Paul's view on Cables, Audio Precision Analyzer, etc.

[Ralf11]

13 hours ago, marce said:

I agree, but loose track when he meanders off topic with his little anecdotes, I must make some notes next time.

 

if you work up your notes well, you can publish an article based on them here:

 

https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/abn/

[fas42]

The trouble in the audio world is that this, like it almost always is, is just the first step in a three stage process of understanding ...

 

Step 1: Doing things like changing the type of cable changes the sound.

 

Step 2: If the sound changes for such a dumb thing, then there must be a weakness in the system which is reacting to the reconfiguration - the integrity of the chain is not good enough to be able to ignore the tiny alteration in the total physical makeup of all the parts.

 

Step 3: Locate where the weakness occurs, and make that part robust. If this is done correctly, then "changing the type of cable" will make zero audible difference, under all circumstances.

[fas42]

Finally finished listening to the interview - and I agree, very good ...

 

Couple of points:

 

The bit about not being able to "unhear" something is spot on - once you trigger a much higher standard of replay, you can never forget what it's like. And conventional standards of SQ can never cut it, again. So, perhaps best to never experience it, for those who are "too old", 😁.

 

The dilemma of measuring "what's going on!!" ... my attitude is that there is only one "great mystery" - how to measure the anomaly and distortion behaviours that separate convincing from unconvincing sound ... that I don't know how to do, and I've been looking for any experiences, by others, that get one closer to better understanding such ... so far, very little luck on that front, 😉.

[fas42]

Just noting the Ethan Winer challenge, and Paul's response ... https://forum.psaudio.com/t/ethan-winers-challenge/8639.

 

The best post in that thread, by Paul, is

 

Quote

It’s that but more important he’s not measuring the chain. If he had a reference system capable of reproducing differences, which apparently he does not, he could use a microphone to record the output of the chain then digitally compare files for differences.
What’s doing now makes no sense, not if you want to actually get to the truth of why we hear differences

 

And here of course we could use our Paul's, 😉, DeltaWave tool to try and get to the bottom of it ...

[Archimago]

What a "great" interview :-).

 

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/02/diy-archimagos-colorful-set-of-speaker.html

 

A debate b/w Winer and McGowan would be fun... I think those guys could keep emotions in check without breaking down into a hysterical brawl. 

[fas42]

4 hours ago, Archimago said:

What a "great" interview :-).

 

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/02/diy-archimagos-colorful-set-of-speaker.html

 

 

I read your piece... and see you falling down all the same rabbit holes as everyone else who wishes to debunk the impact of variation in non-obvious stuff.

 

As an example, you say,

 

Quote

So here is a "high end" ("perfectionist audio") manufacturer who believes that certain as-yet-not-understood phenomena exist. He believes that these special properties can be measured. That it's clearly audible. And he doesn't want to spend any engineering budget trying to understand the phenomena!

 

People like yourself refuse to accept that typical rigs are imperfect enough to always add a signature to the sound of the recording - after all, if that weren't the case then every system "would sound the same"  - so, what one hears is the actual sound of the recording PLUS the sound of the system; the distortion resulting from its imperfections. And a lot of the anomalies heard are the result of the lack of integrity of the connections between its parts.

 

This is not "as-yet-not-understood phenomena". Nor is worthwhile trying to measure it - because what is 'wrong' with the system will vary, per each system; a solution, as in changing the type of cable used, is simply that - a solution; measuring what actually happened is only useful in the sense of understanding why the system had a weakness the first place... if I find a rattle in a brand new car, and I work out which piece of loose plastic is giving me grief ... should I write a paper about it ... ? 😉

[Archimago]

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I read your piece... and see you falling down all the same rabbit holes as everyone else who wishes to debunk the impact of variation in non-obvious stuff.

 

Are you sure those rabbit holes you speak of are real, Frank?

 

Quote

As an example, you say,

 

 

People like yourself refuse to accept that typical rigs are imperfect enough to always add a signature to the sound of the recording - after all, if that weren't the case then every system "would sound the same"  - so, what one hears is the actual sound of the recording PLUS the sound of the system; the distortion resulting from its imperfections. And a lot of the anomalies heard are the result of the lack of integrity of the connections between its parts.

 

Yes, if all systems were perfectly transparent, then they'd sound the same given the same recording.

Final sound = Recording + System Coloration

 

Don't think I can agree that "a lot" of the anomalies are due to "integrity of the connection". I would say much of the coloration these days come from one's transducer (speakers, headphone) and room as may be the case.

