[DJ[_2_]]

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard about this player,
and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference - http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

Best regards,

-DJ

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:02:14 -0800, DJ wrote
(in article ):

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard about this player,
and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference - http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

Best regards,

-DJ


I know that the original two Sony SACD players did that, (the $5000 one and
the multichannel $3500 SACD777ES - which I have). The EMM Labs Player is
supposed to up-sample regular CDs to DOUBLE the SACD bandwidth. Whether or
not it actually improves CDs is another matter, I know that my Sony SACD777ES
is not only an excellent sounding SACD player, but its also one of the best
sounding Redbook CD players I've ever heard as well.

[Arny Krueger]

"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html


The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.

"MDAT is unlike anything the industry has seen, or heard, before. Here’s
why: Rather than address the digital signal as a series of sine waves—as is
standard convention

This just isn't true. Standard convention is to address the digital signal
as a series of samples.

"—the MDAT-equipped CDSA SE processes (and upsamples CD audio to DSD for
conversion to analog) by dynamically adapting to the transient nature of the
musical signal.

In fact the basic nature of musical signals is exactly what they just said
they don't do. Musical signals are composed of a series of sine waves. Every
musical signal can be accurately analyzed and represented as a collection of
sine and cosine waves. CD players don't do that, but FFTs do. The human
ear, being largely composed of a collection of narrow-band filters, can also
be characterized as addressing the musical sound as being composed of a
series of sine waves.

In this way, the CDSA SE is utterly unique and singularly able to
preserve the phase, frequency and
dynamic integrity of the original signal.

In fact the best way to preserve the phase, frequency and dynamic integrity
of the original signal is to treat it as a series of samples, which is what
they already said that their product does not do.

Once you’ve heard this level of improvement in terms of resolution, nuance
and dynamic shading, there’s no going back.

So where's their reliable bias-controlled lisetening test data that supports
this claim?

[Sonnova]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html


The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.

True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs sound better. Perhaps
its the removal of that brick-wall filter at 22.05 KHz that makes things
sound "better", I don't know. But something sure sounds better. I've
performed double-blind tests with my friends, and everyone preferred the
oversampling on my outboard D/A converter turned on rather than turned off,
could dteect the difference almost every time and I concur. I also find that
44.1KHz digital upsampled to 88.2 KHz sounds better than upsampling it to 96
KHz, but DAT (48 KHz digital) sounds better upsampled to 96 KHz than it does
upsampled to 88.2 KHz. I don't pretend to understand why. It must have
something to do with one upsampled rate being an exact multiple of the
original sampling rate of the disc/DAT and the other not.

[Steven Sullivan]

Sonnova wrote:
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html


The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.

True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs sound better. Perhaps
its the removal of that brick-wall filter at 22.05 KHz that makes things
sound "better", I don't know. But something sure sounds better.

Oversampling isn't the same thing as upsampling. OVersampling as means to
do what you say -- make it easier to implement transparent filtering -- is
not controversial, and has been in use in CDPs since around 1990.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Sonnova]

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:18:51 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html


The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.

True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs sound better. Perhaps
its the removal of that brick-wall filter at 22.05 KHz that makes things
sound "better", I don't know. But something sure sounds better.

Oversampling isn't the same thing as upsampling. OVersampling as means to
do what you say -- make it easier to implement transparent filtering -- is
not controversial, and has been in use in CDPs since around 1990.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

Sorry, I meant up-sampling.

[[email protected]]

On Nov 15, 6:18 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Sonnova wrote:
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.
True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs sound better. Perhaps
its the removal of that brick-wall filter at 22.05 KHz that makes things
sound "better", I don't know. But something sure sounds better.

Oversampling isn't the same thing as upsampling.

It isn't? How?

An oversampling D/A converter first converts one sample
rate to a higher sample rate, then performs filtering at the
higher sample rate. An upsampling D/A converter first
converts one sample rate to a higher sample rate, then
performs filtering at the higher sample rate.

