Motherboard OPAMP upgrade kit

[Mr Pig]

Here's a interesting video about data reduction and some of the distortions introduced by digital audio:



This is a nice interview with Tony Andrews of Funktion One where he mentioned MP3 and digital audio:



I know a guy who is a DJ in a Jazz club in Glasgow, he only plays Jazz and Soul so it's not what you'd typically associate with the term DJ. He won't play MP3 as he says it sounds terrible! 

[Mr Pig]

What such test show is that equipment (particularly amplifiers) built to a certain objective standard can be difficult if not impossible to tell apart under strict double blind listening/testing protocols.

Yes, I agree with that. The fact that these results contradict decades worth and thousands of hours of real world listening experience tells me that there has to be something wrong with the test.

Here is an overview of the Richard Clark Amplifier Challenge, one of the best known test if this type in modern times: http://www.tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/index.htm

Here is another article commenting on ABX tests: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue56/abx.htm

If the audibility of phase in the context of "op-amp rolling" interests you...

It doesn't really. As far as op-amps go, the only experience I have is of swapping them in a DAC I have here. They sound different in that. Not night and day but clearly different. Why, I don't know. Whether you can hear the difference in a PC, I don't know but if it was hooked up to your average set of PC speakers I would doubt it.

[John Coloccia]

Can someone explain what they mean by phase?  It must have a different meaning in this context.  What does it mean to say that the human ear is/isn't sensitive to phase?  Phase of WHAT?  You mean telling the difference between reversing the + and - inputs on a speaker?  Are we talking adding a time delay?

[sync]

That motherboard op amp swapping thing is nonsense. If you want high quality audio output from your PC use HDMI.

[GK]

What such test show is that equipment (particularly amplifiers) built to a certain objective standard can be difficult if not impossible to tell apart under strict double blind listening/testing protocols.

Yes, I agree with that. The fact that these results contradict decades worth and thousands of hours of real world listening experience tells me that there has to be something wrong with the test.

Here is an overview of the Richard Clark Amplifier Challenge, one of the best known test if this type in modern times: http://www.tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/index.htm

Your faith (and that of others) in "thousands of hours of listening tests" means little when it is demonstrated that your ability to discern supposedly major/obvious audible differences suddenly evaporates when you can no longer act on your biases and are left guessing.

Even that "amplifier challenge" specifies some rudimentary objective standards for the devices to be tested/compared:

"...........modern audio amplifier............The amplifiers in the test must be operated within their linear power capacity. Power capacity is defined as clipping or 2% THD 20Hz to 10kHz, whichever is less. This means that if one amplifier has more power (Watts) than the other, the amplifiers will be judged within the power range of the least powerful amplifier
The levels of both left and right channels will be adjusted to match to within .05 dB. Polarity of connections must be maintained so that the signal is not inverted. Left and Right cannot be reversed. Neither amplifier can exhibit excessive noise. Channel separation of the amps must be at least 30 dB from 20Hz to 20kHz. " 

So it isn't "proving" that "all amplifiers sound the same". I guess that so far no one has brought along a crappy enough amplifier.

[Mr Pig]

If you want high quality audio output from your PC use HDMI.

HDMI is digital. All you are doing is moving the digital to analogue conversion from one box to another. Which may or may not be better and probably still uses op-amps!

Your faith in "thousands of hours of listening tests" means little when it is demonstrated that your ability to discern supposedly major/obvious audible differences suddenly evaporates when you can no longer act on your biases and are left guessing.

The stuff about the potential problems with these blind test, you did read that yes? And I didn't say hours of tests, listening to music in your home is not a test, at least it shouldn't be!

I'm just stating my opinion. If you want to trust in blind tests that's your business. You do know that some scientist allegedly once said that it was mathematically impossible for the bumblebee to fly? I assume you believe all those who claim to have seen bumblebees fly to be deluded or liars?

I don't care. I'm happy with my choices and if you are too them we're all good. I think different Hi-Fi products can sound different and I'm pretty certain I've seen bees fly. You're free to think what you like on either subject.

[Monkeh]

If you want high quality audio output from your PC use HDMI.

