An Edifying Journey ...

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

What happens when you turn up the volume is that, a) you start to stress the level of engineering that was used, limitations of that just get more and more pronounced; and b) the sound levels now make it easier to pick up deficiencies in the SQ; like if a real piano has some physical problem, the closer you get to it, the clearer is the fact that something is wrong with the instrument

 

Precisely, they are far from perfect. 

Yet, within their intended use, all recordings are highly enjoyable!

 

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

For me to be "brutally honest", you're still clinging to the conventional thinking about how to improve SQ; 35 years experience, for me, has made it very clear that this is a very poor method ...

 

What method am I using? 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

That's nonsense. Resolution is a function of the whole chain; some of the poorest 'resolution' setups I've come across have used huge, expensive speakers - SQ is always the result of the system in its entirety; not just one component

 

Where did I say that resolution was not the result of the whole system? 

 

You would understand the limits that a pair of Edifier speakers set if you had actually listened to other systems in person and not through YouTube videos - on those Edifier speakers! 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Convincing playback - you hear a piano being played at the other end of the house; and you walk down and into the room: there's a piano being played at the end of the room, but you can't see it; just the normal furniture, and those hifi speakers - which don't appear to be doing anything. You walk around around, and shake your head; "There's a piano here, but I can't see it!!". The person beside you is just as puzzled - "What the hell is going on here!" ...

 

I am starting to wonder if you have actually ever heard a piano.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

Incorrect. "Natural sounding" is a function of the playback chain, in total; speakers which come closer to that are ones which allow the electronics to perform better, by virtue of their impedance characteristics, sensitivity and tend not to exaggerate any anomalies of the driving chain.

 

What does that even mean? 

 

[fas42]

44 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

What method am I using? 

 

Using the belief that speakers are critical, and how they are set up in the room is critical.

 

Yes, for your PowerDAC it's essential to get exactly the right configuration of speakers; because of the limited output of the device - but other setups are not so restricted; their conventional amplifiers have plenty of power to drive them.

 

35 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

You would understand the limits that a pair of Edifier speakers set if you had actually listened to other systems in person and not through YouTube videos - on those Edifier speakers! 

 

 

Last time I went to a high end dealer, not a single system was worth a second glance. In the last audio show, only a half dozen setups showed the right characteristics. Home systems are no better ...

 

I don't listen to YT, on the Edifiers.

 

32 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

I am starting to wonder if you have actually ever heard a piano.

 

Well, there is one, an upright that my wife plays, just to the left of the speakers. But it's nothing special - the ones that the recordings are normally made on are quite superior - as is clear when listening, .

 

What a capable setup delivers is intensity, transient impact - if you don't get that, then the realness aspect doesn't materialise.

[fas42]

13 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

What does that even mean? 

 

 

As an example, speakers with a rising FR in the tweeter; if the treble is damaged, earlier in the chain, then you will get a very 'shouty' speaker.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, hopkins said:

 

The speakers presented in the thread you mentioned all have specificities. While obviously the whole system counts, put the same system behind your Edifiers and you will perhaps understand what I am talking about. 

 

The Edifiers are the system - like many today, all they need is digital in; which is what I use. Once you introduce some other gear in the chain, then the whole equation alters.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

38 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Using the belief that speakers are critical, and how they are set up in the room is critical.

 

Yes, for your PowerDAC it's essential to get exactly the right configuration of speakers; because of the limited output of the device - but other setups are not so restricted; their conventional amplifiers have plenty of power to drive them.

 

I have not referred to my own system in any of this, and that is not my only reference point. 

 

Speakers come in an infinite number of designs and they all sound different. Matching speakers to the rest of the system is important, but it is very far from being the only variable in the equation. 

 

Having a speaker that "doesn't exaggerate anomalies of the replay chain" does not mean anything. If I listen to vinyl with speakers that have such low resolution that I cannot detect the anomalies of the source, that's a good thing? A speaker cannot only be chosen by matching it to a source - it has its own characteristics, abilities and deficiencies which will be identical with all sources.

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

7 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

As an example, speakers with a rising FR in the tweeter; if the treble is damaged, earlier in the chain, then you will get a very 'shouty' speaker.

 

If you have a speaker with pronounced highs you will get a sound with pronounced highs regardless of the system you use it in. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

24 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Using the belief that speakers are critical, and how they are set up in the room is critical.

 

Speakers are critical, probably more than any other component (but the rest is obviously very important - "shit in / shit out" principle). You don't understand this because you have a single reference point and you only listen to other systems through YouTube. I'll leave you to it...

 

 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, hopkins said:

 

Speakers are critical, probably more than any other component (but the rest is obviously very important - "shit in / shit out" principle). You don't understand this because you have a single reference point and you only listen to other systems through YouTube. I'll leave you to it...

