Yyz-that’s old technology, some of us have talked about this for almost a decade. The converters might be better today compared to what they were many years ago.
But, comparing fiber to the dac and the article that the OP wrote about are 2 different things.
BS meter is pegged!
I was reading about a music streamer from a latest Stereophile review and what was posted in the review had my BS meters pegged. I'm from the high tech industry with friends that work at Intel labs and friends that work for ARM computers and they haven't heard of some of these things that were posted. Maybe we can get clarification on these items so they don't sound so far fetched and the specifics posted in the review tainted the reviewers judgement IMO.
1) The review states this piece uses "a cpu that's highly prioritized for audio playback only ensuring highly optimized sound quality". I asked around if somebody is making a specific CPU for audio playback only. You know the Intel/AMD fabs that make cpu's make millions of them at a time, not 10-1000 custom cpus. Even when you look at the ARM cpus, none of them are built specifically for audio. There are millions of servers in the world that do database work for example that no cpu maker is building a specific cpu for database only applications. If there is a small company that are creating this kind of cpu, what kind of OS will run on it? This piece runs Roon so it has to be a somewhat generic cpu with a generic Linux OS running on it.
2) the review states: this unit "it plays live with no other processes running in parallel. as far as we know, unlike any other streamer on the market, this streamers cpu plays directly and live from the kernel without any processing or lag." Meter is pegged now. NO OS will run only 1 process at a time without hundreds of other system processes running in parallel or in the background. Using Unix/Linux, the OS is always in a flux state moving data around in its caches, in and out of memory, doing read a head, swapping, paging, etc... And these system processes are a good thing to keep the system stable and running efficiently.
3) this piece uses "new and faster enhanced memory". Meter is pegged again. During the last 2 decades using Linux servers and over 2 decades before that using Sun and IBM UNIX servers, I have never had the option of buying enhanced memory. I made a couple of calls and asked if they had any enhanced memory that they could sell me and they had no clue what I was talking about. Everybody can get fast memory but "enhanced"?
4) "the whole device plays 1 song directly from RAM". All linux OSs do this, you cannot go from any cache or ssd/hdd directly out of the computer, the data has to be read into ram 1st.If the system is paging, this data might be deleted from RAM and then have to reread into RAM before sending to a dac. I used many large PCIE cache cards to hold large amounts of data (used it as a database cache) but that cached data had to be moved from this fast cache to ram before sending out to the dac.
Most of the time, audio reviewers get psyched up when they hear new acronyms or a magical cpu or enhanced memory that taints their judgement. For example, this reviewer at the end stated "never before have I reviewed a stand-alone streamer/server so accomplished in the hardware department".
Maybe somebody could clarify some of this up for me/us in the audiophile community.
78 responses Add your response
@p05129
When I saw this quote, I stopped reading your thread post. Your BS meter is good. Put fibre optical cable just before the DAC, like the digital savant, Andreas Koch from PlayBack Designs, and the questions about the streaming source (CPU et al) go away. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bipod72- what are bloated processes? What do you call eliminating extraneous processing that the OS does? I’m not talking about windows because that OS is junk running on old technology hardware. I’m talking about Linux which most streamers/servers use. Like somebody stated earlier on, Linux and Unix do run processes to keep the OS running efficiently with read ahead buffers, moving data into different caches, freeing up memory, on and on. You do not want to eliminate any of these processes.