HDMI is digital. All you are doing is moving the digital to analogue conversion from one box to another. Which may or may not be better and probably still uses op-amps!

The point being to take it out of the incredibly hostile environment inside a PC.

[Mr Pig]

The point being to take it out of the incredibly hostile environment inside a PC.

Ah, with you. I agree. Detractors would say that it doesn't matter where the DAC is but from what I've heard I agree with you that having it inside your PC doesn't seem to be the best idea.

[sync]

HDMI is digital. All you are doing is moving the digital to analogue conversion from one box to another. Which may or may not be better and probably still uses op-amps!

Of course it's digital. That's is the point. I move the DA conversion to a box where it belongs (amplifier). A PC is a EMI generator and not good for analog stuff inside.
And HDMI is the best audio connection type available today for the consumer stuff. Just don't use analog connections any more. Reduce analog to a minimum.

[Monkeh]

And HDMI is the best audio connection type available today for the consumer stuff.

What makes HDMI better than anything else?

Just don't use analog connections any more. Reduce analog to a minimum.

*snort*

[sync]

What makes HDMI better than anything else?

It's digital and lossless. How better than lossless can a connection be?
And HDMI is far better than the other digital connection S/PDIF.

Just don't use analog connections any more. Reduce analog to a minimum.

*snort*

Really! If you want highest fidelity go digital. It's simply superior to analog circuits and connections.

[Monkeh]

And HDMI is far better than the other digital connection S/PDIF.

And, see, there you go making the same statement again without answering the question.

Really! If you want highest fidelity go digital. It's simply superior to analog circuits and connections.

In some cases. In others, analog wins, not least for simplicity.

[mamalala]

For the record, CD doesn't seem to be the same. I've heard a lot of good CD players, including a £6'000 one in the system just mentioned, and there seems to be a brick wall beyond which CD quality can't go. I've never heard a CD system produce the realism, resolution and fluidity that vinyl is capable of.

What you really mean: You never heard a CD player that produced boatloads of random noise, scratches, rumbling and horrible freuquency response. Which is what vinyl actually produces. No need to refer to wooster lingo like "realism, resolution and fluidity".

I totally agree with the idea that we cannot know exactly what the original performance actually sounded like. For me the goal is to make recordings sound lifelike, vibrant and as musically involving and rewarding as possible. Who knows whether the tonality of the singer we hear in our home is exactly the same as he or she sounded in the real world. All i care about is whether or not I like what I hear.

So you basically want to post-edit the recordings you listen to, by introducing stuff that very likely wasn't there to begin with. That's fine, i have no problem with that. It just has nothing to do with repproducing a record in the best way possible, that is, with the least amount of noise and distortion added.

Audiophools should stop pretending that they want the best possible way to reproduce something, but instead simply admit that all they want is to tweak stuff to make it sound the way they like, and not how it was intended to sound.

Greetings,

Chris

[mamalala]

I didn't claim that they were, quite the opposite. What I said is that the tests themselves claim to prove that all amplifiers etc sound the same. I think that's nonsense but I've had these results quoted at me regularly. Some people beleive them, I don't.

This is just nonsense. What such test show is that equipment (particularly amplifiers) built to a certain objective standard can be difficult if not impossible to tell apart under strict double blind listening/testing protocols. Audiophools are uncomfortable with this fact for a number of reasons, so they propagate and maintain silly strawman arguments like the one you've just regurgitated.

Exactly. A good amplifier does not "sound anything" at all. It just takes input X and produces output Y, which in the best possible case differs only in signal amplitude. As soon as amplifier performance is described with all that bullshit-bingo words that are oh-so-common in the audiphool world, what with how they sound and stuff, then i would consider such an amp broken by design.

Greetings,

Chris

[Mr Pig]

What you really mean: You never heard a CD player that produced boatloads of random noise, scratches, rumbling and horrible frequency response.

Well, whatever. I'm happy to have a good turntable. If you're happy with CD then cool.

So you basically want to post-edit the recordings you listen to, by introducing stuff that very likely wasn't there to begin with. That's fine, i have no problem with that. It just has nothing to do with reproducing a record in the best way possible, that is, with the least amount of noise and distortion added.

