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What's special about expensive "audiophile" amp/DAC?
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nctnico:

--- Quote from: james_s on March 04, 2020, 07:36:07 pm ---In practice there is nothing really special, it sounds better because the placebo effect is real. Some of them also look quite nice, subjectively. It is futile to go looking for logic in the audiophile world.

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Agreed. Recently I recapped an amplifier from a relative. A lot of components (including semiconductors) run really hot (100 degrees C!  :wtf: ) and the circuit itself is what you learn in the second year of any EE education. Ofcourse a whole bunch of electrolytics right next to hot components.
tooki:

--- Quote from: blueskull on March 05, 2020, 05:53:57 pm ---
--- Quote from: tooki on March 05, 2020, 05:29:24 pm ---Because of how sampling and dithering works, an LSB is not the smallest signal that can be represented. Consequently, the effective dynamic range of CD audio is not 96dB, but 120dB:

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Assuming you are talking very low frequency, way below Nyquist frequency.
What is true for 1kHz is less true for 5kHz, which is still pretty audible and actually very loud.
And what is true for a single frequency isn't essentially true for a complex waveform.

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Nope. As long as the signal is correctly bandwidth-limited before sampling, then the sampled signal reproduces the original bandwidth-limited signal perfectly, all the way up to fs/2. As long as it's correctly bandwidth-limited, the complexity of the signal does not matter.

As usual, refer to: https://wiki.xiph.org/Videos/Digital_Show_and_Tell



--- Quote from: blueskull on March 05, 2020, 05:53:57 pm ---
--- Quote from: tooki on March 05, 2020, 05:29:24 pm ---https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

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That article has been bashed by multiple HiFi forums, with reasonable points.

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Yeah, by people who do not, and don't want to, understand the principles of sampling. Citing hi-fi forums as a source for debunking an explanation of scientific fact is like citing a creationism forum as a source debunking evolution...



--- Quote from: blueskull on March 05, 2020, 05:53:57 pm ---Also, while there are person-to-person perception difference. The author of that paper claims 980nm IR is not visible, yet I was able to see 976nm IR laser as a very faint dull red color.
Most people can't see even very near IR such as 808nm or 915nm, which are commonly used in IR cameras for illumination. I can see them very clearly, not just as a dull red dot, but as a bright light source.
Windows Hello IR face recognition annoys me enough, though most people can't even sense the IR source.
Also, I can slightly perceive 365nm UV shined on a matte metal (non fluorescence) surface. Very faintly, but I can certainly see it as a deep and dull purple color.

Unfortunately I don't have golden ears, but from that I can see slightly beyond visible light spectrum I guess it's not that hard to come by someone who can exceed commonly accepted hearing range.

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Irrelevant: wider spectrum = wider frequency range. And while it's possible that some people have hearing with an extraordinary frequency range, we aren't discussing sampling rate here. We are discussing dynamic range, which is a consequence of bit depth, not sampling rate.

(As for your laser diode: laser diodes and LEDs produce some off-frequency light, too. Some light from IR diodes can be a tiny amount of shortwave IR or even some longwave visible red. It's highly unlikely you can detect actual 976nm light, it's just too far.)
edy:

--- Quote from: schmitt trigger on March 05, 2020, 02:07:20 pm ---As Dave would say, the reason these audiophile components are so expensive, is because they are  assembled by nude Swiss virgins in a cottage deep in a secluded forest...

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--- Quote from: Zbig on March 04, 2020, 10:10:00 pm ---You're right... quick, everyone, let's bring Corona Virus into this!... somehow...

--- End quote ---

Ok how about this for a try... The group of "nude virgins" doesn't have to necessary be FEMALE  :-DD  What if they are bearded men? And when they are gathered together in such close proximity it could be a breeding ground for coronavirus:



But seriously, another audiophoolery thread....  :palm:
NiHaoMike:

--- Quote from: tooki on March 05, 2020, 04:21:40 pm ---Say what now?!? No, the exact opposite has been happening for years now: the loudness war. Tons of recordings are being released with absurdly high levels, often clipped. (And previously-good recordings are being re-released in such a fashion!)

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Some content hosts like Youtube are fighting it by reducing the volume of content recorded too loud. I'm not exactly sure but they might even end up making it quieter than it would be otherwise in order to really penalize the overuse of dynamic range compression.
magic:

--- Quote from: Zbig on March 04, 2020, 09:06:51 pm ---If you're asking not just theoretically and are actually in the market of a decent computer audio interface, without breaking the bank and having to endure all the drivel, you can't go wrong with established go-to manufacturers of mid-range gear aimed at musicians such as Focusrite's Scarlett line.

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I have a soundcard "for musicians" which fails at star grounding and picks up noise from crappy computers like crazy ;)

On the upside, it's an older, discontinued model.
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