The state of the art in digital reproduction can change quickly in today';s fast moving digital world. Find out why the DMP is currently on top of its game. Have a question you'd like answered? Ask Paul by going to www.psaudio.com...
I'm afraid the argument was wrong then, now and always! a server sends digital data and whatever happens during send and receive CAN NOT change the data. that is the main principle of binary and digital computing. when you send packets some could and will be corrupted but that's why systems buffer data. whatever noise generates it happens during D/A or A/D. if you store "00001" in your server and send it with whatever means, the client receives "00001" after all the error check and buffering but your DAC could read that wrong and that's not server noise issue. if this was true nothing would work on the internet.
As long as the end result sounds good to the listener, regardless of whether it's a cellphone and cheap headphones, or several thousands worth of high end kit, all the talk of jitter and other gremlins is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I think the real problem is not the gear or the method of conveyance, as it is that people get anal retentive about some of the silliest shit. One of the devices I used to use for an MP3 player is a Creative Labs Nomad Muvo; which was a glorified USB stick, that had a small DAC, tiny amp circuit, and was all powered by a single AA battery. At the time, listening to my ripped 128kbps MP3s, it was adequate. It met the nexus of affordable and accessible, while doing the basic job I requested of it. Comparatively, it's utter garbage compared to even low-end options available these days. It's nowhere near the capacity, it's got barely any features, and I own probably 20 other things that work better now. But that's now. When it came out, in 2002, as an avid Napster user - it was amazing! It was like having a CD player the size of a key fob and less costly than trying to burn CDs. You could get days (an album or two a day) of power with a AA battery. It was innovative and cool... at the time. Even as spoiled as I am to have the money to buy whatever I want, I generally still try to slum it and go back to the old stuff for a couple of days and redefine my 'needs' as an audiophile. Sometimes taking a vacation in the cheap seats helps you to really appreciate the things you own, so that you don't go crazy trying to chase the next new thing.
Paul, With due respects, I can tell you are not a computer hardware engineer and so are many of the commentators. This is what happens when a talk is given with a superficial knowledge as there is a hidden truth gem in there, but poorly understood. Here is the actual issues. 1 Computers use Dynamic RAM. The RAM is random access and has read write cycles. You can't read and write at the same time. Sound cards in computers use interrupts. When the sound card needs the next data, it requests it. The time taken to respond is somewhat random. With faster CPU's and memory this jitter has improved greatly from the first sound cards. 2 A sound card in a computer has a fixed filter that is expected to handle all streaming data rates so it is rarely optimized for handling aliasing at only CD data rates. 3 Most inexpensive sound cards do not use Static Dual Port RAM. Some upscale sound cards do. More on this later. 4 Sound cards do not have a dedicated analog power supply to power the analog portion. Some sound cards have excellent filtering on the power to the analog section and some do not. This only attenuates the noise by various amounts. The CD player from a hardware standpoint is different in the following ways. 1 It contains dedicated FIFO Dual Port Static RAM. This means the first in first out buffer has data clocked out to the DAC without any additional CPU cycles and no interrupts to request the information. This is crystal clocked out to the DAC with precision time exceeding any mechanical turntable or tape machine. To be fair, some specialty sound cards do include a FIFO buffer. Some are CPU based which are an improvement, and some use a true Static RAM with dual ports. Note not all FIFO buffers use dual port RAM and have jitter from read write cycle times. Paul, if you produce a DAC, I hope you design with a true dual port SRAM FIFO with a dedicated read clock and DAC. 2 The CD player does not need a compromised anti-aliasing filter as it is optimized for only one data rate. Only a few computer DAC's have the additional switching and filter components to tune for different data rates. Most are fixed as good enough for the cost. Most manufactures won't specify this as it is proprietary IP. Testing frequency roll off and aliasing at differing data rates is the only way to tell for sure. 3 The FIFO buffer state drives the CD rotation speed to keep the buffer about half full. With dual port memory writes can occur at any time without affecting the times of the reads. A CD is sequential with some interleaved data for error correction done in hardware. In a computer HD Reads are random access and so is the memory buffer. In a CD the buffer is written sequentially and read out sequentially in a circular dual port buffer. This simply does not happen in a computer, so writes are often held for between reads to the DAC, but then the Read may have to wait for a Dynamic RAM refresh or write to complete and requires a CPU interrupt request. This alone is the biggest difference between a computer sound card and a CD player. 4 A CD player has a dedicated power supply and board section for all things digital and another one completely separate for all things analog. The DAC bridges this gap with dual supplies. One for the digital side at 5 Volts and the other for the analog side, often plus and minus 12 or 15 volts with separate ground planes in the board construction. This is rare in computer sound cards. Hope this helps. Yes a precision DAC in a sound card gets the data correct. This issue as stated is how data timing and buffering is handled, the power supply noise is isolated, and the dedicated anti-aliasing filtering. To a lesser degree low voltage single ended computer op amps vs true bipolar audio op amps in a CD player on a dedicated power supply. For those ripping CD's and worrying about jitter, don't worry. The rip process is not time critical. It is simply reading the data and writing them to a file with full error checking. Ripping does not introduce jitter unless you are using the analog hole.
