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Post by macca on Dec 31, 2020 11:21:50 GMT
I think the point was that the reviewer chucks out all his valve stuff so he has a neutral system to compare the DACs, but keeps the maggies even though they are not remotely accurate even by loudspeaker standards.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Dec 31, 2020 12:09:25 GMT
Imaging from a DAC. Wow, Amazing! .... But I hear great imaging from a lot of DACs. I have to confess that I don't understand your comments. And you don't like Magneplanars. OK, I can sympathise with that. They aren't really my thing, either. Quite an individual kind of presentation. But in their way they can, sometimes, sound fantastic - I recall a show a few years ago, Maggie 1.7 and what looked like three quarters of a ton of amplification. Wowzer!!! Hugely entertaining on some high energy rock music. You seem to be digging some quite deep ruts to inhabit, Oli. Maybe you need to open out a little? is 100% correct in regard to my Maggi comment. I actually REALLY like what maggies do. I considered a pair before i bought the Yams, but for reviewing other components.....no. Thats basically what ruled them out for me at the time. However, i do enjoy them and would have a pair in a second system without hesitation. My "a DAC that images..wow!" comment is also not an opinion of mine, but rather a little poke at those who think DACs can't image. A little nudge to the "yest they do" catagory. Admittidly, some have better imaging abilities than others, but i also think once you get past a certain level of DAC, they all start to show what digital can really achieve. Not in any trenches in terms of my opinions, Jerry. I am always happy to give anything a listen and judge it on it's own personal merits, but i do have particular opinions on kit i have heard and that rarely changes. Although i would love to re-evaluate some of the gear i once felt was not up to standard, as my own system probably wasnt at the time either. |
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Post by jandl100 on Dec 31, 2020 12:16:17 GMT
Ah, fair do's, I entirely misunderstood your post!
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Post by macca on Dec 31, 2020 12:46:50 GMT
Who thinks DACs don't image? That's bizzare.
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Post by misterc on Dec 31, 2020 12:47:04 GMT
Dac imaging is around 90% power supply design and rail delivery and a correctly implemented i/v stages and valve dac outputs can image as well no problem, just a shame you have to colour the sound 
Imaging in any audio product is easy to achieve first year basic design class 101 HOWEVER making sound appealing to the general public now that is another matter.
One of the very best imaging products I have ever listened to had dual custom dual mono 500va (four) transformers just for the analogue stages alone with four stages of regulation it imaged like a demon total disappearance of any audio system what so ever even in a tiny room it also gave stratospheric depth even with a £2k front end.
Pretty much anything is possible if you put your mind to it and you have patience, you understand the circuit and realise what is required to obtain the results your are seeking.
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Post by Bigman80 on Dec 31, 2020 12:50:29 GMT
Who thinks DACs don't image? That's bizzare. Vinyl types mainly. Although, I think in recent times this viewpoint is fading for a lot of them |
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Post by Bigman80 on Dec 31, 2020 12:51:28 GMT
Ah, fair do's, I entirely misunderstood your post! Yup, it's ok. I often write things that make sense to me but end up having to explain them later lol |
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Post by macca on Dec 31, 2020 13:20:02 GMT
Who thinks DACs don't image? That's bizzare. Vinyl types mainly. Although, I think in recent times this viewpoint is fading for a lot of them Seem to recall that if you add enough uncorrelated noise to the signal (something vinyl does well) it can improve the sense of 'air and space' hence the tall and wide soundstage you can get from vinyl compared to the same recording on CD (I have a few albums on both formats that show that clearly). The suggestion that digital doesn't image at all is just wrong though. Best imaging I ever heard was from digital source , Gordon's Linkwitz LX521 system at one of the NEBOs, never heard anything even come close before or since. You actually get a sense of confusion because your eyes are not seeing what your ears tell you that they should be seeing. |
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Post by antonio on Dec 31, 2020 13:38:51 GMT
Hear Maggies done properly,
You can really hear the difference
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Post by misterc on Dec 31, 2020 14:41:05 GMT
Quite like Maggies had many pairs over the years they do things differently from Logan's like a more musical involvement if somewhat detail light, but good none the less
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Post by sq225917 on Dec 31, 2020 15:16:57 GMT
Vinyls added soundstage width comes from out of phase crosstalk, or the mastering, nothing else. It's not any digital shortcoming that marks the difference, quite the opposite in fact. It's an aberration of the transcription process.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Dec 31, 2020 20:09:24 GMT
Vinyls added soundstage width comes from out of phase crosstalk, or the mastering, nothing else. It's not any digital shortcoming that marks the difference, quite the opposite in fact. It's an aberration of the transcription process. What about depth, front to back? |
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Post by sq225917 on Dec 31, 2020 20:58:53 GMT
Room, speaker polar response and your imagination.
