[Duncan]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kelvie1234 Here's a WAV.

Thanks

Was having a nightmare trying to install .ape compatability

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kelvie1234 Here's a WAV.

Thanks Part II.

 

[halcyon]

Sorry for the ape/musepack formats, the files are not on my servers

Thanks to Kelvie1234 for the wav!

So what does it mean, if you player produces distorted sound with this sample?

1) One possibility is that your DA is feeding the opamps with too high current, causing distortion at the opamps

2) Another possibility is distortion due to bad resampling (necessitating re-quantisation), lossy bandwidth transforms or some other type of digital manipulation inside the player

3) In practise it might mean nothing. If you still enjoy the sound of your player, perhaps for your music and your player, the artifacts are not audible at all with your music

4) In practise it also means that your player probbaly doesn't have a steep digital cut-off frequency below 19.5 kHz (good in some sense), your speakers/headphons are probably up to snuff (enough detail to hear the distortion, which on some cases can be quite miniscule) and that your hearing is still very useful (you can hear it, you're not gone totally bad in the ears).

Cheers,
Halcyon

PS If you read my posts in the hydrogenaudio.org forum thread linked above, you will find my non-ABX tests with the first sample using two different sound cards and various headphones. The sample can be quite revealing on some sources as the distortion may or may not be audible, depending on headphones used (and the listener, of course).

 

[halcyon]

Another sample, again with full amplitude signal, but now omitting high frequency content (contains c. 170-200 Hz tones):

http://www21.brinkster.com/roina/cd-check_test_10s.zip
(528 kB FLAC file)

That sample can also cause distortion on most players. Every portable I've tried has distorted on that sample.

I welcome all ideas, test results, corrections and insights.

I'm far from being an expert on the subject and am willing to learn more about the causes of this type of distortion.

regards,
Halcyon

 

[kenchi1983]

Im using a Soundblaster Live Value.

I hear sounds that sound similar to a telephone, and weeeek weeeek sounds.

weird.

 

[DanT]

well Ok I redid the test. I heard the distortion on the line out now but only at high volume. usualy I never go over 50% of the volume on my nad integrated already too loud for normal music CD.

at 75%+ I clearly heard the distortion, Below 75% it's clear. With the headphone out the distortion can be heard at lower volume.

There is a treshold where below you don't hear the distortion and above it very loud. it is night and day.

 

[ittech]

I don't own any CD players except the one in my car, and its too late to go try that...

Anyways, Tried it out on a few sound cards...

Nvidia Nforce2 onboard has tons of warbley distortion at any volume.

SBLive has tons of warbley distortion at medium to high volume, but i still heard it on my etyomics on low levels, slightly...

on my second box, the Waveterminal 192X hooked analog to a heavily mod'd Xcanv2 and senn hd600's, plus some other upgrades, It sounded perfect... kinda hurts your ears still, but no distortion at any volume I was willing to try

My computer 5.1 setup, a Nak AV-9, the dac on that did a much better job than the SBlive, but was still slightly noticable..

This would go with my own audio tests that the onboard dac on the 192x is much cleaner and nicer than Nak's integrated dac. ( hey it ain't shabby for a cheap all in one receiver)