[NiGHTS4EVA]

I like turtles.

 

[Xerosnake90]

Cool. One engineer's opinions (with a lot of handwaving), with references to other magazine articles including one of his own. He also admits that there may be more to the picture than things like SNR and frequency response. I would argue there certainly is, so on that I agree with the author.

Luckily I don't hear SNR and frequency response graphs. I have this really complex thing in my skull that gets impressions of things like imaging and fullness that aren't a simple 1:1 with what you see on 2 dimensional graphs. Psychoacoustics is a thing. We're not even close to fully understanding the brain.

Lol love this. As soon as someone gets all "audio science" they go on the ignore list. I trust what I perceive and hear, not what someone tells me I should believe in. I've seen people say all DACs sound the same, as long as amps get your headphones loud enough that's all that matters, cables make no sound difference, etc.

My new favorite one was when I was researching for a new audio interface. The common saying is "Digital to analog conversion is so good there's no difference in sound quality. Just get the inputs you need"

Despite the obvious quality difference I heard between the Focusrite Scarlett, Motu M4, and Presonus 1824c. I'm waiting for my Apogee Symphony Desktop to come in so I can hear how it doesn't sound better than the other 3 I've owned /s

 

[bcowen]

Lol love this. As soon as someone gets all "audio science" they go on the ignore list. I trust what I perceive and hear, not what someone tells me I should believe in. I've seen people say all DACs sound the same, as long as amps get your headphones loud enough that's all that matters, cables make no sound difference, etc.

LOL! Me too. There's another audio forum available for people that listen with their eyes.

 

[morpheus69]

LOL! Me too. There's another audio forum available for people that listen with their eyes.

I'm sure there is a fantasy audio group too...

 

[theeclone]

Lol love this. As soon as someone gets all "audio science" they go on the ignore list. I trust what I perceive and hear, not what someone tells me I should believe in. I've seen people say all DACs sound the same, as long as amps get your headphones loud enough that's all that matters, cables make no sound difference, etc.

My new favorite one was when I was researching for a new audio interface. The common saying is "Digital to analog conversion is so good there's no difference in sound quality. Just get the inputs you need"

Despite the obvious quality difference I heard between the Focusrite Scarlett, Motu M4, and Presonus 1824c. I'm waiting for my Apogee Symphony Desktop to come in so I can hear how it doesn't sound better than the other 3 I've owned /s

Yep. Just say no to auditory gaslighting!

 

[LobalWarming]

Yep. Just say no to auditory gaslighting!

Fine! But for farts sake, can we at least keep the pungent aroma?

 

[Currawong]

Ha... recent discussion validates the quote in my signature quite well.

Wait is this WHY?!?!?!?

I've noticed this consistently on many DACs.

While Coax I find it sharper than USB most of the time.

There's this thing called jitter.

Vintage R2R DACs, which were susceptible to jitter, would end up sounding hard and harsh with a high-jitter source, especially optical. Nowadays, given that jitter is supposedly a non-issue in modern DACs, that leaves electrical noise. An optical connection cannot transmit noise, so unless the PLL or whatever is used generates noise itself as a result of the jitter, it will sound warmer. It's easy to get into the trap of thinking brighter is better, when it's really more noise.

I've been comparing the Bifrost 2/64 to the Topping D70 Pro Octo, and it's surprising how two quite different designs can be so close in how they sound. Not surprisingly, the Bifrost is a touch more "musical", maybe from harmonics, but I don't mind that. Both are improved by a good transport vs. USB out of my computer.

 

[theeclone]

Ha... recent discussion validates the quote in my signature quite well.


Vintage R2R DACs, which were susceptible to jitter, would end up sounding hard and harsh with a high-jitter source, especially optical. Nowadays, given that jitter is supposedly a non-issue in modern DACs, that leaves electrical noise. An optical connection cannot transmit noise, so unless the PLL or whatever is used generates noise itself as a result of the jitter, it will sound warmer. It's easy to get into the trap of thinking brighter is better, when it's really more noise.

I've been comparing the Bifrost 2/64 to the Topping D70 Pro Octo, and it's surprising how two quite different designs can be so close in how they sound. Not surprisingly, the Bifrost is a touch more "musical", maybe from harmonics, but I don't mind that. Both are improved by a good transport vs. USB out of my computer.