So do you make high end audio stuff like Paul does, or are you just an armchair audiophile. Sounds like you are a manufacturer (like Paul). So what do you do, are you a manufacturer? And if you are not, how did you get to know more about this "rocket science" than Paul? Just wondering where you got all that knowledge from, that's all.
You need to read some reviews of his equipment, and stop acting like a smug know-it-all. For all your arrogance and knowledge, your comment is not helpful at all. There's a serious gem of truth here --but YOU CANT SEE IT. And it's bigger than how smart you think you are.
It’s not possible. I need to see proof that CDs ripped uncompressed to NAS and played through a decent DAC sound worse than the CD. (Proof = blind test)
A lot of digital warriors of the dogma "bits are bits" have little to no knowledge of digital/analog signal processing, microelectronics and digital electronics. Bits are not the same bits in the presence of analog distortion, and digital signals are essentially analog. Timing or synchronicity is also of paramount importance. Perhaps these people would benefit from watching what people such as Hans Beekhuyzen or R. Watts (Chord Electronics) have said on the subject.
I dont understand why you will need a dedicated music player? If you copy the cd 1:1 to a server and it streamed to a computer what is wrong with that. Goes back to the client audio setup. Or am i missing something. Sorry am an IT admin not an audiophile
this is only if your server is sending audio to an analog out. I have a server that serves a file directly to my receiver via dlna. This is a digital stream of the file. Any noise on the server caused by the cpu, power supply etc is not in my file stream.
Paul you are correct in the fact that the pc is full of noise but the file is not being decoded on the pc. DLNA initiates a network transfer and copies the file over a network to the target device that decodes the file (receiver) and does the D/A conversion. The file is not modified by noise.
i love my cd collection, i have them on the pc fed through optical to a dac at the moment but i can't wait to have my hifi setup properly. its a more visceral experience than clicking on a folder on the pc.
I get your point. I have all of my music on CDs. I have ripped all of them, but I'm not getting rid of the CDs. Ever. There is something about having something physical to hold.
The music on a cd is amazing, the sound is pristine and you can listen clearly. It is not the same with music streaming. I have my CDs burned to my Music Library in my car and you can tell the difference between streaming on Bluetooth and whats recorded. I say music on CDs is like bodybuilder on steroids and streaming is just trying to catch up.
Where did that "ripped" file come from? What was the source? Thought experiment: Take a detailed map, beautifully rendered on paper. Then fax it to someone and have him fax it back to you. Now compare that faxed copy to the original. You lost a lot of resolution, (I call it "information" in my world). Now take that fax to the worlds highest resolution copier and make the best copy you possibly can. Then compare the great copy of the faxed map to the original. You will find that you recovered absolutely nothing. It's still no better than the fax. Information can be lost. But, once lost, can never be recovered. So, unless you copy the file from the CD directly, you will lose information. If you convert it to any other format, you can only lose information. Information you can never recover. If there's even one packet lost in streaming, you lost information. And nothing can recover that information. There are ways to approximate - to guess at what that information was - but there's no way to recover that original information. Which is why I'm still so upset with Sony. When they released the digital standard for the CD, they did so with the promise that they would soon release a better standard. That was over 30 years ago and they're still stamping all commercially sold CD with the old, and imho - crappy, standard of 20-20K @44.1 kHz, 16bit depth. If you convert it to any other format, no matter how high, you're doing to it the same as the map example - creating a highly accurate copy of a crappy fax copy of the original. There are now much better format standards - but the vast majority of mass produced media is not issued in these better standards. No matter what you do with it, you can never get anything better than that crappy digital resolution. It can only get worse. How many times have video resolution improved over the past 20 years? From 720 to 6K (as of this writing). And each time, you have the option to buy all your movies and shows in the new media standard... But not audio. You're still stuck in 1986.
