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It's a fair cop, I just usually see it discussed in terms of production.
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Jun 10, 2020 16:27
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DACs are a solved problem, all the manufacturer can do is chase zeros on the spec sheet [Benchmark], make the signal slightly worse [Schiit] or put it in an extremely ugly case [Chord, Cyrus]. The DAC in my receiver which does high res PCM, DSD, crossover, volume control and EQ costs two dollars from AKM. There's a running thread in the AVS 2 channel forum where a guy recorded a song through an $8 Apple USB C DAC, through a cheap cable that's too long then back through a cheap desktop interface and had a Foobar ABX test against the original file. Nobody has been able to tell the difference when testing but there's a whole lot of people who won't take the test and want to yell at him for hundreds of pages.
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Jun 10, 2020 16:34
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KozmoNaut posted:I would say "signal processing" rather than "production", really. 96kHz sample rate gives more than enough headroom to minimize artifacts from filters, similar to how 24 bit depth assures that you really don't have to worry about the noise floor creeping up into the audible range while messing with the signal, unless you really mess up bad. It's the "don't worry about it" setting. If you do signal processing at 44.1kHz and 16 bits, you have to know what you're doing to not mess it up. OH MY GOD loving FIIO. I bought a D03K to connect to my Samsung TV and apparently it just could not handle it. It does fine with 44.1kHz sources but does not handle 48 well at all. 
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Jun 10, 2020 17:30
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Floyd Toole does argue for 20 bit playback. Technically, human hearing exceeds 16 bit resolution. In practice, outside of a purpose built, very quiet room and an exceptionally dynamic recording, no one would ever be able to make use of that increased dynamic range. That won’t stop people from trumpeting the superiority of 32 bit 384 kHz recordings, though. Is there even a DAC that can exceed an effective bit depth of 21 bits?
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Jun 10, 2020 17:42
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:OH MY GOD loving FIIO. I bought a D03K to connect to my Samsung TV and apparently it just could not handle it. Yeah, it's a real mess and a drat shame, especially since it's specifically sold as a DAC for use with TVs that only have optical outputs available, and 48kHz is the de facto standard in the video world. At least on a PC you can force resampling to 44.1kHz and still use it.
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Jun 10, 2020 18:40
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qirex posted:DACs are a solved problem, all the manufacturer can do is chase zeros on the spec sheet [Benchmark], make the signal slightly worse [Schiit] or put it in an extremely ugly case [Chord, Cyrus]. The DAC in my receiver which does high res PCM, DSD, crossover, volume control and EQ costs two dollars from AKM. There's a running thread in the AVS 2 channel forum where a guy recorded a song through an $8 Apple USB C DAC, through a cheap cable that's too long then back through a cheap desktop interface and had a Foobar ABX test against the original file. Nobody has been able to tell the difference when testing but there's a whole lot of people who won't take the test and want to yell at him for hundreds of pages. Hahaha I went FiiO, Schiit, Focusrite. My Scarlett died 😭 I needed those balanced outputs and volume knob for my Mackies.
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Jun 10, 2020 18:52
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Wasabi the J posted:Hahaha I went FiiO, Schiit, Focusrite. It's time for a Big Knob 
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Jun 10, 2020 18:55
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I still swear on internal soundcards. For this mainboard having those stupid Nichicon gold caps, some shielding and PCB separation bullshit, and whatever the hell else, there's sure plenty of audible noise. And I'm not gonna put an ugly breakout box on my desk. Also, those Soundblaster drivers have yet to take my system down, and it runs 24/7.
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Jun 10, 2020 19:21
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I haven't had problems with onboard realteks in years. I get high-end motherboards so maybe it's different on inexpensive ones, but I thought that problem largely got solved a while ago except on bargain poo poo.
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Jun 10, 2020 19:34
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Combat Pretzel posted:I still swear on internal soundcards. Yeah get an Asus Xonar and call it a day
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Jun 10, 2020 19:35
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Combat Pretzel posted:I still swear on internal soundcards. For this mainboard having those stupid Nichicon gold caps, some shielding and PCB separation bullshit, and whatever the hell else, there's sure plenty of audible noise. And I'm not gonna put an ugly breakout box on my desk. Also, those Soundblaster drivers have yet to take my system down, and it runs 24/7. If you do want something external that doesn't take up table space and you have USB-C ports, get one of these: https://www.meizu.com/en/accessory/hifipro.html Or a Google Pixel USB-C headphone dongle. Probably the most discrete options out there. If I had USB-C ports in my PC and I wanted to replace my Topping D30 (and get rid of a mains power supply), I would just get one of those and keep my Atom headphone amp and be happy. KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Jun 10, 2020 |
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Jun 10, 2020 19:36
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Wasabi the J posted:Hahaha I went FiiO, Schiit, Focusrite. Dude after having a separate monitor and headphone volume knob for so long I will never be able to go back. KozmoNaut posted:It's time for a Big Knob These are fantastic by the way.
