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Post by aurender on May 25, 2015 7:26:04 GMT
I agree with that sentiment. There is no reason to divulge your trade secrets. It was the cryptic nature of the post that provoked the reaction. Some of us have never heard of super firmware and had absolutely no idea what you were talking about. Of course that approach can be very effective in advertising too.
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Post by MartinT on May 25, 2015 9:40:33 GMT
Where does sharing end and subtle shilling start? It's best to play safe in cases like this and avoid any conflict of interest. I have been accused over the last ten years of talking up my products in order to sell more. So now I just stay away from things like that. I completely understand, Stan. However, if you're asked the question directly, it isn't shilling to respond with more detail. However, I know you prefer to keep your design secrets closely to your chest, so I was just hoping you might give a generic overview of how your V6 firmware works.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 12:34:48 GMT
Esoteric has a decent rubidium clock. 176.4 is fine but how is that going to help you with a source generating a signal at 48ks?. Similarly if you are using 176.4 with a 44.1 signal you will have some speed problems. No contest on clock accuracy. Locking everything to a BVA is, to my ears, a huge improvement. Spec of the Oscilloquartz 8607 way ahead of rubidium or best "fe to" clock. Until you've heard the effect of a BVA master clock, you will not see the difference. Sadly commercial availability is now a serious problem. For my understanding, it would be good to what the time signal from the source is actually contributing when you lock onto the time signal in the final component? Agree with you about asynchronous sub. It's a less than perfect solution but for some components, it's a reasonable solution. Different topic: music room project hit major delay just over a year ago when house suffered major flood damage following the heavy storms we had. Repair work still not complete and the amount of disruption to our lives has led us to a different solution which doesn't involve living any longer in a building site. Hopefully the new concept should enable a very nice listening area. The Esoteric Rb masters have three possible configurations, 10mhz, 44.1-176.4, 48-192 these are derived from 46.08mhz, 38.4mhz and 35.28 MHz clocks with Esoteric equipment you can select the incoming clock Frequencies on each individual component as well as the upsampling Frequenices so you could have like DCS raw 44.1khz with a master clock Of 176.4khz at each stage is an SRC with another HQ PLL if you had a 48khz raw frequency you could use either 96 or 192khz as its multiple variants it also has a 24fps function for films our studios can record Upto 705.6khz though we prefer direct multiples of red book as we feel these give the best results your results may vary according to equipment and set up the streaming device currently has two output Frequenices 176.4 and 192khz depending on the incoming base frequency, I can with the current Dac go upto 384khz should I chose to.
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Post by aurender on May 25, 2015 13:53:19 GMT
of course you would get best results if you are working with simple direct multiples. the mathematical processing to change from say 44.1 to 192 is much more processor hungry than 44.1 to 176.4
The ex telecoms rubidium clocks which are available quite cheaply can have the output set for whatever you want using a simple computer programme so setting for 11289600 would be quite straightforward.
It all comes back to choice of oscillator and anything that is not a direct multiple of 44.1 and 48 is going to have significant extra processing.
Remember too that phase noise and/or short term stability is much better with a BVA clock than a rubidium clock which is very easy to hear in pound quality. As I mentioned previously, Oscilloquartz have ceased manufacture of BVA clocks so the option to make a BVA with the correct multiple is no longer available however I assume production will restart at some stage given it remains the ultimate practical standard.
Quite easy here to check relative sound benefits of rubidium (SRS, Quarzlock and others), GPS, OCXO and BVA. For me, BVA was head and shoulders above the others which may be due to having around 100x better short term stability, however, of course, your mileage may differ. Maybe we should set up such a test?
The only issue to consider is that BVA settles to optimum stability over 48 hours so needs quite a long settling time when first switched on and doesn't have the obvious short term lock that is visible on a rubidium clock..
