[landroni]

  
audiophile fluffery (and the claims of "timing accuracy" still gets on my nerves, 

)
 

 
 
 
Yes, clueless objectivist droning tends to be very grating indeed, long on biases and unsubstantiated snap judgements and unfalsifiable claims, and very short on manners or the scientific method.
 
 
 
PS If you feel entitled to throw disparaging "drivel" or "audiophoolery" or "audiophile fluffery" expletives at others, then others are equally as entitled to treat you as disparagingly...  

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Did you even read my arguments regarding the Schiit upsampling methodology you were defending?

I apologize for use of the term "drivel" (which was not even directed at you). I never used the term "audiophoolery". I fail to see how "audiophile" is insulting. I reserve the right to regard much of what is said describing the subjective results of Chord technology as "fluffery", even if it is par for the course in the trade.

As far as I can see objectivists are usually criticized for regarding almost everything in audio to "not matter" without putting forth their own theories on what needs improvement, thus serving as no better than roadblocks to progress in audio. Well I'll be listing my laundry list of things that need to be improved in audio in a following post.

 

[audi0nick128]

What you gonna wash your dirty laundry full of schiit in front of all of us?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Well I'll be listing my laundry list of things that need to be improved in audio in a following post.

1. Audio mastering needs to be improved, but for this to happen it needs a steady target to aim for (rather than having to cater to everything from mono boomboxes to car stereos to audiophile systems in one recording).

2. Accordingly, a new audiophile music standard needs to be put forward that segregates the responsibilities of audio mastering and audio playback correctly; for a start dynamic compression needs to be specified as a standard playback parameter that can be switched on and adjusted on the playback end to cater to different playback equipment capabilities and listening environments. Equalization and room correction capabilities need to become standard so that mastering engineers can simply aim for the best sound in the studio environment (which should also be standardized), while the wildly varying end-user listening setups can intelligently do their best to match the studio sound, rather than the other way around.

3. A 2nd version of all albums, mastered for binaural (headphone listening) ought to become standard. (I'm sure all head-fiers can get behind that!) For old albums mastered for stereo only, headphone listening systems ought to be updated with speaker system virtualization software that goes beyond the presently common primitive crossfeed options. Darin Fong's OOYH software is a good start. http://www.head-fi.org/t/689299/out-of-your-head-new-virtual-surround-simulator Here's my own humble attempt: http://www.head-fi.org/t/555263/foobar2000-dolby-headphone-config-comment-discuss/810#post_12496793

4. A whole industry of consumer-oriented audio engineering needs to be built from the ground up. For loudspeaker systems it entails proper room setup and speaker calibration by trained professionals rather than end-users all trying to do their own thing. For headphone systems it entails widespread adoption of HRTF measurements a la those done for the Smyth Realiser: http://www.head-fi.org/t/418401/long-awaited-smyth-svs-realiser-now-available-for-purchase

The latter would be an alternative to (3) and Smyth Realiser is in the High-End audio forum for good reason. Most every Realiser user would tell you it makes a joke of all talk of headphone "soundstage" and "realism" on conventional headphone systems. Individual HRTF measurements are necessary because of the wild acoustic variations between individuals when wearing headphones.

5. Audiophile headphones should come standard with compensation curves for arriving at a neutral reference. For (4) the HRTFs should be recorded as deviations from the KEMAR dummy head reference, so that corrections can be applied to the compensation curve to arrive at the studio-intended sound for every listener, using whatever headphones. Software to apply such corrections should come as standard on any audiophile music player for portable use.

But as you can see, every point involves sweeping changes to the audio industry, I'm not sure there's any money to be made from it, and it seems obvious that the majority of the target market won't even appreciate the reasons behind such changes if and when they are proposed. It needs to be proposed as a whole new system for everything from recording, mastering to playback. Everyone would have their own slightly different version of the underlying ideas and it would be very difficult to arrive at a universally adopted standard.

 

[Hawaiibadboy]

Did you even read my arguments regarding the Schiit upsampling methodology you were defending?

I apologize for use of the term "drivel" (which was not even directed at you). I never used the term "audiophoolery". I fail to see how "audiophile" is insulting. I reserve the right to regard much of what is said describing the subjective results of Chord technology as "fluffery", even if it is par for the course in the trade.

