[EricDH]

I agree, and furthermore, while I may be dense, I fail to see the compelling use case for fully digital volume attenuation in a system that by every definition must eventually output analog sound waves. Even if there is a compelling use case, I would imagine that it would best be done in software (such as embedded in a music player app) rather than in hardware. Again, I may be missing something important and if so I apologize for my ignorance.

I am not necessarily pro or con digital volume control. But talking about a use case.....

In my previous "speaker hifi set" I had a Wadia 830 CD player with digital volume control. That CD player had an output level similar to most pre amps, so you could plug it into a power amp directly. So that is what I (and many others) did. My system consisted of that Wadia 830 CD player, Chord Electronics 1200 B power amp and B&W Nautilus 803 loudspeakers. (To my ears) it sounded fantastic. So the use case for me was: not having to buy a pre amplifier. Now of course, with any digital volume control, when you play at lower levels you must lose some resolution. But the thing is (for me at least), when you listen at low volume levels you don't hear every little detail anyway (in practice the dynamic range in your living room will be limited by the approx. 30 dB background noise that is always present). So I didn't hear any loss of resolution.

 

[Ohno Schiitizen]

I am not necessarily pro or con digital volume control. But talking about a use case.....

In my previous "speaker hifi set" I had a Wadia 830 CD player with digital volume control. That CD player had an output level similar to most pre amps, so you could plug it into a power amp directly. And that is what I did. My system consisted of that Wadia 830 CD player, Chord Electronics 1200 B power amp and B&W Nautilus 803 loudspeakers. (To my ears) it sounded fantastic. So the use case for me was: not having to buy a pre amplifier. Now of course, with any digital volume control, when you play at lower levels you must lose some resolution. But the thing is (for me at least), when you listen at low volume levels you don't hear every little detail anyway (in practice the dynamic range in your living room will be limited by the approx. 30 dB background noise that is always present). So I didn't hear any loss of resolution.

Cannot disagree.

I have 3 DACs, ifi Zen Dac with built in headphone amp and pre out, RME adi-2 Dac Fs with built in headphone amp and pre out, Schiit Modi Multibit 2 with only RCA line out.

RME is digital volume and works well, it is also a tool, ifi is cheap and sounds OK, Modi is another stand alone small lovely DAC; add RK27 pot to it makes it sounds better without any pre while hooked to Vidar 2.

I am happy with the RME and Modi Multibit 2, both sounds superb and out performs many DAC which cost 5-10 times of it.

Different strokes for different folks, no specific conclusion, as the youtuber Andrew Robinson said at the end of his each video, the only person who has to like the sound of your system is YOU. All audio designers/ engineers are simply human and no need to idolize them or worship them.

If I want to listen from the Modi with headphone, Heresy, Vali or Asgard is a good match with different sonic taste. Schiit products are affordable and joy to listen.

Es gibt keine Überlegenheit. Hör lieber mehr Musik.

 

[Erratic Gravy]

As promised, I've got around to updating the SineWave(TM) with some recent topics and at the same time made a couple of tweaks to existing.
This is Version 8, and I'm happy to update to v8.1 based on any feedback from the beta test cycle on the thread.



Change Log :
Added : Cardboard (Finally!!!, and boldfaced for emphasis... sorry for the past omissions @bcowen )
Added : Knives & Cutting Boards
Added : Warships, Tanks and Aeroplanes
Redacted : Submarines (because @Ableza can’t confirm or deny it )
Added : Close-Outs
Added : Streaming Hardware
Updated : “Roon” to Streaming Software
Updated : Moved some elements to make room
Updated : Isolated Ground & Power Sockets to add Power Conditioning


Happy New Year to All. I've had a blast reading along and chatting with everyone.

Cheers
Tim

When I worked at RAF Mildenhall in the 80's ( briefly ) the US Navy dept on base would get ' real serious real soon ' if you accidently mis-dialled a call and ended up connected to the ' things that go bump in the night !' office ie Submarine comms , but I can neither confirm or deny this anecdote

 

[sopranomi]

All chapters are indexed on Page 1 of the thread

I know, thanks. But I didn't find what I was looking for in the index and so I asked.

 

[rkw]

Did Jason write a chapter/post when Yggy was upgraded to analog 2? Can someone post a link? Much obliged.

