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What a long, strange trip it's been -- (Robert Hunter)
Mar 11, 2017 at 9:16 PM Post #2,326 of 14,566
koshnaranek said:
When Yggdrasil came out, Mike put his reputation on the line by saying that It was the best DAC he knew how to make. That was why it was the first purchase for me from Schiit.

I am looking forward to doing it again with The Gadget.(and I want to hear all the "Demon Core" stories)
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technically he said it that at the price Schiit was charging for Yggy, it was the best DAC he knew how to make and, IMO, he hit a homerun. 
 
Mar 11, 2017 at 9:26 PM Post #2,327 of 14,566
roundround said:
 
Thanks Interesting, 
Can you elaborate please? What are overtones? How are they smeared?
 
Thank you!
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Overtones are what make great instruments truly delicious to the ears when heard live... they are the doubled, tripled, quadrupled, etc harmonic frequencies of the note being played. Smearing is when the higher frequencies are slowed by various means through the recording process. So smearing causes the perfect time relationship of overtones with the fundamental note to be lost, and so the transient impact is dulled. I think this is one of the major reasons hi fi's fall short of the emotional (and physical!) impact of live music. I say the Manhattan Project is using DSP to "de-smear" the recording by realigning the transients to their fundamentals. The ability to do this without F'ing it all up is more revolutionary than what MQA promises, but it works with the music you already have and owes Meridian not a penny.
 
Mar 11, 2017 at 10:26 PM Post #2,328 of 14,566
... further, Mike's mentioning of it's possible "adjustability" suggests to me that it is not feasible to differentiate between smeared harmonics and recorded echos. This makes me wonder how it will handle music that is intentionally atonal or dissonant, or was recorded with the sound of the room specifically in mind... or with crappy microphones, or the impact of the original ADC, or the compounding of all possible errors. This is clearly way over my head.
 
Mar 12, 2017 at 3:40 AM Post #2,330 of 14,566
marshall hance said:
  ... further, Mike's mentioning of it's possible "adjustability" suggests to me that it is not feasible to differentiate between smeared harmonics and recorded echos. This makes me wonder how it will handle music that is intentionally atonal or dissonant, or was recorded with the sound of the room specifically in mind... or with crappy microphones, or the impact of the original ADC, or the compounding of all possible errors. This is clearly way over my head.
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Thank you!
That's a great explanation (and an interesting theory!) i guess we will have to be patient...
 
Mar 12, 2017 at 5:25 AM Post #2,331 of 14,566
marshall hance said:
... further, Mike's mentioning of it's possible "adjustability" suggests to me that it is not feasible to differentiate between smeared harmonics and recorded echos. This makes me wonder how it will handle music that is intentionally atonal or dissonant, or was recorded with the sound of the room specifically in mind... or with crappy microphones, or the impact of the original ADC, or the compounding of all possible errors. This is clearly way over my head.
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I believe the need to analyze a good chunk (I recall reading 3 min.) of the music and recognizing musical structure (chords) are part of deciding if other parts of the signal need to adjusted. My guess is that one of the functions is to correct phase distortion affecting the higher harmonics due to the recording / mixing / post-processing. This is most intriguing. The range of parameters that lead to deciding whether or not to apply filtering, what type of filtering is needed, how much, for how long, etc etc is mind boggling.

The potential to reduce undesirable recording and mastering attracts is most attractive. Applied heavy handedly it could lead to of results, but given @Baldr's ears, taste in music and approach to engineering, I can't wait to hear more. Of course I could be totally off in my guess of what Manhattan does.
 
Mar 12, 2017 at 11:30 AM Post #2,333 of 14,566
baldr said:
  So I'm now at major paradigm shift at Schiit. If I go back to my very beginnings at modifying gear my mantra was to improve the audio I had to work with. This harmonized with the high-end minimalism of the time which was for example any extra circuitry in the playback chain not essential to proper playback was undesirable in the sense that it was more stuff in series in the playback chain. Since no audio hardware in the chain is perfect, the only effect of the unnecessary hardware is worse sound. Tone controls – we don't need no stinkin tone controls! Phucs up the sound.
 
On and on through the 70's, then 80's, 90's, and 21st century. This think still prevails today in high end circles. What comes out has to be as close to what came in; bit perfect. Yup – bigger versions of what came in. Up to now, that has been the model.
 
Comes the MP – oops. The musical content coming in is decidedly not what comes out. What?? How do I deal with this? Has my previous minimalist belief been faith based? I don't think so. The bits coming out are different than the bits that came in. The fact that it is defeatable is comforting and gives rise to a certainty of the MP's justification. A certain hetereodoxy has emerged; portions of the old orthodox practice remain, however. A new door open.
 
Hmmmm – are we in a brave (hopefully not cowardly) new world allowing for more fixes to the entire record/playback chain? Stay tuned.
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Book !  Book !  Book !
 
Explaining this paradigm shift, and how we low-wattage bulbs can best use the new technology to increase our musical fun, will require a book on both philosophy and practical applications.
 
You could ...um ... write it in chapters ... and, hey ... publish it online !!!   There are precedents. 
 
Mar 12, 2017 at 8:50 PM Post #2,337 of 14,566
jacal01 said:
1.21
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At that speed you're going to see some serious schiit.
 
Mar 13, 2017 at 2:12 AM Post #2,340 of 14,566
How much computer power? For what? Let's bring the MP (The Gadget) to March, 2017 after a brief prelude:
 
I know I am cagey and only giving of hints with respect to what it is and exactly why I am now devoting almost all my time to The Gadget. The hints and the cageyness are the no reveal until the product credo; the reasons for which I spend my time are several. My last series of projects has been to make multibit widely available to suit a range of pocketbooks. In fact, almost all of those have been released.
 
So this leads to the question of what this dog does when he catches the multibit car. The Gadget, of course. Since it varies parameters both in the frequency and the time domains utilizing DSP, there is a fundamental, underlying milestone which needs to be absolutely dealt with. There are a number of DSP products which deal with a number of applications, such as, equalization, karaoke, sound effects. What most, if not all of these these applications all have in common is a tendency to sound like ass. Something you could listen to at a Hockey game or proper to someone drunkenly singing, but don't try it at home.
 
Which brings us to March 2017. We have a version of the Gadget which allows us to vary the time and frequency parameters which does NOT sound like ass. This in itself has been taken months, but I can shout to the skies that it cannot be heard. So there it is – that is what we have: an engine that I am happy with. The first fundamental, underlying milestone is done.
 
So how do I configure it? The above parameters can be adjusted; when one adjusts them there is a clear sweet spot, but there are tweener spots that sound worse than ass. Do I make it fixed? Do I make it adjustable? Do I make it auto adjustable? If it is fixed, I run a risk of overlooking a few recordings. If it is adjustable, users can adjust it very badly. In fact, when badly adjusted you could use it as a device to get rid of unwelcome company. Steady use could be useful to send bad roommates packing – I digress. If it auto-adjusts, this is where I run into the issue of computer power and memory – further the problem of how many samples the device needs to decide how to adjust or when to give up and light the BuyBetterMusic Laser. For the sake of proper music, that light should be so bright as to cause sunburn.
 
As far as to the paragraph above, this is what is in front of me. What I listen to as we speak are a Bach mass with my fixed MP. I am trying to listen to as many different types of music as possible as sample inputs; normally baroque is far from my fave – the MP helps that out quite a bit.
 
 
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