[Krassi]

never ever!

 

[sander99]

I continue here because off topic is on topic here.

Anyway to close this parenthese before the mod goes crazy, please, if you buy a $6k bluray player, do not use the digital output lol ! Use the component video cable and RCA audio. Do not let a cheaper receiver or TV replace the quality conversion you have paid a pretty penny for. Throw your HDMI cable to the thrash can.

You are still missing the point. Expensive DACs are a scam, instead of the imperfections being 10 times below audibility they are for example 10000 times below audibility but that improvement is not audible of course. Cheap DACs are already audible transparent. Never mind what the audiophools are parotting after each other or hearing in uncontrolled sighted test.
Replacing your DAC is the last and most unlikely way to expect audible improvement.

Edit: for the video part: what do you think will happen with an analog component input signal in a modern tv? Of course first thing it will be converted to digital because the whole tv is one big dsp ultimately creating digital signals for the individual pixels!

 

[bigshot]

It's interesting how common knowledge out in the land of commercialism is so removed from the real truth. When people stumble into Sound Science for the first time they think *we* are crazy.

ScareD2, this forum is different than the other forums on Head-Fi. This is the only forum on Head-Fi where we are allowed to talk about doing controlled listening tests and discuss the reasons behind perceptual error. If you haven't done a line level matched, direct A/B switched, blind listening test, you can't really say if there is a difference or not. You have left yourself open to expectation bias and perceptual error. Why haven't you been told this before? Because discussion of these issues is forbidden in every other forum on Head Fi. Why is it forbidden? Because if it was allowed freely, very few advertisers would want to place ads here. Why would you want to spend $6000 on a blu-ray player when a $100 one sounds exactly the same? Uh... hmmm... Well, you got me!

I have an Oppo BDP-103, which is a pretty expensive blu-ray player. And I have an Oppo HA-1 with the Sabre chip that is in the Oppo BDP-105 and a lot of other high end audiophile DACs and players. I have done controlled listening tests with these. I do controlled tests with every piece of equipment I buy as soon as I receive it. Neither the high end blu-ray player nor the high end DAC sounds audibly different than any other piece of equipment I own through either HDMI or analogue. It all sounds exactly the same. Even my old cheap-o "pre-sundown" DVD player with analogue outputs sounds exactly the same. The reason for that is because digital audio is designed to be audibly transparent... The sound produced by the player is better than the sound your ears can hear. A photograph doesn't look better if it includes ultra violet frequencies- You can't see ultraviolet with your eyes. And recorded music doesn't sound better with ultrasonic frequencies of sound- You can't hear it.

I would encourage you to make the effort to do a simple controlled listening test. It isn't difficult and the equipment needed to do it is cheap. It is worth the time and effort, because it will allow you to clearly identify what matters and what doesn't- that is an ability that is VERY rare among audiophiles. If you are interested in giving it a go, I am happy to help guide you through it. But if you just want to repeat marketing BS, I'm going to politely tell you that if you can't point to a controlled listening test that proves what you say, and you've made no effort to do one yourself, I am going to assume that you are just operating on false information, expectation bias and perceptual error. And I say that with absolutely no animosity. You are no different than thousands of other audiophiles who have been given a bum steer by consumer audio commercialism. I'm offering you a way out of that pointless cycle of spending larger and larger amounts of money and getting nothing for it.

 

[Brahmsian]

Responding to: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/wha...n-totl-headphones.918386/page-6#post-15525800

Shall I start offering my guests headphones instead of listening on my 5.1 speaker system? I can do that, but the whole point of a speaker system is soundstage, and you don't get that with headphones. You don't get sophisticated directionality either. It's pretty obvious that for those aspects alone, speakers are better. They don't have headphone jacks in the seats at movie theaters and concert halls. Physical sound in space is better than sound channeled directly into your ears. As I said, headphones are better for isolation, convenience and portability. They are also less expensive.

Space doesn't distort sound. It modifies it in the way it is intended to be modified. Distortion is a pejorative. It is unintentional and unwanted change.

The effect that real space has on sound is infinitely more complex than digital reverbs. If modern digital reverbs are better than real physical space, then set one to exactly duplicate the effects of a room on speakers and compare it to the real thing. I want science that people can actually experience, not science that is in pure theory that is pinpoint focused on worst case scenarios and stuff that just isn't applicable in the real world. "Which is better to drink, spring water or seawater? Spring water! That's just YOUR opinion!"

