Misleading Measurements

[opus101]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Distortions between channels: crosstalk, level imbalance/nonlinearity, phase.

 

How have you determined that its these?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

23 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

 

Here you go:

 

Whaat? You said "inches". I did not say inches. I do expect some units to be attached to a measurement. What am I missing

 

23 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

As I said, in most recordings soundstage is artificially generated, instruments and voices placed at desired positions using level, phase, and reverb.

 

So? Some are, some aren't.

 

23 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

The soundstage you hear is defined by those parameters. Perfectly.

 

 

Where are the measures that gives me this "perfect definition of soundstage"? What is so hard about asking an objectivist to give measurements?

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, opus101 said:

 

How have you determined that its these?

Crosstalk is easy. Level imbalance is easy. Phase differences using DeltaWave, but other tools that show phase will do this, like REW.

[fas42]

26 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

 

Here you go:

 

 

As I said, in most recordings soundstage is artificially generated, instruments and voices placed at desired positions using level, phase, and reverb. The soundstage you hear is defined by those parameters. Perfectly.

 

 

Gosh, those recording guys back in the 30's were clever! They managed to create a depth layering of the players using level, phase and reverb - amazing what they cooked up with the simple valve technology of the day  ...

 

And all along i though it was that it was a simple single microphone, with the instruments arranged in distance from the microphone so that a good overall balance was achieved  ... silly me!

[opus101]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

Crosstalk is easy. Level imbalance is easy. Phase differences using DeltaWave, but other tools that show phase will do this, like REW.

 

You've lost me so let me backtrack.

 

Let's begin with your first one which was 'distortions between channels'. I'm unclear what that means - even though I'm pretty clear on distortion itself. Soundstage is going to get flatter if one channel has more distortion than the other?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

4 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

Crosstalk is easy. Level imbalance is easy. Phase differences using DeltaWave, but other tools that show phase will do this, like REW.

 

Give me the measures on your deltawave that tells me perfectly how I will hear the soundstage height, width and depth.

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Give me the measures on your deltawave that tells me perfectly how I will hear the soundstage height, width and depth.

 

A DAC doesn't have soundstage height, width and depth.

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

 

A DAC doesn't have soundstage height, width and depth.

 

says who? where is your evidence?

[pkane2001]

5 minutes ago, opus101 said:

 

You've lost me so let me backtrack.

 

Let's begin with your first one which was 'distortions between channels'. I'm unclear what that means - even though I'm pretty clear on distortion itself. Soundstage is going to get flatter if one channel has more distortion than the other?

 

Differences between time of arrival and amplitude between the two channels will cause a change to soundstage, as will crosstalk. 

[opus101]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

says who? where is your evidence?

 

I tend to concur with @pkane2001 on this - soundstage depends on the whole system not just the DAC. Which is why it won't be quantified by just measuring the DAC in isolation.

[opus101]

Just now, pkane2001 said:

 

Differences between time of arrival and amplitude between the two channels will cause a change to soundstage, as will crosstalk. 

 

You've quantified this (the former) with your software? Does Amir make measurements of differences in time of arrival between channels for DACs? I must confess I've not seen any but I'm an infrequent visitor to ASR.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 minute ago, opus101 said:

 

I tend to concur with @pkane2001 on this - soundstage depends on the whole system not just the DAC. Which is why it won't be quantified by just measuring the DAC in isolation.

I agree and including speaker type and placement and the room interaction. That said I do hear soundstage differences in DACS. IME high end MSB DAC in particular throw out enormous soundstage...and as Paul even said said:"Measuring how a DAC affects a recording is exactly what measurements do, including if soundstage will be affected."

[opus101]

6 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

I agree and including speaker type and placement and the room interaction. That said I do hear soundstage differences in DACS. IME high end MSB DAC in particular throw out enormous soundstage..

 

I've not heard MSB but have no reason to doubt this. In my experience soundstage depth has a lot to do with in-system noise. Improvements to power cleanliness seem to give greater depth for example. Its this observation that leads me to suspect CM noise as a significant player in soundstage - using transformers between components with SE ICs tends to improve soundstage depth for example. Here's a plot from ExaSound showing CM noise when there's no isolation between USB and the rest of the system. This kind of measurement doesn't often get made and when it does it gets misinterpreted.

[pkane2001]

10 minutes ago, opus101 said:

 

You've quantified this (the former) with your software? Does Amir make measurements of differences in time of arrival between channels for DACs? I must confess I've not seen any but I'm an infrequent visitor to ASR.

