[valiant66]

Why not bump it up to a Modius sized box?

I would like it to match my Magni/Modi/Loki stack.
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[valiant66]

Please explain to a guy that used to believe he was smart. Will this work with any 3d printer, a specific brand of 3d printer or a specific 3d printer only?

.stl files are basically just a recipe. You get to choose the ingredients. It will work with any 3D printer with a big enough build volume (i.e. Needs to be able to print something as long and tall as a Sys). If you want to go nuts you could even mill it out of a solid block of metal.
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[theeclone]

Multibit is quite a bit different in presentation compared to delta/sigma ie ess sabre dacs and suchlike - I dont dislike delta/sigma - far from it but to me there is something contrived about d/s dacs and the music is reproduced well but lacks something - something i cant quite put my finger on !!

Multibit however sound very dynamic and alive , as a result are brilliant for live music !!

Here's my 2 cents based on what I've heard so far; keeping in mind that a lot of this is probably dependent on the overall quality of the DAC design. My theory is that most of what I don't like about any particular implementation has to do with what happens when playback jitter (as opposed to transport jitter) starts to creep in.

Multibit: Super well defined bass with great dynamic swing. Can sometimes sound a bit glued to the speakers, with a weaker phantom center channel.

DSD (1 bit delta sigma): Great soundstage depth, very pleasant and full bass though not as tight/well defined as multibit. Strong phantom center channel with enveloping sound.

Multibit delta sigma (a small number of bits): Not enough experience with high end DS DACs of this architecture outside of a recording studio setting. I'm sure if done right it can sound great but most of what I've heard sounds smeared, with poorly defined bass and fatiguing upper mids.

In general I feel like the less a digital signal is processed the better it sounds. I have to wonder how much what I've disliked about multibit delta sigma is down to the digital filtering that gets the high bit depth, low sample rate information into a high sample rate low bit depth format. This almost inevitably involves ringing and other artifacts (unless you're wizards like Schiit and have figured out how to preserve the original samples in a totally novel way. Really curious how Singularity sounds).

As an aside, DSD is interesting because if the DAC is truly 1 bit (which most delta sigma DACs aren't, and many DSD-capable DACs aren't), all you have to do to get an analog signal from the stream of 1s and 0s is low pass filter the corresponding high and low voltages produced from them. That's it. No digital filter whatsoever in this design.

So my theory is, when jitter starts to creep in in a DSD/DS design, one of the 1st noticeable things to go is the bass. When it starts to creep in in a multibit design, one of the 1st noticeable things to go is the 3-dimensionality. But you still get a really nice overall tone.

Why do I think jitter matters so much? Well it's not just me. Lots of designers of high end DACs think so too. I know it may make you sound smart to write these things off as weasel marketing designed to fill pockets, and in a way I wish that were true; but in another I'm kind of glad it's not, because it gives us a clear path forward for making digital sound better. There will always be room for improvement and there will always be tradeoffs but hopefully we make progress.

There is a certain kind of effect that correlated noise has on the listener. It can be a sometimes subtle kind of "something is not right here" effect. By correlated noise, I mean noise that is tied the sampled audio. There are two main sources of correlated noise in AD/DA conversion that I'm aware of: quantization error and jitter (putting aside aliasing and imaging which are usually well tamed by the filters).

A (perhaps overly) simple explanation goes like: quantization error is the wrong sample at the right time, and jitter is the right sample at the wrong time.

With quantization error, the solution is straightforward: dither. The extent to which the quantized samples have deviated from the original sampled amplitudes can be masked by intentionally adding random digital noise. If you don't dither, you get correlated noise. With dither, the quantization error becomes decorrelated.

Jitter is in my experience more pernicious. My understanding is, EMI can never be completely designed around. There will always be tradeoffs. We live in a noisy world. The problem is, noise affects the clocks that make sure you get the right sample at the right time on playback. Clocks can also be affected by vibrations and temparature.

A D/A chip has specific pins that accept clock signals. These pins are fed the output of a crystal oscillator, which is basically an analog waveform. If this waveform isn't perfect when arriving at the D/A chip, we can get stairsteps of the wrong length. Stray noise from outside the oscillator can in theory lead to imperfections in its output.

After being outputted from the D/A chip, the stairstepped analog audio signal is then smoothed out by the analog reconstruction filter, but the resulting waveform is a bit misshapen as a result of those unequal stairstep lengths. This is basically a kind of noise, and it can be correlated with the original signal in a way similar to quantization error. So noise can cause jitter, which in turn can cause correlated noise.