I'm personally not convinced that jitter isn't an issue in modern DACs, and it seems current makers of audiophile DACs (e.g. PS Audio, MSB) aren't either. Analog Devices (whose chips of course appear in Schiit DACs) has a paper about creating a "noise budget" when desiging a DAC in which they talk about the potential for jitter due to noise.

Basically from what I can gather it comes down to noise's effects on the clock signal that controls the D/A chip's shift registers. That part of the equation still works pretty much the same in modern DACs as in the vintage ones, as I understand it.

 

[Hyde00]

lol on a side note, I'm glad I'm on Head-Fi where we can reasonably discuss our differences in opinions.

Like it's ok to disagree on some points but at least back up with explanation.

I made a mistake trying to explain things with reason on Reddit and instead I just got downvoted and comments like "oh we can't hear you over placebo".

I was like right I forgot, Reddit is turning into ASR MK2. But at least ASR has people who can actually back up with numbers. Reddit is becoming like "because everyone else says so".

 

[2ndWedge]

Ha... recent discussion validates the quote in my signature quite well.


Vintage R2R DACs, which were susceptible to jitter, would end up sounding hard and harsh with a high-jitter source, especially optical. Nowadays, given that jitter is supposedly a non-issue in modern DACs, that leaves electrical noise. An optical connection cannot transmit noise, so unless the PLL or whatever is used generates noise itself as a result of the jitter, it will sound warmer. It's easy to get into the trap of thinking brighter is better, when it's really more noise.

I've been comparing the Bifrost 2/64 to the Topping D70 Pro Octo, and it's surprising how two quite different designs can be so close in how they sound. Not surprisingly, the Bifrost is a touch more "musical", maybe from harmonics, but I don't mind that. Both are improved by a good transport vs. USB out of my computer.

There is a recent article entitled 'Characterization of sensitivity of optical fiber cables to acoustic vibration'. Is this anything we have to worry about, or are our runs too short? Should we be isolating Toslink cables from speaker vibrations somehow?

 

[raindownthunda]

Just posted a mint Bifrost 2/64 + OG card in the classifieds if anyone is looking

 

[Daniel Johnston]

As an incidental note, the BF 2/64 puts off so much RF noise that my UX RF remote receiver is useless. Same with Yggy OG.

There is a recent article entitled 'Characterization of sensitivity of optical fiber cables to acoustic vibration'. Is this anything we have to worry about, or are our runs too short? Should we be isolating Toslink cables from speaker vibrations somehow?

Link to the article?

I highly doubt this has any relevance in the audio world.

 

[Richy d]

I recently moved my Bifrost multibit the first one from my headphone setup to my speaker setup.
Until this point I had been using the built in dac in my Arcam sa20 amp.
To me it sounded so much better I wish I had done it a long time ago.
So now I am looking at the Bifrost 2 has anyone compared the original Bifrost to the Bifrost 2 also how does the Modi 2 compare to the original Bifrost multibit.
I will be putting the new dac in my speaker setup and keeping the Bifrost 1 with my Asgard 3.

 

[Mike-WI]

There is a recent article entitled 'Characterization of sensitivity of optical fiber cables to acoustic vibration'. Is this anything we have to worry about, or are our runs too short? Should we be isolating Toslink cables from speaker vibrations somehow?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-34097-9

Characterization of sensitivity of optical fiber cables to acoustic vibrations​

• Petr Dejdar,
• Ondrej Mokry,
• Martin Cizek,
• Pavel Rajmic,
• Petr Munster,
• Jiri Schimmel,
• Lenka Pravdova,
• Tomas Horvath &
• Ondrej Cip

Scientific Reports - 13 (2023)​

Abstract​

Fiber optic infrastructure is essential in the transmission of data of all kinds, both for the long haul and shorter distances in cities. Optical fibers are also preferred for data infrastructures inside buildings, especially in highly secured organizations and government facilities. This paper focuses on a reference measurement and analysis of optical fiber cables sensitivity to acoustic waves. Measurement was carried out in an anechoic chamber to ensure stable conditions of acoustic pressure in the range from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The frequency response, the signal-to-noise ratio per frequency, and the Speech Transmission Index are evaluated for various types of optical fiber cables and different ceiling tiles, followed by their comparison. The influence of the means of fixing the cable is also studied. The results prove that optical fiber-based infrastructure in buildings can be exploited as a sensitive microphone.

 

[Hyde00]

Just posted a mint Bifrost 2/64 + OG card in the classifieds if anyone is looking

Damn if I knew about this I would've just bought yours.

But now I ended up with BF2 OG and looking to buy the 2/64 card.