So, the big news this week is Apple and the streaming audio announcement; Apple Music. Of course music streaming services have been around for years: Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody, Google Play Music, XBOX Music, Rdio, KKBOX (Asia), etc... Take your pick. Oh, let's not forget the mother of all media streaming - YouTube! Then there's also the FLAC lossless audiophile "darling", Tidal.
As usual
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MUSINGS: Music Streaming, Apple's in the game...
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MEASUREMENTS: Speaker Cables / Wires (Canare, Kimber, and the "Frankenstein" Zip Cord)
Awhile back - in October 2014 to be exact, I spoke a bit about speaker cables, posted some electrical data, and made myself a pair of 4' Canare 4S11 bi-wireable lengths with locking banana plugs to use at home. These are the black cables you see above to the right. I've been happy with them since and as I noted in that previous post, I heard no discernible difference compared
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MUSINGS: Audio Cables Summary, Non-Utilitarian Functions & Scientific Falsifiability
At this point, I believe I have examined all the audio cable claims I need to for awhile (along with some related items):
Analogue:
RCA interconnects
Speaker cables (Canare 4S11, Kimber 8TC, zip cord, bi-wiring)
Digital:
Coaxial
TosLink
USB (generics, Belkin Gold)
USB 2 extension with ethernet adaptor
Corning optical USB 3 extension
USB Hubs and 8kHz packet noise
Local - Ethernet
Internet -
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Digital Filters Test CLOSED & What Do We Have Here? [Updated]
June 25th has arrived!
As planned, this is the close-off date of the Linear vs. Minimum Phase Digital Filters Test. I hope everyone who wanted to participate got a change to have a good listen and submit their results! Thank you to everyone who did this. As usual, I'm very appreciative of the time and effort to download, load up the files, and of course the careful listening!
So, I will take
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ANALYSIS: DSD Conversion Impulse & Spectral Display... Another few images for completeness!
A cool example of the "Spectral Frequency" display - from Adobe.
Okay guys, I actually wrote the text that follows 2 months ago before the Digital Filters Test. As happens sometimes, a post can get lost in the "draft" bin and later found. It refers back to the DSD-to-PCM analysis series from April:
ANALYSIS: DSD-to-PCM Conversion 2015 - Windows & Mac OS X
ANALYSIS: DSD-to-PCM 2015 - foobar
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MUSINGS: On Audiophile Debates and "Placebos do in fact work..."
From drugsdb.com.
Let's think for a moment what "audiophilia" is about...
'We' love music so the likelihood is that 'we' have lots of albums to listen to. That's one of the great things about computer audio - a unified, easily accessible library. (This is of course not necessarily the case for everyone.)
'We' enjoy talking about hardware that can make the sound better. 'We' in fact often
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The Linear vs. Minimum Phase Upsampling Filters Test [Part I]: RESULTS
I. Background
Well, the time has arrived to open up the covers and see what the data reveals!
As a recap, I direct you to the post "INTERNET BLIND TEST: Linear vs. Minimum Phase Upsampling Filters" where the test was introduced and invitations sent out for participants to be involved. In preparation for some of the discussions here, I invite you to read up on an excellent "primer" on
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The Linear vs. Minimum Phase Upsampling Filters Test [Part II]: ANALYSIS & CONCLUSIONS
This post is a continuation of RESULTS: The Linear vs. Minimum Phase Upsampling Filters Test (Part I) where I had already summarized the rationale, procedure, and description of the 45 test respondents including basic demographics, equipment, and raw results.
IV. Analysis
In this segment, let's try to ask some questions to see if we can come up with answers on the significance of the
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The Linear vs. Minimum Phase Upsampling Filters Test [Part III]: SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS
This is part 3 of the results from the test of digital filters which began with Part I (RESULTS) and follows Part II (ANALYSIS).
As usual with these tests, I provided the respondents with an opportunity to describe what they heard when comparing the two samples (linear phase vs. minimum phase upsampling). In this portion I will collate the responses into what people described as the sonic
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MUSINGS: Digital Filters Test discussion, and a 192kHz down-sampling setting suggestion...