What's the difference (other than high-end audio hooey-
speak)?

[Steven Sullivan]

wrote:
On Nov 15, 6:18 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Sonnova wrote:
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.
True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs sound better. Perhaps
its the removal of that brick-wall filter at 22.05 KHz that makes things
sound "better", I don't know. But something sure sounds better.

Oversampling isn't the same thing as upsampling.

It isn't? How?

Marketing. Upsampling as routinely advertised and employed, provides digital
output at the upsampled rate. Oversampling, as routinely employed, still
provides output at Redbook values.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Arny Krueger]

"Sonnova" wrote in message

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own
one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html


The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical
or electrical process can accurately recreate music that
isn't already present in the recording.

True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs
sound better.

.....Right up until you level-match, time-synch, use a really good resampler,
and start trying to control bias.

Perhaps its the removal of that brick-wall
filter at 22.05 KHz that makes things sound "better",

Similar means of comparison shows that a brick wall as low as 16 KHz can be
difficult or impossible to hear.

http://www.pcabx.com/technical/sample_rates/index.htm

I don't know.

Nobody knows because it never seems to actually happen.

But something sure sounds better.

Interesting that removing trivial audible cues and the power of suggestion
has such predictable effects.

I've
performed double-blind tests with my friends, and
everyone preferred the oversampling on my outboard D/A
converter turned on rather than turned off, could dteect
the difference almost every time and I concur.

Just addressing bias isn't enough. The level-match and time-synch thing is
very important.

I also
find that
44.1KHz digital upsampled to 88.2 KHz sounds better than
upsampling it to 96 KHz, but DAT (48 KHz digital) sounds
better upsampled to 96 KHz than it does upsampled to 88.2
KHz.

If there's an audible effect, then it speaks to the quality of the
resampling. I've definately seen resampling gone wrong. Resampling down
usuallly involves two stages of low-pass filtering, and that makes two
places where audio products can and have gone wrong. Upsampling involves at
least one stage of low-pass filtering, and while there's less chance for
error, it doesn't mean no chance for error.

I don't pretend to understand why. It must have
something to do with one upsampled rate being an exact
multiple of the original sampling rate of the disc/DAT
and the other not.

It is well-known that resampling involving integer multiples or integer
fractions has no special magic involved with it, no matter what naive
intuition tells some people.

[Sonnova]

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:30:09 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Sonnova" wrote in message

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own
one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html


The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical
or electrical process can accurately recreate music that
isn't already present in the recording.

True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs
sound better.

....Right up until you level-match, time-synch, use a really good resampler,
and start trying to control bias.

Perhaps its the removal of that brick-wall
filter at 22.05 KHz that makes things sound "better",

Similar means of comparison shows that a brick wall as low as 16 KHz can be
difficult or impossible to hear.

http://www.pcabx.com/technical/sample_rates/index.htm

I don't know.

Nobody knows because it never seems to actually happen.

But something sure sounds better.

Interesting that removing trivial audible cues and the power of suggestion
has such predictable effects.

I've
performed double-blind tests with my friends, and
everyone preferred the oversampling on my outboard D/A
converter turned on rather than turned off, could dteect
the difference almost every time and I concur.

Just addressing bias isn't enough. The level-match and time-synch thing is
very important.

I also
find that
44.1KHz digital upsampled to 88.2 KHz sounds better than
upsampling it to 96 KHz, but DAT (48 KHz digital) sounds
better upsampled to 96 KHz than it does upsampled to 88.2
KHz.

If there's an audible effect, then it speaks to the quality of the
resampling. I've definately seen resampling gone wrong. Resampling down
usuallly involves two stages of low-pass filtering, and that makes two
places where audio products can and have gone wrong. Upsampling involves at
least one stage of low-pass filtering, and while there's less chance for
error, it doesn't mean no chance for error.

