What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?
Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).
For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.
As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.
If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?
Yes what you said about tubes! Do you think this linearity can be measured cause it sure can be heard in many circuits. Complex designs can often measure well but it is real trick to get them to sound as good as a simple design with or without tubes. This measurement thing is really a dead horse.
I just made another REL cord for a new sub and noticed the Canare wire I used isn't labeled for directionality...should I undo the carefully shrink wrapped and Speakon festooned masterpiece I assembled? Uh...no.
wolf_garcia I just made another REL cord for a new sub and noticed the Canare wire I
used isn't labeled for directionality...should I undo the carefully
shrink wrapped and Speakon festooned masterpiece I assembled? Uh...no.
I don't think it makes sense to redo the cable if it's going to be used in a subwoofer. Usually in complex systems with multi-band speakers and subwoofers, the directivity of the individual wires is not as important as in simple tube amplifiers used with two-band speakers. The sub itself badly affects the playback of acoustical music to a much greater extent than a cable - in exchange for a better bass, you get worse plasticity of acoustic instruments and some other artifacts in middle range.
So my opinion is if the system is configured to listen to classical music, it is better to just get rid of the subwoofer along with its cables, and if you listen to electronical music, then the direction of sub's wire will not matter much.
But no one can say with certainty how important the direction of a single wire is in your system and specifically for you. This should be tried.
Ohm's laws, Maxwell's equations, Quantum mechanics are just models created by man to describe natural phenomena. But none of these models can be considered the final true. Maybe someday there will be new models that will help reveal the secret of the sound and direction of the wires.
Hello Anton! I wanted to ask your opinion on something, because you are one of the few living people I know who understands this phenomenon.
I am talking about the subtle (not so subtle) loss of musical clarity when a digital file is transferred and copied. I was long aware of this phenomenon, but mostly I ignored it, there was nothing to be done, I relied on the internet heavily for music, and did not record anything.
Recently I found a software tool written by a French audiophile, it promises to ’optimize’ the file and restore the sound. There are serious limitations, each optimization takes 2 minutes, only one file can be done at a time. Sadly the tool is only available for Windows, like you I am now using Mac. I wish such a tool existed for Mac, it would be cool to try, but sadly because I don’t know what the tool is even doing - there is no way to search for a replica. http://www.junilabs.com/fr/products/audioplayer.html
And yet, it works! Comparing the normal, copied many times file with the file which has been optimized once, the differences are clear and fundamental - musical losses are restored.
I would like your opinion on the matter, and if you have any advice on how to prevent ’going crazy’ from such esoteric phenomenon. At some point the listener must face reality and ask if they are listening to music or the effect of tweaks.
I don’t have Windows too, but I have a laptop with Linux and Wine that are used to run Windows programs under Linux. I installed the player and optimized some mp3 files. It definitely works! I would say that optimized files sound more airy and openly. It’s like you’re turning a wire in the right direction. This is very strange, I have never seen a computer program that makes a file sound more natural and it is free and easy to compare.
After all this is the perfect example how two equal digital files can sound different. Specially for biased naysayers.
The optimization is sensitive to the electromagnetic effects of the environment. Electromagnetic activity is lower at night than during the day. An optimization launched at night will be more effective than an optimization launched during the day.
That's using Google translate, so we can't be sure what this means.
cleeds, I can't comment on that either. The guy is going to ask the author a few more questions by mail. I'll let you know if he says anything interesting.
My experience is based on what I can or can't hear. It doesn't based of religious believe in science. I talk about the model that have more correlation to what we hear than current models. Most of the audio religious apostles of science do not have any technical education and can't think out of box. If these dropouts design audio then it sounds disgusting so they are very bad engineers and don't like and know classical and jazz music.
I optimized some flac files on a windows 10 computer and couldn't tell any difference if anything the original flac sounded better than the optimized file but that's not listening blind so take it with a grain of salt.
Oh boy! DLetch2 or Audio2Design or…. is back. I have a feeling with this hot dog Bob. Let’s see…. 200 posts in two days since “joining”? That will be the indicator.
How many gmails you have to create just to join Audiogon forums over and over and over?
djones51 I optimized some flac files on a windows 10 computer and couldn't tell
any difference if anything the original flac sounded better than the
optimized file but that's not listening blind so take it with a grain of
salt.
