Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[Rexp]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

I found this clip of the rig that Chris listened to working,

 

 

and this demonstrates how the qualities of a system in good shape can easily be captured in a simple recording. The sense of space, the sound elements in the mix, and connection to the musical event come across easily - the first test of whether a setup is working well.

No, this demonstrates that vinyl sounds better than digital. 

[fas42]

2 hours ago, Rexp said:

No, this demonstrates that vinyl sounds better than digital. 

 

We know that the source was vinyl here?? Note that I said "system", not "digital". The latter can produce the goods, but usually requires more careful optimisation to get there ...

[Rexp]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

We know that the source was vinyl here?? Note that I said "system", not "digital". The latter can produce the goods, but usually requires more careful optimisation to get there ...

SQ is mainly down to the source material, which I appreciate is the opposite of your preachings. If you like this video, I suggest you buy a turntable or tape deck. 

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, Rexp said:

SQ is mainly down to the source material, which I appreciate is the opposite of your preachings. If you like this video, I suggest you buy a turntable or tape deck. 

 

Okay, we have confusion here ... what is the source device being used for the rig in this video? How the particular track was recorded in the first place is a completely different matter - if latter day stuff it would be digital, if earlier, reel to reel analogue tape, earlier again, direct cutting of a rotating disc, etc.

 

As an example of how speakers don't maketh the specialness, I just found this video,

 

 

 

[fas42]

A good example of where people keep missing the point with audio,

😉

 

If something is subjectively better, then it has to have, "ground breaking technology", as part of the package ... why? I guess in part people need to believe in miracle solutions - because, it makes the hard work aspect of getting audio systems 'right' a lot easier 🙂.

 

I'm thinking here of Japanese wood joinery - if you haven't come across it, what these master craftsmen do is nothing less than miraculous; they create major structures out of wood with no nails or glues, purely using very intricate and precise joints between the parts, which are highly resistant to earthquakes. What is the magic? Purely, technique. Knowledge, combined with very simple but well honed tools, and meticulous attention to detail in the cutting, carving and shaping of the joint area makes it happen. The "ground breaking technology" here is the understanding that implementation is everything, and that any shortcuts or sloppiness in how things are done most likely will severely compromise the end structure.

 

Audio just happens to be the same ... if you get everything right, it sounds, well, right. It was this way decades ago, and all that has changed is that cheaper and better sorted from the factory solutions are at hand, where less has to be done "to get the final nail 😁 in place".

 

[Rexp]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

A good example of where people keep missing the point with audio,

😉

 

If something is subjectively better, then it has to have, "ground breaking technology", as part of the package ... why? I guess in part people need to believe in miracle solutions - because, it makes the hard work aspect of getting audio systems 'right' a lot easier 🙂.

 

I'm thinking here of Japanese wood joinery - if you haven't come across it, what these master craftsmen do is nothing less than miraculous; they create major structures out of wood with no nails or glues, purely using very intricate and precise joints between the parts, which are highly resistant to earthquakes. What is the magic? Purely, technique. Knowledge, combined with very simple but well honed tools, and meticulous attention to detail in the cutting, carving and shaping of the joint area makes it happen. The "ground breaking technology" here is the understanding that implementation is everything, and that any shortcuts or sloppiness in how things are done most likely will severely compromise the end structure.

 

Audio just happens to be the same ... if you get everything right, it sounds, well, right. It was this way decades ago, and all that has changed is that cheaper and better sorted from the factory solutions are at hand, where less has to be done "to get the final nail 😁 in place".

 

I'd be more worried about loose screws if I was you. 

[fas42]

It's a good thing some people have their screws so perfectly tightened that they are certain that hideously expensive bits of copper wrapped in insulation, called cables, are absolutely essential for good sound - I mean, a man has to be rational about some areas of the game ...

