Great article on "Analogue Warmth"

[spiritofmusic]

The DSP experts can not solve simple problems, such as making a $500 DAC sound as a Vivaldi combo, why should we expect them to solve complex problems such as emulating a power amplifier in a reasonable time scale?

Micro, I'm afraid Blizz is in a minority of one on this one. You need to direct yr comment to him, not us.
Fascinatingly, his pitch to Ralph of Atmasphere went down the tubes (ooh!) faster than you can say "perfect sound forever".

 

[spiritofmusic]

Oh? When I was reading this thread I must confess I did lose the will to live and skip a few pages.. My bad.

Well blizzard please keep us imformed of your progress. As much as I like you I will consider it my civic duty to assassinate you before product completion... No hard feelings

Hmm, not sure if there'll be any product to complete. A bit of a wasted day out for you, Spaz.

 

[Rodney Gold]

You guys are indulging in serious argument with someone who thinks that flat at listening position is the ideal .. bwhahahah

Blizzard, nail your foot to the floor , deliver and market something other than pie in the sky , anything will do and establish your credentials and commercial success..

 

[Audiophile Bill]

You guys are indulging in serious argument with someone who thinks that flat at listening position is the ideal .. bwhahahah

Blizzard, nail your foot to the floor , deliver and market something other than pie in the sky , anything will do and establish your credentials and commercial success..

Oh good lord. Please tell me he means flat - as in no humps and bumps BUT a flat downwards slope of circa 6db-9db from 20hz to 20khz. A flat horizontal line is misery and proven so by the original research - see B&K

 

[Blizzard]

Gotta love Blizz. A leading tube amp expert tells him in no uncertain terms the boutique tube signature option can't work/won't work.
Blizz pretty much lets the comment pass, and keeps in a circular fashion repeating the mantra ANY signature can be sampled and replicated.
Waiting for that FedEx package to land on my doorstep.
Since it seems 2016 is THE year this will all happen (33 years after "perfect sound forever" was promised), I'll remain patient for 24 months - all of 2016 for the tech to become available, all of 2017 for Blizz to make the box, sample the tubes, pop it all in a bigger cardboard box, and send it over The Pond to me.

Actually he backed off when I mentioned the Hypex NC500, and started attacking DSP, saying DSP kills sound quality. But he didn't realize DSP is used at the studio for 99% of all albums these days. So I provided undeniable evidence of this, even providing download of audio tracks that utilize the best DSP circa 2015.

I like how you warp things around into a complete misleading lie.

 

[Blizzard]

Well not gonna waste time replying to all comments. But you know your on the right track when you have all the analog fans squirming

You guys are forgetting 1 important thing. I'm actually listening to this, so I know how it sounds. And your comments aren't making it sound any worse. So speculate all you want.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Well not gonna waste time replying to all comments. But you know your on the right track when you have all the analog fans squirming

You guys are forgetting 1 important thing. I'm actually listening to this, so I know how it sounds. And your comments aren't making it sound any worse. So speculate all you want.

Lol. But your reference is class d into home made speakers listening to Céline Dion.

 

[Blizzard]

Lol. But your reference is class d into home made speakers listening to Céline Dion.

When you must resort to comments like that, it proves your grasping at straws. Btw did you upgrade the cheap 70 cent clocks in your Lampi GG yet? Or I forgot, jitter doesn't matter when you use a tube output stage.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

On a more serious note. If dsp is advancing sufficiently to allow application to quad dsd (for example), this technology would be available to anyone and everyone - i.e. dedicated dsp manufacturers will be selling this software to us all - think Dirac, Acourate etc. So there is nothing to stop anyone purchasing a profile that they like for couple of hundred dollars and convolve it into their current system via their current DAC and kit. Therefore, there is no need for the amp - you do it at source.

 

[Blizzard]

On a more serious note. If dsp is advancing sufficiently to allow application to quad dsd (for example), this technology would be available to anyone and everyone - i.e. dedicated dsp manufacturers will be selling this software to us all - think Dirac, Acourate etc. So there is nothing to stop anyone purchasing a profile that they like for couple of hundred dollars and convolve it into their current system via their current DAC and kit. Therefore, there is no need for the amp - you do it at source.

I told you earlier this is the future of high end audio. You can bury your head in the sand, or realize it.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

When you must resort to comments like that, it proves your grasping at straws. Btw did you upgrade the cheap 70 cent clocks in your Lampi GG yet? Or I forgot, jitter doesn't matter when you use a tube output stage.

It was only a joke. In all seriousness, what gear have you heard that is your "reference?"

 

[Blizzard]

I don't think they are forgetting your 'actually listening' to it. They just don't credit your ears my friend.
It's not about how it sound in one place . The problem they have or at least one is the validity of its claimed replication in multiple environments that bring multiple contributing factors a few at least that can't be worked into your scheme.
One persons result then will differ to another's out side of the difference of their own perception of sound.

Sounds like a fun idea though.

These are going to be optional free profiles people can flip through, listen, and decide if they like. If they don't, they can simply bypass and enjoy phenomenal sound without coloration.

And don't think it's just my ears working on this. I have 6 different teams of the top engineers in the business working on this.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I told you earlier this is the future of high end audio. You can bury your head in the sand, or realize it.

Sorry Blizz - you are the master and commander at not answering the question. Why can't I just do myself with a Windows laptop via any old DAC once this dsp is available. I assume that you are not designing the dsp software?

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Sense as a idea for sound effects but not justification for the validity of true and repeatable emulation.

This is all his amp is doing - whether you apply the sound effects at the computer end of amp end makes no odds.