I don't pretend to understand why. It must have
something to do with one upsampled rate being an exact
multiple of the original sampling rate of the disc/DAT
and the other not.

It is well-known that resampling involving integer multiples or integer
fractions has no special magic involved with it, no matter what naive
intuition tells some people.


Well observed criteria is at odds with your assessment. Like most people, I
tend to agree with people I trust and people who have made the same
observations that I have. In these cases, some pretty high-powered players in
both pro and consumer audio seem to agree with my observations as opposed to
your facts. Like I said. I'm not here to make enemies or to pontificate
(unlike some others that I have noticed). I am here to discuss the things in
audio that interest me.

[Arny Krueger]

"Sonnova" wrote in message

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:30:09 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Sonnova" wrote in message

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone
heard about this player, and better yet, auditioned
or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html


The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical
or electrical process can accurately recreate music
that isn't already present in the recording.

True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs
sound better.

....Right up until you level-match, time-synch, use a
really good resampler, and start trying to control bias.

Perhaps its the removal of that brick-wall
filter at 22.05 KHz that makes things sound "better",

Similar means of comparison shows that a brick wall as
low as 16 KHz can be difficult or impossible to hear.

http://www.pcabx.com/technical/sample_rates/index.htm

I don't know.

Nobody knows because it never seems to actually happen.

But something sure sounds better.

Interesting that removing trivial audible cues and the
power of suggestion has such predictable effects.

I've
performed double-blind tests with my friends, and
everyone preferred the oversampling on my outboard D/A
converter turned on rather than turned off, could dteect
the difference almost every time and I concur.

Just addressing bias isn't enough. The level-match and
time-synch thing is very important.

I also
find that
44.1KHz digital upsampled to 88.2 KHz sounds better than
upsampling it to 96 KHz, but DAT (48 KHz digital) sounds
better upsampled to 96 KHz than it does upsampled to
88.2 KHz.

If there's an audible effect, then it speaks to the
quality of the resampling. I've definately seen
resampling gone wrong. Resampling down usuallly
involves two stages of low-pass filtering, and that
makes two places where audio products can and have gone
wrong. Upsampling involves at least one stage of
low-pass filtering, and while there's less chance for
error, it doesn't mean no chance for error.

I don't pretend to understand why. It must have
something to do with one upsampled rate being an exact
multiple of the original sampling rate of the disc/DAT
and the other not.

It is well-known that resampling involving integer
multiples or integer fractions has no special magic
involved with it, no matter what naive intuition tells
some people.


Well observed criteria is at odds with your assessment.

You forgot to add that the observations that are at odds are highly flawed.

Like most people, I tend to agree with people I trust and
people who have made the same observations that I have.

I prefer to agree with reliable information. If someone is my friend and
they are wrong, then it would be a friendly thing for me to do, to help them
find the correct information out for themselves.

In these cases, some pretty high-powered players in both
pro and consumer audio seem to agree with my observations
as opposed to your facts.

Hardly anybody buys into the pseudo-science behind those overpriced,
oversold toys. Note that the SACD and DVD-A formats are slowly dying in the
marketplace.

Like I said. I'm not here to
make enemies or to pontificate (unlike some others that I
have noticed). I am here to discuss the things in audio
that interest me.

I prefer to discuss how the real world actually works and debunk, not
promote old wive's stories.

[[email protected]]

On Nov 14, 10:26 pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:11:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"DJ" wrote in message

It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.

True, but oversampling does tend to make Redbook CDs
sound better. Perhaps its the removal of that brick-wall filter
at 22.05 KHz that makes things sound "better"

Oversampling does NOT remove the 22.05 kHz brick-wall
filter. It is still required and still implemented in 44.1 kHz
CD players.

What oversampling provides is the ability to move most
of the implementation of that filter into the digital domain.