[fas42]

Just discovered this website, https://alpha-audio.net. What's very interesting about this mob is that they do comparison videos, of gear, including the controversial stuff, like cables; using a proper setup. And, as of a few months ago, you can download the actual lossless feed from their recording setup - as big FLAC files. So all the usual whinging about YT crappifying the quality, so you can't tell anything useful, can now go away ... 😜.

 

Firing up DeltaWave to see what it can make of things, and already getting some interesting results. But what just struck me today is their video of speaker cables,

 

 

The Dueland item piqued my interest, because its construction mitigates the static problems that are endemic in audio - and in the video it clearly stands out, to me, as helping to resolve the degradation issues that are endemic to hifi - which is something that the makers of the video noted, though they described such in audiophile language, 😉. Unfortunately, this was done prior to the making the capture available as a lossless file.

 

I'm curious if anyone else can pick this in the video ...

 

 

[Rexp]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Just discovered this website, https://alpha-audio.net. What's very interesting about this mob is that they do comparison videos, of gear, including the controversial stuff, like cables; using a proper setup. And, as of a few months ago, you can download the actual lossless feed from their recording setup - as big FLAC files. So all the usual whinging about YT crappifying the quality, so you can't tell anything useful, can now go away ... 😜.

 

Firing up DeltaWave to see what it can make of things, and already getting some interesting results. But what just struck me today is their video of speaker cables,

 

 

The Dueland item piqued my interest, because its construction mitigates the static problems that are endemic in audio - and in the video it clearly stands out, to me, as helping to resolve the degradation issues that are endemic to hifi - which is something that the makers of the video noted, though they described such in audiophile language, 😉. Unfortunately, this was done prior to the making the capture available as a lossless file.

 

I'm curious if anyone else can pick this in the video ...

 

 

I can't tell much from their YT videos, their recording process isn't good. Where does one find the FLAC files? 

[fas42]

17 minutes ago, Rexp said:

I can't tell much from their YT videos, their recording process isn't good. Where does one find the FLAC files? 

 

Okay, here's a starting point, https://alpha-audio.net/2020/09/alpha-audio-launches-hi-fi-sound-sample-database/

 

And here's a page with a link on it, https://alpha-audio.net/review/review-wattson-audio-emerson-digital-en-analog-met-samples/2/

 

Note, their website is not quite together, by my reckoning - sometimes, Dutch comes up rather than English ... look for the word, samples, or download, in a link on a review page.

 

[fas42]

Talking of $1,000,000 rigs, here's one I came across that delivers,

 

 

The bigness, impact and thereness of the sound, the way tonally contrasting elements in the mix are fully distinct, have excellent individual integrity, are all signs of a setup working well ... this one gets a tick from me, 🙂.

[fas42]

This review of the Tambaqui DAC, https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/988-mola-mola-tambaqui-digital-to-analog-converter, in the listening impressions, points out how the best digital setups these days have got the historical problems of digital replay - that of having great specs, but failing to deliver in the subjective arena - largely under control. So, if you have to money to spend these are shortcut to getting convincing sound.

 

A good bit is,

 

Quote

I was struck by two aspects of the Tambaqui’s sound in my reference system. The more important of these -- indeed, the most analog-like -- was the complete absence of edginess and harshness compared to more affordable chip-based DACs.

 

People are loath to admit that "edginess and harshness" are the signposts of below par digital playback - in the same way as "crackles and pops" are signposts of vinyl misdemeanours. Distortion and noise subtract from the subjective experience, and may require extensive effort to sort out - but the benefits of getting it right are so great that all the energy put into the exercise of 'debugging' is a trivial 'sacrifice', in hindsight.

[fas42]

Noting this thread,

 

Indeed there is a dragon, as in "better" sound is always possible - having played this game for decades, it turns out that it is remarkably simple. What separates me from most enthusiasts is that for me the recordings come first, and the equipment, no matter how low cost or at the other end are so blingy, merely serves the goal of getting to what exists on the recording ... this works, always works, and the reason for this is that the detail captured on a recording, no matter how primitive, is always enough to generate a thoroughly enjoyable, immersive, experience. Unless, of course, the recording was mastered to be unpleasant; or had its contents engineered to meet some short term goal of "sounding better" or "more interesting" on sub-par equipment - trying to second guess the quality of the replay, and adjusting for that, is not a smart move, IME.