 

[Blizzard]

Sorry Blizz - you are the master and commander at not answering the question. Why can't I just do myself with a Windows laptop via any old DAC once this dsp is available. I assume that you are not designing the dsp software?

Do it then

 

[Atmasphere]

I'm not sure if the Hypex I heard at Munich was the NC500; it was enough of an embarrassment that I preferred not to give it a mention. But how can you tell what goes wrong at a show- speaker placement, room problems, who's to know?

If you can explain the best way to master an album at the studio it would be great. Some examples of processes that don't use DSP would be great as well. And don't forget we are talking about how things are done today, not how they were done back in the 60's and 70's.

This is "What's best forum" Not "What's better forum"

Also if you can find a mastering process that anyone on the planet considers better than using Pyramix and DxD, please share as well. All the worlds top studio engineers can learn something new.

Maybe look into why DxD was created in the first place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_eXtreme_Definition

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=1230


Ahh yes and some free DxD downloads. Play some back on your system with the MA-3 and let us know if the DSP processing they used killed the quality. Then keep in mind that the next gen multibit DSD DSP will be even better.


http://www.2l.no/hires/

The 'Best' way to master an album is to avoid any processing whatsoever in the mastering process itself. Warm up the lathe by running it for about 20 minutes prior to operations. Do a few test cuts to verify the stylus temperature and angle (if correct, the groove will be so quiet its noise floor will be significantly quieter than the quietest electronics). Do a test recording of level on the outside of the lacquer beyond 12". I prefer to use a good tube amplifier- they interact better with the cutterhead due to the electrical characteristics. When done, regardless of the recording source (tape or digital master file) the LP will not have needed any EQ or compression to make it happen. This will give you the most neutral recording with the lowest distortion and widest bandwidth of any format available (playing it back is a different matter). It should not go without noting that any recording from any recording process will fit within the dynamc range of an LP without compression.

This will get you the best album, which will have the longest storage life of any media on the planet. And BTW much of this is exactly how LPs are done today. As far as I know, we are the only ones using a transformerless vacuum-tube mastering system. A strength of the amp we are using is that its distortion decreases linearly to unmeasurable at lower power levels, and it happens that on any LP mastering system the cutterhead uses no more than a small fraction of the total power of the mastering amp. What that means in this case is you can't measure the distortion of the amp at the levels being asked of it to drive the cutter. FWIW, this phenomena did not exist even 2 years ago- at that time, all the mastering amps in use had a distortion character that increased below a certain minimum power (which, I might add, they have in common with all class D amps...). IOW the amps we are using can do something that class D can't- essentially no distortion at lower power levels.

I think it can... sort of. I can feed test signals of some sort into an amp when driving a test load, and I can record what happens to the signal. But here are the caveats:
1. The amp's 'signature' that the fans love so much is inextricably linked with its dynamic interaction with the speaker. This includes what the amp does when the volume is low, when high, what it does with transients. The voltage and/or current we record is only 'valid' with that speaker after its voice coil has warmed to the temperature it is during "the sweep", the ambient temperature affecting the speaker's mechanical parameters and so on. Feed the same voltages into a different speaker, or even the same one at a different temperature, and the result won't replicate what the amp would do with the new speaker. We could test at all temperatures with all models of speaker and then feed in the ambient temperature, voice coil temp etc. into the model during playback, but is this not getting out of hand somewhat? Also, simple tolerances and variations between the same model of speaker would invalidate our model.
2. No "sweep" can record everything about the amplifier. It will need to be more than just steady tones, or white noise etc. The result cannot just be a simple 2D lookup table, but must incorporate a window of previous samples in order to approximate the dynamic behaviour of the amplifier interpolated from, effectively, a hypersurface.
3. I think that with valve amps there is another factor: microphony, that is room dependent and so cannot practically be duplicated in a software simulator.

The problem you are up against as I pointed out earlier is while you can certainly model the target amplifier pretty well, you can't do that and then reproduce it without significant artifact. Class D and DSP just aren't there yet. I pointed out another issue with low level distortion in my response to Blizz above. For example if you want to model an SET, you won't be able to do it until you can sort out how to make the class D amp have no distortion at all at low power- that is something that all SETs have in common, and is part of their appeal. Class D can't do that; ergo it can't be used to model certain amps.

This BTW is why even a Hypex NC500 can't be used to model an Atma-Sphere MA-3. It can't make the low/non-existent distortion at lower power levels that the MA-3 can do with ease.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

These are going to be optional free profiles people can flip through, listen, and decide if they like. If they don't, they can simply bypass and enjoy phenomenal sound without coloration.

And don't think it's just my ears working on this. I have 6 different teams of the top engineers in the business working on this.

A standard class d amp that is then.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Do it then

Lol. I don't need to as I like my sound.

Again - not answered the question because it debunks the entire business proposition.

 

[Blizzard]

Lol. I don't need to as I like my sound.

Again - not answered the question because it debunks the entire business proposition.

Well what are you arguing for. You already have perfect sound forever at your place. I'm not sure why you keep asking me which USB interface you should swap the one in your GG out with then?

That's kinda like saying " that new $200 pioneer DAC has the ability to change filter settings, I guess that debunks having filter settings in a DAC like the DCS Vivaldi."

Complete nonsense.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Well what are you arguing for. You already have perfect sound forever at your place. I'm not sure why you keep asking me which USB interface you should swap the one in your GG out with then?

My sound is good but not perfect. If swapping in a $95 USB interface improves it, then why not.

Anyway - let us get back to our elephant in the room again - the business model is defunct since we can all do this (if we wanted) with our PC or existing servers. Unless, as I keep asking, you are the creator of this advanced dsp technology - no - thought not.