More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t
Discussion
As we've got all technical, any of you guys have experience of this:-
MiniDsp https://www.minidsp.com/
MiniDsp https://www.minidsp.com/
Sporky said:
Sampling, quantization, and clipping are all completely different processes. Though quantization requires sampling.
Indeed.Sampling = measuring an analogue quantity at a point in time, or at regular intervals in time
Quantization = measuring a continuous quantity as a digital number whole number, or putting it in one of a finite number of 'ranges' or 'bins'.
Clipping = limiting a quantity to within a range of values, either digital or analogue.
Does quantization always required sampling? Could you quantize a DC voltage without sampling it for instance?
An ADC might be doing all three things in one 'process'?
OutInTheShed said:
If intersample overs are giving a true representation of the original audio, then surely the audio is in fact clipped to get the actual samples?
Is it an artefact of digital mixing, creating a stream of samples which imply clipping, even if none of the component tracks were ever clipped?
But will this in fact be audible, because the clipping will create harmonics up at the sample rate and beyond?
The Benchmark article goes into some detail about this and mentions the generation of ultrasonics.Is it an artefact of digital mixing, creating a stream of samples which imply clipping, even if none of the component tracks were ever clipped?
But will this in fact be audible, because the clipping will create harmonics up at the sample rate and beyond?
OutInTheShed said:
Does putting such a track through FLAC have any adverse effect?
I've not seen any issues. I have ripped a CD to a wav file and taken a checksum.I've then encoded it with flac, and then decoded it back to wav, and taken a checksum.
Result: No difference. The flac encoder doesn't seem to care. Incidentally, the track I used for the purpose above was just such a track.
I ran the track through the 'declip' filter in Audacity (and reduced the amplitude at the same time) and the track does sound markedly better after doing so - the hardness has gone.
Looking at the output on a scope does show that the analogue waveform is clipped (on any DAC) - on the original track, prior to declipping.
OutInTheShed said:
Is the +0.?? dBFS reported by whatever program Tony was using actually 'intersample' or does that program only know about the actual samples? Is the program upsampling, or is the upsampling only done in the DAC?
I used the Orban sound meter for the first sample - have a read of the 'READ ME' pdf on their website.OutInTheShed said:
How close is the 'intersample clipped' sound which comes out of my CD player to what the band intended?
The sound that the Added to this, there are so many other variables, that I doubt it really matters, except when the end result it too distorted.
I have one particular album that used to be quite unlistenable on any of my CD players, and latterly on my older DACs, however newer DACs have improved the situation markedly.
troc said:
The last 2 pages of discussion are why I like my analogue vinyl. No oversampling, no DACs, no bitstreams, just good old-fashioned analogue noise 
I'm not against that.I'd rather listen to great music on poor equipment than v/v.
Not that vinyl is necessarily poor, sometimes the quality of what actually hits your ear is not all about the numbers game.
If you get down to the detail though, I reckon there were some clever people talking a lot of technobabble involved in getting the best out of vinyl.
In fact, in my electronics career, I learned a lot of respect for the people who achieved a lot before modern chips etc made things a lot easier.
TonyRPH said:
911hope said:
How can you have a peak above 0dBFS?
Other than this, the key thing to understand is whether the content is compressed to 0dBFS, or clipped at 0dBFS.
Peaks above 0dBFS are caused by Intersample overs if my understanding of the linked article is correct.Other than this, the key thing to understand is whether the content is compressed to 0dBFS, or clipped at 0dBFS.
The cases they talk about are when the recording has been badly processed and the content is clipped. This means there.is no more headroom in the number system to represent bigger values. The same phenomenon can occur in the analogue domain.
There are cases when interpolation (upsampling) that could produce a theoretically higher amplitude intermediate value. Some of these could be accommodated by benchmark's claimed process of attenuating the samples, then applying their own interpolation filters then applying to the chip DAC. Their little diagrams seem to imply that they can unclip signals, which isn't true.
The reality of the competing DACs is that with a clipped signal, it will come out clipped in the analogue domain, just like the original content.
OutInTheShed said:
Does quantization always required sampling? Could you quantize a DC voltage without sampling it for instance?
