[philodox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Do you admit that it is at least possible that there is no difference and that Patrick is experiencing placebo effect?

Of course, that is always a possibility. However, as I stated in the second part of my post, there is certainly precedent for software/decoding issues causing audible differences between FLAC and WAV. I think it is likely that Patrick is hearing a difference, but I think his reasoning as to WHY there is a difference is ultimately flawed.

Chad - I believe the squeezebox is capable of playing WAV natively, while there is a separate chip which decodes the FLAC. My hypothesis is that this separate chip does not do its job all that well. Also, to confirm, my comment is based on my experience and listening tests. I'm not just repeating what others have said. When I had the squeezebox I ran into this issue and in my searching afterwards I came across others with the same problem. While this may not confirm the phenomena for you, it is enough for me to discount placebo as the cause. Perhaps if I had prior knowledge of the issue there would be more of a reason for skepticism.

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chadh /img/forum/go_quote.gif So, as an intellectual exercise, let's imagine it to be true: that having your server convert FLAC to WAV before sending the data to a squeezebox sounds different (at least in some systems) to sending a FLAC file to the squeezebox and having the squeezebox decode and play it. What does this tell us?

That the FLAC decoder in your server or the FLAC decoder in the squeezebox is broken and whatever bug is causing it to not decode the FLAC to a bit-perfect copy of the original PCM data should be identified and fixed.

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox /img/forum/go_quote.gif Of course, that is always a possibility. However, as I stated in the second part of my post, there is certainly precedent for software/decoding issues causing audible differences between FLAC and WAV. I think it is likely that Patrick is hearing a difference, but I think his reasoning as to WHY there is a difference is ultimately flawed.

I disagree with your position, I believe it is far more likely that Patrick is experiencing placebo effect.

There is certainly precedent for this as well.

 

[Ahriman4891]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chadh /img/forum/go_quote.gif Lotsa fantasies

Shave with Occam's Razor. Every morning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febs That the FLAC decoder in your server or the FLAC decoder in the squeezebox is broken and whatever bug is causing it to not decode the FLAC to a bit-perfect copy of the original PCM data should be identified and fixed.

QFT. Dammit, I did post in this festival of lunacy thread after all

 

[SR-71Panorama]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ahriman4891 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Shave with Occam's Razor. Every morning.

Nice.

 

[Patrick82]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif There is absolutely no way there is one iota of truth in this statement. I defy you to show me one, just one, hard drive available now that does not use a I/O buffer. Just one. Please! Data coming off a hard drive does not come directly off the drive heads to system memory! This statement more than any other in this thread IMHO shows exactly how little you actually know about this subject! Patrick, you are even farther off than usual on this matter, you really could not be more wrong. Exactly what would it take to convince you that you were imagining these supposed differences?

1) A harddrive takes about 10 watts and a SSD (Solid State Drive) takes 1 watts.

If 2 harddrives are spinning they take 20 watts, if 1 harddrive is spinning it takes 10 watts. 2 harddrives makes music sound edgy, 1 harddrive makes it sound smoother. When replacing the 1 harddrive with a SSD it should get even smoother.

I don't see the problem with this logic.

2) Other audiophiles have tried it and heard improvements.

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif 1) A harddrive takes about 10 watts and a SSD (Solid State Drive) takes 1 watts. If 2 harddrives are spinning they take 20 watts, if 1 harddrive is spinning it takes 10 watts. 2 harddrives makes music sound edgy, 1 harddrive makes it sound smoother. When replacing the 1 harddrive with a SSD it should get even smoother. I don't see the problem with this logic.

The problem with this "logic" is that a 1 is a 1 and a 0 is a 0 and it doesn't make one single bit of difference what the load on the power supply is. Hard drives use extensive error correction logic and I/O buffers. You are grasping at straws with this harping on power supply load, I perceive that you are desperately trying to explain a difference that does not exist.

By the way, any computer system that would malfunction because of the differences in PSU load that you describe would more than likely crash well before you had a chance to notice any difference in sound quality.

Quote:

2) Other audiophiles have tried it and heard improvements.

You mean that others have convinced themselves that they heard a difference.

Do not underestimate the power of placebo.

 

[spongezone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The problem with this "logic" is that a 1 is a 1 and a 0 is a 0 and it doesn't make one single bit of difference what the load on the power supply is. Hard drives use extensive error correction logic and I/O buffers. You are grasping at straws with this harping on power supply load, I perceive that you are desperately trying to explain a difference that does not exist. By the way, any computer system that would malfunction because of the differences in PSU load that you describe would more than likely crash well before you had a chance to notice any difference in sound quality. You mean that others have convinced themselves that they heard a difference. Do not underestimate the power of placebo.

