More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

[Globs]

budgie smuggler said:

Globs said:

budgie smuggler said:

For example your wave form above could become this if the timing error was in the right place:

This however has never been observed in CD transports - diyaudio IIRC did a big test of bit accuracy and I don't recall it ever happening.
I'm sure it's possible with ad hoc systems, but you'd need a jitter big enough to skip an entire bit/half bit which for even a cheap quartz crystal isn't going to happen.

The subtle timing of _when_ the value hits the DAC however will always be slightly out which is why a more stable clock will always improve sound.

Could you explain please, because I don't understand how.
The DAC is receiving a series of high and low voltages, either it reads the correct for that particular bit or not.

Yes, just look at the green line in the graph. That's the correct analogue shape that needs to leave the DAC/player/wire. Jitter moves those dots slightly to the left and right, so the green line will then become bent, or distorted.

Like sowing runner bean seeds without using a ruler - you get slightly uneven spacing. As each dot is defined by x (position in time) and y (digital value corresponding to a voltage) a change of either changes the sound.

[uberstealth]

Great post!!

I've been designing and installing high end av systems for longer than I care to remember

All I can say is these things are guff

When spending money on a HiFi remember these golden rules
1. Source is key!!! Spend as much as you can on source.
2. Every system is as good as its weakest link
3. Never listen to the system! Listen to the music.

[spyder dryver]

uberstealth said:

Great post!!

I've been designing and installing high end av systems for longer than I care to remember

All I can say is these things are guff

When spending money on a HiFi remember these golden rules
1. Source is key!!! Spend as much as you can on source.
2. Every system is as good as its weakest link
3. Never listen to the system! Listen to the music.

I'm confused.
By biasing your spending towards the source you must be making the weakest link (elsewhere in the system) even weaker. Which "Golden Rule" is the most golden?

[Globs]

uberstealth said:

3. Never listen to the system! Listen to the music.

A friend of mine once said "Great music transcends the system".

[probedb]

uberstealth said:

Great post!!

I've been designing and installing high end av systems for longer than I care to remember

All I can say is these things are guff

When spending money on a HiFi remember these golden rules
1. Source is key!!! Spend as much as you can on source.
2. Every system is as good as its weakest link
3. Never listen to the system! Listen to the music.

The speakers are more important than the source.

[PhilboSE]

Globs said:

TonyRPH said:

PhilboSE said:

I am from an IT background and know nothing about how a hi-fi CD transport may differ, so...

...I simply don't understand how a music CD *should* be affected by re-seeks, error correction etc. If the same CD player wasn't capable of streaming the data for a computer executable with 100% reliability, it would not be fit for purpose. Even a single bit error would be enough to cause problems.

IIRC, due to the real time nature of reading a music CD, there is no time for re seeks.

For a 1x player that is true, for a 40x computer CD/DVD reader that is not true at all because the computer will already be well ahead of the time-point in the CD track (buffered in memory) so it has ample time to re-read parts as required.
In fact many CD rippers have this facility and they rip a lot faster than the CD would take to listen to.

Globs and I appear to be thinking similarly.

TonyRPH, why does playing a music CD need to be "real time"? A one second buffering time would be plenty to accomodate re-seeks etc (assuming the disc is not scratched to death).

If I decide to skip from say track 2 on a music CD to say track 10, there is a delay of a second or two while the seeking happens. Why would music listeners not tolerate an extra second delay before the initial playback?

As Globs and I know, modern CD transports can get data off the discs with zero bit rates at far greater speeds than 1x. So I still can't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible to have the world's cheapest CD transport that provide perfect digital data to an onboard buffer, and THEN you have a DAC that does all the clever upsampling and waveform generation.

If that isn't how it's done, and the current hi-fi industry is locked into 1x CD transports with real time streaming requiring error correction, clock locking, anti-jitter and and downstream processing, then IMO that model is simply not optimal. I wonder if that is how things are done just because it keeps the current industry fed and watered, requiring expensive transports and clocks to paper over the cracks of a poor architecture.

