Digital Transport Quality (& why it [i]totally[/i] DOES NOT matter)…

[whitedragem]

Cause its’ digital; black is black, white is white…

Seriously though- many may wish to identify themselves in this thread- this is THE PLACE to confirm your observations (scientific and anecdotal) supporting the notion that Digital Transport Quality is of no significance to absolute audio quality, (cause we get ABSOLUTE audio quality from digital every time- that is the nature of the beast!!)

Now, (seriously) I do believe that we get a lot of incredible value with modern digital audio- the evolution in performance in ‘cheap chips’ has evolved to a point where many things are indistinguishable from one another or the differences so trivial as to be of little point to argue…

As ‘Head-fi’ as a community has audio inquisitors in both camps (spending bag loads of cash can net obvious improvements from ‘unscientific principles’ and ‘hahahahah those people are silly’ types.. our science pages become a bit of a warground.
Sadly much reasonable discussion can be lost to semantics, so attempting to keep a thread on why “digital transports MAY matter” clean and focused, figured it would be just as fair/fitting to do the same for the ‘counter argument’…

(please people- really- NO NEED TO CROSS PATHS/ARGUE THIS STUFF- lets just let people hold their view points and explore them- then we can at least say we INVESTIGATED something in our science pages!!) (the whole point really))

 

[bigshot]

Can you please answer my questions in the other thread?

 

[71 dB]

Can you please answer my questions in the other thread?

Obviously he can't or doesn't want to answer.

 

[bigshot]

He wanted to discuss the subject and the science behind it, and that's just what I did. But all he seems to want to talk about is how the discussion is limited to himself and... well, himself! He even spawned two threads where we aren't allowed to discuss this issue!

I don't have a fixed position on this. I asked a few questions to determine how the transport might affect the sound to help me come to a conclusion. I guess the ground rules of this thread forbids that kind of thing.

Honestly, I don't see how people's brains work like this. If you don't want to have a conversation, don't start a thread. Don't start TWO threads to not start a conversation.

 

[whitedragem]

hahaha..
alrighty ‘children’; play “nice” now.
which might extend to not ‘sniping from the trees’ -

arguing with those that are so practiced and experienced at it isn’t really my thing (there are enough worthwhile causes in the world presently that being an unpaid therapist or punching bag for bullies isn’t the role I wish/chose to play’).

Fuel for fires isn’t either.

Food for thunk though-
When demonstrating such incredible skill sets for taking on information and assesing it etc.. what I consistently see ‘from some of the most vocal sound science posters’ (specifically the ones who REFUSE TO LET OTHERS PLAY IN ‘THEIR’ PLAYGROUND nicely; is a group of observation and reasoning skills that would nullify any further influence from those people (for me!).

I suppose “G” shows typical insite (although missed the mark largely in this instance, but I understand my posts prove large/tiring to a select ‘few’ kindygarden’ers here… ), but as the so called NOT FIXED (?) positions I see are “someone more resilient than a ‘snake oil’ sales person like me can muster”, (I recognise my ‘own kind’ perhaps) so I disengage in case you call me out publicly and ‘affect sales’.

It is true nothing I say can be scrutinized (by twenty people who are not sound arguers) who all gang up and re-enforce some fallacy that they own science or are the only people who have any solid idea on how to practise it… basically you are solitairy practioners who have found a few strays, joined a pack, and now enjoy ripping into flesh whenever they get the chance.
Not even for food, but I would argue ‘for fun’.
(as a head-fi user, I seem to get random PMs from ‘new’ (alt?) accounts asking obviously fictitious questions generally right after coming up against ‘this crowd’ in a SS forum thread.
Even been accused by Bigshot of using alt accounts and ‘furthering my cause’ (we generally accuse others of what fear in ourselves, yes?)

Does amuse me just how thoroughly a few can so substantially miss overt/obvious info- in this instance you have clearly demonstrated a willingness to ‘cut’ specific parts of my discourse (just the stuff that suits narratives you like to argue)- even if it has nothing to do with the concept..

Can anyone here imaging doing clinical science with just such a labtech? (claims -open book and doesn’t know everything, but argues black and blue for their present model of understanding, whilst using fisher price toys and playing on a xylophone (casual readers may wish to familiarise themselves with some of the beliefs in action.. ie took me years of listening to figure out stuff like - uses AAC files into entry level home theatre receiver paired with poorly matched speakers (doesn’t matter if they claim they have TRIED all sorts of tech- as the end system is unlikely to reveal much - so enjoy your 95% of the sound (scientifically or otherwise); but it just isn’t ‘the whole picture’.
you may want to argue it is (is it an ego battle for you? or just happy thinking that more $ wouldn’t improve the sound?)

