Half-a-brain loonies and internet geeks

[Marco]

Make it quiet, yet one of the biggest bug bears regarding computer audio (from Mac and PC) was due to power supplies introducing noise into the mains, and operating systems running tasks in backgrounds. Do you also remember early attempts of computer audio with valve circuits in motherboards? Inside a computer (MAC or PC) used to be regarded as a pretty poor place for audio circuitry in the past.

Great points, Steve; highly relevant, and often overlooked by the pro-computer audio fraternity... Switch-mode PSUs, widely used in computers, are not in my experience in any way 'hi-fi friendly' - quite the opposite in fact, they're as 'noisy' as hell. No discerning hi-fi designer would feature them in any of his (or her) designs, and equally, I suspect that no discerning audiophile/enthusiast would use equipment featuring one in their system. I certainly wouldn't.

Jeez, at this rate it looks like I should just put my dinner in the bin!



Marco.

P.S Tim, Steve (Toy) is absolutely correct in his assessment of our earlier situation.

[anthonyTD]

Thing is with measuring things is that we would expect the things that come out well in test to sound the best but that is rarely true.
If we consider the "perfect" amplifier it will produce a signal at it's output that is identical to the signal at it's input in every characteristec except amplitude. Put simply the output is the same as the input but bigger. All amplifiers should be theoretically capable of doing this and under test will all show a similar (in scientific terms) Total harmonic distortion. Yet there are monumental differences in amplifier performance so there has to be something in there that can not be measured, there also has to be a degree of distortion (difference between input and output) that can be beneficial - the thing that adds character if you like. What is true for amplifiers is no doubt true for any other component. I know there are many other parameters eg slew rates, transient current, damping factor etc but hopefully you get my drift.
I guess what I am trying to say is that what may be scientifically superior may not be audibly superior, particularly when it is so hard to replicate real life in a lab environment.
I will continue to trust my ears, keep an open mind and respect other people's opinions and choices as long as they coincide with my own thoughts :-)
As a final thought, one of the regulars here posted about my sterling speaker cables on another forum. Some people came along and agreed with his positive observations, others did not. Strangely the ones that criticised or questioned my cables had, without exception, neither seen nor used them. I wonder what that tells us?
All the best to all, sorry if that rambles a bit.
Dave.

great post dave...
anthony...

[Marco]

Too right. It should be made into a permanent sticky for reference!

Especially this bit:

I guess what I am trying to say is that what may be scientifically superior may not be audibly superior, particularly when it is so hard to replicate real life in a lab environment.

The 'scientific types' in hi-fi often conveniently overlook this fact!

Anthony, what's your view of switch-mode PSUs when used in a hi-fi equipment context?

Marco.

[Steve Toy]

Anthony just built me a 200 VA I&E super-regulated transformer to replace a SMPSU for my CD player. It's made a really big improvement. I guess that says it all.

[sastusbulbas]

Great points, Steve; highly relevant, and often overlooked by the pro-computer audio fraternity... Switch-mode PSUs, widely used in computers, are not in any way 'hi-fi friendly'!

Jeez, at this rate it looks like I should just put my dinner in the bin!



Marco.

P.S Tim, Steve (Toy) is absolutely correct in his assessment of our earlier situation.

Yet all my points could be completely wrong or irrelevant in average homes or listening environments, as I said we seem to have side stepped issues of detrimental performance claimed years ago, and believe it is better, yet still have small individuals showing that with different software what we think is better can still be improved.

No one (apart from Audio manufacturers designing servers) as far as I am aware has made any attempt to look at what does and does not affect audio within computers with any real effort, I am aware some motherboards are better than others, some GPU's may require shielding, background applications and circuit routing may affect performance, but there is no robust evidence.

I was interested in designing my own HD digital transport, this was to replay any digital file from standard CD to 24bit/192khz audio. Data transfer would have been the likes of EAC or such for CD and HD downloads via FLAC and such, these would have been stored on 1tb Samsung drives, and audio files transferred to a solid state drive for critical listening.

Biggest issues were audio quality shielded PSU's, motherboards which are not detrimental, and an OS designed for such application, which would switch off all apps and unused drives utilising the simplest data transfer via a bespoke media player. (6" touch screen interface on faceplate)

I could still build this, though it's costly. But why, I would be using standard PC kit designed for PC use, and from preliminary investigation is no more enjoyable than a bespoke CD player, and FACT initially very inconvenient to implement. Hardly audiophile stuff.
So maybe I will wait until apple or Linux get their act together. At the moment an apple laptop does seem the way to go for audio, with a PC laptop for movies, but the apple costs around three times the PC equivalent and still not specified as I would like, so a compromise which I still think is no better than my CD replay devices, and a laptop for movies is not better than a £200 BlueRay player.

