CPU Load and Sound Quality

[STC]

Just now, Ralf11 said:

 

what if you can span a space but not apply a measure to it?

then I am wasting my time concentrating on hifi  

[pkane2001]

46 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You see, Alex, that's where we have a problem here ... the technicals want the cart before the horse - unless something is measurable, it can't possibly exist 😜... the poor ol' universe, out there, struggled with self confidence for millennia, because humans hadn't worked how to 'measure' it - only now, slowly, is it starting to be feel OK about being so unusual, because people are pumping out more and more numbers about it - its sense of reality will finally fall into place when mankind gets all the i's dotted and t's crossed ... 🙂

 

Trouble is, this tidiness has failed to make it into, say, the medical world - wouldn't it be great if you were not feeling OK, and then the best experts of the day proclaimed that they can't find anything wrong ... you would be instantly cured, because "It was all in your head", 😉.

You got that wrong, Frank. I don’t need measurements, I just need valid evidence. So far, the closest was from Peter, which is why I want to confirm it.

 

 All else was talk about others and what they may or may not have heard and how many people here believe in it and the products that claim to reduce CPU load wouldn’t exist If it wasn’t true. This second hand evidence is not something that I can take seriously, especially since it contradicts my own experience.
 

Patiently awaiting your next car analogy to explain why this is all wrong-headed 

 

[sandyk]

39 minutes ago, STC said:

I am normal because I don’t imagine non existent sound in stereo playback.  

 Neither did you see the same  differences in some " colour" images that all the other participants did, and you also said this :

" I also don’t perceive height with binaural recordings with headphones.

From this it is clear that you have different perceptions to many others, both audible and visual. 

[fas42]

28 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

 All else was talk about others and what they may or may not have heard and how many people here believe in it and the products that claim to reduce CPU load wouldn’t exist If it wasn’t true. This second hand evidence is not something that I can take seriously, especially since it contradicts my own experience.
 

Patiently awaiting your next car analogy to explain why this is all wrong-headed 

 

 

You want visual evidence? - our infamous Gearslutz collection of converter loop captures provides plenty of that, in that every DA/AD chain does it slightly differently - is it such a stretch that extraneous electrical activity, possibly impacting the chain, causes variations also? 😀

 

The bolded bit above is what it's all about - one has to have it happen "in front of one's ears" to start believing things; and it's so, so easy to make excuses when one doesn't want to believe ... "the room was all wrong!"; "it's a distortion enhancing the recording!", "I had too much to drink!" - that's a real goody, 😜, "the recordings were specially selected to make it sound different!", etc, etc, etc, ...

 

When one knows, in the sense of inner knowing, that something is a factor, then it becomes easy to set up an experiment which demonstrates that - to oneself. This has nothing to do with expectation bias - one can try one direction, and it makes no difference; another direction, and things get worse; then the next variation is tried, and a definite gain occurs - this is something like cooking: you play with added ingredients, to see if you can make the flavour better - or should we discard those notoriously unreliable taste buds? 🙂

 

Oh dear ... the car analogy lost out to an upstart - who would have thunk it?

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

This second hand evidence is not something that I can take seriously, especially since it contradicts my own experience.

 

Your personal experience is no more valid than anyone else's personal experience.

Just because you are unable to hear , or measure a difference in your setup, does not mean that others are unable to hear a difference in their setup.

 Yet again it comes down to irrefutable evidence demanded of non technical people that they are not in a position to provide.

[STC]

46 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Neither did you see the same  differences in some " colour" images that all the other participants did, and you also said this :

" I also don’t perceive height with binaural recordings with headphones.

From this it is clear that you have different perceptions to many others, both audible and visual. 

Alex, I may have wasted my time giving feedback to the videos you sent. I stated the difference existed due to different frames and included different frames for you to compare and see where they are identical. Instead of looking at it objectively whether the difference existed because of you/we comparing different frames you used it to justify difference existed in the videos .

[mansr]

9 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Your personal experience is no more valid than anyone else's personal experience.

Nor any less.

[pkane2001]

16 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You want visual evidence? - our infamous Gearslutz collection of converter loop captures provides plenty of that, in that every DA/AD chain does it slightly differently - is it such a stretch that extraneous electrical activity, possibly impacting the chain, causes variations also? 😀

 

The bolded bit above is what it's all about - one has to have it happen "in front of one's ears" to start believing things; and it's so, so easy to make excuses when one doesn't want to believe ... "the room was all wrong!"; "it's a distortion enhancing the recording!", "I had too much to drink!" - that's a real goody, 😜, "the recordings were specially selected to make it sound different!", etc, etc, etc, ...

