Transparency vs "Symphonic coloration" in modern DAC gear.

[c1ferrari]

The old way of hardware based voicing is going to be a thing of the past.

For one's attention: 716 views short of 1,000,000. Over 7,300 replies.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/463010-reason-most-itb-mixes-dona-t-sound-good-analog-mixes-restored.html

 

[c1ferrari]

Yes that's the premium one that's DSD 256 compatible.

Oh, thanks...again! Now, gotta figure out how Hapi will interface with the Grace m905.

 

[Blizzard]

Oh, thanks...again! Now, gotta figure out how Hapi will interface with the Grace m905.

I think the best way to use the Hapi is in combination with Pyramix. Then you shouldn't need your Grace m905 anymore.

 

[c1ferrari]

I think the best way to use the Hapi is in combination with Pyramix. Then you shouldn't need your Grace m905 anymore.

But I just got it!
If Nadac had more analog balanced inputs over XLR, I may have gone in that direction.
I'll study up on Pyramix.

 

[Blizzard]

But I just got it!
If Nadac had more analog balanced inputs over XLR, I may have gone in that direction.
I'll study up on Pyramix.

You mean Hapi?

You can always get Horus if 8 (16 if only 2 ADC boards used) channels of balanced XLR inputs isn't enough.

 

[c1ferrari]

I'll get back to 'ya, Blizzard!

 

[Blizzard]

I'll get back to 'ya, Blizzard!

Excellent, if you buy one make sure to share all the details with us

 

[wisnon]

I guess David W Robinson and Jan-Eric Persson are either deaf or liars then.

View attachment 22965

LoL

I thought you were a measurements guy? Now you resort to middele aged men's ears??

Of course they report what they hear, but that does not mean 100% transparency exists. if it did, you could repeat the process 1 million times and get no signal depreciation whatsoever. Still brave enuff to claim that?

 

[wisnon]

Daniel I believe , doesn't think much of DSD as a format compared to PCM, but as you say marketing calls for it.
Keith.

I dont really care what he thinks, i care what the bulk of people do. DSD didnt become popular because of marketing....there was a HUGE market demand before products were available and that is why the Mytek sold so much. at one point it was the only game in town and they NEVER had a huge marketing budget. A year or 2 after the market interest exploded, the bug guns like Sony started to roll out product and indeed Internet content providers are still in start up mode.

It was the PS3 ripping that got people motivated. Once people heard what DSD64 could do, the train left the station. Remember, MANY titles are ONLY available in RCBD and lossy formats except for SACD, which can be ripped to get the only hires version.

Oh, and after tasting DSD128 and 256, feel free to close the gate after the horse has bolted. LoL

 

[wisnon]

A major problem in your question, I think, is that 'transparent' is a qualitative term. It is subjective. As such, it will be defined differently by different people. An audio equipment engineer needs a quantitative definition of transparent in order to engineer transparency in to a product. He/she needs a set of numerical specifications to meet. The assumption here, of course, is that meeting some set of numerical specifications will produce subjectively transparent sound. But, will it? Many components today deliver nearly perfect specifications, yet often fall well short of sounding like real instruments, or, more importantly, communicating emotion. If the subjective system result is clinical sounding, what has been achieved? If the original musical event was not clinical sounding, yet the electronic reproduction by equipment having nearly perfect specifications so often is, might it be valid to view this clinical sounding reproduction as being colored in some respect? After all, music is not appreciated by lab equipment, it is only appreciated by human beings. If an serious audio system does not musically communicate joy, or sadness, or some emotions which can't even be described with words, what exactly is it's purpose?

My experience is that the gift of music is it's ability to communicate emotions in a way that no other human medium can. Music doesn't simply tell the listener the emotions of the musician or of the composer, it can cause the listener to actually experience those emotions for themselves. This being the true gift of music leads me to conclude that emotional communication is the first requirement of any serious audio system. If some form of qualitative coloration is involved in conveying emotional communication, especially at affordable price points, then so be it. I feel that highest form of home audio reproduction occurs when a system seamlessly merges emotional communication with subjective transparency (the lack of percieved coloration or obstruction). In this too rare case, there is not the dichotomous choice of emotional communication or transparency of presentation that is dictated by the great majority of audio gear.

I feel that gear which only delivers objective transparency (excellent specifications) occupy the bottom most rung of the musical satisfaction ladder for a serious audio system. Next up that ladder is subjective transparency. Subjectively transparent systems are often interesting to listen to at first, even sounding like live instruments playing, but eventually, they become surprisingly uninteresting for their lack of emotional communication. One might think that a transparent sound would naturally also convey emotion effectively, but for some odd reason this often seems not to be the case. Next up the ladder is emotional communication, which I feel is the lowest acceptable level of performance for any serious audio system. Finally, at the top, is emotional communication combined with subjective transparency. These rare systems not only often sound like live instruments playing, they consistently move the soul as well. The technology simply fades away from concious awareness, and what's left is the music. No restless analyzing of th sound. No distractions. This is the audio system holy grail in my view.

Agreed. I really like this BALANCED response from Dr Earl Lee:

http://www.dagogo.com/an-interview-with-dr-earl-geddes-of-gedlee-llc

LB: An issue that engenders a great deal of ill will in the high-end audio community is the role of measurements. On the one hand are those who feel that measurements are indispensable and tell the entire story, while on the other are those who believe that measurements are of limited utility, and that all that matters is “how it sounds.” One of your important findings is that the perception of nonlinear distortion does not correlate with commonly used metrics of distortion, thus apparently lending support to the latter group. However, a strong correlation was found with the “GedLee metric.” Please tell us more about this.

EG: I have always thought that if someone’s measurements do not “tell the whole story” then they are the wrong measurements. Technology has simply come too far to believe that “there are things that we cannot measure.” I have also never believed that all that matters is “how it sounds,” because this is such an unstable and personal opinion. Sound quality opinions can and will differ from person to person, system to system and most importantly even within the same person on different days (as I said before, I have personally witnessed this in well regarded “reviewers”). Personal preferences have such a low stability as to be an almost completely pointless thing to stake a claim to. “Hi-Fi” does not mean “pleasant” — it means “accurate”; accuracy, as opposed to preference, is absolutely quantifiable and extremely stable – as stable as I care to control in my lab from day to day or test to test (but in any case its uncertainty is easy to quantify and understand). Decisions based on accuracy are therefore much more likely to be valid than decisions based on “how it sounds.” I do not see how one could ever support a position that “preference” trumps “accuracy.” That’s simply taking a giant step backwards in the evolution of Hi-Fi.

I am not saying that measurements are infallible, and I don’t believe that measurements are likely to ever be 100% reliable, but that does not mean that we cannot obtain measurements that are far better than the unstable subjective opinions that are so often relied upon. One has to know what measures are important and to what degree of resolution we need to know the results to be meaningful. What I see most people do are either the wrong things or not accurate enough to “tell the story.” And there are some things that I think are crucial to sound quality that are not measured by anyone I know of (myself excluded) at the present time.

All too often audio measurements are taken as an all or nothing proposition – “they aren’t perfect or completely reliable so why take them? I know what I hear so why not just listen and evaluate?” It is necessary to understand the importance of what you are measuring in the final analysis and how any particular aberration enters into the whole. An aberration at 12 kHz is not the same as an aberration at 3 kHz. Good measurements are all about finding those things to measure that matter, focusing on those and optimizing the design for the important things at the sake of the lesser importance ones. It is not always easy to know how these tradeoffs are to be made and that is where psychoacoustics comes in. The measurements that I usually see done certainly do not tell the whole story, they tend to be woefully inadequate.

One other problem with “listening tests” is what many designers and researchers have come to know as “acclimation.” We know that listeners will get used to or acclimated to a particular sound signature and that this signature then gets imprinted on their expectation. Expectation is a powerful bias in perception, maybe too powerful. This expectation problem tends to stunt the growth of real improvements because they can be counter to expectation. Accurate reproduction can often make a favorite sound recording be perceived as less than the expectation. This is then put down as a “flaw,” which may not be the case. Once the masses become acclimated to a particular sound signature it can be very difficult to change them from this path. I find this all the time with my speakers. They don’t sound like other speakers, yet I can prove that they are objectively more accurate. Over time my customers and I have come to appreciate the open and transparent sound that accuracy provides. Now all other speakers sound colored and distorted. One could argue that we have all become “acclimated” to the sound signature of our loudspeakers, but at least this signature can objectively be shown to be free from CERTAIN significant sonic aberrations. If you are going to get acclimated to a particular sound, then it only makes sense to get acclimated to the most accurate one.

Our study of distortion showed not only that what was being measured was the wrong thing, but that if you added some psychoacoustics to the situation one could develop a measurement that did correlate with perception. This result is completely consistent with I have been saying here – if your measurements don’t work then fix them. But don’t claim that something “can’t be measured.” That’s just a cop-out to doing the real work of finding which measurements matter and which ones don’t.

 

[wisnon]

So why doesn't he improve his PCM then? I thought the Lampi Level 4 was better

Well, the fellow that bought the L6 locally didn't have DSD when he switched from the Weiss...it was a PCM only comparison.

