Post by Julien November 3, 2008 (1 of 31)
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It is unfortunately true that in practise, converting to analogue from the start and going to proper analogue amplifiers assures the least loss in the signal. I'm playing with the best of digital these days and the sound distortion induced by a receiver is indeed obvious. Digital circuitry too close to analogue circuitry is BAD. Adds tons of noise.
Honestly, the sound can be pretty nice still, but in spite of multi channel's extra dimension, I'm far away from the "be there" feeling of good analogue stereo systems. So ideally, in order of quality if you want a concert in your room:
1) Pure analogue multichannel in an acoustically treated and ideally dimensioned room.
2) Pure analogue stereo in an acoustically treated and ideally dimensioned room.
3) Player/HDMI/ good processor or receiver in an ideally dimensioned and acoustically treated room, keeping the signal in pure DSD all the way.
4) Player/HDMI/receiver or processor in a non treated and not ideally dimensioned room. In this case, oh boy don't even try the DSD direct mode. Let the receiver convert to PCM and do all the EQ, distance ajustments and bass management it needs to prevent the horrible standing waves and the unbalanced sound. Forget the whole DSD mania, anyway no receiver I know of treats a DSD signal properly, so sometimes it'll even do a better job converting PCM than DSD.
I'm thinking of trying another cheap way that I think might be better than the use of a receiver: HDMI to good processor, then sending the signal to five active speakers (cheap way would be near-field active monitors).
I don't think the "HDMI digital all the way no loss of signal" guys really understand how it works. By the way, there can be big differences in signal quality between HDMI cables too. Anyone who has made one knows how digital signals through a cable get deteriorated in real time.
It looks as if through HDMI you allow the analogue signal to go only from receiver to speakers, meaning the least possible loss in the signal. Think this through: you say, it's one box instead of three or two. I say, in this one box, you have to do the DA conversion, then still go through a pre-amplification phase, then power amplification, then send to the speakers. Wow. Basically the same as having separate boxes. One difference though: having separate boxes for digital and analogue operations prevent the highly noisy digital circuits from deteriorating the analogue signal. The sound. The music.
Digital noise is much worse than analogue noise!
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Post by amatala November 3, 2008 (2 of 31)
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I fully 100% agree with you - but unfortunately I'm afraid you'll start an endless discussion again...
There will be lots of replies from people who have never listened to a good multichannel system (decoding done by good multichannel player -> pure analogue multichannel preamplifier -> 5 mono power amps -> full range speakers) explaining how wonderful their OPPO players connected via HDMI to receivers sound...
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Post by raffells November 3, 2008 (3 of 31)
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amatala said:
I fully 100% agree with you - but unfortunately I'm afraid you'll start an endless discussion again...
There will be lots of replies from people who have never listened to a good multichannel system (decoding done by good multichannel player -> pure analogue multichannel preamplifier -> 5 mono power amps -> full range speakers) explaining how wonderful their OPPO players connected via HDMI to receivers sound...
Why unfortunately.?
There are a lot of people who have had the opportunity to do every version of surround.Also without mostly mediocre systems.
Suggest you read what Kal says about problem with HDMI and jitter.
All systems will be limited by their weakest part.
Wherever that is.
Dave
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Post by LivyII November 3, 2008 (4 of 31)
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Julien said:
It is unfortunately true that in practise, converting to analogue from the start and going to proper analogue amplifiers assures the least loss in the signal. I'm playing with the best of digital these days and the sound distortion induced by a receiver is indeed obvious. Digital circuitry too close to analogue circuitry is BAD. Adds tons of noise.
Honestly, the sound can be pretty nice still, but in spite of multi channel's extra dimension, I'm far away from the "be there" feeling of good analogue stereo systems. So ideally, in order of quality if you want a concert in your room:
1) Pure analogue multichannel in an acoustically treated and ideally dimensioned room.
2) Pure analogue stereo in an acoustically treated and ideally dimensioned room.
3) Player/HDMI/ good processor or receiver in an ideally dimensioned and acoustically treated room, keeping the signal in pure DSD all the way.
