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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Testing a few digital cables
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on: November 07, 2016, 03:24:35 pm
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I suppose the number one suspect right now is the Tascam, right? But I also wanted to just throw in another possibility...
I've been using an Intona throughout. There are some very weird things going on with Intonas. For example, many people have reported Intonas not working with certain DACs, or with certain USB cables. Some people report having to use a different length of USB cable to get the Intona to work. Well, I discovered something potentially 'serious' today...
The Intona is massively affected by its proximity to an EMI source. If I move the Intona close to the Mach II's power cable, it will lose connectivity with the DAC. Moving it a few cm away, and the connectivity comes back. This is not because of loose USB connections - they are very tight on the Industrial Intona.
Could the Intona be the culprit?
Mani.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Testing a few digital cables
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on: November 07, 2016, 02:58:47 pm
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Thinking further ... it is hard to dictate this all to rounding errors, with also the knowldege that expaning to 32 bits without upsampling, should just add (padd with) zeroes. Also I am not even sure any more how XXHighEnd deals with this these days (or better : 5 years ago, because it must have been that long that I looked into that for the last time). I set DAC to 16 bits in XX. This is the only setting that would work with my 16/44.1-only capable Legato USB-to-spdif converter. The 'DAC is 24 bits' and 'DAC is 32 bits' buttons became grayed out once I selected 'DAC is 16 bits'. I therefore assume there was no padding going on. Mani.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Testing a few digital cables
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on: November 07, 2016, 02:25:51 pm
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But seriously ... for you, start thinking what can be wrong with the latest (is 2nd) version of my track you put up. And notice it can even be FLAC. The differences are always 1 or 2 decimal (on 65536 possible values) - more than 8 million of them. I have no idea what the difference between your flac and my wav files of #1 could be. More than 8 million of them? How has this happened in the flac-to-wav conversion? What I like you to do is make a second take of the mR output. So, just 100% the very same as you did last time with my track and also with the very same source file (if you converted it to WAV first, then again do that os use the WAV if you still have it). Thus, changing nothing compared to the previsous time ! If that resulting one is different from the one I have here (lead-in and -out differences trimmed) then it has to be your Tascam. Will do. Mani.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Testing a few digital cables
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on: November 07, 2016, 02:19:20 pm
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Something is not right and nothing is equal anywhere. I'm sure you picked this up, but I just wanted to be absolutely certain... There are clicks/ticks on file #3, but not on #2. Their frequency varies with varying SFS. Ray has referred to them as 'stuffed zero samples' - there seem to be 7 in total over the 4min 36 sec track. These have increased the length of #3 by 7 samples over #2, and obviously need to be taken into account in the nulling process. Sorry if this is totally obvious to you, but I wanted to be sure. Mani.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Testing a few digital cables
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on: November 07, 2016, 01:22:46 pm
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I wanted to be totally consistent and upload 3 files of the same format to ASR, and not 1 flac + 2 wav. Not everyone uses XX, and I didn't know whether other software players would treat flac and wav identically (as I know XX does).
So, I converted your flac to wav with dBpoweramp Converter. I used this wav file to make the digital recordings, #2 and #3. And this is somehow invalid? Again, enlighten me...
Mani.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Testing a few digital cables
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on: November 07, 2016, 12:46:31 pm
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I'm going to redo the test, but this time through an DAC and then ADC. The path will be:
microRendu (no DSP) or Mach II (no DSP) -> Chord 2Qute DAC -> Prism AD124 ADC -> Tascam spdif digital in
In this case, even though the mR and the Mach II are producing bit-perfect outputs (as proven by Ray on ASR), we certainly should expect to have a difference in SQ. We'll see...
Oh and BTW, this time I am not going to reveal which captured file is which! Let's get any listening biases out of the way. Here we go! 1. Original CD rip (converted to wav, for those not using XX): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfTUdrMGtRRkZuZkk2. Digital transport A (microRendu or Mach II): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfM0paUHFfRVppZHM
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfQ1JYdk9mVWtEbHM3. Digital transport B (microRendu or Mach II): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfSGxOVE9BWmR2aWshttps://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfMEF3eURHVkU1ZWM[Edit: Actually there was no need to redo these - they were fine in the first place. I've added new links.] Of course, these 3 files will not sound identical. The original file (#1) is going through the Chord 2Qute DAC and then through a Pass Labs X1 preamp (to convert the Chord's SE output to balanced) and then through the Prism AD124 ADC (balanced input only). But nevertheless, we should be able to determine which digital transport, the mircroRendu or the Mach II, is doing the least harm. So, which file, #2 or #3, sounds closest to #1? Mani.
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Testing a few digital cables
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on: November 07, 2016, 12:01:53 pm
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Did I hear the same/similar differences in both the files (your example track and mine) or do I suffer from amnesia ? Yep! This is what you said about my original files: I don't know what the gag or pitfall is, but with the first version I thought "oh boy, finally cymbals to compare but now all lack dynamics. It really disturbed me. Also the colour of the cymbals was not right. The tick in the beginning on them is too loud compared to the too thin remainder. I noticed that especially at the end things were not right at all (was it hitting on the rim ? very close by that on the skin ?).
With the second there was much more body to the cymbals but the punch (sort of) in the drums was so much lacking that when the bass started I seemed to have missed the lower keyed drums (compared to the first version). Colour seemed too dirty of everything and halfway the piano started to disturb me (buzzes a bit through the room).
With the third all was suddenly OK ? Dynamics were there, cymbals had the right colour, the bass seemed to be more life-like and the end sounded dynamic as should. So, although these have not been analyzed, we can assume that they are indeed identical too. Mani.
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