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Thread: Mind gymnastics

  1. #11
    Join Date: Aug 2009

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    Quote Originally Posted by magiccarpetride View Post
    Interesting. But if it is indeed that simple, why so much discrepancy between different players? You'd expect that a simple thing produces predictable, easily reproducible output?
    Voicing- people don't want neutral, on the whole - and standard of engineering. The signal may be simple but it isn't difficult to ruin it on its way from storage medium to sound pressure waves.
    Current Lash Up:

    TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.

  2. #12
    Join Date: May 2010

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    Quote Originally Posted by Macca View Post
    Voicing- people don't want neutral, on the whole - and standard of engineering. The signal may be simple but it isn't difficult to ruin it on its way from storage medium to sound pressure waves.
    So what you're saying is that different players are purposefully designed to alter the simple signal?
    Don't you just hate it when you cannot detect where the post ends and a signature line begins?

    Alex.

  3. #13
    Join Date: Aug 2009

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    I'm Martin.

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    Quote Originally Posted by magiccarpetride View Post
    So what you're saying is that different players are purposefully designed to alter the simple signal?
    Yes of course they are.
    Current Lash Up:

    TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.

  4. #14
    Join Date: May 2010

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    Quote Originally Posted by Macca View Post
    Yes of course they are.
    Why would they want to spoil the broth? It's like buying a TV that overlays colours over the original movies. That's crap.
    Don't you just hate it when you cannot detect where the post ends and a signature line begins?

    Alex.

  5. #15
    Join Date: Aug 2009

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    It's more like slightly tweaking the colour or the brightness on your tv, to your individual taste.

    There's a difference between presentation and quality. If you take CD players, they are mostly voiced one way or another. They also differ widely on how well they are engineered where it matters (power supply and the analogue output stage). The voicing determines the presentation, the engineering determines the quality of the sound.

    So even if you prefer the voicing of Marantz to say, Sony, your still going to acknowledge that a heavily engineered Sony sounds better than a cost cut-engineered Marantz player. I mean I prefer the Sony voicing but I'd still take a flagship Marantz over a budget Sony any day.

    I think conflating presentation and quality leads to a lot of needless arguments on forums.
    Current Lash Up:

    TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.

  6. #16
    Join Date: May 2010

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    I'm Alex.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Macca View Post
    It's more like slightly tweaking the colour or the brightness on your tv, to your individual taste.

    There's a difference between presentation and quality. If you take CD players, they are mostly voiced one way or another. They also differ widely on how well they are engineered where it matters (power supply and the analogue output stage). The voicing determines the presentation, the engineering determines the quality of the sound.

    So even if you prefer the voicing of Marantz to say, Sony, your still going to acknowledge that a heavily engineered Sony sounds better than a cost cut-engineered Marantz player. I mean I prefer the Sony voicing but I'd still take a flagship Marantz over a budget Sony any day.

    I think conflating presentation and quality leads to a lot of needless arguments on forums.
    That's a great point, I'll keep that in mind. Every day is educational...
    Don't you just hate it when you cannot detect where the post ends and a signature line begins?

    Alex.

  7. #17
    Join Date: Apr 2015

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    I had this idea years ago, not exactly the same, but your idea reminded me of it.
    So what if you feed the output of a low output moving coil cartridge directly to an A/D converter. Without any modification, just digitize it. Then, add a few zeros to the numbers, to crank up the volume in the digital domain, perform your RIAA in the digital, and then feed it out to a DAC. I thought I may be onto something, but I think that may be how the newest PS Audio phono pre works? I’m not sure exactly what goes on inside the PS Audio box, but I think it’s got an A/D in it. It really is hard to have an original idea these days.

    Years ago, before Digital was invented, I thought of a music card. A plastic film, that would have a zig zag path on it that would be dark and light, working exactly like the soundtrack on the edge of a roll of movie film. But instead of moving the plastic card, use a cathode ray to go back and forth, just as it does in a picture tube, and follow the zig zag path on the card, shining through it onto a large photo receptor, and it would play music with no moving parts. But of course digital has removed any need for such a device.

    Russell

  8. #18
    Join Date: Aug 2008

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    I'm Paul.

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    Quote Originally Posted by magiccarpetride View Post
    OK, here is some mental gymnastics for you:

    Considering that the only purpose of placing a vinyl disc onto a platter that is spinning at 33/4 rotations per minute is to agitate the cantilever whose motions generate electrical signal inside the body of a cartridge, wouldn't it be better if we'd design a sophisticated robotic hand to instigate such motions?

    Instead of the blueprint of the recording being stored inside the microgrooves, we could store the blueprint digitally. After all, the vinyl blueprint is merely telling the cantilever when and how to move. Once we agitate the cantilever to move according to the specs, its motion will result in electrical signal which is then transmitted to the phono preamp etc. etc.

    The advantage of this hypothetical solution is that we would completely eliminate the relatively brittle signal carrier -- vinyl disc. No wear and tear anymore. And the robotic hand movement will be analog, thus avoiding issues with digital conversion (DAC).

    Best of both worlds? But is it doable? Is there an engineering hero who can walk on water and part the red sea and make such an amazing little robot?
    If have understood this correctly isn’t this similar to what a speaker does when powered by a class D amplifier? Discrete changes in voltage at a specific time interval cause a transducer to effectively turn a digital signal into an analogue one without a digital conversion taken place per se.

    You could also say this is what a DAC does as the output is actually a facsimile of an analogue signal made up of discrete voltages outputted at a specific frequency.

    I like the idea, even if it is a bit Steampunk-like compared to what is already done.

    I also like the other idea of an algorithm to look at the digital signal before and after the actual point to be converted and to try to learn how to fill in the gaps between samples. (if I have understood correctly). The current solution to do this a brute force increase in bit depth and sampling rate.

    Of course we could always just have an analogue signal accurately traced into a groove and get the information off by a mechanical means. Effectively unlimited sample rate and bit depth if a bit truncated.
    ~Paul~

  9. #19
    Join Date: Apr 2012

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    I'm Geoff.

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    Quote Originally Posted by alphaGT View Post
    Years ago, before Digital was invented, I thought of a music card. A plastic film, that would have a zig zag path on it that would be dark and light, working exactly like the soundtrack on the edge of a roll of movie film. But instead of moving the plastic card, use a cathode ray to go back and forth, just as it does in a picture tube, and follow the zig zag path on the card, shining through it onto a large photo receptor, and it would play music with no moving parts. But of course digital has removed any need for such a device.

    Russell
    Didn't Philips (was it Philips?) have a similar idea with laser discs? A stylus tracking the groove but not reading it and laser reflections collecting the signal info. That was non-digital if I recall. This may have been a video system, I don't recollect.

  10. #20
    Join Date: Feb 2013

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    I'm Grant.

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    Think that was philips analogue optical audio disc..was quite big
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