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  1. Nicholas Bedworth

    Bit Perfect Audio

    My own experience so far with JPLAY is that is enormously resource intensive. The integration with JRMC 15 was quite smooth, but the default settings are likely to cause your PC to function in a rather leisurely fashion. To the extent that one has a very (electrically) noisy PC, and a mediocre...
  2. Nicholas Bedworth

    Do you use cables to 'tune' the sonics of your system?

    The MIT "interfaces" really seem quite different, in a positive sense, than all the other cables that have gone through my systems. And many of them have been very good indee. Bruce suggests that this interfaces are optimized at a number of frequencies, and my subjective experience is that this...
  3. Nicholas Bedworth

    Stage III Concepts Magnus Prime interconnect review

    Stage III Concepts Magnus Prime Analog Interconnects Nicholas Bedworth Introduction The voicing of a reference-grade sound system derives from the personality of keycomponents. While it’s certainly natural to think of “big ticket” items, such as amps, DACs, and speakers, dominating the...
  4. Nicholas Bedworth

    I2S and 16 to 24 and 32 bit conversion LSB extension errors

    Yes, and the ESS guys are really, really smart. The delta-sigma is really not the point in their products, it's more the signal processing that allows them to greatly reduce jitter, state variable noise and all those interesting things.
  5. Nicholas Bedworth

    I2S and 16 to 24 and 32 bit conversion LSB extension errors

    http://www.esstech.com/PDF/sabrewp.pdf This White Paper seems pretty detailed.
  6. Nicholas Bedworth

    I2S and 16 to 24 and 32 bit conversion LSB extension errors

    One quick input... an ESS DAC refers to the SABRE 32 bit designs. They're widely used in mid-range audio DACs.
  7. Nicholas Bedworth

    I2S and 16 to 24 and 32 bit conversion LSB extension errors

    Don, Thanks for the constructive dialogue and experimental findings... Note how a "simple" effect gets quite complex when we examine all the details. By "handling", my meaning was that the ESS type DACs do things completely differently "inside" than, say, an MSB-style ladder DAC. So it...
  8. Nicholas Bedworth

    I2S and 16 to 24 and 32 bit conversion LSB extension errors

    Don... Fascinating! So the result of improper LSB extension is certainly measureable, and few or no spurs are always better, so the issue is, firstly, whether such artefacts are audibile if they "survive" all the way through the DAC process, and secondly, a related question, do the spurs...
  9. Nicholas Bedworth

    I2S and 16 to 24 and 32 bit conversion LSB extension errors

    Hello Ray, Thanks for the correction... My 2's complement arithmetic is a little rusty. I was aware that the error only affected the negative polarity part of the signal... as the first two examples show. But for the last example, of course you're correct, it shows a positive number with bit...
  10. Nicholas Bedworth

    I2S and 16 to 24 and 32 bit conversion LSB extension errors

    Apparently many DACs that use I2S architecture and related chipsets do not correctly convert 16 bit samples to 24 or 32 bit words prior to conversion. What measures are typically taken to correct this problem, as described below? Which chipsets and DAC architectures are more subject to it...
  11. Nicholas Bedworth

    The most transparent speakers in the world

    Vincent et al., What do you think the glass in the Perfect8 speakers might be? There's a pair in my living room right now, and they're simply divine. It seems to me that their dipole technology has a lot to do with the results; the room seems to be much less involved, and the speakers...
  12. Nicholas Bedworth

    Audiogon's new face

    They're getting there. They need to attend to the critical issues first, namely responsiveness. The levels of scamming seem very high since the new software was put up. They say to e-mail the member name and they'll kill it immediately. So these scammers are signing up as new members to get in...
  13. Nicholas Bedworth

    Audiogon's new face

    Just make it obvious how to contact you in the body of the ad. :) They can't read all the ads, and don't use obvious HTML tags. So far, it hasn't been possible for me to post reviews or respond to threads, although others seem to be able to do it. Authentication works OK for the ads part.
  14. Nicholas Bedworth

    Audiogon's new face

    You might have some e-mails generated by Audiogon with the person's username, and with that, you could be able to contact him, assuming the member look up part of the site is working. :) Yeah, it's a mess right now...
  15. Nicholas Bedworth

    Amir's CES 2012 Picture Thread

    Hi Jack, At least it wasn't a gecko! The smell of roasting lizard would be interesting... :) NB
  16. Nicholas Bedworth