Tastes may differ, and this is normal, the main thing here is that you can feel the difference. If you do such experiments often enough, you will eventually get rid of your grains of salt.
Change in sound, with wire direction, depends upon the design of the cable!
To verify that a difference exists, in your cable, you need an old Tuner with a meter. Don't laugh, this is a very sensitive test instrument, just follow the steps below:
1) Tune into a strong station as evidenced by the meter reading, disconnect whatever you were using as an antenna cable.
2) Disconnect the cable (under test) from your equipment, then connect one end (Hot to Hot) ~ (Ground to Ground) and view & record the meter reading, with the other end open.
3) Reverse the Cable ends under test, in (2) above & repeat; i.e.
connect one end (Hot to Hot) ~ (Ground to Ground) and view & record the meter reading.
4) If there is no difference, (in Meter readings 2 Vs 3 above) you could not be able to hear any difference in sound quality by connecting your cable in either direction.
5) If you experience a difference, however, you would likely be able to hear that as a subtle difference in clarity of sound from your system. In this case, place the end that shows the lowest meter reading towards the source of the signal in your system. This will minimize signal pick up in your cable, which gets amplified in subsequent stages of amplification.
6) All readings you get are dependent upon the original signal strength & cable ground isolation & are to be used for comparison between ends only.
That's similar to what a cable maker did when I had him make some cables for me back in early '90s. He was a local out in Glendale so I went to check out his cables. He had a workshop in his backyard and in it he had spools of different brands of cables and practically every type of connector you could imagine.
I watched as he made some speaker cables for the length I needed. After deciding on which cable, he'd lay them out, one at a time and put the leads of his tester on both ends and check some measurements. Then he'd reverse the cable and do it again.
After orienting them the way he wanted, I asked him why he did it and he said he wanted them to all "go" the same way, and when finished with the assembly, marked them accordingly.
I don't know what it was he was measuring or what he ran through them as he did it, but it was apparent that something was directional in the cable. I'm just surprised that people are still debating this.
@eagleeye7 To verify that a difference exists, in your cable, you need an old Tuner with a meter. Don't laugh, this is a very sensitive test instrument, just follow the steps below:
First of all, I have to thank you for such an interesting example! No laughing at all, because I definitely know that the direction of the wire used as the radio antenna is just as important as the direction of the wire in the signal chain. This can be easily checked on any receiver, or better on an old tube radio, where the difference is more obvious. You can even see it on the TV if you use an old-style aerial antenna instead of a modern digital cable signal. The difference here will be noticed not only by ear, but also by eye, in case you care the difference between the image of old movies and modern digital ones.
But unfortunately this example can not prove the wire direction audibility in signal chain. The antenna picks up the RF signal, the meter also responds to the fluctuations of RF signal together with the level of rectified audible signal. There are a lot of extraneous interference in the RF signal, which change both in time and from the slightest deviation of the antenna from the initial position, this is the weak point of the receiver meter based proof.
Wires definitely has preferable direction, but each attempt to explain it by means of difference in electricity signal is easily challenged if you know the ropes of radio engineering. I still cant imagine how wire direction can be explained withing physics.
@ anton_stepichev "There are a lot of extraneous interference in the RF signal, which change both in time and from the slightest deviation of the antenna from the initial position, this is the weak point of the receiver meter based proof."
I have used the technique described in my post; on Cables of my own making & find that as you so correctly state ""There are a lot of extraneous interference in the RF signal, which change both in time and from the slightest deviation of the antenna from the initial position, this is the weak point of the receiver meter based proof.""
I have found the differences in time & position (you mention) of Cables to be VERY MINOR COMPARED TO THE DIRECTIONAL EFFECT OF THAT SPECIFIC CABLE UNDER EVALUATION. Again, the design of the cable IMHO has the greatest effect on directionality.
Try it, if You find no directional difference, or that difference is masked by the items you mention, then IMHO, one would not be able to hear directionality in that particular Cable under test with the meter based evaluation.
eagleeye7 Try it, if You find no directional difference, or that difference is masked by the items you mention, then IMHO, one would not be able to hear directionality in that particular Cable under test with the meter based evaluation.
I can’t try it right now, have no appropriate tuner.
