[Racheski]

Schiit sells 9" xlr pyst cables.

Not in stock! I was looking for them the other day.

 

[Degree]

I'm in the slow ring, but running the latest (2020) Win10. Many hours spent trying to find why my Modius stopped (USB) working after sleep. Many iterations of settings, drivers, registry changes, cables, ports.

No Joy.

Resort to logic (surrender). Change sleep time from 15 min. to 3 hours. All is well.

I've heard a few people also having trouble with it not working after sleep.

 

[gregorio]

Despite occasionally reading this forum for quite a few years, I'm still amazed that relatively simple, basic facts are so routinely ignored and/or contradicted.

Please explain to me how measurements translate into sound performance.

Simple: Digital audio to analogue audio to acoustic sound.
Digital audio is itself just a single measurement, the measurement of amplitude over time. So, if there were something else (there isn't) that couldn't be ENTIRELY characterised by these measurements, then it couldn't be recorded in the first place and obviously could not then be reproduced. Also, analogue audio is just a single measurement, voltage variation over time and so is sound, air pressure variation over time.

[1] Equipment can measure identically and sound very different.
[2] Measurements do not describe how something sounds when listening to music.
[3]Do you listen to sine waves and frequency sweeps or to music? I listen to music!

1. I know of NO examples of this, can you provide any?

2. True .... But that's because measurements are not supposed to "describe" anything, they merely quantify a physical property, such as voltage, amplitude, time, air pressure, etc. And of course, the output of audio equipment is also restricted to physical properties. However, there are a few measurements that attempt to correlate these physical properties with human perception. For example, the LUFS/LKFS measurement for loudness, but these types of measurement only apply under certain conditions and even then are somewhat vague.

3. As all music (and sound in general) is made from sine waves and human ear drums can only respond to sine waves, then I must be listening to both sine waves and music. IE. It's impossible to record, reproduce or hear anything (including music) that isn't sine waves.

In theory, there is enough information in 16/44.1 digital signals to completely reproduce the original analog signal - in practice, this is very difficult.

No, in practice it's actually very easy! More precisely, it's somewhat complex but with today's technology it's absolutely routine and extremely cheap. An audio DAC chip, that "completely reproduces the original analogue signal", beyond the capabilities of the human ear to detect, costs about $2!

There is a lot more work to be done in audio science, it is still a young field and I am not convinced that it is "solved".

How is 2,500 years "a young field"? If you're talking specifically about audio (converting sound into audio and back again) science rather than sound science, then the field is roughly a century and a half old but more importantly, it's a field that's been researched/studied more exhaustively than just about any other field, because of the unimaginably vast sums of money at stake in the telecommunications and directly related industries (such as TV)!

There is in fact NO "more work to be done in audio science", it's already ALL been done decades or centuries ago! There's still a lot of work to be done in the field of psychoacoustics (how the human brain works) and therefore in fields related to psychoacoustics but not in the fundamental basics of audio, which are done and dusted.

Unfortunately though, audiophile manufacturers do their best to misrepresent most of the above because obviously their very existence depends on doing so. If it's all "very difficult", if there are magical properties that infuse digital audio that can't be measured and if there's still some science to discover/invent or problems to be solved, then they have a justification for charging far higher prices. Who is going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for something that's "easy", that was solved years/decades ago and is made from off-the-shelf components that only cost a few bucks?

G

 

[reiserFS]

Are there any drivers available yet? Especially for us Win 10 LTSB / LTSC guys.

 

[j0val]

I had a bit of time to A/B the Asgard 3 between the Modi 3 and Modius using Grado GH4s. There's definitely a slight improvement in imaging and detail. The soundstage of the Modi 3 sounded a bit more compressed than the Modius. With the Modius, I feel like there's a slightly more binaural-like soundstage to instrumental recordings. In addition, the Modius seemed like it a had a little more texture in its sound. Overall, I would say it's a worthy successor to the Modius for an extra $100.

Personally though, the biggest gain for me came from upgrading to the Asgard 3 from the Magni 3. The Modi to the Modius was a modest step up, but still worth it.

 

[CoryGillmore]

Schiit sells 9" xlr pyst cables.

