an Audiophile perspective, yes, there is a difference ... a rant

[Richard Berg]

CD just isn't that robust.

Red Book CDs have very primitive error correction, true. I agree it's possible to read the same disc twice and get different bits, or to have a block become unreadable despite minimal damage.

However, this has nothing to do with jitter. The only way jitter can affect playback is if (1) the CD audio is sent as SPDIF (2) you're using a 90s-era DAC that sucks at clock recovery. When the subject is digital-to-digital copies, jitter is entirely irrelevant.

 

[DriverGuru]

SDplus[/url]":1ej6pdk5]

jitter ( http://www.apogeedigital.com/knowledgeb ... is-jitter/ ) is a factor that has to be thought of, as even making a CD-copy could get that if you do not care for it.

LOL. A "knowledge base" from a maker of products that promise to reduce jitter.

And which uses diagrams an explanations that are about as relevant to reality as claims that digital audio is forever flawed because it can't reproduce a "continuous" waveform the way analog can.

Yeah, sure.

 

[SDplus]

Give me a break. It was the first one I found, but it explains the basis of what Jitter is, but the only case it is a problem is on CD's because the fucked up way by todays standards it is made to read out the data. If you want the full explanation about Jitter please read the complete Red Book and understand it. You can skip the Midi-section though. Only one player ever made implemented that.
Unfortunately the way CD is made has never changed so it still remains a problem.
Basically if a CD is faulty you will get a faulty reading. If this is under a certain level then CRC table will catch it. A bigger error can get by and you get corrupted data, this is the most common problem with CD-errors. This type has nothing to do with Jitter (Well it can lead to a jitter type fault). These CD's will most likely get the same error no matter what you read it with. However, it will probably still play back an enjoyable signal in the end, errors and all.
Then there are discs that you read out and match to a database and you get a no match, then you read it with another reader, and now it matches most other rips. Of these types of discs at least half is because the first Drive got a jitter problem. The other drive did things differently. And this is at the readout-stage. CRC as it is implemented cannot compensate for it. And thus it gets into the stream as valid data. But again. In most cases not noticeable other than by bit comparison. In the older days though. Jitter was a nightmare. Early players had no way of getting back from even a single jitter-error and you had to stop and start again to get rid of the obvious noise.
Jitter time correction solved that persistent problem. So, Jitter may not be a big problem, but it does hinder you to make a bit-perfect rip now and then.
Edit: All modern drives can solve the jitter-problem, Some do it by default internally, but some need the flag set from the software. If it is always set it MIGHT lead to a slightly slower read, but it will be correct.

Fuck it. I didn't want this discussion. I just wanted to respond to the obvious first personal attack that was completely unwarranted.

I will not go into extreme detail for any of this. It isn't worth it. I will make a spelling error and will be hung for it.

 

[DriverGuru]

At this point you're not even wrong.

The "jitter" talked about in the article you linked previously is not the same thing as what you're talking about now.

Audioquest was talking about timing variations in the clocking of samples into a DAC.

Here you're talking about how jitter in the raw bitstream read from the CD can cause bit errors that are not just uncorrectable but undetectable by the CRC. That is wildly unlikely, and not at all related to jitter in the sample timing.

Are you familiar with the "first rule of holes"?

 

[SDplus]

I never meant it any other way. But you try and simplify things and things will get interpreted the worst kind of wrong. And really Ars Audio/Visual forum is the place where this is the biggest problem. There just does not exist "good faith" in reading for some very vocal people.
As I said before, I tend to use Hyperbole sometimes. And I get in trouble for it some times. But nowhere else than here is such a thing ever forgotten. The clarification and explanation is always forgotten though. And context is often lost. So, for me, this isn't the place to discuss these things for me.

Here is the thing. My background in Audio and such was a very minor point in my original post. All the stuff I said about how I enjoy and listen to Music today DESPITE that background was in my mind the point. I tried to convey that in light of all my background through almost mandatory Audiophile Late 70's 80's, going into music production. Play drums in bands, Learning about the auditory system. I just now relax and mostly ignore all the knowledge and just listen to music. Sometimes better equipment helps that enjoyment, and nowadays I just don't care why. I just like it. That is what I want. Talking about the enjoyment of listening. And if I hear a difference in something completely ridiculous that I might find an improvement in some way. I should be able to talk about that in an experience kind of way without being called ridiculous and being faced with a lot of technical discussion about it. UNLESS ASKED FOR. It's the civilized way. And with "I", I mean anybody.

