No, that was all me. Mike was regaling a little bit on what Jason has been posting on here, and didn't get as loud as I did. I've never met Mike before, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not...
Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up
- Thread starter Jason Stoddard
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No, that was all me. Mike was regaling a little bit on what Jason has been posting on here, and didn't get as loud as I did. I've never met Mike before, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not...
Tried to solder a 201 SMD resistor once and nearly gave up engineering... Lets just say there is still a solder blob out there with a resistor hidden somewhere in it...
Q: What is a SMD component's favourite activity?
A: Tombstone effect
Q: What is a SMD component's favourite activity?
A: Tombstone effect
catspaw
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The thing Ilove about modi+magni is that its small enought to carry it with your laptop and have a mobile kickass gear.
The only problem for me at least is the fact that those external .... power supplies? Are very unconftable.
The only problem for me at least is the fact that those external .... power supplies? Are very unconftable.
NinjaHamster
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I use external supplies as ready made butt plugs - then it is small enough to carry the actual components in that man-bra of mine ,., those transformers buzz too - I'm not sure if my arse is the full 230v, but rest assured that satisfaction is had by all ...
Now off to try the Lyr resting on my nipples ...
Now off to try the Lyr resting on my nipples ...
Ableza
Headphoneus Supremus
I'm very happy that my solder jockey days ended LONG before the advent of surface mount. Those tiny components would drive me mad. Thanks the gods for pick and place machines, right?
Wildcatsare1
Headphoneus Supremus
That is not a pretty picture NH, I will never look at my Lyr, nor external power supplies in quite the same way.......bleh
Armaegis
Modern Modder Man of Manitoba
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When this book is eventually released, I would like to see a colourful forward to each chapter written by Mike detailings some of those trials and tribulations in his own words...
Tuco1965
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I was hoping for a mini series on Netflix. Wonder who they would cast for the roles?
superjawes
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Cast? They could just make it a "reality documentary" in the style of Pawn Stars, American Chopper, or whatever flavor is popular right now.I was hoping for a mini series on Netflix. Wonder who they would cast for the roles?
Armaegis
Modern Modder Man of Manitoba
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... Toddlers and Tiaras, Dance Moms, etc...
azteca x
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Couldn't have been worse than the verbal tongue-lashing I gave Sony... but now I'm going OT.
bowerymarc
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Usually bitperfect or bit transparent is used in regards to digital links (e.g. you need one to transport AC3 over SPDIF). It wouldn't mean the same when talking about an analog interface, so I wonder what exactly you mean there?
Jason Stoddard
Sponsor: Schiit Audio
Bonus Content: A Short and Irreverent History of Consumer Digital Audio
A long time ago, Sony and Phillips got together to rewrite the whole audio reproduction chain. They created the Redbook CD standard, based on the minimum standards they believed were capable of producing good audio: 16 bit, 44.1K sampling.
Back then, if you were using a 16 bit/44.1K analog to digital converter, and a 16 bit/44.1K DAC, you *could* get bitperfect reproduction of the original samples. There were no sample rate converters, digital filters, or delta-sigma DACs "guessing" at the content.
The catches?
1. In the early 1980s, 16/44.1 was pretty much beyond the limit of manufacturability for ADCs and DACs. The early players had 14-bit DACs and some hackwork applied, and might even have used a single DAC chip for both channels, multiplexed through a sample and hold. Yuck.
2. Linearity of many of these early DACs was pretty scary.
3. Non-oversampled 16/44.1 content requires a "brick wall" analog filter to eliminate out-of-band "images" (look it up, Nyquist Theorem, etc.). This means an 8th to 10th order filter. Which is expensive, hard to implement consistently with production-quality parts, and generally very scary.
But in the beginning, you could do bitperfect.
The rest of the story in consumer digital audio is a story of cost-cutting.
First cost cut: digital filtering (oversampling). That allowed manufacturers to throw out the analog brick wall filter, which was wwayyyyy cheaper. Unfortunately, all digital filter algorithms (except one) throw out the original samples in the process of upsampling. At that moment, the concept of "bitperfect" went out the window. Ah, well. It was cheaper.
