[markl]

Quote:

The Entech 203.2 number cruncher measures better than probably 90% of the "audiophile" DAC's out there today

Please list the DACs you've compared it against. Knowing it's better than 90% of DACs out there suggests you've done quite a survey.

Quote:

(with their laughable "audiophile" output stages which introduce a sickening amount of distortion),

that's interesting, please provide the data that shows all other DACs besides your are distortion machines. I'd like to see that.

Quote:

Just because it doesn't have "super audiophile bull****" in the name doesn't mean it isn't better.

I could not care less about what badge is on any gear, just how it sounds. My source is a Marantz, designed by a nameless faceless corporation. No fancy designer there. But I did have it upgraded with a lot of superior parts. It's amazing how simply upgrading parts quality improves sound quality in an existing circuit. This is not untestable "audiophile ********", it something you can test by listening to the before and after of your DAC with better parts.

Quote:

But of course anything that isn't marketed exclusively toward audiophiles is below you.

Non-sequitur. Read my reviews, the most expensive gear does not always win. For example, I just sold my R10 for a headphone that's 1/8th its cost.

Quote:

Only the best for markl and everyone else just has subpar equipment that isn't capable of "reproducing the differences in cables".

Another non-sequitur. Do we agree there are differences in how equipment perform? I bet we do. Therefore, there is a continuum from poor to great. This is just a fact of life, and as a fact is neutral in its content, although you seem to take it personally. Where my gear is or is not along that continuum is irrelevant. The fact is, there is a point on this continuum at which cable differences become more pronounced.

You are not your gear.

 

[SamNOISE]

Wow!!!

You guys blow my mind – I posted this one in several other audio discussion forums as well and didn’t get nearly the sane lines of questioning as I have witnessed here. Sorry I took so long to respond, I’ve been on the Mt. boarding my butt off!

Some unanswered questions: The output from the DAC is taken from the DAC-Out RCAs, not the Line-Outs. It’s fed into the Line-Ins on the back of the Xonar PCI Sound card via a standard, gold-plated, single-shielded cable. (I cleaned the ends with 99.9% isopropyl alcohol and buffed them dry before use).

What I am really hoping will happen on one forum or another is that folks will decide that this warrants further investigation – by way of folks actually conducting evaluations such as this themselves, recording the results and posting them here (or just ask, I’ll host em’ for free on my server).

I suspect that many of you have CD players / DACs / other equipment that are stunningly expensive and well-respected in the audiophile world – and I’d love to see you employ your kit for a ‘Peer-Review’ of sorts of this evaluation. If anyone wants power cables to trash, just ask; I have a great many kicking around the shop that you can have for free!

A whole series of power cable evaluation / recordings of this nature, taken from a wide variety of hardware would be absolutely fantastic – your forum is also the (only) one thus far that has even entertained the option of (you) peer-reviewing the groundwork I have presented here. Kudos to you!

Good luck, I hope some of you cats pursue this project. If there is any way that I can help, please let me know by contacting me at Canadian Audio Video If you leave me a PM here I might not get back to you promptly as I am a member of (far too many) forums and don’t always get back to each in a timely manner.

Are you fellows aware that there are over 100 English-language A/V forums on the Net!? Check out ‘the list’ here: Canadian Audio / Video :: View Forum - Other Online Forums. It’s too bad that we can’t consolidate them a bit, so much discussion, so little cross-referencing between the many forums.

Andrew D.

 

[stevenkelby]

Nice test Andrew, I am keen to try similar things myself.

My position is that I believe I have heard differences between silver and copper but not with several thousand dollars of gear, only with several thousand dollars worth in the correct configuration and with the right source material, when I'm in the right mood etc.

The differences are very small i would not expect myself or anyone else to pick them out, most of the time.

I'm interested in the science behind it but not firmly entrenched either way. Logically there is no way to prove the negative, but it would be interesting if someone could consistently DBT for the positive, that would at least get some unquestionable runs on the board for the pro side. Maybe it will happen, maybe not.

On a side note, hands up everyone who thinks that a frequency response graph tells you everything about how something sounds?

 

[Riboge]

I assert, for the purpose of correcting the perspective about cables, that any 2 cables that are different 'sound' different. In many cases this is audible to human listener(s) and in many the difference is beneath the threshold of audibility. This is something that cannot be proved because there can always be another pair of cables yet to be tested. To disprove this you have to demonstrate that any one pair of different cables sound the same. Can you? That would mean that no difference at all appears in any measurement of the output of each resulting from the same input. That is clearly not the case in what the op presented.

Please note that this is the engineers' version of the word "sound" (from what I gather), which is often confused with the audiophile's and general public's use of it to mean what is heard or would be heard if there were someone listening.

As Sovkiller says a bit earlier: "The differences in performance do exist, nobody is denying them" (though many are denying them), it is the significance of the differences that is at issue. So it is not an existence (of difference) issue but rather a valuation issue we are debating. Significance is highly related to audibility but audibility varies from person to person and 'within' a person as a function of equipment, age, degree of training, etc, etc. Worth of the difference is even more complex since financial means, opportunity, wives, environment, etc, etc., also come into play. How can an experiment that does not control for all of these hope to settle the issue?

Further, even if a panel of the best listeners cannot hear the difference, does that settle totally the issue of its significance?