A 01 signal remains a 01 signal. Compressing cuts in those 0s and 1s, I hope by now everybody knows this becaus only 10 years ago I still heared too many times people swearing that a 128kb MP3 was the SAME quality as a CD. Right. The only thing that can make changes in the sound you hear out of two identical 0s and 1s signals, is the noise you get with processing the signals into sound. Ideal: there is NO noise. Which makes it an open door: the most perfect cd-player and the most perfect stream will cause no noise, so theoretical they should be identical. With both we are still on the way there. Now if the human ear can hear the difference today? That is another matter...
It’s not good Paul. Digital music files have been read into the file decoder (e.g. what converts a FLAC file to raw PCM data to the DAC) with absolutely zero data errors for ages. Also, the playback speed is controlled by the decoder itself. Rather, focus on the quality of the file decoder itself together with the DAC. A US$5 USB drive sounds 100% exactly as good as a US$10,000 CD player if both play the same file through the same file decoder and DAC!!!
@@CyrilleBoucanogh Totally untrue. Streaming audio is working through data on demand with the clock precisely managed by the device allowing jitter to be a total non-issue. I do digital audio engineering. Jitter is a symptom of the DAC audio clock being imprecise due to poor audio architecture e.g. in the PLL or in where the clock is driven from. Pulling approach (what streaming is) is better than pushing approach (CD via TosLink to a DAC is pushing approach) when it comes to jitter. So if you want no audible jitter, use streaming with your DAC clock driving the flow.
@@ThinkingBetter 1.) A CD player has no measurable jitter. Data is read and corrected from the disc, and the data fed to a first-in, first-out buffer. Data is clocked out of the FIFO into the player's own DAC at the exact rate of the quartz-crystal oscillator of the CD player. The disc's rotational velocity is varied in a closed-loop to feed the FIFO exactly what it needs, all controlled by the player's one low-phase-noise and low-jitter quartz crystal oscillator. The only jitter is the residual of the quartz oscillator, which actually has less phase noise (jitter) than an atomic standard! When you use an outboard DAC, unless you're a professional and have a Word Clock or other separate Sync output fed to your DAC for the clock signal, the DAC has to guess at reconstructing the clock signal from the audio data it's fed via TOSLINK or USB or RCA or AES. (those interfaces carry only data, not clock.) Noise added to the natural high-frequency attenuation in any length of cable adds jitter to the recovered clock, and as tests have actually shown, there is a measurable increase in measured jitter actually seen on the analog outputs of outboard DACs versus direct from a one-box CD player. 2.) Ground Loops If you use an outboard DAC, use the optical TOSLINK connection. If you don't and you take a digital input from a computer via USB, Firewire, RCA or any other wire, you're now coupling any ground noise from your computer's digital circuits into your audio ground. 3.) Noise Most computers have fans or hard drives that make audible noise. Most CD players spin silently.
@@CyrilleBoucanogh Actually I work in audio engineering so I know these things very well. I didn't say a CD player using internal DAC is prone to jitter and I'm not sure why you want to tell me that. My point is quite the opposite that when the DAC is external and the data is clocked and pushed by the source, such as a CD, and the data goes through TosLink, you have a DAC that is clocked asynchronously with the CD player with a PLL that is aiming at keeping the clock aligned with the source clock (unless you have a dedicated clock sync signal). For audio streaming, the clock is always local to the device as the audio stream is read on demand. Thus for audio streaming, you don't have to suffer from jitter issues when the DAC clock is exact and represents the clock master. Reality is that jitter is a symptom of poor audio engineering and not something we should need to worry about.
