Streaming music via HDMI

[CECAA850]

I enjoy the debate on what caused the change I heard but not as much as the changes I've heard.

[mark1101]

If you read about jitter there are all kinds of conversations about what can cause it and how best to deal with it.  Call it what you want.

 

The reality is that the DAC should be able to handle what comes down the line, and prevent gross distortions from getting into the system.  I use all the different inputs on my Benchmark and I can't tell one from another.  They all work equally as well.  The manual shows test data for the inputs and shows they all perform equally.  There is no advantage from one to another.

 

If you are buying the $200 DAC, you are probably not getting anything like that and hence this thread where some feel one transport method sounds better than another, and one doesn't deliver as well as another.

 

All I wanted to do was dispell the myth.

 

The other issue is that digital distortion is unrelated to the music.  It's nonsense sounds, snaps, clicks, screeches, drop outs on DACs that can detect and protect like Benchmark...........you know when you hear it, or don't.

[Chris A]

9 minutes ago, mark1101 said:

If you read about jitter there are all kinds of conversations about what can cause it and how best to deal with it.

Yes, there are.  My comments above say that they're all off by a factor of about 250, since they're all talking about nanosecond-level jitter (or below...).

 

"Audiophiles in action" is a better description of those conversations.

 

I prefer a bit more than just talk on these type of subjects. 

 

Chris

[CECAA850]

10 minutes ago, mark1101 said:

The reality is that the DAC should be able to handle what comes down the line, and prevent gross distortions from getting into the system.

The reality is that not everyone can spend 2k on a DAC and this DAC plus extractor for 250 dollars will give you the same sound as a 2k DAC. 

[Chris A]

When compared to the relative "fidelity" of phonographs, DACs, even the "cheap" kind, regularly achieve several orders of magnitude better fidelity.  The problem is "audiophile opinions" that make the sales of $2k (US) DACs.  It's insane.  It's much better to pay attention to the quality of the laptop data buses and power supplies (as well as operating system real-time performance...especially with anti-virus software installed and running)...which apparently no one is doing.

 

It's much better to go with buffering and handshaking data buses.  Local clocking is a couple of orders of magnitude better (even the "cheap stuff") than streaming serial connections with effectively no buffering and no local clocking.  I firmly believe that's the difference that Carl is listening to.

 

Chris

[mark1101]

 

 

51 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

The reality is that not everyone can spend 2k on a DAC and this DAC plus extractor for 250 dollars will give you the same sound as a 2k DAC. 

 

Well I don't know about that but it sounds like it cleared up the delivery issue you had.  So that's good.  It could sound as good or better than DACs that cost more.  No arguement.

 

While the Benchmark DAC I keep talking about is very good technically with digital anomalies, I don't think it is the best sounding DAC out there by any means.  I think it is decent, holds its own at its price point, and is more than acceptable to me right now.  It's been bulletproof when it comes to playing any and all I have thrown at it and that is what Benchmark gets you to pay for.  It just works.

[CECAA850]

2 minutes ago, mark1101 said:

it cleared up the delivery issue you had

It really did and I'm elated.  One thing that really surprised me was the bass.  As I stated earlier, I thought my sub was on when I first fired up the amp for the L and R speakers.  Of course the sub was off.  This past weekend I spent more time listening but this time with the sub on.  I had to dial it back as well.  The whole system just sounds so much better.  It's almost like going from 8 track to cassette LOL.

[Chris A]

15 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

One thing that really surprised me was the bass.

Bass performance is usually tied to the analog side of things. If you're hearing the difference most predominantly in bass, and only the digital side was changed/A-B'ed, then that says a lot about the amount of data that was being lost due to asynchronous data loss truncation.   Maybe more than can easily imagined.  What it says to me is this: looking at the jitter specifications of DACs and data buses is a waste of time.  You won't find this issue by looking at bus jitter or DAC jitter, since the first thing you'd hear is greatly improved high frequencies.  What you're looking for is much more basic, and probably related to gross issues with power supplies and clocking on the computer side. 

 

Effectively what you've said is that there is no way this can be an analog impedance issue, but rather a digital bus stream continuity issue.    You're not talking about the analog output sections of the DAC.

 

One other observation: when you clean up the issues related to sidebands on the (higher frequency) audio signal, I've found that one of the weird things that happens is that the bass sounds a lot better, in addition to everything sounding much cleaner and much more transparent.

 

Chris

[CECAA850]

28 minutes ago, Chris A said:

Effectively what you've said is that there is no way this can be an analog impedance issue, but rather a digital bus stream continuity issue.    You're not talking about the analog output sections of the DAC.

Exactly.  Nothing changed on the analog side.  I went from using a USB output from the laptop to the dac to using a HDMI output, the extractor and optical cable to DAC.

The gain structure changed somehow as it seems I don't have to use as much of the volume knob for the same SPL as before.  I didn't measure that and I might be imagining it but that's how it appears.  Lots of tracks by different artists are recorded at different levels so it may just have been my song selections.

[Chris A]

6 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

Lots of tracks by different artists are recorded at different levels so it may just have been my song selections.

