Archimago's Musings

“A desire for privacy does not imply shameful secrets; Moglen argues, again and again, that without anonymity in discourse, free speech is impossible, and hence also democracy. The right to speak the truth to power does not shield the speaker from the consequences of doing so; only comparable power or anonymity can do that.” --- Nick Harkaway, The Blind Giant Boo! Well, Halloween's

Okay, let's have some fun with the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ motherboard, piCorePlayer, and my little "Touch" device I recently updated. As discussed before and in the picture shown above, these days, I have the inexpensive JustBoom Digi HAT (~US$40) board attached out the back for simple S/PDIF connectivity as well as USB when I need. Today, let's hit a few topics related to the Pi 3 B+ setup above.

Well folks, it has been a busy last number of weeks around here since I returned from the overseas work trip. No time to play with much audio or tech stuff as a result until earlier this week. Today I want to just discuss/show a couple of things... Consider the phrase "multidimensional audio". In today's world, I think if anyone were to use that phrase, one would be thinking about

Hmmm... Non-OverSampled waveforms - "accurate", "high fidelity"? The waveforms above were captured with my RME ADI-2 Pro FS ADC at 384kHz. As you can see, each waveform originated either from the TEAC UD-501 DAC with the digital filter turned off (Non-OverSampling - NOS mode) or with the TEAC's "Sharp" oversampling filter turned on. On the right, we see the same waveforms captured from an

I mentioned a few months back in September that I updated my Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Touch device with the JustBoom Digi HAT for S/PDIF coaxial and TosLink digital audio output. Over the last few months, I've been using it more regularly for my nightly music listening. As I noted previously, this device is essentially a 1-chip solution featuring the Cirrus/Wolfson WM8804 transceiver with jitter

Remember that within audiophile circles, there are often all kinds of claims about noise affecting streaming devices; especially computer-based devices. I already touched on this last week when referencing the videos by Innuos. Over the years, I had addressed software playback, different OS's, lossless formats, "need" for ethernet galvanic isolation, and explored the lack of difference

This is a picture of the corner of the room where I performed the measurements for the post last week. Notice that Intel i7-3770K computer in the left corner I use for gaming? Within that box are 16GB DDR3 RAM, both a SanDisk Ultra II SSD and a recent 2TB Firecuda drive, plus a rather powerful nVidia GTX 1080 graphics processor which is what is driving the display on the 4K TV. Inside the

Hey guys & gals, grab a coffee, maybe a hot cocoa! Winter is here, at least in the North, so settle into a comfy chair by the fireplace as we head into the last days of 2018. Let's chat. Recently, I received this comment from Museatex which I thought was a good comment and deserved a bit more discussion as a post rather than just a response which would typically be lost in the usual

Happy 2019 everyone!!! It looks like Archimago was a nice boy in 2018 :-). Look what Santa brought him under the Christmas tree: The Oculus Rift + Touch VR Bundle runs very well on that Intel i7 / nVidia GTX 1080 computer I have in my sound room. As I mentioned last time at the end of 2018, I don't use the "man cave" just for 2-channel music listening (I think instead of calling it a "sound

Every once awhile, it's great to have a guest writer put up their thoughts on the Musings. I've always lived by the principle of "it really isn't what you got that matters, but how you make the best of it". I think Allan's post here is a nice example of that. These days, we have all kinds of products and technologies easily available at good prices, but when mixed with streaming

Alright guys and gals, it has been months since I completed the set of measurements of the Oppo UDP-205 last year (here, here, and here). In early December, David M wondered how the Oppo performed as a DSD player as I had neglected to measure that. Over the years, I have measured DSD output performance but remember that this is a little bit of a pain :-). To obtain some results for

The other day, I was surfing the usual audiophile haunting grounds and came across this poll question on the Steve Hoffman Hardware Forum started a year ago. It reads: "Do You (Think) That Different CD Players Have Their Own Sonic Signature?" Here are the results when I looked recently. I know it was closed last year, but it looks like it might be re-opened and still running into April if

I've heard over the years some people wondering whether there really is a point to 24-bit DACs. After all, there is little if any evidence that "hi-res" 24-bit music actually sounds any better - in fact, you might recall that way back in 2014, here on the blog we ran a blind test and the results did not show significant audible benefit among respondents. More recently last year, even with Dr.