All the mp3 players and streamers on the market will use an internal buffer as I describe, I wonder how long it will be before it is possible to attach a cheap CD transport to one of these streamers and they just access the raw data on the CD as a PC-based ripper program would?

[Globs]

probedb said:

The speakers are more important than the source.

Don't better components down the chain just allow you to hear the defects of the items before them better?

[PhilboSE]

clived said:

PhilboSE said:

So, to my mind, it *must* be possible to extract the raw PCM data from a CD with zero bit rates.

Apart from the zero time for re-reads issue, you also need to keep in mind the nature of CD is that unless you're very careful, the transport has to deal with all sort of stuff between the laser and the pits in the disc - greasy fingerprints, scratches, jam etc. There are test discs with increasingly sized manufactured scratches built into the disc. These can be used to establish how big an issue a given player can cope with. This isn't the same for all players due to various factors - stuff like how stable the platter is and therefore how much work the servo has to do to keep the laser tracking the "groove" in the first place, how well designed the servo tracking circuit is, how well regulated the power suppies are etc. etc.

Except the same issues apply to data discs, and we all know that these can be read with 100% fidelity (assuming the CD is not damaged beyond a certain threshold).

The only difference is that data doesn't require a continuous stream of data, but there is a simple and easily implemented solution to this - the buffer. And the speed of modern drives can write to the buffer at a far higher rate than that required for the reads.

[Globs]

TBH the CD is just a temporary medium to get the data onto my hard disk, it serves no other purpose and has been obsolete and error prone for as long as the yellow book data CD has been around (1985 or 28 years ago).

It remains a mystery to me why the record companies continue to sell such a poor physical product as they bleat about copying etc, if they simply upped their game to 24bit 96kHz DVD data format discs on physical media then less people would bother downloading them (bigger files) and people like me would even consider buying them again because they'd represent value for money.

As it is the CD industry is a shocking disgrace and all modern pop CDs are a pile of st, mangled by the hard pressed mastering engineer who is goaded on by ignorant record company execs into thoroughly ruining the product before it's released on an inadequate format (too low clock rate, too few bits, too little error correction) that they then expect people to want to pay real money for.

I always bear this in mind when I read the pathetic reviews of CD players in magazines, the reviewer blissfully unaware of the total crap he's feeing into the front of the latest overpriced black box with a $5 transport sitting inside it ready to transcribe the compressed, clipped inadequate rubbish that passes for 'CD quality' these days.

Far better quality lies in buying a DVD and feeding the optical output of your DVD player into your DAC (assuming you have a decent DAC (pro-audio) that can take 48k) because that soundtrack hasn't been attacked by vandals.

And that's just the sound quality and format, lets not start of the content...

[StuH]

spyder dryver said:

uberstealth said:

Great post!!

I've been designing and installing high end av systems for longer than I care to remember

All I can say is these things are guff

When spending money on a HiFi remember these golden rules
1. Source is key!!! Spend as much as you can on source.
2. Every system is as good as its weakest link
3. Never listen to the system! Listen to the music.

I'm confused.
By biasing your spending towards the source you must be making the weakest link (elsewhere in the system) even weaker. Which "Golden Rule" is the most golden?

Quite. The "source first" philosophy was very popular in the 80's and 90's where you'd see ludicrous setups with 3k Linn Sondeks running into some low budget amps and speakers. Just another hi-fi fashion that has thankfully gone the way of the cheesecloth shirt, in favour of putting together balanced systems.

I would say the only "rule" to remember when putting a system together is that there is no rule. Use your own ears and find components that work together. This often tends to naturally lead to components being of a similar budget, but not always. The quality of front end now available for very reasonable costs means that many of the best digital systems I've listened to in the last few years have had amps and speakers that cost 10 times or more than the source. For instance a Mac/Amarra --> async USB ----> quality DAC is a source that can hold its own in pretty much any system.