 

 

 

In terms of experiencing satisfying SQ, I learnt how little speakers matter decades ago; way before the concept of YouTube lit a light bulb in someone's mind; when the Internet was a geek's playground, and you could easily count the number of people on-line at any one time, . Yes, if deep bass is a concern, and the flattest FR is something you tune into, then it can be relevant to the individual ... but I've played with a large variety of speakers over the years, and unless they were truly bottom of the heap, they were always able to be coaxed into delivering at least the start of convincing SQ. How they are "debugged" is important, and certain steps have to be taken to stabilise them - but with that out of the way they will begin to show the ability to 'disappear' ...

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

In terms of experiencing satisfying SQ, I learnt how little speakers matter decades ago; way before the concept of YouTube lit a light bulb in someone's mind; when the Internet was a geek's playground, and you could easily count the number of people on-line at any one time, . Yes, if deep bass is a concern, and the flattest FR is something you tune into, then it can be relevant to the individual ... but I've played with a large variety of speakers over the years, and unless they were truly bottom of the heap, they were always able to be coaxed into delivering at least the start of convincing SQ. How they are "debugged" is important, and certain steps have to be taken to stabilise them - but with that out of the way they will begin to show the ability to 'disappear' ...

 

Great. I've never said you can't be happy with a variety of speakers. I own three different pairs myself. They don't sound the same, but I must not have done the "debugging" and "stabilising"! Enjoy.

 

 

[fas42]

3 hours ago, hopkins said:

 

Great. I've never said you can't be happy with a variety of speakers. I own three different pairs myself. They don't sound the same, but I must not have done the "debugging" and "stabilising"! Enjoy.

 

 

 

There are about a dozen around here, - a few of them I have never actually got firing in anger - part of the Round Tuit stable. One day ...

 

There will always be some difference(s); as an example, the Edifiers have the most authoritative bass I've ever got; almost scary at times, . But in the key requirement of delivering a subjective transparency through to the music, the speakers I've used longer term all in their own way have done this job, satisfactorily - after some tweaking, .

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

There will always be some difference(s); as an example, the Edifiers have the most authoritative bass I've ever got; almost scary at times, . But in the key requirement of delivering a subjective transparency through to the music, the speakers I've used longer term all in their own way have done this job, satisfactorily - after some tweaking, .

 

If you are satisfied, great. Unfortunately, you are also on a crusade to prove that audiophiles have lost their ways. A lot of noise, and very little substance.

 

Differences in speakers do not only relate to bass, and they can be very significant. These differences are "system independent" to a large extent because they depend on the speaker and driver characteristics. In addition to different frequency responses, directivity, diffraction, etc, different speakers have different degrees of resolution and distortion - this is all linked to a number of factors: the material used, the design,  etc... Bigger drivers are not necessarily better. There are an infinite variety of speaker designs (electrostatic, field coil, boxed or open, single driver vs multiple drivers,  etc, etc... not to mention multi-channel audio which is an entirely different ball game).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fas42]

10 hours ago, hopkins said:

 

If you are satisfied, great. Unfortunately, you are also on a crusade to prove that audiophiles have lost their ways. A lot of noise, and very little substance.

 

Lost their way? More like the audio industry hasn't done its job properly, to find out better ways of achieving subjectively accurate replay - and so the consumer either accepts what is dished out to them, or has to jump through a huge number of hoops to find a higher standard way. Unfortunately, most audio people only reach a standard well less than what's possible, and then don't want to know of other approaches ...

 

10 hours ago, hopkins said:

Differences in speakers do not only relate to bass, and they can be very significant. These differences are "system independent" to a large extent because they depend on the speaker and driver characteristics. In addition to different frequency responses, directivity, diffraction, etc, different speakers have different degrees of resolution and distortion - this is all linked to a number of factors: the material used, the design,  etc... Bigger drivers are not necessarily better. There are an infinite variety of speaker designs (electrostatic, field coil, boxed or open, single driver vs multiple drivers,  etc, etc... not to mention multi-channel audio which is an entirely different ball game).

 

 

All true, but ultimately what you have is a diaphragm which moves back and forth, creating sound waves. Which are directly related to the waveform of the source track. These are produced to a level of accuracy which the ears accepts as representing realistic sounds, or not - my journey is to make sure that those sound waves are of high enough integrity for an illusion to form; which to date is far from trivial to achieve.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

Lost their way? More like the audio industry hasn't done its job properly, to find out better ways of achieving subjectively accurate replay - and so the consumer either accepts what is dished out to them, or has to jump through a huge number of hoops to find a higher standard way. Unfortunately, most audio people only reach a standard well less than what's possible, and then don't want to know of other approaches ...