 

When one knows, in the sense of inner knowing, that something is a factor, then it becomes easy to set up an experiment which demonstrates that - to oneself. This has nothing to do with expectation bias - one can try one direction, and it makes no difference; another direction, and things get worse; then the next variation is tried, and a definite gain occurs - this is something like cooking: you play with added ingredients, to see if you can make the flavour better - or should we discard those notoriously unreliable taste buds? 🙂

 

Oh dear ... the car analogy lost out to an upstart - who would have thunk it?

You forget that I’ve run these exact tests with ADC loop through multiple DACs and multiple ADCs in the process of developing and testing. If there ever was a dependency on CPU load, it was not at all obvious. I’ve also run these tests specifically to check for the effect of CPU load, as I was trying to understand all the sources of distortions introduced in such a loop. I didn’t find any effect of CPU load, I’m afraid. In fact, different capacitance of the interconnects had a greater effect than any changes to CPU load I’ve tried.

 

Wait! What? No car analogy? Now I’m disappointed

 

[sandyk]

21 minutes ago, STC said:

Alex, I may have wasted my time giving feedback to the videos you sent. I stated the difference existed due to different frames and included different frames for you to compare and see where they are identical. Instead of looking at it objectively whether the difference existed because of you/we comparing different frames you used it to justify difference existed in the videos .

 Just as you wasted my time when reporting hearing differences just before the earpiece fell onto the floor ?

From an email you sent to me " I just finished listening with headphones and about to email. I think I could distinguish both files. However, I have to a proper blind test. This is interesting. I will download the files later before going to bedtime and give it another try. "

 BTW, did you ever get that GeForce Video card you were thinking about ?

 

 This is all completely off topic though  and has nothing to do though with the present thread.

 Perhaps you should as the OP, clean up this thread ?

[STC]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Just as you wasted my time when reporting hearing differences just before the earpiece fell onto the floor ?

" I just finished listening with headphones and about to email. I think I could distinguish both files. However, I have to a proper blind test. This is interesting. I will download the files later before going to bedtime and give it another try. "

 

 This is all completely off topic though  and has nothing to do though with the present thread.

 Perhaps you should as the OP, clean up this thread ?

Maybe you are right. It is getting childish. 

[pkane2001]

23 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Your personal experience is no more valid than anyone else's personal experience.

Just because you are unable to hear , or measure a difference in your setup, does not mean that others are unable to hear a difference in their setup.

 Yet again it comes down to irrefutable evidence demanded of non technical people that they are not in a position to provide.

 I think I made a mistake taking you off the ignore list. Try to think of some new material and arguments while I’m not responding; this stuff is getting very stale.

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

You forget that I’ve run these exact tests with ADC loop through multiple DACs and multiple ADCs in the process of developing and testing. If there ever was a dependency on CPU load, it was not at all obvious. I’ve also run these tests specifically to check for the effect of CPU load, as I was trying to understand all the sources of distortions introduced in such a loop. I didn’t find any effect of CPU load, I’m afraid. In fact, different capacitance of the interconnects had a greater effect than any changes to CPU load I’ve tried.

 

Wait! What? No car analogy? Now I’m disappointed

 

 

And the simple answer, in your case, may be that that the loops you were using were sufficiently well engineered for it not be be significantly affected by the types of electrical interference that can occur with changes in CPU usage. Does this translate to mean that all chains are that well engineered?

 

Personally, I have zero desire for all these factors to matter - they make life messy! I don't have a need, as some audiophiles do, to make my rig incredibly sensitive to tiny variations - this strays into hifi being a hobby where the vehicle is everything, and the road you drive on doesn't matter at all.

 

There, there ... you got your analogy, this time ... feeling better, now? 😉

[pkane2001]

7 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

And the simple answer, in your case, may be that that the loops you were using were sufficiently well engineered for it not be be significantly affected by the types of electrical interference that can occur with changes in CPU usage. Does this translate to mean that all chains are that well engineered?

 

Personally, I have zero desire for all these factors to matter - they make life messy! I don't have a need, as some audiophiles do, to make my rig incredibly sensitive to tiny variations - this strays into hifi being a hobby where the vehicle is everything, and the road you drive on doesn't matter at all.

 

There, there ... you got your analogy, this time ... feeling better, now? 😉

Of course, this could be that my specific DACs/ADCs are immune. As an example, Peter’s Lush^2 USB cable actually made an obvious difference with an older Emotiva DAC, but not with any of the others I’ve tried, including a $50 Behringer USB interface.