No, Mr. Snakeoil Salesman, time base jitter and electromagnetic compatibility are two completely different things. Apples to oranges. Back when DAT and CD were new, and the price of RAM was high, jitter was a real problem. The short of it was that the bit stream coming right off the disc or DAT was unstable, and did affect the sound. As it happened, I took my EE training to TV broadcasting at a time when your verage VTR had a spinning tape head not unlike a DAT deck, and it too suffered from time base errors. By the time I arrived, that problem had been solved by a device called a tine base corrector, or TBC for short. The TBC takes a jittery video signal, digitizes it and reclocks it to the beat of a nice, stable quartz crystal. As RAM prices fell, essentially the same technology found its way into digital audio gear, albeit for different reasons. As someone who grew up with vinyl and tape, I noticed the instability with early CD & DAT systems. I also noticed that that particular problem ceased to be a problem, even in cheap portable CD players by the 1990s. The people who get paid for selling new gear still pretend there's a problem, and invent increasingly ludicrous excuses, but the fact is that the jitter problem pretty much self-resolved when cheap RAM made FIFO buffers ubiquitous in even the cheapest digital audio gear. Now if you're streaming from the Internet, you may experience a different kind of "jitter" that's related to the switching fabric of the Internet. Packets do arrive out-of-order, and some are lost forever, depending on the IP protocol used. It's not an insurmountable problem, and with enough time and RAM the music out can sound identical to the original file at the source. There are many other reasons why using a cellphone to play MP3 over the Internet is not as good as it gets, but that's another story... A couple decades ago I decided to build my own no-compromise music playback system, using a spare computer to store ripped LPCM from my CD collection, along with a $25 sound card with a Toslink output and an outboard DAC. The computer's storage and RAM allowed me to buffer away any hint of time base error. A few feet of optical fiber and other good EMC practices kept any CPU hash from getting near the analog section. Simple and effective. I haven't found any need to alter the basic formula this whole time. As long as I don't get conned into imagining any new gremlins, it's just fine.
If you are ee trained, one most important thing you learn is what? Measurements! Get rid of all the time based error? Pardon me. Go get yourself some measurements equipments and see how shitty your signal chain performs in both digital domain and analog domain.
Listening for me is the best test. Using new dynaudio emit 10 speakers with an old NAD c730 amp and a Harmon Kardon HD 730 CD Player. I have listened to the same tracks with cd’s and Spotify 320. Spotify lacks sparkle and depth. The cd’s have a better soundstage and clarity. Spotify is handy, but for me cd’s sound noticeably better. I only have a basic understanding of the tech stuff. I just know the sound I like. Thats all that matters for me.
The only things which can diminish quality in streaming audio over a network are compression, packet loss (leading to skips), and slowness (leading to buffering). The solution to compression is to simply ensure that you are using lossless codecs like FLAC at every stage of the transmission. The solution to packet loss is to use a protocol with integrity checks (i.e. use TCP rather than UDP), avoid wireless transmission, and make sure network cables are shielded if necessary. The solution to slowness is, well, to just make sure everything is wired to allow for a sufficiently high transmission rate, which shouldn't be any problem on a local network; even over basic CAT 5e cabling. Assuming your network is all set up correctly, then there shouldn't be any problems. As long as your data is being transmitted verbatim bit-for-bit from storage medium right through to the digital-to-analog converter, then there can be objectively no difference between a CD or a server. A bit is a bit, it doesn't matter how it's stored, there's no such thing as noise or 'jittering' in a digital signal. Whether the file is stored on a compact disc, hard drive, solid state storage, RAM, or even a tape drive, it will literally sound identical.
On paper you might have an argument, but we're talking about music here so use your ears, which people have and many are hearing that cd is superior vs a stresming server.
@@380stroker A/B tests can absolutely be placebo... unless there is a consistent double blind test. And I will not address your adolescent personal attack.
streaming servers compres, so bits get thrown out.. The only exception to this would be FLAC, but most streaming serves don't use it. CD's are uncompressed audio, so it sounds better. arguably.. The only way to get file size down s to reduce bit rate, and the only way to reduce bt rate is tossing bits out. This is also why Vinyl records sounds better than CD's
It wasn't the case 3 years ago or anytime. This makes me concerned about any information you give. You're going to need some good evidence to show the CPU is emitting distorting that's effecting the bit steam. You can isolate all the stuff from the digital output.
I think it's because cds are linear while memory isn't. seeking data in itself causes noise and all other things are happening at the same time versus a cd player which does just one thing.
I found the opposite to be true. I've listened to CDs and them a stream of the ripped data through the same D/A converter. I used JRiver that has data verification when ripping, so I feel pretty confident it's the same bits. How can it add noise if it verifies the bits? A spinning disc will have lots more jitter. Maybe my CD player's buffer sucks, but I can't see how the D/A would know where the bits are coming from. If the server has an ASIO or other direct connection, they should be the same bits(?).
I could be wrong, but I think what he was saying was that the noise from spinning disc is taking out of the equation by the "digital lense" that converts the signal to radio wave before it is optically transferred to the completely isolated output stage? I may be wrong about that, but that's the way I understand it.
I do see the need for music servers, well at least for the common Audiophile PC lay person who just wants simplicity. I will forever be a PC/Laptop tethered to DAC guy, you just cant beat the added control/options/upgradeability.
