[Charles Packer]

I saw an article in the NY Times about
computer-to-stereo interfaces that bypass
the computer's audio card by taking the
digital signal from the USB port through
their own DAC. Prices start at a couple
of hundred dollars. Assuming I can route
a streaming radio station that uses
128Kbps through the USB port somehow,
would the audio quality of a typical
streaming radio site be improved by one
of these interfaces?

--
Charles Packer
http://cpacker.org/whatnews
mailboxATcpacker.org

[Don Pearce]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:14:13 -0700, Charles Packer
wrote:

I saw an article in the NY Times about
computer-to-stereo interfaces that bypass
the computer's audio card by taking the
digital signal from the USB port through
their own DAC. Prices start at a couple
of hundred dollars. Assuming I can route
a streaming radio station that uses
128Kbps through the USB port somehow,
would the audio quality of a typical
streaming radio site be improved by one
of these interfaces?

Absolutely not. The quality (or lack thereof) was set by the radio
station when they compressed to 128kbits/sec. In fact I can't think of
any digital audio source that wouldn't be reproduced at max quality by
any halfway decent sound card. I wouldn't bother with the digital
interface.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

[Arny Krueger]

"Charles Packer" wrote in message
oups.com...

I saw an article in the NY Times

Dated when?

about
computer-to-stereo interfaces that bypass
the computer's audio card by taking the
digital signal from the USB port through
their own DAC.

They exist.

Prices start at a couple of hundred dollars.

No, they start at $29.95, or less.

Assuming I can route
a streaming radio station that uses
128Kbps through the USB port somehow,
would the audio quality of a typical
streaming radio site be improved by one
of these interfaces?

Probably not to any great degree. Depends on how what your computer's
existing audio is like. Ten years ago, on-board computer audio often sucked
royally. Things have improved since then. The current generation of on-board
audio interfaces are good enough to tell the difference between good MP3 and
mediocre MP3.

[Dave Platt]

I saw an article in the NY Times about
computer-to-stereo interfaces that bypass
the computer's audio card by taking the
digital signal from the USB port through
their own DAC. Prices start at a couple
of hundred dollars. Assuming I can route
a streaming radio station that uses
128Kbps through the USB port somehow,
would the audio quality of a typical
streaming radio site be improved by one
of these interfaces?

I think that depends on the computer sound card, and on the streaming
radio station.

Some computer sound cards are very good indeed. Even some of the
on-the-motherboard interfaces are quite good. On the other hand,
there are others (both separate cards, and integrated) which are
pretty lousy. If your computer has one of the latter, a high-quality
outboard (USB) card might be worthwhile. If you have the former it'd
probably be a waste of money.

If the station is streaming MP3 at 128kb... well, you aren't going to
be getting CD quality at that rate no matter what card you use.

If your stereo system has an optical (TOSLINK) or coaxial digital
input, you might consider using a sound card which has that style of
digital-audio output. This would let you use the DAC in your A/V
receiver.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

[Richard Crowley]

"Charles Packer" wrote ...
I saw an article in the NY Times about
computer-to-stereo interfaces that bypass
the computer's audio card by taking the
digital signal from the USB port through
their own DAC. Prices start at a couple
of hundred dollars. Assuming I can route
a streaming radio station that uses
128Kbps through the USB port somehow,
would the audio quality of a typical
streaming radio site be improved by one
of these interfaces?

Extraordinarly unlikely. The music was mangled at
the "radio station"s end and there is nothing you can
do to restore it at your end.

PS: The NYT is not a source of credible technical
news (or any other news for that matter).

[bob]

On Oct 29, 11:25 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Charles Packer" wrote in message

oups.com...

I saw an article in the NY Times

Dated when?

Last Thursday. The article, "Digital Music to Please Even the Snobs,"
by Lawrence M. Fisher was a font of audiophoolery. Sample:

"PC sound cuts the high and low frequencies. And because a single chip
on the motherboard has to handle all the digital and analog chores of
converting bits into Beethoven, the noise generated by the computer's
own circuitry is also reproduced....A U.S.B.-DAC provides
substantially better sound by taking this task outside the computer,
where the only limitations on sound quality are your willingness to
spend (and the limitations inherent in digital audio itself, which we
need not go into here)."

Needless to say, he liked the $1750 USB DAC better than the $200 USB
DAC (or the Benchmark!). But he admitted that he was partial to tubes,
which the $1750 model had. YMMV.

about
computer-to-stereo interfaces that bypass
the computer's audio card by taking the
digital signal from the USB port through
their own DAC.

They exist.

Prices start at a couple of hundred dollars.

No, they start at $29.95, or less.

Agreed.

bob

[Eeyore]

bob wrote:

"Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Charles Packer" wrote in message

I saw an article in the NY Times

Dated when?

