Before asking about digital audio: READ this Digital Audio Primer

[obobskivich]

what a wonderful guide!

 

[FallenAngel]

nick-charles and ar-t : Please take this discussion to another thread and if you both seem to agree on something, do post it here, otherwise, I really don't like having a person backed by a company go against a skeptical audiophile going at each other about cables, this is out of scope, as is cable specifics in general so lets not continue. I'm trying to keep this as an accurate introduction to the overall picture of digital audio and don't want this thread sidetracked on some details, whether some believe them to be important or not.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FallenAngel /img/forum/go_quote.gif nick-charles and ar-t : Please take this discussion to another thread and if you both seem to agree on something, do post it here, otherwise, I really don't like having a person backed by a company go against a skeptical audiophile going at each other about cables, this is out of scope, as is cable specifics in general so lets not continue. I'm trying to keep this as an accurate introduction to the overall picture of digital audio and don't want this thread sidetracked on some details, whether some believe them to be important or not.

Yes, I am sorry about that I will not do it again here , I apologise to you unreservedly.

 

[BradJudy]

FA: This looks like a good start to a primer. I have a couple of suggestions. First, this seems very hardware focused and could use a couple of key software points like defining the role of a codec to interpret the media format and its relation to the player. This seems to trip up a lot of people starting out. Second, I'd love to see some visual aids added and I'll see if I can't whip some up this week. I think it will help to reinforce both the consistency of the core components as well as the fact that they can be grouped in a variety of ways (as shown in your examples). I would also add a SqueezeBox/Sonos style example.

 

[obobskivich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BradJudy /img/forum/go_quote.gif FA: This looks like a good start to a primer. I have a couple of suggestions. First, this seems very hardware focused and could use a couple of key software points like defining the role of a codec to interpret the media format and its relation to the player. This seems to trip up a lot of people starting out. Second, I'd love to see some visual aids added and I'll see if I can't whip some up this week. I think it will help to reinforce both the consistency of the core components as well as the fact that they can be grouped in a variety of ways (as shown in your examples). I would also add a SqueezeBox/Sonos style example.

one thing with codecs is defining hardware codecs as the universal input/output bit that mainboards and soundcards use, and codecs in terms of media container formats, that might be why FA bypassed it (know this wasn't meant to be like 2 pages just for the primer), but it might've just been overlooked (as I honsetly didn't even think about it until you mentioned it, and its a good point, most newbies get bloated down by all these TLAs and whatnot)

 

[BradJudy]

I'm working on diagrams and I have decided that having the IV and analog output stages listed separately is unnecessary and confusing. They are never physically separate devices from the DAC and aren't important to understanding how this chain operates. The key pieces of the chain for basic understanding are (IMO): content -> content format decoder -> source/transport -> digital receiver -> DAC -> amplifier(s) -> headphones/speakers

I'll post a couple image examples shortly to demonstrate.

 

[ar-t]

AES/EBU differs from SPDIF very little, except for a few control bits. The differences are 5.0 V vs 0.5 V, 110 ohm balanced vs 75 ohm balanced.

Pat

 

[BradJudy]

Okay, here are some examples of what I was envisioning for visual aids.

Super simple iPod:

Computer via digital out to DAC/amp combo:

Computer to USB digital to DAC to amp:

The images could go on and on and are simple to assemble once you've collected these components. I just have them all in a PowerPoint file.

 

[obobskivich]

bradjudy (kind of odd user name, lol)

those are the most colorful diagrams I've ever seen, r'kon on man (or woman?)

 

[FallenAngel]

Thanks for the input BradJudy, nice photos.

obobskivich : Dude, stop taking jabs at the sales rep, or do it outside my thread.

ar-t : I'm not a mod and cannot delete any threads or content.

Request of ar-t, obobskivich & nick_charles : If you both don't mind, I would appreciate if would edit out the cable arguments from the thread, they do not really contribute to this guide and just take it off course.

 

[wuwhere]

It would be nice to also mention/partly cover analog to digital conversion.

 

[obobskivich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuwhere /img/forum/go_quote.gif It would be nice to also mention/partly cover analog to digital conversion.

like the ACKDAC that I just learned about?

or like an actual explanation of how the process works, in non-calculus based terms?

 

[wuwhere]

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif like the ACKDAC that I just learned about? or like an actual explanation of how the process works, in non-calculus based terms?

After all, they all started out as analog and just putting it back to analog as faithful as possible. Perhaps some sampling theory?

 

[BradJudy]

I noticed an error in the first post:

"Optical TOSLINK is not a mechanical connection, therefore it avoids ground-loops, "

I think you meant that it isn't an electrical connection.

 

[BradJudy]

I've put together a total of eight visuals now, but I'm wondering how many of the interconnect sections to highlight. This example shows ones between devices (digital paths in blue, analog in green), but doesn't show intra-device connections like receiver to DAC. I don't know the internals of each DAC or sound card well enough to note SPDIF vs I2S, and I'm not sure how to note connections on one-chip solutions like a PCM270x.