 DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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I'm wondering if it would make a significantly improvement if I burn all the MP3 files onto CDR and play them with a CD Player that support MP3? Or do you think I better off relying on the soundcard's DAC to decode them?
For now I have the older SoundBlaster Live 5.1, so far I couldn't hear any interference or anything but I think it could sound better though. I don't know if I should get a new CD-Player with MP3 capability or just get the M-Audio Revolution 5.1/7.1 soundcard that everyone raves about, the M-Audio has a very good spec it's like S/N 107dB and THD 0.002%. My HK 3480 stereo receiver doesn't has any digital input and it doesn't has DAC either, so either way I'll still have to run the analog line to the receiver.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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The limiting factor here would be the actual MP3 format, and to a lesser extent, the software (or hardware in the case of the stand alone CDP) MP3 decoder. This has nothing to do with which sound card you use.
I suggest you download Foobar2000 as it has the best decoding engine for MP3s out of the software players (in my opinion). It has internal support for 64 bit precision, and it can output up to 32 bit floating point (but your SB Live will limit you to either 16 bit or 24 bit fixed point). This will have limited sound quality benefit, if any, but there is something very useful that it can do.
In addition to being able to output in various formats, it can work around that evil little 48 kHz internal up sampling problem that all Emu 10k1 or 10k2 chip-based sound cards (such as the SB Live, Audigy, or even high end cards like Emu's APS) have. This problem arises because the EMU chip can only do DSPs and other effects at 48 kHz, so everything that passes through it is resampled at 48 kHz, processed, and then converted to the output format. This wouldn’t matter if the resampler was of high quality, but it is not. So how do you work around this? This is done by enabling the resampler DSP and then setting it to 48 kHz at high quality (slow mode). In the future, if you chose to use digital output, make sure you leave the output format at 48 kHz, or else you will be introducing yet another sampling rate conversion.
Yet another feature of Foobar2000 is that it will let you select if you want to enable dithering, and which type you would like. I suggest Soft ATH noise shaping at 24 bit fixed point or Strong ATH noise shaping at 16 bit. Try both of these settings and see if the sound quality gain (if you notice any) is worth the extra CPU cycles.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Have you considered FLAC, or another lossless audio codec?
It's strange to see mention of SACDs and DVD-As in the same forum as MP3s - which direction are we going with audio? Better fidelity or smaller file size?
Bren R.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Good suggestion BrenR...
FLAC and monkey audio are GREAT lossless alternatives to MP3! They do have bigger file sizes, but it is worth it, in my opinion. If you chose to keep with a lossy standard, why not try Ogg Vorbis. It uses a better compression algorithm, so a 192k .ogg sounds much better than a 192k MP3. Finally, if you are completely intent on retaining MP3 format, try enabling VBR in lame, and setting the quality preset to 10 or 11.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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The whole MP3 debate I don't think will ever come to an end. I have been ripping with EAC and lame for years at 320 and to be honest, I can fool almost anyone who sits in my basement. I had the owner of a local high end shop over one night and I played a track by ZZ Top that was ripped per the above and had the same song going in my cd player. He could not pick out what was what. This guy is no slouch when it comes to having a good ear. He sells Dyna matched with Krells, so he's use to hearing good sound.
I'm sure there are some audible differences but the question is can the human hear pick them up? If the MP3 is of iffy quality sure. If you take a bad CD and rip it, you get a bad MP3. If you take a good CD and rip it, you get a better MP3.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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As far as lossless encoder goes, I have been using Monkey Audio and Musepack. So far I can not hear the difference when comparing to the original wav that I ripped off of the CD, My ears could be deceiving but I suspected the soundcard might be the reason. I've heard lots of folks swapped out their older Soundblaster 5.1 live or newest Audigy Z2 to the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 and they swear it made a very noticeable improvement.
For MP3 playback, I have a bunch of MP3 that were encoded in 256 to 320k, most of the time I use Zoom Player and sometime I use the winamp with MAD and some other codec that suppose to have the ability to decode 24 to even 36bit, I'd played with several settings and didn't hear any difference.
Now here's another question, If I play my music CD through my PC's CD Player and use the Soundcard analog output to my HK 3480 , would the sound quality suffer or inferior to the "real" CD Player such as Denon 370/380 5-disc changer or HK DV22??
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Last night I went to Bestbuy and bought a decent Sony DVD/CD single disc player, analog output has S/N of 115dB, cd dynamic range 96dB, and 0.003% THD. I tried about 10 to 15 music cds and few mp3 cdr switching back and forth between the Sony and my computer, after 4 to 5 hours of messing around, to my surprise I found absolutely NO difference in SQ!! Another shocker is that my Soundblaster live 5.1 sound just as clean as the Sony, NO audible interference whatsoever, and the S/N ratio appears to be identical as well.