Well, I guess I am flattered that the results of my recent Digital Filters Test got attention on AudioStream (Stereophile affiliate). The other day, Michael Lavorgna posted an entry entitled "The Trouble With Audio Tests" including a few quotes originating from my INVITATION to the test as well as my ANALYSIS posts.
I'm going to start today's entry addressing some of his thoughts on the
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MEASUREMENTS: Room acoustic absorption panels... (GIK Acoustics Freestand)
"... of course you realize it won't sound exactly the same in your listening room, sir ..."
In the last few months, I've been doing more with REW measurements and examining the acoustics in my room, culminating in implementing digital room correction with my computer audio playback. It is because of this that I made the posts recently looking at speaker cables and the effect of speaker grill
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MEASUREMENTS: PonoPlayer - another man's observations & opinions...
A couple months back, I mentioned that I got myself one of these PonoPlayers. I got it lightly used locally and saved myself quite a few dollars (remember, I'm in Canada so would not be able to buy it directly unless specially shipped across the border). As you can see, I got one of the standard black models. Although the yellow one looks iconic and was what Neil Young went on Letterman with
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MEASUREMENTS: Audiophile Sound and Operating Systems. (Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Fidelizer & JPLAY again!)
If you look back at my writings and tests over the last few years, you will see a number of instances where I did measurements using different operating systems, computer hardware, different bitperfect software (for Windows, for Mac, "audiophile" JPLAY), and looked at things like computer CPU loads and jitter. Already, in the post on the AudioEngine D3 review, I demonstrated that even with
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PREVIEW: A Look at the Light Harmonic Geek Out V2...
Well... I guess the good thing about not being a "professional" audio reviewer is that while on holiday, playing with my toys isn't really considered "work" :-).
Here's what the postman brought earlier this week:
From a bang-for-the-buck perspective, I suspect you can really get a lot of quality from the small "USB stick" type DACs. The reason being that manufacturing costs can be quite low
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MEASUREMENTS: It's Balanced PonoPlayer Time...
As promised in my previous post on the PonoPlayer, I was going to be getting some 1/8" TRS-to-XLR balanced cables to try out with the PonoPlayer. Mainly I just wanted to see for myself the optimal level of functioning for this device... Already the unbalanced output is capable of respectably low noise and very reasonable distortion numbers especially with high samplerate material for a
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MEASUREMENTS: Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Phone
As you probably know, for me, convenience and practicality are the most important elements of mobile audio. As much as I enjoy the audiophile hobby and achieving high fidelity sound, I think it's important and realistic in acknowledging that consumption of music on-the-go these days is tied in to the ubiquitous "smartphone" many of us carry around. They have become indispensable tools in so many
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MEASUREMENTS: Sound Room Update, Digital Room Correction (DRC) and JRiver DSP Studio...
Many years ago, back in 1992 to be precise - the year Windows 3.1 was introduced, when the typical PC was running below 33MHz, and Mortal Kombat 1 was hot in the arcades - I vaguely remember reading this article from Stereophile and filed it in my memory banks as something from science fiction for another day (I heard my first MP3 compressed song soon after and thought it was amazing given the
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MEASUREMENTS: ASUS Xonar Essence One MKI with DSD upgrade kit. (Part I: EEPROM)
Ahhhh... The ASUS Essence One! Even though looking back, compared to others I have listened to or measured, this DAC had its various imperfections, it has been my constant companion on the computer workstation. Through it, I have listened to hundreds of hours of music, edited my share of audio, evaluated pairs of headphones, and run various "experiments". Like an old friend, you get to learn (
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MEASUREMENTS: PonoPlayer and DSD Playback
Hey guys, just a quickie posting here for mid-week...
I was looking over the measurements over the last few months and realized I neglected to post results of the PonoPlayer doing DSD64 and DSD128 playback! So, instead of the data just sitting on my hard drive, I thought I might as well throw it out here for reference.
I don't believe I have seen anyone measure results of DSD playback with
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MEASUREMENTS: Light Harmonic Geek Out V2
I know some folks have been awaiting the results for the Light Harmonic Geek Out V2. As you know, I have already provided a bit of a preview a few weeks back so no need to say much more I think. Generally my feelings about this device have not changes over the weeks... The 3D printed plastic smell has completely dissipated by now. It does sound great and I must say, going into the measurements
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