George VanWagner
2005-02-16, 14:12
It seems to me that transformers tend to round waveform edges. Wouldn't that make jitter potentially worse by making the edge detection a little spotty?
-----Original Message-----
From: momerath <michael.warnock (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
Sent: Feb 16, 2005 11:55 AM
To: Slim Devices Discussion <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
Subject: [slim] audiophile cred
As my original post states, I AM using an external DAC. The Ack
Industries dAck! to be specific. I'm not personally concerned with
the analog section, and, to my ears, the SB is at least as good a
transport as my M-Audio Transit.
I'm NOT complaining about the SB sound quality. The reason I started
the discussion, which I think I made clear, is that there is a thread
on head-fi.org (which is a rather large audio-enthusiast community
with a growing computer-as-source contingent) in which the SB is being
described as cheap and overly simple. It is not being compared with
much more expensive stuff; it is simply being panned by someone with
more audio-electronics background than me.
I'm hoping to read some technical discussion about the design of the
digital and analog stages of the SB by those in the know. For
instance, I'd really like to know whether glassman is correct when he
says "regarding digital output, there is no transformer coupling",
and, if so, what reasons the designers had for leaving it out.
I appreciate the desire to help by those making other suggestions, but
from my perspective, links to other hifi forums, price comparisons
with the soundbridge, and advice to buy a DAC (when I already have
one), are off-topic.
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:28:21 -0000, Triode <triode1 (AT) btinternet (DOT) com> wrote:
> Michael,
>
> If you want serious hifi and are using an external DAC then you don't want lots of analogue stuff in the transport! Why pay for it?
>
> With a separate DAC, the beauty of devices like the squeezebox is that they are only responsible for sending a digital bitstream out
> of the back end. The signal is in the digital domain the whole way though so no errors which are induced. Assuming you have a good
> digital copy of the original music on your server and stream it uncompressed to the squeezebox, an accurate bitstream will come out
> of the digital out. Arguably if you rip your music with something like EAC (which checks for errors at reading time) and store an
> uncompressesed or losslessly compressed (e.g. FLAC) copy, then you have a more accurate copy on your hard disk than many CD players
> manage to read.
>
> To get the ultimate hifi quality you really need a dac which is capable of removing any jitter on the link from the slimserver.
> Although the jitter on the output is very low (as good as many CD transports to my ears), it is not the lowest. [My CD transport is
> noticably slightly better that the squeezebox with a simple dac - but then I've spent more that the cost of the squeezebox on
> upgrading the CD transport...!] However I would put it as good as many off the shelf transports. One of the problems with CD
> players is all the high current motors and servos necessary to read the disk can impact the clock and signal processing unless lots
> of attention is played to the power supply design - putting the cost up. For squeezebox and devices like it, there is no need as
> all this stuff is done in the PC.
>
> Audioasylum PCAudio: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/bbs.html usually has interesting stuff to say about PC based hifi.
>
> Adrian
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "momerath" <michael.warnock (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
> To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 5:03 PM
> Subject: [slim] audiophile cred
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I got my squeezebox last week and I'm really pleased with it so far.
> > I think it sounds great as transport for my Ack dAck, which is fairly
> > transport sensitive, and I was very pleased with the analog out
> > quality from the little critical listening I've done of it so far. I
> > trust my ears more than other audio enthusiasts, but there is a
> > recently started thread on my discussion forum of choice (head-fi.org)
> > concerning the design of the SB. The last comment posted was this:
> >
> > well, unless there are components mounted from bottom, which I don't
> > believe, than there is no serious analog output circuitry, I can't see
> > chip markings from the pic here, what I see is some Micronas IC, some
> > all-in-one solution with integrated DACs and amps and everything, and
> > some smaller one next to it, probably some logic.. regarding digital
> > output, there is no transformer coupling.. I'd say it's as simple and
> > cheap as you can get.. my comments are based purely on seeing this pic
> > here.
> >
> >
> > I just wanted to give those here, who might have knowledge to the
> > contrary, to chime in and, perhaps, prevent potential customers from
> > being turned off. And, of course, I'd love to know that the $280 I
> > spent wasnt on something "as simple and cheap as you can get".