I was really dismayed with the way popular music was often mastered in the late 90's/early 2000's. Often dither wouldn't even be applied when the higher bit depth mastering files were converted to their lower bit depth outputs. It gave a kind of harshness that maybe they thought got more attention. They also sometimes allowed another kind of correlated noise: digital clipping.

For me, if I'm not listening to vinyl regularly I'm not seeing things clear-headedly in terms of my digital rig, because I can't afford the cost no object systems that go all out to squash jitter, and therefore I forget how good certain aspects of analog sound. Yes there are lots of drawbacks with analog, but there are still certain things it can do better in my price range.

But, as we're so fond of saying here, YMMV

 

[valiant66]

I worked in speaker design so I rarely need help. I spent my career in electronics and engineering so now I tend to learn new skills and build things for friends. A young woman from North Carolina is starting a bakery here so I am designing bread boards and knives to help her have more income. Nothing this elaborate.

Truly beautiful.
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[valiant66]

Having bought a 3D printer during the pandemic and eventually getting bored with it, make sure you have a real interest in it. I'm an engineer as well, but I quickly ran out of things to print after printing a Pi case and some baby Yoda things for my wife. There's are stores that will print things for you as well.

I'm trying to find one in Calgary as I wouldn't print much more than that myself...
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[Paladin79]

Truly beautiful.
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Thanks, my wife refuses to get knife cuts on such a board so I made her a simple bread board.

 

[valiant66]

For me? It was this middle-of-the-road product... produced in British Columbia. O'Keefe's Extra Old Stock.

...yeesh. It might even make a comback here North of the border. Nope. Not for me.

The stubby! An (almost undrinkable) Canadian classic!

I moved back to Canada from university in Scotland, where my beer of choice was McEwan's Export, supplemented by the occasional real ale pulled pint (I was a poor student after all). Anyway, O'Keefe's, Labatt's, Pil and (shudder) Drummond were pretty much all you could get for Canadian beer at the time. The stubby has a nightmare position in my memory. I was so grateful when Big Rock came along with Traditional Ale in the mid 80s...
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[valiant66]

---Finally caught up. For now ---
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[Ripper2860]

Now you're not.

 

[valiant66]

R.I.P. Robbie Robertson, another great Canadian.
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[Ableza]

R.I.P. Robbie Robertson, another great Canadian.
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A true loss. Shake it for the war chief all night long.

 

[Paladin79]

The stubby! An (almost undrinkable) Canadian classic!

I moved back to Canada from university in Scotland, where my beer of choice was McEwan's Export, supplemented by the occasional real ale pulled pint (I was a poor student after all). Anyway, O'Keefe's, Labatt's, Pil and (shudder) Drummond were pretty much all you could get for Canadian beer at the time. The stubby has a nightmare position in my memory. I was so grateful when Big Rock came along with Traditional Ale in the mid 80s...
.

Here is a beer few of you will ever taste, it is along the lines of Samuel Adam’s Utopias. Over 50 proof and two cases of the beer were $1,000 to produce. Illegal in 15 states but a microbrewer in Vienna VA made this batch. It resembles a cognac but it has hints of dark beer flavors. The ABV is high enough that you can store it like a whiskey.

 

[dstrimbu]

Here's my 2 cents based on what I've heard so far; keeping in mind that a lot of this is probably dependent on the overall quality of the DAC design. My theory is that most of what I don't like about any particular implementation has to do with what happens when playback jitter (as opposed to transport jitter) starts to creep in.

Beautifully stated, sir. Thank you!

But, as we're so fond of saying here, YMMV

Oh, HELL yes... the core of Audiophilia, it is.

 

[tincanear]

Here is a beer few of you will ever taste, it is along the lines of Samuel Adam’s Utopias. Over 50 proof and two cases of the beer were $1,000 to produce. Illegal in 15 states but a microbrewer in Vienna VA made this batch. It resembles a cognac but it has hints of dark beer flavors. The ABV is high enough that you can store it like a whiskey.

Pic needs Finnegan for the trifecta

 

[dstrimbu]

Qobuz is...

Doing a beautiful job of updating their Windows client. Just launched it for the first time in a few weeks on my work PC, and the overall presentation is just wonderful. And, they are clearly highlighting the Hi-Res tracks, too. So glad I subscribed!

p.s. - this being said... thanks to Urd, I'm buying CDs again. Crazy world, eh?