Sony makes a Hi-Res Audio desktop app that can play CDs and store the info on the computer's RAM for playback. It sounds very good, but it only works with Sony DACs. Perhaps PS Audio can consider making an app like it for use with any DACs. I think people will pay money for this app.
I can tell you a really cheap way to achieve the same. First, decompress the file if it's mp3/aac/whatever. Copy the resulting LPCM WAV file to /tmp on any machine that runs Linux. Play the file with any player. It's 100% guaranteed to play from RAM. 400 000 Mbps read speed on my machine. Compare that to 1,2 Mbps with CD drives. Even faster if any data fits in the L1/L2/L3 caches.
Which ones can you honestly attest having bought and opened and heard for a few months? Seems like you have an axe to grind, ho hum. I've got the Stellar Gain Cell DAC, and 2 M700 monoblocks. They sound great, and FAR outperform similarly priced Class A setups. In fact, there are few--IF ANY, similarly priced NEW (or even used) Class A setups available with anything NEAR the power capability I have. I would like for you to elaborate rather than just sound like an opinionated, and FLAT WRONG, dunce, mister surname.
@@ssmith954 Yeah I agree. Some of the content here is genuinely good and technically sound. There is also a healthy dose of pure bunk mixed in. The way I see it, there is a point of diminishing returns in any audio setup, and the good profit margins are well above that point. The bunk gets listeners into that space.
In order to better isolate noise on this server system, the metal box ( dog house ) you describe may do a good job eliminating electronic interference, but not so much the magnetic interference. Maybe look into that area.
What happens when PS5 Tech comes to the PC Market, a complete different architecture that's build to hold more data in a steady flow and run it over the busses, it could be a revolution for Audiophiles in the future? Amd said that it will use that Tech and it could be the next big thing....
Sounds to me like a clear „ neither-nor“... In my opinion the whole discussion is a bit away from facts. I mean, 99,9% of all digital sources are not able to lever the quality of the music-„data“, because the electronics is more occupied by dealing with itself. Most OPs do so, most DACs do so, most of all power supplies are in big trouble with feeding the electronics. For my own, I use a self built full ground-isolated 4x Philips TDA1545-DAC (a some 28mA low consumption DAC which is technologically close to a R2R-converter). This is fed direct by a low-jitter 8,4Mzh clock. This is coupled to a discrete u/i-stage and output buffer. All together supplied by a 2x400va double regulated (Exposure-Farlowe-style) power supply. This is neutral, clean, fast and lacks of any digital behavior. So, in my opinion dig to the ground! Anything else is fishing in the mud.
Fraktale Fatalität: It looks absolutely awful, because it is just some self designed, at the moment dusty PCBs on a wooden plate and a transport of an old Philips CD723, which is cheap, common and very silent. The next project is to build an enclosure.... I can post some pictures, if you like to.
Porkchop's Papi: The rabbit hole begins, when you leave changing OP-type A to B to C, cable A to B, cap A to B and see all this stuff as a hole, take a soldering iron, learn, listen, be aware of your own capabilities. When you come aware, that a hobby can be either judging what you bought or changing and building what you like. Learn about amp- and DAC-circuits and why they are sounding good. Read datasheets. Rely on reliable source, like good friends with some hobby. Get away from pure industry standards and audio newspapers. This is so difficult because there are some bottlenecks of part, you must rely on in industry. Eg. DAC. They both want you to sell. Look back what was good and why. In most cases it still is. There are some companys and products on the market, I can highly recommend as a starting point: Farlowe-Exposure Amps, Harbeth, Symphonic line, BB pcm170x DACs, Philips TDA1541 (hard to get a unfaked 1crown or better for a reasonable price), TDA1545as a „cheap“, neutral wolf in a sheep dress. I can only recommend what I really find good from the last 25 years of experience as a hobby, so my list has no claim to be complete.
I enjoy your videos Paul but this one has me wondering... I am going to need to see some data on this. Are you saying that your device will pull binary data off of a CD more accurate than other devices can? I don't want to get into DACs as your title of "CDs can sound better than ripped music", as this implies that your device pulls the bitstream of binary data from a CD more accurately than other devices like a CD-ROM drive connected to a computer. Can you show us your device's pulled data stream from a CD and compare it to the data stream from ripped CD from a computer? Lets keep it fair too, I am going to assume if you are buffering a CD in your device to reduce jitter then you may be running it at 2x CAV (I have no proof so please correct me). I would also set the PC or MAC to pull the info in exact same manner as your device and then show a comparison of the binary data between the 2. The other issue I have is the "sound better" in your title. That is subjective and opens up all kinds debate and is also dependent on every aspect of equipment connected from the DAC to the speakers and the quality of interconnects of such equipment (sound room also). I will assume in a given comparison a Toslink connection to the DAC as EMI will not effect the photons. I would again have to assume this is all on top of the line components/audiophile grade components as this targeted to an audiophile audience. Unfortunately, as you can read, I have made a lot of assumptions in my statements. I do not like to make such assumptions so please show us the data. Please don't think I am being combative or disrespectful of your knowledge as I know you are a smart fellow in your craft. You don't own a high end audio business by selling gear that does not deliver but this one is defying my logic. Thank you.