My conclusion is:
1)either the Sony DVD/CD player is absolutely crap,
2)or using computer with decent soundcard as the source, is just as good as many mass-market dvd/cd players out there.
needless to say, I took the Sony DVD/CD player back today and get my money back, next thing I'm going to try is to buy the M-Audio Revolution soundcard, this soundcard is being praise and prefer by many HTPC users, was told it really outshine the Soundblaster in music and dvd playing, and that it has far superior DAC that rival many high-end DVD or CD player out there...
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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I'm surprised the noise level was so low with the sound card... no good reason but I expected there would be more noise on quiet passages as an unavoidable result of living inside a PC.
One other point is that some sound cards are better for audio, others for gaming. My understanding is that :
- original SB and SB/Live clock at 44 KHz and are good for audio;
- Audigy 1 clocks at 48KHz and is better for gaming but not so good for audio because CD has to be resampled to 48 KHz
- Audigy 2 is essentially "best of both worlds" -- original SB performance for audio (+24 bit) and Audigy performance for gaming
Let us know how the M-Audio works out -- as you say it is supposed to be better than any of the above for audio.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
One other point is that some sound cards are better for audio, others for gaming. My understanding is that :
- original SB and SB/Live clock at 44 KHz and are good for audio;
- Audigy 1 clocks at 48KHz and is better for gaming but not so good for audio because CD has to be resampled to 48 KHz
- Audigy 2 is essentially "best of both worlds" -- original SB performance for audio (+24 bit) and Audigy performance for gaming
Actually, that is not exactly correct. While you can "clock" (select the sampling rate) for the SB Live and Audigy to whatever you want, they still resample to 48 kHz to process and then resample it again to output sampling rate (if it's different than 48 kHz). This is just built in to all Emu 10kx chips, there is no way around it, as even high end cards based on the 10kx platform suffer from it (Emu APS is an example). The SB Live uses the Emu 10k1 and the Audigy uses the Emu 10k2, both of which are part of the 10kx family. The Audigy 2 could be different though, as I don't know what chip it uses.
By the way, the Audigy 1 is superior to the SB Live in all aspects other than its surround mixer. SB Live's surround mixer supported output in Dolby Prologic, so if you don't have 6 ch input on your receiver, you could still get surround sound. Creative took it out of the Surround Mixer for the Audigy and Audigy 2 because of lack of consumer interest in outdated technology. Neither of these cards are "good" at music, as M-Audio's Revolution 7.1, Terratec DMX 6-Fire, or even a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz are all better. Out of these, the 6-Fire would be the best, Revolution would come in as a close second, and the TB would be third, but still better than Creative's offerings. Would the differences be noticable? Aside from the sampling rate (which can be worked around in software as I mentioned earlier), not particularly.
If you intend on keeping an Audigy or Live card (or any 10kx based card, for that matter), I suggest getting the kxproject drivers... They aren't as good for games (only basic EAX 1 and 2 support and I am not even sure if they support the dead A3D standard), but they are better for music, as you can fully disable all DSPs with a virtual "map" of your chip and its inputs and outputs. Also, if you do recording, it supports ASIO like the big cards do  .
EDIT: Apparently the Audigy 2 uses an Emu E-DSP. Sadly, though, that doesnt fix the nasty resampling problem. In reply to:
So, we award the Audigy2 the title of Audigy Service Pack1. This is exactly what we expected from the Audigy a year ago. However, this time we also do have some complains. The tests results indicated that 44.1 kHz to 48 kHz unswitchable resampling is still used.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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I was shocked and strongly doubt the interconnect and speaker cable made by Bettercable have anything to do with the noise floor and interferance, but that's what I've been using on all equipments, they're kinda $$$ but very well construct and seems durable. Initially I thought my pc was inferior to any DVD/CD players and concern about interference and crosstalk that might of taken place, that's the main reason why I'd started this post, then went out and bought the Sony DVD/CD player in hope to improve the SQ, obviously that didn't happen so I'll stick with using my pc as the source, I have couple hard drives configured in RAID 0 so with about 600GB of disk space available, I think this is a far better jukebox than any CD Changer out there LOL.
A quick research on google came back with lots of reviews and comparison between the M-Audio and SoundBlaster Audigy Z2, and multiple visits to hifi and av forums concluded that, for music and dvd playback the M-Audio Revolution 5.1/7.1 blow all SouldBlaster card (including the newest Audigy Z2) out of the water, on the paper the Audigy Z2 has better spec, but in the real world the M-Audio has much better frequency response, the graph looks flat and all reviewers and HTPC users prefer the M-Audio, it's cheaper than the Audigy Z2 as well, I'm sure there's lots of better cards out there, but they're much more expensive and doesn't justified the performance difference.