I don't know. But something sure sounds better. I've
performed double-blind tests with my friends, and
everyone preferred the oversampling on my outboard
D/A converter turned on rather than turned off,

Unless it's something unusual, I'd be willing to bet that
your outboard D/A, in fact, implements its reconstruction
filter using oversampling.

I also find that
44.1KHz digital upsampled to 88.2 KHz sounds better
than upsampling it to 96 KHz, but DAT (48 KHz digital)
sounds better upsampled to 96 KHz than it does
upsampled to 88.2 KHz. I don't pretend to understand why.

It's simple: if there are audible differences, they are
likely due to faulty upsampling and filtering implementation.

It must have
something to do with one upsampled rate being an exact multiple of the
original sampling rate of the disc/DAT and the other not.

Look, at least everywhere else in the world, these
are long-solved problems. It seems that only in high-
end audio is technical incompetence in product design
and implementation a desirable attribute.

[Codifus]

On Nov 14, 6:11 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"DJ" wrote in message



It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.

"MDAT is unlike anything the industry has seen, or heard, before. Here's
why: Rather than address the digital signal as a series of sine waves--as is
standard convention

This just isn't true. Standard convention is to address the digital signal
as a series of samples.

"--the MDAT-equipped CDSA SE processes (and upsamples CD audio to DSD for
conversion to analog) by dynamically adapting to the transient nature of the
musical signal.

In fact the basic nature of musical signals is exactly what they just said
they don't do. Musical signals are composed of a series of sine waves. Every
musical signal can be accurately analyzed and represented as a collection of
sine and cosine waves. CD players don't do that, but FFTs do. The human
ear, being largely composed of a collection of narrow-band filters, can also
be characterized as addressing the musical sound as being composed of a
series of sine waves.

In this way, the CDSA SE is utterly unique and singularly able to
preserve the phase, frequency and
dynamic integrity of the original signal.

In fact the best way to preserve the phase, frequency and dynamic integrity
of the original signal is to treat it as a series of samples, which is what
they already said that their product does not do.

Once you've heard this level of improvement in terms of resolution, nuance
and dynamic shading, there's no going back.

So where's their reliable bias-controlled lisetening test data that supports
this claim?

Doesn't all this assume perfect behavior of a D/A system? The main
reason that oversampling came about is to deal with the limitations or
flaws in the digital filtering process. Things like smearing and phase
issues. By oversampling, you're not re-creating, but rather improving
the phasing and smearing issue. It is well known that part of the
reason that 44.1/16 was "flawed" because the filter digital filter
that needs to be applied should have so steep a curve which tends to
cause unwanted, audibly unpleasant artifacts.

I know that this does not apply to this device because its a DSD based
system, but surely the same philosophy applies, in that digital
circuits are not perfect and over sampling would somehow help to
better re-create the analog signal. The issue is to deliver more
accurately.

With this recently introduced Consonance Linear 120 player, it boasts
no over-sampling and no digital filter. It's well received by several
reviewers. Here's a link to the theory behind the digital filterless
DAC;

http://www.sakurasystems.com/articles/Kusunoki.html

I find this player very fascinating because it goes a whole new way
about extracting digital audio data. My guess is that to go the route
of making a digital filterless DAC, you have to build all the
associated components, the opamps and clocks and ICs to a
fantastically high, and expensive, standard. In other words, to deal
with imperfect components in the DAC chain, they got rid of the
digital filter and made them remaining components to much more
stringent standards. This comes at a price, of course. If there ever
comes a time when gold plated, silver deposited, 1 u meter ICs became
cheap, this technology may find its way to the lower end consumer
audio market like that $50 Walmart CD player.

All these implementations of D to A address the simple fact that
nothing's perfrect. Remember the 1st, basic electronic lessons, where
a resistors are not ideal? They have some capacitance. Capacitors have
resistance, etc. So DACs, made of of these imperfect electronic
components, have imprefections of their own. Yes, electrical engineers
do design their circuits to compensate for the imperfections, but
there's always a compromise. Nothing is ideal.