Actually, that's not entirely true. If you use digital out from the PC, then it is true, but depending on the quality of the PSU, motherboard, and sound card if using analog, you can hear hard drives spinning (electronically, not microphonically) or changes in CPU load. As previously mentioned by someone, its a common occurance in laptops.

Using an externally powered DAC or sound card (which I hope someone would do before paying for SSDs) would solve the issue.

 

[aphex944]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chadh /img/forum/go_quote.gif There seem to be plausibe explanations for this, possibly involving how much "work" the squeezebox needs to be doing, or the resources that are being wasted in conversion rather than in playing the WAV. But if one is prepared to imagine that the interaction of the processes inside the squeezebox can degrade the sonic performance of the system, why should we reject the idea that the intereaction of processes inside the PC could do the same?

I guess to an observer who didn't understand the process of conversion and playback in a computer would see the additional use of resources or "work" as a cause for audible differences.

Again, PCs are highly controlled and highly engineered environments where the ENTIRE SYSTEM FUNCTION depends on knowing ALL the variables taking place. Dealing with clock frequencies as high as those in a computer is no trivial task, and requires high levels of control and timing.

I think a big problem here is that people may assume data in a computer system is affected in a similar fashion as analog audio might be. For example, some people may consider a silver interconnect to give an "edgier" or "brighter" sound. If data being transferred or manipulated in a computer system was affected by variables such as these(which it's not), it would not present itself in this way. Instead, the data would probably just be rendered to garbage.

While it's true analog sections of sound cards can be subject to bus noise and what not, we aren't talking about that. What we're dealing with is what input the sound card receives. The input is the same whether it's WAV or FLAC. This is completely independent of power supply load, CPU usage, memory usage, number of HDDs, what phase the moon is in, etc.

 

[rain_uk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif Drop the cpu. Use a dedicated CD player. Problem solved.

X2 - Dedicated players for the job IMHO

 

[Patrick82]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spongezone /img/forum/go_quote.gif Actually, that's not entirely true. If you use digital out from the PC, then it is true, but depending on the quality of the PSU, motherboard, and sound card if using analog, you can hear hard drives spinning (electronically, not microphonically) or changes in CPU load. As previously mentioned by someone, its a common occurance in laptops. Using an externally powered DAC or sound card (which I hope someone would do before paying for SSDs) would solve the issue.

I'm using an external DAC and the issue still remains.

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spongezone /img/forum/go_quote.gif Actually, that's not entirely true. If you use digital out from the PC, then it is true, but depending on the quality of the PSU, motherboard, and sound card if using analog, you can hear hard drives spinning (electronically, not microphonically) or changes in CPU load. As previously mentioned by someone, its a common occurance in laptops. Using an externally powered DAC or sound card (which I hope someone would do before paying for SSDs) would solve the issue.

That would be attributable to poor sound subsystem design or sound subsystem malfunction, not to the superiority of solid state hard drives for sound reproduction.

Unless I misinterpreted, Patrick was referring specifically to the quality of the data output from the disk(s). He didn't mention hearing hard drives spin for example, he spoke of the sound being "edgy".

I can't believe that anyone discussing the kinds of differences claimed in this thread would be using a notebooks built-in sound subsystem. I would consider it a given that notebook computers' built-in sound subsystem would be disqualified as completely inappropriate when discussing such matters.

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm using an external DAC and the issue still remains.

Why do you believe that you would be the only human impervious to placebo effect?

Do you at least admit that it is at least possible that you are imagining these differences?

 

[sejarzo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rain_uk /img/forum/go_quote.gif X2 - Dedicated players for the job IMHO

But that ignores the fact that transports in CD players are, in fact, prone to vibration and send errors on to the DAC quite frequently--I wish I could point you to an article on it, but don't have a link. Several EE friends of mine who work with digital devices say that when it comes to reproduction from CD's in a standard player, the error correction is "kicking in constantly." And that means substitution of what the error correction "thinks" the data should be, not a re-read of the CD.

So the data stream from a dedicated transport to a DAC isn't necessarily better than that from a hard drive or memory to the same DAC.

Somebody here have a link to any reputable resource to confirm that?

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sejarzo /img/forum/go_quote.gif But that ignores the fact that transports in CD players are, in fact, prone to vibration and send errors on to the DAC quite frequently--I wish I could point you to an article on it, but don't have a link. Several EE friends of mine who work with digital devices say that when it comes to reproduction from CD's in a standard player, the error correction is "kicking in constantly." And that means substitution of what the error correction "thinks" the data should be, not a re-read of the CD. So the data stream from a dedicated transport to a DAC isn't necessarily better than that from a hard drive or memory to the same DAC. Somebody here have a link to any reputable resource to confirm that?

In fact data streams from CD transports are inherently inferior to those from hard drives.

As mentioned before, hard drives use very stringent, very exhaustive error correction logic, and I/O buffers. Jitter is a non-issue with hard drives.