Yeah I wanted them but they were out of stock last week when I ordered the DAC. They only had a USB cable in stock last week.

 

[Ninadada]

Here's another source for xlr patch cables but currently showing 2-3 week lead time.

https://hartaudiocables.com/collections/transfer-cables

 

[jkpenrose]

Despite occasionally reading this forum for quite a few years, I'm still amazed that relatively simple, basic facts are so routinely ignored and/or contradicted.



Simple: Digital audio to analogue audio to acoustic sound.
Digital audio is itself just a single measurement, the measurement of amplitude over time. So, if there were something else (there isn't) that couldn't be ENTIRELY characterised by these measurements, then it couldn't be recorded in the first place and obviously could not then be reproduced. Also, analogue audio is just a single measurement, voltage variation over time and so is sound, air pressure variation over time.



1. I know of NO examples of this, can you provide any?

2. True .... But that's because measurements are not supposed to "describe" anything, they merely quantify a physical property, such as voltage, amplitude, time, air pressure, etc. And of course, the output of audio equipment is also restricted to physical properties. However, there are a few measurements that attempt to correlate these physical properties with human perception. For example, the LUFS/LKFS measurement for loudness, but these types of measurement only apply under certain conditions and even then are somewhat vague.

3. As all music (and sound in general) is made from sine waves and human ear drums can only respond to sine waves, then I must be listening to both sine waves and music. IE. It's impossible to record, reproduce or hear anything (including music) that isn't sine waves.



No, in practice it's actually very easy! More precisely, it's somewhat complex but with today's technology it's absolutely routine and extremely cheap. An audio DAC chip, that "completely reproduces the original analogue signal", beyond the capabilities of the human ear to detect, costs about $2!



How is 2,500 years "a young field"? If you're talking specifically about audio (converting sound into audio and back again) science rather than sound science, then the field is roughly a century and a half old but more importantly, it's a field that's been researched/studied more exhaustively than just about any other field, because of the unimaginably vast sums of money at stake in the telecommunications and directly related industries (such as TV)!

There is in fact NO "more work to be done in audio science", it's already ALL been done decades or centuries ago! There's still a lot of work to be done in the field of psychoacoustics (how the human brain works) and therefore in fields related to psychoacoustics but not in the fundamental basics of audio, which are done and dusted.

Unfortunately though, audiophile manufacturers do their best to misrepresent most of the above because obviously their very existence depends on doing so. If it's all "very difficult", if there are magical properties that infuse digital audio that can't be measured and if there's still some science to discover/invent or problems to be solved, then they have a justification for charging far higher prices. Who is going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for something that's "easy", that was solved years/decades ago and is made from off-the-shelf components that only cost a few bucks?

G

I'm actually more in the objectivisit camp and a bit of a sceptic when it comes to DACs, which is why I've been researching the underlying theory AND effects of different implementations.

Yes, I'm a techie geek, but I'm also a music lover

If you don't hear differences between a $2 DAC and other implementations - good for you.

If what I hear is all in my head and the result of expectation bias, well bummer for me. However, I don't think so. In fact, my expectation bias was to NOT hear a difference - though I will grant that our biases can be complex and I MAY be fooling myself.

However, the science and theory behind time domain correction makes sense to me and is consistent with what Richard Vandersteen explained to me that he was focused on 30 years ago - albeit with speakers, not dacs.

Nor do I think that companies like Schiit or Chord are just shills trying to steal our money with snake oil and magic beans - if you think so, fine, don't buy their equipment - I'm sure they would say the same.

But that type of comment is incendiary and NOT at all consistent with the types of products and price points at which Schiit sells their equipment. Really, a company that sells high quality great sounding gear at under $100 is out to fleece us?

This is a thread for a product that costs $199 for goodness sake.

Nor is your comment consistent with what Mike and Jason have done their whole careers. Hell, they both got out of audio because the market and price points for upscale audio were going crazy and they didn't want to play that game.

Even chords m-scalar at $3500 is not a crazy price point given what the product does, the engineering behind it and the R&D to design it.

Is it worth $3500? That is up to the individual buyer and I haven't heard it so refrain from comment on what it sounds like.

However, I have degrees from UCLA in cybernetics (the study of systems control and communication theory) and an MBA and was a departmental scholar in computer science - in addition to starting and running my own company providing business process and technology consulting.

