[cheapskateaudio]

 
Quote:

jtaylor99: There's something called an optical isolator which converts electrical signal to light, then light back to electrical. It serves to isolate one part of a circuit from another to eliminate electrical interference.
 
>Because it is analog energy it *can* be corrupted by analog interference, just being digital doesn't magically make electricity or light immune to interference. Have you ever used a digital antennae and seen the weird blocks that can show up if the signal isn't right? 
 
True, you can lose data. That should be obvious. When transmitting a live stream of information where for the most part only one direction of communication is possible (like satellite TV), there's not much you can do about data loss. Data loss is inevitable across large distances, but that's one of the amazing things about digital technology - it can self-identify errors and correct for them (redundancy, detection and request re-transfer, etc.).
 
In two-way communication - like the internet for example - there are many tiny communications in both directions every moment, constantly error correcting as necessary, etc. to make 100% sure you get the information without any error loss. And it works. Your entire computer would simply fail to work if there were not ways of sending information from one point to another with ZERO error (to astronomical certainty).
 
What's also interesting to note is related to your "weird blocks" observation. When such a case of digital data-loss occurs, you'll notice that what does get through is complete garbage. It's not "blurry" or "static-y", it's just gone or scrambled completely. If you understand the underlying digital structure / algorithms, it makes sense exactly what these "blocky things" are you see, and similarly it also makes sense what happens when you have data loss with audio. As you might expect, audio data loss does not sound nice. It does not just sound "blurry" or "static-y" or "less bass" or anything like that. Corrupted audio is a horrible screeching sound (or just silence/skipping, depending on the type of corruption).
 
So if you're hearing terrible screeching sounds, or random skipping from your DAC, I'd say you should give a USB cable replacement a try. Otherwise, I really don't know how else I can describe how absurd it is to think that switching cables will make any difference. 

 
I'm in no way arguing for replacing a USB cable to improve the sound in some esoteric way, lol. I personally just unplugged the cooler, it was too loud anyway...
 
You're right that data loss is inevitable, but the result of data loss depends on the application, if the application requires real-time data transmission then packet loss will degrade quality. (99% of DAC's work in real-time) The nature of the errors has nothing to do with digital or not but how that particular system works. It's completely feasible that some sort of high frequency interference could cause something similar to noise in a digital signal. 
 
 
 
 

 

[captouch]

Quote:

A headphone that costs $1500 sounds better than one costing $350? Imagine that.
 
Not everyone can drop $1.5 grand on a set of headphones. The fact that he even has to compare them makes me happy to have the HD650s.

Plus, unless you want or can spend mucho $ on amp, the 650 actually sounds better in many cases. . .

 

[LugBug1]

Quote:

It holds weight anywhere because anywhere I go we are still human. I have to say, you take the cake for making the least sense of anyone I've met on head-fi so far. . . 
 
idk. I guess it just comes down to making ridiculous claims without any real facts behind and that's never going to change. 
 
Personally I would worry more about how the sound is certainly being degraded if you upsample rather than (probably) inaudible jitter. 

 You have some strange priorities. 
 
 
 

A blind person cant see. A deaf person can't hear. In a perfect world all our sense threshold would be the same. Unfortunately it isn't. Also, our intellect differs greatly as you have demonstrated very effectively.  
Jitter can occur via usb output to dac and has been backed up by a fellow headfier, is he also making ridiculous claims?.  Now just drop it please, as all I did was make what I thought was an informative post and then you felt the need to insult me.
 
If you just want to wind people up without contributing anything worthwhile then there are other forums to do this. Now Troll off.    
 
 

 

[Wapiti]

Quote:

How do the digital signals get through with no electricity? How is that even physically possible?
 

Edit:  ac500 did a great job addressing this.

 

[Digital-Pride]

Fascinating discussion!  I tell ya, for an electronically challenged guy like myself, discussions like these are a real benefit.  Head-Fi, a place where one can learn the ways of electronics, physics and science!

 

[caracara08]

Quote:

A blind person cant see. A deaf person can't hear. In a perfect world all our sense threshold would be the same. Unfortunately it isn't. Also, our intellect differs greatly as you have demonstrated very effectively.  
Jitter can occur via usb output to dac and has been backed up by a fellow headfier, is he also making ridiculous claims?.  Now just drop it please, as all I did was make what I thought was an informative post and then you felt the need to insult me.
 
If you just want to wind people up without contributing anything worthwhile then there are other forums to do this. Now Troll off.    
 
 

lol 


Quote:

Fascinating discussion!  I tell ya, for an electronically challenged guy like myself, discussions like these are real benefit.  Head-Fi, a place where one can learn the ways of electronics, physics and science!

i dono about you but i havent learned anything about anything here.  for every supporter of one thing, theres one person against it.  
i think we should get back on topic.  if you want to argue the same ol schiit, then take it elsewhere. stop ruining every damn thread on this site. 
 

 

[Austin Morrow]

Quote:

Fascinating discussion!  I tell ya, for an electronically challenged guy like myself, discussions like these are a real benefit.  Head-Fi, a place where one can learn the ways of electronics, physics and science!

I know right?!? Haha, I've just gone by the motto: "If it sounds good to you, nothing else matters".

 

[Wapiti]

Quote:

Haha, I've just gone by the motto: "If it sounds good to you, nothing else matters".

Ultimately this is indeed all that matters.

