Tír Na HiFi

sbgk wrote: so we have to wait for optical chips, who said digital audio was easy.

Do you mean optical ships to block the noise on signals? John Swenson has identified a correlation between bursty data processing & PS noise. Here's what he has to say:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-m ... post367798

I have been doing some measurements of USB inputs, Ethernet inputs, S/PDIF etc and have come to some somewhat unusual conclusions.

First off the concept of the USB cable being a conduit for conducting a large amount of noise from the computer to the DAC is to a large extent a myth. Well done properly implemented USB interfaces just don't show it at all. Of course NOT well done ones can have significant problems with this, but it does not seem to be a law of the universe. And doing it well so that computer noise is not directly transmitted over the cable is not that hard or expensive to do.

What I DID find was something else all together, I'm calling it packet noise and it happens with any interface that uses packets, including USB and Ethernet, and even to a small degree S/PDIF. With packet based interfaces the processing of data happens in bursts when the packets come in, with much lower processing in between packets. This bursty behavior is clearly visible as noise on power supply traces and ground planes. The problem is that the packet frequencies are all right smack in the middle of the audio range.

The spectrum of these noise bursts is very wide, including low frequency components up to hundreds of MHz. The Power Distribution Networks (PDN) on almost all DAC boards simply cannot deal well with this, this noise winds up getting through to the oscillators and DAC chips no matter how good the regulators are.

people seem to notice a difference with the different versions of control that have been released, so that tends to indicate the loading of data into ram has an effect on the final sq. Am trying to get control at the same level as play which is tricky. I think the new control versions are giving a more detailed, less digital sound.

So how the data is loaded into RAM seems to affect the sound?

sbgk wrote:.... I think the new control versions are giving a more detailed, less digital sound.

I don't have any sense of 'digital' sound as it stands right now!
So am wondering what you are hearing differently than I am.

no these things, yet to be developed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photonic_i ... ed_circuit

Aleg wrote:

sbgk wrote:.... I think the new control versions are giving a more detailed, less digital sound.

I don't have any sense of 'digital' sound as it stands right now!
So am wondering what you are hearing differently than I am.

presumably less digital noise

Didn't mean with you think it is that you are hearing differently, but what it sounds like what you are hearing differently.

Left-right brain mix up here. :-)

What does it sound like like what you are calling 'digital sounding'?

Aleg wrote:Didn't mean with you think it is that you are hearing differently, but what it sounds like what you are hearing differently.

Left-right brain mix up here. :-)

What does it sound like like what you are calling 'digital sounding'?

more musical, have you tried them ?

sbgk wrote:

Aleg wrote:Didn't mean with you think it is that you are hearing differently, but what it sounds like what you are hearing differently.

Left-right brain mix up here. :-)

What does it sound like like what you are calling 'digital sounding'?

more musical, have you tried them ?

What does 'more musical' sound like for you?
What do you actually hear in the sound that you would describe as 'digital sounding' or 'more musical'?
Both those terms are actually meaningless as they can mean anything to anybody and are not specifically defined terms, so are not very suitable to communicate something to other people.
So what are the objective sound characteristics that you would describe as 'digital sounding' or 'more musical'?

Genuinely trying to understand why you would call something "digital sounding" while I think it is sounding great.

Cheers

Aleg

Aleg wrote:

sbgk wrote:

Aleg wrote:Didn't mean with you think it is that you are hearing differently, but what it sounds like what you are hearing differently.

Left-right brain mix up here. :-)

What does it sound like like what you are calling 'digital sounding'?

more musical, have you tried them ?

What does 'more musical' sound like for you?
What do you actually hear in the sound that you would describe as 'digital sounding' or 'more musical'?
Both those terms are actually meaningless as they can mean anything to anybody and are not specifically defined terms, so are not very suitable to communicate something to other people.
So what are the objective sound characteristics that you would describe as 'digital sounding' or 'more musical'?

Genuinely trying to understand why you would call something "digital sounding" while I think it is sounding great.

Cheers

Aleg

Don't think I need to justify any of my words, just try it and report what you hear if you think it's of interest.

]

Aleg wrote:Didn't mean with you think it is that you are hearing differently, but what it sounds like what you are hearing differently.

Left-right brain mix up here. :-)

What does it sound like like what you are calling 'digital sounding'?

more musical, have you tried them ?

What does 'more musical' sound like for you?
What do you actually hear in the sound that you would describe as 'digital sounding' or 'more musical'?
Both those terms are actually meaningless as they can mean anything to anybody and are not specifically defined terms, so are not very suitable to communicate something to other people.
So what are the objective sound characteristics that you would describe as 'digital sounding' or 'more musical'?

Genuinely trying to understand why you would call something "digital sounding" while I think it is sounding great.

Cheers

Aleg

Aleg - I have to say that I share your wish to understand what others mean when they say 'digital sound'.

I also feel the same when others talk about 'noise' and MQn. Of course with analogue there is real noise that you can put your ear against the tweeter and hear. However, with digital I don't hear 'noise' as such.
The same applies when people say it must be this and that causing noise or lowering noise (usually when it is referring to power supplies).
My ill-informed brain tells me that digital playback does have a noise floor which one can no doubt see on a scope, but I don't believe it is of sufficient level to actually hear?

If very low level music signals are more apparent when this or that change has been made to the code, then one presumes that the noise floor is being reduced, thus allowing more of the music signal to be audible. So perhaps those who say there is less noise, they mean more of the music is audible?

I think electrical noise is undoubtedly present all the way through the chain, but it is not audible. It can and will affect the PCM process of replay and causes inaccuracy in the rising edge signals and timing. So optimising MQn code or a better 'less noisy' PSU will both contribute to changing the SQ of the output. Unless you have a scope and can actually see the difference in the noise floor, all anyone can say is that they hear a change and whether they like it more or less.

Glad to have got that off my chest!

sbgk wrote:
Don't think I need to justify any of my words, just try it and report what you hear if you think it's of interest.

Sbgk
I'm not asking to justify but to explain what it is what you are hearing. Just trying to understand what you like and don't like.

From now on I'll take "digital sounding" as your way of saying you like it less and "more musical" as saying you like it better, without attaching any objective changes in sound qualities to those terms.

Cheers

Aleg