For gaming, no doubt the Audigy Z2 is the way to go, but for me the M-Audio is the clear winner. I don't need to take out my Soundblaster either, so they can be switch back and forth.
Check out these reviews:
http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/revolution71/rev-5.shtml
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/m-audio-revolution71/
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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>>Actually, that is not exactly correct. While you can "clock" (select the sampling rate) for the SB Live and Audigy to whatever you want, they still resample to 48 kHz to process and then resample it again to output sampling rate (if it's different than 48 kHz).
Interesting. The first information I saw on the SB series was very specific about this... of course I can't find it now and all the links I *do* find seem to agree with you.
Oh well...
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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I have my HTPC with Revolution 7.1 on one input vs my Musical Fidelity A3.2 CD player on another input of my integrated amp and the MF is definitely sounding much better. It has much more detail and crispness. My Revo although does sound exceptionally well but not as good as my MF CD player.
Another interesting note is that when I had the earlier audigy I could not find the zero gain position of the volume when connected to an amp. With the Revo zero gain is clearly stated as putting volume at max on the soundcard setting and based on my past observations the level is correct(using my ears).
Last edited by Saturn; 09/27/04 04:12 AM.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Saturn, that extra "detail and crispness" that you hear, how can you be so sure those are the missing part of the original recording? you probably wouldn't want to hear this but perhaps you could achieve the same result by simply turning up the treble? LOL
I don't know how much you paid for that MF A3.2 cd player, but a quick search on audioreview came up with a MSRP of $1799.00, keep in mind that you're comparing it to a $89.00 soundcard, I'm sure that MF probably has a better DAC and looks great on the rack, I'm not trying to knock on your high end stuff or anything, but does your MF sound 20x better than the M-Audio 7.1?
Personally I'm not going to sink couple hundred bucks on something that I can achieve with merely $69~$89. :-)
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Can someone explain something to me. I have the Audigy card running to my Denon 3805 via a optical connection. My Denon shows it as being a 96khz stream and not 48khz.
Is the 3805 upsampling it?
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
keep in mind that you're comparing it to a $89.00 soundcard, I'm sure that MF probably has a better DAC
$$ do not equate to greater quality.
"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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chesseroo,
I agree, aheh...If I'd dropped a big chunk of money on a CD Player like that, I probably would try really hard to convince myself that it is a far superior unit too!! :-)
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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So what you guys are saying is Saturn is hearing things and his very nice CD player sounds the same as his computer?
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
I have the Audigy card running to my Denon 3805 via a optical connection. My Denon shows it as being a 96khz stream and not 48khz.
Is the 3805 upsampling it?
Anybody?
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
Can someone explain something to me. I have the Audigy card running to my Denon 3805 via a optical connection. My Denon shows it as being a 96khz stream and not 48khz.
Is the 3805 upsampling it?
No. As I said earlier, output frequency can be whatever you want it to be. It (the audigy) just resamples the signal to 48 kHz internally to add effects and then resamples the signal again to output frequency. Go to your control panel --> Audio HQ --> Device Controls --> Set the sampling rate to 48 kHz to prevent further resampling.
If you set it to output at 48 kHz, you undergo no further resampling, but you get a rolled off high end (as shown here), but in my opinion, that is better than resampling it again to 44 kHz (even though at 44 kHz its roll-off is delayed to higher frequencies.)
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
So what you guys are saying is Saturn is hearing things and his very nice CD player sounds the same as his computer?
Danm if thats the case I could have saved about $1000.00 and just used my computer as a source  .
Sony C222ES and a Msb Link Dac III
Rick
"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." Sigmund Freud
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
Saturn, that extra "detail and crispness" that you hear, how can you be so sure those are the missing part of the original recording? you probably wouldn't want to hear this but perhaps you could achieve the same result by simply turning up the treble? LOL
Ummmm nope.
In reply to:
but does your MF sound 20x better than the M-Audio 7.1
Ummm yup.
In reply to:
Personally I'm not going to sink couple hundred bucks on something that I can achieve with merely $69~$89.
sure...go back to sleep.
When you do wake up....go to your local shop that carries other nice gear. Bring in your PC. Let them hook it up ..compare. Fortunately I have both at home. Both have been SPL to the same level. Both have been demoed by a few people...and all came out to the same conclusion.
