A case of the jitters

[mansr]

 

There really is no excuse for this.

[Ralf11]

did you digitize someone's 10 year posting history?

[NOMBEDES]

Fine.  But can you hear it?

[Rt66indierock]

36 minutes ago, mansr said:

 

There really is no excuse for this.

 

Please tell me this is an expensive product.

[Ralf11]

Please tell me this is an expensive USB cable.

[mansr]

7 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Please tell me this is an expensive product.

Sorry, it's a Steinberg UR242, retail price $200.

 

5 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Please tell me this is an expensive USB cable.

Sorry again, it's a 1.5 m cable that I've forgotten what gadget it came with.

 

40 minutes ago, NOMBEDES said:

Fine.  But can you hear it?

Yes, reliably.

[John_Atkinson]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

 

There really is no excuse for this.

 

This kind of noisefloor modulation was characteristic of a specific chip set from Sample Rate Systems from Finland, that was used in many digital products around 10 years ago, as well as in early DVD players. See, for example, https://www.stereophile.com/content/emotiva-erc-2-cd-player-measurements

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

@John_Atkinson has anything changed since A case of the Jitters in 2009 ?

[esldude]

16 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

@John_Atkinson has anything changed since A case of the Jitters in 2009 ?

Since you bring it up and @John_Atkinson is involved.....

 

The Pioneer universal player is wrongly maligned here. It has horrible jitter worse than shown for 8 seconds then it decreases until 15 seconds and later the jitter is very low. At this point the noise floor drops as well. It does this whenever a track is started or you skip to a new track. So it's only compromised for a few seconds. 

 

Yes I had/have one. I had it as an inexpensive way to play SACDs.

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/case-jitters-less-cd-quality

[mansr]

21 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

This kind of noisefloor modulation was characteristic of a specific chip set from, IIRC, Finland, that was used in many home theater processors around 10 years ago. See, for example, https://www.stereophile.com/content/lexicon-mc-1-preamplifiersurround-processor-measurements

In the present case, I suspect the clock generator is to blame. There is a single crystal, and the required rates synthesised inside a huge Yamaha DSP chip. The spectrum at the clock input to the converters looks like this:

[Rt66indierock]

Marketed as a Pro Studio at Home

[John_Atkinson]

24 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

has anything changed since A case of the Jitters in 2009 ?

 

It is rare to find a product as bad as the one Mansr measured, The most common problem I find these days is sidebands at ±120Hz, due to inadequate supply filtering on the DAC chip's voltage reference pin.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

[mansr]

The spectrum is actually of the Steinberg recording the output of a Tektronix AFG. The effects of clock jitter and voltage ripple are of course the same as for a DAC, only in reverse.

 

I also recorded the same signal with a Tascam UH-7000. In a quick ABX test between the two recordings played back on an iFi Nano, I got a perfect 10/10 score without hesitating. The crap in the Steinberg recording is quite apparent.

[esldude]

Here is an interesting and also uncalled for result.  In the graph of an Emotiva UMC200 you see both the coax digital input and the HDMI input.  The HDMI is the good one which is very unusual, and the SPDIF is so bad it shouldn't be in a product.  The SPDIF input looks a lot like the one mansr has posted for the Steinberg. 

 

 

As a counterpoint here is one from a Focusrite Scarlett showing inexpensive devices need not be bad. 

 

[One and a half]

4 hours ago, mansr said:

Sorry, it's a Steinberg UR242, retail price $200.

 

Sorry again, it's a 1.5 m cable that I've forgotten what gadget it came with.

 

Yes, reliably.

what does it sound like to you, like a dog barking, rough, ruff?

[mansr]

12 hours ago, One and a half said:

what does it sound like to you, like a dog barking, rough, ruff?

See for yourself. Here are the recordings from both the Steinberg and the Tascam.

uh-7000-1.flac

ur242-1.flac

[Sonicularity]

Can you hear this difference with music?

[One and a half]

Here are the two flac files opened in Soundforge.

Spot the difference quiz on the waveform.

 

 

The spectrum analysis reveals the problem.

UR242

 

Tascam

 

The clocking could use some work. So what to choose, a jittery output and expensive external clock, or an expensive clock built in.

 

Would be good to sample music through both devices.

 

 

[mansr]

19 minutes ago, One and a half said:

Here are the two flac files opened in Soundforge.

Spot the difference quiz on the waveform.

 



The only thing that screenshot reveals is that the files are not phase aligned. That's unimportant.

 

21 minutes ago, One and a half said:

The clocking could use some work.

Yes, see the spectrum of the actual clock I posted earlier.

 

21 minutes ago, One and a half said:

So what to choose, a jittery output and expensive external clock, or an expensive clock built in.

Huh?

[modmix]

I happend to try a Steinberg UR22mkII recently - looks quite fine to me...

Signal was taken from Victors 1kHz  (posted by vicnic in DIYaudio thread Low-distortion Audio-range Oscillator).

 

FYI: I've no relationship to Steinberg.

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, modmix said:

I happend to try a Steinberg UR22mkII recently - looks quite fine to me...

Signal was taken from Victors 1kHz  (posted by vicnic in DIYaudio thread Low-distortion Audio-range Oscillator).

 

FYI: I've no relationship to Steinberg.

Try it at 10 kHz.

[modmix]

Jitter is even better than my RTX6001 😁

[esldude]

So maybe the mk ii doesn't have the clocking done so poorly.

[HalSF]

As an untutored subjectivist, my response to this discussion is Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. 

 

Which is also the first track of my band's new EP,  Inaudible Jitter.