Great article on "Analogue Warmth"
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OT nut this needed to come off my chest
Really? In video comparisons can be made rather easily. Pause. Watch pictures and literally "see" and/or measure. No such things in Audio so it is always a battle.. Any tests that would support your views? I have followed Video some and if you go to most forums very few to no Analog stalwarts. Hardcore videophiles are all over Digital to an extent that there is virtually no one making CRT projector anymore...
As for the Rolls ... It is more a Status Symbol not a High Tech machine. For that see Tela S or any model...
As for the Citroen DS-21 in its days it might have been Head and Shoulders over almost any other cars but right now .. It is thoroughly trashed by too many modern day cars in a way that is pitiful... I dreamed of owning one by the tie I coudl afford it was no longer interested ... I drive a car with most of its technology dating back 30 years although mince is fairly new a MB G-350 Blutec ... It has its charms but the Range Rover or Lexus G470 are by a mile, much better cars with the Lexus seemingly never needing to go to the Repair Shop .. The G-Wagen ? Ask any G owner about its seats control after a year or two: they either don't work or works haphazardly... You push the button to move the seat in front it moves down the headrest only or the back of the seat reclines .. your memory settings? Rear view moves anyway it wants. The AC? It depends how it feels about the day of the week 'cause it can quit at any time.. yet ...I love it (The G-Wagon) still
Frantz, I get yr thoughts. This doesn't deny the fact that the DS had, and still has, the greatest ride quality of all time. Hydraulics to control steering/suspension/braking/gear change, was truly a paradigm shift. Rolls could go w/any system, but bought the patent from Citroen, and have thrown a lot of cash at it making it bulletproof.
I dare you to choose a Tesla over a Rolls.
In a few years time, I'll fit an electric engine in my Citroen, and will get the best of all worlds, modern engine w/unmatched user comfort.
Barco PJs today CANNOT compare w/Barco's of yesteryear. My Barco is built to the same bank vault quality found in the pro Studers and ATRs all the rage w/the cognescenti on WBF. Just no contest.
Digital projectors cannot produce the black and white levels of CRT, and there is next to no Blu Ray frame judder on my CRT compared to many digitals, that make you think the cameraman is drunk shooting the movie.
Ability to get useful performance out of a small box goes a long way to explain why CRT died, not made easier by CRTs beyond-complex installation proceedure - mine took 3 days to fix and calibrate!
My point is that I love new tech - Blu Ray, dsd, but I will defend established analog tech to my dying day. The maturity of the tech, build quality, and true pride of ownership, make CRT still viable today, tubes a unique and irreplaceable alternative to mass market SS, vinyl an event in itself etc etc. Even a lowly format like laserdisc can be stellar thru a cost no object SOTA Pioneer HLD X0, often looking more vibrant than the equivalent dvd's (which have a superior spec all 'round).
The polarity of the human condition in one sentence.
I'm with you Rodney, I think I may have to be buried in my Citroen DS. It gets beaten roundly on the usual boring checklist, but no other car brings more of a smile to my face when I drive.
At this point, I suspect Blizz is thinking of having us committed - I mean a Ford Focus is newer, it MUST be better - just why can't we see this?
Of course you would never try it because you're trembling with fear from the thought that a cheap software program may enable a cheap chipless DSD DAC to outperform your precious $56k Trinity.
BTW, in 2018, I'll buy the Trinity off you for $500
I'm thinking it would make a good DAC for my garage system
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The Trinity doesn't 'fix' anything, it just strives for implementation as close as possible to theory.
The nasties that you heard with other DACs were imperfections of implementation, deviating from theory.
You pointed the finger on it yourself: "...then there are other inherent issues somewhere in the PCM stew".
Look what has popped up all the sudden Lots of timing coincidences going on around here. First with Lampi updating the USB interface on their DAC's, then Lampi changing from Linux being crap and Windows being king for audio, to Linux being king and Windows crap, and now this:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...er-and-Stereo-Amplifiers-Feedback-Poll-needed
Perhaps people from the industry are reading the threads around here.
Lots of timing coincidences going on around here. First with Lampi updating the USB interface on their DAC's, then Lampi changing from Linux being crap and Windows being king for audio, to Linux being king and Windows crap, and now this:http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...er-and-Stereo-Amplifiers-Feedback-Poll-needed
Perhaps people from the industry are reading the threads around here.