 

Quote

This is not "as-yet-not-understood phenomena". Nor is worthwhile trying to measure it - because what is 'wrong' with the system will vary, per each system; a solution, as in changing the type of cable used, is simply that - a solution; measuring what actually happened is only useful in the sense of understanding why the system had a weakness the first place... if I find a rattle in a brand new car, and I work out which piece of loose plastic is giving me grief ... should I write a paper about it ... ? 😉

 

So you're arguing that each system has idiosyncrasies. That's true. But what Darko and McGowan are claiming is that cables in general are able to change sound substantially. The strange claims about the Ted Smith DAC is more akin to your "rattle in a brand new car" and suggests that it's a bad DAC design because of its idiosyncrasies.

[fas42]

1 minute ago, Archimago said:

 

Don't think I can agree that "a lot" of the anomalies are due to "integrity of the connection". I would say much of the coloration these days come from one's transducer (speakers, headphone) and room as may be the case.

 

Yes, we agree to disagree here ... however, the first setup that delivered the high standard of SQ that I talk about only came about because I spent a lot of time investigating what was going on in this area; if I reverted to the normal standard of connecting, then all those gains would have vanished ... so, I'm sold!

 

And I have followed the same procedures ever since, with other components, with commensurate gains - it's also why I have very little time for ambitious rigs, which to me normally stink of audible anomalies related to their lack of integrity.

 

1 minute ago, Archimago said:

 

So you're arguing that each system has idiosyncrasies. That's true. But what Darko and McGowan are claiming is that cables in general are able to change sound substantially. The strange claims about the Ted Smith DAC is more akin to your "rattle in a brand new car" and suggests that it's a bad DAC design because of its idiosyncrasies.

 

In general they will .. because parasitic properties derived from how they are made, and connected, will alter to some degree the "System Coloration" component - just enough to be audible, if one is sensitive to the type of sound changes that occur.

 

The Ted Smith DAC is fairly typical of what many designers say, in candid interviews - get the technical performance right, then the real work begins ... nut out what has to be fine-tuned in the construction of the product to deliver actual acceptable SQ. There was an interesting piece by Stan Curtis, the designer of the first "audiophile" CDP, some time ago - he stated that the production examples of what he designed, no matter what it was, never sounded as good as his prototypes ... I would say, that the fine-tuning in the building of his original circuit could not be passed through to the manufacturing side; key decisions of "how to do it", affecting quality, were lost in this process.

[Archimago]

59 minutes ago, fas42 said:

In general they will .. because parasitic properties derived from how they are made, and connected, will alter to some degree the "System Coloration" component - just enough to be audible, if one is sensitive to the type of sound changes that occur.

 

Is there an objective way to prove that these parasitic properties from how they were connected?

 

59 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The Ted Smith DAC is fairly typical of what many designers say, in candid interviews - get the technical performance right, then the real work begins ... nut out what has to be fine-tuned in the construction of the product to deliver actual acceptable SQ. There was an interesting piece by Stan Curtis, the designer of the first "audiophile" CDP, some time ago - he stated that the production examples of what he designed, no matter what it was, never sounded as good as his prototypes ... I would say, that the fine-tuning in the building of his original circuit could not be passed through to the manufacturing side; key decisions of "how to do it", affecting quality, were lost in this process.

 

Maybe. Don't know if prototypes sounded better than the final product. Guess one would need to ask him...

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

 

Is there an objective way to prove that these parasitic properties from how they were connected?

 

There would be - as I quoted from PM above,

 

Quote

It’s that but more important he’s not measuring the chain. If he had a reference system capable of reproducing differences, which apparently he does not, he could use a microphone to record the output of the chain then digitally compare files for differences.
What’s doing now makes no sense, not if you want to actually get to the truth of why we hear differences

 

Do that, then use DeltaWave to try and drill down and locate where there are meaningful differences between the two configurations - if one does this in a rigorous manner then I, for one, would be confident that there would be something there, that could be pointed to ...

[Archimago]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

There would be - as I quoted from PM above,

 

 

Do that, then use DeltaWave to try and drill down and locate where there are meaningful differences between the two configurations - if one does this in a rigorous manner then I, for one, would be confident that there would be something there, that could be pointed to ...

 

You think this would demonstrate connection differences and the parasitic properties you speak of?

 

Give it a try with some USB cables and let us know what you find ;-).

 

[jabbr]

On 2/5/2020 at 1:25 PM, mansr said:

That amount of money for a device relying on proprietary software that may or may not work next year is not what I call reasonable.

John Miles is a very well known and respected guy in the [time-nuts] community.  These guys do this primarily for radio, not audio. He has a track record. http://www.thegleam.com/ke5fx/

 

His product is really quite nice.