However, maybe we should make some rule that if a discussion about perceived enjoyment of anything is the focus, then that should be made clear.
And again, I know that for some any such discussions is an insult to human intelligence. Again, Myers and Briggs and all that.

These kind of thoughts and again this thread makes me not want to talk about any of it here anymore.
The only discussions that gets a level headed treatment here is Studio-stuff, and instruments and such things. You might find me there.

I want to thank you all for reminding me that this is the way it is here. And I am very sad that it is so.

 

[Paltivar]

Are you familiar with the "first rule of holes"?

I think he's just patronizing and not especially clear in his writing (he's probably not a native English speaker). The later leaves ambiguities and the former prevents those from being cleared up.

 

[SDplus]

Ok, you edited.
Well, I can get into detail and explain exactly how Jitter as a time-related word clock problem can introduce errors in the bitstream on the CD system. But I really don't want to. And as you say. It is a small problem, and only effects the bit perfect people out there, and it is once or twice per hundred CD's today. And it is late here and my second day back from the vacation tomorrow. Basically I already put more effort in this than the problem warrants, and it is ridiculous. Even as a problem. All I ever wanted to say all those years ago was to not ignore the setting. If you want a perfect rip, then for fucks sake just see to it that you at least compensate for stupid stuff like that. And it still gets blown out of proportion today. Why is that necessary? Don't answer that. I don't care anymore eiter way. It isn't a problem I think about anymore, but I still always make the most accurate reading method possible when ripping a new CD, because it is still fast enough. I lived through a 3rd speed ripping once upon a time. A really fucked up CD still is ripped at at least 8x speed today, with all the error fixes needed. But I still use all the corrections. It might be for nothing. But it does not hurt.

 

[Richard Berg]

Again, error correction and jitter are very different things. When people encounter non-bit-perfect rips, they are not caused by clock skew. Nor does clock skew cause bit rot.

 

[SDplus]

I just can't explain myself in short form technically in English. Nobody reads what I write in the way I mean it, it has become a self fulfilling/aggravating error.
I will never again answer an obvious troll ever, anywhere, and I will never discuss technical matters in English or at Ars. When I have network problems and stuff like that I will turn here to ask about it. But there is no use trying to add anything to discussion here anymore. I'm too old and too Swedish.
This discussions that started about enjoyment of music and the way it turned has made me very upset now, Wrong word, not upset, Frustrated. So much so that I now at a bit after midnight know I will not be able to sleep (and I start work at 06:30, getting up at 05:30), thinking of how I should have answered, and cursing trying to honestly try to discuss the NON-technical aspect of music enjoyment.

I knew better, and I said so. But I just couldn't let a personal attack go unanswered. No one has even noticed what the original intent was.

Obviously there are people out there that hate me enough to troll me at that level, and it bothers me. That is what I take from this. I really don't care enough anymore to dig up any technical data. I want to enjoy life, and that is probably outside the Ars family I once held so dear. Yes a few rotten apples and so on... But sometimes one is enough to kill.

edit, to try and clarify, foolishly enough.

 

[cogwheel]

SDplus[/url]":8ng9x3hi]Obviously there are people out there that hate me enough to troll me at that level, and it bothers me.

I seriously doubt anyone in this thread even cares enough to hate you. Even redleader probably doesn't give enough of a fuck about you to actually hate you, he just remembers your specious at best arguments from the past enough to quickly search for them and repost them to demonstrate your typical level of understanding as a warning to others who might read the thread.

Hell, this concept of yours is symmetrical enough to demonstrate its sillyness: you apparently hate redleader, DriverGuru, Hat Monster, and Richard Berg enough to post in this thread to troll them.