If you havent tried it out like I have ... then all you say is heresay.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
I agree, aheh...If I'd dropped a big chunk of money on a CD Player like that, I probably would try really hard to convince myself that it is a far superior unit too!! :-)
I do not try to convince myself. I actually switch a lot of gear almost every six months. I have the luxury of testing and reselling gear that often due to my contacts & networking. I had a Mark Levinson CD player which is 3 times the price and the MF is equally as good. Unless you have tried yourself your just full of dung.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Well, what we need here is a digital recorder on the other end of the digital cable (TOS or SPDIF) to find out what that CD-P is doing to change the sound and to do a compare against the original recording... have to see just how many errors (isn't that what signal processing you can't turn off really is? Even cheap receivers have a pure stereo or direct setting, they'd never force you to listen to a processed signal!) this player is introducing.
Bren R.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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What you dont trust your ears? 
If you are ever in Toronto...as with Chess I offer my place and gear for any of the scientific tests. You would be surprised that there is a change...however minute.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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100 audio forum posters can't be wrong. You did it, you convinced me. You've convinced me that expensive CD-Ps relay something other than the original bitstream to the receiver. I am now convinced that expensive consumer CD-Ps fail miserably at their intended job - to read a CD and pass the information to a receiver verbatim, to allow the various settings on a receiver to shape the sound (or not shape the sound in the case of "direct" settings).
Now they need to market these flawed players based on different flavours - a boost to the 40-100Hz (open E to open G string) range for bassists, a constant wah-wah effect for guitarists, a digital cowbell added to every song for drum fanatics.
Bren R.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo !!!
Not the cowbell !!
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Bren:
I can not explain why there is a change...all I am saying there is change...My ears perceive this change as good. I am not here to convince you or anyone. I am here to relate my findings. You and many others explain this through science. But have you actually done any of these tests using some of the high end gear. If you want scientific test and I said earlier if you and or chess are ever in Toronto I would definitely like to do some of those tests as you mentioned to prove or disprove me.
You and the other experts words are no different than mine...its all heresay unless it can quantified and qualified.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
experts words are no different than mine
Saturn,
I'm with you on this one. I have heard very good CD players and some although not all do it better. Who the heck knows why but at the end of the day, I'm just glad they exist.
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I like this article, so I thought I would share a little. Doesn't answer one dam question in this thread but it's still a good read. The last paragraph is by far and away the best! Take the word objectivists and put in scientist.
Robert Harley Stereophile:
In reply to:
What high-end products do that mass-market products mainly do not is to produce a powerful intimacy with the music. The mediocre product never passes the threshold from good sound to creating magic in the listening room. Why not? Because in their development, the designers didn't listen, tweak the design, and listen some more. Other projects needed their attention. The circuit measured well, sounded acceptable---why beat it to death? The mid-fi designer may enjoy music, but he lacks the obsession that drives the high-end designer to push the limits of performance just a little further.
Conversely, the caring designer continues his quest until he is absolutely sure that no more improvements can be made. His mind is at peace only when the product satisfies his high expectations of how it should convey the music. At the last stage, he will often include an expensive part that adds to the raw materials cost, even though he knows the retail price won't increase. The additional cost will come off the bottom line, but the designer can't bear to think of the product performing below its potential. He knows how much better the music will sound to dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of music lovers. And that matters to him.
High end isn't a prestigious brand name, or the type of store in which it is sold, or cost, or faceplate thickness, or a positive review. It is the relationship between the designer and his product---a relationship that produces a similar relationship between the user and the product. High end can be an inexpensive product, provided that the designer's goal was to best convey the music. Indeed, a modestly-priced product that squeezes the last drop of musical performance from the parts cost is more high-end than an elaborate design that isn't fully realized. Again, the difference is in the designer's attitude: how much he cares about music determines how good the product is within the cost limitations. These qualities can exist within an individual designer in a mid-fi company; we wouldn't call the resulting product high-end, but maybe it will be a little less mid-fi.
The antithesis of high end is the designer who purposefully makes a product---such as an inexpensive loudspeaker---that will impress during a brief showroom demo, knowing full well that it will disappoint musically in the home. Similarly, the mid-fi ethic may call for making the component look good on paper, without regard to how it sounds. Another technique, anathema to the high end, is overly compromising a design. Rather than use a better part that makes the product far more musically satisfying but slightly increases the retail price, the designer cuts corners and compromises musicality to meet a "price point" determined by the marketing department. All designers must be price-conscious, but this last technique is definitely not part of the high-end ethos.
The term "musicality"---often associated with high-end components---bears discussion. The word has become a lightning rod for criticism by audio "objectivists" and the mainstream press because they erroneously believe that musicality implies some sort of euphonic coloration. Moreover, musicality can't be measured, quantified, or communicated by linear symbols, thus making its existence questionable to some who haven't experienced it.