So, nothing's perfect, but its getting much much better all the time

CD

[Arny Krueger]

"codifus" wrote in message

On Nov 14, 6:11 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"DJ" wrote in message



It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own
one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical
or electrical process can accurately recreate music that
isn't already present in the recording.

"MDAT is unlike anything the industry has seen, or
heard, before. Here's why: Rather than address the
digital signal as a series of sine waves--as is standard
convention

This just isn't true. Standard convention is to address
the digital signal as a series of samples.

"--the MDAT-equipped CDSA SE processes (and upsamples CD
audio to DSD for conversion to analog) by dynamically
adapting to the transient nature of the musical signal.

In fact the basic nature of musical signals is exactly
what they just said they don't do. Musical signals are
composed of a series of sine waves. Every musical signal
can be accurately analyzed and represented as a
collection of sine and cosine waves. CD players don't do
that, but FFTs do. The human ear, being largely
composed of a collection of narrow-band filters, can
also be characterized as addressing the musical sound as
being composed of a series of sine waves.

In this way, the CDSA SE is utterly unique and
singularly able to preserve the phase, frequency and
dynamic integrity of the original signal.

In fact the best way to preserve the phase, frequency
and dynamic integrity of the original signal is to
treat it as a series of samples, which is what they
already said that their product does not do.

Once you've heard this level of improvement in terms of
resolution, nuance and dynamic shading, there's no
going back.

So where's their reliable bias-controlled lisetening
test data that supports this claim?

Doesn't all this assume perfect behavior of a D/A system?

Perfection is not required. Contrary to some people's misapprehensions,
0.001% and 110 dB dynamic range has no audible impact on musical signals.

The main reason that oversampling came about is to deal
with the limitations or flaws in the digital filtering
process.

So, they are dealt with effectively, and have no audible effects. Next!

Things like smearing and phase issues. By
oversampling, you're not re-creating, but rather
improving the phasing and smearing issue.

You can't remove the damage that was already done. You can't re-invent data
that was lost. Furthermore, the damage and lost data don't cause any audible
problems.

It is well
known that part of the reason that 44.1/16 was "flawed"
because the filter digital filter that needs to be
applied should have so steep a curve which tends to cause
unwanted, audibly unpleasant artifacts.

Just because something isn't perfect, doesn't mean that it is the weakest
link.

All this obsession with converters, which are already highly perfected,
distracts people's attention from the weakest links which are rooms,
speakers and microphones.

[[email protected]]

On Nov 15, 6:29 pm, codifus wrote:
On Nov 14, 6:11 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:



"DJ" wrote in message



It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.

"MDAT is unlike anything the industry has seen, or heard, before. Here's
why: Rather than address the digital signal as a series of sine waves--as is
standard convention

This just isn't true. Standard convention is to address the digital signal
as a series of samples.

"--the MDAT-equipped CDSA SE processes (and upsamples CD audio to DSD for
conversion to analog) by dynamically adapting to the transient nature of the
musical signal.

In fact the basic nature of musical signals is exactly what they just said
they don't do. Musical signals are composed of a series of sine waves. Every
musical signal can be accurately analyzed and represented as a collection of
sine and cosine waves. CD players don't do that, but FFTs do. The human
ear, being largely composed of a collection of narrow-band filters, can also
be characterized as addressing the musical sound as being composed of a
series of sine waves.

In this way, the CDSA SE is utterly unique and singularly able to
preserve the phase, frequency and
dynamic integrity of the original signal.

In fact the best way to preserve the phase, frequency and dynamic integrity
of the original signal is to treat it as a series of samples, which is what
they already said that their product does not do.

Once you've heard this level of improvement in terms of resolution, nuance
and dynamic shading, there's no going back.

So where's their reliable bias-controlled lisetening test data that supports
this claim?