Still curious to understand how without locking the clock frequency to a common master (either at DAC or external master) the timing errors are not cumulative and, if you are starting with relatively poor phase noise in a rubidium clock and sending the signal to a DAC clocked by a second rubidium clock or a GPS reference, you are actually not achieving very good accuracy at all. The cumulative errors would quickly give you jitter issues. Have you actually looked at these? Do you have facilities to measure the impact of these cumulative errors? Sounds like an interesting exercise to carry out.
Different question: have you played with DSD upsampling? How do you find it?
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Post by aurender on May 25, 2015 14:04:57 GMT
just checking my notes on measurements on Esoteric rubidium clock. Actually measured short term performance as 1 part in 10-11. Standard BVA was 8 parts in 10-14 Specially selected units of 8607 could reach 2 in 10-14.
Pity no longer available
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 15:34:52 GMT
Esoteric did two versions of this clock pretty sure one is still available I have a couple of the original units which are occasionally used for studio work when we are performing mobile recordings
As I have mentioned before the implentation is the biggest factor with any component without the correct surrounding complimentary power supplies, circuit pathway, screening and minimal interfaces measured performance in ideal test conditions can differ in the actually true environment they products end up in.
Then the question is raised can you ultise all of said theorectical performance or just a portion of this? Products are designed and built to a price dependant on each manufactuers requirements for that product in a specific market environment
All red multiples are sampled at 176.4 and all half multiples to 192khz for results that work well in the current renderer design
If I tie all of the components together with the Eso clocks the system loses focus, depth , texture rendering and bass articulation so either the Eso clock doesn't work ( which is not the story as you are aware or the clocking system that is play is superior
With regards to dsd my pet hate, what most people are not aware is that dsd signals have to processed @ 352.8khz and converted from 1 bit 2.8mhz or 5.6mhz now even higher with certain companies lol To be mixed then final mastering befor reshaping tontheir original format. Danish company called DAD developed software called DXD digital extreme definition to do this and both Sony and Philips use it as well a a few high end studios
DSD is huge is Japan were all high end players are labelled sacd/cd players
I don not have many SACD's 200 max, only one demonstrates clearly better sound and that is dedicated single layer disc, many of the dual layer discs have had ' special attention' paid to the sacd layer shall we say lol
From myself a correctly mastered sacd recording usually gives a greater sense of air and spa e, better separation , sweeter top end and a richer fuller sound que vinyl heads lol
On negative side, it loses cohesion tends to stretch the sound stage upwards it also rounds the sound off giving a nicer feel but losing the drive.
All this is irrelevant if the transfer process is second rate lol
The record industry does not care about sound quality just sales lol
Not so long ago a good dealer friend of mine tried out a product line of ours he was using a full Vivaldi stack, using two lines of AES to transmit DSD at full upsample rate sounded mighty fine too all using his own reference tracks in his own demo room so all the pararameters were there for him in his comfort zone the cables used were the dealers own choice and stayed bring used what equipment was used.
He then substituted the Dac, upsampler, and master clock for a straight Dac, using one line of AES at the basic 44.1khz I need to put on my best 'up north' accent
' By Eck lad, that's got some pop!' The sound stage depth became three dimensional, so much more texture, articulation and inner datail rendering plus a natural unforced pace
My point here is not that one piece if equipment is better than another or silly waving, but he took out the top of the line Dac, upsampler, and master clock and obtained a noticable upturn In sound quality
So does this mean less boxes are better?' Or is it about understanding the whole concept and looking at ever aspect of digital audio data conversion and implementing your designs to the very best if your ability and technology
The more components in the chain the more variables need to be corrected and taken into account against this the cost.
Another example both DCS and Wadia swear blind that running direct is the best way of hearing their products you and I know that is not the case!
Why did BVA stop manufacturing these oscillators David?