Anyway I do not argue with the efficacy of your method, it certainly deserves attention. I only noticed that it is impossible to locate the exact reason of the directivity with its help. We can’t directly hear the RF signals, and even if we could, speakers can’t play them back. So we need to look for the real reason not in the RF area, that’s what I meant.
But may be we can somehow feel the RF right from the wires and other parts? Probably.. But here we are already going beyond conventional science.
All of of you need to spend some time on a psych ward just to see some brains that are really not working right. This is neuro-psychiatry leading you all around by the nose. I have said this 100 time and I will say it another 1000 if I have to. You can not depend on what you and other people hear for these type of analyses. There are hundreds of psychiatric variables you can not control this way. In order to indicate anything these types of tests have to be controlled if they are not they mean babkas. Directional wires are audiophile stupidity of the highest order. Show me one controlled trial with an adequate number of participants that shows otherwise. The same nonsense permeates the "tweak" world. The .3 dB limit of human hearing is right on. I spend hours adjusting frequency response in 0.1 dB steps and in direct comparison 0.3 dB is the limit of my hearing's ability to detect changes and this is switching back and forth between different curves. If you really want to improve the performance of your system and learn what you are doing in the process get one of these and get down with it. https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton-Audio-OmniMic-V2-Acoustic-Measurement-System-390-792
There are hundreds of psychiatric variables you can not control this way. In order to indicate anything these types of tests have to be controlled if they are not they mean babkas.
All of of you need to spend some time on a psych ward just to see some brains that are really not working right. This is neuro-psychiatry leading you all around by the nose.
Coming and insulting people in their communicating thread with NO REASON save our own prejudices and ignorance is something...
Are you the same arrogant man at work?
You can not depend on what you and other people hear for these type of analyses. There are hundreds of psychiatric variables you can not control this way. In order to indicate anything these types of tests have to be controlled if they are not they mean babkas.
Nobody sells nothing here you are in the wrong thread...We dont sell "tweaks"... And the experiments described are controlled by the ears pertaining to those with Anton who had LEARNED how to perceive and described it with the right directed wired tubes amplifiers...
An " horse with blinders" calling others by words like "delusion" like in psychiatric vocabulary, using wrong premise and false attribution in the second step of a simple logical deduction is not a good adviser:
--All audible perception are measured ONLY in Db (which is false for example in the case of the timbre perception evaluation where other factors are at play)
-- The effects of a changing of the direction in the wire is an " electro magnetic" process change, indiscernible, because measured in micro Db out of the range of human hearing... ( which is an assumption falsely attributed to Anton who says he has excluded this physical known E.M. change in the wire already for explanation from the beginning of his thread )
-- THEN all wiring direction experiments are false... (the conclusion is blatently a sophism)
Finally your perpetual advise to use an electronical equalizer for the speakers response WITHOUT being conscious of the LIMITATIONS of this type of equalization, versus for example the mechanical equalization of the room response, and proposing arrogantly something that had no relation anyway with the issue discussed here, show himself not only his prejudices but at least his stubborn narrow way or at worst plain stupidity...Pick the convenient one...
The same nonsense permeates the "tweak" world.
Amalgamating this Anton experiment or any other experiment in audio to be only a "tweak" reveal a despise of all audiophiles which speak volume about you...
A question for you, which is a "tweak" here for example : a mechanical method to equalize a room inherited from Helmholtz and based on psychoacoustic laws you ignore or your consumerist proposition to buy a cheap or a costly electronical equalizer for tuning the speakers response instead, which could never be a complete solution to the acoustic room problem by itself, but only a helpful secondary tool at best ?
The question clearly stated contain the answer.... 😁
Then look at yourself in a mirror.... This thread is not a medical assembly of your future patients nor audiophiles waiting your paternalist "solution" or miraculous cure for all problem: an electronic equalizer ....
Discussing is being open first, listening, second, thinking, third and four being polite.... It is not necessary to be intelligent at each step but it is better to be before speaking....