Interesting... But in physical reality impossible of course! Perhaps like many audiophile opinions? [Info on art here...] "Your desires and true beliefs have a way of playing blind man's bluff. You must corner the inner facts." --- David Seabury (1885-1960) A few weeks ago, I read this "Quick Take" review of The Linear Solution DS-1 Network Streamer device published on Computer Audiophile (

Over the years, no doubt many computer audio users have heard or perhaps tried using HQPlayer Desktop from Signalyst for music playback. While there is a GUI for playback as well as a sophisticated network transport architecture, it's the upsampling and PCM-to-DSD features that are the program's claim to fame. There has been a good amount of talk about the sound quality of the upsampling

As promised, I want to address a comment raised about the idea that the 24/96 recording using the RME ADI-2 Pro FS ADC was somehow inadequate for the 16/44.1 samples in the "Do digital audio players sound different?" blind test; that the 24/96 captures are somehow missing significant amounts of the output from the devices. For reference, I've included the original comment here from Miska: "

I mentioned a few weeks back in a comment that these days I've been using Roon for my music library and playback. A few years ago, I tried out Roon 1.2 and while good, it just wasn't quite compelling yet at that time for my needs. For years I've been using Logitech Media Server (LMS) given that most of my devices had been Squeezebox-based until recently. It certainly serves the purpose well to

In this blog installment, let's look at the "ultra high-end" of sound. Of course, I'm not talking about the audiophile "high-end" marketing term which is meaningless (beyond just another phrase for "expensive"). Rather, let's look at the frequency high-end, especially all the stuff our DACs can produce in the ultrasonic range! If you've ever wondered, ultrasound devices used in medical

Alright guys, first off, I'm trying out a quick poll here since I was interested in how many of you are currently streaming music off a subscription site... No doubt we are seeing the shift towards the streaming, subscription model for music delivery and consumption. It's interesting to see this article recently about the music industry's revenue growth in these last few years on account of

More info here. As I sit here watching the early light in the tropics enjoying a cup of Java, I had a look again at John Atkinson's editorial "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...". I believe this April 2019 issue is the last one where he is the Editor-in-Chief of Stereophile. The article examines a recent event which again brings up one of the age-old contentious issues we run

MUSINGS: On the RMAF 2018 MQA talk, pseudonyms, and the right to anonymity.

MUSINGS: Raspberry Pi 3 B+ "Touch" Optimizations; CRAAP Settings, and the "Extremus" Filter Setting.

MUSINGS: Multidimensional Audio! (An old article... Subjective perceptual ability... And a rigged Atmos / DTS:X setup... :-)

NOS vs. Digital Filtering DACs: Exploring filtering turned off, implications, fidelity and subjective audibility. (Recent BorderPatrol DAC chatter...)

MEASUREMENTS: JustBoom Digi S/PDIF HAT for Raspberry Pi. (Plus "Why isn’t digital audio 'just ones and zeroes'?" anxiety...)

MEASUREMENTS: Raspberry Pi 3 B+ as streamer - switching power supply, battery, WiFi, touchscreen noise??? (32GB RAM, MI: Fallout and The Beatles' 2018 "White Album")

MEASUREMENTS: Intel i7 PC and Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Audio Streamer - XLR / RCA, Noise and Jitter. Do digital transports / streamers really make a difference? Do USB cables?

MUSINGS: On this Blog, Motivations, and Recent Audiophile-Targeted Articles in the "Mainstream" Press. Holiday Edition!

A Look at the Oculus Rift Touch VR System! (And the Oppo UDP-20X gets a firmware upgrade for HDR10+.)

GUEST: Future Proofed (and didn't know it) - Adding Streaming to My Existing Hi-Fi.

MEASUREMENTS: Oppo UDP-205 DSD Playback (DSD64-DSD512), and PCM 768kHz. Plus CES2019 coverage thoughts...

INTERNET BLIND TEST: Do digital audio players sound different? (Playing 16/44.1 music.)

MUSINGS: Why bother with 24-bit DACs? (With thoughts on dithering, digital volume control, normalization, streaming and LUFS.)

MUSINGS: Computer audio mythos? A comment on The Linear Solution's DS-1 Network Streamer.

MEASUREMENTS: A Look At HQPlayer 3.25; Filtering, Dithering and DSD Conversion.

MUSINGS / MEASUREMENTS: On why 24/96 sampling of the Blind Test of 16/44.1 devices is good enough. [On idealized filtering tests and "real life" music playback.]

MUSINGS: Let's talk about Roon (1.6) and DSP speed... (And an example of a poor quality "hi-res" classical recording.)

MEASUREMENTS: A look at the audio "ultra high-end" - ultrasonics! (And changes at Stereophile announced.)

POLL: Do you subscribe to a music streaming service? And a Wilson Sasha DAW, dCS, Audio Research listening session @ The Sound Room, Vancouver.

MUSINGS: Of Jokers and Clowns... (On Soundstage and Perspective)