Jason never did a chapter on it, only this post:

Yggdrasil Analog 2 is released!

http://www.schiit.com/products/yggdrasil
http://www.schiit.com/products/yggdrasil-analog-2
http://www.schiit.com/about/news/yggdrasil-refined

The post has links to the Schiit website that are no longer valid. The Analog 2 announcement can be found on Internet Archive / Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180118184528/https://www.schiit.com/about/news/yggdrasil-refined

​

Mike Moffat posted this:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/what-a-long-strange-trip-its-been-robert-hunter.784471/post-13982140

 

[strider1007]

I'm having a very good day ! It, Mjolnir3, arrived and works.. Exciting days ahead.

 

[tafens]

I do not want to alter a digital stream before sending it to a quality DAC. One of the features of M. Moffat's DAC's filter is the preservation of the original samples, so I am not interested in changing those prior to conversion. So, not for me, and for many who thrive for great sound quality, no digital volume control.

I agree, and I’ll add that in my thinking digital attenuation no matter how it is done will invariably lose resolution (because lower effective bit depth) and add noise (because of quanitzation problems). This could be handled somewhat by adding dithering, but then again that also adds noise. If anyone wants to use digital attenuation I’m not gonna argue; “you do you” and all that, but I’m not interested.

 

[Les Strat]

As it is the season to be merry, I thought I should return to a crucial topic on the 'sine wave'- drink

There have been some excellent suggestions for single malt whiskies.

I do enjoy the occasional dram, particularly from Islay malts, but my real favourite drink is good beer.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to enjoy a couple of pints of my favourite beer with two old friends, at a superb pub in Skipton, North Yorkshire, where it is brewed.
The beer is 'Hetton Pale Ale' and the brewer is 'Dark Horse Brewery,
http://www.darkhorsebrewery.co.uk/our-ales.html

It is superb beer!

Unlike many on this forum, I haven't bought any new Schiit gear for Christmas.
I have treated myself to a new MC cartridge for my Technics SL1200G turntable though- an Audio Technica ART 20, which is fantastic!

Anyway, that is way off topic..

The other excellent, non-audio device, which I bought recently is a gadget for pouring very good draught Guinness in your own home.

About 30 years ago, Guinness invented the 'widget' ( and patented it.)
This was a device which released nitrogen gas in a can of 'draught' Guinness when the tab was pulled.
It meant that you could enjoy a Guinness which had a pretty good head on it and this clever idea revolutionised canned beer.

Guinness has moved things on with its latest development called 'Nitrosurge'.

This small battery-powered device uses ultrasound to agitate Nitrogen in special 'Nitrosurge' cans of Guinness which contain 1 pint of the black stuff.

The device costs about £25 here in the UK. I am not sure if it is available in the US.

It produces a pint of Guinness which gets remarkably close to what you'd expect in a pub; it's not as good as the very best in Ireland, but I've had far worse in pubs!

This is the device.
https://nitrosurge.guinness.com/en-gb/


For any Guinness lovers, I recommend it!

Best wishes to all.

Cheers

 

[Ohno Schiitizen]

As it is the season to be merry, I thought I should return to a crucial topic on the 'sine wave'- drink

There have been some excellent suggestions for single malt whiskies.

I do enjoy the occasional dram, particularly from Islay, but my real favourite is good beer.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to enjoy a couple of pints of my favourite beer with two old friends, at a superb bub in Skipton, North Yorkshire, where it is brewed.
The beer is 'Hetton Pale Ale' and the brewer is 'Dark Horse Brewery,
http://www.darkhorsebrewery.co.uk/our-ales.html

It is superb beer!

Unlike many on this forum, I haven't bought any new Schiit gear for Christmas.
I have treated myself to a new MC cartridge for my Technics SL1200G turntable though- an Audio Technica ART 20, which is fantastic!

Anyway, that is way off topic..

The other excellent, non-audio device, which I bought recently is a gadget for pouring very good draught Guinness in your own home.

About 30 years ago, Guinness invested the 'widget' ( and patented it.)
This was a device which released nitrogen gas in a can of 'draught' Guinness when the tab was pulled.
It meant that you could enjoy a Guinness which had a pretty good head on it and this clever idea revolutionised canned beer.

Guinness has moved things on with its latest development called 'Nitrosurge'.

This small battery-powered device uses ultrasound to agitate Nitrogen in special 'Nitrosurge' cans of Guinness which contain 1 pint of the black stuff.

The device costs about £25 here in the UK. I am not sure if it is available in the US.