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Post by Bigman80 on Dec 31, 2020 21:22:26 GMT
Room, speaker polar response and your imagination. IMAGINATION!!! I was paying attention until that point lol |
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Post by macca on Dec 31, 2020 21:58:54 GMT
The more you concentrate on it, the better soundstage gets.
For depth you need it to be in the mix to begin with (which it isn't always) then the speakers, speaker positioning and the room have to not ruin it too much.
Depth in a recording is only achieved by mixing some instruments in at lower levels isn't it? There's no other way to do it as far as I know. So it's a form of perceptual illusion as the stereo only works in 2 dimensions.
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Post by Bigman80 on Dec 31, 2020 22:41:38 GMT
The more you concentrate on it, the better soundstage gets. For depth you need it to be in the mix to begin with (which it isn't always) then the speakers, speaker positioning and the room have to not ruin it too much. Depth in a recording is only achieved by mixing some instruments in at lower levels isn't it? There's no other way to do it as far as I know. So it's a form of perceptual illusion as the stereo only works in 2 dimensions. Ok, but if nothing changes position wise for the speakers between vinyl and digital, is there a technical reason for why there could be more depth? Imagination is not a real reason for anything imo. |
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Post by macca on Dec 31, 2020 22:49:39 GMT
You see on the height and width thing I'm with you but I've always thought that digital does depth pretty well. At least as good as vinyl.
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Post by Bigman80 on Dec 31, 2020 23:11:42 GMT
You see on the height and width thing I'm with you but I've always thought that digital does depth pretty well. At least as good as vinyl. I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying that some DACs don't, but most vinyl does. Why does that happen? Height and width is pretty much dominated by vinyl. Why though? |
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Post by macca on Dec 31, 2020 23:46:45 GMT
I agree some DACs and CD players sound a bit 2 dimensional compared to others, that's what I hear too. But I'm not sure that they really are. Might be system dependant. Might be unconscious bias. There's a lot of variables, I don't take stuff like that for granted anymore, been wrong too often.
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Post by sq225917 on Dec 31, 2020 23:53:15 GMT
How many microphones were used to record the music? How many musicians played simultaneously are were captured across the same microphones?
Hardly any bands record in single multiplayer takes, so short of classical recording, stage width is all artifice. It's all produced in the mix.
The best measured channel separation your ears can produce is about 25db. Anything you hear in one ear, in free field conditions, even at high frequency bleeds through at about -25db to the other ear, even when pointing directly at one ear.
Width and depth cues are all processed in the brain to create a semblance of a 3 dimensional layout of musicians. We process the ratio of direct and reflected sound, factor in the frequency relayed delays and reverberation and simulate a physical layout in our heads that best fits this as an approximation based on our experience of real sound environments.
Record producers place musicians in the studio and place that within a channel in the recording. Play that back in your room and you concatenate additional reflections, reverberation and delays that come from your room.
The best you can get in any recording is a musician panned 100% to a single speaker in the mix. Listen to it and they are locked to that speaker. Now add a % of that in antiphase in the other channel and now they appear to come from outside of the speaker to which they had been previously locked into.
It's artifice and error. Nothing more. Download protools or soundbooth or similar and try it for yourself.
