markwd
Responses from markwd
| Send in the Clowns I like measurements derived from good engineering and science, including user studies that ask critical questions about what groups of listeners perceive as better. By looking deeply at the science and how human hearing appears to operate we can g... | |
| Will a high quality preamp really make a difference in sound?? Also speaker cable Clearly you should seek out the best engineering and scientific perspectives on this question which means you should choose a pre-amp that delivers exceptional measureable performance. There are so many exceptional performers out there. You can co... | |
| Is there any such thing as a bad sounding DAC these days? @mikhailark Because of all the rich commentary I bring to the discussion thread! There's null testing via software analysis and the reminder that multitone measurements do rule out some of the ambiguity around the specter of single tone testing. ... | |
| Is there any such thing as a bad sounding DAC these days? @mikhailark Sure, but you are shifting your arguments around concerning the validity of multitone measurements (you assert they are insufficient but do not demonstrate why) and now you are asserting that known limitations of frequency domain metho... | |
| Is there any such thing as a bad sounding DAC these days? @mikhailark But it would be totally awesome and change everything if you could prove what you are claiming! It would be sooooo cooooool. | |
| Is there any such thing as a bad sounding DAC these days? @mikhailark Well, attacking him (inaccurately, nonetheless) doesn't actually demonstrate the validity of your claims. You will need to actually show that the limited precision of a given FFT measurement results in audible differences. You could al... | |
| Is there any such thing as a bad sounding DAC these days? @mikhailark Reviewers like Amir at ASR also include multitone tests to look at more extensive IMD phenomena: In terms of music comparison, there is software like Delta Wave Null Comparator that can facilitate doing exactly that. To use with DAC... | |
| Is there any such thing as a bad sounding DAC these days? There are some great resources that map subjective sound claims and terminology to specific frequency response characteristics: It's worth considering that a low noise and distortion DAC with a flat response can always be DSPed to achieve the k... | |
| DAC shopping - Trying to sift through the Hype. Can I trust the reviews these days ?? In any serious comparison that rises above the noisiness of anecdotes filled with subjective claims about sound signatures, I highly recommend going to Audio Science Review and checking out the leader board. The upper quartile of DACs are sonicall... | |
| Are all streamers the same? The best approach is to only buy audio products that have been objectively measured by the manufacturer with the results made public (Schiit, etc.) or have been carefully measured by folks like ASR or Audioholics or a few others. That way you can ... | |
| ABX testing with AQ Dragon power cords There is such a great opportunity for cable manufacturers to demonstrate that their products make a difference by showing how they result in measurable signal changes for DACs, streamers, amps, AVRs, subs, etc. This doesn't even require ABX testin... | |
| Yes, cables do make a difference -- regardless of price... @decooney Sure, but also note that the NASA email (granting it's authentic) is concerning a laser diode application that bears little resemblance to audio-scale electrical properties. So, the test is very simple: take a high resolution audio stre... | |
| Yes, cables do make a difference -- regardless of price... @decooney Just skimmed through it. It's fairly high level and just presents measurements that support their general theory wrt frequency effects, EMI, etc. What is missing is a simple, clear series of experimental measurements of the impact on sou... | |
| Yes, cables do make a difference -- regardless of price... I look forward to more evidence in the future! I don't see anything here except bland vitriol and bald assertions. There are some negative results conducted by Amir at ASR that seem to fit with expectations based on conventional science, but who k... | |
| Yes, cables do make a difference -- regardless of price... Now that is interesting and something I hadn't seen before. It is, alas, from 2013 when jitter was a more pressing concern than today with contemporary USB transports, but it does raise some interesting questions. I think it needs a retest! |