«When someone propose an experiment, and if it is not the experience of jumping from the Niagara river, decency propose to keep an open mind; no advise is needed either if it is not related in any way to the proposed experiment itself but the reflection of our own prejudices»- Written in front of Groucho Marx audio room laboratory 🤓
@
anton_stepichev, I fully understand your comment, i.e. "
I only noticed that it is impossible to locate the exact reason of the directivity with its help. We can’t directly hear the RF signals, and even if we could, speakers can’t play them back. So we need to look for the real reason not in the RF area, that’s what I meant. "
I believe, that when a Cable exhibits Directionality to RF signals, that it would also exhibit Directionality to audio signals, & Vice Versa!. The method that I outlined provides Documentation that a specific Cable Design exhibits or does not exhibit such Directionality to RF Signals.
Think about all of the harmonics & sub harmonics of the 60 HZ line frequency that is all around audio equipment. It's likely that some cables pick up this noise, which is then further amplified in downstream amplification stages & may well be heard, with some Cable designs.
Then there is the host of digital signals & their sub harmonics that proliferate in this digital world we live in today, that may have to be dealt with. Yes, it boggles the mind & Audio Needs all the help it can MUSTER TO PROVIDE THAT ULTIMATE SOUND QUALITY that all here strive for.
Note that some here go as far as isolating & raising speaker wires off of the ground, with sworn improvements in sound quality.
@mijostyn The .3 dB limit of human hearing is right on. I spend hours adjusting frequency response in 0.1 dB steps and in direct comparison 0.3 dB is the limit of my hearing's ability to detect changes and this is switching back and forth between different curves. If you really want to improve the performance of your system and learn what you are doing in the process get one of these and get down with it. https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton-Audio-OmniMic-V2-Acoustic-Measurement-System-390-792
You will not find anything useful with the microphone, because when you reverse the wire, there is no change in the electrical signal at the speaker terminals.
As for linearity, its value is greatly exaggerated. There is absolutely no need to make the linearity of the system with an accuracy of 0.3 db, much less 0.1 db. If it was so important for perception, we would not be able to enjoy listening to cassette recorders, receivers, and so on. By our nature we automatically adapt to changes in the frequency response within a wide range, this is how our perception works. Adaptation to changes takes a few tens of seconds, after that we get used to the new reality and the new frequency response becomes "transparent" for us, it does not interfere and does not help us to perceive music, it just becomes a kind of reference point, relative to which we perceive sounds..
This statement is easy to verify, if you have timbre controls in the system, turn the controls a bit, spend 10 minutes listening calmly and analyzing impressions, make a conclusion.
And do not forget that the linearity of our hearing changes depending on the volume - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness. Why do you set up a system with an accuracy of 0.1 db if with a small enough change in system volume, the linearity of your hearing changes by several DB? Isn't it stupid?
eagleeye I believe, that when a Cable exhibits Directionality to RF signals, that it would also exhibit Directionality to audio signals, & Vice Versa!.
No doubt. I would add the digital cables Directionality here.
The method that I outlined provides Documentation that a specific Cable Design exhibits or does not exhibit such Directionality to RF Signals.
I think because of relative complexity of the method in comparison with this simple schematics, it probably lack the sensibility, otherwise it would be obvious, that each wire has directivity together with certain unique coloraition.
Think about all of the harmonics & sub harmonics of the 60 HZ line frequency that is all around audio equipment. It's likely that some cables pick up this noise, which is then further amplified in downstream amplification stages & may well be heard, with some Cable designs.
Then there is the host of digital signals & their sub harmonics that proliferate in this digital world we live in today, that may have to be dealt with. Yes, it boggles the mind & Audio Needs all the help it can MUSTER TO PROVIDE THAT ULTIMATE SOUND QUALITY that all here strive for.
Note that some here go as far as isolating & raising speaker wires off of the ground, with sworn improvements in sound quality.
I know the fenomenon and some similar ones, for instance the difference in SQ arising from different methods of mounting radio components of the amplifier - a modern one when radio components lying on a circuit board and outdated point to point wiring where the components do not touch the board and each other. The point-to-point sounds more openly and naturally.
But it can't be be related to RF unless we somehow feel the RF directly from environment. Speakers can't reproduce RF signals, and the indirect influence of RF in well designed amps is much less than we can hear.
If there is a difference in sound when you change the direction of wire, I wonder if it would be measurable if all the wire in the complete system were orientated in the correct direction? I'm talking about the wire in the components as well as the power cords, interconnect cables, speaker cables, and wiring inside the speaker.
