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376  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: 9Y-6 special mode on: February 12, 2010, 10:05:42 am
Q1 = 11, Q2,3=18, Q3,4=0, KS, engine4, DAP,
And now back to listening!
(Not tried anything else yet)

No special mode (and no desire to spend hours in testing to achieve it).
But I have to say that the horrible x-fi on my studio PC has never sounded better than with your exact settings Happy
(but without upsampling)
377  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: New to this, but have been dreaming of doing this for a while... (introduction) on: February 12, 2010, 09:58:15 am
Hm... i feel talkative this morning.

However I have of late come to believe that you do not need to spend $thousands on a DAC to get good sound. I would simply get 3 Lavry DA-11s and 3 Parasound Halo Stereo Amps.

Peter's DAC wont cost much more than those 3 lavry.
To exit with many digital channels from the PC you need an EXPENSIVE pro card. I have searched for that route and the best option was the RME AES32 which costs no less than 800€. The math is pretty simple.
If you want a low cost decent performing pc-based multichannel solution, you have to go to 8 and 12 channel external interfaces such as the Fireface, the Audiofire 8 and 12, something from Motu, Apogee (mac only). All of them can drive a power amp directly.

If you want better sound, you got to spend much more, in the 3-8k€ range. I can give you all the names, because I have researched the topic for over 2 years now.

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I'm sure our music has been subjected to all kinds of digital filtering and manipulation before we even get it. That having been said I agree that we have a long way to go to perfect our understanding of digital audio but DSP has applications in many fields and lessons learned there also apply to audio signal processing so I don't think we are that far behind. If we are then our music has already been subjected to it. So it makes sense to believe that it is okay to process it some more for your room conditions or the limitations of your drive unit(s).

I believe that some of this manipulation can be corrected (to our ears) by the same means that have been used in the mastering studios Wink
i.e. dynamic expander, properly done oversampling.
But XXHE is doing most of this aleady in the most damage-limiting way.
And some day we'll have mostly highres digital masters, which wont need any restorative manipulation at all.

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I have noticed a few who tried the digital way come back, and others liked what they heard. I agree it could very well be all in the head. I suppose the only to find out is to try to build a setup and compare myself (of course double blind). But I'm at a point where I just want to get a good system and I refuse to obsess over little or inaudible differences. However I do believe in long term listening and profiling my use of the system and how long I like to listen. I think the better system is revealed that way instead of concentrating hard on ABX passages.

I had a pretty good DAC, although not recent and a VRDS transport, which i consider state of the art. I had a generic second computer with a decent soundcard (similar to the juli@, which is used by lots of people here with good results). So I did ABX before venturing into building crossoverless speakers. The difference was slightly on the plate of the spinning disc. The computer had the advantage of music storage and few clicks playback, instead of searching through a couple thousands of CDs. And it would let me play with building my own open baffle speakers (priceless). So I went that way, and as i already said, I dont regret it a single bit.

I believe that if i cannot notice a difference in A/B comparison, the change/upgrade is not worth my money. If the difference is small, then it depends (cost, usability, etc).

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A good part of me thinks that I should give this a few years and also secure more funding before trying to build such a comparison system. Right now I think I should keep it simple and go with what works.

Then dont go to listen to Peter's DAC Happy
378  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: New to this, but have been dreaming of doing this for a while... (introduction) on: February 12, 2010, 09:36:48 am
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Do you feel that something like Audiolense is limited also? I believe it can do per driver DRC/Timing control/Impluse control. In theory it would be able to tune every driver to perform such that at your listening position you get perfectly flat response and perfect timing and no phase shifts.

I want to elaborate more on this.

1) Driver equalization should NOT be performed in respect to your room and listening position.
Read some literature on Harman website and/or buy a good reference book such as D'Appolito "Measuring Loudspeakers."
It can be done of course, but if you move one speaker of just 1cm, the consequence is not nice Wink

2) Measurements should be done in quiet big open space or in anechoic room, and in IEC/infinite baffle. Then corrections can be done passively or digitally, depending on the issues. For instance, you can fix an energy storage with a digital notch filter (albeit i did in "analog mode" with Ozone), but you cannot fix a rollercoaster impedance without a passive XO network.
That is, some serious transducer defecs cannot be successfully corrected by digital means. The solution for us is to get as faultless speakers or transducers as we can Wink

3) Also, ROOM MODES equalization should be done with passive intervention on the listening room itself, first and foremost.

Then, what's left to the digital equalization is frequency response, group delay, crossover (with an infinite freedom that is priceless for me), and baffle/box equalization.
If you plan to build speakers as well, start with MECHANICAL equalization, i.e. baffle/boxshape and size: it'll avoid problems before they appear.