 

[Paltivar]

Richard Berg[/url]":hbn6zm3c]Again, error correction and jitter are very different things. When people encounter non-bit-perfect rips, they are not caused by clock skew. Nor does clock skew cause bit rot.

AFAICT, the quoted 2003 post was talking about Seek Jitter, not clock jitter (although that's being thrown around now as well). It's a confusingly named data read error that occurs in Audio (but not data) CDs and is not actually jitter as a signal processing geek would use the term. It's a data indexing problem and not a data clocking problem.

I'm guessing it's named by an Audio Engineer rather than an Electrical Engineer, based on the sound profile and ignorant of the existing use of the term.

 

[Paltivar]

I just can't explain myself in short form technically in English. Nobody reads what I write in the way I mean it, it has become a self fulfilling/aggravating error.

Technical talk is super dependent on jargon, which often differs in subtle but important ways from the colloquial versions taught to foreign speakers.

You do amazingly well, which in a cruel irony is probably why you're being misunderstood. You're almost right on, which makes you sound assertive and misinformed. If the mistakes were more obvious, it would be far more likely people would attribute it to the language differences.

 

[redleader]

cogwheel[/url]":izkh6rer]

SDplus[/url]":izkh6rer]Obviously there are people out there that hate me enough to troll me at that level, and it bothers me.

I seriously doubt anyone in this thread even cares enough to hate you. Even redleader probably doesn't give enough of a fuck about you to actually hate you, he just remembers your specious at best arguments from the past enough to quickly search for them and repost them to demonstrate your typical level of understanding as a warning to others who might read the thread.

I honestly had no idea who SDplus was before this thread. I certainly don't hate him. He's a forgettable nobody with nothing of interest to say. I just saw someone whining that they were unrecognized supergenius who knew everything always and thought "this will be good".

And of course you get a mountain of crazy nonsense was because no one with half a bit of sense would say something like that.

 

[redleader]

Paltivar[/url]":3in2jht6]

I just can't explain myself in short form technically in English. Nobody reads what I write in the way I mean it, it has become a self fulfilling/aggravating error.

Technical talk is super dependent on jargon, which often differs in subtle but important ways from the colloquial versions taught to foreign speakers.

I don't think a lack of language skills is the reason hes doesn't know what the sampling theory says. I don't think its a lack of language skills that makes you believe CD audio can't produce accurate sounds about 10 kHz.

Thats just a lack of understanding and experience, combined with the arrogance to believe you know better than everyone else all the time. Whats funny is SDplus doing exactly the same thing as that thread I cited, where someone stepped in and explained how sampling worked, he freaked out, and so learned nothing. Now here we are again. A sensible man would swallow their pride and learn from their mistakes. An insane man would hypothesize that dozens of strangers on the internet are secretly colluding against him for no reason.

Blaming language here is just his way of avoiding admitting to himself that he made a mistake, and so avoiding learning from it. Its a defense mechanism for his ego. Hes just telling himself that he said the right thing but didn't know the right words, when in fact what hes saying would have been nonsense in any language. Its a vicious cycle that will keep him from ever learning much of anything, no matter how many times people try to help him.

 

[Paltivar]

redleader[/url]":2pqofrf2]

Paltivar[/url]":2pqofrf2]

I just can't explain myself in short form technically in English. Nobody reads what I write in the way I mean it, it has become a self fulfilling/aggravating error.

Technical talk is super dependent on jargon, which often differs in subtle but important ways from the colloquial versions taught to foreign speakers.

I don't think a lack of language skills is the reason hes doesn't know what the sampling theory says. I don't think its a lack of language skills that makes you believe CD audio can't produce sounds about 10 kHz.

It certainly was an issue in the Jitter conversation. I don't think it's the only issue, but it's certainly not helping matters any.

Is he wrong on Nyquist? Looks like, AFAICT. But I don't have some special version of what he meant instead of what he said, and language differences will obscure the difference between topics that are very hard even for native speakers.

 

[redleader]

Paltivar[/url]":18ukei16]

redleader[/url]":18ukei16]

Paltivar[/url]":18ukei16]

I just can't explain myself in short form technically in English. Nobody reads what I write in the way I mean it, it has become a self fulfilling/aggravating error.

