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| _Wim_:
What also helped me in my cure for audiophile illness was something our friend Albert Einstein once said: If the fact’s don’t fit the theory, change the facts! What I mean by this, if the following: Once I was invited by our local high end hifi store for a listening session to hear the sound difference between a reasonably prices solid state amp, and a high end valve amp, both on the same high end speaker. And for sure the high end valve amp sound much better, so after that I knew for a FACT that valve amps were much better, and I wanted (lusted) for a high end valve amp from then on. What I did not realize, is that the high end speaker used during the demo had a minimalistic passive crossover specifically tuned for an amp with a high output impedance (=valve amp), which caused the solid state amp to sound worse. This was not the fault of the solid state amp (in the contrary, the solid state amp showed the faults of the high end speaker more clearly). This kind of thing unfortunately happens a lot in the business of high end audio, making it very difficult to convince people some differences are not real. Just take this into account whenever you “hear” a difference, there might be another reason then the better “quality” of the equipment… |
| jackenhack:
--- Quote from: _Wim_ on January 04, 2017, 07:49:14 pm --- --- Quote from: jackenhack on January 04, 2017, 07:43:29 pm ---I'm currently finishing up a headphone amplifier build and I got the QuantAsylum QA401 when I started developing the amp. With todays extremely low noise and distortion figures on op amps, You'll hit the bottom of what the analyser can measure very quickly. I had to build a twin-T notch filter and get hold of a extremely low THD signal generator to be able to measure below -108dB THD. Getting a industry standard Audio Precision is the dream, but they are way to expensive for me... --- End quote --- But the question is, why would we need to see lower than that? It can be fun as a technical exercise, but it will not improve the sound quality we hear any more… --- End quote --- Going down the rabbit hole is part of the fun. I want it to measure as good as possible. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk |
| DaJMasta:
Haven't been considering the Analog Discovery because I have a nice scope and a nice function gen - that level of generation and data capture I can already achieve. Specifically with the FFT performance, I can get much better results with a sound card's extra resolution than with the scope, even in high res mode with as many bins as possible. I think I have to agree with the last post, I enjoy being able to measure precisely and I really like being able to notice things I couldn't without the hardware. For the sake of being sure I won't be able to notice any difference on my own, I want something with significantly better fidelity than I can discern. Most of the testing I have in mind is either strictly electrical or acoustic with as much of the room taken out as possible (a source and a mic in a small isolation chamber in a quiet room), so my goal isn't trying to setup a perfect listening room or evaluating speaker setups. I don't consider myself an audiophile, I'm perfectly satisfied with high bitrate mp3s for listening, and I don't believe in tube, capacitor, or oxygen-free copper voodoo. If I'm going to buy an expensive audio cable, it's because I want one with lots of EMI rejection because I have it routed through a nest of digital signal cables and want it to effect my noise floor an absolute minimum (and for whatever reason I couldn't just untangle the nest). The QA401 seems like the right approach, but I don't know if it's the ideal unit for my applications. The BNC interfaces just mean I need a bunch of adapters and no mic preamps mean extra stuff in the signal chain and extra expense. While the software may be good, it seems there's no shortage of good audio analysis software that will run with sound card devices, so i don't think that's a particular selling point. It's price point is good, but if I can get a deal on a good audio interface, I can get the connectors and preamp integrated and can get a bit lower THD+N baseline on everything. I don't think the QA401 offers any special input protection that studio gear wouldn't match. |
| ci11:
The advatnage of using an audio interface is its relatively low initial cost, the con is the opamp many of them have in the signal chain were not made specifically for sound and vibration measurement - but "good sound", whatever that means to the designer. Bruel & Kjaer makes measurement mics, some people recorded music with them (including Mark Levinson at one point) and subjectively, they were never the equal of Neumann. The same goes for audio interfaces. It's the combination of the input opamps, ADC's and PSU that make it all work, or not. The one that sits in this sweet spot is the E-MU 1616m, which uses good quality NJM2068s and near state-of-the-art AK5394 ADCs. Using the supplied PatchMix software, a 24 192 session could be setup to feed analysis software through ASIO drivers. Like many good things, they are out of production and since E-MU has been acquired by Creative, they no longer evolve drivers for the new OSs coming on stream or supply schematics for repairs. The 1616m itself does show up on eBay but since these are all at least 10 years old, a thorough recap is likely needed, even if it's "new" - since this was made to sell at a pricepoint, the caps they used were not the best and there are many of them. Attached are pictures of the bottom PCBs, before and after modications. The top PCB is modded too, a little less complicated but not much. This route is definitely for the curious and patient. It's a fascinating trip and very educational. But the dollars and cents do add up in the end. |
| _Wim_:
--- Quote from: jackenhack on January 07, 2017, 02:42:57 pm ---Going down the rabbit hole is part of the fun. I want it to measure as good as possible. --- End quote --- I also agree this can be a lot of fun, and if this is the goal, then buy all means buy the gear necesarry for it. But I just wanted to avoid people thinking it is essential to get good sound... |
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