[anthonyTD]

Too right. It should be made into a permanent sticky for reference!

Anthony, what's your view of switch-mode PSUs when used in a hi-fi equipment context?

Marco.

just to start with
seriously though, one of the main reasons for switch mode power supplies to be used so widely in virtually everything from TV's to computers is because of their efficiency, the reason they are so efficient is because they switch, and thats the problem, to cut a long story short, the power stations should realy be having an easier life now you would think, but quite the oposite is probably closer to the truth, how come, well the switching noise from all those switch mode power supplies in all of our consumer equipment is being sent back down the power lines and in some cases causing the generators to over heat! apart from them being small/compact,light, and cheap to manufacture, i see no positive reasons to even place one near an audio system let alone in one!!!
anthony,TD...

[tfarney]

Hmm Exactly where problems start.

Make it quiet, yet one of the biggest bug bears regarding computer audio (from Mac and PC) was due to power supplies introducing noise into the mains, and operating systems running tasks in backgrounds. Do you also remember early attempts of computer audio with valve circuits in motherboards? Inside a computer (MAC or PC) used to be regarded as a pretty poor place for audio circuitry in the past.

As for MACs in recording studios, that was not always the case, and there are plenty of software for PC only. MACs have gained popularity and made an effort to address a certain clientèle that is all. My work gets better deals on Apple computers than any PC manufacturer offers, hence why they are popular, student card holders get discount too, and they are by far the best and easiest option for the lifestyle concious teenager with a bedroom band.

Lets not start the MAC shite because it has been well enough proven that both MAC and PC audio quality can be improved on, both have their pro's and con's and MAC I-Tunes is getting worse than Windows updates. I have used MAC and PC since the original beige G3 dawned (a product which had video and audio RCA outputs), where overclocking MACs involved a solder iron. I still remember when digital recording became possible due to companies releasing CD burners for PC, and the first TOAST.

As for nothing before the DAC being important, that is exactly the sort of blind stupidity that makes your above opinion questionable and therefore worthless. Hello, DAC's use PROCESSING and ERROR CORRECTION!

Any idiot knows that not all digital sources are perfect, most studios re-clock for that reason. Jitter was an issue hence DAC manufacturers addressed it!

If there was no variation in digital sources then professional DAC manufacturers and such would not have designed DAC's with enough processing to ensure all input sounded as similar as damn near identical as possible.

Manufacturers would not put effort into matching output impedance cable impedance and input impedance in digital systems.

The very existence of error correction and DAC's designed to perform well regardless of input may well be regarded as PROOF not all digital sources were the same.

Which is why we have two sides, one spouting Voodoo the other DooDoo.

If a DAC is designed to perform well and offer the same level of fidelity regardless of input with judicious processing, how can you tell someone the input is the same? And how well can a product be expected to perform if test bench results are more important and the product is designed to sound the same with a specific quality target regardless of input?

Your sort of patronizing shite and MAC fashion Nazi behaviour is as much to blame as magazine journalism for the attitude you get in response.

Processing DVD to 1080 should be as good as any other 1080 display but of course we can see that is not true, can't we? Pretty sure if it was with ears and a test bench we would have the same babble.

Fuck the signal, we can "MAKE" it sound correct.

And remember it is OK to act like an idiot, my excuse is internet magazines and forum hype.



PS a hard drive is a rapidly spinning disc, and I am sure many are well aware computer audio is the next best thing currently, but still a child under constant improvement and development, I care not if it is a MAC or PC, so far I have not been as satisfied as I would like with both. Nor have I been satisfied with the It's better cause, as there has not been any technical debate regarding whey certain performance parameters exist in computer audio, all we have is claims and people saying "this sounded better" and it is exactly like cables all over again.

No fanboy elitist Mac shite intended. I thought i made it clear that it is a pretty simple matter to get bit-perfect data out of Windows as well. Core Audio makes it simpler in OSX, and its early implementation won Mac the lion's share of the pro business, but I didn't mean to overstate it. The right software, and throwing a few virtual switches in Windows will do the trick and even the score, even in the humblest Windows machines.