 

Which leads to a natural ordering of playback equipment. At the bottom, once you get past gear which is so crippled because it is cheaply made, that it is pointless trying to 'repair' the setup because of the cost and the effort needed, are systems which can replay all recordings such that it is always worthwhile listening to them. They may be limited in bass, volume that they can run at, and have distinct characteristics which are audible in instruments sounds which are very 'pure' ... but in every other regard they "do the job". As one goes up the ladder, the lowest notes in the bass are more correctly reproduced, the volume that they can happily play at becomes greater, and the purity of some instrument sounds will be more correct. But in every other regard they are no better than systems at the very bottom of the ordering sequence - why? Because each setup is doing the job of connecting the listener to what's on the recording - none of them are shouting out, "Look at me, the rig in front of you!!"

 

If a very expensive setup annoys you with what you hear in the SQ when playing some recording which is not in the category of 'intentionally' poor, then it's wrong. End of story. The trouble with expensive is that it will highly likely be expensive yet again to "fix things" - but of course if one is prepared to follow through with doing this then you will have the best of everything; it will be at the top end of the ordering of playback capability.

 

So, the "dragon of satisfaction" can be a harmless beast - providing satisfaction with what you hear is always happening, then there is no strong motivation to move further up the ordering - wringing the most out of what one has is satisfying as an exercise in its own right, for some ... and that in fact is my journey ...

 

[fas42]

Quick comment about "blackness" or "quietness" ... people use terms around this concept for system that work well, subjectively - and what is going on is that the low level distortion is, well, low enough so that any volume can be set for replay, without the sound becoming disturbing. Most real world rigs have a constant underlying hash of distortion as part of the mix; which is solely contributed by the playback chain - this means that for most recordings there is a 'natural' limit to how loud you can make it; before the obtrusiveness of that low level distortion is too much to take - and you back off, lower the playback level. As a parallel, put a powerful engine into an ordinary car, and try and drive it hard - the limits of the suspension refinement, and development mean that very quickly you get feedback that you have a dangerous weapon under you - try too much, and it will bite you, even harder.

 

What occurs with a well optimised setup is that the volume limits disappear - no setting which the circuits and equipment can sustain is a problem, as regards the listening. And this is what allows the realism factor to dominate; blackness, quietness is there in spades, and you can immerse yourself in intense levels of sound, with complete comfort.

[manueljenkin]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Quick comment about "blackness" or "quietness" ... people use terms around this concept for system that work well, subjectively - and what is going on is that the low level distortion is, well, low enough so that any volume can be set for replay, without the sound becoming disturbing. Most real world rigs have a constant underlying hash of distortion as part of the mix; which is solely contributed by the playback chain - this means that for most recordings there is a 'natural' limit to how loud you can make it; before the obtrusiveness of that low level distortion is too much to take - and you back off, lower the playback level. As a parallel, put a powerful engine into an ordinary car, and try and drive it hard - the limits of the suspension refinement, and development mean that very quickly you get feedback that you have a dangerous weapon under you - try too much, and it will bite you, even harder.

 

What occurs with a well optimised setup is that the volume limits disappear - no setting which the circuits and equipment can sustain is a problem, as regards the listening. And this is what allows the realism factor to dominate; blackness, quietness is there in spades, and you can immerse yourself in intense levels of sound, with complete comfort.

I have made an update to the post with a few replies/context. 

I generally agree with you, but I do think a good chain will be able to play back almost any recording better. A better dac runs on a better algorithm, takes care of intersample overs, random clipping etc. Better is a subjective term. My definition of better would mean better at showing the recording, it's filters etc and doing its best to preserve the natural manifold (some of the audible cues exist as they are even after processing).

