[ZappaMan]

Is there any reason why rfi would affect bass more then other aspects of music. I’m noticing my Hd800s are blowing more air at me then I noticed before, I think it’s related.

 

[miketlse]

Deleted

 

[miketlse]

Deleted

 

[ray-dude]

Is there any reason why rfi would affect bass more then other aspects of music. I’m noticing my Hd800s are blowing more air at me then I noticed before, I think it’s related.

I believe this is psycho acoustic, vs being a physical change in bass levels. I've discovered over the past year that there is a tremendous amount of spatial information in the bass registers. As RFI and mechanical vibrations get tamed, the timing precision on the bass is such that I start getting a vivid sense of the space that the recording was made in. Those room level resonances were lost before, even if I had good imaging with the instruments and singers. There seems to be some brain-level threshold in play, beyond which things become "real" ... very similar to my experience when I first dropped in the mScaler.

For me, DAVE then mScaler opened up a whole new world of reality in music that blew me away. Some recordings became time machines, where I was back in the club or church or studio watching the performance in person. Going from DAVE to mDAVE made for a very abrupt transition for some of these recordings (compare 250k taps to 500k taps to 1M taps). With the focus on RFI and mechanical isolation, those recordings to the right of that threshold got better for sure, but the real gift for me is that even more recordings have moved from the left side of that threshold to the right side of that threshold (that whole "hearing recordings for the first time" experience).

I'm at the point where with binaural Chesky recordings, I have that full sense of sitting in that Brooklyn church where they are recorded, with sound coming from all sides and up and down. It is beyond a surround sound experience, it is a hologram. It is shockingly easy to assess RFI and mechanical isolation tweaks, since this hologram effect degrades so easily (5-10 seconds is all I need, usually). The fatigue/false detail aspects of RFI are still a longer term factor for me, but I am getting better at finding that still calm place in the music. If it is there, RFI is not.

And as a minor correction, I've never had a chance to hear the SOTM stack (although I am hyper eager to get a Tx Ultra in my chain), but I do run fairly optimized NUC's for my digital end points and servers. To @ZappaMan 's point, it is maddening to think how anything happening on a NUC can go over USB to an ISO Regen (reclocked and cleaned up USB signal) to a Matrix Audio XSPDIF 2 USB to optical TOSLINK converter to HMS to OptoDX to DAVE, and I can still trivially hear changes due to buffer size changes on the ALSA driver on the NUC...complete madness. There is something inducing noise in the DAVE, and it is traversing an incredible number of devices to do so. It can only be RFI, jitter, or something else unknown that is impacting the ground or reference voltage planes in the DAVE. All I can say is that the more I do to reduce latency variances in digital signals (real time OS's, large memory buffers, stripped down OS's, SoC devices, etc), clean up and beef up power (batteries, dual regulated supplies, supplies with deep and fast current reserves, etc), and shield against RFI and mechanical vibrations, the more of that holographic magic I hear on more and more recordings.

 

[AndrewOld]

They are meant to be illustrative, to help other posters understand the general principles.

So they are fake. They have nothing to do with the M Scaler. They are not real measurements of any Chord product. You should withdraw them. They are a dishonest, misleading and bogus attack on Chords engineering.

 

[Amberlamps]

Drama!

 

[audio_1]

I believe this is psycho acoustic, vs being a physical change in bass levels. I've discovered over the past year that there is a tremendous amount of spatial information in the bass registers. As RFI and mechanical vibrations get tamed, the timing precision on the bass is such that I start getting a vivid sense of the space that the recording was made in. Those room level resonances were lost before, even if I had good imaging with the instruments and singers. There seems to be some brain-level threshold in play, beyond which things become "real" ... very similar to my experience when I first dropped in the mScaler.

For me, DAVE then mScaler opened up a whole new world of reality in music that blew me away. Some recordings became time machines, where I was back in the club or church or studio watching the performance in person. Going from DAVE to mDAVE made for a very abrupt transition for some of these recordings (compare 250k taps to 500k taps to 1M taps). With the focus on RFI and mechanical isolation, those recordings to the right of that threshold got better for sure, but the real gift for me is that even more recordings have moved from the left side of that threshold to the right side of that threshold (that whole "hearing recordings for the first time" experience).