It produces a pint of Guinness which gets remarkably close to what you'd expect in a pub; it's not as good as the very best in Ireland, but I've had far worse in pubs!

This is the device.
https://nitrosurge.guinness.com/en-gb/


For any Guinness lovers, I recommend it!

Cheers

Enjoy your new cartridge on the groove

 

[O8h7w]

There is no such thing as fully digital amplification. Sooner or later you need to convert from digital to analog to feed the speakers. And attenuation is much better when done to the signal at that point.

We may be getting into semantics, but my understanding is that what's called a digital amp is typically a class D device that translates the incoming PCM into either pulse width modulation or pulse density modulation in the digital domain, and basically has one stage in the analog domain.

Take this for example: https://hifimediy.com/product/hifime-udp320-usb-and-spdif-true-digital-power-amplifier-2x150w/

Can't speak for @O8h7w but maybe that's what he was referring to.

You can have a PWM or PDM output stage, at full power. I wouldn't consider that to be in the analog domain, I would consider that a DAC stage, when combined with a suitable analog reconstruction filter. Some skip the filter and let the cables and speakers ignore the ultrasonics to the best of their ability, that seems unwise to me but does qualify as "digital all the way to the speaker" in my mind.

Anyway, my point was that if you want analog volume control in one of these then you're doing it at speaker levels and you can't put an impedance in there without messing up your damping factor.

 

[Moondog55]

I was kidding. I see you are not.

And for real action/adventure...blowing out a section of the old Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys. And yes, Arnold's movies ...tongue-in-cheek...

 

[O8h7w]

I surmise you do not own a Schiit preamp with 128 0.6dB volume steps.

Not yet, but they sure have been high on my wishlist since they were introduced! Just haven't had that kind of money for this kind of thing in these years.

Then again, 128 * 0.625 = 80, which is not a whole lot of margin. -7 and -74 are numbers regularly showing on the volume control that informs me on this, so not quite 70 dB but 67 dB. Soo... it would still require the gain and sensitivity of the system to be within a ± 6.5 dB margin of perfectly suited to my application. Possible but not a given.

Someone mentioned the noise floor of the environment. Note that a measured 20 ~ 30 dB in a "quiet" room is rarely broadband white noise, it is often a fridge or a heating system with a distinct (to me) sound. Also we do hear signals, at least speech, that are significantly quieter than the noise level (brains are really good at such things).

And I do listen less quietly in my own apartment in a 4-story house in a city than I do at my parents 100-m-to-the-nearest-neighbor house in a single-supermarket village, purely for environmental noise reasons. Also can't go that quiet in daytime, I need the traffic and the house to go to sleep.

I haven't had a meter so I don't know exactly how quiet I do listen. With quiet enough surroundings and system, I turn it down until the noise of blood flow in my ears becomes a problem. With in-ears this limit is far higher than otherwise, with closed headphones a bit higher, with open headphones or speakers it is rarely achievable. For me.

Many nights the environmental noise sets the limit. It is a joy to be free of that when it happens

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

As a friend of mine once said, or was it is father... or maybe it was just me...
If something doesn't make sense it's probably because there is something you don't understand.
Translation: If apple is doing things that don't make sense, they are probably doing it to serve goals that are not apparent to you. Not just because they are incompetent.

So...you're saying that they are incompetent but that may not be the reason for the f*ck up in question.

Got it.


JC

 

[Bowmoreman]

Welcome to the thread. When I got my first Schiit about 10 years ago the arthritis wasn't as bad.

Since then I've sold a lot of my astronomy stuff. C-11 on a Losmandy mount on an 8" aluminum pier I built. All my camera gear is gone. Still have my Genesis, way toooo many Naglers, (come to think of it just now my 13mm I think is the first one he made in the Nagler series pre eye cup and grip) 16" Dobsonian....oh well.....

Here's the thing, hope you have a cat!

Haha…

Well, um,,,. Here’s MY thihng…. No cats (though have in previous like, my cat Ffloyd was with us for 19 years; guess how she was named?)…

But we DO have the worlds cutest dog… one look into his love-lasers, and he assumes you into his pack forever… (i.e. if’n I’d a had him when I was in High School, I would have pwned the best looking girls, no problem…

Here he is listening to an old 1958 RCA LSC shaded dog…

Bismarck and the Rig

(I‘ll figure out pics later; Imgur link)

 

[Ableza]

One of my ball caps: