[allenf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by citroeniste Seriously.

Why should I spend a chunk of my time indulging someone who trolls a Hi-Fi forum claiming that all digital sources sound identical?

 

[nickchen]

He isn't so wrong IMO.

It's an extreme viewpoint, but that is the odd headfi "this cable / this amp sounds lightyears better than XYZ" as well. I'm kinda glad that opinions like citroenist's are posted, as there were some rumours that critical opinions are undesired here.

 

[K2Grey]

It seems interesting that you at first are willing to engage in this test under conditions under which you know it will never happen, but then refuse once a serious offer is made, with monetary compensation of travel and food expenses, and the Meridian if you pass.

 

[mulveling]

Quote:

Originally Posted by allenf Why should I spend a chunk of my time indulging someone who trolls a Hi-Fi forum claiming that all digital sources sound identical?

He's merely stating his opinion, not trolling. It's only trolling if he's being annoying about it, which I haven't seen. If anything you're the troll.

 

[allenf]

Digital sources don't all sound identical. It's as simple as that.
Posting in a Hi-Fi forum that they do is trolling imo.
Wikipedia:
In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy and antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion (see Anonymous Internet posting).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

Why not all pack up and go home - all digital sources sound the same.

 

[citroeniste]

Quote:

Originally Posted by allenf Why should I spend a chunk of my time indulging someone who trolls a Hi-Fi forum claiming that all digital sources sound identical?

Actually, you're the one who made an exceptional claim, i.e. one that is contrary to all of the established literature. And you stand to get a pretty fancy high-end piece of kit if the community of serious audio engineers is wrong.

Furthermore, I'm not making a claim so much as reporting the consensus, opinion of the serious audio community as revealed in credible peer-reviewed scientific media such as the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society and backed by more than a quarter-century's worth of data gleaned from serious subjective listening tests of highly critical listeners. You may choose not to believe that fact, but that only changes your relationship with reality. Not reality itself.

Lastly, if you look at my side-panel you'll see that I'm hardly new to this forum. Indeed, my time here predates yours by about 3.5 years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by allenf Why not all pack up and go home - all digital sources sound the same.

You may be devastated by the fact that all digital sources sound the same (assuming they're non-broken, etc.), but I find it liberating. Why? It fixes a variable and allows one to focus one's resources on the things that really do matter, such as headphones, loudspeakers, and listening rooms. And, lastly written but firstly thought of, the music.

 

[citroeniste]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Audiofiler citroeniste, I like your style...although we do not see eye to eye, you have lank respect in your communication and observation, and it shows in your posts...cheers.. BTW the tests were done double blind...and I picked the transport over the DVD player/iPod/PC every time (10 times each listening for ten minutes each) here is/was my material utilized

I don't doubt that's possible. My question is, how did you match levels?

 

[Audiofiler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by citroeniste I don't doubt that's possible. My question is, how did you match levels?

Yes, the levels were matched appropriately. One thing I thing people do not often give themselves in Blind Fold tests is to listen for longer than 5 minutes but less than 15 total...it helps give a more accurate portrayal of the sound and range in dynamics..also used various FR Sweeps to help gage the correct levels, etc

 

[Audiofiler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by citroeniste ...You may choose not to believe that fact, but only changes your relationship with reality, not reality itself.

as previously posted, I like your style man

 

[Audiofiler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by citroeniste I don't doubt that's possible. My question is, how did you match levels?

Sorry I do not think that I fully read the question the first time...
I used a DC-Coupled, Selectable-Gain Headphone Amplifier to match the levels and reduce the noise frequencis. For better and matched efficiency with all cans and impedance characteristic of any headphone output stage.

Hope this answers your question(s)

 

[sxr71]

In audio the differences are large to small in this order IMHO assuming solid state amplification:

Listening room, loudspeaker, source, amplification, cables.

So it could be said that someone might not be able to hear differences as they progress down that chain. Or it could be said that someone might not value the smaller differences they hear as they change equipment in the lower parts of that chain.

To suggest that all digital sources sound the same would be to suggest that a $20 discman has the same quality and design of analog stages as a well thought-out, well designed, value-oriented, and reasonably priced $500-1000 CD player. It is true that today the differences on the digital side are much smaller than they used to be because even the really cheap digital players have DACs that have excellent performance because digital technology has evolved so far. The iPod for example has quite good digital performance in fact I remember JA of Stereophile comparing the digital performance to that of a $1000 CD player.

I can tell you that in the years I have been listening to decent equipment I have heard differences between the NAD 522, the Sony DVP-s7000, the SCD-333es and the SCD-1. Just the difference between the NAD 522 and the DVP-s7000 is an easy one to pick out because of the typical NAD sound that clearly rolls off some treble and trades bass extension for some boosted bass for a warmer sound, resulting in a nice, mellow, musical sound that has it's compromises (the aforementioned roll-off). The DVP-s7000 on the other hand was a lot brighter, and harsher but more detailed, and no bass hump to add warmth. The difference is very clearly heard between those two models. Interestingly the difference between the SCD-333es and the SCD-1 is not as large as that between the NAD and the DVP-s7000.

