A (better sounding?) alternative to Foobar2000 -OR- A musing in the realm of bit-perfect streaming - Page 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry 

so majkel is out of his mind, innit? http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/397691/audio-gd-discrete-op-amps-reviewed-opa-earth-opa-moon-opa-sun-v-2

Once again, no one is "out of there mind", but you keep shoving words into my mouth.  Maybe you would do better to keep them in yours, shut perhaps?

Placebo can affect anyone.  It's well known.  Subjective impressions mean nothing compared to properly performed and reviewed DBT.

Of course, discreet opamps compared to ICs have the potential for variance in their measurements - in other words a tailored sound . . . if anything were to show up in a DBT it would probably be them.  I'd have to see some RMAA results thought to make a better guess.

I believe Dan Lavry would disagree, at least if we're talking where the jitter is at:

"...Yet it matters very much WHERE that jitter is. It is only important to have the low jitter AT THE CONVERTER, right where the digital is converted to analog. That is the "conversion jitter" and that is the jitter that matters. Moving data around can tolerate 100 times the jitter level with no sonic impact. We call that "data transfer jitter". If we have say huge jitter on say the spdif cable, but we get to "clean it" before it gets to the critical circuitry, then we are doing fine..."

- Dan Lavry

Found in a write-up by Jude here: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/493152/low-jitter-usb-dan-lavry-michael-goodman-adaptive-asynchronous

And your point being?  I believe I've referenced a total of ZERO soundcards.  This is something you're bringing up yourself for no reason other than building a strawman that isn't quite complete.

I'm saying I've tried various bit-perfect players and they have always sounded the same properly configured.  Yet once again the point seems to miss you entirely - it is the believers that must prove the claim.

Pacing Rhythm and Timing is in the time domain of the music, or inherently the music itself when you get down to it.  Low transients on equipment means the PRaT should be fine.  Anything with an inaudible level of transients will be fine in terms of PRaT - pretty much all DACs and Amps that aren't severely deficient should qualify.  In terms of headphones, pretty much all are very fast with low decay - though if one really really wanted to argue they could go on about orthos and stats.

Except you haven't proven anything, just threw around anecdotes and screamed "there's yer proof heretic!" 

Cool, now back this up with statistically significant peer reviewed level matched DBTs.  If this is true you'll actually breed another area of study in audio.

And here's another list of random subjective findings that you can't prove.

opamps RMAA? here we go: http://www.jensign.com/RMAA/RMAAOpAmpTests.html

your "human" technology gives almost identical measurements for LM4562 and NE5532...anyone who's rolled those 2 chips know how different they sound.

so you do believe that all the differences explained by majkel in the aforementioned link are merely the fruit of his wild imagination? so when ppl hear the same things he did(even before reading his review), do you think we could call it a collective hallucination?

Well, I wasn't really talking about jitter...I was mostly talking about inacurrate sample rates, due to inaccurate PLL's in the first place....many transports will output high jitter AND a slightly inaccurate sample rate.

there's no claim to prove, I have nothing to sell here. You "know" that Reclock and foobar sound identical w/o even trying it...who's close-minded again? I'd even dare saying that you're not using your gear optimally and that foobar is acting as a bottleneck between you and your music.

many things can act on PraT, in a qualitative order: 1)phone 2)opamps 3)cables

my fav PRaT opamp is currently LT1363, because it's VERY fast and it's VERY audible: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/89813/lt1363-opamp#post_1042510

that'd be sweet if you could roll it and tell me that it sounds perfectly identical to LM4562/NE5532. I start wondering how to measure audible speed, though. This chip is the very definition of PRaT to my ears, very tight/percussive clear and defined sound. LT1364 is an all-time favorite of many rollers, it's also been successfully used in quite a bit of commercial DAC's: http://www.playstereo.com/product_info.php?products_id=686

Again, it's a free world...use foobar on a cheapo transport if you like.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry 

opamps RMAA? here we go: http://www.jensign.com/RMAA/RMAAOpAmpTests.html

 

your "human" technology gives almost identical measurements for LM4562 and NE5532...anyone who's rolled those 2 chips know how different they sound.

You sir do not read.  I said RMAA on the discreet chips, not the ICs.

For lols though, the NE5532 is used in Benchmark DACs due to its excellent performance.  It's a matter of proper utilization - nothing more nothing less.  So your random op-amp bias is pretty misguided honestly.

Once again, stop putting words in my mouth.  It's rather libelous and not amusing in the least.  I will say that I believe a good amount of his review is indeed placebo though.  If you're wanting to claim different, you're completely free to do as suggested and prove it via a scientific method.

Hm?  If it was fixed by a driver (software) how is it exactly "fixing" the PLL?  Furthermore, you've only cited one example of the inaccurate sample rate, do you have more examples of this?

No, I think you do need to prove this going by the temper trantrum and random accusations you've thrown around.  It's rude and condescending.

I never answered whether I used reclock, I just said it's beyond what I was talking about.  You keep banging a drum towards a strawman.

If you're SO interested as to whether I've used it or not, I have on a few occasions due to suggestions that it would allow me to integrate MPC for both video and audio usage - I tend to pick apps that are very customizable in settings but it means I lack a single "go to" app.

I just booted up MPC with reclock, then kicked over to FB2K - both used WASAPI in exclusive mode.

The differences found: none.

Of course, you could also argue that I was victim to placebo expecting no difference - then again it's not really up to me to prove the non-existence of something anyway.

