no.

 

My own home network was designed for A/V & distributed processing — I don’t mention my Infiniband network also  

 

Storage is an abstraction in modern computer systems — not sure I count Windows — but my Linux machines all run in RAM, my NAS caches everything to RAM, the mirror reads every block to RAM and checksums everything. File access itself is memory mapped. 

 

So from my cameras, the CF or SD cards are stored to NAS, perhaps from wireless, and when I travel stored to SSD as backup. This is 4K video as well as RAW. 

 

I’ve done exhaustive noise analysis and 3D deconvolutions —- are you trying to say that this nonsense about USB sticks (first of all no one  uses those) displaying a crappy image on a crappy TV matters yet my high res images processed with high end software doesn’t?

 

Do you realize the scientificand engineering  efforts that have been devoted to image analysis and storage? Think NASA, NSA etc, FBI/DHS, Medicine, NOAA, commercial movie/TV production ... you probably can’t imagine 

 

Are you sitting in a tea shop in Amsterdam this morning? ???

[jabbr]

Here is my assertion, to be clear: 

 

No matter how crappy a USB stick was used to store an image, provided it passes checksum (no bits corrupted) that once it is transferred to my (or suitable) NAS, the image does not retain any memory of the crappy USB stick.

 

Ive exhaustively posted about the details of my NAS including hardware and software as well as my network such that anyone could exactly replicate my system. Nothing exotic. 

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, PeterSt said:

All cables will color, so our hunt should be for the one doing that the least.

 

Can you explain the mechanism for this "coloration" that all cables do? I'd really like to know. It can't be Capacitive and/or Inductive reactance because there's not enough of either in a USB cable (unless it is very long) and that only affects frequency bandpass, which is not a "coloration" per se. Also USB cables don't carry sound, they carry digital signals. When one rips a music disc with an outboard disc drive, there doesn't seem to be any lost data. When I install an app from a DVD, it runs perfectly, so no data has been lost, Keyboard and mouse inputs work perfectly. So how does a USB cable know that the data it's carrying is music, and therefore it has to be altered in some way in order to color the sound? How does this coloration manifest itself? I've never experienced it. Let me rephrase that. I've never "noticed" that I was experiencing this coloration. 

The pictures that Alex posted were so fuzzy, I couldn't even tell what I was looking at! and I have a brand new 32" top-of-the-line Dell monitor! What are those pictures supposed to be showing, and has anybody correlated the pictures with sound. So which pictures represent the least colored delivery of the signal, and which is the most colored? And would one go about correlating  what one sees with what one hears? A slippery slope at best.

[PeterSt]

33 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Are you sitting in a tea shop in Amsterdam this morning? ???

 

This is your most crucial error. It is coffee shop. Tea is just tea.

OK, as far as I've heard.

[PeterSt]

34 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Lets just say that my own expertise,

 

Long story short, you too don't believe that XXHighEnd, Audiophile Optimizer, Windows X copycat as well as JPlay improve anything on the sound, am I right ?

 

Then there is nothing to discuss. You'd belong in this thread though. Haha.

 

I think - or I actually hope that you didn't get what I was talking about ... the D/A process and how that is subject to noise. Nothing special, nothing new. And no-thing about changing bits. Just saying again.