[earnmyturns]

I don't think you are alone in this. I have always thought that the act of transmitting a file across an ethernet wire degraded the sound. Ethernet by its nature deconstructs a file and puts it back together.

If what you say were true, nothing in modern networking would work at all. Digital files are just that, files. The only thing that matters in transmitting a digital file is that the bits are preserved exactly. Checksums, error detection and correction, and retransmit when needed, ensure that. What is different between different digital transports is not what happens to bits carried by any reasonable modern protocol such as TCP/IP, whether they come via Ethernet, USB, or carrier pigeon. There are two main factors that make different digital transports appear to sound different: 1) misconfigured digital network or transport>DAC interface; 2) various ways in which analog electrical noise from transport circuitry sneaks down the transport>DAC connection and pollutes the analog side of the DAC. Problem 1) is straightforwardly solved with the correct network configuration, software and settings, but the reality is that current networking and digital sound hardware and software are sufficiently complex that such misconfigurations may be difficult to debug for anyone but a professional. Problem 2) is harder to solve, as it involves subtle interactions between devices, power supplies, and the physical environment, although @Baldr made it much less of a problem for USB connections between transport and DAC with Gen 5 USB boards and Eitr. Ironically, these innovative devices use Ethernet's electrical design to reduce electrical noise leakage from transport to DAC. So much for Ethernet's badness.

 

[Locutus73]

Had to read this a few times before I was convinced.
A rooktit is the mammalian nipple for feeding newborn chess pieces.

Nope, it’s the nipple used by crows in order to feed their new-borns with aviary milk.

Locutus73

 

[bosiemoncrieff]

This year, I'm thankful that I cancelled my Tidal subscription. Also, for the few dozen linear feet of opera-centric CDs that I was gifted. Finally, for the amazing experience that was hearing the Gadget. It has the ability to do wonderful things for music, and I look forward to it having it in my chain.

So I'm seeing Mahler 4 on Saturday. What recordings should I listen to in preparation?

 

[Locutus73]

including a second (intestinal) brain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system
Very interesting!
I must have a very developed second brain. I must talk about this to my lady. She always complains about the time I spend on the porcelain throne with my iPad… but I have to prepare the press release every morning.

Locutus73

 

[quimbo]

re: Sony rootkits - here is how/when they were discovered - https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com...s-and-digital-rights-management-gone-too-far/

 

[KoshNaranek]

I have a Gumby, MicroRendu, Vortexbox w/ iPad control. Randomly schiit doesn't work. I am sick of being an IT guy when I want to listen to music.

A CD player wouldn't get constant use, but sometimes it would get used. That's why I don't want a $1,100 Rega or $2,000 Naim CD player.

I want to use an analog output to my integrated amp input for the occasional CD use.

Most of the issues I have had with my network were solved when I started using IpCop as my firewall/router. I set it to reboot once a week. Everything works very reliably and I only have to deal with the setup after a power failure. As an added bonus, network latency is reduced, so everything is faster.

 

[FLTWS]

So I'm seeing Mahler 4 on Saturday. What recordings should I listen to in preparation?

Szell's is my favorite.

 

[Locutus73]

If what you say were true, nothing in modern networking would work at all.

I would dare to say that nothing in modern world would work and we would face apocalypse.

carrier pigeon

Great RFC!!! It has been updated to IPv6 with https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6214

There are two main factors that make different digital transports appear to sound different: 1) [...] So much for Ethernet's badness.

I’d add a third possible source of problems: bad timings in the binary stream fed to the DAC. Eventually we can embed this third case in factor n.1 described by your post. Nevertheless @Baldr soved this with two high precision reclocking crystals in USB GEN 5/EITR.

Locutus73

 

[Clemmaster]

This Microsoft patent claims they have invented an inaudible scheme. https://www.google.com/patents/US7266697?dq=7,266,697 But If they've succeeded, apparently UMG is not using it.

It's inaudible until you can hear it.