4) Player/HDMI/receiver or processor in a non treated and not ideally dimensioned room. In this case, oh boy don't even try the DSD direct mode. Let the receiver convert to PCM and do all the EQ, distance ajustments and bass management it needs to prevent the horrible standing waves and the unbalanced sound. Forget the whole DSD mania, anyway no receiver I know of treats a DSD signal properly, so sometimes it'll even do a better job converting PCM than DSD.
I'm thinking of trying another cheap way that I think might be better than the use of a receiver: HDMI to good processor, then sending the signal to five active speakers (cheap way would be near-field active monitors).
I don't think the "HDMI digital all the way no loss of signal" guys really understand how it works. By the way, there can be big differences in signal quality between HDMI cables too. Anyone who has made one knows how digital signals through a cable get deteriorated in real time.
It looks as if through HDMI you allow the analogue signal to go only from receiver to speakers, meaning the least possible loss in the signal. Think this through: you say, it's one box instead of three or two. I say, in this one box, you have to do the DA conversion, then still go through a pre-amplification phase, then power amplification, then send to the speakers. Wow. Basically the same as having separate boxes. One difference though: having separate boxes for digital and analogue operations prevent the highly noisy digital circuits from deteriorating the analogue signal. The sound. The music.
Digital noise is much worse than analogue noise!
Thoughts:
1) Practicality for most people in this world?
2) See above...
3) See above...
4) For most of us, this is what we have to work with.
I'd like you to quantify in some way that can be objectively measured the degree to which "highly noisy digital circuits" degrade the "analogue signal".
See, I'm sure most of what you're saying is likely true, in the same way that a car theoretically will get better gas mileage if its tires are inflated to precisely the psi stated in the manual.
If a car's tires are underinflated (or even a single tire) by 1.5 psi, then there will be corresponding loss in mileage performance on paper, in the theory and design world. But in the real world, how can that be measured or quantified? Will it even be noticed objectively by any operator?
These kinds of posts remind me of the definition farcically applied to historians - deaf men sitting around answering questions that no one's asked of them. What if the humidity is higher in your listening room on one day and not the next? That will affect the sound. My carpet is thicker than yours - that will affect the sound. I have sheet rock dry wall - you have plaster - that will also affect the sound. You never went to rock concerts as a young person, but I did - that's going to affect how I hear things.
Regardless of the signal chain, how you hear what is played can be changed by many things, even if it's an accoustically treated room.
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Wow, what a provocative title...
Ah well, let's have a read anyway...
Reaction to article?
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As if to present one's opinion as gospel and to fly in the face of other's experiences in the real world and listening to real systems in real listening rooms with real comparisons.
If I am dreaming with my beautiful sounding system, then may I never awake from my slumber.
FOOTNOTES:
In the past weeks, I have taken the trouble to get hifi shops to set up SACD players and power amp combos. To be honest, it was difficult, and more to teh point, I don't knwo what they were setting up - I just told them I was lookign at spending around £5k (that being the twice the figure I spent on my SACD/movie - in that order - centric sytem) and left it to them. All I can say is that the equipment looked what I would describe as esoteric. The naems were meaningless to me.
Was I impressed? Hell yeah!
Did they blow my system away? Well, no.
How could I tell? They no more gave me the feeling of "being there" than my system.
Major difference? The shop systems seemed to have more poise.
Why? I think because higher-end power amps were being used and the rooms were probably acoustically better than mine.
Lessons? Audyssey does indeed do a fine job if you take teh trouble to makes sure the fundamentals are good, i.e. you feed as good a signal as you can to the receiver, and as long as what your amp is driving, i.e. teh speakers, are pretty good.
What else? Well, my speakers are EVEN better than I thought. And a DSD outputting source, along with separate power amp would bring most benefit to my system. Although the latter would bring benefits given my room size.
P.S. All views are my own findings and opinions.
P.P.S. I have no bias towards multi-channel, sometimes preferring the 2 channel layer - most often when the original recording was a 2 channel analogue tapes from back in the day!
P.P.P.S. To clarify, I scoff at teh dismisive nature of teh original post in this thread, but acknowledge teh truisms therein, even if most of them are in teh realm of fantasy, i.e. ideal room setup, limitless budget, etc, etc.
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What I can not hear will save me truck loads of moola.