    Amir's CES 2012 Picture Thread

    Pass amp meters Let me share a funny story about the beautiful meters in the Pass amps (the XA200.5 in my case). Firstly, on loud, really loud orchestral passages, you'll seem them fluctuate a bit around the 12 o'clock position. Secondly, the resting position seems to vary a little bit in...
  17. Nicholas Bedworth

    Amir's CES 2012 Picture Thread

    Regarding the MSB UMT, it's terrific. See my review over at http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue58/msb.htm
  18. Nicholas Bedworth

    Audiogon's new face

    The site is typical of what happens when IT types, rather than user experience considerations, dominate the endeavor... right now, it lets me log into MyPage and the parts of the site relating to selling gear, but it isn't possible to get authenticated in the Forums or Reviews sections. Geesh...
  19. Nicholas Bedworth

    Weiss DAC 202 review on Positive Feedback

    Friends... My observations on the Weiss DAC 202 are based upon hundreds of hours of use, and comparison with DACs way more expensive ($30-70K) as well as somewhat less expensive ($5K). The associated gear included the Pass XA200.5, as mentioned in the article, and Wilson Sashas. The system is...
  20. Nicholas Bedworth

    The Absolute Sound (magazine) take on many aspects of computer assisted music reprodu

    My experience also is that dedicated servers are often a much better starting place than a consumer PC. Also, the really special-purpose devices such as the Auraliti offer further advantages, meaning there's not much inside them and they're designed from the beginning for audio purposes.
  21. Nicholas Bedworth

    Weiss DAC 202 review on Positive Feedback

    @ lloyd... Will do my best. Free advice is often of dubious value. :)
  22. Nicholas Bedworth

    Weiss DAC 202 review on Positive Feedback

    It's just the camera angle and lens. It makes Manfred look like he's about 3 ft tall! He's a little overweight, about 450 grams... and actually Manfred is probably a she, but... He, er, she, is an African Gray, and is a wonderful pet. Think of a devoted dog with feathers.
  23. Nicholas Bedworth

    Planning a trip to Sapporo Snow Festival

    Hi Jack... 75 is just the ocean temperature... now, the air temperature is about 85 :) Last two times I was in Manila, there was a typhoon going on. Had to go through one coming and going. We don't have typhoons here, just earthquakes and tsunamis... Nick
  24. Nicholas Bedworth

    The Absolute Sound (magazine) take on many aspects of computer assisted music reprodu

    Their use of motherboard-based S/PDIF, in my opinion, pretty much throws everything else they say into question. That's not to say it invalidates it, but rather, we can't be sure at this point... most of what they say may well be exactly correct, but how could one tell given the interface...
  25. Nicholas Bedworth

    The Absolute Sound (magazine) take on many aspects of computer assisted music reprodu

    You know, my overall take on the article was, firstly, these fellows did a huge amount of work trying to organize everything the way they did, so they deserve a round of applause for the efforts. However, the computer audio systems they described seemed rather, well, mediocre with respect to...
  26. Nicholas Bedworth

    Weiss DAC 202 review on Positive Feedback

    Probably some number created by a copy writer. :) What are the units? Seconds? Not likely to be error rate. Watch out for people confusing accuracy and stability. Short-term stability (low phase noise especially at low frequency offsets from nominal) is what you want, not accuracy (what time is...
  27. Nicholas Bedworth

    Planning a trip to Sapporo Snow Festival

    FYI the ocean temperature here today was 75. What is ice? :)
  28. Nicholas Bedworth

    Weiss DAC 202 review on Positive Feedback

    OXCO is the gold standard, so to speak, with respect to phase noise and jitter... the OXCO referred to in my post is inside the Antelope DAC; don't know how it might compare to those in the Zanden, but in general, OXCO are the way to go, for very high-end applications.
  29. Nicholas Bedworth

    Weiss DAC 202 review on Positive Feedback

    Friends... PFO just posted my review of the Weiss DAC 202. It was a huge project, but please let me know what you think. Currently, my in-house DAC is the Antelope Gold with Voltikus power supply. The Antelope uses an ovenized crystal oscillator, and is quite promising.
  30. Nicholas Bedworth

    "Synergy"

    Yes, indeed. In many cases, components that sound strikingly different will all measure flatter than pancakes (to use a technical term), so obviously we need to look at other measurement paradigms to help differentiate things. Good luck on that, however. Amplitude-domain analysis only tells a...

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