Doesn't all this assume perfect behavior of a D/A system?

Given the known fundamental resolution of the human
auditory periphery, "perfect" is simply irrelevant. "Practically
perfect" is achievable.

The main
reason that oversampling came about is to deal with the limitations or
flaws in the digital filtering process.

Wrong.

The reason why oversampling was implemented (and it was
implemented long before a lot of people here seem to think
it was), was to be able to move the anti-imaging process
out of the analog domain, where the implementations were
not so much "flawedd" in some vague sense, but expensive
and difficult to implement in any repeatable fashion using
conventional analog topologies, into the digital domain where
a number of rather significant constraints were relaxed.

Things like smearing and phase
issues. By oversampling, you're not re-creating, but rather improving
the phasing and smearing issue.

Huh?

It is well known that part of the
reason that 44.1/16 was "flawed" because the filter digital filter
that needs to be applied should have so steep a curve which tends to
cause unwanted, audibly unpleasant artifacts.

"It is well known" by whom? Yes, a lot of things are "well
known" in the high-end audio realm, and many of those
"well-known" things are wrong.

Let's please set the record straight. An oversampling
reconstruction/anti-imaging filter in a D/A converter
MUST have a brick-wall low-pass cutoff at below half
the original sample rate, whether it's implemented
as a pile of expensive resistors, inductors and capacitors
or whether it's implemented as an oversampled filter.
The cutoff MUST be below 22 kHz and it MUST be essentially
a brick-wall filter.

What an oversampled filter lets you do is push the majority
of that filtering to the digital domain, where you have many
more degrees of freedom in your design.

Oversampled filters work thusly: Take you incoming
stream, at 44.1 kHz. By itself, it contains the base-band
audio from 0-22 Khz, an image from 44 to 22 kHz,
an image form 44 to 66 kHz and so on. You HAVE to
get rid of all of those images, thus the requirement
for the brick wall filter.

When you oversample, let's say by 8x (to make the math
easy), now you have your original 0-22 kHz base band
signal in a new base band from 0-176 kHz, an image
384-176, another image from 384-528 kHz and so on.

Now, instead of trying to implement some wildly difficult
analog filter at 20 kHz, you can implement a nice, really-
steep, near brick-wall, linear phase (if you want), low
delay (if you want) or whatever, completely in the digital
domain: your cutoiff frequency is tree octaves below the
Nyquist point, so your artifacts are miminal, and all you
have to do when your done is have an external, gentle,
simple (and, thus, cheap) analog filter sufficient to
remove artifacts at 176 kHz and above.

And, you should note, the MAJOR portion of the cost
of implementing a brick-wall filter in the analog domain
is in the cost of the parts and assembly, thus substantially
raising the per-unit cost of players. The per-unit cost
of an oversampled filter is essentially zero: you probably
already have all the silicon you need anyway.

With this recently introduced Consonance Linear 120 player, it boasts
no over-sampling and no digital filter. It's well received by several
reviewers. Here's a link to the theory behind the digital filterless
DAC;

http://www.sakurasystems.com/articles/Kusunoki.html

This was soundly rejected by the rest of the signal
processing world decades ago. Only in high-end audio
does this sort of patent nonsense not only survive but thrive.

I find this player very fascinating because it goes a whole new way
about extracting digital audio data. My guess is that to go the route
of making a digital filterless DAC, you have to build all the
associated components, the opamps and clocks and ICs to a
fantastically high, and expensive, standard.

Nope, what you have to do is spend a lot of money
on replacement tweeters and output devices, because
ALL of those images are being sent raw out to your
amplifier and tweter.

Such designs are the result of one of two possibilities:

1. Technical ignorance and incompetence on the part of
the product designer,

2. The hope on the part of the product designer of technical
ignorance on the part of the consumer base

In other words, to deal
with imperfect components in the DAC chain, they got rid of the
digital filter and made them remaining components to much more
stringent standards.