Last Thursday. The article, "Digital Music to Please Even the Snobs,"
by Lawrence M. Fisher was a font of audiophoolery. Sample:

"PC sound cuts the high and low frequencies.

The author illustrated his total ignorance right there.

No need to read any more.

Graham

[Eeyore]

bob wrote:

Needless to say, he liked the $1750 USB DAC better than the $200 USB
DAC (or the Benchmark!). But he admitted that he was partial to tubes,
which the $1750 model had. YMMV.

Tubes simply add a litle distortion, which he apparently likes. Mostly they are
a marketing gimick though which I expect he also likes.

Graham

[Arny Krueger]

"bob" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 29, 11:25 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Charles Packer" wrote in message

oups.com...

I saw an article in the NY Times

Dated when?

Last Thursday. The article, "Digital Music to Please Even the Snobs,"
by Lawrence M. Fisher was a font of audiophoolery.

Agreed and thank you! Here's the URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/te...ts&oref=slogin

Needless to say, the author was a vinylista. :-(

Sample:

"PC sound cuts the high and low frequencies. And because a single chip
on the motherboard has to handle all the digital and analog chores of
converting bits into Beethoven, the noise generated by the computer's
own circuitry is also reproduced....A U.S.B.-DAC provides
substantially better sound by taking this task outside the computer,
where the only limitations on sound quality are your willingness to
spend (and the limitations inherent in digital audio itself, which we
need not go into here)."

Needless to say, he liked the $1750 USB DAC better than the $200 USB
DAC (or the Benchmark!). But he admitted that he was partial to tubes,
which the $1750 model had. YMMV.

Well the $1750 Wavelength DAC had a 12AX7, which I guess means that it is
tubed. Personally, I think that the FTC should force all who sell "tubed
DACs" to follow the title quite literally - no SS components of any kind
allowed.

about
computer-to-stereo interfaces that bypass
the computer's audio card by taking the
digital signal from the USB port through
their own DAC.

They exist.

Prices start at a couple of hundred dollars.

No, they start at $29.95, or less.

Agreed.

Far be it from a NYT author to be constrained by any kind of understanding
of the relevant facts.

[Charles Packer]

On Oct 29, 1:01 pm, (Dave Platt) wrote:
If the station is streaming MP3 at 128kb... well, you aren't going to
be getting CD quality at that rate no matter what card you use.

The radio station in question doesn't make any claim about the quality
of its 128Kb feed. On the other hand, the site for the Naxos label
music library claims that its 128Kb subscriptiion option is "CD
quality," and its 64Kb is "near CD quality." Not that I ever believed
it (I even chose the 64Kb option), but it would be nice to see an
authoritative summary of Kbps vs aural quality. A little poking about
in Wikipedia didn't turn up anything useful.

--
Charles Packer
http://cpacker.org/whatnews
mailboxATcpacker.org

[Serge Auckland]

"Charles Packer" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 29, 1:01 pm, (Dave Platt) wrote:
If the station is streaming MP3 at 128kb... well, you aren't going to
be getting CD quality at that rate no matter what card you use.

The radio station in question doesn't make any claim about the quality
of its 128Kb feed. On the other hand, the site for the Naxos label
music library claims that its 128Kb subscriptiion option is "CD
quality," and its 64Kb is "near CD quality." Not that I ever believed
it (I even chose the 64Kb option), but it would be nice to see an
authoritative summary of Kbps vs aural quality. A little poking about
in Wikipedia didn't turn up anything useful.

--
Charles Packer
http://cpacker.org/whatnews
mailboxATcpacker.org


Try looking on http://www.codingtechnologies.com/products/aacPlus.htm

There's also a link on there to EBU listening tests.

S.

--
http://audiopages.googlepages.com

[Richard Crowley]

"Charles Packer" wrote ...
The radio station in question doesn't make any claim about the quality
of its 128Kb feed. On the other hand, the site for the Naxos label
music library claims that its 128Kb subscriptiion option is "CD
quality," and its 64Kb is "near CD quality." Not that I ever believed
it (I even chose the 64Kb option),

Saying something is "CD quality" doesn't make it so.
And I'm very surprised to see someone like Naxos
saying something like that. It makes me immediately
lower my opinion of either their technical competence,
or their marketing integrity. (Assuming they have either
left?)

but it would be nice to see an
authoritative summary of Kbps vs aural quality. A little poking about
in Wikipedia didn't turn up anything useful.

Last time I remember this discussion (perhaps in rec.audio.pro?)
I though the consensus was that 320KBPS was reasonably close
to "CD quality" although no lossy compression is technically
equivalent to CDs, particularly the "perceptually encoded" flavors.