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Jun 10, 2020 21:53
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qirex posted:DACs are a solved problem, all the manufacturer can do is chase zeros on the spec sheet [Benchmark], make the signal slightly worse [Schiit] or put it in an extremely ugly case [Chord, Cyrus]. The DAC in my receiver which does high res PCM, DSD, crossover, volume control and EQ costs two dollars from AKM. There's a running thread in the AVS 2 channel forum where a guy recorded a song through an $8 Apple USB C DAC, through a cheap cable that's too long then back through a cheap desktop interface and had a Foobar ABX test against the original file. Nobody has been able to tell the difference when testing but there's a whole lot of people who won't take the test and want to yell at him for hundreds of pages. To be fair, that 8 dollar Apple USB-C DAC is really, really good. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/ So's the desktop interface, I'm sure.
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Jun 11, 2020 02:08
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:A choke, a cap, a relay, and a fuse. And likely a big clunky Cherry power switch. evilcat posted:I found this gem with various arguments online about listening to cables and if a high end analog cable makes a difference or not and stranded vs solid core and cables spending years in development.
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Jun 11, 2020 02:21
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KozmoNaut posted:If you do want something external that doesn't take up table space and you have USB-C ports, get one of these: https://www.meizu.com/en/accessory/hifipro.html Miniaturization is crazy. Makes me wonder if it’s possible to make a “digital” phono cartridge with built in riaa eq and a dac.
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Jun 11, 2020 03:03
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polyester concept posted:Miniaturization is crazy. Makes me wonder if it’s possible to make a “digital” phono cartridge with built in riaa eq and a dac. Probably not because there's not much room in them to begin with and adding more weight would make it much harder to balance. Also, that's silly. Just put it in the tonearm.
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Jun 11, 2020 05:22
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GWBBQ posted:Two visually identical cables can sound wildly different if you're bad enough at making them.
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Jun 11, 2020 08:13
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Combat Pretzel posted:You mean forget to put copper in them? Copper thieves are everywhere.
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Jun 11, 2020 13:15
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You wouldn't believe how brazen copper thieves can be. The cable manufacturing plant I work at, the copper drawing department borders at a steep incline, on top of which there's a fairly large meadow. They stored a bunch of barrels of drawn wire (1mm diameter) on the outside at the incline. Over a whole weekend, some thieves rolled up with a truck onto that meadow and spooled like six of these barrels empty over two days. Apparently some crappy motorized makeshift contraption to pull a couple of wires up the incline and spool them up in bunches. Which is interesting, considering on the other side of the meadow there's a row of houses and none of them seemed to either notice or were in any way suspicious. But guess at what moment the surveillance system was upgraded, tho.
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Jun 11, 2020 20:24
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Neurophonic posted:Oh yeah it is. What is even going on there? Is that uninsulated wire running in some weird point to point configuration between boards? What is with the carbon looking covers over a bunch of it? Why is it made of wood? And is it really a R-2R dac made from completely discrete SMD resistors ? I'm not having another weird dream I can't tell apart from reality, am I? Am I reading it right with the three cables in the $34k are for connecting a separate power supply via XLR to the DAC? I just... This is just reminding me of the things the Oswald Mills Audio people insist on, like the tungar bulb rectifier.
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Jun 19, 2020 01:55
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Take a quick guess as to what this is the power supply for it's a DAC. a $5000 DAC
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Jul 14, 2020 23:16
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How long can this thing keep running until the caps are discharged? And what are those donut components, anyway? Since they say what I presume is Volt-Ampere?
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Jul 14, 2020 23:50
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Combat Pretzel posted:How long can this thing keep running until the caps are discharged? Toroidal transformers for linear power supplies
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Jul 15, 2020 01:45
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I wonder if the big one is even needed or if it's just there to take up space and add mass.
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Jul 15, 2020 08:15
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I bet the DAC still measures worse than the $9 Apple USB-C to 3.5mm dongle.
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Jul 15, 2020 11:16
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If you want to see a masterclass in misunderstanding digital audio in the most expensive and convoluted way possible I suggest this article. Basically dude gets a video doorbell and it makes audio streaming stutter on his wifi. The obvious solution would be to run ethernet for stuff you don't want dropoputs on. And he kind of does:  quote:Below is a list of equipment for a basic setup:  quote:Putting my scientist hat on, I went into full research mode and started reading everything I could find about digital streaming using copper Ethernent versus optical fiber. Here’s what I learned.  quote:The purpose of using optical fiber and networking devices with better clocks and power supplies is to reduce sources of noise and improve timing of bitstreams. It was originally thought that digital sources and connections were impervious to the effect of noise on audio quality; after all, they’re just 1’s and 0’s, right? What can go wrong? Well, it turns out that bitstreams are not composed of 1’s and 0’s; that is only how the data comprising the music file is encoded. What is actually transmitted from server to DAC are analog square wave voltages. As result, it turns out that…everything matters. 