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I'm no expert but...considering that many on this forum will recommend listening to digital sources via a dedicated DAC & Streamer vs. an off-the-shelf laptop because the dedicated audio units are designed to minimize signal processing steps and interference pathways. While you can call BS on whether or not they actually have "enhanced memory" chips and single-step CPUs, I imagine what they're trying to market is that the hardware & OS have been optimized to eliminate signal and processing interference by eliminating extraneous processing requirements for the hardware components. If you're Streaming / DAC box only processes digital information and sends that same data packet out (vs. a laptop or desktop that has to run the bloated OS processes on top of whatever software processes the box is running) then it would stand to reason the components have been "enhanced" by eliminating the extraneous OS/Software and hardware burdens. Does that mean they've designed and fab'd their own CPUs and RAMs to achieve this? Pretty sure the answer is no. It's great marketing though! Imagine trying to convince people that instead of using their laptop, the component manufacturer said it manufactured a stripped-down computer box for you to stream from and used off-the-shelf components they bought off NewEgg.com without designing it for hi-fi use would you buy it? We all know Hi-fi manufacturers have to justify the new improvements even though most of that is just ad copy jargon written to make minor circuit design improvements sound better than just saying, we swapped parts. But then again, maybe these guys did find a fab center that would do custom chips and flash memory runs for them. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@p05129 this thread reminds me of some threads about how Alberto from AGD couldn't possibly have GaNFETs designed specifically for audio. How would they possibly know the truth one way or another. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
People are asking if these concerns have been asked to the reviewer or to the manufacturer. I remember seeing in the past that reviewers send the manufacturers the review before posting it, and Stereophile does so the manufacturer can make a comment about the review in the same issue. Read this: https://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/307awsi#:~:text=The%20manufacturer%20is%20not%20made,same%20issue%20as%20the%20review. The manufacturer did not make a comment. Huh! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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That’s a good question. Sometimes it’s better to get in front of things than ignore them. Sometimes. There are more, but I’m only familiar with 2 manufacturers responding on ASR: the dude from tekton, and the vastly more illustrious Bob Carver. The tekton guy wasted an excellent opportunity to keep his mouth shut and stay out of it. But Bob Carver, ironically because his amp’s problems were far more egregious than the tekton speaker’s, did a much better job handling the crowds, surfing the wave instead of ordering it to back off. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As a technologist myself, I agree that the Stereophile review does seem like something that needs to get scraped off our shoes before going into the house. I agree with every one of your points. It's just NOT the way computers work at all. Even simple DACs can't read data directly off the external source, it must be read into a buffer and then into memory before it can be processed. And the tasks of preparing the data for processing requires parallel tasks. Computer processor loads for actual digital to analog processing are rather light compared to all the parallel tasks associated with acquiring and preparing the data for the conversion.
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Somebody else posted this earlier and I agree with them, the reviewer should be the person to call the manufacturer and iron out any discrepancies and let the subscribers (and us) know if what was stated in the article is exactly what the manufacturer stated or the reviewer misrepresented some of the claims. It’s normally the person or the company of the reviewer/journalist to fix if anything is wrong. In the past I’ve seen manufacturers respond to agon threads like this as well as Fremer and others in the past. Maybe somebody can ask the magazine to look into these items. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
During a rmaf or some other audio show, I was talking to a manufacturer that claimed the only hard drives that sounded good was the xxxx xxxxx model over others 1’s he mentioned. With my friends with me, I asked him point blank that this drive sounded better than this other drive, and he said yes. I told him that’s funny because I work for the largest hdd/ssd manufacturer in the world and we make that drive you are recommending but this other drive that you say doesn’t sound as good, it’s the same drive as the other drive just rebranded by the company. I then pointed out that a couple other drives he thought sounded bad were actually the same just rebranded. We had a good laugh at the manufacturers ignorance. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I’d just say this is a thread to make fun of a reviewer who should have never pretended to understand something he/she didn’t, much less to try to spit it back to sound intelligent. Secondarily, yes, I am sure there is more than a little puffery in what the mfr. said in the first place. Technical knowledge in reviewers has improved, but there will always be those that try to use some strained form of analog logic with computers and digital. You see it constantly. Do you all remember that infamous 4-part special in The Absolute Sound about digital? This was maybe 2010? It had so much BS I couldn’t possibly remember it all...but one that I still remember vividly is when the test team - that included a PhD -- copied files from one hard drive to the next and back and cataloged how the different generations of copies degraded sound. Amazing tape deck logic applied to hard drives. This was actually published. Once you see that, you have to question everything they publish. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It's called "selling the sizzle." In this day and age, lesser known manufacturers must find something that on paper distinguishes their generic server from the rest of the generic servers. So they come up with techno-nonsense that usually can't be proven or disproven. What is a "CPU that is highly prioritized for audio?" Probably the same CPU as always with maybe a BIOS tweak. My favorite example is the Shunmook record clamp, made from magical ebony soaked in the mysterious swamps of Africa that is supposed to have magical properties when paying your vinyl. Uh-huh. It's a record clamp. It's made of ebony. Cost of Manufacture: let's be generous . . . $200. Retail: $4000.00+. So how does a manufacturer convince someone to pay that kind of money for an ebony record clamp? It's not just "ebony" like the poor folk can get. It's the magical African swamp ebony. There is the nonsensical "sizzle." What about MIT's "poles of articulation"? The more poles of articulation, the more expensive the cables. More BS, even though MIT cables are typically good cables. Time to think critically about the sizzle. Maybe this server does sound better. But it is surely not because of the marketing sizzle fed to us by reviewers who are willing to pass it along. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Squared80-I hear differences in cables, whether they are cheap crappy cables to the most expensive. Most cable naysayers have never heard the more expensive cables themselves but they find it easier to jump on the naysayer bandwagon, for example the audiophools website ANA. Since I have demoed the Valhalla’s down to the down to earth $1000 cables in my system, and have been with other audiophiles demoing cables, if you have a resolving system and a decent set of ears, you will hear differences. I never think that the most expensive cables themselves sound the best or they are worth the cost over a different cable, but I as well as my audiophile friends do hear differences in cables. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I was a network guy for a short time putting in a token ring/ethernet/appletalk networks 35 years ago and I haven’t heard any big changes in sq when getting these so called audiophile switches. If I want the quietest node, I’d use fiber. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I think it’s stupid for somebody to gut an OS to save a few processes. Your iPhones have a cou that can do trillions of operations per second over multiple cores, 17 trillion or 35 trillion operations per second. The nucleus OS has taken out all the diagnostic commands that allow you or the manufacturer to check to see what kind of problems you are having: like paging, high cpu loads, slow disk access, or any of the thousand things you can check. So if you are a nucleus user and the unit fails, you are screwed! If you want to buy a tainted OS that has no security code, no diagnostic code, no OS processes that validates system health every second, go for it. If I’m running a server, I want an OS that gets updated with security fixes. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This is from another discussion.. Spectral results--Each count was 12 hours. High resolution gamma spectroscopy using NIM’s. The NIST certified rate is 20.030 CPS for the Region of Interest (ROI). The region of interest is approximately 661.7 keV. Results--As you can see, the filtered data is very close to the "True" count rate as per NIST certification. The filtration costs > $50,000 and cleans up the AC power before it powers the sensitive electronics. The crystal operates at - 200 degrees Celsius and is ultra sensitive to electronic noise. Using a Nordost Power Cable made no statistically relevant difference as compared to a standard cable. I am not sure what this means on the sonic front but if a Power Cable made NO difference on highly sensitive equipment, how could it make a difference on a CD transport.
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Porsche's approach to EVs is to carbon-copy internal-combustion cars. Low regen, digitized classic flat-six sounds piped in through the sound system, fake "Turbo" name, etc. I hate it, personally. Yet the Taycan is an amazing car; and Porsche, like makers of $14,000 streamers and $2,000 Internet switches, has a clientele that doesn't like its food bowl moved. Nothing says "I got you" and "buy me" like "Porsche" and "Turbo" in the same sentence. But Aurender and the like can't just say "Turbo", so instead they think they have to resort to the kind of nonsense that started this thread. Why can't they just let quality speak for itself? Bosch and Miele sell dishwashers for 2 or 3 times more than others and are worth every penny of it, all without ever making the slightest claim about quantum intelligence or cryogenically treated silverware baskets. Note that Taiko is completely forthcoming about the fact that the Extreme is a $31,000 PC. And an great one at that, might I add. Folks need to realize that most of the anti-audiophoolery that exists on forums is fueled primarily by outlandish claims of miraculous transformative sound quality improvements, made by manufacturers and parroted by most users, that everyone knows to be gross exaggerations (notice I didn't say "lies"). Why can't an audiophile just say "This power cable is a beautiful piece of kit, it's exquisitely made of very fine materials, and I feel it's well worth $5,000"? Everyone could get along with that and a lot of acrimony would dissipate. As always, my 2 ¢, ymmv, etc 🙂
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I'm a Porsche guy, the Turbo thing gets under my skin. "Turbo" is used for so many things now, most non car people have no clue what a turbo is or does. Sadly, almost every Porsche now has a turbo, even the Boxter went down to 4 cylinders and added a turbo. If almost every car has a turbo now, what is special about the "turbo" mode? Happy you asked that, Turbo at Porsche just means "top of the line" it's the range topping model of Porsche. That's it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as you understand that most of us here have outgrown that.