No, it's simply a lack of fundamental understanding of
the most basic principles of signals and circuits.

This comes at a price, of course. If there ever
comes a time when gold plated, silver deposited,
1 u meter ICs became cheap, this technology may
find its way to the lower end consumer
audio market like that $50 Walmart CD player.

You wanna take the bet?

I'll bet good money that in 5 years, this "technology", if
you can call it that, will not make it at all out of the
boutique high-end audio-as-jewelry marketplace. In
fact, I'll bet that it will die the type of obscure ignoble
death uniquely reserved for this sort of gross technical
incompetence and negligence .

[Sonnova]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:06:44 -0800, wrote
(in article ):

On Nov 15, 6:29 pm, codifus wrote:
On Nov 14, 6:11 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:



"DJ" wrote in message



It's supposed to upsample CDs to SACD. Has anyone heard
about this player, and better yet, auditioned or own one?

Reference -
http://www.emmlabs.com/html/audio/cdsa/cdsa.html

The basic premise is ludicrously flawed. No mechanical or electrical
process can accurately recreate music that isn't already present in the
recording.

"MDAT is unlike anything the industry has seen, or heard, before. Here's
why: Rather than address the digital signal as a series of sine waves--as
is
standard convention

This just isn't true. Standard convention is to address the digital signal
as a series of samples.

"--the MDAT-equipped CDSA SE processes (and upsamples CD audio to DSD for
conversion to analog) by dynamically adapting to the transient nature of
the
musical signal.

In fact the basic nature of musical signals is exactly what they just said
they don't do. Musical signals are composed of a series of sine waves.
Every
musical signal can be accurately analyzed and represented as a collection
of
sine and cosine waves. CD players don't do that, but FFTs do. The human
ear, being largely composed of a collection of narrow-band filters, can
also
be characterized as addressing the musical sound as being composed of a
series of sine waves.

In this way, the CDSA SE is utterly unique and singularly able to
preserve the phase, frequency and
dynamic integrity of the original signal.

In fact the best way to preserve the phase, frequency and dynamic
integrity
of the original signal is to treat it as a series of samples, which is what
they already said that their product does not do.

Once you've heard this level of improvement in terms of resolution, nuance
and dynamic shading, there's no going back.

So where's their reliable bias-controlled lisetening test data that
supports
this claim?

Doesn't all this assume perfect behavior of a D/A system?

Given the known fundamental resolution of the human
auditory periphery, "perfect" is simply irrelevant. "Practically
perfect" is achievable.

Seems to me that the question of "perfection" is mostly irrelevant here. The
human auditory sense notwithstanding, most people can instantly tell the
difference between "live" music (with no sound reinforcement) and canned, no
matter how well recorded or how well played back. If we assume that the goal
here is to recreate, in the home, the sound of live music, then it would seem
to me that "accuracy" in and of itself is irrelevant. What is relevant is
whatever path to that goal achieves the most palpable results. Many people
feel that a well recorded, well mastered LP conveys to the listener, more of
the psychological impact of live music than does a CD or any other digital
medium. If this is, indeed the case, (and say what you will, but for lots of
people this is true) then obviously "accuracy" is not that important. LP, as
a music storage medium, is fraught with flaws both electrical and mechanical
as we all know. An LP has lots more of all kinds of distortions than any
viable, modern digital medium, yet many people feel more "viscerally
connected" to the music from a LP than they do with a CD. Again, I don't
pretend to know why, maybe its familiarity to these people (you know like the
aural equivalent of "comfort food"), maybe LP distortions fabricate something
that occurs in real space that defies actual capture by today's
high-resolution recording systems (which seems unlikely). And, of course, we
must never discount the possibility that the "better" LP sound is a figment
of the listener's imagination. If the latter is so, then it too is relevant
because it brings the emotional content of the performance closer to the
listener. If you take that component away, then music just becomes an
exercise in mathematics.