I can't think how. Each quantization has to be done at a particular point in time. Determining/isolating those points is sampling. The analogue waveform is continuous. To fully represent it you'd need an infinite number of points. However, sampling theory proves (in the true sense) that no information is lost if you sample at higher than double the maximum frequency of the waveform. 
911hope said:
This article is in fact a marketing piece by a DAC could many claiming an advantage over can meeting DACs using off the shelf chips.
The cases they talk about are when the recording has been badly processed and the content is clipped.....
May we can de-clip that and recover the original content?The cases they talk about are when the recording has been badly processed and the content is clipped.....
You can de-clip a sine wave by filtering off the harmonics.
Some CODEC processes will reduce some harmonics and put in peaks.
Some of those peaks may be what was clipped originally.
And to the point of this thread it’s really apparent that a lot of people buy high end turntables for their looks and the whole mines better that yours pub bragging rights.
I mean at the end of the day you can’t get away from the fact that a turntable, any turntable is an analogue device that’s only function in life is to play a record that was probably purchased for about £20, but in reality its a peice of cheap pressed vinyl plastic that will have a production cost of pennies.
And so now matter how good or expensive the turntable, the tone arm, the motor, the cartridge and the stylus, they all come down to that one point which is a tiny surface area diamond stylus running in the groove of a cheap peice of plastic.
My Audio Technica AT-LP 240 turntable cost me around £400 about 10 years ago now.
I love the whole drama and theatre of putting a record on it and playing it, but the sound coming out of it is only as good as the quality of the record itself.
I keep looking at the new Technics 1200 GR turntable and feel like treating myself, it’s about 4 times the cost of my Audio Technica turntable, I’m pretty confident it won’t sound 4 times better on my 40 year old vinyl collection.
And to reference the £130K turntable I just posted, I’m also pretty sure that turntable will not sound 100 times better than the £1500 Technica 1200 GR I fancy buying myself.
And that ladies and gentlemen is the rub, this is the whole point of the post from the start, I give you pure audiophile Bull*hit!
I mean at the end of the day you can’t get away from the fact that a turntable, any turntable is an analogue device that’s only function in life is to play a record that was probably purchased for about £20, but in reality its a peice of cheap pressed vinyl plastic that will have a production cost of pennies.
And so now matter how good or expensive the turntable, the tone arm, the motor, the cartridge and the stylus, they all come down to that one point which is a tiny surface area diamond stylus running in the groove of a cheap peice of plastic.
My Audio Technica AT-LP 240 turntable cost me around £400 about 10 years ago now.
I love the whole drama and theatre of putting a record on it and playing it, but the sound coming out of it is only as good as the quality of the record itself.
I keep looking at the new Technics 1200 GR turntable and feel like treating myself, it’s about 4 times the cost of my Audio Technica turntable, I’m pretty confident it won’t sound 4 times better on my 40 year old vinyl collection.
And to reference the £130K turntable I just posted, I’m also pretty sure that turntable will not sound 100 times better than the £1500 Technica 1200 GR I fancy buying myself.
And that ladies and gentlemen is the rub, this is the whole point of the post from the start, I give you pure audiophile Bull*hit!
OutInTheShed said:
May we can de-clip that and recover the original content?
You can de-clip a sine wave by filtering off the harmonics.
Some CODEC processes will reduce some harmonics and put in peaks.
Some of those peaks may be what was clipped originally.
SeeDeclip4 does this but it's not necessarily accurate based on the description.You can de-clip a sine wave by filtering off the harmonics.
Some CODEC processes will reduce some harmonics and put in peaks.
Some of those peaks may be what was clipped originally.
IIRC the author of this software used to be on PH.
website said:
SeeDeClip4 allows the successful repair of many of these distortions so the waveform fed into your HiFi is lower distortion than all the people playing the same track without this type of repair. Reconstruction of the peaks generally results in a smoother more consistent sound with more bite and dynamics, rim shots and snares sound better, voices ride over drum beats and the whole sound is more realistic.
To achieve this realism no mystic Mpingo blocks or expensive wire in magic USB cables are used, our software merely edits the waveform and adds back what it thinks was there in the first place based on various forensic clues left in the waveform.
To achieve this realism no mystic Mpingo blocks or expensive wire in magic USB cables are used, our software merely edits the waveform and adds back what it thinks was there in the first place based on various forensic clues left in the waveform.
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