Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#411

Post by kazinator » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:59 PM UTC

edoo wrote: post #103

Pro tip: There are enough PCB shops now that small designs like this can just be done in free EDA software in minutes, 10 boards in your hand with a stencil 9 real days later for less than $50 shipped. The stencil lets you paste the board all at once, you place parts and hit it with a heat gun until everything sets. For audio stuff you get the advantage of keeping everything nice and tight with lower noise. I barely…

Pro tip: I can make a circuit board for this in my apartment in about an 2 hours, starting with refreshing myself on PCB routing software I haven't touched in a few years, finding the bottle of ferric chloride deep in a storage closet and procuring a tiny piece of copper-clad board from somewhere. If I'm ramped up on things, substantially faster.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#412

Post by kazinator » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 8:03 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #215

IMHO your circuit topology looks wacky. Perhaps there's a goal to making your amplifier ground ride in the middle of the waveform, but it could just as well be unintentional. So my immediate thoughts - You've already got a real split supply with 2x 9v batteries. If you use that instead of deriving a virtual ground, you will save 9mA of quiescent current. How purposeful is that whole low side duplicated circuit and wh…

> If you use that instead of deriving a virtual ground, you will save 9mA of quiescent current.

The virtual ground has a further flaw: It's a DC ground only. This designer forgot to AC-bypass those 1K resistors, or at least one of them.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#413

Post by anotheryou » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 8:05 PM UTC

PSZD wrote: post #386

alanpage wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Test your system (and your room) with this audio quality quiz, comparing lossless audio with several compressed bit rate streams [1]. With my 50-year old ears, and an outboard DAC/amp and audiophile magnetic planar headphones, I could only score 50%. That said, switching between Spotify and Tidal on the same track, I hear a pretty big difference. The lossless music has a depth that just isn't there on the compressed…

I got 2/6 right, the 4 wrong were 320kbps. Using the cheap-but-decent shp9500s and no dac, but quite good hearing. I'd chalk it up to having been listening to almost exclusively streamed 320kbps, it was interesting to note that the 4 I got wrong were because I discarded the more 'neutral' toned one which was actually lossless. The 128kbps was of course very easy to pick out. I'm of the opinion that 320 vs lossless is…

it's 320kbps ogg btw.

Spotify uses 3 quality ratings for streaming, all in the Ogg Vorbis format.

• ~96 kbps • Normal quality on mobile.

• ~160 kbps • Desktop and web player standard quality. • High quality on mobile.

• ~320 kbps (only available to Premium subscribers) • Desktop high quality. • Extreme quality on mobile.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#414

Post by fb03 » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

kakarot wrote: post #405

fb03 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, I don't. A replier said something about a brand called "Schiit Audio", but I've researched them and they only offer stuff with RCA outputs which are sadly not balanced at all. If you're on a budget you could get the AG03 which is the same interface, but with less input channels. Also, the DSP is totally optional on those, If you don't use it you'll bypass it totally, not coloring or changing your signal in any…

The Mackie guy was another poster, I don't have any balanced speakers so I would need to purchase them in tandem with a card. > make yourself some nice XLR cables Intriguing. How difficult is this?

Pretty easy and you can find schematics online!

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/BPBQXM10--pro-co-bpb...

this is the kind of cable you are looking for if your audio card can only output balanced audio via TRS plugs (like mine, Yamaha AG06).

Good luck!

EDIT: Found the schematics for you!

https://www.mediacollege.com/audio/connection/xlr-jack-stere...

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#415

Post by chrisdhoover » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 12:23 AM UTC

kakarot wrote: post #405

fb03 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, I don't. A replier said something about a brand called "Schiit Audio", but I've researched them and they only offer stuff with RCA outputs which are sadly not balanced at all. If you're on a budget you could get the AG03 which is the same interface, but with less input channels. Also, the DSP is totally optional on those, If you don't use it you'll bypass it totally, not coloring or changing your signal in any…

The Mackie guy was another poster, I don't have any balanced speakers so I would need to purchase them in tandem with a card. > make yourself some nice XLR cables Intriguing. How difficult is this?