The "noise" I was referring to is the physical noise of fans and spinning hard drives, not the electronic noise in the internal computer environment. The latter problem is, while overstated these days, very easily addressed with the very common solution of getting the digital to analog processing outside of that environment - the external dac.

Error correction in DACs does not correct bit errors, which do not exist unless something is terribly wrong, but timing errors - jitter - most of which is generated by the very DACs that are attempting to correct it. Actual bit errors would not result in the subtle distortions attributed to jitter by those attempting to sell more and more expensive DACs. They would result in unmistakable errors that would not even warrant discussion in audiophile circles. It would result in the audio equivalent of me typing "voodoo" and you receiving "ovoodo," thus my poorly-chosen example. Sorry it pissed you off.

And yes, a hard drive is a spinning disc, but it doesn't spin to "play" the music. It simply sends data, in batches, to RAM, verifies a bit perfect match of the data in RAM back to the data on the hard drive, and then the data is sent from RAM to the DAC. The spinning disc is effectively isolated from the problem.

Last but not least, I don't claim that computer audio is "better." Given properly implemented error correction and isolation of the DAC from either disc, there should be absolutely no difference, with the same DAC, between a computer as source and an optical drive as source. The zeros and ones will be identical and the quality of the audio signal will be determined in their conversion and in the analog equipment that follows.

Computer vs optical disk is a simple choice. Do you like the convenience of having all of your music in a database, or do you prefer going through the disks, optical or vinyl, and laying your hands on the media? The voodoo is in believing either is superior to the other. And if there is anything I actually said, as opposed to something you perceived, which justifies all the anger and obscenity in your post, I offer my apology. If not, I'll accept yours.

Tim

[Marco]

As a final thought, one of the regulars here posted about my sterling speaker cables on another forum. Some people came along and agreed with his positive observations, others did not. Strangely the ones that criticised or questioned my cables had, without exception, neither seen nor used them. I wonder what that tells us?

Dave,

It tells us that they are typical inflexible thinking, belligerent, closed-minded objectivists, always spoiling for a fight (and boy did I give them one in the past ) when their dyed-in-the-wool mindset is challenged. I've encountered and indeed 'crossed swords' with many of the breed in the past. Ignore them. Their hi-fi 'views' are based on nothing much more than hot air and years of ingrained prejudice. Fortunately AOS doesn't seem to attract their type, and long may it continue

I think that the subjectivist 'use your ears always' message and open-mindedness we promote acts towards them like garlic does to a vampire

Marco.

[SteveTheShadow]

Hmm Exactly where problems start.

As for MACs in recording studios..... MACs have gained popularity....
MAC shite......MACs involved a solder iron.....MAC fashion Nazi behaviour

It's bloody Mac!!! not MAC.

MAC stands for MEDIA ACCESS CONTROLLER and has nothing to do with makes of computer.

FYI pal the company is Apple... not MAC

Apple makes the Macintosh computer ...ie they make Macs.

I'm sick and tired of this ruddy misuse.

Nobody I know who uses a Mac is a Nazi or a fashionista. We just prefer to use a proper computer with a decent operating system not the upside down and backwards third rate malware infested knock-off that is Windows!

Rant over.

Steve

[DSJR]

I'm way out of my comfort zone here, but as I understand it, one advantage of computer audio is the better error correction compared to "real time" reading of CD discs and "correction on the fly" - at least I think that's how I read it...

The trouble with this bl***y hobby is that it's so subjective. The heart almost always rules the head where HiFi is concerned and as our ears are VERY easily fooled (our eyesight is very much better - that's the way we're made I'm afraid), there is much error possible.

Marco, can I take up something you said earlier? Comparing a little single ended valve amp with a mega power solid state one will definitely bring out audible differences and these differences will be measurable too. I read recently of Carver (?) once designing a transistor amp to sound identical to a reference Conrad-Johnson ss model. All he needed to do was dirty the performance up here and there......................

In my experience, I think I can say that the best amps within reason all sound very good with negligible differences between them. I once removed an expensive Krell power amp to check out a client's Quad 606 and was stunned how good (musical and spacious) the latter sounded, stone cold too and nothing like as "bad" as I thought it would sound. The key here is that the speakers were fairly efficient and with a reasonable impedance curve (Wilson Witt's mk1 actually).

Sorry if I'm thread cr@pping..