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Streaming music via HDMI


CECAA850

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On 8/23/2016 at 7:40 PM, Tasdom said:

That looks like an interesting device there Carl. Should work ok for what you described. Looking forward to your thoughts....

 

As far as USB, Tom may be referring to standard USB connections. The USB Asynchronous DAC in the Oppo 105 reduces jitter which is common via a USB connection and bypasses the computer sound card and DAC.

I have my 105 connected 3 different ways to my PC, HDMI, Optical and to the USB asynchronous dac. With that being said, I can't tell much difference between optical and the USB inputs. (Those 2 methods utilize the Belle's for 2 channel listening) The HDMI is for HT with the other speakers.

 

There's going to be what looks like a good Q & A next week on AVS

 

http://www.avsforum.com/get-ready-for-ask-me-anything-defining-high-res-audio/

 

 

 

This sounds correct.  Digital is digital and as long as the signal is clean and you have decent DACs you should not be able to tell which is which (FOR AUDIO).

 

The issue here is there are a lot of cheap DACs out there with differing clocking schemes relative to dealing with Jitter.  You get what you pay for.

 

I see a lot of posts putting down USB.........Don't agree........try a Benchmark DAC2 and then report back to us (at least go online and read a few pages of the manual about the clocking).  I would put my PC music server with USB across my room under the carpet to my Benchmark DAC2 up against any other digital transport.  No problem.

 

I would venture to say the Bel Canto's and Oppo 105 are a similar playing field as the electronics appear to be similar to Benchmark.

 

 

 

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On 9/18/2016 at 10:33 AM, CECAA850 said:

  Well, I haven't had the bourbon listening experience (it's 9:20 Sunday AM and I just got it up and running) but this experiment was an unequivocal success.  If you're using a DAC that is not asynchronous and streaming via usb, this is a no brainer, cheap upgrade.  In the very short listening session this morning, I noticed several very noticeable improvements.  The first song I played made me walk over to my sub and check to see if I had accidentally left it on the last time I used it.  There's so much more bass coming out of the L and R channels now.  It's not even close.  Cymbals are much clearer now and again, that's not really close either.  The veil has been lifted off the mids but they seem much more forward now.  It may have been my small sampling so we'll have to see on that.  Overall, there's much more clarity from top to bottom using HDMi and an extractor vs plain old usb.  LPCM sounded better than bitstream in the short time I listened as well.  Thanks to Tom (quiethollow) for pushing me in this direction and answering my questions.

IMG_0131.JPG

 

No offense, but I would not call this a cheap upgrade or any upgrade.  What you were using previously sounds like it was not even working correctly.

 

I suspect your DAC could not handle the USB signal very well due to jitter and clocking.

 

My point is not to criticize or put anything down here..............just to make sure everyone knows USB is FINE for music as long as you have a DAC that can handle what's coming down the line.

 

In such a case there should be NO DIFFERENCE from USB, Optical, coax, or HDMI for digital music.  Music is not a data intensive stream for any of these and each should be able to be DAC'd identically resulting in the exact same sound.  These should be no difference in the digital musical information in any of these.

 

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32 minutes ago, muel said:

But in practice there can be a big difference in the resulting sound.  There's no difference in the digital information but the delivery affects the sound.  

My USB delivery sounds pretty good I must say!  

 

Well sure.  But the point is that it is never because HDMI "sounds better" than USB, or toslink "sounds better" than coax.  That was my point earlier.

There is no sound or sound characteristics associated with any of them when in digital form.

The delivery should only affect the sound if there is a problem with it or with the equipment.

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OK, I would like to give this a try, but I have a conundrum (that's what all the girls say....)  First, I am not using an HT receiver/processor.  My Oppo 105D has an HDMI input on the back, that I use for input from my STB for TV signals.  It also has an MHL/HDMI connector on the front, where I have my Apple TV plugged in.  Sooooo....I'm thinking I would need one of these:

http://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=101&cp_id=10113&cs_id=1011310&p_id=8155&seq=1&format=2

 

and Carl's super duper extractor?

 

BTW, I do have a USB cable currently running from my laptop to the USB DAC input on the 105D, and it sounds really good, but, I'm curious as to this setup.....

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1 hour ago, mark1101 said:

 

No offense, but I would not call this a cheap upgrade or any upgrade.  What you were using previously sounds like it was not even working correctly.

 

I suspect your DAC could not handle the USB signal very well due to jitter and clocking.

 

My point is not to criticize or put anything down here..............just to make sure everyone knows USB is FINE for music as long as you have a DAC that can handle what's coming down the line.

 

In such a case there should be NO DIFFERENCE from USB, Optical, coax, or HDMI for digital music.  Music is not a data intensive stream for any of these and each should be able to be DAC'd identically resulting in the exact same sound.  These should be no difference in the digital musical information in any of these.