Just listen to a good set of headphones, then listen to a good multichannel speaker setup. It's self evident. I am glad to hear that you have a surround system in your home now though. I can recommend some multichannel recordings that will demonstrate what it can do for music as opposed to just movies.

Blackwood, what recordings have you heard that sound better on headphones than speakers. I'd like to hear that. Because I have the Kraftwerk Catalogue box set that includes both multichannel Atmos and headphone Atmos tracks. I've compared both and the headphone mix is just the same as any other album on headphones. The surround mix for speakers flies in all directions and sounds as fun as a three ring circus. Let me know the recording that sounds better on cans and I'll order it on Amazon. I'd like to hear that.

I grew up with a very good sound system at home (my dad’s). All in all, I think speakers are better. But for some reason I’ve always been drawn to headphones, I’m not even sure why. Walkmans were popular when I was a kid, and I guess I just grew accustomed to them. I also tend do my music listening at night. With headphones, I can listen whenever I want to whatever I want without disturbing anyone.

Headphones are also more intimate. People are always looking for headphones that sound like speakers, which I suppose means that the sound is coming from outside your head. But there is something to be said for the fact that headphones create a space in your head, even if it’s only an epiphenomenon. I was listening some good vocal tracks the other night and these beautiful voices were filling up my head. You literally experience them as being inside you, and when the recording is good and the headphones are good, I think that’s amazing.

 

[bigshot]

I liked headphones when I lived in an apartment. But since I bought a house and set up a multichannel listening room, they live mostly in a drawer. I only use them for portable. Listening to music and watching movies is something I do with my friends. It isn't a solitary thing for me.

I don't care about disturbing other people any more. (that's a set up line for a joke, if anyone wants to hit the punch line)

What you say about speakers being better now is true, but with speaker design, everything is a trade off. And every trade off has its strengths and weaknesses. Modern speaker designs are compact, more accurate, and have wider dispersion. But I wouldn't ever want to be without those old JBL woofers with the cloth surround. That is the sound of the bass in classic rock. I have a subwoofer that is better for the sub bass. But that mid bass sounds so punchy and full with my old JBL studio monitors. And I really love the crystal clarity of the JBL slot tweeters (in my case the one with the art deco chrome nose on it.) Newer tweeters are more balanced, but they don't shine like these. I have a little bit of everything in my system... old school studio monitors, horn loaded, tower style and KEF radial design. I like dispersion in some places and x ray clarity in others. It's a lot easier to just stick with one kind of speaker when you're trying to balance a system though. It took me a while to figure out speaker placement, room layout and settings.

 

[ScareDe2]

If you focus on distortion with DACs that produce none, it is gonna sound the same. But sound characteristics go beyond the distortion, which is just one characteristic among others. If you look at the whole sound picture and how the music moves you, it should be easier to hear differences between DACs.

 

[sander99]

I try once again to move this discussion here where everything is on topic.

I don't use expensive new bluray player but logic tells me you must have an analog out that gives the best audio and video quality and that's what you should use.

I think you're still missing the point that there is no analog connection for the newest standards in digital display (they have a higher bandwidth for higher resolutions, refresh rates, and color depths than what component cables were capable of). With 3D audio, it also needs a digital signal for extracting positional info in meta-data. Ergo, no...analog is not just inferior quality, but can not support the current standards.

To elaborate a bit more on what Davesrose correctly mentions:
Analog video signals nowadays are strange, alien, out of place things in the video chain. Digital video contains digital information for each pixel. The display needs digital information per pixel. (For upscaling or downscaling, and for adapting to different framerates with or without frame interpolation and for other tricks digital signal processing will be done). Analog video signals were a nice fit with CRT displays. The analog signal could control the intensity of the electron beam while it scanned over the display in a fixed pattern. Try to imagine what difficulties that would give when a high contrast between adjecent pixels was wanted: very steep analog signals needed! To insert this kind of signal in to a modern video chain would be utter madness! In a modern video chain with all digital connections an analog video signal like that doesn't exist at any point, using an analog component video signal would be an insane detour that can only have negative effect.

 

[Davesrose]

I try once again to move this discussion here where everything is on topic.