Technical talk is super dependent on jargon, which often differs in subtle but important ways from the colloquial versions taught to foreign speakers.

I don't think a lack of language skills is the reason hes doesn't know what the sampling theory says. I don't think its a lack of language skills that makes you believe CD audio can't produce sounds about 10 kHz.

It certainly was an issue in the Jitter conversation. I don't think it's the only issue, but it's certainly not helping matters any.

I don't think language is the main issue there, since he talks about time correction, which would only make sense in the temporal sense of jitter, not the offset kind (AFAIK, I'm no expert on CD audio, so correct me if I'm wrong). He also linked an article that is clearly referring to temporal jitter. He may also be combining other types of jitter here, but I don't think thats the main problem, and that kind of points to a more fundamental lack of understanding more so than anything.

Paltivar[/url]":18ukei16]
Is he wrong on Nyquist? Looks like, AFAICT. But I don't have some special version of what he meant instead of what he said, and language differences will obscure the difference between topics that are very hard even for native speakers.

Yes he is wrong about Nyquist, in at least 5 or 6 different ways, but forget all that theory and complexity. You don't need to understand sampling to know that CD audio does just fine above 10 kHz. Just listen to CD audio! You can hear with your own ears even if you speak Swahili and every text ever written is in Danish! Hell I knew that long before I ever picked up a textbook from playing with my parents stereo's EQ knobs when I was like 10. The 14 kHz band sounded fine. Anyone who has ever done room correction or EQed headphones will know this. There is nothing necessarily theoretical about this, simple experience will teach you just as well.

Anyway, I also dislike the implication that you need to speak the Queen's English to know about audio. I've worked with Chinese audio designers who didn't speak a word of English, but still designed perfectly competent products. The vast majority of the niche stuff sold to HeadFi readers these days is designed by people who don't speak English. I don't hear them complaining.

 

[reimund]

I honestly had no idea who SDplus was before this thread. I certainly don't hate him. He's a forgettable nobody with nothing of interest to say.

Yikes.

And you guys are saying SDPlus is the one trolling? How about these personal attacks and insults? Certainly makes me question the "objectivity" of redleader's arguments.

 

[Paltivar]

redleader[/url]":9awvhu23]
I don't think language is the main issue there, since he talks about time correction, which would only make sense in the temporal sense of jitter, not the offset kind (AFAIK, I'm no expert on CD audio, so correct me if I'm wrong). He also linked an article that is clearly referring to temporal jitter. He may also be combining other types of jitter here, but I don't think thats the main problem, and that kind of points to a more fundamental lack of understanding more so than anything.

I'm not an expert by any means, but my understanding is CD audio is nonindexed data stream, basically a 70 minute long series of bits.

If the rotation speed is faster than those bits are needed, the cache eventually fills and there's no place to toss the bits as they are read. So you stop reading until there is space in the cache, but there's no good way to tell where in the bitstream you ended, since the bits aren't indexed. The drive would sometimes miss, and start reading a little before or a little after where you left off, giving you a tiny jump forward in time or a tiny juamp back.

Jitter correction in CD audio means the drive intentionally resumes earlier in disc time, giving some redundant data that it can use to find where the data stream actually picks up. But it comes at a performance hit, since you're reading the extra data and doing extra processing.

Obviously, as you note, this isn't the jitter described in his linked document.

Paltivar[/url]":9awvhu23]
Is he wrong on Nyquist? Looks like, AFAICT. But I don't have some special version of what he meant instead of what he said, and language differences will obscure the difference between topics that are very hard even for native speakers.

Yes he is wrong about Nyquist, in at least 5 or 6 different ways, but forget all that theory and complexity. You don't need to understand sampling to know that CD audio does just fine above 10 kHz. Just listen to CD audio! You can hear with your own ears even if you speak Swahili and every text ever written is in Danish! Hell I knew that long before I ever picked up a textbook from playing with my parents stereo's EQ knobs when I was like 10. The 14 kHz band sounded fine. Anyone who has ever done room correction or EQed headphones will know this. There is nothing necessarily theoretical about this, simple experience will teach you just as well.