I'm not interested in what other people consider the best way. I want a Hi-Fi system I like, that's it.

Audiophools should stop pretending that they want the best possible way to reproduce something, but instead simply admit that all they want is to tweak stuff to make it sound the way they like, and not how it was intended to sound.

I'm not pretending anything. I want to tweak stuff to sound the way I like, just as you suggest. But for the fun, let's go along with your implication that it's a poor way to do things and "the least amount of noise and distortion added" is the best.

Well it seems pretty obvious that reducing distortion and noise is the best thing to do and of course, up to a point you are right. Keeping the sound as clean and clear as you can is important. However, while the theory is solid, in practice there are necessary compromises which mean that if you pursue the zero distortion aim too ruthlessly you will destroy your music!

For a start, fidelity to what?? Considering that you pretty much never know what the original source sounded like, how do you know that what you are producing at home is like it? All you can ever do is produce the sound that you think is realistic, the sound you like. What reference do you have to do otherwise? When you talk about tweaking the sound bear in mind that the recording engineer has already done that. They apply all sorts of EQ, effects, compression and level-mixing in the studio to create a sound that they like. The sound is unlike the original before it leaves the studio! So again, what is it you are trying to stay faithful to and how can you tell if you are?

Secondly you've the baby/bathwater problem. Having a distortion-free system would be easy if every recording was distortion free but they are far from it. Lets take a simple example. You know how some recordings have spitty treble on the 'S' sounds in the vocals? They are called sibilant sounds and when they are distorted or emphasised it is commonly called sibilance. So you have this spitty treble on some recording and it is clearly a distortion and wrong. What can you do about it? Filter it out, either electrically or mechanically. Soften that area of the frequency response somehow. So you choose speakers or electronics which do not make those recordings sound so harsh. You have less distortion, a step forward.

But hang on. What about the other sounds at the same frequencies? Say the shimmer of cymbals for instance? Or your other recording that sound just fine in that area? The Hi-Fi doesn't know which recording are better rolled off in the treble, it just rolls them all off. So you have a duller sound!

There are all kinds of unwanted resonances and colourations present in Hi-Fi equipment and you have to be very careful about how you go about dealing with it as it is very easy to filter out valuable musical information at the same time. If you listen to a lot of the so-called Hi-End Hi-Fi equipment where excessive damping and filtration has been employed it typically has a very boring, flat and dull sound. Real life is not like that.

And do you realise it would be impossible to reproduce a proximity to the original sound without adding colouration and no one ever tries?? Despite what they claim. How can that make sense?

To reproduce only what is on the recording you would have to play your speakers in an anechoic room so that there were no reflections off the walls and furniture to colour the sound. If you've ever heard a speaker in an anechoic room they sound terrible! Utterly dead and lifeless. Why? Because not all of the original acoustic information from the recording venue was captured by the microphones and, even if it was, it cannot be recreated by two speakers. You would need dozens all around the room (which would introduce a boatload of other problems but let's not go there).

So what can you do? You Design your loudspeakers to interact with the listening room to give an approximation of the sort of spacial sound present at the recording venue. Every domestic loudspeaker manufacturer in the world does this. Without room colouration you have an unrealistic sound. So, do you want colouration or not?

Real music is not dull and boring. It is vibrant, energetic and exiting, and coloured! Recorded music should be like that too. Fun, interesting, moving, involving.

Fun. Do you remember fun? ;0)

[GK]

Can someone explain what they mean by phase?  It must have a different meaning in this context.  What does it mean to say that the human ear is/isn't sensitive to phase?  Phase of WHAT?  You mean telling the difference between reversing the + and - inputs on a speaker?  Are we talking adding a time delay?

Our hearing isn't sensitive to the relative phase of the harmonic components that give a note its timbre.

[GK]

I'm just stating my opinion. If you want to trust in blind tests that's your business. You do know that some scientist allegedly once said that it was mathematically impossible for the bumblebee to fly? I assume you believe all those who claim to have seen bumblebees fly to be deluded or liars?