Sorry, I wasn’t sure this is where we should direct these posts....I just felt I should respond to the claim that you have to throw out HDMI with blu-ray. Didn’t make sense when my main TV was a digital HDTV plasma screen (where component would require analogue to digital conversion in the TV), and is now incompable of meeting specs for UHD.

 

[ScareDe2]

I think you're still missing the point that there is no analog connection for the newest standards in digital display (they have a higher bandwidth for higher resolutions, refresh rates, and color depths than what component cables were capable of). With 3D audio, it also needs a digital signal for extracting positional info in meta-data. Ergo, no...analog is not just inferior quality, but can not support the current standards.

HDMI is just a convenient cable allowing the TV to digitally enhance its picture. It's not lifelike or natural. You can see by zapping : each channels, each movies, each pictures look enhanced. If you want the real deal, stick with your analog options otherwise your TV is tricking the sound and pictures.

 

[sander99]

@ScareDe2: I see now you are a hopeless case who doesn't understand one word of what we are saying. Or a troll? Again: there doesn't exist an analog component video signal at any point in a modern video chain from source to display (and to the individual pixels of the display), unless you introduce it by using the analog component video outputs of a player. In that case nothing else can done with it than convert it back to digital at some point.

 

[Davesrose]

To try to take what sander99 and me have been saying (perhaps one more time before giving up)...you’re not “enhancing” the image with a digital connection: you’re directly passing the data from player to TV’s processors (which are doing the video processing for scaling, motion timing, color adjustments for its display). If you plug a component cable in a flat panel display, you are converting digital from the player to analog, then analog to digital in the TV. You are introducing more processing and potential artifacts. I found HDMI to be the most hassle free and high quality with my plasma TV, and now my OLED has specs that component doesn’t support. I have it calibrated also, and do find the extra dynamic range of HDR/Dolby Vision does make a very life like image. But if you want to stay analog: good luck with laserdisc (that had the video analog, though audio could be digital), going to a NTSC/PAL CRT.

 

[ScareDe2]

How each TV works can't be found easily. There must be a digital to digital conversion, on a separate circuit, processed to enhance the picture to satisfy the growing number of consumers looking for "better" and "better" pictures. It's a never ending thing with the 8k coming. HDMI doesn't look natural on my TV. The analog signal is best.

I believe in the quality conversion at the source regardless of what the TV does with the signal.

 

[Davesrose]

Actually, there is quite a bit of info easily found about how each modern display type works. You’re trying to be willfully ignorant to support a claim that analog is better because it looks better to you: disregarding that component degrades picture quality with UHD standards (and how many times do we have to say that you’re introducing more “conversions” if you add analog to current digital displays).

BTW, there may be 8K TVs that scale a 4K source (display type can play a huge part in picture quality and detail: for example, saw a test with participants looking at a 8K QLED and 4K OLED....the OLED was determined to have sharper image: possibly due to there being a black border around each pixel). 8K movie sources have a ways to go to be a standard. Older movies were typically filmed 35mm, and restorations have been done in 4K. Digitally made movies have normally been edited in 2K until more recent movies moving to 4K. There are few movies that were filmed on 70mm film, and those scans have been the main sources for 8K (besides also some new 8K digital cameras with footage not going to a workflow adding visual effects).

 

[ScareDe2]

Injecting a good analog conversion in this highly digitally processed picture will only do good, if you like a more natural picture. If you like fake enhanced ones then use your HDMI.

 

[Davesrose]

Again, willful ignorance. If you think going through multiple chains of digital to analog, back to analog to digital somehow is "good" conversions (that then just goes to the same display processing a digital source comes from)...you're not reading what has been stated. I'm a photographer, and can confirm specs for UHD are improvements getting closer to human perception. Your beloved analog (which can have artifacts from interlacing) is incapable of maintaining a pixel density of 4K resolution. Gamers want current connection types to deliver fast frame rates. Analog systems could only deliver up to 8 stops of light (dynamic range). Human vision is capable of up to 20 stops. Old standards that have 8bit color space only a gradation of 256 values (where it's easier to see banding in fine gradients). Current consumer video has specs that can take 12bit color space (up to 4096 shades) and tone maps to native space (true 10bit, 1024 shades is pretty common now). Note that like DR with audio is the difference between quiet to loud, DR with light is the difference between blackest shadow and brightest point of light.