Peter is very lucky with a BIG room without real problems, so he often forgets the issues of people living in smaller and resonant rooms.

All of the above, is not to say that DRC doesnt work, but that in a proper setup room with well-built speakers its impact is not huge, and it's mostly in the bass region (<400hz) with a feeling of cleanerm tighter sound (i have heard two proper setups done with DRC and software XO besides mine which doesnt use DRC).
379  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: New to this, but have been dreaming of doing this for a while... (introduction) on: February 12, 2010, 09:23:59 am
Wow you have some great information! ...and experience.

Thanks.

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My thought (if possible) is to build a PC based software driven crossover/DRC unit that accepts digital in 2 channel and outputs 6 channels with 2 XO points per channel. It seems most of the PC solutions rely on a software player on the PC itself. I'd rather just have the PC do the processing from another digital source. I'm not sure that is possible.

It is possible. I know somebody on an italian audio forum which has build a mini-pc (atom itx based) to do just DRC. He uses a SACD player i think XO job is a bit more tricky, and at that point i think that an used DEQX (with modified dac) would be the easiest option and not too expensive either.

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Do you feel that something like Audiolense is limited also? I believe it can do per driver DRC/Timing control/Impluse control. In theory it would be able to tune every driver to perform such that at your listening position you get perfectly flat response and perfect timing and no phase shifts.

I'm sorry, I havent tried Audiolense yet. It is the most user friendly software of this type. The demo does not allow to do XO, but the developers are friendly and may help you in this matter. They were on this forum a little while ago. I also have a couple more plugins to try.
But I'm waiting to do more trials to when I have a better (multichannel) DAC.
Do not forget that for XO, you need two channels per "way" of the speakers, i.e. my next project with is 4-way "hybrid" speakers will need an 8-ch DAC. I dont think anybody will need more than 8 channels unless they want to venture into HT or into some 3/4 speaker configuration, which is tempting, but fortunately i do not have the space :D

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Am I overstating the case? I'm sure I am since this is all in theory.

I also believe that if we have allowed the "evil" of digital into our listening why not take it all the way to its logical conclusion? I think we should apply it every problem in audio right down to accelerometers on drivers or room correction. Of course there is substitute for solid design of loudspeakers or for room treatments, but I think digital can help us do that last bit of correction and do it transparently (or at least more transparently than reasonably priced analog - the Cello is out of my price range and I'm sure it would take a lot of knowledge and skill to use it to its fullest). I hope a $400 PC and $250 software and maybe a $600 Pro Audio sound card (I was thinking Lynx AES16) would solve our problems in ways that would get into the 5 figures with analog solutions.

To resolve most of the room problems, yes. To achieve state of the art sound from a digital source, no - that's the DAC duty and no cheap dac can do that, sorry. The good thing is that you can start with a $600 or even less soundcard and upgrade in the future, while the software foundation is already there and working Happy

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I'm just not sure if the market has yet formed around this kind of thinking. Sometimes I think at this stage the DEQX is the only sensible (but expensive) solution. I just wish it had more digital inputs. The only analog I would use is maybe a TT and perhaps an SACD player.

The market is going into the direction of diskless source, in USA faster than here in EU. Consider that most of the out of the box solutions are nothing more than little computers with linux and some software.
380  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: 9Y-6 special mode on: February 11, 2010, 10:51:04 pm
Q1 = 11, Q2,3=18, Q3,4=0, KS, engine4, DAP,
And now back to listening!
(Not tried anything else yet)

Thanks. I cant see any special mode option, though. Will try tomorrow on the dedicated pc.
381  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: 0.9y-5-05 on: February 11, 2010, 10:50:18 pm
No special mode for me either unhappy
382  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: 9Y-6 special mode on: February 11, 2010, 10:40:01 pm
So put Q1 higher and now it sounds perfect.

How high? 14?

And this is with KS, right?
383  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: New to this, but have been dreaming of doing this for a while... (introduction) on: February 10, 2010, 11:39:23 am
PS. @Telstar, the Pass XVR1s are line-level active x-overs

Yes, i was going to correct that.
384  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: New to this, but have been dreaming of doing this for a while... (introduction) on: February 09, 2010, 10:24:37 am
Hi Sr,

I too think that passive crossovers are a big veil to the music. So, I decided to build crossoverless speakers. The alternatives were fullrange drivers and electronic or digital XO with 2 or more drivers.
There was one last option and it is custom made drivers with natural rolloffs where the XO point would have been. I think that this cannot apply to the diyer, so I scr*pped it out.
I listened to many fullrangers and they werent truly my cup of tea - too few dynamics, too much rollof off on top, and they required huge baffles to do some bass. Moreover, I was in love with open baffles (and still am).
I did some research on drivers and software and many simulations. I ended with 12" woofers and 8" fullrange. It contraddicts the above, but I wanted something easy to do since was my first attempt, and also I didnt want to invest much. Also my room requirements imposed pretty narrow baffles (<40cm wide).