The more to spend on glorious SACD's and my children's education so that they to may afford the idyllic audiophile lifestyle.
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My biggest problem with HDMI is the connector itself. It should've included, first and foremost, a locking mechanism since it does not have that firm lock. To deal with DVD-A, Meridian chose to use three digital connectors to its processor (the 861) which dealt with left/right/ center/sub and sur l/r. Just recently listened to LOVE (the beatles DVD-A) remaster and I defy any turntable to replicate the incredible soundstage eeked out by John and Giles Martin. The problem with MOST receivers is they are geared toward digital and using the 5.1 analog interconnects usually pales in comparison to the digital interfaces (the Onkyo's, of which I have one in my bedroom are guilty, as charged). Plus, are there any HDMI comparisons of various cables available...I get all the audio rags and have never seen a shoot-out of cheap vs. expensive HDMI interconnects). As far as I'm concerned, this is a newborn format and the best question, is HDMI v. 1.3a the final frontier?
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Post by RWetmore November 3, 2008 (8 of 31)
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The bottom line is it still has to be converted to analog prior to amplification. The ultimate result depends on how good that conversion is be it in the player or the amplifier/receiver. The only real advantage is the need for only one cable.
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Post by raffells November 4, 2008 (9 of 31)
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rammiepie said:
My biggest problem with HDMI is the connector itself. It should've included, first and foremost, a locking mechanism since it does not have that firm lock. To deal with DVD-A, Meridian chose to use three digital connectors to its processor (the 861) which dealt with left/right/ center/sub and sur l/r. Just recently listened to LOVE (the beatles DVD-A) remaster and I defy any turntable to replicate the incredible soundstage eeked out by John and Giles Martin. The problem with MOST receivers is they are geared toward digital and using the 5.1 analog interconnects usually pales in comparison to the digital interfaces (the Onkyo's, of which I have one in my bedroom are guilty, as charged). Plus, are there any HDMI comparisons of various cables available...I get all the audio rags and have never seen a shoot-out of cheap vs. expensive HDMI interconnects). As far as I'm concerned, this is a newborn format and the best question, is HDMI v. 1.3a the final frontier?
Suggest you look in TV type mags as these shootouts have been done as well as at least one UK hifi mag.(Which meanns it will reappear in their other numerous mags))I suspect it wont be long before the mags start commisioning there own brand which "Will be highly reviewed" also in various mags , good for them.
There are theoretical advantages of the 1.3 even using on earlier implementation.One manufacturer who sells at mega cost has even produced convincing evidence on visual displays.
These differences are pretty small but in general 3 coats of screening seems to work better.Bear in mind there are some big differences in the quality of screening in cables and the plugs anyhow.Im unconvinced by the metal conductivity for once.The plastics used also may have a small even minute influence, so Teflon is a safe bet.
The lack of a spare strand in HDMI for clock sync up to now is a strong clue as to whether 1,3 is the last resort.(see Kal Robinson item)
No one in their right mind would compare the pretty ordinary specs of old vinyl surround with the sacd discrete system..
As regards potential differences in two alternative layouts .
There are enough theoretical reasons for them to sound different.ie The effect of long speaker cables,the manufacturers favourite One box fits everything and all the noisey circuits are compressed and polluting each of the very delicate circuits.Critical in Digital.
I still think it is early days yet in this field.
Is "Love" a remaster .I dont think so.It was meant as a surround demonstration to reproduce that circus feel.It comes nowhwere near sounding like the Beatles from the Cavern originals on ANY system. Dave
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Post by rammiepie November 4, 2008 (10 of 31)
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LOVE was indeed a remaster. Where else can one hear any 5.1 Beatles unless you count the various DTS and Dolby Digital DVDs. It was full blown 24/96 and on the Meridian 860/861 combo sounds better than any previous vinyl incarnation. I was NOT comparing the old quad vinyl remasters (atrocious as they are/were) with present technology. The one cable solution is indeed a godsend but in America, I don't recall any HDMI comparisons (Widescreen Review had an insert listing the various manufacturers and their own over-hype but NO comparisons). I would appreciate if you could enlighten SA-CD net readers as to the outcome of the British Magazines' findings regarding which HDMI v.1.3a came out victorious regardless of price. Thank you.
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