I’d love it if more $ couldn’t improve the sound of my rig (I feel I would have to own a small stage with some instruments on it?), but then on reflection- that would be sad..
I am at the pinnacle already?
Cool.
except- doesn’t mate with MY (subjective) experience- I have owned much better kit and I have had much better sound. (those two things correlate, due to happening ‘at the same time’)
I know it isn’t worthy of investigation (I have observed enough to ‘have a theory’ ?)..

If y’all want to keep the sound science section social, and only want your friends and guests here.. mayhaps don’t cry foul when people call you out for insular beliefs, ignorance and worse (selective group concerns me, as does the ‘group bullying’ intention),.. you are right in that this thread is for your handshakes and ‘how you going’s-
More seriously is the nature of the modus operandi around these parts.
Headfi has been through quite a few phases-based on contributing posts- the flavour of the prose changes.
Policing science threads (theory and fact) so heavily handed and being impolite to those who appear interested, will only lead to less understanding, and ‘more medieval times’.

On Topic- all sound systems are equal (so long as they are built right).. so erm.. world financial crisis typcially leads to TWO things (regarding consumer goods)- higher prices and cheaper products.
I suppose we are lucky then that the last fifteen years has been a race to the middle with regards to sound quality. (ie the market moving to portable (phones) and most DAC chip evolution being about sipping power and spec sheet capability. The result NOW is that most home hifi uses ‘for portable market’ chips.
Whilst this works for business and retail, not so sure it pays dividends to the consumer(s).

I haven’t done any A/B testing on this reality.. (I lived in the timeline/reality that has been affected with approx five significant ‘world financial crisis’ (since the seventies); and with each one ‘hifi got more expensive’ whilst selling us inferior/parity stuff (and then the subsequent years refine the flagship launch products to be cheaper and worse still)…
We can see the direction we are going in…
If posting about people rather than concepts or things is YOUR CHOICE- just acknowledge that, especially with regards to those who badger me specifically (and insult/alt account PM me etc), that I might just skip your argument.
this is NOT out of ignorance on my part.. (we have done this dance, and you typically have a moderator remove the posts once you realise just how silly it has all become)
Sound Science (And Science) should be about the many and not just exist for ‘a few’

 

[bigshot]

I want to make it clear that I don't think you are a troll, and I don't think you use sock puppet accounts. That was T 1000.

I had some relevant questions related to the function of a transport that I would like to hear your answers to. That's all I've asked of you. Can we just talk about the subject... the audibility of transports and the function it serves in the a normal home audio system? All of my questions related to that.

 

[whitedragem]

See - these guys know what they are talking about; error correction will catch and fix everything- everything is perfect, unless we are talking errors past the CIRC, yes?

(a bit ‘tongue in cheek’ perhaps; and to be fair this is just ‘one guys’ (!!) polite marketing spiel as to why their mastering lab *might be* better than the average- we could interpret this as ‘marketing’ fluff, generating a fear based motivator to ‘spend on them’ (not MY actual belief- just revealing I might have a ‘thought process’ factoring ‘worldlyness’(not close to Godliness mayhaps))

 

[bigshot]

Those are write errors, not errors caused in playback. Writing a CD-R is entirely different than playing a replicated compact disc. There can be errors in playback too, but in my experience, they are the result of misaligned lasers in old knocked around players, not the quality of the transport.

 

[whitedragem]

yeah totally.. it is in the recording (cause playback is ALWAYS perfect!) (I do videos because I do not typically do sarcasm, text =loss of tone of voice: I suppose it isnt in the metrics that forums allow us to see)

These shills at Yamaha (this thread is about transport quality NOT mattering).. simply say we can hear the differences.
muppets (unite, go:..)

enjoy your banter... (sound science is incapable of nurturing science, so works on basis everything is known and exporation is outlawed)

I didnt come here to help the people who know more than everyone else.
I did want to discuss aspects of chain that contribute to sound quality... as is widely acknowledged here it is 'headphones', 'recordings' and 'sometimes recording process?'

gold discs are not about increasing reflectivity and lowering read error rate, and whilst they certainly sound better (on any setup I throw them on including 99$ mini systems), and that isnt like being a metal tape and offering wider frequency playback, it is just placebo (duh!).

(I'd post the opposite of what I wrote, non sarcastically, in the appropriate thread, but the people who should be posting in here seem to have destroyed that place for the readers.)

sound science club induce voltron animation sequence now... (/enjoy)

 

[Elegiac]

Let's sort something out about digital. Something solid.

Do I have to worry about jitter when using an optical connection? Say, from a DVD player to a DAC.
When should I worry about jitter, if ever?

 

[bigshot]

No need to worry. The worst measuring jitter in a consumer audio product was in a McIntosh media server. The level of jitter was an order of magnitude beneath the threshold of audibility established in a study presented to the Audio Engineering Society. Jitter doesn't exist at audible levels.