That last sentance is so true!!!!!!!!!!!
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Can we please have this fight in just one thread? :-)
Personally, I'd like to have someone explain to me in as straight as possible terms why and how (electronically) the $1500 players are so far superior to $100 players that us mere mortal poor bastards cannot possibly ever hear good sound.
In other words, we've heard from engineers (albiet second and third hand, in the case of JohnK, who has linked to many articles) on one side, but not the other. Give me graphs correlated with charts of human hearing tolerances and limits.
As for that last sentence, why not? Is music something so mystical we cannot hope to understand it with science? Or is it a collection of waves interpreted by the sacks of neurons in our heads?
Last edited by kcarlile; 09/28/04 06:01 AM.
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Well, that got a bit out of hand. I apologize for flaming people... you just got my dander up a bit, Saturn!
I am the Doctor, and THIS... is my SPOON!
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In reply to:
Robert Harley Stereophile
Again - flowery prose aside about the struggle to find ying and yang between components, that elusive aural feng shui, audio nirvana... if face to face I'd like to reiterate to Mr. Harley that in the matter of digital datastreams, as we are discussing here, they exist in two states - correct and errored. On a redbook compact disc, there is stored digital waveform information. 44,100 times a second, the amplitude of a frequency is polled, turned into a number between 0 and (2^16-1) 65535. The job of a CD-P is to read these numbers, and pass them along as either a light pulse from a blinking LED (TOSlink) or as electric current pulse (SPDIF). If the stream of data matches, the signal is correct, if the stream of data does not match the source, the signal is incorrect.
As far as musicality/colouration/distortion goes - if the data stream is flawed (deviates from the data written on the CD) - I believe we all can agree that it was coloured by the CD-P. The objectivists would be absolutely correct in saying "yes, since the CD-P did not send the datastream verbatim, it has, in fact, coloured the sound" and not get an argument from any rational man.
If the CD-P sends the exact same data as is written on the CD, then no, even an objectivist would say "no, this component has not coloured this sound", but at the same time, this sound would match precisely the sound had the datastream come from computer memory, a cheap CD-P, punch cards, or any other source. Anyone that would argue that an identical bitstream from different sources would sound at all different is turning this into a faith-based religion and should wait for the next iteration of Hale-Bop, mix the Nembutal with the pudding and wash it down with a bottle of Smirnoff. Like Marshall Applewhite, I'm sure Mr. Harley would make the castration optional.
Bren R.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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Ken I'm always peachy. Thats my personality.
As for the rest of you ... enjoy your you budget Axioms. Enjoy your budget multichangers. You won't miss what you never heard or felt. And they say people who have high end gear are the snobs and are close minded. This is my last post on the matter.
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In reply to:
And they say people who have high end gear are the snobs and are close minded.
That is without a doubt the most accurate comment I have heard in days. I agree with you once again Saturn! Getting kinda scary!
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Saturn
Looks like you're living quite happily in your own little la-la-land....eheh. I can not help but laughing at people like you.
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In reply to:
Looks like you're living quite happily in your own little la-la-land....eheh. I can not help but laughing at people like you.
No reason to take it down to that level. Do you happen to own a CD player worth anything that proves him wrong?
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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axiomite
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In reply to:
But have you actually done any of these tests using some of the high end gear.
You should watch where you go with that tact Saturn.
Bren uses PRO level equipment per his day job. Things that would put your 'high end' items in a garbage bin if comparing according to the rules of the audiophile idea of 'quality'.
"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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axiomite
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Actually NH, all this can be tested (the 'high end' vs 'low quality') items in double blind tests.
Some have already been done by Axiom and some results reported here by Alan. Other stuff was researched at the NRC in Ottawa and written up in science journals by Dr. Floyd Toole back in the 80s for which Ian and Alan both played a part. ABX has also done some tests.
The interesting thing is that regardless of the outcome, the audiophiles still scream "it can't be". These ideas have already been re-hashed and presented in a science light, but until people are personally ready to accept the results, they will never succumb to the ideas.
Think of it like 3 doctors telling a person they have cancer and it was checked 5 times, but the patient still refuses to believe. Typically it is called a denial stage but more out of fear rather than from the ideal of a crushed and long held belief.
In a simple term, audio is a religion to many.
"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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axiomite
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Closed minded or perhaps others call it 'objectivity'.
Shooting down a layman's hypothesis on sound quality is anything but closed minded. It is simply an elimination of incorrect conclusions based on flaws in testing methodology.