Anyway, I also dislike the implication that you need to speak the Queen's English to know about audio. I've worked with Chinese audio designers who didn't speak a word of English, but still designed perfectly competent products. The vast majority of the niche stuff sold to HeadFi readers these days is designed by people who don't speak English. I don't hear them complaining.

Why do you assume he's an designer, as opposed to a user? He said he was in music production, he almost certainly doesn't have the signal processing engineering background. But thats as valid of place from which to form a viewpoint as a designer.

There was never an implication that you needed English to be competent, if anything I've been arguing for the opposite. What you do need English for is to explain your viewpoint on nuanced issues to an English speaking audience in an English language web forum.

I'm not going to defend his views on Nyquist or jitter, so you don't need to reiterate why you think he's wrong to me. I'm personally not clear enough on what he's trying to say for me say he understands the issue, and the charitable position for me to take is to attribute that to communications rather than incompetence.

 

[Paltivar]

reimund[/url]":37umpl04]

I honestly had no idea who SDplus was before this thread. I certainly don't hate him. He's a forgettable nobody with nothing of interest to say.

Yikes.

And you guys are saying SDPlus is the one trolling? How about these personal attacks and insults? Certainly makes me question the "objectivity" of redleader's arguments.

The only poster you really knows is yourself. Maybe a few others you've met offline, or that you've got a long posting history with and can reasonably be comfortable that you know. But Ars has lots of users, and while I wouldn't put it as bluntly as redleader, I'm not going to remember most of them, or what they had to say. Nor do I expect people to remember me.

There's only one or two posters in this thread I could say anything about beyond what's in their tribus. And for one, that's because I've foe'd them.

 

[reimund]

When someone says "this person is a nobody", it's usually meant as a put-down/insult. We, of course, won't really know if that was redleader's intent, but that's how I understand the use of the "so and so person is a nobody" phrase.

 

[Kalessin]

reimund[/url]":uiiccb3l]When someone says "this person is a nobody", it's usually meant as a put-down/insult. We, of course, won't really know if that was redleader's intent, but that's how I understand the use of the "so and so person is a nobody" phrase.

You have to take into account a certain amount of "internet bluster" when you're reading these kinds of comments. Otherwise the forums just become unreadable.

 

[Kalessin]

cogwheel[/url]":3hwamt1i]
...he just remembers your specious at best arguments from the past enough to quickly search for them and repost them to demonstrate your typical level of understanding as a warning to others who might read the thread.

We could probably go through and pick apart or ridicule something from most or all of the posters in this thread, even the "knowledgable parties." There's no real need to trot out miscommunications or misconceptions as evidence of one's superior understanding relative to the "other." What would be the purpose? it's a discussion; there are no "points" being awarded (that I'm aware of).

 

[Hat Monster]

EIGHT POINTS TO THE GREEN TEAM!

But seriously, did someone say that 8/14 encoding suffers jitter? An encoding designed entirely to make jitter impossible (that is, no code is one bit away from another and with ten-bit RLL) has jitter? Even before any error correction?

That might not yet be stupid. It could just be someone who shouldn't be talking about the subject and instead reading about it. I've had a look around and I can't find anything actually more accessible than the Wikipedia article on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-to- ... modulation

 

[Paltivar]

Hat Monster[/url]":4tqv5w3k]EIGHT POINTS TO THE GREEN TEAM!

But seriously, did someone say that 8/14 encoding suffers jitter? An encoding designed entirely to make jitter impossible (that is, no code is one bit away from another and with ten-bit RLL) has jitter? Even before any error correction?

That might not yet be stupid. It could just be someone who shouldn't be talking about the subject and instead reading about it. I've had a look around and I can't find anything actually more accessible than the Wikipedia article on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-to- ... modulation

Seek jitter, which is basically something completely different from clock/data jitter.

 

[DriverGuru]

But that generates huge gross errors. Not things you have to resort to read-three-times-and-compare to detect.

 

[Hat Monster]

Seek jitter causes a whole bunch of samples to be plain wrong. This isn't some subtle effect, it's a goddamned great click and pop! During playback, the mechanism shouldn't be seeking and if it is smart enough to gapless reseek, then it'll compare against its buffer anyway. This is why interfaces like ASPI tell you when the drive's seeking if you're doing DAE.

