audioengr
Responses from audioengr
| DAC improvements slowing down? Lew - I tried a Femtoclock and even designed a module for it with regulators etc. It didn't measure any better than my previous clock module. It may have lower jitter at 20MHz, but this is not important with audio.Steve N.Empirical Audio | |
| DAC improvements slowing down? Scvan - until you experience really low jitter, you will not understand. It is never low enough IME. I perform jitter demonstrations at nearly every trade show, as well as contrasting the sound of AIFF, ALAC and FLAC with wav files. Every single a... | |
| DAC improvements slowing down? Like I said, they need a better system and trained listeners as well as good quality tracks. I doubt if they had any of these three. The results point to that.Also, the nature of the jitter is important. If they are generating random jitter, then ... | |
| DAC improvements slowing down? BBC studies are worthless IMO. They need better system and trained listeners as well as good quality tracks. I doubt if they had any of these three.I have made improvements in the jitter of my products on the order of 30psec P-P and easily heard t... | |
| Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD Beeswax - what you say is far from the real truth. The SQ of DACs has little to do with the generation of chips used. Async technology is a big improvement as far as reducing jitter, but the design and implementation are still much more important.... | |
| DAC improvements slowing down? Its not these technologies that will deliverthe best DACs, its clever design that reduces jitter, eliminates computer dependency and reduces noise and distortion. These are much more important than 192 versus 96 versus DSD.Steve N.Empirical Audio | |
| USB to I2S that supports DSD Off-Ramp 6 when available will support DSD with I2S output, both RJ-45 and HDMI connectors. It is still in debug. No ETA yet.BTW, I also have network renderer with the same DSD outputs in design.Steve N.Empirical Audio | |
| Does the Transport make a significant difference Ray - he is probably just removing veils, jitter and distortion. When you do this, the imaging becomes less diffuse and things seem to "snap" into focus, appearing to relocate. They have not really moved, just focused.Steve N.Empirical Audio | |
| Where/How can I further improve PC audio quality? The advice for a good USB converter is sound, however it requires that you jump through some hoops for the computer.Rather than doing this, Just add a Synchro-Mesh reclocker to the digital feed from the PCI card and drive the DAC with the SM. Redu... | |
| Mac mini v server Its hard to beat the Antipodes. I have used it at shows. I use a Mac Mini at home, but it has a lot of tweaks and a $1K Hynes power supply. For compressed file, the Antipodes is better. For .wav, about the same with my Mini.Steve N.Empirical Audio | |
| Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD Audiolab - Yamaha and $6K? You can't be serious.Steve N.Empirical Audio | |
| Does the Transport make a significant difference "I'm assuming changing preamps will take me to yet another level"It certainly can, but probably not for $2-3K. Good preamps start at ~$10K unfortunately. You might consider a passive transformer linestage. The Music First is very good at around $4... | |
| Does the Transport make a significant difference The Transport and specifically the jitter in the digital signal is actually more important than the DAC.What you have is a major mismatch in performance. You have two options: 1) buy a really expensive transport, say $3K+2)add a Synchro-Mesh reclo... | |
| Frequency range s of digital noise s I am not a fan of conditioners, with one exception, the Plasmatron from VHaudio.com. This really improves SQ for digital. I use one and many of my colleagues use one. The Plasmatron is an AC voltage regulator, not a filter.Filters on AC generally ... | |
| Digital wows on a budget Your problem is jitter. The only way to fix this is to use a USB interface with better jitter performance. Most USB DACs will not get you this.The jitter in the digital source is actually more important than the DAC. Spending on lot on the DAC wit... |