Didn't anyone pay attention in their science classes???
This really breaks my heart Saturn.
"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."
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NeverHappy,
I'm responding to him in the same manner as he'd replied to mine.
"sure...go back to sleep."
"When you do wake up....go to your local shop that carries other nice gear. Bring in your PC. Let them hook it up ..compare. Fortunately I have both at home. Both have been SPL to the same level. Both have been demoed by a few people...and all came out to the same conclusion.
If you havent tried it out like I have ... then all you say is heresay."
So it looks like the REAL WORLD comparison I did couple days ago was being regard by MR. High End as "irrelevant" and only "hearsay", so...what does that tell you?
Saturn is trying really hard to justify the cost to performance ratio that he gets, but like everyone else said....a sucker is born everyday. LOL
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Tit for tat then I guess! lol
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
Bren uses PRO level equipment per his day job. Things that would put your 'high end' items in a garbage bin if comparing according to the rules of the audiophile idea of 'quality'.
The funny thing about that, Chess, is no matter where I've been or who has rolled trucks in, the same basic rules apply:
- I've never had a producer/TA ask what kind of cable snakes are available in the building, nor have I ever seen the Monster/Kimber branding on theirs, just standard copper, just standard XLRs.
- Audio sources are almost exclusively hard-drive based now, either a laptop with 44.1/16 WAV playback software for events (with queuing, panning, crossfading), or the big boys (WWE, touring groups) use dedicated playback equipment that look like video switchers - they're a bit more resiliant to get packed and unpacked into road cases to hit 150 shows a year.
- for pre-produced music for file in, we use a Sony single disc CD-P, unsure of the model number, and I'm sure you could ask any of the techs or engineers around the building and not a single one could tell you.
- the only other pieces of consumer equipment up there are a Toshiba DVD/VCR combo that's rack mounted in front of my desk and runs into the Time Base Corrector/Frame-Stor of Misfit Toys (one TBC runs all the "stuff we just have on hand" and a BNC pigtail in case someone brings in Hi-8, U-matic, 2" quad or whatever), plus a consumer VCR that records a wide angle for security and insurance purposes (which wasn't quite wide enough to catch the drunk guy at Nickelback that snuck into the catwalks and fell into the scoreclock - he's just lucky it wasn't energized - the caps in that sucker are the size of my torso!)
- pretty much all the same things apply for every venue I've worked in, the arena, the Walker, Playhouse, Concert Hall, Stadium, video mobiles, ENG trucks.
Bren R.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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axiomite
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I stand corrected.
I should have phrased my statement more succinctly perhaps leaning to the idea that you have somewhere along the lines of your industrious career used 'pro' equipment. I would be rather surrprised if you have not encounted these units at least once, or discussed with others their use in various venues.
A friend of mine over at CBC here in town does some producing for commericals and other ventures. The equipment they have i know falls into this 'pro' level category for sound and video. In fact, if you keep watching the local channels, there will be a 30s commercial on Winnipeg Icesports in the next month in which you will see some of our hockey team, myself included, flailing about on the ice.
"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."
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Of course the rest of the stuff is pro equipment - the Clipmaster DDR, the Deko Chyron, the Ross switcher, the Sony A75 and 1800 VTRs, Panny monitor/receivers, Sony DXC-50 bodies with Fujinon lenses, Shure mics, etc, etc...
I was just getting at the fact that no pro audio engineer uses an Oh! Knjob Njob CD-P or 9N OFC silver tipped bat-winged fat-free cables.
Bren R.
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Bren:
Could I use my PC with Studio Editing software be it using my Revolution 7.1 inputs to record it. Place the input of the MF CD player and record whatever comes out of it and it should track its wave form. Then I place my generic player and record what waveform comes out of it with the same track played. Then one can compare both waveforms to see if it is exactly alike. Yes there is variance in output but I will use a passive preamp to increase or decrease that output. Would that be kind of a test that could be done? Is the test good enough to see what type of waveform is coming out of those players. I have 2 weeks off starting next week so I might get the time to try this out.
Also yes I know the profession you are in but have you PERSONALLY hooked up any of those gear to your professional recording equipment. I mean you and if you have done those tests yourself. Secondly I do not believe in the wire crap so I never went there. I did my test before on them and I could not find a diff between a $80 wire to a $500+ wire. I found a difference (not necessarily better but a difference) with 99.99% pure silver wire though.
Chess: Depends if I'm up for it I could courier my MF and my cheap player to you guys out west and you can do the test with your equipment. Or I know I'm heading to Calgary sometime this winter for a snowboard roadtrip. I may just drop it over? How far are you from Calgary?
demasoni: Luckily I never had to justify what I spend on audio equipment.