[nonuts]

uberstealth said:

When spending money on a HiFi remember these golden rules
1. Source is key!!! Spend as much as you can on source.

Don't agree with this at all, especially at the more budget end of the spectrum, there are clear (measurable) benefits from spending more money on an amplifier or the speakers that would be far more noticeable than spending more on a CD player.

I've been reading this thread with interest, however the people that are drawing attention to the listening room itself are spot on for my money. When I moved and my hifi ended up in a much larger room with laminate floors it has had more of an impact on the sound than anything else.

If I was in a position to seriously upgrade I'd be wanting a home demo of any kit.

[StuH]

Globs said:

TBH the CD is just a temporary medium to get the data onto my hard disk, it serves no other purpose and has been obsolete and error prone for as long as the yellow book data CD has been around (1985 or 28 years ago).

It remains a mystery to me why the record companies continue to sell such a poor physical product as they bleat about copying etc, if they simply upped their game to 24bit 96kHz DVD data format discs on physical media then less people would bother downloading them (bigger files) and people like me would even consider buying them again because they'd represent value for money.

As it is the CD industry is a shocking disgrace and all modern pop CDs are a pile of st, mangled by the hard pressed mastering engineer who is goaded on by ignorant record company execs into thoroughly ruining the product before it's released on an inadequate format (too low clock rate, too few bits, too little error correction) that they then expect people to want to pay real money for.

I always bear this in mind when I read the pathetic reviews of CD players in magazines, the reviewer blissfully unaware of the total crap he's feeing into the front of the latest overpriced black box with a $5 transport sitting inside it ready to transcribe the compressed, clipped inadequate rubbish that passes for 'CD quality' these days.

Far better quality lies in buying a DVD and feeding the optical output of your DVD player into your DAC (assuming you have a decent DAC (pro-audio) that can take 48k) because that soundtrack hasn't been attacked by vandals.

And that's just the sound quality and format, lets not start of the content...

Globs there are some excellent modern recordings around as soon as you look beyond the mainstream releases.

I don't really get your attitude towards the recording and hi-fi industry - the whole evil record execs in dark glasses ruining CD's etc - it's a bit of a cliche don't you think? . For me the last 10 years has been one of the most exciting in terms the quality of reproduction available at home, with the rise of computer based digital audio industry helping to debunk a lot of the snake oil and pixie dust that used to be developed as high-end and now with just a "Mac & a DAC" you can have a digital front-end of a quality simple unimaginable at these price levels previously.

[StuH]

nonuts said:

uberstealth said:

When spending money on a HiFi remember these golden rules
1. Source is key!!! Spend as much as you can on source.

Don't agree with this at all, especially at the more budget end of the spectrum, there are clear (measurable) benefits from spending more money on an amplifier or the speakers that would be far more noticeable than spending more on a CD player.

I've been reading this thread with interest, however the people that are drawing attention to the listening room itself are spot on for my money. When I moved and my hifi ended up in a much larger room with laminate floors it has had more of an impact on the sound than anything else.

If I was in a position to seriously upgrade I'd be wanting a home demo of any kit.

100% - Doesn't matter how good the system is if you stick in a room with a "live" acoustic - which given the current trend for solid flooring is very common, or problem room "nodes" then the chance of achieving good sound quality are almost nil.

[TonyRPH]

StuH said:

Globs said:

criticised the record industry

Globs there are some excellent modern recordings around as soon as you look beyond the mainstream releases.

I don't really get your attitude towards the recording and hi-fi industry - the whole evil record execs in dark glasses ruining CD's etc - it's a bit of a cliche don't you think? . For me the last 10 years has been one of the most exciting in terms the quality of reproduction available at home, with the rise of computer based digital audio industry helping to debunk a lot of the snake oil and pixie dust that used to be developed as high-end and now with just a "Mac & a DAC" you can have a digital front-end of a quality simple unimaginable at these price levels previously.