 

Of course if you'd rather spend 10x for whatever company is selling HP these days then that's another option.

[mansr]

22 minutes ago, jabbr said:

John Miles is a very well known and respected guy in the [time-nuts] community.  These guys do this primarily for radio, not audio. He has a track record. http://www.thegleam.com/ke5fx/

 

His product is really quite nice.

I don't doubt that he's a nice guy or that the product is great. It's the reliance on proprietary Windows-only software that bugs me. Sooner or later it will stop being supported, and then you'll have a very expensive paperweight.

[jabbr]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

I don't doubt that he's a nice guy or that the product is great. It's the reliance on proprietary Windows-only software that bugs me. Sooner or later it will stop being supported, and then you'll have a very expensive paperweight.

 

You can't even imagine what it takes to get that old HP/Agilent equipment to run ... not just some specific ancient version of Windows but with a clock rate limited CPU ... and lots and lots of duct tape.

[mansr]

12 minutes ago, jabbr said:

You can't even imagine what it takes to get that old HP/Agilent equipment to run ... not just some specific ancient version of Windows but with a clock rate limited CPU ... and lots and lots of duct tape.

A self-contained device should simply keep working until it breaks physically.

[jabbr]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

A self-contained device should simply keep working until it breaks physically.

 

These types of phase measurement pieces are not self contained. e.g. http://hpmemoryproject.org/technics/bench/3048/bench_3048_home.htm

 

The details of what make these measurements unique are the ability to do very close-in offsets at low (Mhz) frequencies.

 

 

[mansr]

7 minutes ago, jabbr said:

These types of phase measurement pieces are not self contained.

And that is the problem.

[Ralf11]

It's the reliance on GP-IB that surprised me.  I've got a closet full of that and HP-IL that I'd like to unload.

[fas42]

15 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

You think this would demonstrate connection differences and the parasitic properties you speak of?

 

Give it a try with some USB cables and let us know what you find ;-).

 

 

Not the man to talk to 🙂 ... I don't "do" USB, and have no special interest in it. Plus, if you want to do it seriously I would want the best microphone setup around to make sure that everything that mattered was captured; I only have a rank amateur's device here, and zero experience in recording.

 

Lots of talk around about Schiit's new Unison USB interface - even the designers said it was a surprise how much it "changed the sound" ...in the sense of this being something that "should make no difference!!". But these are exactly the sort of things that I find to be crucially important; in part because people don't take them seriously, as regards affecting SQ - and therefore don't try and refine all aspects of their behaviour. What I would find interesting is if people did captures of rigs using the new Unison, and then going back to the board that was used before ... could something significant be seen in the system output?

[Thuaveta]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

even the designers said it was a surprise how much it "changed the sound" ...in the sense of this being something that "should make no difference!!".

 

Brothers've gotta make a living, my friend. What were they going to say ? "The new upgraded Unison USB interface makes no difference whatsoever. The upgrade is available for purchase today at Schiit.com, for $150, or for $200 including installation by Schiit." ?

[fas42]

16 hours ago, Thuaveta said:

 

Brothers've gotta make a living, my friend. What were they going to say ? "The new upgraded Unison USB interface makes no difference whatsoever. The upgrade is available for purchase today at Schiit.com, for $150, or for $200 including installation by Schiit." ?

 

I came across the comment in this post, https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up.701900/post-15226640. Judge for yourself, in the context of the conversation, whether he's in Marketing Push mode ...

[Blake]

A follow-up piece to the original article I posted at the beginning of this thread:

 

https://darko.audio/2020/02/period-pain/

 

[fas42]

Where he does himself a disservice is by repeating  the mantra, "it is no longer simply a matter of ones and zeroes" - in the world where you can stay, always, in thinking, it is just data in digital form, then "ones and zeroes" is the full story ... what he should really be saying is something like "the analogue qualities of how ones and zeros are shipped around, and handled, matter".

 

Saying it in the original form is just asking to be criticised, makes it very easy to attack his viewpoint.

[Ralf11]

saying something like "the analogue qualities of how ones and zeros are shipped around, and handled, matter"  is just asking to be criticised, and makes it very easy to attack his viewpoint

[fas42]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

saying something like "the analogue qualities of how ones and zeros are shipped around, and handled, matter"  is just asking to be criticised, and makes it very easy to attack his viewpoint

 

So you would have no trouble insisting that irrespective of the amount of noise, jitter and other crap that was added, as an experiment, to the lines of say a USB link to any audio device, such that the data was still correctly received, that it would always have zero audible effect, in all circumstances? ... Put your life on the line, certain?