I own or have tried budget and expensive gear. What I paid for my MF is what you paid for your cd player. In other word I get some of my stuff at distributors costs for services which I render to my client(s). Only my time is the cost...which I would give up for some nice gear. So kiss my kulos you Malaka!!!!
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axiomite
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Saturn,
I really appreciate the offer since some of the locals here that have access to boutique names never seem to get around to giving me the items which they say will change the sound in my system. Either that or the units they have they cannot lend out b/c they are too precious or borrowed.
Mind you, Calgary is about a 16 hour drive from Winnipeg. Regina is about 6. Thunder Bay about 7. We really are in the middle of nowhere.
However, i may still pick up a Rega cdp in the next couple of months if that is one of those units touted as sounding different from ye olde generic Toshibas, Panasonics and Denons. My wife really likes the look of the star trekky transport and i am interested in seeing if one of the boutique models really has a more quiet and reliable transport when it comes to wear and tear over time. I can probably get one for a reasonable price so it is not going to be in that >$1000 category, more like $500 or less. We are still going to add a 5 disc (or more) player to the mix though, one that can play our DVD-A discs. If i wait awhile then we will also consider finding a good universal player instead (future proofing a bit).
"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."
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Do you think a test like the one I mentioned can be a valid test?
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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"demasoni: Luckily I never had to justify what I spend on audio equipment.
I own or have tried budget and expensive gear. What I paid for my MF is what you paid for your cd player. In other word I get some of my stuff at distributors costs for services which I render to my client(s). Only my time is the cost...which I would give up for some nice gear. So kiss my kulos you Malaka!!!! "
Ok, so you didn't actually paid out of your pocket, but that doesn't mean you're not a sucker, because you still fell for that kind of ignorance hype and believe in all those nonsense that you'd fantasized, keep living in your la-la-land!! LOL
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DJ Stunna:
I'd installed that KX Project drivers that you suggested, lots of useful features, first thing I notice is the noise floor is definitely better than the Creative drivers, I had the volume on max and the hiss or "white noise" is not audible unless I place my head directly on the speakers. thanks for the hookup!!
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In reply to:
open G string
um. what?
I don't believe they boost one part of the frequency spectrum as much as people just believe it's better since they do tests where they know the brand, and not blind tests. Even without bias, placeabo can rear its ugly head.
With amps, there are variables such as frequency response, damping factor, distortion, and wattage output, which some sites have been able to measure. A CD player's output is even simpler than that - no wattage to measure, and no damping factor, just distortion and frequency response. I haven't time to look, but I'm sure some sites have measured expensive and cheap CD players using computers and posted these findings. So enough of the arguing, more scientific testing.
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In reply to:
open G string
------
um. what?
Haven't spent much time with musicians, have you? Watch a group of musicians working on their own mix... they all grab their own fader and push it to the top, twist the gain knob to 11 and hit solo.
Bren R.
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aficionado
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Glad you like them demasoni!! I used them for the longest time, but then I realize why I bought my Audigy: gaming, so away they went, and back on came the yucky creative drivers. Look for a setting that lets you visualize the chip's connections and internal DSP effects and make it just input to output if you are able to (even disable volume control). That is what gave me the best results.
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DJ
Sweet, not sure if this is what you were talking about but I found the DSP map, and disable the Prolog, FXMix2, Reverb Lite, Stereo Chorus, epilog, and Peak. Rear channel and any other I/O are also disable.
How did you set your buffer size? I set my Tank Memory size to 2048KB, Playback Buffer to 16368bytes(~17.05ms), default GSIF Buffer is 256 Samples but not sure if I want to touch this.
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That's exactly the DSP map I was talking about. I deleted reverb Lite, Stereo Chorus, FXMx2, Prolog, and Epilog. Try right clicking and selecting disable first, and if you still have sound then delete them. My map looked slightly different, but my card is an Audigy, so that is to be expected. I didn't mess with the buffer settings, as I didn't think that would have any effect.
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devotee
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Oh, I know what it is in music. Put your mind in the gutter for a sec, just making a cheap joke. 
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DJ
I just checked out the DMX 6fire 24/96, this German made card is pretty sweet!! has a better lab test result than the Revolution 7.1, it's hard to find it around here and I believe it's selling for US$250. Would be nice if we can buy the card alone without the module though, my SoundBlaster Live 5.1 also came with a module sorta like that, but it's still laying around somewhere in the storage collecting dust...heh.
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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In reply to:
Oh, I know what it is in music. Put your mind in the gutter for a sec, just making a cheap joke.
I completely missed that originally, which is unlike me.