Don't get why it'd be any sort of problem. Software can losslessly fix it, playback doesn't experience it.

 

[Paltivar]

Shockingly enough, shit that's brought up in a "audio CD copying" thread from 2003 isn't all that relevant to the current conversation.

 

[cogwheel]

Kalessin[/url]":33gw4grk]

cogwheel[/url]":33gw4grk]
...he just remembers your specious at best arguments from the past enough to quickly search for them and repost them to demonstrate your typical level of understanding as a warning to others who might read the thread.

We could probably go through and pick apart or ridicule something from most or all of the posters in this thread, even the "knowledgable parties." There's no real need to trot out miscommunications or misconceptions as evidence of one's superior understanding relative to the "other." What would be the purpose? it's a discussion; there are no "points" being awarded (that I'm aware of).

I think you're forgetting that more than just the people posting in a thread read it. The purpose isn't to score points, it's to inform non-participating readers, especially those who haven't been here long or found this via search engine, that a given poster has a history of specious arguments on the topic and therefore their recent posts should be treated with more than average skepticism, in a relatively short way.

 

[Kalessin]

cogwheel[/url]":7pkgi9xl]

Kalessin[/url]":7pkgi9xl]

cogwheel[/url]":7pkgi9xl]
...he just remembers your specious at best arguments from the past enough to quickly search for them and repost them to demonstrate your typical level of understanding as a warning to others who might read the thread.

We could probably go through and pick apart or ridicule something from most or all of the posters in this thread, even the "knowledgable parties." There's no real need to trot out miscommunications or misconceptions as evidence of one's superior understanding relative to the "other." What would be the purpose? it's a discussion; there are no "points" being awarded (that I'm aware of).

I think you're forgetting that more than just the people posting in a thread read it. The purpose isn't to score points, it's to inform non-participating readers, especially those who haven't been here long or found this via search engine, that a given poster has a history of specious arguments on the topic and therefore their recent posts should be treated with more than average skepticism, in a relatively short way.

I'm not forgetting that others might read the thread. Nor am I suggesting that mistakes should be left uncorrected. What I am suggesting is that mistakes can be corrected without all the condescension.

 

[Nekojin]

Kalessin[/url]":l5lcyt59]I'm not forgetting that others might read the thread. Nor am I suggesting that mistakes should be left uncorrected. What I am suggesting is that mistakes can be corrected without all the condescension.

When someone strides in with an appeal to self-authority, declares that everyone sucks because they'll just attack his superior knowledge*, and then goes on to make blatant mistakes, condescension is well called for.

If, on the other hand, he asked questions, or made less belligerent, more qualified statements, he wouldn't get the backlash.

* An attitude he still swaggers around with, mind you.

 

[wseaton]

The way an Engineer who worked at Burr Brown explained it to me some years ago (I'm paraphrasing the conversation and likely badly) was that jitter is simply a non sequitur in regards to digital audio transports because even low end DACs are capable of proper timing. Having an upstream component with theoretically better jitter correction is a waste of debate because the final source clock is what determines what's going to happen anyways with the bit stream. Also, the data stream being delivered from conventional red book CD's is so frikken slow that error correction rarely occurs with CD playback anyways. CD drives are capable of much higher sustained reads without issues. "Audiophile grade" transports almost always involve a better DAC in the pipeline somewhere so the low end retail DAC get's bypassed. The transport however has nothing to do with the equation other than looking really cool.

As I've previously stated I've heard some rather startling differences between DAC's in terms of sound staging and detail which initiated the conversation, but this was 15 years ago. Once 24/96 audio DACs hit the mainstream it's become excruciatingly difficult to hear sonic differences between line leveled DACs. Such was not the case when cheap to produce 16bit DACs populated consumer electronics.

I just want ot know what the guys who push the transport / jitter myth and hype exotic digital cables do at their day job. If it involves any type of engineering I want to avoid their products for safety concerns.