That's one of the beauties of manufacturers building their audio gear to be disposable. Makes for great deals on the used market place if a guy is okay with being a year or 2 behind.
Regarding the "sampling step is perfect", he simply means that the amplitude of the analogue waveform at the moment of sampling is captured exactly. He goes on to point out that this then has to be expressed as the nearest digital numeric value - "rounded up or down". He later shows how dither is used to render the "rounding error" moot.
But I believe what you are trying to understand is how sampling at intervals can capture what happens in between the sample times. For this, you need to understand, or at least accept the correctness of, the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem
Take a moment to understand the first couple of paragraphs of that article.
You pick the highest frequency you are interested in accurately capturing.
You sample at more than twice that frequency.
When converting the samples back to analogue, you apply a "reconstruction" filter with a sinc characteristic. It generates a smooth curve. As Monty's video shows at about the 07:00 mark, this is the only curve that exactly fits the digital data points - and matches the original analogue waveform.
One thing I always find amusing is how distortion is assigned to tubes as if they are more distorted than transistors.
This is in the face of the acknowledged linearity of triodes. The 12AX7 is especially linear... and in practice tube preamps tend to be extremely low distortion if properly designed. Many preamps in the pro audio world, designed in the last 25 years or so are intentionally built to make much more distortion than the tubes used in them would normally make, IOW they are being built as effects boxes.
That does not have to be the case by any means. Suffice to say I don't agree with everything touted in the article that was the source of this thread.
This is in the face of the acknowledged linearity of triodes. The 12AX7 is especially linear... and in practice tube preamps tend to be extremely low distortion if properly designed. Many preamps in the pro audio world, designed in the last 25 years or so are intentionally built to make much more distortion than the tubes used in them would normally make, IOW they are being built as effects boxes.
That does not have to be the case by any means. Suffice to say I don't agree with everything touted in the article that was the source of this thread.
It would be interesting to see if the technology I've been talking about will have the ability to exactly emulate the MA-3. Do you think this is possible with advanced DSP combined with SOTA class D power?
It will be nice to get an unbiased opinion from a professional in the industry on the matter.
I am not Ralph obviously, but I don't think you can emulate the amp. You may or may not emulate the audible sound, but the MA3 has 600 v/ usec slew rates and a -3 db bandwidth probably approaching 1 mhz. I don't know of current class D amps that have that kind of bandwidth. Which means complete emulation won't be possible currently.
If your emulating amp is quieter, lower distortion, higher power and wider bandwidth emulation is possible. Otherwise it won't work. A gray area is audible emulation. Since some gear exceeds the ear's limitations, a limited emulation within that performance envelope might be possible as long as the emulating and emulated amps exceed the ear. A stickier wicket on where to draw the lines in such a case however.
Also keen to hear Ralph's thoughts on turning a D class into an A class by emulation.
I'd have thought the problem isn't just about adding the characteristic artifacts of the SET but rather being able to get rid of the artifacts of the class d. No system is transparent. Each has a characteristic cocktail of distortions.
Surely what an amp can completely emulate is confined to the limits of the characteristics of the amp's differing processes.
You can sample a violin but when you play it back by using
a keyboard it never really completely sounds like a person playing a violin, it is limited by the different process of a player using a keyboard emulating a player using bow on string.
I'd have thought the problem isn't just about adding the characteristic artifacts of the SET but rather being able to get rid of the artifacts of the class d. No system is transparent. Each has a characteristic cocktail of distortions.
Surely what an amp can completely emulate is confined to the limits of the characteristics of the amp's differing processes.
You can sample a violin but when you play it back by using
a keyboard it never really completely sounds like a person playing a violin, it is limited by the different process of a player using a keyboard emulating a player using bow on string.
Well many claim a class D amp like the Mola Mola Kaluga is theoretically the perfect amplifier. If this is true, what it means is if any other amplifier sounds different, it's due to coloration's being introduced. If those coloration's are emulated with a level of precision that far surpasses the ability of human hearing, I can't see why any amp that adds coloration can't be emulated. If the amp that's being emulated has no coloration's, then the sound should be indistinguishable from listening to the amp with the emulation profile bypassed.
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