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustPhilbo /img/forum/go_quote.gif How about using something like Audio Diffmaker to subtract one track from the other. It handles alignment of the time component. If what is left is audible, then there must be an audible difference between tracks. If not, then there is no audible difference. It can be found at Audio DiffMaker evaluation system for audio enhancements What do ya'll think? PS. I just love to see folks squirm when their paradigm is squeezed a bit <grin>

I tried this. When Audio Diffmaker is finished there is a track showing the differences, played back it is completely silent and in Audacity it is a completely flat line at the highest resolution. I once again trimmed both wavs and aligned them again, better this time. Viewed as wavs I cannot "see" any differences, viewed as waveform db there are still tiny differences.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riboge /img/forum/go_quote.gif I assert, for the purpose of correcting the perspective about cables, that any 2 cables that are different 'sound' different. In many cases this is audible to human listener(s) and in many the difference is beneath the threshold of audibility.

If it's beneath the threshold of audibility, it doesn't 'sound' different. It might measure different, but it doesn't sound that way. All reasonably well made audio cables 'sound' the same.

See ya
Steve

 

[Filburt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grizzlepaw /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Considering the scale you appear to be working at, this looks more like non-static ADC error (e.g. sample variance, distortion+noise) than anything else.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Filburt /img/forum/go_quote.gif Considering the scale you appear to be working at, this looks more like non-static ADC error (e.g. sample variance, distortion+noise) than anything else.

I recorded the same track 3 times with the same cables and found a similar pattern of minor variations between the 3 versions it was way down , round about 0.003 to 0.009 db, peaking at 0.017db at about 21K.

 

[SamNOISE]

nick_charles / Filburt,

Nice work fellas.

Did the same thing today with a CD / RIP - of Eric Clapton's 'Alberta', taken from the excellent Unplugged CD.

I find the same kind of visual variances - even with the same cable - but don't hear a damned bit of difference when A/B/X'd using WinABX (playback via external DAC into ATH-M40fs cans).

What’s the recording chain you cats are using? (deck/dac/cables/recording device). I'm wondering if we are all using the free / open-source Audacity software application. It'd be interesting to learn if that is the common factor. I note that Adobe Audition III is available in a DEMO version (time-limited / fully-functional), from their www site:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/i...on&loc=en%5Fus

Additionally, I am thinking that clocking / sampling is a gremlin in the graphics we are seeing. Perhaps a direct CD-to-sound-card, ditch the outboard DAC - is the way to go. I know that audiophiles will moan about internal DACs, but I feel confident that the internal DACs in any sanely-built CD player are more than up to the task. Afterall, not all of the fellows who support the 'power-cables-makes-an audible-difference' stance are using outboard DACs; many employ 'standard' CD players. Will spin off and post a couple of more .wav files using Adobe Audition + CD-to-Asus sound-card in the next day or two...

Andrew D.

.

 

[Riboge]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif If it's beneath the threshold of audibility, it doesn't 'sound' different. It might measure different, but it doesn't sound that way. All reasonably well made audio cables 'sound' the same. See ya Steve

But you regularly reject that meaning of "sound"! By that definition, many sound different to many people. If honest people report hearing a difference it's audible, no? The meaning you usually apply is based on putative measurements and theories that apply via those measurements. So you mean they measure different but you don't consider the difference significant or sufficient to be audible, wrongly I think, but that is what I said.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nick_charles /img/forum/go_quote.gif I tried this. When Audio Diffmaker is finished there is a track showing the differences, played back it is completely silent and in Audacity it is a completely flat line at the highest resolution. I once again trimmed both wavs and aligned them again, better this time. Viewed as wavs I cannot "see" any differences, viewed as waveform db there are still tiny differences.

Thanks for testing for us... That's a step toward finding that a change in power cables does not make a significant difference in the resulting audio. Now all that remains is for multiple users to try the test in their own setups. Perhaps someone out there has equipment or dirty incoming power from the wall that would show a significant difference between power cables...

Given all of the variables in SamNOISE's test that potentially could have changed between the two recordings, the results are surprising (at least to me).

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif Perhaps someone out there has equipment or dirty incoming power from the wall that would show a significant difference between power cables...

The cable is not a power conditioner, nor a filter, the best they could do is reject some EMI or RF, but other than that, do you really believe that if the cable could fix the problems you may have at the outlet, the power conditioners and regenerators exist??? The solution is not so simple...Dirty power is a pain in the neck to be treated, and even with conditioners and filters, sometimes is not easy...There are many equipments in which the AC polution is indeed a problem, but AFAIK none of them operate in audio frequencies at all...

Now to what extend that polution in the AC line, that will be downsized to a few volts, using the induction of a transformer, and later on rectified to DC, and filtered by huge caps, to remove the ripple, can make any difference is the point...

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller /img/forum/go_quote.gif The cable is not a power conditioner, nor a filter, the best they could do is reject some EMI or RF...

Right, that's all I meant... A cable isn't going to cure every power problem, but even with shielded vs. unshielded cables, there is the potential to avoid external noise. That change didn't create a significant difference in SamNOISE's system, but perhaps it would make a difference in other systems with those issues.

 

[JohnFerrier]

.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riboge /img/forum/go_quote.gif But you regularly reject that meaning of "sound"

No I don't. That's a straw man. I reject two types of 'sound': the 'sound" that is inaudible and only shows up in graphs, and 'sound' that isn't able to be objectively perceived... in short, sound you can't hear, you can only think you hear.

My concern is with the sound you actually listen to.

See ya
Steve