AQ Jitterbug Measurements

[Mike Lavigne]

Do you have pix? I'd love to see your Jitterbug bedazzled system!

I can take a picture of 4 nice Jitterbug boxes as that is where they are now. I did not like what they did when I tried them last week.....whether 1, 2, 3 or 4 of them. but at less than a $200 outlay there is no hurry......when the last couple of things are complete on the server I will revisit them again.

I had no particular expectations to begin with, so i'll just let the chips fall where they may.

say the word and i'll take a picture of the boxes; first class packaging for sure.

 

[amirm]

"There is no art involved in whether something makes or does not make an audible difference either. "

Then there is ZERO common ground you have with most of the audiophile community. And I DO NOT mean the ones on the outer edge with magic beads, moon rocks,and resonators blessed by shamans.

"We don't trust "anyone's" ears."

Sorry, preposterous. I have many close friends whose ears I trust implicitly who hear things just as I do, not 100%, but damn close. Musicians trust the ears of certain recording and mastering engineers, producers, and even other musicians. I feel sorry for you that you have no ears you trust. I can't imagine living in constant suspicions over basic things in the hobby.

What you are saying? That your ears work better than mine?

I imagine what makes me the same as every audiophile is that I love music and appreciate good fidelity in it. Trusting my ears in analyzing sound or not has nothing to do with it.

 

[Andre Marc]

What you are saying? That your ears work better than mine?

Nope. My statements above are clear as day. I trust MY ears. And I trust the ears of certain individuals with proven track records of hearing things the way I do.

Nothing more complicated than that. Any more attempts to muddy this crystal clear point is a waste of my time.

 

[Andre Marc]

I can take a picture of 4 nice Jitterbug boxes as that is where they are now. I did not like what they did when I tried them last week.....whether 1, 2, 3 or 4 of them. but at less than a $200 outlay there is no hurry......when the last couple of things are complete on the server I will revisit them again.

I had no particular expectations to begin with, so i'll just let the chips fall where they may.

say the word and i'll take a picture of the boxes; first class packaging for sure.

Mike, is it possible to detail how you used them?

FYI, I just received a Bryston BDP-2 and will try it on that. I tried it on my SOtM server and heard no difference.

 

[amirm]

Nope. My statements above are clear as day. I trust MY ears. And I trust the ears of certain individuals with proven track records of hearing things the way I do.

Nothing more complicated than that. Any more attempts to muddy this crystal clear point is a waste of my time.

That was the joke part of my post. The dog animation was not enough?

 

[Andre Marc]

That was the joke part of my post. The dog animation was not enough?

LOL..ok..for some reason on Chrome it did not work..works on FireFox. Hey my ears are just like that...

 

[Gregadd]

This is really strange Greg. I was looking through some old posts and ran into one of yours and thought about sending you a message and see how you are doing! Great proof that telepathy works and is here now.

Telepathy works? I am afraid Ill need some blind test results for that.Smile. Without detail I am blessed to be able to read this forum.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, is it possible to detail how you used them?

FYI, I just received a Bryston BDP-2 and will try it on that. I tried it on my SOtM server and heard no difference.

as I think this thru I realize I only tried the Jitterbugs on my old server; I've not yet tried them on the new server. and as I mentioned I'm not yet finished with it's optimization.

on the old server I tried one on the server end of the Totaldac USB cable with the Regen on the dac end. I also tried it next to the Regen........both spots I felt caused a bit of loss of definition to the music.....but just a bit. I then tried them on the other USB slots in the back and front of the old server; I heard no change.

the new server is dramatically better sounding than the old one; so I won't be surprised if I do get a more definite effect.....positive or negative.

 

[Andre Marc]

as I think this thru I realize I only tried the Jitterbugs on my old server; I've not yet tried them on the new server. and as I mentioned I'm not yet finished with it's optimization.

on the old server I tried one on the server end of the Totaldac USB cable with the Regen on the dac end. I also tried it next to the Regen........both spots I felt caused a bit of loss of definition to the music.....but just a bit. I then tried them on the other USB slots in the back and front of the old server; I heard no change.

the new server is dramatically better than the old one; so I won't be surprised if I do get a more definite effect.....positive or negative.

View attachment 22302

Thanks for the detail Mike. And the the very excellent pic.

I have a sneaking suspicion the jitterbug was designed and tested with standard consumer grade
laptops and desktops as sources. That would explain the overwhelming positive observations from
folks using off the shelf Apple and Windows based machines.

 

[Gregadd]

It is pretty simple for me but it takes discipline. I can "unimagine" small audio improvements, real or not, on demand! Try it. It didn't take much effort for me to be able to do that.