 

[mansr]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

Of course, this could be that my specific DACs/ADCs are immune. As an example, Peter’s Lush^2 USB cable actually made an obvious difference with an older Emotiva DAC, but not with any of the others I’ve tried, including a $50 Behringer USB interface.

I thought Emotiva was better than that. What kind of difference did it make?

[pkane2001]

4 minutes ago, mansr said:

I thought Emotiva was better than that. What kind of difference did it make?

 

Lush produced more jitter and spurae over a generic USB cable. It didn’t improve things. This was with XDA-2. May have to do with ground loops or shield connections, since these are configurable on Lush^2.

[fas42]

11 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Lush produced more jitter and spurae over a generic USB cable. It didn’t improve things. This was with XDA-2. May have to do with ground loops or shield connections, since these are configurable on Lush^2.

 

Which gives a hint as to why the configuring of the Lush cable may have a positive benefit - something close to random noise being introduced, into analogue circuits that are less well isolated, could have a masking effect on unpleasant, low level distortion.

[Ralf11]

The claim that everyone else's personal experiences are equally valid is absurd.

[sandyk]

39 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

The claim that everyone else's personal experiences are equally valid is absurd.

 

This may very well apply to someone like yourself where high quality Audio is concerned.

[PeterSt]

19 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

I have some experience here... having written a full multi-tasking O/S for 80386 processor in the mid-80s. Task switching, scheduler, memory manager, DMA, interrupts, device drivers, storage management, protection rings, all that is old hat.

 

Paul, I hope you understand I wasn't trying to offend you. My experience is/was quite similar, back from the 70's, though main frames. But

 

19 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

Well, yes. But if 99% cpu utilization with many active threads and context switches doesn't generate a difference compared to a 1% load, I don't see how a blinking cursor could do this so easily 

 

that requires different experiences and in the end knowledge all together. When I started with this, I wasn't measuring computers as such, electrically. Why would I have. Why would anyone do such a thing. Why would anyone do such a thing on behalf of audio ? He surely should be crazy doing such things (mind you, this still counts today, only not for me). So as I said earlier on, there is no science in it that I can see, but working on these matters for over 10 years brings some empirically found knowledge (yes) which is still hard to describe because it is all unknown, not written about and even rejected by those who are educated in the field.

 

The 1 % load would probably be the worser one because of more distinct (noticeable) peaks. Trust me.

 

Get yourself a power meter. 20-30 USD. Put it in the mains outlet, and put your PC in it from there. Btw, notice that for me this would not be a situation to listen to/through because it will sound bad. Yep.

 

A PC, hence CPU, and obviously the one I am using (which is a 115WTDP or so Xeon)  is capable of about "instantly" drawing 20-30W more from the mains. I never measured the "instantly" but I regard it to be a few milliseconds (others may know or may be able to find the data on ATX PSU (latest version)). And I say 20-30W because that is what I see myself in an idle environment, not really power controlled or optimized. Thus this is NOT derived from some kind of instant testing, and putting the CPU from idle state to engaging all of its cores to 100% instantly (but theoretically it would imply something like a 100W more, as "instantly").

Now how to think that this will not influence everything and all, hooked to the mains, or what will be going on over interlinks (USB) otherwise. Of course, when all it made for it, the influences vanish. Part of it is a linear PSU which is slower (yes, think about that too). But when too slow, things won't be able to cope and again SQ worsens (this is why a very small TDP processor never sounds good, but actually this is another story - though notice that it is related because you can't solve the 20-30W issue by means of a lower wattage CPU). The headroom of the Porsche vs the Trabant (sorry).

 

The movement of that cursor is that 20-30W increase. Try it. And once you see it happening, you start to dig what the heck is going on in that stupid OS, why it happens, and that indeed it is all so.

Not when *I* start playback, this is all moved out of the way. Now the usage is varying 1.5W only (which I still deem to much but this is USB related and out of my real control), with playback (say 32/705.6) going on on top of it.

Btw the whole OS tweaking (also done by XXHighEnd) causes a normally idle running system like this - that consuming 90-120W - to lower that consumption to 45W.

Now also think of a 20-30W varying on to 90W is less impacting than 20-30W on to 45W. So these elements also play its role.

 

 

I'll stop here, because this isn't supposed to be a lecture or something of that kind. But it hopefully tells that my systems programming experiences from back in the days, don't do really much to the knowledge required for this stuff. One thing though: your interest will go in this direction easily, because of that base knowledge and experiences.

Btw, I recall it took me more than a year to tame the Garbage Collection of the Windows OSes (OSes because in each version they change things to it). So this alone validates some reading into Mark Russinovich System Internals books.