I agree - the biggest issue is still the 'loudness wars' and compression.

Much of the output of the CD industry is directed at mobile listeners with iPods / MP3 players etc., where heavily compressed source material generally works better (note I said 'works better' not sounds better).

As an example to this - I use a Logitech Squeezebox Radio as my alarm clock. The volume is set fairly low, and because of the high dynamic range of most of my source music, it does sound rather odd - and you don't hear the quiet parts of a song. I guess if I applied compression I would hear more of the track, at the expense of sound quality. This is exactly why so much music is heavily compressed now.

As for the 'loudness wars' - well, a louder CD sounds better, right?

I also ripped some music off DVDs I have - and recorded it to CD - this really showed what CD is capable of, despite the trend toward SACD / 24 bit etc.

IMHO, the true capability of CD was not really fully exploited in the mainstream, with companies instead switching to so called 'high resolution' formats such as DVD Audio (which failed), SACD (which failed), and then Blue Ray (although primarily for video - but it was mooted for audio in it's inception - but that never happened AFAIK).

High resolutions downloads are a good thing, however I've read that in the longer term the record companies want to force a 'pay per listen' format upon us, where we will never actually have a "physical" (either on CD or in a file) copy of the music.

[TonyRPH]

PhilboSE said:

<snip>

TonyRPH, why does playing a music CD need to be "real time"? A one second buffering time would be plenty to accomodate re-seeks etc (assuming the disc is not scratched to death).

If I decide to skip from say track 2 on a music CD to say track 10, there is a delay of a second or two while the seeking happens. Why would music listeners not tolerate an extra second delay before the initial playback?

Who knows? I guess the designers of the CD format could answer that question. Perhaps to pander to user expectations e.g. press play and music immediately begins.

PhilboSE said:

As Globs and I know, modern CD transports can get data off the discs with zero bit rates at far greater speeds than 1x. So I still can't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible to have the world's cheapest CD transport that provide perfect digital data to an onboard buffer, and THEN you have a DAC that does all the clever upsampling and waveform generation.

If that isn't how it's done, and the current hi-fi industry is locked into 1x CD transports with real time streaming requiring error correction, clock locking, anti-jitter and and downstream processing, then IMO that model is simply not optimal. I wonder if that is how things are done just because it keeps the current industry fed and watered, requiring expensive transports and clocks to paper over the cracks of a poor architecture.

It was always believed that reading the CD at 1x provided the greatest level of accuracy - I note there is still some ripping software out there, that prescribes to this theory.

PhilboSE said:

All the mp3 players and streamers on the market will use an internal buffer as I describe, I wonder how long it will be before it is possible to attach a cheap CD transport to one of these streamers and they just access the raw data on the CD as a PC-based ripper program would?

Indeed - I recall audiophiles messing around with portable CD players several years ago (the type that have anti jog capability) as it was believed that these yielded better sound quality due the buffering. I still have one somewhere - perhaps I should try making a transport out of it...

[RedLeicester]

Globs said:

probedb said:

The speakers are more important than the source.

Don't better components down the chain just allow you to hear the defects of the items before them better?

So then yuo know what to upgrade next

[Monty Python]

RedLeicester said:

So then yuo know what to upgrade next

The guy I buy my stuff from says that for mid-range systems, the money should be split evenly between source, amplifier and speakers. For top-flight stuff, he says that more should be put on the source/amplification, because if you put a s*** signal into the speakers you'll get s*** sound out of them.

[PhilboSE]

TonyRPH said:

PhilboSE said:

TonyRPH, why does playing a music CD need to be "real time"?

Who knows? I guess the designers of the CD format could answer that question. Perhaps to pander to user expectations e.g. press play and music immediately begins.

But that can't be a specification of the *format*, only of the implementation.

TonyRPH said:

It was always believed that reading the CD at 1x provided the greatest level of accuracy - I note there is still some ripping software out there, that prescribes to this theory.