I just received a Liz Phair CD in the mail.  After running Clip Fix in Audacity, I recovered 10-15 dB overall in terms of peaks that had been clipped. The foobar2000 DR database plugin for the album measured "6" beforehand...and "12" after.  That's a huge amount.  The difference after re-EQing the tracks was the difference between pleasurably listening to the CD many times vs. not listening to it through even once.  All the tracks that I own are now much closer in terms of loudness.

 

16 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

The gain structure changed somehow as it seems I don't have to use as much of the volume knob for the same SPL as before.

You've been using your volume control on the digital (player) side? 

 

Chris

[CECAA850]

No, just the volume knob on the preamp.  The volume in the laptop and DAC hasn't moved.  I guess it would have been more accurate for me to say that it seems that the preamp is getting a slightly hotter signal than before.

[muel]

Yep.  When you get rid of noise the bass sounds better.  There ARE those of us paying attention to the power supplies, operating systems, and processes running on the computer.  I have made big improvements by attacking all areas possible on the PC side of things.  From power supplies and USB filters to using a stripped down install of Server 2012 OS with a bare minimum of processes running each has had varying degrees of improvement in sound.  Even some minor settings changes in the OS can change the sound slightly.  Why?  I don't know for sure but I do know that the more processes running the more CPU usage goes up... the more CPU usage goes up the more power required from the power supply goes up.  But it is all digital so why should the power supply affect the sound?  Why does removing a process completely unrelated to audio affect the sound?   I don't know... I just know that it DOES affect the sound.  Most of the answers people give to this just tells me that they don't know either.  Sure digital is digital but it the timing of the delivery matters.  I've spent way too much on trying wring out the best sound possible from the PC.  You don't have to do the expensive stuff though...  Latency on your PC should be considered by everyone using a PC because it definitely affects the DELIVER of the digital.  It doesn't cost anything to check DPC Latency.  The lower the better... I'll bet those of you who suffer stops and stutters will find that you have high latency.  I had an XP install on a computer that had horrible latency... sounded lousy.  SAME exact computer but with MS server 2012 installed the latency was much lower and the sound was much better.

 

I don't ever talk about jitter because how the hell does anyone know that Jitter is what they are hearing?  Perhaps it's a word people use sometimes because it sounds descriptive of what they are trying to describe... like warm, bright, boomy, or gritty.   I just know when it sounds better, worse, or maybe just "different" to me.  Actual jitter may have or may not have anything to do with it.

 

What have been the most impactful improvements in sound (besides my Klipsch) has been my use of a computer with a stripped down OS dedicated for only audio use and a USB filter prior to the DAC.  

 

I think it is awesome that some have found a way to cheaply improve your sound!  Experiences may vary with this but 50 bucks isn't too big of a risk.  I would hesitate to say that one delivery is inherently better than another... way too many other factors and variables.  Depends on how it is implemented.

 

Thanks for sharing Chris!  Your obvious level of knowledge makes me want to check my facts more closely anytime I find myself in disagreement with something you say.  Of course, that would only include the times that you haven't gone over my head.

 

 

[mark1101]

Listen to some Jitter.

 

http://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like

 

[CECAA850]

1 hour ago, mark1101 said:

Listen to some Jitter.

 

http://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like

 

Crap, I keep getting an error message when I click play.  I'll try it at home tonight.

[Schu]

That sounds exactly like what I would expect jitter to sound like... granularity.

[SWL]

When I was still using USB out of my laptop and when I first inserted the 'USB Regen'.....the first and most profound thing that jumped out at me was the quality of the bass. Right up my alley let me tell ya. Similar to what Carl experienced initially going from USB to the HDMI Extractor.
On Saturday when I went from using USB with the USB Regen to the HDMI Extractor the bass wasn't improved like it was in Carl's case but rather more in terms of clarity, definition and a black backround like noise had been reduced significantly to the point I was racing through much of my music to hear different types of music.

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[SWL]

Is it possible that a tube buffer (as in the tubemagic D2) would mask some digital deficiencies (jitter, etc.)?

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[Chris A]

47 minutes ago, SWL said:

Is it possible that a tube buffer (as in the tubemagic D2) would mask some digital deficiencies (jitter, etc.)?

 

That "warm tube sound" is second harmonic that wasn't in the original signal+jitter sidebands.  That 2nd harmonic will convolve with the harmonics and the jitter sidebands to form more complex products, some of which may be audible, some of which isn't. 

 

So on balance, you'll hear a slightly more opaque sound, but probably not much more.

 

Chris

[CECAA850]

18 hours ago, SWL said:

clarity, definition and a black backround like noise had been reduced significantly

 I experienced these as well.

[muel]

23 hours ago, mark1101 said:

Listen to some Jitter.

 

http://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like

 

Well, I've certainly heard noise like this before!  Not much lately I'm happy to say.

 

You all got me curious so I'm going to see what happens when I take all my USB "fixen" out of the mix and try HDMI.  I know toslink on this setup sucks already but I'm interested how it compares to that as well.  You are all using the optical out correct?  ...or are some using the analog?  I can't see myself bothering with the analog.