 

You finished it with one simple word "black background" but it is a combination of a lot of factors. Even the volume control method can have an effect. While I haven't heard chord dacs yet, my friends have and they have confirmed what I expected. The filter used in those dacs are not normal sinc afaik, and are meant to reduce what rob watts calls as "noise floor modulation". The result, as you say, blacker background. I would actually attribute the slightly blacker background of my geek out to its high precision digital volume control implementation and to an extent I think it's non AC coupled nature (need to be careful when using headphones,). On the interaction side, a generic usb interface can push in noise into the analog chain (which for some reason has not been reliably measured yet, but is super audible).

 

On the amp <-> headphone interaction side, things are way more complicated, and I think feedback in the design plays a big role here. One nice thread from audiogon from the past: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/what-is-wrong-with-negative-feedback . From my personal experiences and correlations, I tend to agree with atmasphere the most in this thread.

[fas42]

4 hours ago, manueljenkin said:

 

On the amp <-> headphone interaction side, things are way more complicated, and I think feedback in the design plays a big role here. One nice thread from audiogon from the past: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/what-is-wrong-with-negative-feedback . From my personal experiences and correlations, I tend to agree with atmasphere the most in this thread.

 

 

In general I agree with what you are conveying in your post ... however, negative feedback in itself is not a demon - as is usual, it's all about the implementation; too many designs rely on NFB to "solve everything" - and the underlying circuit is not good enough, not fast or accurate enough to indeed make everything better, with no downsides. This is why designs that intrinsically are of very high bandwidth can do much better.

[manueljenkin]

Just now, fas42 said:

 

In general I agree with what you are conveying in your post ... however, negative feedback in itself is not a demon - as is usual, it's all about the implementation; too many designs rely on NFB to "solve everything" - and the underlying circuit is not good enough, not fast or accurate enough to indeed make everything better, with no downsides. This is why designs that intrinsically are of very high bandwidth can do much better.

Thanks. Agreed 100%. It was the same info I was trying to convey, maybe I'm not wording things right.

[fas42]

Now, this is an enthusiast!  😁

 

 

 

[fas42]

Turns out this channel, which I pointed to before, via an embedded clip, has some interesting stuff ...

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4qsTJR3IsvAbzdz855CHsQ/videos

 

... but this was a juicy one,

 

 

Of a unit people speak highly of, the interesting stuff starts at 6:00 ... now, this, Yet Again, exhibits the classic disease of digital playback - screamingly obvious to me. ... Wonder whether anyone else can describe what's happening, 😜 ...

[fas42]

Another clip from that site, of a lifestyle speaker I was unaware of - I'm impressed with this one, at least as per what the YT clip yields,

 

 

 

[fas42]

John Dyson mentioned in another thread that piano sound is "flattened" in most recordings - what I would like to again note here is the marvellous ability of human hearing to compensate for well less than stellar recording quality, when enough of the cues are in good shape.

 

At the moment I'm cycling through a group of pretty 'difficult' CDs, to help in optimising the current active speakers. Some of these are high energy, swing orchestra tracks from the 1930's - they are invaluable, because as soon as the rig is even the teeniest bit off colour, then the big brass crescendos are impossible - instant listening fatigue. But when in the zone, a piano lead in one of these tracks is magic - the full vitality, tone, and impact of a piano is happening, in the room ... technically, this can't be right - but the ear/brain is compensating for the shortfalls in the recorded SQ, and one gets great pleasure from the listening.

 

Hence the value of evolving the integrity of a playback setup - if one does this the "right way", then everything gets better to listen to ... not, the other way round.

[Confused]

On 11/15/2020 at 2:33 AM, fas42 said:

Turns out this channel, which I pointed to before, via an embedded clip, has some interesting stuff ...

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4qsTJR3IsvAbzdz855CHsQ/videos

 

... but this was a juicy one,

 

 

Of a unit people speak highly of, the interesting stuff starts at 6:00 ... now, this, Yet Again, exhibits the classic disease of digital playback - screamingly obvious to me. ... Wonder whether anyone else can describe what's happening, 😜 ...