How did it go? Well, i'm still using them after one year Wink
Software setup and trying various equalizer for XO and driver correction, and measurements were le least fun part. But after gaining confidence, changing some parameters on the fly is priceless. The 300hz asymetric XO point and the FR behaviour were more or less the same in reality. I didnt really need a long and difficult fine tune. The time spent on research paid off. Trying various filters for both XO and EQ took much longer than deciding the XO point and the depth. The software that sounded the best to me is Izotope Ozone. I havent played much to compare linear phase vs min phase filters, but both have pros and cons - the perfect filter has not been invented.
In my case i couldnt have done with a 6db XO - my FR require a much steeper highpass to keep distortion and dynamics to an acceptable (for me) level. Instead, the woofer can play clean into the khz region and I use "only" a 24db filter. For similar reasons, I also use a subsonic filter @23hz.

There are too many compromises to be made with a 2-way, especially without boxes, that i'm planning a 4-way. And i feel confident in the transparency of software digital crossovers.
There is one big drawback that i havent been able to solve and that is the sampling frequency cannot be changed on the fly by the software player.

This is not to say that passive or electronic crossovers cannot be done in a SOTA way, but they are way more expensive, ot difficult to build.
All pro digital units are too limited in the type and amount of equalization and most of them dont go over 96khz (DEQX is one of the few exceptions).
So the answer is electronic ones like Cello and Viola or passive like the Pass that Mani has.
385  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: 9y-5(whatever) with Arc Prediction v Linn Records 24/96 no arc prediction on: February 03, 2010, 06:57:19 pm
FWIW, whenever I've compared a Linn hirez (24/88.2, 24/96 and 24/192) or an HRx 24/176.4 to the equivalent 16/44.1 with QAP, I've preferred the hirez. (The Linn 24/88.2 and HRx 24/176.4 files were mastered on the same machine that I'm listening to them on - I'm not sure about the Linn 24/96 and 24/192 files.)

Thanks Mani, this really helps.
386  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: 9y-5(whatever) with Arc Prediction v Linn Records 24/96 no arc prediction on: February 03, 2010, 03:52:27 pm
I have been recommended a piano album in 24/192 from Linn for its quality, but I didnt buy it yet.
I'll try to find which one was and post it.

I think a better comparison with OS dacs would be between native 24/174-192 and QAP.
387  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Help with Kernel Streaming 0.9y-5-01 on: January 21, 2010, 10:46:11 pm
But just to be clear, I cannot hear any obvious noise with AC power, i.e. no buzzing or increased static/hiss. What I do hear though is an added 'shrill' or 'edginess' to virtually everything. It makes it difficult to listen to - almost bringing too much attention to the sound.

Yes, that is the typical effect of dirty power. The HF is where most problems are heard.

You can diy or buy a filter for the digital components (i.e. the computer).
Or if the laptop battery last long enough for your listening sessions, just plug when you finish listening.


388  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: Engine#3 Vs Engine#4 comparison on: January 21, 2010, 10:34:05 pm
In my current situation, I think I now prefer 5-02 engine #3 without upsampling. Q1=4 is a fixed thing for me.
HF comparing engine #3 and #4 sound less distorted with #3. I know with a NOS DAC things will be different, but i suspect the cpu usage has something to do. For now i'll stick this way.

Funny thing is, the Quartet drivers do auto sample rate in W7 BUT the VST host doesnt, so it's a moot point unhappy
Anyway, i'm sure ESI will fix the drivers soon.
389  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: Kernel Streaming Strategy - The Emotion Factor on: January 20, 2010, 12:01:16 pm
Well, while for Engine#3 we should try everything and all to make the latency as low as possible, this implies that for Engine#4 we must make the latency as high as possible. And, try to understand this is not about the phenomenon latency at all (it will do completely nothing to the sound), but the means to get there is something we can grab *and* will influence the sound;

Oh, these are really good news for me.
Because of my software crossover, I need to keep the drivers buffer (not technically latency) very high. This means that Engine #4 should sound much better than Engine #3 at 2048 samples (that i need to completely avoid disturbs when the latency raises).

BTW, i started to feel the "emotional" character of engine 4. Need only to find the time to listen Happy
390  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: Engine#3 Vs Engine#4 comparison on: January 20, 2010, 11:54:08 am
I decided to give engine #4 another try. This time without upsampling.
And I noticed that it does sound more involving!

My thought is that with poor sigma-delta upsampling DACS engine4 sounds best without any upsampling.
I have much more to test on the real system.
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