And when all that has been done, we're up to influencing the lot because we can now first see it. Next up is whether it would be able to change sound. Say that this is today, anno November 2019.

 

Obviously for me the path went the other way around; I first made the influencing from some theoretical ideas (which computer playback for the better also was such an idea), that worked and then some kind of first next was writing this analysis software.

And all I really learned from there is that the least deviation of those graphs compared to the reference line, would be the most accurate representation of what's in the data (the file). Already that part is killing, because when it is 16/44.1 Redbook, that won't be what we play. It has to be filtered first ... Anyway, this is why I showed the graph of the lesser accurate channel. These things *can* be measured. And it is easy to see how a discrete number could be dedicated to the deviations. 

 

 

As a matter of fact, I started out with such discrete numbers, but it didn't tell what was going on ...

Still it could be an accuracy number.

 

[Blackmorec]

9 hours ago, mansr said:

Nor any less.

No? Surely it depends almost entirely on WHAT they’re listening to? 

There are one or two folk have included pictures of their system, which comprise some fairly decent components; and some of the worst set-up I’ve every seen. Set-up so bad you can see why they can’t hear fairly major differences that would otherwise be obvious were their system decently organised. 

[sandyk]

14 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

No? Surely it depends almost entirely on WHAT they’re listening to? 

There are one or two folk have included pictures of their system, which comprise some fairly decent components; and some of the worst set-up I’ve every seen. Set-up so bad you can see why they can’t hear fairly major differences that would otherwise be obvious were their system decently organised. 

 

 

It's interesting to note that the more vocal Anti Subjective members never seem to show pictures of their systems.

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, Blackmorec said:

No? Surely it depends almost entirely on WHAT they’re listening to? 

There are one or two folk have included pictures of their system, which comprise some fairly decent components; and some of the worst set-up I’ve every seen. Set-up so bad you can see why they can’t hear fairly major differences that would otherwise be obvious were their system decently organised. 

 

Personally, I see this as an easy put down used against anyone you don’t agree with: their system isn’t transparent enough.
 

But how would you judge someone’s system if you’ve never heard it? By price? By number of Stereophile-approved components? By number of tweaks, such as REGEN devices and Entreq boxes and specialty power cables? Why would it be up to you to decide how good or bad something sounds and not up to the person who actually put the system together?

[pkane2001]

5 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Paul, I hope you understand I wasn't trying to offend you. My experience is/was quite similar, back from the 70's, though main frames. But

 

 

that requires different experiences and in the end knowledge all together. When I started with this, I wasn't measuring computers as such, electrically. Why would I have. Why would anyone do such a thing. Why would anyone do such a thing on behalf of audio ? He surely should be crazy doing such things (mind you, this still counts today, only not for me). So as I said earlier on, there is no science in it that I can see, but working on these matters for over 10 years brings some empirically found knowledge (yes) which is still hard to describe because it is all unknown, not written about and even rejected by those who are educated in the field.

 

The 1 % load would probably be the worser one because of more distinct (noticeable) peaks. Trust me.

 

Get yourself a power meter. 20-30 USD. Put it in the mains outlet, and put your PC in it from there. Btw, notice that for me this would not be a situation to listen to/through because it will sound bad. Yep.

 

A PC, hence CPU, and obviously the one I am using (which is a 115WTDP or so Xeon)  is capable of about "instantly" drawing 20-30W more from the mains. I never measured the "instantly" but I regard it to be a few milliseconds (others may know or may be able to find the data on ATX PSU (latest version)). And I say 20-30W because that is what I see myself in an idle environment, not really power controlled or optimized. Thus this is NOT derived from some kind of instant testing, and putting the CPU from idle state to engaging all of its cores to 100% instantly (but theoretically it would imply something like a 100W more, as "instantly").

Now how to think that this will not influence everything and all, hooked to the mains, or what will be going on over interlinks (USB) otherwise. Of course, when all it made for it, the influences vanish. Part of it is a linear PSU which is slower (yes, think about that too). But when too slow, things won't be able to cope and again SQ worsens (this is why a very small TDP processor never sounds good, but actually this is another story - though notice that it is related because you can't solve the 20-30W issue by means of a lower wattage CPU). The headroom of the Porsche vs the Trabant (sorry).

 

The movement of that cursor is that 20-30W increase. Try it. And once you see it happening, you start to dig what the heck is going on in that stupid OS, why it happens, and that indeed it is all so.

Not when *I* start playback, this is all moved out of the way. Now the usage is varying 1.5W only (which I still deem to much but this is USB related and out of my real control), with playback (say 32/705.6) going on on top of it.