 

Subjectively accurate ? I don't know what that means. How about simply finding a sound that you like ? 

 

At the last two audio shows that I went to, there were only one or two rooms that impressed me and that I truly enjoyed, out of 10 or 15 that I visited. Same with friends of mine, but they were not necessarily the same rooms. And that's the whole point - finding a system that we enjoy is not so easy because there is such a diversity, and not a single system "does it all".

 

But someone listening to different systems through YouTube videos  would not understand that: you need to be in the room to really grasp the specificity of each system, otherwise you are just listening to your speakers. 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

All true, but ultimately what you have is a diaphragm which moves back and forth, creating sound waves. Which are directly related to the waveform of the source track. These are produced to a level of accuracy which the ears accepts as representing realistic sounds, or not - my journey is to make sure that those sound waves are of high enough integrity for an illusion to form; which to date is far from trivial to achieve

 

Clearly, from this reply (and many others), you are clueless to the fact that the so-called accuracy of the signal going to the speakers is only a small part of the end result. The accuracy of the speakers themselves are just as important, if not more. The only reason why you don't understand that is simply that you have not experienced it live.

[fas42]

As mentioned elsewhere, the optical link conditioner is on hold at the moment ... in the interim, trying various strategies to stabilise the electricals of the DVD player, as an exercise, to speed up achieving acceptable SQ - otherwise, as mentioned in earlier posts here, can take up to 3 CDs playing in the normal fashion to hit peak quality. The latest version is to firstly load a DVD, and skip through all the tracks; then do the load, unload, load routine of the CD to be played, skip through the tracks - and then play. Why the DVD? The motor drive and actuators have to move faster, work harder, to track the video disk; faster conditioning.

 

The benefit? From the first track of first disk, very high standard of sound. And following CDs likewise do at least as well; no "flat spots", of SQ, at all ... the obvious downside is going through this silly ritual of punching the buttons of the DVD player, to optimise  the internals of the unit. Which is why that signal cleaner is still the real solution, to eliminate jumping through these hoops.

 

But the real reason for this post, is that I determined that the mains noise isolation is still not good enough ... tried a cheap, greatest hits of Chicago CD - for the first time - and was not happy. There was an edge to the sound - not good enough!! Why was it there?? Tried a couple of things, and fluked an answer, quite quickly - a floor lamp, not switched on, was introducing interference; acting as an aerial. Bugger ...!!! 

 

Okay, simple fix; unplug that lamp! But, this journey is partly about killing that noise issue, once and for all - I need to improve the filtering, as part of the rig, to make the isolation more robust.

 

This "subtle" gain now means that the SQ has gone up another significant notch; more of all the usual, good stuff - and the 'okay' tracks have opened up even more ...

[fas42]

Building up motivation to get the optical link conditioner designed and put together ... tried a burnt CD-R of pop hits that took a long time to register, by the player - definitely a bad sign, in that the read mechanism will be working hard to retrieve the data. Anyway, I spent hours and hours, over two days, trying every which way to get the SQ to a decent standard; a 2nd disk done at the same time, of similar material, was no problem. Finally, I hit on the right combination of conditioning and reloading - and the tracks came to life ...

 

So, what was happening here? Well, the player was not at all happy reading this disk, even though there were no audible skips, etc - and the optical waveform suffered; only by fluking having the CD loaded "just right" did the DVD player's electronics achieve enough stability to pass across a signal of decent quality. This could be 'fixed' by burning another copy of the contents; the chances would be high that the materials of the new copy would be better, and the burning would be of a higher standard.

 

But this is a nuisance - another case of "unstable equilibrium" ; which I want to get away from. An effective Toslink data regenerator will make all of that go away - hence, make that beast, son !!!

[fas42]

What's been happening ... umm, nothing . Why? At its core I'm lazy, and a bit worn out from life's to'ing and fro'ing. Right now, I can get the DVD player and Edifiers into a good state by the conditioning exercises mentioned above; this will give perfectly acceptable SQ from the first CD, at the expense of futzing around for a few minutes loading and unloading disks, and skipping through tracks.

 

The sound is not as good as it could be, but so close that I haven't got enough steam built up to go the next step - any CD that goes on delivers highly satisfying listening; I need some album that is so poor in technical quality that it irritates me to listen to it, with the current status of the combo. I haven't unearthed one yet - but when it arrives, that will provide the kick forward I need ... I hope !!

[fas42]

Interestingly, over Xmas, I pulled out the Bing Crosby festive season compilation - as you do, - and this proved to be a tougher one to get to a satisfactory level.

 

Why? The age of the recordings, the style of the supposedly lush orchestral backing, with the mastering probably not done as well as it could have been - "It's Bing, they'll buy it no matter what!".