Except that a PC can read the data off a CD with 100% fidelity at 40x speed. Any ripping programs that slows the drive down to 1x must be pandering to audiophiles ;-)

I'm still not seeing any reasons why we couldn't have cheap CD transports attached via USB to a DAC. The DAC is where all the magic should happen, anything else is just a digital source. We've agreed that a £100 NAS box on cheapo CAT-5 cable does just as good a job as the $50,000 super-server with the £5000 ethernet cable, so the quality of the CD transport *should* be going out of the window.

Heck, fundamentally it should be the same as just ripping the CD into a lossless format and storing that file on your £100 NAS.

So I guess where we're going for hi-fi is a high-quality streamer/DAC linked to a good amplifier setup, and if you want to play CD's in the traditional sense then just bung any old device into the chain and attach it to the DAC via its digital input.

[Globs]

Monty Python said:

RedLeicester said:

So then yuo know what to upgrade next

The guy I buy my stuff from says that for mid-range systems, the money should be split evenly between source, amplifier and speakers. For top-flight stuff, he says that more should be put on the source/amplification, because if you put a s*** signal into the speakers you'll get s*** sound out of them.

An interesting philosophy, the big money spend on the source used to be required because the precision of the turntables/arm/cart was very important, but with digital that all goes out of the window, except perhaps for the clock.

Source:
With a Mac laptop + CD reader (£1000), an airport express (£80 IIRC), ripping uncompressed into iTunes you have a bit perfect source (At full volume it is bit perfect to the CD) and a rather shiny remote control/jukebox. All you really need is a decent bitstream.

DAC: Plenty about, but a Behringer Ultramatch upsampling to a Behringer Ultracurve (budget pro-audio with a decent DSP and DAC chip) gives a great sound (as long as you do not clip it - so no full volume modern pop CDs). The Ultracurve is optional but useful IMO and also gives you more sound adjustment than you'd imagine - including room EQ.
The upgrade path here is simply better pro-audio (Soundcraft etc).

Clock: Optional, but a pro-audio master clock is always nice, and involves more lights and buttons too so it's a win-win.

This leaves the bulk of the money to be spent on amps and speakers, where as always design trumps price. You'll be needing some easy to drive speakers IMO (Quad ELs excepted), and ideally a single ended pentode mode tube amp to power it.

Amps make a big difference, speakers make a huge difference, rooms are important, mood very much so.
OB (Open Baffle) speakers are making strides in realism of sound and will I suspect become the next big thing.

Then there are active systems, which are generally better than amp+speaker combos but you don't need the amps crammed into the speakers like the hopeless B&O stuff. A decent three way speaker with three amps (tube for treble (never use solid state for tweeters) and possibly mid) and a digital crossover is the way to go here, the days of putting flawed crossovers inside the loudest box in the room should be over for upper class hi-fi - that's yesterdays dogmatic thinking.

[StuH]

PhilboSE said:

Except that a PC can read the data off a CD with 100% fidelity at 40x speed. Any ripping programs that slows the drive down to 1x must be pandering to audiophiles ;-)

I'm still not seeing any reasons why we couldn't have cheap CD transports attached via USB to a DAC. The DAC is where all the magic should happen, anything else is just a digital source. We've agreed that a £100 NAS box on cheapo CAT-5 cable does just as good a job as the $50,000 super-server with the £5000 ethernet cable, so the quality of the CD transport *should* be going out of the window.

Heck, fundamentally it should be the same as just ripping the CD into a lossless format and storing that file on your £100 NAS.

So I guess where we're going for hi-fi is a high-quality streamer/DAC linked to a good amplifier setup, and if you want to play CD's in the traditional sense then just bung any old device into the chain and attach it to the DAC via its digital input.

No - you're oversimplifying the problem. you're ignoring jitter, clocking and transfer issues. If that were the case all transports would sound the same and they don't.

If you want to gain a deeper understanding of the issues involves, the computer audiophile website has some good articles: http://www.computeraudiophile.com