How much difference does it make?

[PeterSt]

53 minutes ago, SJK said:

I guess I should hang out here more often, I’ve never heard of mechanical vibration affecting solid state chips.  Pressure, sure - vibration?  That’s a new one.

 

But of course it is not new.

Blame the clock (oscillator) in there as the first to be hammered upon. Next will be chips if not overwhelmed by the former in the first place.

 

So footers for your DAC don't matter ? May I ask, what is your DAC ?

[StephenJK]

26 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

But of course it is not new.

Blame the clock (oscillator) in there as the first to be hammered upon. Next will be chips if not overwhelmed by the former in the first place.

 

So footers for your DAC don't matter ? May I ask, what is your DAC ?

Of course you may ask.  I’ve just sold a PS Audio DirectStream Junior as well as a Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista Vinyl phono stage and Nu-Vista 800 integrated for a Devialet Expert Pro 440.

 

i’ve had a lot of analog gear over the years with pointed feet, recently with both Musical Fidelity units, but will admit I’ve never seen them on any DAC I’ve ever owned.

 

My Clearaudio Innovation Compact turntable is the only piece of gear with them now. Oh, and the speakers, but I took those off while tweaking their position.

[firedog]

53 minutes ago, SJK said:

Of course you may ask.  I’ve just sold a PS Audio DirectStream Junior as well as a Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista Vinyl phono stage and Nu-Vista 800 integrated for a Devialet Expert Pro 440.

 

i’ve had a lot of analog gear over the years with pointed feet, recently with both Musical Fidelity units, but will admit I’ve never seen them on any DAC I’ve ever owned.

 

My Clearaudio Innovation Compact turntable is the only piece of gear with them now. Oh, and the speakers, but I took those off while tweaking their position.

So you think the Devialet sounds better than what you just sold? Pretty good endorsement of the Devialet.

[StephenJK]

7 minutes ago, firedog said:

So you think the Devialet sounds better than what you just sold? Pretty good endorsement of the Devialet.

Yes, but it’s more than that. Firstly, I was concerned about Class D amps as I have no experience with them. The goal initially was to find a smaller and more capable integrated amplifier than that super sized Nu-Vista 800.  

 

Then I discovered that the Devialet digitizes all inputs and with a DSP is able to act as a phono stage, DAC, preamp and amp with wifi and internet connectivity.  Obviously, it’s still all about the sound.

 

The Devialet overall has a better balance, presence and a much improved and bigger soundstage than the previous system.  Yes, a lot of the soundstage is down to the output stage, but I can hear details from high resolution FLAC files that I haven’t before.

 

I would rate the Devialet DAC section at perhaps slightly better than the DSJ, but with the ability to tailor the output based on a speaker profile with their configurator I can just get that much more out of the whole system.

[shtf]

On 6/21/2019 at 9:27 AM, Ralf11 said:

....

 

your "%" will change as $$ increases

 

You can always tell the ones who subscribe to Stereophile magazine.   

[shtf]

On 6/21/2019 at 9:09 AM, gordec said:

I have learned a lot of great information from the CA/AS community since joining. I went completely network based frontend and started to use better cable and power supplies. After playing with a lot of streamers and linear power supplies, I came to the conclusion that, to my ears, software, power supply, connection interface (network, USB, optical) and cables make up about 10% difference in overall sound quality. Headphone/speaker probably make up 30%-40%, amp 20%-30%, DAC 15%-30%. I have absolutely no problem spending a lot to get the most out of that 10%, but perhaps the best value is spend on the down stream components that could make a bigger difference in the overall sound quality. 

 

Do others feel that their frontend makes significantly more than 10% difference to their overall listening experience. If so, how much. I'm talking about sound quality alone, not the software/user interface. 

 

Interesting how the responses are all over the map.  But that's only because everybody is just guessing.

 

If we assume every last possible part of the vineyard that makes up a given playback system is already deemed superior, here's how I'd break down where the real performance come from.  

 

Roughly speaking, real performance can be broken down as follows:

• 60% Not your typical vibration mgmt.
• 25% Not your typical electrical mgmt
• 15% Components, speakers, cables, etc
• 00% room acoustics and/or treatments

One caveat or side note.   Assuming we're talking full-range, a speaker's most optimal placement or position within a given room is an absolute requirement before one can achieve a truly musical, deep, tight, well-defined, and natural bass.  Though this effort can take weeks, months, or even years and even then the most optimal location may never be discovered, even though it's probably there somewhere.

 

 

[Ralf11]

41 minutes ago, shtf said:

 

You can always tell the ones who subscribe to Stereophile magazine.   

 

I don't, muffy

[shtf]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I don't, muffy

 

Sure you do, tiger.  You don’t have enough experience with anything to come up with this on your own.

But I’ve been wrong before.   So let’s put this to the test.  