Have you experimented with it yourself? That could be more meaningful than any claims you might read about here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@cleeds. I would love to be tucked in and read a bedtime story. Here is an example from a Power Cable manufacturer--"X company proprietary Kinetic Phase Inversion Process includes four days of continuous KPIP v2™ processing which refines conductor metals at a molecular level. This dramatically reduces burn-in time and significantly improves sonic performance, delivering a relaxed and life-like presentation. When compared to the original process, KPIP v2™ represents a dramatic performance upgrade on par with a component-level upgrade" What a load of crap--They are saying that using this Power Cable is like a component level upgrade.. Come on. Do Audiophiles really believe this?? Please show me some proof that this PC makes a sonic difference. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You should speak for yourself. Perhaps you enjoy being tucked in every night and being told a bedtime story, but I'm pretty sure that most of us here have outgrown that. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@p05129 The choice of "Turbo" (or "Turbo S") by Porsche is not meant to reflect anything other than ’higher performance’. Other Taycan models have overboost when using launch control; most combustion engine-powered Porsches have an actual turbo, but are not called ’Turbo’. That aside, I concur with you that Porsche - while still using ’marketing labels’ rather than purely descriptive ones - is more consistent and less deceptive towards the average likely buyer than audio equipment manufacturers using language like the one you initially posted about. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Richardbrand-yes and no. What does a turbo do? It boosts power by forcing air into the intake chamber. If you look at the taycan, Porsche claims it uses “overboost” at launch control, so imo Porsche is using the definition of what a turbo does instead of actually deploying a turbo. Again it’s marketing, but since imo anybody looking at a Porsche EV would know you can’t actually put a turbo on an ev, then what was meant by stating turbo, I’m assuming it’s about the boost that is applied. Which IMO is different than what most audiophiles/reviewers know about computer internal hardware, so when somebody tells you that some manufacturer uses custom/mgical hardware to make better sound quality over its competition that ‘just’ uses off the shelf hardware is wrong, IMO. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
At the end of the day, Audiophiles need to be told a soothing story in order to purchase a $14000 streamer that contains $1000 worth of hardware. The nonsense @p05129 accurately discussed in the original post exists just to support that narrative. Presumably the manufacturer spoon-fed it to the reviewer, of whom it might be best to say that no one can be an expert in all fields, and charitably leave it at that. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
@petaluman excellent points Sir. @lalitic It is a tough sale and yet it exists. I make do with my relatively affordable pile of Pardo linear supplies feeding this n that into a Nucleus > SoTM > Aesthetix Pandora Signature… i put more ( much ) into analog sources, speakers…. I do believe in the old saw “ racing improves the breed “… i’ve a great relationship w Ideon dealer and can borrow the subject stack for a week. What i do wonder about is the sonic differences between the top of their line and the MUCH more affordable gear…. obviously the bling casework goes away… Best to you both ! Jim | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Don't see dual CPU on that board, so hyperbole about dedicated CPU. Still, depending on software used and implemented it is possible to minimize use of CPU resources. I have 7 cores on my CPU, custom build streamer running Euphony OS and Roon, all cores running at less than 1% at virtually all times. The Ideon may have a fairly nice lps, although I don't see the real estate available for real quality lps, something like my JCAT Optimo ATX lps which looks to be more than double the size the entire Ideon streamer. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
OP: I think you’re on to something. This marketing BS. The laundry soap manufacturers on daytime TV promote new & improved detergents every six months. My clothes will feel softer and smell fresher - better than ever - if only I would buy the new & improved Tide instead of yesterday’s Arm & Hammer. Those scoundrels have been doing it since the 1950’s. How do they get away with it? Is Consumer Reports in on this? Are their reviewers on the take? Where are the measurements? This could become a serious problem. Before you know it, toothpaste manufacturers, car manufacturers and politicians will start doing it too. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Some of it may be BS, some of it just may be out of context, or an exaggeration. 1. It might have more than one CPU, or a multicore CPU, they dedicate a CPU for audio. It has a "dedicated" CPU for Audio. 2. Goes along with #1. With multi-core processing, you can dedicate cores for task in software. 3. There are so many different types of memory, you can call ECC ram "enhanced" or some of the faster MHZ stuff enhanced. Really think they are saying, it uses premium ram, or the fastest out there. 4. This one I feel is mostly BS. It takes a bit to cache an entire song,. With SSD drives, some are just as fast at RAM now. Some devices do not really cache anything anymore. Again, this would be something you put in software, how much cache to provide. Most likely they are trying to cache as much as possible as soon as possible. On all these type of devices, they use some kind of common OS as a base, mostly just the kernel. Add their software on top of it. Really you do not have a full OS, just the kernel, with the app. It's super stripped down, usually just there to control all the "computer" devices. Sometimes these OS's also run in their own memory space, and are isolated (sandboxed) from the app. That goes back to point 1 & 2. They are kind of telling the truth, or at least part of the truth. As usually it's misleading marketing. That is rampant in all advertising. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
but Devinplombier has a great point. Audio is filled with this fancy language to help sell it's products.