Does DSP belong in State of the Art Systems?

Lagonda

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my 2 cents is that generally this means you are re-digitizing what started out as a digital file......which while it might solve one issue can't improve the signal path and likely compromises it.

it comes down to expectations. if your reference is analog recordings, you are looking for as close to that from your digital as you can get, then making something 'more' digital is likely not a good direction. but if digital is your reference then it's more maybe palatable.

state of the art?

it's a subjective question with the answer depending on your expectations.
And some people have reported being totally happy and not hearing any degradation. Until they upgraded their digital sources and could suddenly hear the DSP as a bottleneck :oops:
 
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wil

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Could someone offer a more technical explanation for "bottleneck" or the ill effects of "re-digitizing digital" or making it "more digital" as it relates to well-implemented DSP? How does this translate into sound quality? Thanks
 

morricab

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Yes but such hardware boxes have been introduced in the past and the various Trinnov devices are good examples. However, they remain rare and, generally, without much competition because, imho, the audiophile market has not accepted them and they impose their own processing constraints (formats, resolutions, signal configuration/mapping). The result is that they are expensive for what they do.

IMHO, a better approach today, for file playback or streaming, is the use of a high power desktop computer endowed with DSP tools (already many to choose from) and a multichannel DAC or DACs. This way, there are no fixed constraints on what one wants to do.

Yup.
This is basically what my mini-dsp solution is.
 
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Mike Lavigne

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Could someone offer a more technical explanation for "bottleneck" or the ill effects of "re-digitizing digital" or making it "more digital" as it relates to well-implemented DSP? How does this translate into sound quality? Thanks

imagine stacking a sequence of ADC's and DAC's. even the best possible one's. you will lose performance every time the analog signal is processed through the ADC and then back through the DAC. some musical truth gets filtered out on each sequence. even if they are the perfect ACD and DAC. even if the resolution is at the very top level.

but dsp units don't use the highest resolution. and dsp gear is far from perfect or built like top level dacs.

another technical point is that as dac technology has advanced you see 'bit-perfect' dacs and a trend away from "up-sampling/over-sampling" dacs to reduce noise and retain refinement. turns out that is good for performance. better to keep the data native to the source file for best performance. which further exposes dsp as harmful.
 
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Atmasphere

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I'm going to play with only the crossover fuction as well as the timing/delay functions.
It will sit between my DAC/PRE and one pair of RCAs going to my mains and the other pair going to my subs.
I'm hoping/expecting better integration between my subs and mains, along with a audible insertion loss of the unit itself.

It sounds like the intended use is to blend subs and probably deal with bass problems at the same time.

One comment that seemed related is this one:
No..... I'd say first, fix the room.

So it appears that the idea of fixing bass problems is part of this, at least as others on this thread seem to be talking about.

The thing is, DSP and room treatment are poor solutions and only should be used as touchup. If you want a sub to integrate well, the simple fact is keep it from going about 80Hz, and it will not attract attention to itself. If we are talking about a powered sub, or a sub driven by a dedicated sub amp, this should be easy to do. This eliminates the need for time-aligning the sub- it can be placed anywhere if that makes the bass work and the main speakers will convince you that the sound is occurring in front of you.

But there is more to it, and that is the standing waves in the room. Almost everyone deals with this with varying degrees depending on speaker placement, room treatment and the like, but if you want the elegant approach the way to solve this, use a Distributed Bass Array (the best example of this in high end audio is the Swarm). There are two ways to do this:

First, if you're speakers already play deep bass, the wave front is going to create a standing wave at a variety of frequencies. This results in both peaks and valleys in the room response and likely a lack of bass at some frequency at the listening chair. For speakers like this you need 1 or 2 additional subs depending on the room. It/they will only be active below 80Hz. At about 80Hz in most rooms bass becomes omnidirectional because the ear can't tell a sound is there until the entire waveform has passed by it, and in most rooms below 80Hz the waveform is so long that it has bounced off of the wall behind the ear and is interfering with itself before the ear can even acknowledge it.

So this means that the bass can be handled in mono. It also means that you can place the additional subs in an asymmetric fashion in the room (with at least one behind you) to break up the standing waves, resulting in evenly distributed bass everywhere in the room.

The second way is to have 4 subs, also asymmetrically placed, if the main speakers don't go down all that far, maybe to 50-60Hz. Two will probably be in front of you. Otherwise it works the same.

This method is FAR more effective than DSP or room treatment with bass traps. For bass traps to really work right, they would have to actively move about the room as the bass notes change, to be where the peaks of any standing wave happen to be; obviously impractical. DSP can work for reducing a peak at the listening chair but it can't help you with a dip, because the waveform is cancelling when there is a dip and you can put as much power as you want into the room at that frequency and it will still cancel. That will really task your amplifiers and not solve the problem. So these 'solutions' aren't.
 
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Kal Rubinson

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But.... for a 2 channel "sota" digital signal path, perhaps SOTA dsp like Acourate or Audiolense might provide the opportunity to further improve that digital signal path (after the room and speaker set up are optimized)?
my 2 cents is that generally this means you are re-digitizing what started out as a digital file......which while it might solve one issue can't improve the signal path and likely compromises it.
Why would you presume that this means "re-digitizing what started out as a digital file?"
 

SeagoatLeo

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My listening room has bass traps built-in/engineered into the walls. I have 25 Hz bass that has a smooth response to the mid-range level. DSP is one reason I will never buy a Legacy speaker that requires it to function.
 