 

You said, “your "%" will change as $$ increases”.   So why not give maybe 8 – 10 quick real world examples where performance improved in accordance to price. 

 

I’m betting you can’t do it.  So maybe you should include some of the sonic “changes” in performance with each replacement as best as you recollect them and with the hope that you can substantiate your nonsensical statement.

 

[jabbr]

2 hours ago, shtf said:

Roughly speaking, real performance can be broken down as follows:

•  60% Not your typical vibration mgmt.
• 25% Not your typical electrical mgmt
• 15% Components, speakers, cables, etc
• 00% room acoustics and/or treatments

 

Choke. 

 

I’ve spent a great deal of time looking into and implementing vibration management — NFW it’s even close to 60% nor is electrical management 25 % 

— to suggest that room correction is 0% is equally absurd

— source is #1,  transducers are #2 components #3

[STC]

 

Put this on your DAC, speakers, amplifier. Let someone control the switch. When the motor turns on you could feel the vibration strong enough that even at the far side of the equipment you could fill the them when you touch it. Just do the blind test and prove to yourself. Sit far and use this golden opportunity to challenge the non believers how you could hear the negative effects of the vibration. 

[shtf]

3 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Choke. 

 

I’ve spent a great deal of time looking into and implementing vibration management — NFW it’s even close to 60% nor is electrical management 25 % 

— to suggest that room correction is 0% is equally absurd

— source is #1,  transducers are #2 components #3

 

YFW.   A couple of years ago, you opened a thread about the benefits of vibration mgmt. being controversial and I tried to share then that there was nothing controversial about its benefits.  Around that same time my 3 little Jena Labs passive, dedicated, and bi-directional line conditioners were going through a mechanical settling in process on their way to performing maybe 3 times their already fabulous out-of-the-box performance levels.  Simply because of an extreme mounting method I starting using to attach them to my custom racking system.  Which BTW, does the same for most components.

 

But you see, we’re talking apples and oranges.  There are automobiles and then there are automobiles. There are mechanics and then there are mechanics.  There are hockey players and then there’s Bobby Orr.  There are basketball players and then there’s Michael Jordan.

 

Surely you don’t think there’s just one method to vibration mgmt, do you?  In fact, the one method you’ve spent so much time on I call invalid and a grossly inferior version of the one true method.  At least when it come sensitive instruments where performance is paramount.

 

As for electrical mgmt., I don’t know what you’re thinking there but I know what I’m thinking.

 

As for room acoustic treatments having zero value.  I should explain.  Assuming of course the room is already deemed reasonable in and of itself, my claim there is also true. 

 

Think of it this way.  A given recording contains exactly 100% of the music info we’re potentially able to hear through our playback systems.  From our computer experiences with backups and restores, we already know that reading and processing at or near 100% accuracy is old technology.  But of that roughly 100% music info read and processed, that with a typical SOTA level playback system, I venture only 55-65% of that music info remains above the much raised noise flloor and hence, audible at the speaker.   This is a universal performance-limiting governor that no system can escape.  The result is perhaps more commonly known as a "hi-fi sound".

 

That’s because universal electrically- and mechanically-induced distortions gathered along the signal path greatly raise the noise floor so that much of the music info remains inaudible below the much raised noise floor.  If / when that much raised noise floor is lowered, that much more music info read and processed will remain audible at the speaker. 

 

That said, a good portion of that inaudible music info includes volumes of ambient information from the recording hall we can barely hear from our playback systems.  Now when that is true, you may indeed be competing greatly with your room’s acoustic anomalies.  But I attest that when much of that ambient info remains audible at the speaker, that recording hall ambient info entirely overshadows most any room acoustic anomalies.  Thereby, rendering the room’s acoustic anomalies insignificant at worst and possibly eliminated or a non-issue at best.

 

BTW, since when does spending a great deal of time looking into something make one an expert in anything? 

 

[Ralf11]

there are scientists, and there are ignoramuses

[shtf]

3 hours ago, STC said:

 

Put this on your DAC, speakers, amplifier. Let someone control the switch. When the motor turns on you could feel the vibration strong enough that even at the far side of the equipment you could fill the them when you touch it. Just do the blind test and prove to yourself. Sit far and use this golden opportunity to challenge the non believers how you could hear the negative effects of the vibration. 

 
Not sure who you're directing this toward but I'll tell you what the results are.  This appears to be little slot-car like electric motor.  In every case, the audible differences will be zero.  You could place 500 of these on your components and the sonic differences will still be zero.  You could place a live speaker on your components or stand, which some are known to do, and you still should not hear any degradation in sonics. 

 

For one simple reason....  On second thought, I'll leave that for you to determine.

[shtf]

19 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

there are scientists, and there are ignoramuses

 

Hey, champ (a play on words).  Where's your list of 8 - 10 upgrades to substantiate your claim that performance is tied directly to cost?