As far as I can see objectivists are usually criticized for regarding almost everything in audio to "not matter" without putting forth their own theories on what needs improvement, thus serving as no better than roadblocks to progress in audio. Well I'll be listing my laundry list of things that need to be improved in audio in a following post.

 OT...or not?
 
I contacted e-earphone and my unit is giving me 5 hours and 5 minutes of play time with 32ohm Sony EX1000 and volume at the red (middle ish of volume)
 
5 hours and they told me that appears to not be unusual.  5 hours.

 

[jmills8]

 OT...or not?

I contacted e-earphone and my unit is giving me 5 hours and 5 minutes of play time with 32ohm Sony EX1000 and volume at the red (middle ish of volume)

5 hours and they told me that appears to not be unusual.  5 hours.:mad:

Thats about smack in the middle for me. 4 to 6 hrs max. Seems I have to charge it every other day but I feel like charging it every night.

 

[rkt31]

can anyone using uapp may please tell how to explore folders in the app ? all I can see genre, songs and albums but not the explore folder option .

 

[audi0nick128]

I should be under local folder...

 

[Peter Hyatt]

http://m.dignis.co.kr/product/detail.html?product_no=119&cate_no=1&display_group=3


Not sure if this was already posted.

72$ US.   
 
Thanks for posting.  That's quite a color! 
 
Battery life:   does your estimate include lots of off and on?  My straight through run is close to 10 hours, using medium volume (a bit above red) and 600 ohm headphones.  When I measure intervals, it is less.  I have it running as a desktop dac during the day mostly, but whenever I take it out (whenever I go out), it always charges overnight. 

 

[Duncan]

What bit rate / depth is being used for these battery assessments? That will play quite a large part too...

600ohm should also be less battery demanding than 16ohm which will also help

 

[noobandroid]

can anyone using uapp may please tell how to explore folders in the app ? all I can see genre, songs and albums but not the explore folder option .

it's in the left hand corner drop down "local folder" section, you will have to update the UAPP to a relatively newer version to have it there

 

[wahsmoh]

The longer your reconstruction filter the closer the upsampled bitstream can be to matching the original data points (where provided). But it will always be "close, but no cigar", and I have strong reason to suspect that any attempt to postprocess the calculated output to match the original data points (where provided) would then be doomed to further distort the signal instead of making it better.
Indeed. And never forget that we listen to music with our ears, not our eyes. An upsampled bitstream that passes through all the original points may LOOK better on a graph, but would introduce distortion in terms of aberrant frequencies and/or frequencies beyond the Nyquist of the original signal (unless you had infinite computer power; see above)

On the other hand, if we look at the goal of Redbook upsampling as to try to guess at the ultrasonics that could not be recorded by the original CD, then the technology to look towards should be blind spectral band replication, not some magic way of connecting the dots:
https://www.google.com/search?q=blind+spectral+band+replication
You can see how the conversation got started in here. But I'm fine with a mod forking these discussions over to the Science forum.

 
 It was my fault I think. I just gave a comparison of my old school Theta "burrito filter" which is a 12 kilo army tank and set it next to the Mojo with favorable results going both ways. I was more or less impressed by the fact that the Theta didn't sound outdated at all except when playing hi-res music cause I was downsampling everything to 16-bit.
 
A brief look at our inconvenient history:
 

 

[Hawaiibadboy]

What bit rate / depth is being used for these battery assessments? That will play quite a large part too...

600ohm should also be less battery demanding than 16ohm which will also help

I got a guy (students brother) who asked me last Friday if he should get it .
He takes a train for 2 hours to Hiroshima and 2 hours back and there is more time in between and he listens to music all the time and plays minecraft while doing so. Absolute drone bee life but he's happy. He has the uber expensive Sony's Fitear? and the ex1000 which are 32 ohm.
 
He sent me a message today saying he ordered it.  He has a crazy looking sony dap with knobs on top and it looks like something from Star Trek.  I am sure he doesn't use 600ohm cans on the JR line. I am going to be curious how he does (battery life) as his routine is repeated 5-6 times a week.
 
I love this item and hope the future includes a battery more able to deal with folks like him and even me. Great things take great effort otherwise we wouldn't call them great.  Mojo is great and it takes juice for that greatness. I say that to myself and just enjoy.

 

[xtr4]

1. Audio mastering needs to be improved, but for this to happen it needs a steady target to aim for (rather than having to cater to everything from mono boomboxes to car stereos to audiophile systems in one recording).