Just like mp3 was "CD quality" @ 128kbps... Until it wasn't.

In the context of steganography, Digital Watermarking should meet 3 requirements that work against one another:

1. Inaudibly/invisibility
2. Robustness to tampering
3. High bit-rate

While there are better techniques than other for a given application, meeting these 3 requirements means finding the best compromise.

 

[earnmyturns]

I’d add a third possible source of problems: bad timings in the binary stream fed to the DAC. Eventually we can embed this third case in factor n.1 described by your post. Nevertheless @Baldr soved this with two high precision reclocking crystals in USB GEN 5/EITR.

Timing is an issue for S/PDIF, hence the precise clocks in Gen5/Eitr. But it is irrelevant (contrary to much woo from some vendors and forums) for any recent USB audio or for Ethernet, which are asynchronous transport mechanisms where digital data is buffered at the receiving end before being send to the actual DAC circuitry using a local clock.

 

[Left Channel]

It's inaudible until you can hear it.

Just like mp3 was "CD quality" @ 128kbps... Until it wasn't.

In the context of steganography, Digital Watermarking should meet 3 requirements that work against one another:

1. Inaudibly/invisibility
2. Robustness to tampering
3. High bit-rate

While there are better techniques than other for a given application, meeting these 3 requirements means finding the best compromise.

Good point. But UMG's sloppy compromise on inaudibility reveals their utter contempt and disregard for listeners.

 

[Clemmaster]

From experience, it's very hard to watermark pitched instruments in general. Piano, in particular, is a pathological case.
Other things like some modulated electronic music (Fatboy Slim comes to mind) are also very hard to process (not just Watermarking, encoding too).

You can check the test cases for the LAME mp3 encoder, online. They explain what the artifacts they encountered were and what sort of "patch" they added to their encoder to handle these corner cases. Because that's really what it was: patches, for things they didn't anticipate would happen.
LAME used to s**k balls, back in the days, but progressed a lot - through extensive listen tests - to become a top encoder.

I don't think the same rigor is ever applied to digital Watermarking, because there really isn't much incentive to.

 

[rkw]

I don’t think all tracks on Tidal are watermarked. Isn’t it only that one label?

Universal Music Group owns a LOT of labels, and are distributors for other labels they don't own (like ECM).
https://www.universalmusic.com/labels/

I don't think youtube has what Tidal has, especially classic music, and in Tidal quality. Try uploading anything copyrighted to youtube - it gets blocked automatically.

Ha, I wonder if the watermark is the first thing YouTube checks for. I do find YouTube to be a valuable source of live concert videos of all genres. For classical, YouTube has many outstanding older recordings that are out of print and the copyright has expired, and otherwise unavailable except on the used and collectibles market.

 

[alpovs]

Ha, I wonder if the watermark is the first thing YouTube checks for.

No, not everything has a watermark. It checks for "signatures". Every audio and/or video recording can be analyzed and assigned a "signature", like a hash function for files, and then compared to the database. A popular smartphone app Shazam works like this. I am always amazed how quickly it can identify the music playing. There are other open and closed source programs like this, and the database (at least one of them) is open to the public.

Copyright holders can submit videos to youtube for analysis and signature storage. Signatures don't take much space to store. There is no need to store the actual content. Then, if a copyrighted video/audio is uploaded it gets quickly matched to the database and rejected. Sometimes, to full this automatic system, people upload mirrored and cropped videos. Then, the first complaint takes it out (and probably adds to the above database).

 

[Blue Warper]

This year, I'm thankful that I cancelled my Tidal subscription. Also, for the few dozen linear feet of opera-centric CDs that I was gifted. Finally, for the amazing experience that was hearing the Gadget. It has the ability to do wonderful things for music, and I look forward to it having it in my chain.

So, is the above your final assessment of the Gadget? Your previous one (that I'm aware of) was not as sharp and clear-cut.
Nevertheless, great to hear you found the Gadget more and more enGa(d)ging as time went by. Enjoy!