See comment about NE5532 in Benchmark products.

If you implement an opamp in a circuit not designed for it then odds are it's going to have some problems.  This should be relatively easy to understand.

Oh well, I'm going to leave this at that.  Feel free to try and respond, but I'm not going to answer that.  Believers are believers and science is science - they belong is separate corners.

it's relatively easy to understand that we'll never agree on anything, enjoy foobar on 5532's then

RMAA on the discrete chips, your wish is my command: http://audio.an-pan-man.com/files/rmaa/earth_vs_moon_vs_sunv2_vs_lt1469.htm

those 4 opamps sound perfectly different, and even a child could DBT them(yes I've heard those 4 chips personally).

I dared talking about collective hallucination because I've tried most of the chips majkel commented on in that thread, and I agreed with most of his views even before reading it...and Andrea partly agrees on them too. So if it's indeed placebo, it's got to be collective and hallucinating somehow.

Musiland were able to fix their sample rate inaccuracy because they used a programmable xilink FPGA chip, and to finally offer dead-on sample rates they force you to wait 3 secs for the chip to reprogrammed...but most cheap interfaces will use one single PLL and call it a day, like that 24.576Mhz(48000*512) clock on those CMI8788 chips, but its 44.1 jitter will be horrid(reason for the lame attempt on the asus st to add a clock conditioner) and some DSP's don't even use a perfect 48/44.1 matching clock, so -as m2tech explain in their white paper- you're not quite getting 44100.0000~ or 48000.0000~

I've never heard a K601, I can't comment on what they would/could allow you to hear. I also dunno what was in your audio path, amp, source, opamps, PSU, interface.

But it's indeed sterile, you'll keep begging for graphs and measurements for stuff that cannot be measured, and I'll keep asking you to try and compare w/ your own ears before making false assumptions.

spot-on. 

Once again, I suggest you take your snide and libelous comments and keep them to yourself.  I have had experience with various items you've mentioned, but it's much easier for you to accuse the ears and equipment of others isn't it?

You're both being silly trolls, both of you making solid AND foolish points, and anxiously waiting on the others reaction.

Just sayin'.

On the contrary, I think Shike's been fairly calm and scientific in his approach and generally refrained from insulting lee. Let's try and be friendly .

@Shike: I found no difference with ReClock either and completely agree with you on SS amps.

@Lee: I personally have used quite a few (four) different cables for my hd600s and found absolutely no difference in any of them. I even used one side of the steel HD25 cable and couldn't detect a difference in sonic signature on a range of different bitrates - but I might just be tin-eared... then again, I find it quite easy to detect the difference in sound when changing the position of my KRKs, so I'm not convinced this is the case. My audiologist assures me my hearing is perfectly fine.

When it comes to bit-perfect/jitter I'm not convinced that there's going to be an audible difference between software players. Some have used encoded video as an analogy but as far as I'm aware there's no bit-perfect streaming of an MKV or xVid rip... so I'm not sure whether the analogy works but I might just be misunderstanding (v. possible).

If cables don't matter, why would multiple interconnects/extensions in a line degrade quality?  (As is easily tested.)

I also REALLY don't think every opamp is the same.  That's kind of ridiculous.

I don't think all opamps are the same either, espeically considering they all have very different specifications.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hybrys 

If cables don't matter, why would multiple interconnects/extensions in a line degrade quality?  (As is easily tested.)

 

I also REALLY don't think every opamp is the same.  That's kind of ridiculous.

Need proof of it and the methodology used i.e. length.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinesekiwi 

Need proof of it and the methodology used i.e. length.

I didn't do a very extensive test.  5 1' 'low quality' interconnects, multiple sources (volume matched), same cans, blind, only one subject.  Do one yourself if you're in doubt.

Can you explain how you connected the ICs?

Also each interconnect would need to be tested against the other to ensure there were no faults with any one in particular (e.g. soldering or weave that was more susceptible to RFI)

Originally Posted by Shike 

I have had experience with various items you've mentioned, but it's much easier for you to accuse the ears and equipment of others isn't it?

No, I haven't...OTOH the K601 is not exactly high-end, is it? if the trebles are not HD-sounding(ouuuh ), they'll work as a bottleneck and color whatever you could feed it.

Originally Posted by Draca  

@Lee: I personally have used quite a few (four) different cables for my hd600s and found absolutely no difference in any of them. I even used one side of the steel HD25 cable and couldn't detect a difference in sonic signature

[..]

as I'm aware there's no bit-perfect streaming of an MKV or xVid rip

1) I can only say that I used the cryoparts TWcu wire in quad braid, and it made my DT770/600Ω really ugly sounding...distorted bass, dead trebles. It was on the stx soundcard btw...maybe a bad combination, can't really tell. But cables do matter.

Sometimes I like to plug my phone directly my DAC RCA output to get a good idea of the opamps coloring(when I roll them), and I've found different adapters(0.5ft length) to sound way different too...and odly enough, the worst sounding was a Monster haha.

2) You can mux FLAC in MKV and use Reclock to play it in bit-perfect WASAPI/KS, as DirectShow cannot be made bit-perfect on Vista/W7(unlike XP when all its sliders are maxed out): http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=49350&view=findpost&p=522247

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrRoderick 
It is a small (very small) wasapi (or, now ASIO) audio player designed to avoid contact with the Windows API.

Why not just use foobar2k then, it bypasses the Windows Mixer as well when using WASAPI. Sorry, but I call nonsense on "audio players sound different!".