You are disciplined! Try this excercise. Don't think about pink elephants. Can you do it? We have this problem in trials where inadmissible evidence is to be disregarded by the jury. Almost impossible.

 

[Gregadd]

Saying you don,t trust your ears is like saying you don't trust your spouse.You don't have a choice. Ears are the final arbiter of what we hear. Measurements are merely part of the recipie

de ja vu

 

[amirm]

You are disciplined! Try this excercise. Don't think about pink elephants. Can you do it? We have this problem in trials where inadmissible evidence is to be disregarded by the jury. Almost impossible.

I imagined it was green and green it was! What do I win?

 

[Orb]

You state that as certainty but there is no data to back that in high quality systems. Here is what my DAC outputs when driven over USB using a USB to S/PDIF bridge:
....

Look at that noise floor and explain what about that is coming from USB bus and why I should care even if it does.


Any grain of sand on the road in theory can reach your body in the car seat. That theoretical impact has no impact in reality because of multiple layers of isolation between that grain of sand, and our ability to detect such unevenness in the road. Would you suggest we start to vacuum the roads as to get rid of every grain of sand and that would result in more comfortable rides?

So as I said earlier, it had no effect/influence when used with such a well designed USB-S/PDIF bridge designed to also isolate
One could say it is just as equal to buy such an galvanic isolating interface bridge device, but then this needs to be offset by the design-engineering of the product (not all of these will be equal) and its limitations (bit depth and sample rates/does it require drivers/etc).
But please can we keep some kind of perspective, it can improve measurements (subtly) as shown by Hi-fi News but important to consider the system setup-products-PC/laptop used and what is connected to it-and environment, measurements and analysis used, and anecdotally-subjectively for the better reviewers (such as the reviewer who could reliably discern the improvement on only one interface for a different solution the Melco N1A that also correlated with the measurements done by Paul Miller) who report it does subtle improvements.
But maybe need to split the Jitterbug and the Regen to separate discussion threads or make it clear which product one is discussing (this is not directed specifically at you Amir but all posters here).
Cheers
Orb

 

[Gregadd]

I imagined it was green and green it was! What do I win?

You fail. Not only did you not think about it. You performed a mental execrise converting it to green. Smile. You now have a green elephant in you head that you know used to be pink.

 

[microstrip]

(...) We like to see measurements because they improve confidence in our listening assessment. And to prompt additional testing. (...)

Even if the measurements show signal differences that are bellow the threshold of audibility considered by audio scientists?

 

[amirm]

So as I said earlier, it had no effect/influence when used with such a well designed USB-S/PDIF bridge designed to also isolate

Sorry, didn't mean to create confusion here. I have not yet measured the AQ. I was posting my measurements without it, showing that "noise" is not a problem in my system post output of the DAC. But for completeness, I will measure both the Regen and AQ and post the results.

 

[amirm]

Even if the measurements show signal differences that are bellow the threshold of audibility considered by audio scientists?

If we thought there was no audible difference, yes, measurements like that would add confidence there, especially if they show no difference at all.

If they differ from our audible experience, then we have to think through an explanation if we care about uncovering what is really going on.

 

[amirm]

You fail. Not only did you not think about it. You performed a mental execrise converting it to green.

That is what I meant by "discipline." It takes willpower to do what you consider to be impossible. I used to think it was impossible to sleep on airplanes. Then I sat next to a guy and he said he had no trouble at all sleeping on airplanes. And proceeded to do exactly that. So I thought maybe this is not impossible after all. I realized I was staying up because my mind was full of re-thinking the past and present. So I just focused on my breathing, counting each breath slowly and I fell asleep immediately.

Same thing works in audio but takes more discipline and experience to undo the expectation bias.

You now have a green elephant in you head that you know used to be pink.

You wanted me to not see pink elephants and I managed to do exactly that. You didn't say I should not think of any elephants . BTW, try this mental experience and see if you can see a green one. Prior to me giving this answer, you would fall victim to what you said: you would keep seeing the pink one. But with my suggestion, you should only be seeing the green one now.

 

[Gregadd]

I said,"...Don't think about pink elephants... Almost impossible. "I said think not see.

At my age I can sleep anywhere, anytime, in any position or environment. The challenge now is to stay awake .

 

[amirm]

I said,"...Don't think about pink elephants... Almost impossible. "I said think not see.

What color elephant am I thinking about now?

At my age I can sleep anywhere, anytime, in any position or environment. The challenge now is to stay awake .

Me too. I often fall sleep between words I type. I think it improves the quality of my posts so I am not bothered by it. That said, I did not appreciate my wife recording me once: