Playing with RCA vs Balanced in my setup

[Marco]

Indeed, and since we're talking about what's relevant to the forum's ethos, it's worth copying this bit from Paul Stewart, in reference to scientific endeavour:

When I was doing research into "Infra bass and perceptions of reality in sound staging", which followed on from something Graham Holiman started. We found that a lot of what we did was indeed measurable, but a lot of what the large group of test subjects perceived was not, both they and us the crew could hear the effect, without going into the full details of something thing that is a large corporations Intellectual property, I will say it took almost three years to work out what was actually going on.

So when someone says they can hear what I can't measure, or I can hear it myself, my approach is to accept that people very probably, can detect the effect, then look for a new way in which this can be measured. That for me is proper exploring science. The closed minded "if I can't measure it, it isn't there" approach is not the attitude that made scientific advances, it's what has held science back.

....which is why ears are ultimately more important than measurements, and why 'scientific facts' are sometimes only ever as good as our currently established learning dictates.

Therefore, such 'facts' [one could also say 'truths'] are movable objects, thus may require updating, whenever new information becomes available which, after rigorous testing as proving conclusive, renders them as obsolete.

Marco.

[brucew268]

That last example should be pinned somewhere sticky!

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Marco]

It's all in the Our Ethos section, Bruce (post #9), along with your earlier erudite contribution, here: http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...999#post857999



Marco.

[brucew268]

My earlier 'contribution' could probably use some tidying work, but thanks for the nod!
BTW: It is said sometimes that engineering is applied science. Yet, some engineers can fall into a foreclosed attitude that loses the scientific spirit of discovering knowledge and says that all scientific knowledge has already been discovered. In fact, the scientist finds patterns for which existing knowledge does not yet cover and then devises theories and experiments to test those theories and new correlations between measurement and experience. It is helpful if an engineer does not live in a world of foreclosed knowledge but keeps a bit of the scientific spirit and method, and the humility and discovery that go with them!

[Marco]

My earlier 'contribution' could probably use some tidying work, but thanks for the nod!

No problem, feel free to PM me any adjustments you'd like made and I'll sort it.

BTW: It is said sometimes that engineering is applied science. Yet, some engineers can fall into a foreclosed attitude that loses the scientific spirit of discovering knowledge and says that all scientific knowledge has already been discovered. In fact, the scientist finds patterns for which existing knowledge does not yet cover and then devises theories and experiments to test those theories and new correlations between measurement and experience. It is helpful if an engineer does not live in a world of foreclosed knowledge but keeps a bit of the scientific spirit and method, and the humility and discovery that go with them!

We are 100% on the same page

As Paul wrote earlier:

So when someone says they can hear what I can't measure, or I can hear it myself, my approach is to accept that people very probably, can detect the effect, then look for a new way in which this can be measured.

For me, there's precious too little of that approach coming from those on forums purporting to be 'scientifically minded', and WAY too much of the opposite!

Not *every* existing scientific fact is a conclusive 'done deal', especially when applied to a subject, such as audio, and more specifically, how we as humans listen, in terms of the ear/brain relationship, when processing how music sounds when reproduced by a hi-fi system, as it contains so many 'grey areas', some of which I believe call into question the validity of certain supposed 'facts' that many of us are often guilty of taking for granted.

Being an electronics engineer means that you're professionally trained and qualified to build electronic equipment. It doesn't, however, entitle you to judge what someone hears with whatever you've built, which may or may not align what you've been trained to consider as fact.

Marco.

[Qwin]

I understand your good intentions guys, but the fact remains and has certain commercial and legal implications, for me and more importantly people who have used any of my ideas in their commercial products or published literature. I don't think anyone would be concerned about the ownership of the actual text document in a general conversation. But describing how to do, or achieve or even what something looks like, is a designers bread and butter and what he is selling on to his clients. If they were to be faced with a scenario where the property was not mine to sell, or even give permission to use for free, due to a change of ownership, prior to our agreement, it could get messy.

This is the very reason I don't use any of the on line Photo/storage services, but instead hot link to images/info stored on my own website.

Most of what I post is general hobby stuff, but several things I have put forward here are, with my permission, in commercial products/literature now.
That leaves me and them in a legally vulnerable position, regardless of what you say you would or would not do.

It will effect which things I choose to share in the future.

[Marco]

Most of what I post is general hobby stuff, but several things I have put forward here are, with my permission, in commercial products/literature now.
That leaves me and them in a legally vulnerable position, regardless of what you say you would or would not do.

It will effect which things I choose to share in the future.

No problem, Ken. That's just basic common sense/common knowledge though, on Internet content, and so I'm surprised you hadn't realised that.

Similar circumstances arise, on an a somewhat less important level, when you see some folk refer to a discussion they've started as "my thread", and proceed to insist that what's subsequently posted there aligns with their original wishes.

It's of course no such thing: the thread belongs to the forum, and therefore it 'owns' the content, which simply becomes what the subsequent posts of the collective membership make it.

The only time that doesn't apply is with adverts posted in the classifieds section, where threads are strictly moderated to remain on-topic and in the best interests of the OP.

Marco.

[Joe]

On any forum, you are essentially at the mercy of the owner/moderators. They will always have the last word. The point is not to be too precious about what you post. If you find the idea of your posts being deleted too terrible to bear, set up your own forum, because that's the only way to guarantee they won't be.

[Marco]

On any forum, you are essentially at the mercy of the owner/moderators. They will always have the last word.

And rightly so, as they're often paying handsomely for providing YOU with the privilege of posting there!

It's amazing how some don't seem to 'get' that fact, and bizarrely consider instead that they're entitled to behave how they want, whilst causing owners and moderators as much aggro as possible.

Btw, that's just a general point and not aimed at anyone specific.

However, if you want to have the last word, then you have to EARN that right - and the only way of achieving that, is to start your own forum. If anyone here thinks that they're entitled to the last word, then please send me your Paypal details, so I can bill you for the site's (ever-increasing) running costs!

The point is not to be too precious about what you post. If you find the idea of your posts being deleted too terrible to bear, set up your own forum, because that's the only way to guarantee they won't be.

Very true.

Marco.

[RothwellAudio]

Take the Cambridge Dacmagic as an example.
The XLR output sounds better than the Phono (From experience).
This is because the output is a balanced circuit.
The single ended output uses an additional op amp per channel to combine the two parts of the balanced signal.
So what you hear is an improvement due to avoiding a pair of additional op amps not needed on the balanced outputs.

OP's DAC may be similar.

Not withstanding Jez's comment that if designed as a single ended in the first place, it may have fewer op amps any way.

*So my experience is that one form of output will sound better than the other, dependant on circuit topology, the type of cable/connector type makes sod all difference.

Are you sure about that Cambridge Dacmagic? Do you have a circuit diagram? It would be very unusual to use more op-amps on the single-ended outputs than the balanced outputs.

I didn't realise that balanced equipment may mean single ended internally until the point of connection and then employ transformers or a multi op amp circuit to give a balanced output/input.

With the deepest respect I felt he was misconstrued in this case.
We NEED guys like Jez here!

Not so much "may mean single-ended internally until the point of connection...", more like "nearly always...".
Yes, I think Jez was misconstrued in this case too. I don't think Jez was making any comment on what anyone has heard with balanced or unbalanced connections, more taking issue with the conclusions drawn. I have similar feelings about drawing conclusions from such non-rigorous tests. Consider this analogy:
I state that "air conditioning in cars makes them go faster". Most people say I'm talking nonsense and it can't be true. Turns out that all the cars I've driven that do have air conditioning go faster than the cars I've driven that don't have air conditioning. That may be true, but the conclusions I'm drawing are invalid.

Anyway, I don't take issue with people's subjective observations and don't instantly deny their observations have any validity, but I am a lot more sceptical if they draw sweeping conclusions without any more rigorous tests or analyses.