 

I just read this, and perhaps I shouldn't even bother......

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I'm using a server grade motherboard for my primary computer and it sounds ok.. until I move the DAC over to something like my little Raspberry Pi, suddenly the noise floor was lower and I began to realize that my mouse was causing a static noise whenever I would scroll. The issue isn't USB or the DAC itself, but instead a design of the system board in my main computer that's just not suitable for the scrutiny of high fidelity audio playback (especially headphones).

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1 hour ago, jimjimbo said:

I just read this, and perhaps I shouldn't even bother......

I think the common ideology is that digital is there... or it is not there. Reality I'd, there are INDEED shades of gray that offer up variance in signal and therefore sound reproduction. Dither, interpolation and any compression offers up error in reproduction equal only to as good as the software written for the process. As a matter of fact, have to write a process/application offers up even more interpretation.

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I do know that it takes a really large amount of digital jitter and/or digital word loss to be audible to most people.

 

Example: In the earliest days of CDs (...early 1984 to be exact...) I remember an audio store salesman taking a CD that he was demo-ing, dropped it on the (not so clean) showroom floor, and rubbed it fairly violently between the sole of his shoe and the carpeted floor. Then he popped that CD back into the CD player, and pushed the drawer shut.  It played (of course), and I couldn't hear any difference in the Polk SDA monitors that were playing.  When he took the disc out and handed it to my friend and myself, it had many scratches across the bottom surface, but none were deep.  I know that there were many data errors reading that disc, but it was still pristine sounding.  (Note that these early CD players were prone to a range of maladies in the form of jitter and analog issues.)

 

So if there are audible issues, they're usually on the analog side of the DAC or downstream...or on the power supply to any devices in the digital stream.  Errors due to data buffering/handshake errors or clock stability/synchronization must be relatively large to be audible, with jitter being the more sensitive of the two parameters by a large measure, but even that is much less sensitive than most probably want to believe.

 

Chris

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OK, I would like to give this a try, but I have a conundrum (that's what all the girls say....)  First, I am not using an HT receiver/processor.  My Oppo 105D has an HDMI input on the back, that I use for input from my STB for TV signals.  It also has an MHL/HDMI connector on the front, where I have my Apple TV plugged in.  Sooooo....I'm thinking I would need one of these:

http://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=101&cp_id=10113&cs_id=1011310&p_id=8155&seq=1&format=2

 

and Carl's super duper extractor?

 

BTW, I do have a USB cable currently running from my laptop to the USB DAC input on the 105D, and it sounds really good, but, I'm curious as to this setup.....

What qre you running the Oppo to? I would think its internal DAC would be good enough. Couldn't you run the analog output of the Oppo to your pre amp or amp?

I just re read you post. You are thinking of the hdmi switch to have multiple hdmi inputs, including your laptop? I dont see why that wouldn't work.

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

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Chris, there were no changes to the analog side of my system.  The changes were in the digital realm and were not really subtle.  I was extremely familiar with the sonic signature of this system and haven't made any changes in it in several years.  It took about 15 seconds to notice the improvements once I fired it up.

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6 hours ago, CECAA850 said:

I suspect jitter and clocking were the problem as well.  Those issues are not present with HDMI/optical.

 

They sure are.  Apparently, your setup that uses HDMI or optical tolerates it better or reduces it enough that it doesn't create enough errors to notice.

 

I agree one method can certainly work better than another given all of the real world variables.

 

Edit:  I did a search which produced several results stating HDMI is the worst digital interface for jitter.  Do the search.

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I think the worst interface can probably be different for everyone depending on the whole digital chain.  Jitter is actually controversial.  Use the interface that works best for you.  But the one that sounds best is not because the streaming technology produces better analog sounds than another.  It's because for some reason in your setup, all things considered, you get a more accurate / decodable / tolerable digital signal for your DAC with one method over another.

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8 hours ago, mark1101 said:

Edit: ...Do the search...

 

...Jitter is actually controversial...

I did, and it's not.  It's pretty easy to measure the audibility of jitter and it's been done.  That's why I've posted above that digital jitter must be pretty bad to hear it.  Audibility of digital jitter is a function of frequency and the type of source material being played. 

 

Here's a pretty good source on measured audibility thresholds: https://cdnav.netfirms.com/shared/Jitter DBT.pdf

 

The misinformation of "HDMI jitter is worse than the other digital bus types" isn't really a useful discussion, IMO.  If you're talking below 250 ns total jitter levels, then you'd probably need to be looking for something else that is introducing far more jitter into the audio path than what is being reported in those type of discussions--like power supply issues on USB, etc.

 

Chris

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