Second cost cut: delta-sigma converters. Multibit converters are expensive. Delta-sigma is cheap. Simple as that. Add to that the fact you can claim "24 bit" or whatever on the chip, based on the data it will accept, but not on actual resolution, and yep, delta-sigma took over. Unfortunately, delta-sigma, even in its "multibit modulator" variants, still does not retain the original samples. They don't call them "successive approximation" for nothing. However, they have one huge benefit: they're so astoundingly cheap that you can have a very decent DAC in a throwaway laptop or cellphone.
Third cost cut: asynchronous sample rate conversion. Once high-res came onto the scene, manufacturers quickly realized that managing a whole bunch of sample rates and bit depths is a royal pain in the butt. Much cheaper just to upsample everything to one rate. Plus, you can put even bigger numbers on the box, like 192kHz.
That brings us to today. Most every DAC out there uses digital filtering and delta-sigma conversion. Everybody is guessing--the original samples are gone. Now, that isn't to say this can't sound very good. Hell, we make some of them, and they sound very good. But it is a mathematical fact that the original samples are lost in the playback process.
What we're trying to do, and what we will shortly introduce, is a DAC that is bitperfect from input to output, using the only closed-form digital filter and multibit DACs. This may be an insane goal in today's world, but, in our philosophy, "as true to the source as possible" starts with retaining the original samples. And that's what we'll do. It's up to you to decide if it's sonically meaningful, though...
A long time ago, Sony and Phillips got together to rewrite the whole audio reproduction chain. They created the Redbook CD standard, based on the minimum standards they believed were capable of producing good audio: 16 bit, 44.1K sampling.
Back then, if you were using a 16 bit/44.1K analog to digital converter, and a 16 bit/44.1K DAC, you *could* get bitperfect reproduction of the original samples. There were no sample rate converters, digital filters, or delta-sigma DACs "guessing" at the content.
The catches?
1. In the early 1980s, 16/44.1 was pretty much beyond the limit of manufacturability for ADCs and DACs. The early players had 14-bit DACs and some hackwork applied, and might even have used a single DAC chip for both channels, multiplexed through a sample and hold. Yuck.
2. Linearity of many of these early DACs was pretty scary.
3. Non-oversampled 16/44.1 content requires a "brick wall" analog filter to eliminate out-of-band "images" (look it up, Nyquist Theorem, etc.). This means an 8th to 10th order filter. Which is expensive, hard to implement consistently with production-quality parts, and generally very scary.
But in the beginning, you could do bitperfect.
The rest of the story in consumer digital audio is a story of cost-cutting.
First cost cut: digital filtering (oversampling). That allowed manufacturers to throw out the analog brick wall filter, which was wwayyyyy cheaper. Unfortunately, all digital filter algorithms (except one) throw out the original samples in the process of upsampling. At that moment, the concept of "bitperfect" went out the window. Ah, well. It was cheaper.
Second cost cut: delta-sigma converters. Multibit converters are expensive. Delta-sigma is cheap. Simple as that. Add to that the fact you can claim "24 bit" or whatever on the chip, based on the data it will accept, but not on actual resolution, and yep, delta-sigma took over. Unfortunately, delta-sigma, even in its "multibit modulator" variants, still does not retain the original samples. They don't call them "successive approximation" for nothing. However, they have one huge benefit: they're so astoundingly cheap that you can have a very decent DAC in a throwaway laptop or cellphone.
Third cost cut: asynchronous sample rate conversion. Once high-res came onto the scene, manufacturers quickly realized that managing a whole bunch of sample rates and bit depths is a royal pain in the butt. Much cheaper just to upsample everything to one rate. Plus, you can put even bigger numbers on the box, like 192kHz.
That brings us to today. Most every DAC out there uses digital filtering and delta-sigma conversion. Everybody is guessing--the original samples are gone. Now, that isn't to say this can't sound very good. Hell, we make some of them, and they sound very good. But it is a mathematical fact that the original samples are lost in the playback process.
What we're trying to do, and what we will shortly introduce, is a DAC that is bitperfect from input to output, using the only closed-form digital filter and multibit DACs. This may be an insane goal in today's world, but, in our philosophy, "as true to the source as possible" starts with retaining the original samples. And that's what we'll do. It's up to you to decide if it's sonically meaningful, though...
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