> >
> > The thread can be found here:
> > http://curie.rad.mcw.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=106254
> >
> > ~Thanks,
> > Michael
> >
-----Original Message-----
From: momerath <michael.warnock (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
Sent: Feb 16, 2005 11:55 AM
To: Slim Devices Discussion <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
Subject: [slim] audiophile cred
As my original post states, I AM using an external DAC. The Ack
Industries dAck! to be specific. I'm not personally concerned with
the analog section, and, to my ears, the SB is at least as good a
transport as my M-Audio Transit.
I'm NOT complaining about the SB sound quality. The reason I started
the discussion, which I think I made clear, is that there is a thread
on head-fi.org (which is a rather large audio-enthusiast community
with a growing computer-as-source contingent) in which the SB is being
described as cheap and overly simple. It is not being compared with
much more expensive stuff; it is simply being panned by someone with
more audio-electronics background than me.
I'm hoping to read some technical discussion about the design of the
digital and analog stages of the SB by those in the know. For
instance, I'd really like to know whether glassman is correct when he
says "regarding digital output, there is no transformer coupling",
and, if so, what reasons the designers had for leaving it out.
I appreciate the desire to help by those making other suggestions, but
from my perspective, links to other hifi forums, price comparisons
with the soundbridge, and advice to buy a DAC (when I already have
one), are off-topic.
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:28:21 -0000, Triode <triode1 (AT) btinternet (DOT) com> wrote:
> Michael,
>
> If you want serious hifi and are using an external DAC then you don't want lots of analogue stuff in the transport! Why pay for it?
>
> With a separate DAC, the beauty of devices like the squeezebox is that they are only responsible for sending a digital bitstream out
> of the back end. The signal is in the digital domain the whole way though so no errors which are induced. Assuming you have a good
> digital copy of the original music on your server and stream it uncompressed to the squeezebox, an accurate bitstream will come out
> of the digital out. Arguably if you rip your music with something like EAC (which checks for errors at reading time) and store an
> uncompressesed or losslessly compressed (e.g. FLAC) copy, then you have a more accurate copy on your hard disk than many CD players
> manage to read.
>
> To get the ultimate hifi quality you really need a dac which is capable of removing any jitter on the link from the slimserver.
> Although the jitter on the output is very low (as good as many CD transports to my ears), it is not the lowest. [My CD transport is
> noticably slightly better that the squeezebox with a simple dac - but then I've spent more that the cost of the squeezebox on
> upgrading the CD transport...!] However I would put it as good as many off the shelf transports. One of the problems with CD
> players is all the high current motors and servos necessary to read the disk can impact the clock and signal processing unless lots
> of attention is played to the power supply design - putting the cost up. For squeezebox and devices like it, there is no need as
> all this stuff is done in the PC.
>
> Audioasylum PCAudio: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/bbs.html usually has interesting stuff to say about PC based hifi.
>
> Adrian
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "momerath" <michael.warnock (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
> To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 5:03 PM
> Subject: [slim] audiophile cred
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I got my squeezebox last week and I'm really pleased with it so far.
> > I think it sounds great as transport for my Ack dAck, which is fairly
> > transport sensitive, and I was very pleased with the analog out
> > quality from the little critical listening I've done of it so far. I
> > trust my ears more than other audio enthusiasts, but there is a
> > recently started thread on my discussion forum of choice (head-fi.org)
> > concerning the design of the SB. The last comment posted was this:
> >
> > well, unless there are components mounted from bottom, which I don't
> > believe, than there is no serious analog output circuitry, I can't see
> > chip markings from the pic here, what I see is some Micronas IC, some
> > all-in-one solution with integrated DACs and amps and everything, and
> > some smaller one next to it, probably some logic.. regarding digital
> > output, there is no transformer coupling.. I'd say it's as simple and
> > cheap as you can get.. my comments are based purely on seeing this pic
> > here.
> >
> >
> > I just wanted to give those here, who might have knowledge to the
> > contrary, to chime in and, perhaps, prevent potential customers from
> > being turned off. And, of course, I'd love to know that the $280 I
> > spent wasnt on something "as simple and cheap as you can get".
> >
> > The thread can be found here:
> > http://curie.rad.mcw.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=106254
> >
> > ~Thanks,
> > Michael
> >