Digital Drive

RE: Pricey unit!

118.201.124.84

13th Duke of Wymbourne

A

In Reply to: RE: Pricey unit! posted by E-Stat on June 12, 2024 at 07:18:09

Well the manufacturer would say something like that because it didn't measure well. The filter response looks like a minimum phase type though the measurement plot for this very old review is not up to JA's present standard for filter impulse response. I am OK-ish with a manufacturer saying that the special sauce inside cannot be measured but I'd really like them to say why it doesn't also measure well on traditional tests or, even, to say we deliberately make it perform poorly on traditional tests in order to add the special sauce. But they never do.

Follow Ups:

RE: Pricey unit! - morricab 04:25:25 06/17/24 (3)
Have you listened to DACs from Topping, SMSL, Gustard etc.?

One listen to something like those and then something like the Playback Designs will make you realize that your obsession with numbers, which if not interpreted through the filter of psychoacoustics, is meaningless.

Don't know how else to put it...the measurements matter but not raw and with only a casual glance. They need to be processed as to how they affect listeners.

Digital in particular makes very complex distortions that are not readily understood in terms of audibility and impact on what we hear. There is nothing in nature that is similar and therefore very small amounts of something can be very detrimental...and we don't know which bits are doing the most damage.
- RE: Pricey unit! - 13th Duke of Wymbourne 20:47:03 06/17/24 (2)
  Firstly, I am not obsessed with numbers. I class myself as music lover with a technical background. I listen mostly to vinyl, a system far from objective purity so I am under no illusions that good sound requires good measurements (does it sound good in spite of poor objective performance or because of poor objective performance?) But for digital we CAN get very good numbers. Another illusion that I am not under is that being on the left hand side of the ASR SINAD table is better than being on the right hand side of the table for home audio. But if a low/reasonably-priced DAC can recreate a sine wave from bits with the least amount of artifacts shouldn't that be a good thing? And then the question really becomes why can't the very expensive audiophile DACs do that too? Are the audiophile designers prioritizing something 'psychoacoustical'? In which case why is the sine wave performance degraded? I don't see any answers as to why you can't have both. Maybe designers don't know (so you pay a lot for someone to spend a lot of time tweaking a design until they are happy) or they don't know they don't know (in which case you pay a lot for a bad design that happens to sound good by chance) or they know and aren't telling (understandable). Still, no matter how much audiophiles protest that only sound matters they are all secretly allied to certain technologies so designers need a story.
  - Noise and distortion from objects in the room - Geoffkait 06:43:57 07/08/24 (1)
    It's not really difficult to demonstrate how much noise and distortion is produced by objects in the room completely unrelated to the audio system.
    For example, remove incrementally all books from the room, all CDs and LPs from the room, all unused audio gear and cables, all musical instruments, all watches and clocks. The reduction on noise and distortion is not the result of any distortion or noise anywhere in the system, including acoustic waves in the room and house AC. Tentative Conclusion - sensory perception of sound and related mental processes involve to a large degree the mind interacting with its surroundings. The superior sound was in the room all along, you just weren't able to hear it properly or completely. The whole idea that the noise and distortion we hear comes entirely from the system, cables, AC power, acoustic waves is quite false.
    
    Edits: 07/08/24 07/08/24 07/08/24 07/08/24
    - RE: Noise and distortion from objects in the room - fantja 13:26:55 07/11/24 (0)
      Good to see you- GK.

Post a Followup:

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?

Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
	Remember my Moniker & Password (What's this?) Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:

Message:	(Posts are subject to Content Rules)

Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:	Automagically notify you when someone responds.

To view your new posting or follow-up, click on the RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Kimber Kable