@invalid If there is a difference in sound when you change the direction of wire, I wonder if it would be measurable if all the wire in the complete system were orientated in the correct direction?
The difference in SQ is obviously exist but it can't be measured by electrical measurement device. All metals are electrically symmetrical and remain so regardless of the mechanical deformation they receive during the manufacturing process. You can turn them all in any direction you want, and nothing will change in its electrical behavior. That's the whole mystery.
As for linearity, its value is greatly exaggerated. There is absolutely no need to make the linearity of the system with an accuracy of 0.3 db, much less 0.1 db. If it was so important for perception, we would not be able to enjoy listening to cassette recorders, receivers, and so on. By our nature we automatically adapt to changes in the frequency response within a wide range, this is how our perception works. Adaptation to changes takes a few tens of seconds, after that we get used to the new reality and the new frequency response becomes "transparent" for us, it does not interfere and does not help us to perceive music, it just becomes a kind of reference point, relative to which we perceive sounds..
This statement is easy to verify, if you have timbre controls in the system, turn the controls a bit, spend 10 minutes listening calmly and analyzing impressions, make a conclusion.
Very important point to meditate.....
The CORRELATIONS for example between physical acoustic and psychoacoustic are anything except linear...It is deeply non linear...
Personaly i think that there is an unknown participation of the consciousness to the phenomena that we miss "systematically" in viewing the object always separated of the subject or in an "external" relation only...
thyname Because everyone measures stuff at the analog output of stuff. It’s like measuring the sperm count trying to diagnose ALL diseases
You are mistaken. We do not have to diagnose all possible diseases of an audio system. On the contrary, to avoid significant complication of the matter we should regard an amp and all its wiring as a black box with just input and output.
The measurement devices allow us to analyze the difference between electric signals of the input and the output with precision that exceed our hearing possibilities quite a lot.
With proper measurement we can be sure that on the output (on the speaker terminals) there are no RF signals or audible signal distortion and all the more that nothing is changed when we reverse a single wire (see article by Douglas Self). After that, we can say with confidence that the acoustic signal will also not have any interference associated with wires and cables coloration and directivity.
As a result we face the paradoxical situation when we hear what is not presented in the signal. IMO there are two possible ways of thinking about it:
1 - Psychoacoustics and medics are wrong about hearing sensibility. But here we contradict thoroughly checked scientific data derived from the best organised subjective tests ever. And we contradict logic, because wires/cables audibility is perseived against the background of relatively loud noises. Why white noise at -50db level does not mask the microsounds that presumably occur at -100db level? There is no logical answer to this.
2 - Simultaneously with an acoustic signal we perceive some still unknown type of information using sixth sense. No matter how crazy it sounds, this is the only logical explanation for the phenomenon so far. And by the way, the many references about inconsistencies in scientific theories of hearing that Mahgister provided us make this assumption not as crazy as it seems at first.
It would be nice if you suggest another logical explanation of the matter for a change.
If these new models don’t agree with your preconceptions and biases you’ll dismiss them as well.
Anytime scientific model conflicts with observation, the science/scientific model is wrong.
A 100 years ago we believed we fall towards earth because of gravity. Today, we know there is no such thing as gravity. What we thought was gravity, is the distortion of space-time caused by the mass of the earth.
The theory of gravity can explain why we fall off building, but cannot explain why we age slower if we are on the ground floor than if we’re up in the penthouse. (Yes, time moves slower the closer we are to mass.) The theory of space-time explains this phenomenon. Trying to use the theory of gravity to disprove that time moves slower as mass increases is anti science.
The models we have today explain some things we perceive, but clearly not everything. They cannot be used disprove observation that they can’t explain. Science cannot be applied to prove a negative.
The problem here is many who speak of science are techno cultist...
I wouldn't go as far as calling them cultist. I see them as folks who's understanding of science isn't quite as advanced as what they believe it to be.
I wouldn’t go as far as calling them cultist. I see them as folks who’s understanding of science isn’t quite as advanced as what they believe it to be.
You are right...
I will not retract my words tough only because this universal movement work way beyond this thread, but applying it to some here is perhaps not the right context....You are right about that....
this old chestnut of a thread is well deserving of a rightful and prompt demise
I wonder why a valid asking question about an original experiment by the OP urge you so swiftly to appeal a censorship?