@Homesteader Workouts Hence no reply or data has been offered and this is from 2 years ago. I would take this video down if it were me. I never would have made it unless I came with the data to back it up too knowing the controversial nature of the topic.
Out of scope question - WTF is that obsession with "CEO" term ? It is supposed to be just a formal position in a company (that is, by registering a company, one could put whatever position they may or not lke), but people seem to be obsessed about it, putting some excessive meaning in it.
hmmm, how about sending bit perfect data - vawe file - via network cable like in my case? i use logitech media server and logitech transport, and they are 'bit perfect'
ideally, i guess wouldn't an uncompressed audio sound better then ? *because* its intact and *not* compressed where bits are tossed out ? The only thing is WAV would be large file size.
I've never been a fan of servers, especially when nowadays you can just rip your CD album to a file that you can send to your DAP or phone or tablet and etc..... So I don't understand why using a server? Especially when you can buy CDs cheaper nowadays and you can buy 1TB SD cards so........ I mean even a 250GB SD card or a cheap 1TB Hard Drive is more than enough for everyone.
omg false, all of it, if you are streaming music digitally, noise is irrelevant, it's a digital signal, even with the most terrible and noisy power supplies, noise means nothing to digital, think about it, if it did, your computer wouldn't run in the first place, music means nothing in digital, it's the same 1s and 0s as your pictures, videos etc. if you have a DAC (ex: on the PCIe) in your computer, and you are putting out an analog signal, you can do the same level of filtering or better than any other audio product on the market you can absolutely miniaturize isolated power supplies for your analog parts, down to chip level, and filter the noise down to micro volts even from an SMPS, but no isolation is necessary
digital vocals sound crap nothing comes up to CD AUDIO and vinyl with Wave Format recordings by analog ---streaming is shite the sound is crap and is ruining peoples ears its compressed to hell and if you cant tell the difference their is something wrong with your ears
@@peterwood-jenkins3634 non of that related to the claims. Streaming has nothing to do with compression. You can stream lossless or lossy. The compression had nothing to do with the claims.
I bought a hub or dongle for my stereo receiver and the music I stream off of my phone sounds terrible compared to vinyl and cd including in my car. I haven't tried streaming off of my computer yet, nor my NAS drives (synology). I just bought them and haven't hooked them up. I guess I can rip my cd's as lossless or FLAC, instead of MP3 perhaps that would make a difference in quality?
The DAC plays a role depends what DAC chip is used as each chip from various companies can sound different. For sure rip original file no need for FLAC or lossless as the storage hard disk drive is cheap and sometimes the DAC can be overwhelmed to encode lossless or FLAC files to the original file size.
Paul, you stated in a reply: Consider that each platform is entirely different. The one reading the optical disc vs. the hard drive. Hard drives are typically read with computers while optical discs (as I am referring to them) are read through dedicated hardware. At the output of each "transport" are the final bits and they are delivered (typically) through very different means. In the case of our DMP optical reader, I2S is the connecting medium, while the hard drive is through USB. I can easily demonstrate the differences in noise and jitter through just those two differences alone - not even touching on the subject of differences in power supply and ground noises. Would you be able to do your demonstration for us please?
I had a question that I deleted because I think I may have partially answered my own question. When streaming from a PC to a Sonos to a DAC, I'm assuming the streaming is UDP? If that is the case, is noise and interference affecting the packets transmission in the data stream?
Noise on a digital transmission lines will if it is bad enough just result in drop outs, as in no data transferred. It's the same as having a noisy Ethernet connection. You'll experience packet losses and ultimately no data transfer and in the end no website. It will not change the content on the page. Hope you get the analogy here. The sound will not change character. There will just be no sound at all. All talk about how a certain transfer protocol will sound different and make a song more 'musical' and 'full sounding' is complete horse shit.