2. Accordingly, a new audiophile music standard needs to be put forward that segregates the responsibilities of audio mastering and audio playback correctly; for a start dynamic compression needs to be specified as a standard playback parameter that can be switched on and adjusted on the playback end to cater to different playback equipment capabilities and listening environments. Equalization and room correction capabilities need to become standard so that mastering engineers can simply aim for the best sound in the studio environment (which should also be standardized), while the wildly varying end-user listening setups can intelligently do their best to match the studio sound, rather than the other way around.

3. A 2nd version of all albums, mastered for binaural (headphone listening) ought to become standard. (I'm sure all head-fiers can get behind that!) For old albums mastered for stereo only, headphone listening systems ought to be updated with speaker system virtualization software that goes beyond the presently common primitive crossfeed options. Darin Fong's OOYH software is a good start. http://www.head-fi.org/t/689299/out-of-your-head-new-virtual-surround-simulator Here's my own humble attempt: http://www.head-fi.org/t/555263/foobar2000-dolby-headphone-config-comment-discuss/810#post_12496793

4. A whole industry of consumer-oriented audio engineering needs to be built from the ground up. For loudspeaker systems it entails proper room setup and speaker calibration by trained professionals rather than end-users all trying to do their own thing. For headphone systems it entails widespread adoption of HRTF measurements a la those done for the Smyth Realiser: http://www.head-fi.org/t/418401/long-awaited-smyth-svs-realiser-now-available-for-purchase

The latter would be an alternative to (3) and Smyth Realiser is in the High-End audio forum for good reason. Most every Realiser user would tell you it makes a joke of all talk of headphone "soundstage" and "realism" on conventional headphone systems. Individual HRTF measurements are necessary because of the wild acoustic variations between individuals when wearing headphones.

5. Audiophile headphones should come standard with compensation curves for arriving at a neutral reference. For (4) the HRTFs should be recorded as deviations from the KEMAR dummy head reference, so that corrections can be applied to the compensation curve to arrive at the studio-intended sound for every listener, using whatever headphones. Software to apply such corrections should come as standard on any audiophile music player for portable use.

But as you can see, every point involves sweeping changes to the audio industry, I'm not sure there's any money to be made from it, and it seems obvious that the majority of the target market won't even appreciate the reasons behind such changes if and when they are proposed. It needs to be proposed as a whole new system for everything from recording, mastering to playback. Everyone would have their own slightly different version of the underlying ideas and it would be very difficult to arrive at a universally adopted standard.

 
Valid points throughout and totally agree on the Mastering issue. From what I've gathered with regards to some talk by Chord (@Rob Watts ) specifically is that they are trying to bring the technology learnt from developing the DAVE into the ADC side of things which would probably improve or even eliminate some of the issues above entirely.
If a DAC of Chord's caliber can extract and improve upon the details, imagine what they could accomplish by putting that technology into the recording studios as the ADC. We could even go as far as to say that with specialized DAC, we can extract differing levels of audio quality for differing listening criteria as you listed above.
I'm no expert but these are my thoughts on the matter above.

 

[xtr4]

 
I got a guy (students brother) who asked me last Friday if he should get it .
He takes a train for 2 hours to Hiroshima and 2 hours back and there is more time in between and he listens to music all the time and plays minecraft while doing so. Absolute drone bee life but he's happy. He has the uber expensive Sony's Fitear? and the ex1000 which are 32 ohm.
 
He sent me a message today saying he ordered it.  He has a crazy looking sony dap with knobs on top and it looks like something from Star Trek.  I am sure he doesn't use 600ohm cans on the JR line. I am going to be curious how he does (battery life) as his routine is repeated 5-6 times a week.
 
I love this item and hope the future includes a battery more able to deal with folks like him and even me. Great things take great effort otherwise we wouldn't call them great.  Mojo is great and it takes juice for that greatness. I say that to myself and just enjoy.

As @Peter Hyatt has mentioned, I find too that I will get diminished battery life if it's turned on and off frequently when compared to continuous usage. I've had occasions whereby the Mojo only lasted 4ish hours. However, that scenario was due to having a weekend of pause between usage. Not sure if you've mentioned it before, but have  you tried leaving it run continuously from full (blue) till flashing red and time the duration?