Bren R.
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aficionado
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Ahh - Live! Drive... Those things were actually quite good in my opinion, just they make the case look ugly unless you have a door to cover your 5 1/4" bays like my comp's case does.
A few places have the 6fire for about 200$. If you end up getting the card from one of them let me know your experiences (as I am looking at buying the 6fire as well).
Edit: Zzsounds.com has the item at $200 with free shipping. I have dealt with Zzsounds before (buying an ART 351 Eq) and they are honest.
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shareholder in the making
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shareholder in the making
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Njooooo! Not the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 again!
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connoisseur
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Thank you for that link. Is there a link to a standard mass market player and the Musical Fidelity 3.2?
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Re: DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?
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axiomite
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Stereophile is not a peer reviewed journal publication. That data is not acceptable as proof of anything until it passes such rigorous reviews.
That begin said, i think Saturn pretty much nailed it, although the end conclusion is off. You may be able to measure a difference in some esoteric statistic, but no, the human ear is NOT that accurate and the human ego leads one to thinking they are.
Your research should now follow the route of medical science. Start looking up the limits of human hearing such as the minimum time required for the ear to distinguish two separate notes.
Detecting jitter in picoseconds?
You're dreaming.
Try looking up some of the old posts where all these ideas were already hashed through by sushi and Semi.
"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."
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DJ
I'd ordered the Revolution 5.1 yesterday, it has the AKM AK4358 DAC chip, supposedly better than the 7.1's, it has higher SN/DR, lower THD, and require less CPU to run this sucker. I was doing some research on the AK4358 and came across another kicka$$ card, have you ever heard of the ESI Juli@??
check this out:
http://www.ixbt.com/multimedia/esi/julia/esi-juli@-lynx-two-2496-4dbu-balanced.shtml
This puppy is laying the smack down on the Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro too, and rival the $400 EMU1820, and get this...the ADC is rated at 24/192 with 114dB DR!!! it's even being compare to the $1000+ LynxTwo and hold up pretty well against it:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/esi-julia/
The card is going for only $139, I'll look around and see if there's any better deal, I might get the Juli and do some A/B test with the Revo 5.1.
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By the way, folks at head-fi, AVS, and other HTPC forums are all over the EMU 0404 and 1212M, SQ of the DAC from soundcard like these are being compare to sub $1000 CDP, do some search on head-fi or AVS and you'll be shocked, there's a whole new ball game out there...
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I recognize that as English... Demi, are you really excited, or is this a form of ebonics I've never heard before?
Bren R.
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Hmm - very interesting. I would definitely go for it if I didn't play games on my computer. I really like having EAX HD effects in the games that DO support it, not to mention having the lowest cpu utilization while effects are being processed.
I don't play games often; I spend about two orders of magnitude more time listening to music with the computer than playing games. This makes me reconsider the whole 'gaming card' approach. Then again, why have a bad-for-games sound card when I have a ATI raddy 9800 Pro as my vid card. I also plan on upgrading to 2 x nV 6800 GT PEG in SLI (scalable link interface - a play on words of scan line interleave from 3dfx days) when the nForce with dual PEG (PCI Express Graphics) slots comes out. I guess I like having the ability to game when I want, and I want nothing to hamper my gaming performance.
Anyways, the Audigy is decent enough for MP3 playback, and when I REALLY listen to music, I just pop the cd into my standalone transport and use the receiver DACs to process everything, and thus I avoid the 44 kHz -> 48 kHz -> 44 kHz conversions.
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I don't play any PC games at all and I've been clocking the XP Barton 2500 at around 3600 so I'm not too concern about cpu usage, though the 5.1 is much improved over 7.1 in this regard and aim more toward gamers, it's not as cpu intensive and has a better DAC, and work with Window's proprietary volume control.
My Stereo receiver doesn't has any DAC so the conversion will be depend heavily on the Soundcard. This weekend I'll stop by CompUSA or Microcenter and get the EMU 0404, it sports a Burr Brown PCM1804 ADC, and AKM AK4395 DAC, spec on these chips are very impressive!! this should be a good candidate to compete with the Revo 5.1.
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Just received the M-Audio Revo 5.1 today and I am NOT impressed at all!! I didn't hear any difference over my old Soundblaster Live 5.1, it doesn't play as loud as the SB, soundstage and imaging didn't improve any, and the hissing noise at max volume is pretty much identical. If you have the Audigy line or older SB Live 5.1, keep them and do what DJ suggested....use the KX Project drivers and tweak the DSP map!! the KX has much noticeable and audible improvement over the crappy creative drivers. This M-Audio is going straight back to newegg!!
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