Earlier quoted context omitted.
huh, besides the BS, isn't the file loaded into RAM first anyway?
You know what's next - sell audiophile-grade RAM. Gold-plate everything.
full stack audio grade computer, 40000USD
Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
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Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#142Tubes, cables now this. It seems more like religion or superstition than technology IMHO. If you want to take it to the limit, hire someone to come into your home and perform live for you, then you can eliminate all the sources of distortion. Not only would you be hearing the ultimate perfect sound, you would be providing employment for artists. Seems like a win - win to me :)
maybe they'll obsess about musician's health or instrument care
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good question. Sounds like a great opportunity to sell overpriced batteries to audiophiles.
Heavy metal batteries. Classical batteries. If only there was a genre of music called “deep cycle” we’d be on the gravy train for life. (Ref: HHGG)
solid state pop
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know what's next - sell audiophile-grade RAM. Gold-plate everything.
full stack audio grade computer, 40000USD
Aim higher. That's cheap compared to the $90,000 DAC you need to buy https://darko.audio/2015/11/the-select-dac-ii-msb-technology...
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#145When I'm playing music on my stereo from my PC through USB, turning off the lights on my bathroom on the other side of the wall will momentarily kill my USB driver and as a result Spotify stops working. Electromagnetic interference is no joke.
That’s bad ground. There’s some sort of shoddy electrical work in the wall. In my home, a previous owner cut a cable too short and connected the line to ground via a paper clip. Could have killed us.
talking about ground effects, uncle car honks when he actuates the wipers; very comical and instructive at the same time
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#146Since audiophiles are so gullible I wonder if you could sell even more stuff for them. For example:
* plastic surgery for ear lobes (Ferengi audio Inc.)
* ear wax removal and ear hair trimming services
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The super cheap units you find for like $10-20 will usually have serious shielding / noise issues That's not true if even possible (because dac and amplifier are on a single cheap). I've tested like five different DACs, from $2 to $150, even those for $2 that play distorted sound and don't bother putting output capacitors for headphones have no noise/shielding problems.
Not sure why it's not possible, though I could've had a defective unit. Specifically, I had a Fiio D3 ($20) which had bad background noise, even when not playing. I always assumed it was a power supply or shielding issue. The audio output from it actually sounded decent, just I could always hear the background noise. Don't think it was a grounding issue either, because it was the only DAC I ever had that consistently…
If you hear high frequency noise it's just means the amplifier has too much gain for your headphones and doesn't automatically mute when there is no signal (many do). But all amplifiers have noise. If you use the line output though, it doesn't go through the amplifier and of course doesn't have its noise.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#148At this level of fanatism I'd probably hold back with criticising them, because they might actually stab you if their lunacy bubble pops.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't understand the power of naivety, placebo effect, dreams and stupidity composed (multiply all). Not in any way intended to insult these people, I know a few (not as rich) and they simply do not want to understand the basic principles behind digital signals, error corrections etc. I know people that work in IT and still pretend that audio transmission over USB can add jitter to music and that a DAC can "open"…
What kind of arguments you've been using? Are you talking specifically about the DA chips or the black boxes containing them? I pretty much can agree with you regarding the digital side of things, but could the actual appliances have notable differences in their analogue side or configuration? Maybe the actual value of having a $400 DAC appliance (built around a $2 Wolfson DAC chip) is going around problems in a comp…
I fully agree that an external USB DAC can have a much better output quality than the motherboard output that can be influenced by interference; I have an external DAC myself, but I bought it for about $50 (list price was $200 in a hi-fi store, I ordered it from a small reseller).
Not talking about the $400 box with $5 parts in it, but about common sense (plus some physics and math) in understanding what a DAC does and does not.
Not an audiophile myself (well, not that kind of audiophile, but with some passion for the music), I cannot provide good and trusty advice to others, but a digital-out (very common) to an amplifier with a digital-in (very common) is a very simple and cheap way to do it; I am not aware of a cheap way to get very good quality analogue signal out of a PC, for example, as add-on sound cards are very rare these days and very good audio on motherboard is fairly restrictive, but the digital path is wide open. Coax or optical out is the cheapest, a DAC is the next, but the difference between a $50 DAC and a $500 DAC is negligible.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the things I truly will never understand about "Audiophiles" is their willingness to spend money on products that are, from a technical basis, indisputably categorized as snake oil. For instance: https://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-Diamond-feet-Braided-Cable... It's an HDMI cable! The video signal has CRC in it and is packetized, it's either going to make it or it isn't. The quality of video delivered at, for in…
One theory I read (for good quality USB cables to a DAC) is that reduced packet loss reduces jitter, which means that the clock rate of the DAC doesn't have to adjust in order to keep the buffer populated, but not overflowing. Sounds plausible, but I'm not sure that packet loss is high enough to actually cause this.
Jitter is itself an audiophile scam. The audible consequences of extreme jitter is an increased noise floor, which itself is being drowned out by the sound in a typical "quiet" room.