That's not a very convincing argument..... we have evidence that bumblebees can fly............

[John Coloccia]

Can someone explain what they mean by phase?  It must have a different meaning in this context.  What does it mean to say that the human ear is/isn't sensitive to phase?  Phase of WHAT?  You mean telling the difference between reversing the + and - inputs on a speaker?  Are we talking adding a time delay?

Our hearing isn't sensitive to the relative phase of the harmonic components that give a note its timbre.

Are you talking about the distortion you get because of group delay...i.e. envelope distortion?  If so, it is certainly audible above a threshold, and loudspeakers, crossovers, etc can certainly WELL exceed the audible delay.  You can get something like 10ms of group delay going through the crossover for a sub.  That's huge.

[GK]

Can someone explain what they mean by phase?  It must have a different meaning in this context.  What does it mean to say that the human ear is/isn't sensitive to phase?  Phase of WHAT?  You mean telling the difference between reversing the + and - inputs on a speaker?  Are we talking adding a time delay?

Our hearing isn't sensitive to the relative phase of the harmonic components that give a note its timbre.

Are you talking about the distortion you get because of group delay...i.e. envelope distortion?  If so, it is certainly audible above a threshold, and loudspeakers, crossovers, etc can certainly WELL exceed the audible delay.  You can get something like 10ms of group delay going through the crossover for a sub.  That's huge.

The original context was audible differences between op-amps! Phase is an irrelevant quantity in the measure of amplifier distortion. Even if you cocked up an amplifier circuit design so badly that it exhibited a 1st order all pass characteristic, chances are that any audible differences between it and a non cocked up amplifier circuit would not be down to phase.
 
 

[John Coloccia]

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out.  What does phase in this context mean?  If we're not talking about envelope distortion due to group delay differences, then of course it can't possibly matter because the only thing that absolute phase of the entire signal amounts to is a delay.  If someone wants to make the argument that the laws of physics aren't symmetric with respect to time, I'm all ears 

Now, I can see how an audio signal might sound differently if you reverse the "phase" on the speakers, so that out is in and in is out.  I suppose if there's an asymmetry in the signal coming in (say, a particular microphone squashes one side of the signal) and you play it through a speaker that is also asymmetrical, then certainly there's some threshold where the signal will eventually distort enough to be audible.  Is that what we're talking about?

[GK]

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out.  What does phase in this context mean?

Well it is confusing, because in the context of amplifier distortion it doesn't mean anything at all!

[GK]

Secondly you've the baby/bathwater problem. Having a distortion-free system would be easy if every recording was distortion free but they are far from it. Lets take a simple example. You know how some recordings have spitty treble on the 'S' sounds in the vocals? They are called sibilant sounds and when they are distorted or emphasised it is commonly called sibilance. So you have this spitty treble on some recording and it is clearly a distortion and wrong. What can you do about it? Filter it out, either electrically or mechanically. Soften that area of the frequency response somehow. So you choose speakers or electronics which do not make those recordings sound so harsh. You have less distortion, a step forward.

But hang on. What about the other sounds at the same frequencies? Say the shimmer of cymbals for instance? Or your other recording that sound just fine in that area? The Hi-Fi doesn't know which recording are better rolled off in the treble, it just rolls them all off. So you have a duller sound!

Here we have the essence of the audiophile neurosis - the anthropomorphically-skewed conception that his audio equipment, suitably arranged and sufficiently ill designed, can somehow magically fix inherent and fundamental limitations of the recording process - to accentuate the "emotion" conveyed by a performance, to make the reproduction more "vibrant, energetic and exiting" and other such nonsense. I have numerous technically substandard recordings. I have an audiophile remaster of Kind  of Blue that is a case in point. According to the jacket it was "remixed on an all-tube three-track machine, an old Presto......". From a technical standpoint, it's shit - noisy and some seriously audible distortion that the remastering on some crappy tube kit could have only made worse.
Nothing I can do with my speakers and amplifiers can change that fact. However, ultimately, it doesn't detract all that much from the enjoyability of the recording. If you actually like the music, and have a half decent system to reproduce it, in all but the most extreme cases, you can listen past the imperfections in the recording. Other than a little tweaking to preference with the tone controls (another audiophool no-no!), which often makes a worthwhile difference, I am certainly not going to mix and match my equipment album to album, or introduce objectively sub-standard, distorting and coloring audiophile crap into my signal chain, as I know that that is a fools game that will never ultimately result in an all over satisfactory outcome.