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Lagonda

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My listening room has bass traps built-in/engineered into the walls. I have 25 Hz bass that has a smooth response to the mid-range level. DSP is one reason I will never buy a Legacy speaker that requires it to function.
That definitely one of the reasons i would never buy a Legacy speaker either ;)
 

Mike Lavigne

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Why would you presume that this means "re-digitizing what started out as a digital file?"

my post was in response to this post from Wil......

But.... for a 2 channel "sota" digital signal path, perhaps SOTA dsp like Acourate or Audiolense might provide the opportunity to further improve that digital signal path (after the room and speaker set up are optimized)?

........who was referring to using dsp with an existing 'sota' digital signal path. so clearly we do begin with a digital signal.

how do we get 'SOTA' digital from the 'SOTA' dac to the 'SOTA' dsp without changing it to analog first and then having the dsp re-digitize it? or do we go with an internal dac inside the DSP gear? is that 'SOTA'? or somehow place the dsp between the source and dac?

the rub here is how we decide what a 'SOTA' dac is. likely in the eye of the beholder.

i could be missing your point. educate me.
 
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Robh3606

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Why would you presume that this means "re-digitizing what started out as a digital file?"


Well maybe not re-digitizing but using DSP would you manipulate it by say changing bit depth and sampling to make the changes and then reconverting back to it's native format??

Rob :)
 

Mike Lavigne

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Well maybe not re-digitizing but using DSP would you manipulate it by say changing bit depth and sampling to make the changes and then reconverting back to it's native format??

Rob :)

it's not like you can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.;)

once the dsp gets ahold of it, the whole 'native' part is history. it's now, at best, the resolution/bit depth of dsp engine. if you did change it back to the original native format after dsp, the 'native' part is not relevant. it does not improve with another conversion. you are going backwards.....in truth to the source. the dsp 'action' might be a net gain depending on the system context. but there was a cost.

better to not need dsp.

again.....we are discussing 2 channel state of the art as a target. the little stuff matters.
 
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Kal Rubinson

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how do we get 'SOTA' digital from the 'SOTA' dac to the 'SOTA' dsp without changing it to analog first and then having the dsp re-digitize it? or do we go with an internal dac inside the DSP gear? is that 'SOTA'? or somehow place the dsp between the source and dac?
Yes, we place the DSP between the source and the DAC.
the rub here is how we decide what a 'SOTA' dac is. likely in the eye of the beholder.
That is to be expected.
 

Kal Rubinson

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Actually a DBA is about 95% effective and DSP with room treatment is the remaining 5% or so, all presented in round numbers of course ;)
I would say that DBA for the range covered by the subs does the vast amount of what is needed in that range and DSP does the rest for the subs. DSP/room treatment works for the main speakers above that range but I do not think one can minimize the significance of that nor quantify any of these effects.
 

Mike Lavigne

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it's not like you can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.;)

once the dsp gets ahold of it, the whole 'native' part is history. it's now, at best, the resolution/bit depth of dsp engine. if you did change it back to the original native format after dsp, the 'native' part is not relevant. it does not improve with another conversion. you are going backwards.....in truth to the source. the dsp 'action' might be a net gain depending on the system context. but there was a cost.

better to not need dsp.

again.....we are discussing 2 channel state of the art as a target. the little stuff matters.

why am i responding to my own post?

just wanted to say there is an exception to the Humpty Dumpty analogy regarding putting things back together. and that is if you have some 'toys' like Bruce Brown has that can manipulate the data i think you can approach putting Humpty back together. maybe not quite all the way, but pretty close. OTOH a consumer level dsp fixing your room is not going to get there.
 
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musicfirst1

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Actually a DBA is about 95% effective and DSP with room treatment is the remaining 5% or so, all presented in round numbers of course ;)
Sorry, what's a DBA?
 

marmota

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Because state of the art is the best, of the best, of the best, and that means choosing the right speakers for the room first, not trying to fix something subpar.
There're plenty of ways to get a very flat in room bass response, such as decoupling the speaker from the floor (example: Boenicke Swing bases), using dual woofers to reduce floor bounce, use of real bass traps that work as intended such as PSI AVAA C20 and not "bass traps" that work in the lower midrange instead of the bass region, choosing a bass alignment that rolls off smoothly, such as open bafle or closed/aperiodic box...etc.

PS: the OP says: "Does DSP belong in State of the Art Systems"...I'm not saying that DSP doesn't work, but it is mid-fi. Why would you want to spend 80k on a state of the art turntable setup and 40k on state of the art digital if you run it through a box with similar parts quality and sound to a 100$ Behringer AD/DA? Cute, but mid-fi at best...
 
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cjf

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I do believe there appears to be some misunderstandings about how SOTA, modern day DSP is implemented.

There is no need to place a piece of gear in between the output of your DAC and the next piece of gear in the chain. Once the room is measured that digital measurement is altered with proper DSP/Correction software (Audiolense..etc) with a good PC that then is used to create correction filters at 24/192 or better. Those digital files are then applied to the source .wav, .flac files using convolution option in ROON or jRiver..etc. All the correction is done before the DAC even see's the signal. It could then even be upsampled to the moon from there, again, before the DAC even see's the signal.

As to re-digitizing a digital file, I don't feel this is of concern. The original file is just 1's&0's. It can be recreated endlessly and not lose any information (if it did the whole digital world would be in trouble) as long as the check sums match each time, and they should, as long as the file doesn't get corrupted. In that case you'll know it because it just won't work...period.
 

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