“Pin 2 is high” God

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#416

Post by bb88 » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #265

bb88 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and (2) every single Apple product. Sure but that doesn't mean the default Apple audio jack is high quality. I have a cheap USB DAC (bought from monoprice) to power a set of Beyerdynamic headphones. The DAC beat a macbook I was using for work hands down on quality of sound. Specifically, I noted the DAC had better definition of sound meaning that I could pick out details better. It also had better spatial attribute…

My experience has been similar. The output on my MacBook was fine, until I hooked up an amp (coincidentally, my headphones are also Beyerdynamic; DT880s in this case). It sounded pretty bad to be honest, so then I hooked up the external DAC, and it was fascinating how big a difference it made. And I'm not an audiophile, so I usually don't really notice such differences. * the DAC and AMP were Schiit Magni/Modi

So my post is downvoted to -3 and then bumped back up to 0. But there was no disagreement in the form of a response.

I'm not an audiophile either, but there is something about having listened to a track over and over again on an average pair of headphones and then listening to it again through a DAC and the DT770s I have. It's like hearing it for the first time again. Details just pop out and I really began to appreciate the engineering that went into some of the 80's songs I listened to on crappy car speakers when I was a kid.

BTW, the tracks I used to test the spatial qualities of my macbook was "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" on the O' Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and "Blackbird" by the Kings Singers.

With the DT770's alone using the Mac jack, the Mac smeared the audio on both tracks. The first one especially because the mic used for recording introduces a distortion.

With the DAC, spatial on both were clear and came from point sources. Phenomenal.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#417

Post by ikeboy » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

tushartyagi wrote: post #370

oDot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some Android OEMs will allow you to unlock the bootloader and makes changes to the OS without any warranty problems.

The problem with this is that the bootloader is now becoming more and more locked down and the consumers have to jump ever more hoops to unlock it. Some years ago I had Samsung S2 where unlocking the bootloader was an offline activity. I don't remember how but doing that was quick and easy. Now I own a MotoG4 where unlocking means going to some website, entering my email address and then receiving unlock code in my e…

Newest Samsungs cannot be unlocked

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#418

Post by Zelmor » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 1:23 AM UTC

fipple wrote: post #368

jstarfish wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't positives. It does nobody any good to have 1000 books on a single device if the whole thing is subject to revocation, especially when you paid full retail price for the privilege of being allowed to read it. This is regression. Previously you paid your $10 and received a paper book. You could read it, re-read it, lend it, sell it, or burn it for warmth. You owned it for as long as you kept it dehydrated.…

It does me good to have those 1000 books. When I finish one on the train I get to pick a new one from the device when I don’t have network.

Why not reflect on the one you just finished? Stop. Think.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#419

Post by gcb0 » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:39 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #269

gcb0 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google own the merge rigths, and what goes into each version. and their process timings ensure that by the time you patch is out, your device is not getting updates anymore (update timeframe that they set both in contract with oem or via "example" via their nexus series)

What merge rights? You can build Android yourself and install it directly on your phone, and let others do the same - unless if the OEM's and ISP's gates prevent you.

unless "your device" is the emulator, there is no way to get hold of drivers or firmware for anything other than lifting them of an blessed rom ... and only if you can get the parity you need with the kernel you are using.

there's a very good reason the "supported device list" of all forks is always very, very small (even with the outlandish claims on most of them such as "supported. touch screen and modem still not working" )

just becuase the build steps for your fork project automates some of that driver/kernel lifting, doesn't make it any better.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#420

Post by spronkey » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 8:20 AM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #214

dep_b wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DA on older iPhones is mediocre, the DA in those lightning converters is even worse. Try a separate DA if you really want quality audio output.

> the DA in those lightning converters is even worse Absolutely not true. https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu...

Not to bag on Rockwell, I appreciate his reviews and viewpoints, but do you trust that he has the requisite expertise to correctly analyse the quality of such an adaptor?

I... don't. His write-up doesn't inspire confidence either - I have no idea how he has performed the measurements.

I know enough to know that audio measurement is a very tricky endeavour, and most other measurements put the lightning adaptor's output at a few dBA worse in SNR and dynamic range than the iPhone 6S' jack output (but otherwise similar). Both are easily worse than a good external DAC. Certainly not "better quality" than the inbuilt option as Rockwell claims.

It's good enough for almost everyone, and is likely to be capable of higher fidelity than most source material, but most agree that it is objectively a worse DA.