 

[gregorio]

These shills at Yamaha (this thread is about transport quality NOT mattering).. simply say we can hear the differences.

You think that when trying to launch a new feature that Yamaha’s marketing is going to “simply say we cannot hear a difference”? If it really did make an audible difference how come no one else tried to copy it and why did Yamaha themselves give up on it after only ever putting it in 2 of their optical drive models?

sound science is incapable of nurturing science, so works on basis everything is known and exporation is outlawed

Just repeating the same false nonsense in different threads doesn’t suddenly make it true. Again; science in general and sound science is of course engaged in exploration. However, it’s obviously only exploring areas we don’t fully understand. There are no teams of scientists exploring 1+1=2 or if the Earth is flat. Sound science exploration is in fields such as applications of HRTF, not in areas already known, proven and demonstrated for many decades or centuries!

If you want to explore 1+1=2 then go and fun but don’t come here with nothing but marketing BS and throw around nonsense claims and assertions!

I did want to discuss aspects of chain that contribute to sound quality

From the thread title you clearly wanted to discuss Digital Transports but as digital transports do not “contribute to sound quality” then obviously your quoted statement is not true.

When should I worry about jitter, if ever?

There have been quite a few studies on the audibility of jitter, the first I’m aware of was published by the BBC in 1974. Probably the most extensive was Benjamin and Gannon’s 1998 paper “Theoretical and Audible Effects of Jitter on Digital Audio Quality”. In short, about 50 cheap consumer DVD players, TVs and CD players were analysed. On average jitter was around 150 pico-secs. In threshold tests with a specific piece of music one subject managed 27 nanoseconds, the lowest figure ever documented with music but with other music the average is 200-500ns, over 1,000 times higher than the actual average jitter measured. With specifically designed test signals about 3ns is the lowest documented.

So even if you have a cheap, nearly 30 year old device you still don’t have to worry about jitter. Maybe you could find some bit of consumer gear from the mid 1980’s with terrible enough jitter to be audible but I’m not aware of any. This whole jitter thing is just an old time audiophile marketing ploy, find some fact that can be misrepresented as a problem and then sell gullible audiophiles a solution to that “problem”.

G

 

[Elegiac]

From the thread title you clearly wanted to discuss Digital Transports but as digital transports do not “contribute to sound quality” then obviously your quoted statement is not true.

I'll tell you what though. My Topping M50 turned out to be applying crossfeed to the signal. If fed a purely left and right channel test, you could, and at a decent volume, hear the left in the right and the right in the left. Apparently the SMSL digital players also have this problem. Neither Topping nor SMSL will comment on, or acknowledge this. No firmware, no fix for it. It was making everything too narrow, but I had to know that it was happening, and A/B the same music elsewhere before it all clicked. I thought it was my headphones. I thought it was just how the music sounded. Nope.

The goddamn store that I got the unit from... if I had the time I would've dragged their warranty department in front of Consumer Affairs. I kid you not... "Well, the product description doesn't say that it won't apply crossfeed." "Customer satisfaction is such a vague term." Just to sample some of the pathetic things they had the gall to say to me.
Without resorting to legal means, on my own, I extracted a store credit equal to my purchase. They'll get no more business from me after this: Addicted To Audio, an Australian store. Shameless, greasy, blustering hustlers.

 

[gregorio]

My Topping M50 turned out to be applying crossfeed to the signal. If fed a purely left and right channel test, you could, and at a decent volume, hear the left in the right and the right in the left. …

Not good but of course my assertion that transports “do not contribute to sound quality” obviously assumes the transport is functioning correctly, not broken/faulty or there’s a user error. This is always the case; a decent but cheap cable will not sound different to similar length and purpose expensive audiophile cable, unless one is broken/faulty. A Ferrari will out perform a donkey in a standing quarter mile race, unless the Ferrari is without fuel or is broken/faulty.

G

 

[Ghoostknight]

No need to worry. The worst measuring jitter in a consumer audio product was in a McIntosh media server. The level of jitter was an order of magnitude beneath the threshold of audibility established in a study presented to the Audio Engineering Society. Jitter doesn't exist at audible levels.

its said about so many things that its under the audible treshhold but still seem to matter for a lot of people

while im not sure if i should agree about "digital audio doesnt matter at all", i atleast agree that digital files are (and stay) indeed bitperfect and will not be altered by ethernet switches or other things, but imo IF things matter its probably jitter & noise on digital transports of any kind

i myself heared the effects on usb filters/cables ... and there is no way i could agree that all things digital sounded the same

imo much of this "under audible threshold" could be compared to high hertz/fps monitors... people said 30fps (24 actually) is enough but people are seeing still differences between 120vs240fps maybe even between 240 and higher fps
kinda wondering if there were a lot of studys suggesting "24 fps is all we need", probably to be honest, which would definitely show that "studys" dont state "facts" like you guys like to suggest