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Post by Bigman80 on Jan 1, 2021 0:49:36 GMT
How many microphones were used to record the music? How many musicians played simultaneously are were captured across the same microphones? Hardly any bands record in single multiplayer takes, so short of classical recording, stage width is all artifice. It's all produced in the mix. The best measured channel separation your ears can produce is about 25db. Anything you hear in one ear, in free field conditions, even at high frequency bleeds through at about -25db to the other ear, even when pointing directly at one ear. Width and depth cues are all processed in the brain to create a semblance of a 3 dimensional layout of musicians. We process the ratio of direct and reflected sound, factor in the frequency relayed delays and reverberation and simulate a physical layout in our heads that best fits this as an approximation based on our experience of real sound environments. Record producers place musicians in the studio and place that within a channel in the recording. Play that back in your room and you concatenate additional reflections, reverberation and delays that come from your room. The best you can get in any recording is a musician panned 100% to a single speaker in the mix. Listen to it and they are locked to that speaker. Now add a % of that in antiphase in the other channel and now they appear to come from outside of the speaker to which they had been previously locked into. It's artifice and error. Nothing more. Download protools or soundbooth or similar and try it for yourself. Mixing is one thing I haven't done anything with although I have spent a lot of time in studios. I will try this. |
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Post by firebottle on Jan 1, 2021 9:10:33 GMT
Depth isn't lower levels, it's instruments recorded at a very small delay behind the 'front' instruments.
Think about it, we discern distance (depth in this case) by sound arriving at our ears with a fractional time difference. No difference to the illusion created by a stereo signal that has the correct information.
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Post by macca on Jan 1, 2021 10:21:27 GMT
So you are saying that to make, say, a backing singer sound like they are behind the lead singer they will have the backing singer's track come in later than they would in a live performance? If so that's not right. This article explains how depth is created in a mix, nothing to do with using delay. As I said the primary method is to reduce volume on the tracks you want to appear to be further back in the soundstage. Quieter = further away. www.sonible.com/blog/adding-depth/#:~:text=%20To%20add%20depth%20to%20your%20mix%20there,in...%203%20Reverb%20and%20spatial%20information%20More%20 |
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Post by sq225917 on Jan 1, 2021 14:34:12 GMT
It's not just volume and delay, sounds further back in the mix include more 'ambience, reverberation cues and added echo.
Stick the trinity sessions on by the cowboy junkies, thats live recorded with two blumein pair and one front high positioned ambience mic.
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Post by macca on Jan 1, 2021 15:43:29 GMT
The lead vocal is an overdub on that though.
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Post by jimbo on Jan 1, 2021 16:45:43 GMT
Try anything from MA recordings and you will hear amazing depth, imaging, space and soundstage and Todd Garfinkle uses just a pair of microphones position upfront usually in the vicinity of the ambient space.
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Post by macca on Jan 1, 2021 19:25:46 GMT
Well no-ones saying you can't get an impression of depth whether it's a live take recorded with a stereo pair or a multi-track recording.
But given it is an illusion how well it comes across on playback is partly down to how our brains interpret the relatively crude clues given in the recording. I would guess that some people find it easier to visualise the 3D space than others.
I think that there is inevitably going to be an element of 'imagination' involved in visualising a stereo image. I wonder if someone blind from birth with no visual reference as to what instruments look like, or what a band playing together looks like, would perceive the 3D image in the same way as sighted person? I'd guess they wouldn't.
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Post by macca on Jan 3, 2021 12:07:26 GMT
Some interesting comments re noise and soundstage depths on this thread www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/are-we-forgetting-noise.18249/''best part of 20 years ago a friend of mine derived a set of tests to try to work out why LPs didn't sound terrible, despite the poor performance in terms of distortion, noise and crosstalk.
It turned out that by the time crosstalk got to about 30dB it was, from an audibility pov, infinite.
Adding noise did indeed increase the impression of stereo space, particularly depth, the effect was surprising to both of us and obvious. If the noise was modulated with the music, rather than being a fixed amount, the effect was more marked.'' |
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Post by misterc on Jan 3, 2021 12:19:30 GMT
Hence dither with digital which is just random noise interjected now up to 32 bits |
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Post by macca on Jan 3, 2021 12:38:36 GMT
But dither in digital is used to reduce distortion not to enhance soundstage. The higher the bit depth the less dither you need to apply.
I was referencing in terms of analogue reproduction, just another example of how a poorer technical spec can actually sound better in real-world application. Psycho-acoustics is weird.
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