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Post by MartinT on May 25, 2015 16:17:46 GMT
With regards to dsd my pet hate, what most people are not aware is that dsd signals have to processed @ 352.8khz and converted from 1 bit 2.8mhz or 5.6mhz now even higher with certain companies lol To be mixed then final mastering befor reshaping tontheir original format. Danish company called DAD developed software called DXD digital extreme definition to do this and both Sony and Philips use it as well a a few high end studios DSD is huge is Japan were all high end players are labelled sacd/cd players I don not have many SACD's 200 max, only one demonstrates clearly better sound and that is dedicated single layer disc, many of the dual layer discs have had ' special attention' paid to the sacd layer shall we say lol It was my understanding that the intermediate format for the DSD edit desks is a transcoded 4-bit PCM, but it was a few years ago I read that. The Japanese do a magnificent job of DSD mastering. Witness, for instance, Selling England by the Pound by Genesis. You would not credit that such detail was ever laid down in the recording, but obviously it was. A superb Japanese SACD, one of the very best I have.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 16:28:11 GMT
The Japs have a different take on what is considered good and sacd is massive in the land of the rising sun, ever tried a dvd-a from Japan superb for optical media
Though be wary a lot of sacs were made to sound better than the cd layer, remember Machine Head on sacd ??
The other issue is the music the majority is plinky plonky Jazz, classical, female vocals very few quality cuts from desirable bands
Pandering to audiophile tendencies lol
Next it will be rule flat response curve amps, dry fast pre amps and 1's and 0's replay think digital with the corners knocked off owwwww time for a swift exit
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Post by MartinT on May 25, 2015 16:38:21 GMT
ever tried a dvd-a from Japan superb for optical media Not sure I have a Japanese one, Tony. I have a few really good DVD-As, though, such as Yes - Fragile and Fleetwood Mac - Rumours.
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Post by aurender on May 25, 2015 17:27:52 GMT
Tony some of what you say makes sense!
lets start with the easy stuff
in a DCS stack, the up sampler is a mixed blessing. The processing stage adds a layer of electronics and connections which I certainly would rather do without. Equally, the recommendation of driving the power amps directly from a DAC with a volume control is, from my experience with DCS Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Wadia and Krell , a poor solution. No reason why an integrated preamp stage in the analogue domain should be poor, it's maybe the particular implementation in players such as the Krell. In the digital domain, volume control is more of a difficult issue.
DSD: totally agree. Using DCS to compare their implementation of DSD shows a softness compared to a 24/176.4 upsampled from red book.
You ask about the demise of the Oscilloquartz 8607. Reason is that production is time consuming, expensive and gives very low yield. You need to read some of the intricacies in making this type of device where the producer is trying to make the entire device from the same crystal to minimise thermal and mechanical effects. I suspect once Oscilloquartz was bought last year, the new owners rationalised the product range in a few areas. Their yield of the high performance variant was around 6 per year!
i don't think you can dismiss the performance benefits. Remember this was part of an experiment that I carried out to try and see the audible effects of different clock technologies. Having evaluated selected versions of the OCXO used as standard by DCS, I was able to try three different rubidium clocks and also a state of the art GPS unit. Having formed some views on the relative merits (at the time I was working with one of the world's leading companies in high accuracy timing with access to hydrogen masers and caesium clocks) we decided with a totally open mind to see what the ultimate clock for phase noise and short term stability would do if used as master clock for a gift system. To say the results were better than expected is a major understatement. Now was the improvement solely due to 100x better performance? Possibly but the particular waveform shape produced may be significant. All I can say is that I started the test with no anticipation of outcome and certainly no thought of acquiring such a device for myself. On completion, the first thing I did was to buy one!
ione important question you've not answered is exactly how do you think the digital clocking is working when you are advocating individual clocks in each stage. Exactly what benefit are the clocks in the source and processing stages doing?
Does your 176.4/192 capable streamer have an up sampling capability? If not how is your preferred 176.4 clock handling red book material?
tony, I'm not knocking a totally subjective approach. All of my equipment ( including the BVA) have been chosen on primarily subjective sound quality criteria but once you start discussing the technology of handling the digital data stream, some reasonable knowledge of how digital data transfer works is quite important.
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