Well, nobody else seemed to want to respond to this, so I thought I'd give it a go.

 

What I am hearing are a pair of badly recorded LS50's, which both look and sound like they are placed far too close to the back wall.  (LS50's come with a selection of foam port bungs, so it would be interesting to know if these were used to mitigate the poor placement)   Note that there is a lot of hiss and noise in the clip pre six minutes, which ads to my thought that this is not the best recording of a system that I have ever heard.

 

Anyway, I am guessing that I have failed completely here and not picked up the screamingly obvious signs of the classic disease of digital playback, but it is genuinely what I am hearing. 

 

Maybe you could educate us as to precisely what it is that you are picking up and hearing here Frank?  It could be very educational.

[fas42]

4 hours ago, Confused said:

Well, nobody else seemed to want to respond to this, so I thought I'd give it a go.

 

What I am hearing are a pair of badly recorded LS50's, which both look and sound like they are placed far too close to the back wall.  (LS50's come with a selection of foam port bungs, so it would be interesting to know if these were used to mitigate the poor placement)   Note that there is a lot of hiss and noise in the clip pre six minutes, which ads to my thought that this is not the best recording of a system that I have ever heard.

 

Anyway, I am guessing that I have failed completely here and not picked up the screamingly obvious signs of the classic disease of digital playback, but it is genuinely what I am hearing. 

 

Maybe you could educate us as to precisely what it is that you are picking up and hearing here Frank?  It could be very educational.

 

Thanks for giving this a go! Okay, what is happening, to my ears, is that the SQ starts well - no complaints from me - but slowly deteriorates as the clip continues; the initial clean, detailed sound becomes messier and messier as the seconds tick by, the unpleasantness quotient steadily increases. Simply jump back and forth in the clip, from near the beginning and then towards the end, to hear the change.

 

I had this happen 35 years ago, with my own system; I spent huge amounts of time trying to do something about it - so, I'm hyper sensitive to its presence ... when I visit the audio friend up the road, so many times we spin in circles, tracking down the cause of this occurring ...

 

What's happening, in the rig? It varies, but usually it's a poor quality connection, metal to metal contact, which rapidly degrades - or, static buildup ... you do something to the playback or the gear, which resets the problem condition - only for the cycle to start, once more.

 

To me, consistency of the SQ is paramount - it should great at one point in time, and be just as good hours later - the tension if the SQ goes up and down annoys the hell out of me; and I'll do everything I can to stop it varying,

[fas42]

Peter just mentioned Blumenhofer speakers - but unfortunately many of the clips of these running, on YT, are clearly in rigs below par. But this one is very nice, captures what competent playback sounds like - serves as a good example of what the goal is,

 

 

[sandyk]

On 11/18/2020 at 4:17 AM, Confused said:

Well, nobody else seemed to want to respond to this, so I thought I'd give it a go.

 

What I am hearing are a pair of badly recorded LS50's, which both look and sound like they are placed far too close to the back wall.  (LS50's come with a selection of foam port bungs, so it would be interesting to know if these were used to mitigate the poor placement)   Note that there is a lot of hiss and noise in the clip pre six minutes, which ads to my thought that this is not the best recording of a system that I have ever heard.

 

Anyway, I am guessing that I have failed completely here and not picked up the screamingly obvious signs of the classic disease of digital playback, but it is genuinely what I am hearing. 

 

Maybe you could educate us as to precisely what it is that you are picking up and hearing here Frank?  It could be very educational.

Brian

The room acoustics are also terrible as you can clearly hear from their voices, and sounds like perhaps air conditioning noise with it. 

This is the 529kb/s .aac stream instead of the 128kb/s stream that you would have been hearing

Regards

Alex

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mcehh2g8p1a4yt7/Dàn âm thanh nghe nhạc không dây Kef LS50 Wireless đình đám với trải nghiệm thực tế-0x0002.aac?dl=0