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Jul 17, 2020 18:09
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You really had to post that? I threw up and now I need to lay down.
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Jul 18, 2020 00:09
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That is fuckin staggering, indistinguishable from parody.quote:The purpose of using optical fiber and networking devices with better clocks and power supplies is to reduce sources of noise and improve timing of bitstreams. It was originally thought that digital sources and connections were impervious to the effect of noise on audio quality; after all, they’re just 1’s and 0’s, right? What can go wrong? Well, it turns out that bitstreams are not composed of 1’s and 0’s; that is only how the data comprising the music file is encoded. What is actually transmitted from server to DAC are analog square wave voltages. As result, it turns out that…everything matters. Edit: the Optional Cisco WS-C2960L-8TS-LL Catalyst Ethernet Switch (8-port) line is funny and leads me to believe the dingus actually got one and then had NFI how to actually use it. Pile Of Garbage fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jul 18, 2020 |
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Jul 18, 2020 15:01
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All over the world people are reliably transporting multiple gigabits a second over copper just fine, but loving audio at 1.4MBbit, gently caress no, that requires a CERN level setup. Also, it still blows my mind every drat time that those idiots just can't grasp packet networks and that every device buffers packets before retransmission (being remodulated over a new circuit in case of switches and routers). Who the gently caress cares what's in between two peers, if the same bits arrive at the destination as they were at the source? Analog square wave voltages? Who the gently caress cares what the levels of the zero and one bits are, if all it does is trigger some hysteresis circuit?!
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Jul 18, 2020 15:18
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the remarkable thing about this is that he cobbled together this pile of unnecessary overspecced parts and it actually works
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Jul 18, 2020 15:37
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What really blows my mind is that people can apparently research and then write poo poo like that all whilst never once experiencing impostor syndrome. I suspect it's because the author and their ilk read from a very limited range of bullshit and then just extrapolate from that to understand things outside their domain. Edit: Yeah in retrospect Dunning-Kruger is more accurate. vvv Pile Of Garbage fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Jul 18, 2020 |
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Jul 18, 2020 15:58
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Dunning Kruger is a much stronger influence than imposter syndrome. People with imposter syndrome actually know their poo poo.
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Jul 18, 2020 16:25
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What’s that old line about “don’t expect someone to listen if their living depends on not believing you?” This is this guy’s job. Even if he once thought tweako garbage was a necessary evil to keep hiding magazines in business once you spend 30+ years in an industry that only exists because other old dudes will pay big bucks if you tell them something is great it’s going to have an effect.
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Jul 18, 2020 16:46
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quote:Cat 6 Ethernet cables. (I use Shunyata Research Venom as a minimum spec... Three hundred and fifty dollar Ethernet cable... THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS ... https://www.musicdirect.com/cables/Shunyata-Sigma-Ethernet-Cable?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIibXN8d7f6gIVygiICR11lAQYEAQYAiABEgKoqvD_BwE The Alpha is a THOUSAND?!?.. I.. ewiley fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 03:07
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ewiley posted:Three hundred and fifty dollar Ethernet cable... THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS Holy poo poo $9000 power cable https://www.musicdirect.com/cables/Shunyata-Omega-QR-Power-Cable-20A
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Jul 22, 2020 15:14
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GutBomb posted:Holy poo poo $9000 power cable w-hat Also, did they patent what's essentially an unipolar capacitor?! https://patents.google.com/patent/US10031536B2/en --edit: "Experimentation demonstrates that for an AC power line of 120 VAC at 60 Hz, the value should be at minimum 100 kilo-ohms while the ideal value would be approximately 3 giga-ohms." Yeah, like that'll do anything. Might aswell put a piece of rubber in there instead. Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 15:44
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I swear there's a niche in the market for really nice looking cables that make no performance claims and are like $20-50. Like Blue Jeans Cable but with a choice of colors.
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Jul 22, 2020 16:43
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You can charge people for a piece of shiny quartz that keeps their cables off the ground, $50 per "Resonance-Tuned Quartz Riser" (Recommended one riser per 30cm).
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Jul 22, 2020 17:17
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qirex posted:I swear there's a niche in the market for really nice looking cables that make no performance claims and are like $20-50. Like Blue Jeans Cable but with a choice of colors. there really should be
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Jul 22, 2020 20:39
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GonadTheBallbarian posted:there really should be In all likelihood it's small enough that's there's just more money to be made selling the ridiculous poo poo to 5-10 people. The materials are the same, and a 50-100% markup needs a lot of sales to compete with a 5000% markup.
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Jul 22, 2020 20:46
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