Wrong. Any asynchronous digital stream necessarily requires that the audio be retimed at the destination to remain in time. How you do that is very important. If you just use your local clock, eventually you will under-run or over-run and have to skip or blank until you are back in sync with the source; this is precisely what I have observed several IP streaming products to do. If you resample, that resampling can be high or low quality, and can additionally be done adjusted at different time intervals. Some systems continuously resample, and others only resample when the buffer is close to a high or low water mark; if the marks are set too far apart, there will be an audible pitch change when that occurs. Other streaming products retime by inserting masking frames, sort of like splicing an extra slice of music or speech in twice to fill the timing gap. Masking frames are near universal in video streaming, but I don't think I've seen them used for audio, though it might be trivial to accomplish with MP3 or AAC.
In synchronous digital streaming, like AES67, you have to reconstruct the digital system clock from the IP network, usually with a protocol like IEEE1588 PTP. How you reconstruct the clock matters a lot to the sound quality, just like in any other digital transmission system, as it is what ultimately drives the converters. A crappy clock servo will result in audible wow in the playback and a crappy PLL will result in audible wow or noise. I have seen both effects first hand in equipment I have designed when they weren't working properly.
When you are streaming from an NFS or CIFS or DLNA server, you are in a sink-synchronous mode, where the playback device is the clock master and determines the rate at which it pulls media from the server. Here the only thing that matters is the local clock quality, but that is the only situation where the analogy to reading a website holds water. In all other cases, the timing is determined by the source and the sink MUST do something to keep in time with it. Any time the master clock is SOMEWHERE ELSE, it's easy to do it wrong and get a really low quality result, because clocks don't all magically run at the same speed, you either have to face the difficult task of adjusting them (like AES67, Ravenna and Dante) or the difficult task of adjusting the media (like Spotify, Shoutcast, etc). Anything that's difficult, you're going to have some people do it well, and other people make a hash of it.
Jitter is a Noise contributor, period (it is also a product of noise, so it actually constitutes another mechanism by which noise is propagated). It doesn't cause distortion because it is random and is not phase correlated to the signal. Reducing jitter cannot offer any improvement other than S/N ratio. Claims that jitter reduction produces an overall increase in the clarity, detail, tone or balance of the sound, or any other attendant effects such as imaging/soundstage improvement, are bogus.
Here's my case. I purchased music online. I received it by email. I've played it and it sounds perfect. about a month or so later, It sounds terrible. it sounds like a scratched cd - just skipping here and there. all the music I bought is playing badly. what is the problem here, can you tell?
I agree with most of what you say about audio in general but you do talk some absolute bollocks about digital formats. And you always start by openly admitting you can't explain any of the phenomena you discuss! It's a shame because otherwise you clearly know your stuff.
Im afraid that author knows a lot about audio but not so much about servers, network etc. Nobody connects directly anything to the server. There are always at least some router between, not mention that the server can be located at the other side of globe. Data packets recived are NOT the same that was generated at the server side. They are recived by every middle network devicea and forwardwd - so tecreated. And more - wifi is completly electric separated from network. So - if anything may be done - its work on quality of wifi reciver part, client's ethernet reciver, maybe router - but NOT the server. Doesn't make any sense
Is that so. That means the exact same sequence of zeroes and ones all of a sudden sounds different. Is there a completely different DAC for the two sources?
Christian Holmstedt; Only SOME CD players, (mostly newer *portable* ones), have an "anti-skip buffer", however most *home component* units do not, especially any of the older ones. I know that to be true because with almost all home units, as the disc is spinning/playing, if the laser reading the data/music bits ever comes to any point on the disc with a serious scratch, one which results in too much missing data for the player's "error correction circuitry" to make up for, then they will start skipping immediately, and/or will just "freeze up" and won't play at all anymore past that point, unless you can either fast forward past the defect or skip that track entirely... Plus, if you've ever had a home component CD player apart for servicing with the cover off while playing a CD, and you even ever so slightly slow down the spinning disc by touching it or whatever, then the player also immediately starts skipping, so for most stand-alone CD players the music that you are hearing is directly read in real time off of the disc in bit form and actively and immediately, (as the disc is being read), converted by the player's internal DAC to analog audio that you can amplify and hear. There is no so called "buffer" or "ripped file" in a component CD player. That only happens (and then only sometimes) if/when read and played by a computer drive.
You are still arguing that a stream of bits fed to a DAC sound different depending on the storage media..... what are you guys smoking? (For those in Colorado it's perfectly clear).
