[Wildcatsare1]

Would be very interested in Mike's thoughts on the current state of A to D conversion.

Looking to replace my old VTL Tube amps with Rag + Mani. (then Ygg)
My wife will approve of them more as they are silver.
She always thought my hi-fi was cheap because it was black.
Listens with her eyes.

Sarvasaha,

If you are seeking a place for the "cheap" VTL Gear to land, I will give them a good home, even waive my usual scrap fee

 

[Sarvasaha]

Sarvasaha,

If you are seeking a place for the "cheap" VTL Gear to land, I will give them a good home, even waive my usual scrap fee

Well given how much they weigh (especially the 50W monoblocks) the shipping might break the bank... and of course they are 240V. Plus have been offered a good price for them, almost enough for a Raggy.
SO that's a no.

 

[aamefford]

Sarvasaha,

If you are seeking a place for the "cheap" VTL Gear to land, I will give them a good home, even waive my usual scrap fee

  Well given how much they weigh (especially the 50W monoblocks) the shipping might break the bank... and of course they are 240V. Plus have been offered a good price for them, almost enough for a Raggy.
SO that's a no.

You gotta admit - it was a darned gentlemanly offer though.

 

[Wildcatsare1]

Gentlemen, that's just the kinda Guy I am, always looking to lend a hand when I can, I truely believe we have been put on this Earth to help each other out, and watch their stuff......., our Brothers keeper and what have you, your Amps will be well kept, and all you have too do is pick up the shipping, heck, I'll even take care of the power conversion...no really keep your money and take that lovely Wife of your's out for a nice dinner.......

 

[tonykaz]

…[size=x-small]. and of course they are 240V.[/size]  

Probably they have multiple taps for conversion to 110VAC thru 240VAC 
 
Tony in Michigan 

 

[reddog]

I hope those amazing guys at Schiit Audio put the fulla on there website soon, it will be a great Christmas gift.

 

[Anavel0]

Apparently Jason's birthday fell on RMAF weekend. Happy birthday, Jason.

(Photo stolen from Audio-Head.)

 

[David Aldrich]

Well than Happy freaking Birthday to one of the head Schiits!

 

[Wildcatsare1]

^Is it Head Schiit's or Schiit Heads?

 

[David Aldrich]

Well I would consider Mike and Jason the Head Schiits and the rest of the team Schiit Heads.

 

[judmarc]

  I disagree. If the sample is of sufficient size, the participants are actually chosen randomly, and all spurious variables are controlled for, the result should be replicable. Oh ****, I'll bet my understanding of statistics has been utterly wrong all these years. I'm due a rather large refund of tuition $.

 
There are in fact studies of the distressing tendency of the conclusions of controlled double-blind medical studies to go away over the years.  I.e., first study finds X has a large effect, next study finds smaller effect, more studies find yet smaller effects, until there's a study that can't find any effect at all.  This has happened with multiple well done studies over the years, and is a subject of much interest in the medical community.
 
Yes, statistics still works; but as you might expect, this doesn't mean we know everything quite yet.

 

[judmarc]

   
“But how can those old DACs possibly perform better than the best of today? They’re only 20/48. We have 32/768.”
 
Going from 16/44 to 20/44 actually makes more difference than anything else, when it comes to digital. Why? Although the Nyquist theorem says you can perfectly reconstruct a waveform from digital with 2X the sample rate, it assumes an infinite-bit ADC with no quantization error. The more levels, the less the quantization error. 16 bit = 65536 levels, 20 bit = 1048576 levels. 24 bits is 16 million+ levels, but nobody has ever achieved 24 bit linearity, period. The best DACs are about 19.5-20 bits, even after 20 years of “progress.” (Hence, “the lost decades.”) Higher sample rates are nice for analog filtering, but limit the amount of horsepower a digital filter can bring to bear…and it takes up more storage space. So that’s a tradeoff. And “32 bit?” LOLOLROFLCOPTER. There will never be any 32 bit music. Because physics.

 
Agreed, but this is a case where bits ain't always bits.  
 
There are the sort of bits you're talking about above, which translate into useful dynamic range.  Once you start getting to ~20 bits, you're into the heat noise of the equipment.  (Hey, helium-cooled DACs!)  32 bits in that sense and not even electrons could move, which would make electronic equipment pretty impractical.
 
However, there are also the sort of bits that describe how many places your math calculations can run to.  So you can have a 64-bit computer OS without setting up your own home liquid helium pumping system, because those 64 bits just describe how much room there is to do math and store stuff.  And in fact these sorts of bits are put to use in recording and playback.  Some recording workstations allow use of up to 80 bit math when doing DSP.  *This* is the (only) sense in which there are 32 bit DACs.
 
Unfortunately, lack of scruples or just plain ignorance in audio marketing (imagine that!) has confused these two very different senses of the word "bits" in order to try to claim sonic advantages for DACs that use 32 bit processing, which is most of them.  32 bit processing is pretty prosaic stuff, as it's probably half the bits your laptop works with in normal daily life.

 

[Currawong]

I thought the use of 32 bits was in digital volume controls, where the manufacturer could say that there is no audible degradation of the sound quality when using one, even down to -80dB.

 

[judmarc]

Yes, Currawong, exactly that type of thing - volume control or other digital changes to the sound of the signal, while leaving maximum headroom.

 

[StanD]

  I thought the use of 32 bits was in digital volume controls, where the manufacturer could say that there is no audible degradation of the sound quality when using one, even down to -80dB.

Even better, use a digitally controlled analog volume control. No issues with rounding or quantization.