Is it your wonderful and powerful scientific knowing brain in action? Or is it the reptilian robotic brain reacting?
i dont know, being myself ignorant about the question asked here and about yourself....
I am curious in the 2 cases tough....And in general i try to apply censorship to my own language not to others and NOT to a complete thread...I am not perfect tough..... Are you?
It seems your post are more akin to a "drumbeat" here than mine....
Censorship and scientism faith instead of experiment are your appeal not mine....
It is not about "cable sellers direction" in this thread but some way other many things....Then confusing the two to ridicule someone, this is a "drumbeat" for the crowds....
It's a pity that
Eric Juaneda
from Junilabs ignores the questions. My friend asked him to explain the principles of file optimization or just say something about this interesting thing. He didn't answer. In the meantime, I became convinced that there must be some non-physical explanation for the change in sound that we feel. It is strange but the only thing the optimization program does is load the file into memory, wait for a while, and write it back to the hard disk. At least that's what the programmer told me when he de-compiled the file and analyzed the code. Why this changes the sound of the file is unclear.
I've done some research on how people feel about the difference in optimized files. There is no repeatability here, some prefer original files, some - optimized, some non-audiophiles do not even feel the difference at all.
However, here we certainly have another confirmation that digital audio is far from perfection and audiophiles feel the difference in the sound of files with the same checksum. And there going to be some more then just conventional physics to explain this phenomenon.
The developer of this player did answer questions of another person who asked similar questions. I guess he is getting repeated questions, and hence not finding time to respond. It loads to RAM, does an "optimization" (specifics not described, but looks like its there in the code), waits for a couple of minutes and then stores back to drive.
Regarding user preference, I actually am not fond of results of first optimization - it sounds a bit distant and veiled, even though it clearer than original file. But run the same through optimization process 3-4x and all the veil is gone, and the clarity remains (and actually gets better) and now it is definitely much better than stock file on all aspects. If the preference to original files among the users were in comparison to first optimization, I recommend giving 3-4x optimization a try. At present it doesn’t seem possible to do optimization for multiple files at once, so that’s a cumbersome task. I can hear the differences for sure, and I am working on getting a true double blind test done (its not an easy task to do one that doesn’t have loop holes).
Regarding why it works, I think it is well within conventional physics, we just need to analyze it deeper than our current FFT analysis methods (we are analyzing only a very small subset of test tones at present mostly and I don’t think much conclusive results can be obtained from this). In a normal storage disk, every bit is stored as a set of charges in a cell (typically a floating gate nand cell), and the scenario in which the write action happens can likely manifest in differences in the structure of charges and magnetic fields stored in the cell that the next access after optimization may have either lesser noise or lesser correlated noise. Also to note that RAM and normal storage work in different ways. PC RAM works as a Dynamic Random Access Memory unit with constant refreshes (volatile memory) and Normal storage is non volatile and retains data once stored.
Digital circuits work just with thresholds. Above a certain threshold it is 1, below it it is 0 (or vice versa in some implementations), and there are boundary conditions which the designers have to work hard to ensure data integrity is maintained. This is the reason why you don’t magically get infinite clock speeds. There’s more to it in modern devices (they are multi, triple layer cells etc) and there’s a lot of algorithmic stuff that goes on to it.
There’s a lot of hardwork in making a reliable working digital system, but it’s even harder when you get into analog systems. The problem with analog/mixed signal systems though is that it’s not merely working on thresholds. A fair amount of noise may be mostly harmless in a digital system but will cause significant issues with an analog/mixed signal systems as every single flaw/deviation will cause deviations in the analog circuit (the dacs) and later get amplified in the buffer and amplification stages. So any of the activity you do has a potential manifestation in the analog circuit, and any task that reduces noise at source can be beneficial. Grounds act as common points to transfer noise from one place to another. You can claim optical isolation but it is more fairytale than reality. They have their own jitter and noise footprints and any attempt to correct it will have its own jitter and noise footprints. If you’re thinking transformer coupled isolation, they have non linearities (real world magnets don’t magically follow an ideal abstractions), and other leakage phenomenon (AC noise leakage over copper ethernet has been measured and demonstrated). And I would like to add that the improvements to SQ by this player is audible even through ifi micro idsd bl which does have some form of galvanic isolation afaik.