[Arny Krueger]

"Sonnova" wrote in message


Seems to me that the question of "perfection" is mostly
irrelevant here.

Since perfection does not exist in the real world, the question of
perfection in the real world is always irrelevant.

The human auditory sense
notwithstanding, most people can instantly tell the
difference between "live" music (with no sound
reinforcement) and canned, no matter how well recorded or
how well played back.

Canning music is a journey of many steps. Just because the journey to
complete and total realistic reproduction is incomplete at this time, does
not prove that each and every one of the steps is flawed.

If we assume that the goal here is
to recreate, in the home, the sound of live music, then
it would seem to me that "accuracy" in and of itself is
irrelevant.

Since reproduction is a journey of many steps, each step can potentially be
analyzed for accuracy. Since the steps are different the means of analysis
may well be different.

What is relevant is whatever path to that
goal achieves the most palpable results.

Well, words have meanings. Here are some generally-accepted meanings of the
word palpable, from the online Merrium-Webster dictionary:

1 : capable of being touched or felt : tangible
2 : easily perceptible : noticeable a palpable difference
3 : easily perceptible by the mind : manifest

It would appear that the word palpable can be applied to any musical
reproduction that at least middling in quality.

Many people
feel that a well recorded, well mastered LP conveys to
the listener, more of the psychological impact of live
music than does a CD or any other digital medium.

Many is a very vague word. Therefore it is pretty much without meaning.

In fact about 99% of all music lovers have abandoned the LP. Only a tiny
noisy minority bother with it any more. A lot of recent LP sales were
related to "scratching" in dance clubs. Since digital means for simulating
scratching have become readily available, LP sales dropped by about another
1/3 per RIAA statistics.

[[email protected]]

On Nov 17, 5:35 pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:06:44 -0800, wrote
Doesn't all this assume perfect behavior of a D/A system?

Given the known fundamental resolution of the human
auditory periphery, "perfect" is simply irrelevant. "Practically
perfect" is achievable.

Seems to me that the question of "perfection" is mostly
irrelevant here.

Exactly.

The human auditory sense notwithstanding,

Uhm, last time anyone checked, the human auditory
PERIPHERY (please do not change the words: they
have a very specific and well-understood meaning)
is very germaine to the topic.

most people can instantly tell the difference between
"live" music (with no sound reinforcement) and canned,

Yes, and the reason has absolutely NOTHING to do with
the current discussion.

No commercially available sound reproduction system
comes even remotely close to being able to duplicating
the sound field present in a live venue. Whether the D/A
is "perfect" in a theoretical sense or practical sense,
you've solved 1%, maybe, of the difference between a live
and reproduced image of a live event. The remaining
99% is unsolved.

Many people feel that a well recorded, well mastered
LP conveys to the listener, more of the psychological
impact of live music than does a CD or any other digital
medium.

And, for LOTS of people, it does not.

If this is, indeed the case, (and say what you will, but
for lots of people this is true)

Say what YOU will, for lots is does not.

then obviously "accuracy" is not that important.

You bandy about the term "accuracy" as if it has a
universally agreed-upon definition. Tell me, why
would not one such definition be "fidelity to the
original listening experience?"

Whether one assigns the word "accuracy" to that
or not, whether it's LP or CD or Edison cylinder,
EVERYTHING falls FAR short of that goal. At which
which time, it becomes more an issue of a personal
preference of which bad reproduction is most preferable.

Be that all as it may, you have used the thread as a means
of launching into an irrelevant discussion. If you want to
about LP vs CD, go start yet another pointless, interminable
and unresolved thread on that topic and have at it.

The immediate point is that in THIS particular thread, a
number of specific technical assertions have been made,
many of them are just simply wrong, culminating to the
reference to the Consonance Linear 120, which is an
unfortunate but all-to-real existence proof of the high-end
audio worlds ability to sell total pig sh*t as caviar.