[Illah]

So I got to thinking...if using HDMI and Optical / Coax audio, you're essentially using the source as nothing more than a transport. I know some will claim they need a $3000 transport to reduce jitter and whatnot, but I've never really thought much of that - basically it's the A/D conversion that makes by far the most difference.

So - with that said does source matter anymore?

Reason I ask is I'm thinking of killing two birds with one stone via an XBox 360 + HD-DVD drive or a PS3/Blu-Ray at some point.

--Illah

 

[OverlordXenu]

No, transports don't matter as long as they don't re/up/oversample and output a bitperfect stream. Jitter is all marketing by the snake oil salesmen, it isn't audible in consumer electronics.

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OverlordXenu /img/forum/go_quote.gif No, transports don't matter as long as they don't re/up/oversample and output a bitperfect stream. Jitter is all marketing by the snake oil salesmen, it isn't audible in consumer electronics.

I do hear clear differences between transports. -- But is this really a non-audio topic?

.

 

[cconnaker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OverlordXenu /img/forum/go_quote.gif No, transports don't matter as long as they don't re/up/oversample and output a bitperfect stream. Jitter is all marketing by the snake oil salesmen, it isn't audible in consumer electronics.

I disagree 100%


I just posted an article about a device that reduces jitter (can't post link without breaking rules). There is some very solid research and facts to support the belief that jitter is the MAIN problem with digital audio.

 

[Duggeh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OverlordXenu /img/forum/go_quote.gif No, transports don't matter as long as they don't re/up/oversample and output a bitperfect stream. Jitter is all marketing by the snake oil salesmen, it isn't audible in consumer electronics.

How the hell would a transport upsample resample or oversample anything when thats the DACs job?

And the "as long as the stream is bitperfect" line. At what level is this "perfection" achieved?

 

[vcoheda]

i too disagree with everything OlX says.

and to the OP, my position is that source matters - dac, transport, clock, power supply, output stages, chassis, etc.

 

[Illah]

Well if it's an XBox 360 HD-DVD player using digital video via HDMI and digital audio to my receiver, how will the picture / audio be improved or degraded by the source? It's essentially sending a digital bitstream over to the monitor and receiver for A/D conversion.

And with LCD TVs is there even A/D conversion? It's basically a scaled-up computer monitor, and a digital signal is basically saying, "Make pixel X,Y color value R,G,B."

I agree source matters in analog output, but for digital I'm having a hard time seeing how/why it would make a big difference.

--Illah

 

[vcoheda]

oh sorry. i misread your original post. for video only, i don't know.

 

[marvin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illah /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well if it's an XBox 360 HD-DVD player using digital video via HDMI and digital audio to my receiver, how will the picture / audio be improved or degraded by the source? It's essentially sending a digital bitstream over to the monitor and receiver for A/D conversion.

Nope. Digital video disc formats don't contain data in the exact form that's sent over the HDMI/DVI link. That's really high bandwidth and well beyond HD-DVD/Blu-Ray storage capacity. It contains compressed data which must be first decompressed to image data on the player. For HD-DVD, inverse entropy coding, inverse transform, motion compensation and de-blocking operations are performed at this step. The quality of the output here varies depending on the method used and quality of the player. After that, the image is fed through a scaler (or two) before being sent to the pixels appearing on your TV. Again, image quality varies depending on scaler quality. As you can tell, the players are far more than simple transports.

As for the HD-DVD + Xbox 360 combination, I'd pass. The Xbox 360 is too loud for home theater usage, and the HD-DVD drive gets pretty close in cost to a low end Toshiba HD-DVD player once the free movies come into play.

 

[bhjazz]

Rule number one: Listen (or view) for yourself. Yourself, dammit! I won't go down the flamebuilder route, but if you don't get the data off of the disc right in the first place, how could you ever fix it later?

 

[OverlordXenu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duggeh /img/forum/go_quote.gif How the hell would a transport upsample resample or oversample anything when thats the DACs job? And the "as long as the stream is bitperfect" line. At what level is this "perfection" achieved?

I seem to remember a case on here not to long ago when someones Toshiba or Panasonic or something DVD player was resampling the data stream, thus making it sound different when compared to something else (a cd player?) when used as a transport.

And bit-perfect is just streaming what's on the original media...And pretty much all transports/sources with digital outputs output bit-perfect streams...

Edit: Hmmm, it seems as if that post I was referring to (http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/dig...uzzled-256868/) took a turn for the strange. When I had last read it, the OP had decided it was a resampling issue. I guess I was wrong then, my apologies.

So, as long as the stream is bit-perfect, nothing else matters.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cconnaker /img/forum/go_quote.gif There is some very solid research and facts to support the belief that jitter is the MAIN problem with digital audio.

Jitter is inaudible at the levels you find it in typical consumer audio components.

When it comes to listening to music in the home, acoustics is MUCH more important than electronics. High fidelity recording and playback was achieved in 1952 with the introduction of the LP and perfected with the introduction of stereo a few years later. Digital banished generation loss. The last frontier involves room acoustics, equalization and the mechanical elements like speakers and headphones.

See ya
Steve

 

[trains are bad]

Digital out is digital out. As long as it like, works at all, it works the same. I might as well be a portable CD player, or a 5000 one.

 

[necropimp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marvin /img/forum/go_quote.gif As for the HD-DVD + Xbox 360 combination, I'd pass. The Xbox 360 is too loud for home theater usage, and the HD-DVD drive gets pretty close in cost to a low end Toshiba HD-DVD player once the free movies come into play.

i can only hear my 360 when everything is dead quiet and it's not even that loud

the 360 player comes with the 5 free movies too.. so if you factor that in at ~$20 per movie it's $80 for the player

however you won't get the full benefit of a Dolby TrueHD track... it will be downconverted to either a 640Kbps dolby digital or 1.5Mbps DTS stream now i'm not sure if the HDMI 360s get extra options or are still crippled...

 

[LawnGnome]

If you want to be an "audiophile" then yes sources are different, and you have to spend as much money for the best name possible.

If you don't care about being an "audiophile" and just want great sound, get a bitperfect transport, and spend your money on a better DAC/Amp/cans.

It seems the people who always say there are differences, and need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to remedy it, are the people who are concerned with being viewed as an audiophile.