Marvey's DAC Chart of Awesomeness

JK47 - that means your digital rip isn't good.

I have a question for fans of vinyl. Can you hear the difference vs CD when you record that vinyl onto a 192hz/48bit file? Or onto a a 44/16 file? I'm interested in what happens in the conversion.

 

How would you suggest I make them better? I never mentioned to you what I was using to rip my LP's

 

16 bits is basically 100db of dynamic range - who would need more?

44,100hz? It's good for everything but music production, 48khz is very common there. 44.1 is plenty for human consumption, for the listener, for that end product.

 

Unlikely. I have many modern records which are pressed from digital masters. I'm hoping they used the 24/96 but it's more then likely it was 16/44. I buy them to support the band/artist.

Unfortunately for these pressings the redbook digital always sounds better then the my rip. Mainly in soundstage and other elements. No real surprise there as I am essentially listening to the studio DAC output pressed to vinyl and then converted back to digital and converted to analog...

 

I mostly notice vinyl with regards to noise/distortion on recordings (vinyl sounds a bit funny for high gain rhythm guitars), kick drums (also unnatural but pleasing. this is where you can really hear the compression sometimes), bass guitars, and instrument spacing/panning (this is where things can start to get funny with a lot of stuff going on). The low pass filters on the highs aren't that big of a deal compared to those but even then, it's still not nearly as bad as any psychoacoustically developed lossy codecs. LAME is terrible. MP3s are for people that hate the music behind the sound/hate instruments/love earbuds/love jamming the metal chopsticks that Koreans use through their ears into their brain no offense to Koreans (those chopsticks rule and go through the dishwasher crazy well) but that's what MP3 does to cymbals. I would take a bricked CD or noisy LP any day.

When Schiit can bring the studio tonality of the Yggdrasil down the R2R line...

 

Old-school 128/160kbps mp3s are pretty easy to spot. But try the same with 128/192/320 AAC - it's surprisingly difficult. Even though they are very much compressed.

320 AAC vs lossless, that's the real deal. If you can tell the difference, you are a true audiophile.

 

Certain 320kbps files are relatively easy to ABX with lossless. It all depends on the recording, encoding, etc. If you can feel the energy playing lossy encoded tracks, that is great. I've mentioned this before, but even download cards in LPs sometimes have a 320 rip that clips. Certainly noticeable. This has happened to me numerous times, it's not just a one-off thing.

I'm not going to claim its possible to ABX lossy vs lossless all the time, but I will say that if you have an intimate collection of music that you listen to exclusively on vinyl, or in lossless, and then play the 320kbps version, you may wonder why it sounds like it's lacking. This is entirely anecdotal, but it seems to be that we form an understanding of how the music should sound based on our listening habits.

This is also an avenue I think we use when we're testing new gear and comparing it. We have a fundamental understanding of how the song should sound... when it sounds different, sometimes we immediately think the gear is better, but then later we find it just sounds different and not better. With vinyl, there are honestly so many things in the presentation that are presented subjectively better to me that I will never buy an Yggdrasil. I have yet to play a single file from Gungnir Multibit in 3 weeks, and I'm contemplating just turning it off.

I also agree with all the points about pros and cons, but in the end, something will sound better/best, even if it's entirely subjective.

 

Guess what, the CS300 was powering speakers.
Alright, .. only briefly, we changed it to much less crappy Line Magnetic something or other...
At least the Leben phono is not a pentode circuit .

I was just throwing it out there that $$$ won't cure the TT rig in every case, I have faith in my heart that with right pieces in place the same TT would overtake any dac.
The TT was Transrotor ZET-1 with EMT XSD-15 and SME 2-9R, and not actually 5x Yggdrasil, more like 1x Yggdrasil + phono (which in case of Leben is stupid expensive).

 

I haven't got a shot with AAC or fresh mp3-codecs in 320 kbps vs lossless - you're saying you have? Let us see your chops then!

I believe your listening tests. What did you find?

EDIT: Tell your buddy to change between them files and we'll see how you do. It is all about not knowing.

 

What about 500kbit/s .ogg? I think it's better than 320kbit/s AAC or mp3 (but haven't compared), but when I compared it to lossless a long time ago the difference was still pretty obvious. I think I got a 8/9 in a short ABX test and then decided to never bother with lossy at all. Of course this is also track dependent. It's possible that with some tracks you could never tell the difference.
Maybe I couldn't tell them apart today, who knows? I don't really care. It's not about bragging about your highest ABX % score when blind testing fuses/solder/air temperature/humidity, it's about the difference you hear. Blind tests are a stressful environment and you might not hear differences that you hear sighted. Or everything is placebo. Anyways ...

Yep. Sometimes it's just the most recent version (least dynamic master) as mp3 320. Most of the time the CD version also audibly clips.

Still, shouldn't the error always be less than 1LSB? Dithering also adds "randomness" to the error.
I should probably try this myself to see what the difference sounds like, because theoretically it should only reduce S/N ratio. Then again digital volume control is a similar story and it not only reduces S/N ratio but also kills the music. Did it sound similar to that?

 

I've done plenty of tests non-blind. I did great, mind you. "Wow, I can really hear that lossless-ness of this one!"

EDIT: I challenge you to test 320 mp3 or AAC vs WAV/lossless/vinyl/etc and tell the difference - blind!

 

That is also true.

 

You're starting to sound like a broken record...

 

Maybe so, but this is a good point to run with in the long run. Don't you think?

Cheers for the input!

 

Dithering is some of least destructive things that go on during mixing and mastering. There are tons of things that have been done for half a century that are worse than dithering down to red book.

Screw this psychoacoustic bullshit. We need to talk about the real compression: MUSICAL COMPRESSION. Lossy codecs and streaming suck. They are only important for those who eat music that is MUSICALLY COMPRESSED DOWN TO A SIX SECOND JINGLE/HOOK. This music is disposable like diapers, McDonald's, corpses, and pop stars' virginity.

White washed covers compressed early rock/RNB/blues into commercial jingles that could be selling Boo Berries on TV. Film soundtracks compressed classical music into easily repurposed leitmotifs and Hans Zimmer compresses leitmotifs into a single distorted chord played through a crappy Dolby-approved theater speaker system. Slayer's Reign in Blood compressed metal songs down to punk songs. Crust punk and modern hardcore compressed punk from three power chords to only two alternated to sound bouncy so 15 year olds can jump up and down. Modern commercial rap compresses pop music down into basic 2 or 4 beat drum patterns, a melodic sample, and rhyming bitch with bitch. EDM club core for midriff-baring highlighter parties compresses basic 4/4 drum beats into bass randomly increasing in volume and distortion.

These are all examples of musically lossy-compressed music for a lowest common denominator audience who will buy that "high-rez" ESS SABRE dongle for their Iphone's Lightning-charged anus so they can play their ProTools produced I-V-vi-IV chord progressions with the whiny social empowerment and sterility of modern pop out of their Beats by Dre by Apple. Lossy codecs such as AAC/MQA/KKK are another way to exploit and distract an unskilled, uncritical, "unproficiently literate" populace from their poor prospects in a post-industrial economy through planned obsolescence. Your plastic LPs and CDs can outlive you. Itunes libraries filled with crap like the Backstreet Boys, Leif Garret, Tiffany, and Animal Collective won't.

 

That 1986 Reign In Blood by Slayer is not overly volume-maxed at this point. Produced by Rick Rubin.

It has way better production than Master of Puppets from the same year, nice.

 

We went from a silly debating on compression methods to elitism over musical tastes. Amazing.