With that experience and background, I can tell you there are not crazy margins or 'fleecing' of consumers at the price points they sell their products.

The only schiit product I own (or have ever owned) is a Vali 2 headphone Amp and I have never owned a chord product - so I have no skin in the game with these vendors - so to speak - and I'm not interested in a flame war, but just because someone doesn't see things the way you do, it doesn't mean they are deceived, foolish idiots.

I'm all for respectful debate and exchanging ideas and learning - but if we are so set in our own perceptions and beliefs (whether we call that objectivism or subjectivism) that we aren't willing to consider alternative viewpoints then there really is no point in posting.

I did not take the time to respond to your post to change your mind (which seems clearly made up and is, at least, consistent with posts of yours I've seen in other threads.

Maybe though, just maybe, there are reasonable people who have different opinions and experience than you do?

And even if you are right and a $2 dac sounds the same as what we choose to buy, why does that matter to you?

Enjoying music is an experience. And if we want to spend $200, or $500 or $2000 on a DAC and we enjoy the music more that way (even if it is just a placebo or expectation bias) the bottom line is we ENJOY the music more that way

I also enjoy learning about the science and engineering and different approaches to music reproduction and how it may affect what I perceive. And I agree that SOME vendors make questionable claims and use bad science, but certainly not all.

At the end of the day though, this hobby, at least for me, is about loving music and sharing the joy of that with others who love music too.

So how about we share what we know, what we perceive and what we experience without prosletyzing or name calling or trying to 'get people on our side'?

Respecting that others may see and experience things differently than we do.

My wife loves music (and is a musician) but doesn't really care about 'accurate' sound and is happy listening to an Amazon echo.

Should I tell her she is wrong to enjoy that and bring out charts and graphs to show her how what she is listening to doesn't have the right frequency response? Or should I be glad that she is a fellow music lover and finds joy and pleasure in her experience?

And if I enjoy a different sound and value things about music reproduction that bring me pleasure that she doesn't care about - should she tell me I am wrong and should just be happy with the echo?

Why would either of us want to take the joy of music away from the other?

 

[jkpenrose]

There are always going to be limits to how effective any objective measurements will be in a hobby that is subjective. Inevitably some people are going to prefer devices which measure "worse" than others. Perhaps even most people will prefer the "worse" stuff, we really aren't going to know until we have had a lot of preference based blind tests between something like a Bifrost 2 and a Topping d90.

There is also the possibility that we are not measuring every aspect of what gives a dac its sound or that the things we are measuring interact with each other in a way we don't yet understand.

There is also the definate reality that we don't have anyone out there who throughly and repeatedly measures every device enough to ensure consistent results. I appreciate the work Amir does but he does not have time to do deep dives into one device which leads to things potentially being missed.

Take the Topping D30 for example which got very high praise. Atomic Bob on Sbaf has been trying to measure one for some time now and he has found it to have some real flaws. The most serious one being that it appears to be unable to reproduce a sine wave accurately. Every time he feeds it a sine it has errors and the errors are inconsistent. Basically it is adding random information. That is not good stuff.

Could it be a flaw that was missed, or does he have a defective one? How common are these defective models? These are questions we can't answer currently. I can say that I had the Topping d30 and thought it was disappointing subjectively regardless of the measurements saying it is audibly transparent.

There is a lot more work to be done in audio science, it is still a young field and I am not convinced that it is "solved".

My advice for people in the hobby is to actually try different gear, find one you like and be happy regardless of what others say. Or alternatively decide you don't want to go through the hassle and just buy a Magni/modi or Asgard/Modius if you want Moor powa and be happy knowing you have a setup that is "audibly transparent" according to science and you didn't need to spend 1200 to get it!

I'm with you on this. It is all about enjoying the music, right?

I think also that what 'sounds right to us' is significantly impacted by what we are comparing and what we are used to hearing...

When it comes to reproduction, what I am looking for is matching the sound and experience of live, non amplified music as a reference, but most of us don't hear much music that way.

Even acoustic productions are usually amplified, so of course that is part of what we experience, even in 'live' shows.