This discussion is really data from hard drives vs CD's linear nature. Data from hard drives just has to give you the correct bits. CD not only has to give you the correct bits, but it also must give you the correct bits at the correct time. This is why CD sounds better.
Exactly. If you try to increase the asio dac buffer it will start to sound really weird because it stores in the computer memory for longer. It's not just 1 and 0 because I can hear the difference.
@@junkyard3924 Yeah. Access to digital storage on ssd or hhd ect is a non-linear process. CD is linear, a constant bit stream. But so-called "audiophiles" insist on listening to crap flac from a hard drive or some server which is still a hard drive, but worse because of streaming.
I have a video iPod. the music I choose at that time booth sounds the same CD to video iPod my ears can't tell the different. if I hear analog and digital of the same piece of music then I can hear the difference. CD is ruff and analog is smooth and clear with real tones plus variables.
What you hear is real and measurable. If you have a CD burner and a free copy of Audacity, do this experiment. Set the rate in Audacity to 44.1KHZ for CD rate. Use the generate function to generate a "Chirp". Make the chirp 2 minutes long. Make the Chirp sweep from 20 HZ to 20 KHZ. Make the chirp amplitude -10DB. Save the file as a lossless WAV file. Play the file. Optional, burn to CD and play the CD. Look at it on a spectrum analyzer if you have access to one. The other frequencies that you did not record is aliasing. Yes it is audible. Add MP3 or other lossy compression and it gets worse. CD's in general have been destroyed by the Loudness war on top of the other problems. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war There are almost no modern CD's without this fault. CD's not compressed will sound about 20 DB lower in volume to retain the true headroom. Yes you can hear the difference. It is very plain. You can see it in Audacity.
The "A" in your (good, a big qualifier) CD player will usually slay the "A" in anything computer based. Might be different if you're using something like a Hilo or Mytek, but eve3n then it's still a horse race. Generally speaking discs/players win, hands down. (Again, IF it's a good, not Wally World player.) Lousy for the lazy, but better for your ears. YMMV...
@@gideonkloosterman data is data! as long as the music is not lossy compressed or there is no dropouts and assuming D/A converters are identical, does not matter what is the medium you store your data (music) on. he is talking about their D/A converters and data bus which are valid points, but being CD or server or HDD does not make no difference at all!
So many people think they are clever and cant seem to comprehend that there could ever be a difference when it comes to digital audio files. -- "Its digital! the 1's and 0's cant lie! its all the same" -- Etc. Paul and others are not arguing that! They are saying jitter is an issue, and also the very cables that carry the digital 1's and 0's are also carrying electrical noise that will affect any of the analogue portions of a circuit (ie the important stuff that moves your speakers). And im still yet to get a good explanation why optical isn't recommended. Lets just assume for 44.1Khz flac streaming. Optical to me seems like a good option.
Jitter is not an issue unless the clock stability is completely fucked.... pretty much any crystal clock is capable of being good enough so that you can't hear it unless we're talking about actually being able to hear differences down at the -80dB level. (Spoiler: nobody can). This channel is competing with The Onion in terms of facts, with The Onion winning every time because it's funny. There is a snake oil agenda here and fair enough some people fall for it. Not saying it's outright lies... just saying it's fogged up enough to pass as truth/facts/science to most who doesn't care to care, or check, or in some cases think for themselves using knowledge as the backbone.
When you said NOISY at minute 3:23, YOU LOST ME!!! That is the most stupid and BS crap i have ever heard of. We are talking about digital here.You obviously know nothing about how a server works! Take a local Synology box that can stream DSD natively to the network for any device, only the output of a decoder will make a diference, it is the same data for ANY device on the network, NO NOISE !!!!!!! wtf are you talking about Paul, really, what jitter in a LAN? On a local network... noise... omg... sorry man, i can't take this one. And even if we talking about your favorite qobuz service, or tidal hifi which i use and BTW, there is no noticeable difference between the hifi and normal service, it is BS agai, the jitter on a long distance CANNOT influence the quality of a TCP/IP transmision which it will arive exactly the same at 1 mile versus 100million miles away. man, you lost me today.
good luck steve jobs ,this was one of his obsessions he could never solve nor bill gates ,musk etc you have to get rid of compression like DAT .confucious says great many headaches to follow
Anyone with a bit of brain can tell this is just a promotion of a $6000 CD player, best they have heard? really? then follows up with made-up pseudo tech explanations, please, give us some objective relevant data, a short series of blind tests would suffice, otherwise, you have no shame sir.