[Eeyore]

Charles Packer wrote:

(Dave Platt) wrote:
If the station is streaming MP3 at 128kb... well, you aren't going to
be getting CD quality at that rate no matter what card you use.

The radio station in question doesn't make any claim about the quality
of its 128Kb feed. On the other hand, the site for the Naxos label
music library claims that its 128Kb subscriptiion option is "CD
quality," and its 64Kb is "near CD quality."

Utter nonsense. CD quality is 1411kbps uncompressed audio.


Not that I ever believed
it (I even chose the 64Kb option), but it would be nice to see an
authoritative summary of Kbps vs aural quality. A little poking about
in Wikipedia didn't turn up anything useful.

All sub-band codec methods (of which mp3 is merely one example) lose
information. That's *how they work*.

Graham

[Peter Larsen[_2_]]

Richard Crowley wrote:

Saying something is "CD quality" doesn't make it so.

Whenever people say "CD quality sound" it is a warning label, unfortunately,
equally unfortutely "digitally remastered" is rapidly becoming one.


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Ethan Winer]

The author illustrated his total ignorance right there.

No kidding.

I've had some correspondence with one of their senior editors about that
article. I was so irritated that a newspaper, which is supposed to be about
fact, would print such nonsense that I wrote the publisher. If anyone cares
I'll be glad to repeat here what I wrote.

--Ethan

[Richard Crowley]

"Ethan Winer" wrote ...
The author illustrated his total ignorance right there.

No kidding.

I've had some correspondence with one of their senior editors about that
article. I was so irritated that a newspaper, which is supposed to be
about fact, would print such nonsense that I wrote the publisher. If
anyone cares I'll be glad to repeat here what I wrote.

Give up. You're beating a dead horse.
Find something productive to do with your time.
The NYT is way beyond reasonable hope.

[Charles Packer]

On Oct 30, 2:11 pm, "Ethan Winer" ethanw at ethanwiner dot com
wrote:
The author illustrated his total ignorance right there.

No kidding.

I've had some correspondence with one of their senior editors about that
article. I was so irritated that a newspaper, which is supposed to be about
fact, would print such nonsense that I wrote the publisher. If anyone cares
I'll be glad to repeat here what I wrote.

Sure, I'm interested. Also in what they said, if they replied.
I didn't realize there would be that much attention here paid to a NYT
article -- positive or negative.

Incidentally, I couldn't figure out what the author meant in his
installation
instructions when he said "disable alert beeps or set them to go
through
the internal speakers." I would like to know how to do that in Windows
XP.

--
Charles Packer
http://cpacker.org/whatnews
mailboxATcpacker.org

[Richard Crowley]

"Charles Packer" wrote ...
On Oct 30, 2:11 pm, "Ethan Winer" ethanw at ethanwiner dot com
wrote:
The author illustrated his total ignorance right there.

No kidding.

I've had some correspondence with one of their senior editors about
that
article. I was so irritated that a newspaper, which is supposed to be
about
fact, would print such nonsense that I wrote the publisher. If anyone
cares
I'll be glad to repeat here what I wrote.

Sure, I'm interested. Also in what they said, if they replied.
I didn't realize there would be that much attention here paid to a NYT
article -- positive or negative.

Indeed, the remarkable part is that anybody cares what
the NYT writes about anything.

Incidentally, I couldn't figure out what the author meant
in his installation instructions when he said "disable alert
beeps or set them to go through the internal speakers."
I would like to know how to do that in Windows XP.

1. Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices -
Sounds Tab - Sound Scheme: "No Sounds"

2. Some sound drivers actually give the user control over
routing the OS sounds separately from the main audio.

[Ethan Winer]

Charles,

Sure, I'm interested. Also in what they said, if they replied.

The entire exchange is below.

"disable alert beeps or set them to go through the internal speakers."

Richard already gave you the right steps. It's REALLY annoying when you're
playing music loudly and Windows beeps and clucks all the time. In fact,
it's really annoying period. :-)

--Ethan

=========================

Hi,

I have always considered The New York Times one of the best sources for The
Truth. Yet in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/te.../25basics.html

I see much pseudoscience and uninformed opinion passed off as fact. This is
not the first time I have seen audiophile nonsense in The NY Times. It's
particularly distressing to me because this article is in a section called
Technology. I would like to gently suggest that you connect with real audio
engineers and audio scientists, and have all future audio-related articles
fact-checked for accuracy.

Please let me know if you need further clarification on the specific
misinformation in the above article.

Thanks.

Ethan Winer
34 Cedar Vale Drive
New Milford, CT 06776
860-350-8188

------------------------

Dear Mr. Winer:

We check out all queries on possible errors and publish corrections when we
have indeed erred. You did not include any specific facts that you think
are incorrect.

If you would like to send those, we will certainly check them out.