 

Amir usually measures channel imbalance and crosstalk. Don't think he's measured phase differences before, but I could be wrong. DeltaWave allows for direct computation of phase differences between two related waveforms, including music or test tones. It computes some RMS phase difference numbers by frequency range, but also plots the phase difference, as well as corrects for it. Below is one example with an analog capture compared to digital, but you could just as easily compare left to right channel in an analog capture, say at the output of a DAC (blue line is the original, uncorrected phase difference, red is after DW corrected it):

 

 

[fas42]

5 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

I agree and including speaker type and placement and the room interaction. That said I do hear soundstage differences in DACS. IME high end MSB DAC in particular throw out enormous soundstage...and as Paul even said said:"Measuring how a DAC affects a recording is exactly what measurements do, including if soundstage will be affected."

 

Quick quiz ... is the MSB DAC magically distorting what's on the recording to create an artificial, "enormous soundstage" - or is that expansive space just sitting and waiting, in the digits of the source data, to be brought out alive into the world? 😉

[opus101]

4 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Amir usually measures channel imbalance and crosstalk. Don't think he's measured phase differences before, but I could be wrong. 

 

So on your first cited measurement, its not one that's currently at all popular? If that's true then it won't help me pick a DAC which doesn't flatten the soundstage ISTM.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Quick quiz ... is the MSB DAC magically distorting what's on the recording to create an artificial, "enormous soundstage" - or is that expansive space just sitting and waiting, in the digits of the source data, to be brought out alive into the world? 😉

 

My view is that it is artificial, which is why I didn't buy it. There was no doubt it could be heard, even a novice listener was struck by the comparison. There was no 'coaching' - he pointed it out to me. My response was, " it is impressive, yes" (code for HiFi sounding, not life like)

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, opus101 said:

 

So on your first cited measurement, its not one that's currently at all popular? If that's true then it won't help me pick a DAC which doesn't flatten the soundstage ISTM.

 

It's not done by Amir, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and cannot be measured. That was the claim made by AN. 

[opus101]

4 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

It's not done by Amir, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and cannot be measured. That was the claim made by AN. 

 

Claims by AN are orthogonal to questions by me. If you recall I'm after knowing how to pick a DAC with great soundstage depth based on measurements of that DAC (post #473). So far you've not given me any indication how to do that because 'distortions between channels' isn't a currently popular measurement. Shall we move on to the next one which was crosstalk? How much can I allow before soundstage depth is compromised?

[fas42]

2 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

My view is that it is artificial, which is why I didn't buy it. There was no doubt it could be heard, even a novice listener was struck by the comparison. There was no 'coaching' - he pointed it out to me. My response was, " it is impressive, yes" (code for HiFi sounding, not life like)

 

Interesting response, David ... my take is that the size was indeed correct, but along with the elicitation of the detail that allows the mind to hear this goes the requirement that the distortion of every part of the system has to be under control to an even greater degree - otherwise, it will indeed sound HiFi, rather than lifelike.

 

It's a hairy journey getting there - but definitely possible, 🙂.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

 

It's not done by Amir, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and cannot be measured. That was the claim made by AN. 

 

Incorrect.Show me where I said that channel imbalance and crosstalk or phase could not be measured.

I am asking for the actual measurements (numbers) that tells me "perfectly" how I will hear the soundstage height, width and depth. The actual numbers that correlate to what is heard in some real world example.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

As I said, in most recordings soundstage is artificially generated, instruments and voices placed at desired positions using level, phase, and reverb. The soundstage you hear is defined by those parameters. Perfectly.

 

There are 100s of thousands of recordings with natural ambience and pin point location of instruments and voices, including many Classical recordings,  and quite a few famous recordings such as Jazz at the Pawnshop etc. and quite a few from Chesky, Soundkeeper and Blue Coast  Records.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Interesting response, David ... my take is that the size was indeed correct,

 

 

Bigger is not always better....when it comes to soundstage and imaging 😁

 

[pkane2001]

2 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Incorrect.Show me where I said that channel imbalance and crosstalk or phase could not be measured.

I am asking for the actual measurements (numbers) that tells me "perfectly" how I will hear the soundstage height, width and depth. The actual numbers that correlate to what is heard in some real world example.

 

Again, why? I don't measure DACs to determine the exact size of the soundstage they'll create. I measure them to determine if the soundstage in the recording will not be disturbed. For that, I use the variables I already listed. 

[pkane2001]

24 minutes ago, opus101 said:

Shall we move on to the next one which was crosstalk? How much can I allow before soundstage depth is compromised?

 

I'm pretty sure that this differs person to person. You can try some of the easy to configure cross-feed plugins with headphones to get a sense of what is audible to you. Phase and crosstalk are two things I want to add to DISTORT app when I get some free time. I'm pretty sensitive to crosstalk, and cross-feed never sounded right to me, so I don't use it.