I'm at the point where with binaural Chesky recordings, I have that full sense of sitting in that Brooklyn church where they are recorded, with sound coming from all sides and up and down. It is beyond a surround sound experience, it is a hologram. It is shockingly easy to assess RFI and mechanical isolation tweaks, since this hologram effect degrades so easily (5-10 seconds is all I need, usually). The fatigue/false detail aspects of RFI are still a longer term factor for me, but I am getting better at finding that still calm place in the music. If it is there, RFI is not.

And as a minor correction, I've never had a chance to hear the SOTM stack (although I am hyper eager to get a Tx Ultra in my chain), but I do run fairly optimized NUC's for my digital end points and servers. To @ZappaMan 's point, it is maddening to think how anything happening on a NUC can go over USB to an ISO Regen (reclocked and cleaned up USB signal) to a Matrix Audio XSPDIF 2 USB to optical TOSLINK converter to HMS to OptoDX to DAVE, and I can still trivially hear changes due to buffer size changes on the ALSA driver on the NUC...complete madness. There is something inducing noise in the DAVE, and it is traversing an incredible number of devices to do so. It can only be RFI, jitter, or something else unknown that is impacting the ground or reference voltage planes in the DAVE. All I can say is that the more I do to reduce latency variances in digital signals (real time OS's, large memory buffers, stripped down OS's, SoC devices, etc), clean up and beef up power (batteries, dual regulated supplies, supplies with deep and fast current reserves, etc), and shield against RFI and mechanical vibrations, the more of that holographic magic I hear on more and more recordings.

I replaced the 2 x BNC cables that were supplied with the Opto-Dx that I was using on the transmit side with 1.2 m Oyaide DB-510 cables. I was already using Oyaide DB-510 cables between the Dave and the the Opto-Dx receiver. I now have 4 x 1.2 m DB-510 cables. There was a definite improvement in sound quality. Hard to understand why.

 

[Uncle Monty]

I don't know what certain posters have said to upset one another, but I suggest they go outside and discuss it sensibly in the street.

 

[AndrewOld]

Drama!

Call it like it is Amberlamps. No need to mince my words. Guy makes up utterly fictitious graphs and posts them in an attempt to diss Chord he deserves to be called out.

 

[Amberlamps]

I don't know what certain posters have said to upset one another, but I suggest they go outside and discuss it sensibly in the street.

I haven't read the forums much these last few weeks and I don't know w.t.f is going on either.

 

[racebit]

So they are fake. They have nothing to do with the M Scaler. They are not real measurements of any Chord product. You should withdraw them. They are a dishonest, misleading and bogus attack on Chords engineering.

It was evident to me that it was just a drawing, no real data. We can even see that the same cycle was copy-paste for all cycles.
However I think a drawing could have been used to show how a small noise added to perfect square wave can (very very slightly) change the timing of cycle start timing when converting back to bits.

 

[Amberlamps]

Call it like it is Amberlamps. No need to mince my words. Guy makes up utterly fictitious graphs and posts them in an attempt to diss Chord he deserves to be called out.

Drama is drama and I love that schiit.



I will have to go back and read the last few pages to see where teh drama started.

 

[dmance]

..There was a definite improvement in sound quality. Hard to understand why.

Unlike me, you may not be old enough to have owned a portable AM/FM radio with telescopic antenna. Mine picked up the signal better when I had my finger on it. Why? ...my body's electrolytes increased the antenna length and amplified the small signals.

So, the better shielded cable is a worse antenna than the optodx factory ..which in this case is a good thing ...less (*) gets broadcast from HMS.

 

[Progisus]

Has anyone here added the mscaler to a dac other than Chord? Have they found it a worthwhile investment? I see Chord advertises it in the trades with the implication it will add to other dac based systems. I’ve used it with my Oppo HA-1 with noticeable improvement.

 

[audio_1]

Unlike me, you may not be old enough to have owned a portable AM/FM radio with telescopic antenna. Mine picked up the signal better when I had my finger on it. Why? ...my body's electrolytes increased the antenna length and amplified the small signals.

So, the better shielded cable is a worse antenna than the optodx factory ..which in this case is a good thing ...less (*) gets broadcast from HMS.

I was thinking that was probably the reason. Even more (*) in my case as I have a Blu2.