 

[tszaboo]

What makes HDMI better than anything else?

It's digital and lossless. How better than lossless can a connection be?
And HDMI is far better than the other digital connection S/PDIF.

Just don't use analog connections any more. Reduce analog to a minimum.

*snort*

Really! If you want highest fidelity go digital. It's simply superior to analog circuits and connections.

Actually, HDMI has far worse jitter performance than S/PDIF. This is a measurable quantity, and it can lead to distorted sound. Can you hear it? I don't know. But I stay on the safe side, and I don't use it. The best you can get is async USB for PC music and S/PDIF for the other.

[Mr Pig]

Here we have the essence of the audiophile neurosis - the anthropomorphically-skewed conception that his audio equipment, suitably arranged and sufficiently ill designed, can somehow magically fix inherent and fundamental limitations of the recording process

You can't 'fix' faults, but you make them less noticeable.

For many years I used a Linn Ittok tonearm on my turntable, considered a pretty good arm in its day. I now use a modified Rega RB300. I consider the Rega a better arm, but not because it is technically superior in every way. It isn't. You can point to areas were the Ittok was clearly better, the bass was deeper and tighter for one. With good recordings the Ittok was more exiting but it was unkind to poor ones. I'd say maybe twenty-percent of my records sounded fantastic, thirty to forty ok and the rest unlistenable.

The reason the Rega is better is that it makes almost every record sound either good or at least playable. On the very best pressings I'd say it was a little behind the Ittok but it's worth the trade. Was the Ittok more 'accurate'? Was it just being honest and telling you what's on the record? I don't know and I don't care. I play music to enjoy the music. Music is a wonderful gift that can touch the soul in a way few other art forms can and that's why I love it. Yes, I configure my system to be vibrant, exiting and accentuate the emotion. I'm not making any apology for that.

If you actually like the music, and have a half decent system to reproduce it, in all but the most extreme cases, you can listen past the imperfections in the recording. Other than a little tweaking to preference with the tone controls (another audiophool no-no!), which often makes a worthwhile difference

We're not that different. I design my system to do exactly what you describe, listen 'past' the recording and into the music. I have rejected lots of 'upgrades' because, despite being technically better in some respects, they have harmed the cohesion of the music and your ability to get involved in it.

I note the contradiction though. You are right, I haven't had an amplifier with tone controls for nearly thirty years, not in my main system, and I've never missed them. I've found that the best way to get as much information as possible through a Hi-Fi system is to keep it as simple as possible and simple systems usually sound the best. The more signal processing and filtering you do, in analogue anyway, and the more mechanical damping you apply the more the life is sucked out of the music. On the one hand you talk about not being able to magically fix recordings yet you champion your tone controls which exist to do just that! Make your mind up.

I am certainly not going to mix and match my equipment album to album, or introduce objectively sub-standard, distorting and colouring audiophile crap into my signal chain, as I know that that is a fools game that will never ultimately result in an all over satisfactory outcome.

I don't know what you are talking about?  What 'audiophile crap' do I have in my signal chain? Where have I said I mix and match equipment from album to album? My system just plays whatever I put on it, that's what I want it to do.

You are the one who changes things from album to album trying to get them to sound better. You are the one with unnecessary crap in your signal chain trying to fix recordings. You are the guy with the tone controls! ;0)

[Mr Pig]

Actually, HDMI has far worse jitter performance than S/PDIF. This is a measurable quantity, and it can lead to distorted sound.

My eldest son uses a Firestone Spitfire DAC to play music from his computer. When he first got it he played around using either the SPDIF or USB connections and found the SPDIF to sound better. You would think 'it's just numbers' so it shouldn't make any difference, but it can.