 

[upstateguy]

Quote:

 
I'm in no way arguing for replacing a USB cable to improve the sound in some esoteric way, lol. I personally just unplugged the cooler, it was too loud anyway...
 
You're right that data loss is inevitable, but the result of data loss depends on the application, if the application requires real-time data transmission then packet loss will degrade quality. (99% of DAC's work in real-time) The nature of the errors has nothing to do with digital or not but how that particular system works. It's completely feasible that some sort of high frequency interference could cause something similar to noise in a digital signal. 
 

Out of curiosity, did you try different usb ports for the cooler and the DAC?

 

[Satellite_6]

Quote:

A blind person cant see. A deaf person can't hear. In a perfect world all our sense threshold would be the same. Unfortunately it isn't. Also, our intellect differs greatly as you have demonstrated very effectively.  
Jitter can occur via usb output to dac and has been backed up by a fellow headfier, is he also making ridiculous claims?.  Now just drop it please, as all I did was make what I thought was an informative post and then you felt the need to insult me.
 
If you just want to wind people up without contributing anything worthwhile then there are other forums to do this. Now Troll off.    
 
 

 
Quote:

haha that would hold true and have some weight if this wasn't a headphone forum and we were not talking about headphones. Get a life and argue on twitter.
 
Or even better, read Kant.   

Obviously the most useful post in the history of Head-fi! I haven't insulted anyone while you clearly have, I just stated that your posts don't make any sense to me. . . 
 
From my blog about variations in hearing:
 
Yes and no. Anyone on hydrogenaudio will say no: humans are capable of hearing at a certain level and that’s it, no golden ears. Old farts can’t hear high frequencies very well though (link). Hearing damage can also be a problem (link). Still, the subjectivist argument “everyone hears differently”  is pretty weak IMO. It should be revised to “old people or deaf people hear differently, but most people hear the same.” We are all human after all.
 
The threshold for hearing something like jitter should be pretty constant. . . esp. since it has nothing to do with loudness. Furthermore jitter should not be audible unless there is something wrong.
 
 
 
 

 

[Wapiti]

Quote:

The threshold for hearing something like jitter should be pretty constant. . . esp. since it has nothing to do with loudness.
 

It may be.  The larger variation is whether the listener knows for what to listen.  Like speaker driver discontinuity, compression artifacts and other subtle aspects of audio it usually takes experience to understand and to recognize what you are hearing.  Similarly, the average person barely detects a loudness change of 1 dB.  Audio professionals and classical musicians readily detect 0.5dB changes.
 
 
Quote:

Furthermore jitter should not be audible unless there is something wrong.

 
Yep, if you can hear jitter something is not as it should be. 

 

[LugBug1]

 
Quote:

 

Obviously the most useful post in the history of Head-fi! I haven't insulted anyone while you clearly have, I just stated that your posts don't make any sense to me. . . 
 
From my blog about variations in hearing:
 
Yes and no. Anyone on hydrogenaudio will say no: humans are capable of hearing at a certain level and that’s it, no golden ears. Old farts can’t hear high frequencies very well though (link). Hearing damage can also be a problem (link). Still, the subjectivist argument “everyone hears differently”  is pretty weak IMO. It should be revised to “old people or deaf people hear differently, but most people hear the same.” We are all human after all.
 
The threshold for hearing something like jitter should be pretty constant. . . esp. since it has nothing to do with loudness. Furthermore jitter should not be audible unless there is something wrong.
 
 
 
 

Oh dear hes back... sarcasm, ageism... It's all hear folks (see what I did there!)
 
Me thinks that you are trying to convince yourself... I don't need convincing. My human ears tell me that a pure digital signal sounds better than a direct usb one. A trained ear can pick things up that an untrained ear won't. Just like a trained eye can tell a forged banknote. You have to know what you are listening for. I'm not against USB! but its the first step in computer hifi. If you are serious about competing with high end cd players then you have to look at either BNC coaxial or toslink connections to feed your dac the purest and most stable signal. If you want to go down the science route to try and prove that direct usb to dac is as good then by all means do but I assure you that it isn't.  
 
Incidentally does anyone have a dac that can accept 24/192 direct via usb? I'm genuinely interested.
 
(I love my 650's!) 
 
 
 

 

[ac500]

> A trained ear can pick things up that an untrained ear won't. Just like a trained eye can tell a forged banknote. 
 
And a trained mind understands that human perception is extremely biased. A human will prefer one of two identical samples, and swear by their decision, if they simply think there is a subtle difference between them -- even if none exists.

 

[LugBug1]

Quote:

> A trained ear can pick things up that an untrained ear won't. Just like a trained eye can tell a forged banknote. 
 
And a trained mind understands that human perception is extremely biased. A human will prefer one of two identical samples, and swear by their decision, if they simply think there is a subtle difference between them -- even if none exists.

If this is a philosophy that you advocate in regards to human opinion with audio.. why are you on Headfi??
 

 

[cheapskateaudio]

 
Quote:

Out of curiosity, did you try different usb ports for the cooler and the DAC?

I tried a lot of things, it was a persistent thing. At first I had the DAC plugged into the hub on the cooler, so I though, oh, easy fix, plug into the laptop header, but there was absolutely no change in the pitter patter of fan static... So I tried adjusting the fan speed on the cooler while listening and that changed it, and turning it off changed it, but with it off there was still a low hum. Only unplugging it removed the noise completely.