You may say that all digital sources sound the same and you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I hope that people don't become lazy to find out for themselves because it is easier to think of all digital sources as sounding the same. For some it might be true, for others the difference might not be worth it, and for others it might yield an experience they otherwise wouldn't have gotten. It would be nice if all digital sources sounded the same and it would simplify that choices we have in this hobby, but just because it would be easier doesn't make it true.

 

[regal]

A watt is a watt basically the 1st law of thermodynamics. There is a guy who will pay you $10,000 if you can tell the difference between any two amps both set to the same watts of output. No one has ever won his challenge.

I have always been on the fence about digital sources. I used to think all digital sources sound the same, then I heard SACD which is much better than RBCD on my sources. That made me wonder what a good RBCD player would sound like.

But then my reciever converts any analog signal to digital to do the subwoofer crossover DSP so any benefit having a CDP with a super DAC would be pretty much negated. Yes I could find a super low jitter CDP to use as a transport but I doubt there would be a great enhancement in sound. This among other things lsent me to Headphones, even though my only experience is with $10 crappy headsets. You don't have to worry about DSP for subs so in theory you should be able to benefit from a digital source with an outstanding DAC. Won't know until I try. But I am starting conservative to see if I can stand listening to headphones: AV710,LDM+, ATH M30.

 

[sxr71]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal A watt is a watt basically the 1st law of thermodynamics. There is a guy who will pay you $10,000 if you can tell the difference between any two amps both set to the same watts of output. No one has ever won his challenge. I have always been on the fence about digital sources. I used to think all digital sources sound the same, then I heard SACD which is much better than RBCD on my sources. That made me wonder what a good RBCD player would sound like. But then my reciever converts any analog signal to digital to do the subwoofer crossover DSP so any benefit having a CDP with a super DAC would be pretty much negated. Yes I could find a super low jitter CDP to use as a transport but I doubt there would be a great enhancement in sound. This among other things lsent me to Headphones, even though my only experience is with $10 crappy headsets. You don't have to worry about DSP for subs so in theory you should be able to benefit from a digital source with an outstanding DAC. Won't know until I try. But I am starting conservative to see if I can stand listening to headphones: AV710,LDM+, ATH M30.

What I believe about low-jitter transports today is that it is just really a brute force expensive solution to what really was a simple problem. Today some transports use a CD-ROM drive (or the like) with high speed read capability and a buffer to simply keep everything timed properly. I don't fully understand in detail the issues, but I heard that a Hard Drive + USB DAC is very low jitter if implemented properly for two reasons. Firstly, the hard drive can read data at speeds far higher than 1x CD, and USB has two communication and buffers allowing for "perfect" timing of the bits.

So IMHO, or AFAIK spending thousands on a top-quality transport is almost anachronistic anymore. In fact I really wonder why it took so many years for these audio companies to just adopt PC techology on the transport side instead of building these "bank vault" transports for $$$$$$. I suspect that they wanted to milk the "bank vault" market for as long as they could, and they knew that brute force overengineering is intrinsically appealing to the audiophile mindset.

Mind you I say all this while owning a large 70lb CD player myself that I am happy with. All I'm saying is that if you are getting into the hobby now, you have cheaper options. Also in the spirit of this thread it is always good to evaluate the typical audiophile conventional wisdom yourself to hopefully save yourself some money. Don't fall for everything and be careful with your money, but also don't be too quick to dismiss certain facts as the case may be just because the world would be a better place if those facts were not actually true.

In your case with a A-D converting receiver SACD playback will always be compromised as you probably already knew. I guess a cheap used SACD player (those first generation Sonys were good the money) into a headphone amp or a good pair of phones will really shine.

As for a watt being a watt, and thermodynamics. Yes power is power and pushing a 1Kg mass up 1 meter in a given amount of time requires the application of a given amount of power for a given amount of time, but in audio we are dealing with a varying alternating current signal with complexities that are simply not present in simple mechanics or even with DC currents.

You can believe what you prefer to believe, but just take a brief look at a DIY site like Headwize and see the sorts of decisions designers have to grapple with. They look at things like whether to apply feedback or not. Whether that feedback should be local or global. What the input and output impedances should be. Characteristics of the active devices in so many dimensions like thermal, electrical, voltage, current, slew rate and many more I have no knowledge of. If you take a look at a visual reporesentation of a musical signal waveform, you should immediately recognize the diffcultly involved in amplifying that signal and sending it to a loudspeaker or headphone in that same condition with back EMF from the speakers and what not. There are defintely differences in approaches, whether it results is a large difference and whether that difference is worth the expense is another issue altogether. But IMHO, saying there is no difference with different circuit topologies and part selections is not true.

 

[jp11801]

this is one of the more amusing threads I have seen, I have heard multiple CDPs playing the same music through the same amp and they are definately not the same. Each one had a sound all its own there is more to digital than zeros and ones.

ps I listened through my sound card last/RSA hornet and GS 1000s and then my CDP/amp and GS1000s huge differences

 

[analog'd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by citroeniste ...I cannot hear the difference between my iMac/AirPort Express, my cheap Toshiba DVD player, or my Meridian 508.20 upgraded to 508.24 spec

that's one of the funniest things I've ever heard... sad, but funny!