Btw the whole OS tweaking (also done by XXHighEnd) causes a normally idle running system like this - that consuming 90-120W - to lower that consumption to 45W.

Now also think of a 20-30W varying on to 90W is less impacting than 20-30W on to 45W. So these elements also play its role.

 

 

I'll stop here, because this isn't supposed to be a lecture or something of that kind. But it hopefully tells that my systems programming experiences from back in the days, don't do really much to the knowledge required for this stuff. One thing though: your interest will go in this direction easily, because of that base knowledge and experiences.

Btw, I recall it took me more than a year to tame the Garbage Collection of the Windows OSes (OSes because in each version they change things to it). So this alone validates some reading into Mark Russinovich System Internals books.

And when all that has been done, we're up to influencing the lot because we can now first see it. Next up is whether it would be able to change sound. Say that this is today, anno November 2019.

 

Obviously for me the path went the other way around; I first made the influencing from some theoretical ideas (which computer playback for the better also was such an idea), that worked and then some kind of first next was writing this analysis software.

And all I really learned from there is that the least deviation of those graphs compared to the reference line, would be the most accurate representation of what's in the data (the file). Already that part is killing, because when it is 16/44.1 Redbook, that won't be what we play. It has to be filtered first ... Anyway, this is why I showed the graph of the lesser accurate channel. These things *can* be measured. And it is easy to see how a discrete number could be dedicated to the deviations. 

 

 

As a matter of fact, I started out with such discrete numbers, but it didn't tell what was going on ...

Still it could be an accuracy number.

 

 

Sure, it's possible that peaky, noisy power draw can result in junk being introduced into the AC line. This does indicate a poor PS design that doesn't include enough capacitance to handle the demands of the circuit or not enough filtering and regulation to remove unwanted noise. As it is, when I test, I usually have a laptop running on batteries doing the measurement. This way it's not affected by the AC line and can't create ground loops through the mains.

 

So can you please describe how the top graph was captured? Was it captured as digital data, or analog output using an ADC, scope or analyzer? And at what point in the DAC was this captured?

[Blackmorec]

45 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Personally, I see this as an easy put down used against anyone you don’t agree with: their system isn’t transparent enough.
 

But how would you judge someone’s system if you’ve never heard it? By price? By number of Stereophile-approved components? By number of tweaks, such as REGEN devices and Entreq boxes and specialty power cables? Why would it be up to you to decide how good or bad something sounds and not up to the person who actually put the system together?

How would I judge someone’s system if I’ve never heard it? Now there’s a good question which I’ll happily answer.

 

By recognising the type of speakers and the way they are positioned far too close together, too close to the wall and with no toe-in

By seeing components on a table with lots of lose, unsecured panels that will vibrate, or on a cabinet that’s essentially just a huge resonant wooden box

By seeing components stacked on top of one another with no thought to radiated EMI or vibration control

By seeing how power and interconnect cables are tangled with each other and coiled up behind components

By noting the use of cheap power strips with poor contacts and variable earth impedances. 

By seeing speakers positioned right next to and level with large cabinets that will cause huge amounts of diffraction.

By seeing systems installed in highly asymmetrical rooms with walls or windows to one side and complete open space on the other, completely destroying any chance of a sound stage and imaging. 

I could continue but I’m sure you get the picture (s’cuse the pun)

 

When I look at a system that’s been installed without due care and attention I know several things about how it sounds. I also know that its not producing true high fidelity sound that’s true to the recording, its not revealing fine detail and its entirely unable to resolve the differences brought by things like better cables. So when people with such systems tell me that cables et al make no difference, I believe them, because I know exactly why that’s the case. 

 

The real problem comes when that system sets the quality benchmark for its owner. It uses good quality components that review well, so their conclusion is it must sound excellent and must be capable of reproducing differences between cables, in the event such a thing actually exists. 

[STC]

2 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 

It's interesting to note that the more vocal Anti Subjective members never seem to show pictures of their systems.

What is more interesting is that none of the high end audiophile manufacturers ever posted audio of their system’s playback. Some of them make speakers for studios and have at theIr disposal the best microphones which can reproduce the sound exactly as how they would capture a life performance.

 

Don’t you find it strange that some magazine are publishing the measurements but coy when it can produce accurate recordings of the playback? All high end system will sound more or less the same in the same room. 
 

One reviewer attempted to that and it was unbelievable good sound so much so I knew it wasn’t the sound that what was shown in the video. Someone spotted it and doubted about its authenticity .  The admission came after that that the audio was recorded separately even that I doubt of it’s accuracy. 
 

I have downloaded the video and looking for similar setup to record the same track playing in the system.