Any circuit can always be tweaked to fake numbers to specific scenarios while not being truly capable in other scenarios, and hence measurement charts get unreliable. It is impossible to get full test coverage for any analog design at present. I think of audio measurements generally shown to be similar to some vague synthetic CPU benchmark tweaked to show as if a cell Phone CPU beats a supercomputer (Maybe it does at that specific calculation in that specific optimized software, but not likely for a real world task that the cell phone CPU cannot handle, or an emulation layer on the supercomputer with the same code might run faster!).
Yes there are massive amount of layers, buffers and Phys present through the chain. And of course software abstractions, and each abstraction layer = generally longer non optimal code = more processor and component activity = more switching noise, and of course there’s more considering the speculative execution etc and these are accounted for with many of these audio software. There are many of them try to work at a lower level language with less abstractions (some written in even assembly level language code), and hence lesser noise (one general example is using kernel streaming). So the whole thing actually reinforces the benefits of a customized software system.
It indeed is phenomenal that the data storage access noise seems to pass through all these layers but if you consider the path, none of them have anything to compensate for the fluctuations, and as long as it is within thresholds of digital circuit operation it’ll be passed through (but analog and mixed signal systems are picky). It indeed is profound that this distinct improvement is not buried within noise generated from the rest of the link.
Now if you were considering issues from other CPU activity during idle tasks, like say displaying a wallpaper, it would be a gross approximation to think CPU generates all pixels at every instant of time and loads into GPU memory for displaying, then there is no purpose for a GPU. GPU has a parallel pipeline to generate these, has its own architecture that might have its own noise patterns (need not be as high as cpu for the same task) and send via hdmi port, but it could very well be almost completely decoupled from the CPU data lines going to USB! Do they influence each other? Very likely. Can one completely mask the differences of the other? May or may not be! It’s about reducing issues in any area that is feasible. There’s also something known as correlation. Certain types of noise correlate more to audio issues (8khz tizz from 125us polling if the system priority is too high, or other issues which cause sudden spike during these polling) than others. So it’s not quite as direct as things may seem, and of course this area is too profound so we don’t have any well established conclusive correlation metrics yet (and unlikely anytime soon, we haven’t even figured out human hearing beyond a certain basic abstraction). Also not to mention, a lot of the computer tweaks do have modes to remove image displaying load on the cpu, or even going fully headless/commandline.
What about the abundance of switching components throughout the motherboard? PC pcb design is generally very high level stuff (very large multi layer PCB), and the power supply design (regulators etc) is are extremely sophisticated, especially the ones feeding the CPU. A 12V supply is regulated in multiple stages to ensure that there is enough buffer in place to take any disruption that changes power consumption would bring and it is generally very low noise because it’ll have to run through multiple layers in the CPU. Can they be improved by a better power supply input? Surely yes, and a better power supply input can also help the rest of the pcb, but I will have to say they are generally extremely well designed. There’s massive developments on this front on the low power area, and it has also been successfully expanded to certain areas in audio - The new Burson Audio amps uses a SMPS design that sounds very good. You can afford to do this much level of buffering and filtering because it is power (a specific fixed voltage and current with some transient deviation). But you can’t do this multiple levels with data which is a switching sequence of pulses or else you’ll be losing speed. There’s not much ways to fully control the noise on the data line other than controlling your software.
Ok why not a raspberry pi instead? Well just because something is lower power doesn’t necessarily mean it is lower noise. The consideration in most budget SBCs are mass production at a very affordable price and the components used are unlikely to be of any quality comparable to say a high end motherboard, let alone a server motherboard. In fact you’ll likely be getting worse aberrations even on the data integrity (unlikely to be an issue with data rate of audio though) and will need just as much software changes/usability compromises anyway. As mentioned above, the research on the components for Desktop Motherboards are extremely high level. One can try to customize everything from ground, like many companies doing digital transports do, but it’ll get crazy expensive pretty quickly, or leverage all the development on Desktop PCs, and just try to control the few aspects they didn’t optimize for with respect to audio and noise (will have to give up speed and ease of use in that scenario, but just a reboot into another OS and you’re back with a fully functional PC that can be used for any other task).
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