[STC]

19 minutes ago, shtf said:

You could place 500 of these on your components and the sonic differences will still be zero.

 

What? Vibration got no effect on SQ?

 

typical write up “some of those vibrations right back up the spikes the way they came and introduce both coloration and distortion to the music. Much of the vibration that causes a lot of distortion is higher-frequency, acute micro-vibration that you cannot really feel or readily detect.....”

 

Next I need a simpler experiment for power conditioner. I used far superior stabilizer and conditioner by Cetronics and Watford Control made especially for the cleanest and stable supply for sensitive equipment. The only different it made was to my power amplifier. 

 

[mansr]

1 hour ago, STC said:

What? Vibration got no effect on SQ?

Besides vinyl and tubes, no, not really.

[STC]

49 minutes ago, mansr said:

Besides vinyl and tubes, no, not really.

 

But....but....but.....but some can hear the difference when they are alone in their room.  

[4est]

3 hours ago, STC said:

 

What? Vibration got no effect on SQ?

 

typical write up “some of those vibrations right back up the spikes the way they came and introduce both coloration and distortion to the music. Much of the vibration that causes a lot of distortion is higher-frequency, acute micro-vibration that you cannot really feel or readily detect.....”

 

Next I need a simpler experiment for power conditioner. I used far superior stabilizer and conditioner by Cetronics and Watford Control made especially for the cleanest and stable supply for sensitive equipment. The only different it made was to my power amplifier. 

 

If you are going to try an experiment, you might at least use something that has some correlated vibration instead of a steady one.

[fas42]

There are so many takes on what can be done to improve SQ, and managing of vibration certainly plays a part.  I don't use the techniques of shtf, but understand the value of his approach - I appreciated the benefits of mass loading decades ago; in one area to consider, monster speakers weighing a ton is an extremely expensive way of doing this - there are far more cost effective approaches for achieving similar benefits.

 

As for so many of the methods for optimising SQ, the precise value of an individual tweak may be hard to measure - but disable a couple of them, and the floor may drop out from under you in terms of listening satisfaction, .

[mansr]

10 hours ago, shtf said:

Interesting how the responses are all over the map.  But that's only because everybody is just guessing.

 

If we assume every last possible part of the vineyard that makes up a given playback system is already deemed superior, here's how I'd break down where the real performance come from.  

 

Roughly speaking, real performance can be broken down as follows:

• 60% Not your typical vibration mgmt.
• 25% Not your typical electrical mgmt
• 15% Components, speakers, cables, etc
• 00% room acoustics and/or treatments

One caveat or side note.   Assuming we're talking full-range, a speaker's most optimal placement or position within a given room is an absolute requirement before one can achieve a truly musical, deep, tight, well-defined, and natural bass.  Though this effort can take weeks, months, or even years and even then the most optimal location may never be discovered, even though it's probably there somewhere.

You seem to be saying room acoustics don't matter, assuming the room has perfect acoustics.

[jabbr]

6 hours ago, shtf said:

BTW, since when does spending a great deal of time looking into something make one an expert in anything? 

 

You claimed vibration management makes up 60% of the SQ of an audio system. Now you claim that you’ve got something better than what I’ve implemented (and done comparative listening test on). My views and techniques are well documented on this site so no need to repeat. 60% is absurd for any system. There is also vast literature of vibration mitigation in physics eg graviton detection. So let’s see measurements. Vibrations are eminently measurable. 

 

You also use this bizarre terminology of a “bi-directional” line filter ... get a grip of some basic electronics. Circuits are circular, bidirectional ... all of it. Noise floor is also trivial to measure — or just listen — no need for bizarro terminology.

 

Let me say it again: the only rational reason for you to hold these views is if you are trying to peddle snake oil — what is your agenda? Do you have an industry affiliation? Are you in the business of selling products? What?

[PeterSt]

Here's vibration management:

Runs even on batteries.

It has been well experimented with either.

[jabbr]

8 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Here's vibration management:

Runs even on batteries.

It has been well experimented with either.

Speaking about sales & disco balls ... there’s really good $$$ here in the states running sex toy parties — a friend makes 50% commission on “pure romance”! 

 

Just thinking, this could open up a whole new market  for the Lush! 

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, jabbr said:

a whole new market  for the Lush!

 

Shortest is 40cm. Nobody wants it shorter. I have head no requests for pink yet.

 

But we better quit this subject quickly.

[PeterSt]

This *is* a good moment to announce that usually I hear best through the music when the hoover in the kitchen is on (me being in the kitchen just the same, the kitchen being open, adjacent to the listening room.

 

Of course this is (very) noisy, but at stages necessary and I won't shut up the music because of that.

It seems to work like adding noise to a photo (sharpening).