I don't believe there is a 'holy grail' or 'a perfect system' and of course the recording and mastering and mixing greatly affects the reproduction too so I'm never going to get the exact same experience

But the way I look at it, if my system can get close to the sound of non amplified live music - I'm also getting pretty close to accurately reproducing other recordings too - now whether I like what I hear is another topic all together

 

[tincanear]

Not in stock! I was looking for them the other day.

you can look at Markertek as well, lots of choices there in 1 and 1.5 foot lengths. Item #: MSC1.5XXJ for instance. connectors by Neutrik (rean is their lower line) or Switchcraft. wire by belden, mogami, or canare (twisted pair or quad ok). AES/EBU is for digital signals, not analog. Order different wire colors for right and left channels. I would avoid the cheaper (lower quality) Hosa products. For connecting two Schiit devices, you want one end 3-pin XLR male, the other end 3-pin XLR female.

 

[Racheski]

you can look at Markertek as well, lots of choices there in 1 and 1.5 foot lengths. Item #: MSC1.5XXJ for instance. connectors by Neutrik (rean is their lower line) or Switchcraft. wire by belden, mogami, or canare (twisted pair or quad ok). AES/EBU is for digital signals, not analog. Order different wire colors for right and left channels. I would avoid the cheaper (lower quality) Hosa products. For connecting two Schiit devices, you want one end 3-pin XLR male, the other end 3-pin XLR female.

Thx for the suggestion. I ordered a pair from GhentAudio
https://www.ghentaudio.com/part/a07.html

 

[Asahi Templar]

Ah yes Plato's allegory of the delta-sigma versus R2R dac is a inspiring read . I should have been more specific as I mean science related to dacs and people's perception of the sound they produce as that was what is relevant to this thread.

As far as I know the first dac was invented in the 1960s and as such I would consider the study of it to be young, but I guess some might consider that completely and exhaustively researched.

It is funny you mention telecommunications and TV because I have to ask a question, would you take a TV with a sound system from 50 years ago versus one of today? Seems to me the stuff out today continues to improve in quality and in providing a more enjoyable experience. Are the products that we have today as good as they are ever going to get? I rather doubt it.

It sounds like you are suggesting we should just fire all the researchers working in these fields because they are being paid to retread ground eternally as there is nothing more to be understood. I always find it odd that people who claim to be data driven don't want more data gathered.

I agree psychoacoustics is the primary area that has much to be learned and I would guess most people here are talking about it when they refer to audio science as that is most relevant to headphones and their enjoyment . There are a lot of conventions there that I suspect are going to be challenged.

For example the effects of ultrasonics and infrasonics. There have been tons of people saying that humans are not effected by sounds they cant "hear" and that was the conventional wisdom for a long time. Yet in 2018 a study found that people were indeed effected by tones they couldn't hear. If we just declared it solved, we might not have found that.

 

[cgb3]

Are there any drivers available yet? Especially for us Win 10 LTSB / LTSC guys.

Win 10 LTSB was a new one for me. Thanks. I always enjoy increasing my education.

Schitt Modius is a USB 2.0 compliant device. Your Win10 should activate the DAC without additional drivers, assuming your copy of Win10 does USB 2.0.

Personally, I'm not curious enough to discover if Win 10 LTSB is USB 2 compliant.

 

[Rattle]

Since Nov 2019 W10 1909 has been flawless no driver needed.

 

[jkpenrose]

I always find it odd that people who claim to be data driven don't want more data gathered.

Exactly... I don't hear anybody here saying data doesn't matter - the opposite in fact... Data matters, we just don't have all of it that matters

I may be getting a little far afield here, but there is good research that suggests, like you say, that inaudible frequencies that are not consciously detectible can impact our perception of sound quality... And that our assumptions about time value impact on perception is more complex than assumed by compression and decoding algorithms... It appears that our brain does not process sound cues in the same way that FFT does...

For those that are interested...

Research showing brain response and increased pleasure when music contains ultrasonic frequencies:
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jn.2000.83.6.3548

Research showing time elements in music are more discernable than previously thought:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.044301

Interestingly, the research on time sensitivity seems to demonstrate that it can be learned/trained and that we don't necesarily hear it by default - which could explain why some people hear differences that others don't.