 

[wisnon]

I totally agree. This is why I'm interested in building a system so transparent, that it can be tweaked in the digital domain to replicate exactly the sound profile that the end user has the best connection with.

The old way of hardware based voicing is going to be a thing of the past.

And I already told you what it would cost in a 2012 costing environment. I have been discussing this same point, along with SD card playback since then.

I can say withpout any likely chance of contradition that what you postulate is STILL extremely expensive, in the order of 10x the price of "old hardware" that already does the job.

You are rminding me of the old joke of the high powered Consultant on vacation talking to the local fisherman and telling him how he could turn around his business with Corp. re-engineering strategies. Whe the fisherman ask why, he was told so he could make millions, sell the business and retire to an idyllic life of sailing and fishing. He simply told the Consultant that he already HAD all that and without all the proposed re-engineering hassle that would rob years of his life!

 

[Blizzard]

LoL

I thought you were a measurements guy? Now you resort to middele aged men's ears??

Of course they report what they hear, but that does not mean 100% transparency exists. if it did, you could repeat the process 1 million times and get no signal depreciation whatsoever. Still brave enuff to claim that?

Just because I like transparent DAC's doesn't mean I'm a measurement guy. What I said it you'll usually find transparent DAC's measure well.

Well Bruce was there as well. Maybe he can chime in. If those guys can't tell the difference, I doubt a general enthusiast can. I'm pretty sure Jan knows his master tapes very well. He's been listening to some of them since 1976. And he recorded them.

 

[Blizzard]

And I already told you what it would cost in a 2012 costing environment. I have been discussing this same point, along with SD card playback since then.

I can say withpout any likely chance of contradition that what you postulate is STILL extremely expensive, in the order of 10x the price of "old hardware" that already does the job.

You are rminding me of the old joke of the high powered Consultant on vacation talking to the local fisherman and telling him how he could turn around his business with Corp. re-engineering strategies. Whe the fisherman ask why, he was told so he could make millions, sell the business and retire to an idyllic life of sailing and fishing. He simply told the Consultant that he already HAD all that and without all the proposed re-engineering hassle that would rob years of his life!

Okay I'm convinced. Achieving transparency is impossible, and we are going to stay in the dark ages for eternity. Is that what you were looking for?

Luckily not everyone thinks that way or we would still be living in caves and swinging from tree to tree. Likely wouldn't have even discovered fire yet.

 

[DaveC]

Earl Geddes has done a lot of great work and I agree with most of what he says but the next to last paragraph is ironic because he must have gotten used to the sound of mediocre compression drivers and prefers them over others even though they sound only ok to me, they are not really high fidelity imo. He says "Now all other speakers sound colored and distorted." but I think there are many drivers that perform at a much higher level than the compression drivers he favors. Is this a case where measurements have failed? I think so... and it is a perfect illustration of acclimation imo. It makes me wonder if has heard other speakers that are also technically excellent like TAD, if he had he may change his mind about all other speakers sounding colored and distorted as I think TAD (just for example) performs at a far higher level than any GedLee speaker.

 

[wisnon]

DaveC, that may be so in the instant case, but as you said his main point is valid and NOT EVEN HE IS IMMUNE TO THE PITFALLS.

Why measure, what to measure, how to measure and finally how to interpret the whole thing is the crux of the issue. In the end, what do we want to achieve?

 

[wisnon]

Okay I'm convinced. Achieving transparency is impossible, and we are going to stay in the dark ages for eternity. Is that what you were looking for?

Luckily not everyone thinks that way or we would still be living in caves and swinging from tree to tree. Likely wouldn't have even discovered fire yet.

Prometheus,

I never said that. I said while it is impossible to have 100%, 99.9% may not be impossible and may be sufficient for your purposes. However, as of 2012, the costs wer astronomical and only available to the top 1% of the 1%. Now, you contend that advances have gotten this down to the sub $20K level...I remain to be convinced.

 

[Blizzard]

Prometheus,

I never said that. I said while it is impossible to have 100%, 99.9% may not be impossible and may be sufficient for your purposes. However, as of 2012, the costs wer astronomical and only available to the top 1% of the 1%. Now, you contend that advances have gotten this down to the sub $20K level...I remain to be convinced.

Imposing limits based on what others have accomplished, definitely won't get me there that's for sure.

 

[wisnon]

Imposing limits based on what others have accomplished, definitely won't get me there that's for sure.

True enough Blizz. I do wish you well on your quest.

 

[c1ferrari]

Excellent, if you buy one make sure to share all the details with us

Thanks, Blizzard -- I have an engine out service due on my car...hmm -- engine out service...better digital