 

You expect the tracks to have a relaxing, soothing air about them; it is Bing, right, at this time of the year, - but the SQ was borderline; right on the edge of getting one's teeth on edge; it required a bit of jiggling, reloading the CD to get the optical link working a touch better, for satisfactory listening.

 

So, the albums which are the best measure of the system status are sometimes surprising; the ones which are most valuable, because they point to where the audible weaknesses are still right on the cusp ...

[fas42]

Did another round with those Bing tracks, and, they proved their value ... the outcome was that it indicated that I was still picking up too much rubbish from antenna effects, on the mains power spur being used. Why hadn't I picked this up earlier? OK, this is an example of how as one improves one area, that it then reduces the overall noticeable degradation to the point that the contribution from another area then becomes the main issue; whereas before its impact was largely masked. With the Edifiers, I had started, after first getting them, with working on reducing noise interference, and only much later finally moved to optimising the Toslink interface; the latter is now under control enough so that the noise factors I tackled earlier, and which appeared to have been dealt with adequately, now show themselves to still be raising their nasty heads.

 

What was just done? For the moment a temporary fix, a bit of snubbing at the source of the interference, on the mains socket; this is not a proper answer, because in the real world Murphy's Law guarantees that one won't be able to do such an easy fix; the robust solution is to improve the filtering of the plugged in cables feeding the gear - considering the amount of filtering already in place, this seems far fetched; but the reality is that these sort of interference factors are very, very hard to tame, completely ...

 

What was gained? Most importantly, a greater sense of ease with the sound - those Christmas songs, recorded 80 years ago, had a mellowness and majesty about them, even at high volumes, which was borderline before. This then flowed through to albums which were completely on the other end of the spectrum - the sense of the space beyond the speakers being another world, that of the recorded event, was even more clearly defined; the layer of grunge which all playback chains inject into what one hears was significantly reduced, adding to the power of the music to move one.

[fas42]

Just an example of a track that, coming from a cheap compilation of their hits, was lifted to a higher standard by the last tweak,

 

 

The OTT, grandiose operatic nature of the track just worked that much better; there were no downsides to listening to this at an intense volume - the mix just, worked ...

[fas42]

Right, was that quick fix, with some snubbing, "as good as it gets"? Nope !!

 

Tried some variations on how this was done; and it was easy to hear the differences in SQ in what I got, now that the standard was that much more 'revealing'. The best of that bunch was a good uptick; and probably could be improved again, with a lot more playing around. But that doesn't get me closer to having a robust noise isolation solution, which works "anywhere" - this will be harder to attain, because you're not killing the noise at its source, but rather trying to erect barriers to it getting through, after "the horse has bolted".

 

Okay, what that gave me was the closest yet to full invisibility of the speakers; on the recordings I tried, which were swing orchestra tracks from the 1930's, it was extremely near to how good it can go; almost impossible to pick that the sound was coming from the speaker, when standing by the side, and right next to one of the cabinets. This behaviour has gone up and down over the time I've been tweaking this combo; depending upon whether I lucked on "aligning the stars" at that particular moment - moving closer to best optimisation means that this result becomes more the standard thing, rather than on an odd occasion. And, this time it pointed out another party trick - if something comes between you and one of the speakers, completely blocking the direct sound of that unit ... it makes no difference! The listening brain 'knows' what it should hear - and "fills the gaps" ... .

[fas42]

Working on devising a strategy to defeat what appears to be an "antenna effect" - this occurred with a lamp cable, as mentioned in an earlier post, and now have determined also occurs with the mains circuit that extends beyond the socket being used to power the audio setup; that is, there is a last socket to the run, which when given a suitable load helps the SQ.

 

How is the sound affected? For many people this could be very subtle - but for those who are sensitive to this type of distortion, it could be everything ... for them, it's the difference between "digital", and "analogue" character - what does that mean? Okay, as an example, for very old recordings, with big band backing, lots going on in the mix, the "digital" has an edge, an ongoing unpleasantness, which steadily becomes intolerable - you hit the Stop button. "Analogue" means that this is not present; and the listening just, works ...

 

Now, this is a playback distortion factor - which I can solve merely be adjusting how the mains circuit sockets are being used. But this is not a true solution, it's a workaround - Murphy's Law guarantees that in a real world scenario where you've "gotta get it right!" for someone, that the workarounds won't be effective, can't be used for some physical reason.

 

So far, no joy. I don't understand exactly what's going on, and I don't know what the most cost effective method is to attenuate the impact to inaudible levels ... it's a Work In Progress, currently ...

 

For someone starting from scratch, to create an optimised setup, the answer is simple: just have a dedicated mains spur for the gear. Which is what many do. But I want to evolve a method that works for all circumstances ... that's the difference, .