 

[Kalessin]

Nekojin[/url]":2ywehc13]

Kalessin[/url]":2ywehc13]I'm not forgetting that others might read the thread. Nor am I suggesting that mistakes should be left uncorrected. What I am suggesting is that mistakes can be corrected without all the condescension.

When someone strides in with an appeal to self-authority, declares that everyone sucks because they'll just attack his superior knowledge*, and then goes on to make blatant mistakes, condescension is well called for.

"Called for" in what sense? And as I asked earlier, what purpose does it serve?

If, on the other hand, he asked questions, or made less belligerent, more qualified statements, he wouldn't get the backlash.

Quite possibly true. On the other hand, if the condescension weren't quite so heavy we might get better clarity on what he's trying to say, and he might even be more receptive to being "corrected."

 

[Paltivar]

redleader, I want you to know, every time someone posts about jitter in this thread, I hate you a little more.

 

[reimund]

As I've previously stated I've heard some rather startling differences between DAC's in terms of sound staging and detail which initiated the conversation, but this was 15 years ago. Once 24/96 audio DACs hit the mainstream it's become excruciatingly difficult to hear sonic differences between line leveled DACs. Such was not the case when cheap to produce 16bit DACs populated consumer electronics.

Yea... despite all the arguing I've done, I'll say this was probably the case for me, since the CD players I heard from my dad's stash was from over 10 years ago. One of them was actually a Sony CDP-R1, which I believe was made in 1987 - which makes it over 25 years old technology. I don't remember what model the other CD player was, but it was a Nakamichi. So I'm assuming this was at a time when differences in CD players were indeed audible, if everyone agrees on that.

With those CD players, I heard a difference. With the DACs and shit that have been made very recently? I'll honestly say I can't hear much of a difference. I have a $300 Matrix DAC, and I don't think I can tell the difference between that and the motherboard on-board audio. I haven't done serious comparisons, but there have been times when I got confused as to which was which while listening to my headphones.

 

[DriverGuru]

Hat Monster[/url]":3hjzj6n7]EIGHT POINTS TO THE GREEN TEAM!

As long as it isn't the "green pen team"...

 

[StanGable]

With the DACs and shit that have been made very recently? I'll honestly say I can't hear much of a difference.

Much? Unless it's a complete piece of trash and/or broken as designed, you can't hear any difference, chief.

 

[reimund]

StanGable[/url]":3bzeom2m]

With the DACs and shit that have been made very recently? I'll honestly say I can't hear much of a difference.

Much? Unless it's a complete piece of trash and/or broken as designed, you can't hear any difference, chief.

I just expressed something to your side of the argument that I agree with, and you just find something else to nit-pick. Needlessly pedantic, much?

 

[reimund]

Ok. And how about the rest of the sentences in the post?

I have a $300 Matrix DAC, and I don't think I can tell the difference between that and the motherboard on-board audio. I haven't done serious comparisons, but there have been times when I got confused as to which was which while listening to my headphones.

Yea. Needlessly pedantic. I can't even dip my toes into this freaking thread, even to say that I agree with some of the majority arguments being made here, without someone trying to put words into my mouth.

Edit: Nice stealth delete, Girglemirt (this specific post was a response to him, not StanGable), which is against the forum rules, FYI.

 

[StanGable]

reimund[/url]":19p3kpoa]

StanGable[/url]":19p3kpoa]

With the DACs and shit that have been made very recently? I'll honestly say I can't hear much of a difference.

Much? Unless it's a complete piece of trash and/or broken as designed, you can't hear any difference, chief.

I just expressed something to your side of the argument that I agree with, and you just find something else to nit-pick. Needlessly pedantic, much?

Nice try. You're not ceding anything to "my side" saying you don't hear "much" difference, because that's no different than saying "I hear a difference".

No you don't, at least not unless one is broken.

 

[StanGable]

These kind of thoughts and again this thread makes me not want to talk about any of it here anymore.
The only discussions that gets a level headed treatment here is Studio-stuff, and instruments and such things. You might find me there.

I want to thank you all for reminding me that this is the way it is here. And I am very sad that it is so.

You of all people should know good and well how bullshit gets treated around here. If that gives you the sads, that's on you, not the forum.