Best regards,

Greg Brock
Senior Editor

------------------------

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the reply. I didn't include specifics because I wanted to keep my
email short and to the point, and I wasn't sure if anyone would even read it
or reply. I'll be glad to elaborate.

There is a lot of pseudoscience among audiophiles, with the "believers"
claiming they can hear things that science has not yet learned how to
measure. The "meter readers" on the other side insist that audio science is
fully understood, and the believers are just fooling themselves and don't
understand how frail human hearing really is. Articles like the one at hand
perpetuate belief-based myths such as LP records are superior to CDs, tube
circuits are better than solid state, and outboard D/A converters are worth
paying extra for - especially if they have tubes!

My specific objections are to the following statements because they are pure
(uninformed) opinion offered as fact, but with no evidence:

"PCs and iPods are essentially the same thing, but we
are talking about music for audiophiles here. If they
tried running the audio output of a computer into their
sound system, even on the most expensive sound
system, they would be sorely disappointed. PC sound
cuts the high and low frequencies."

I am a professional recording engineer and audiophile, with two state of the
art audio systems, and both are computer-based. The above statement is
nonsense, especially that "PC sound" cuts out any frequencies. Oh really?
Which frequencies? How much are they cut out?

"and the limitations inherent in digital audio itself, which
we need not go into here"

There are no inherent limitations to digital audio. Again, more bunk. Of
course he won't go into that here, because he doesn't have a leg to stand
on. Digital beats analog in every way one could possibly assess audio
quality. And that can be backed up easily with fact.

"Music reproduced through the Stereo-Link had dynamic
range, clarity and a pleasing smoothness utterly lacking in
the direct audio output of my computer."

Perhaps his computer is defective or outright broken? His statements would
have a lot more weight if he gave specific details rather than subjective
opinion. What is the noise floor of his computer's sound card (in decibels)
and by how much did it improve with the outboard DAC? Ditto for frequency
response and distortion. Numbers are what matter here, and anything else is
pure fantasy and/or expectation bias.

"Did it [$1,275 Benchmark DAC1] sound better than the
much less expensive Stereo-Link? Yes, definitely."

Again, numbers please.

Greg, I don't know how deeply you want to get into this stuff, and I am not
here to promote myself. But this article from Skeptic Magazine explains in
detail what matters with audio, what does not matter, and why:

http://www.ethanwiner.com/audiophoolery.html

This next ground-breaking article (IMO) uses science fact to explain why
people sometimes believe they hear a change in the sound when they swap
cables or other components, even when no change is possible:

http://www.ethanwiner.com/believe.html

I understand that the Times is not an audio publication, but from my
perspective this is a consumer issue more than anything else. Perhaps you
should occasionally run articles in your Technology section that address
audio matters from the perspective of consumers - in this case what is worth
paying more for and what is not.

Thanks for listening.

--Ethan

[bob]

On Oct 31, 9:51 am, "Ethan Winer" ethanw at ethanwiner dot com
wrote:

I understand that the Times is not an audio publication, but from my
perspective this is a consumer issue more than anything else. Perhaps you
should occasionally run articles in your Technology section that address
audio matters from the perspective of consumers - in this case what is worth
paying more for and what is not.

Kudos to Ethan for taking the time to do this. The basic problem is
that newspapers are generalist publications, and newspaper editors
have to be generalists, too. So when a snake-oil publicist like
Lawrence Fisher pitches a story idea, the editor isn't likely to know
that he's a phony. (After all, he's got lots of clips.) Yes, he's the
Science Editor, but there's no way he can know about every crackpot
"scientific" theory out there. Plus, audio matters don't affect the
future health of the planet, so they just don't get priority
attention.

Anyway, he needs a little education. Good for Ethan for providing
some.

bob

[Richard Crowley]

"bob" wrote ...
"Ethan Winer" wrote:
I understand that the Times is not an audio publication, but from my
perspective this is a consumer issue more than anything else. Perhaps you
should occasionally run articles in your Technology section that address
audio matters from the perspective of consumers - in this case what is
worth
paying more for and what is not.

Kudos to Ethan for taking the time to do this. The basic problem is
that newspapers are generalist publications, and newspaper editors
have to be generalists, too. So when a snake-oil publicist like
Lawrence Fisher pitches a story idea, the editor isn't likely to know
that he's a phony. (After all, he's got lots of clips.) Yes, he's the
Science Editor, but there's no way he can know about every crackpot
"scientific" theory out there. Plus, audio matters don't affect the
future health of the planet, so they just don't get priority
attention.

The NYT haven't shown themselves any more capable of
handling stores that really DO affect the future health of the
planet. They should just sell the paper as fish-wrapper and
birdcage-liner and save the ink for more productive uses.

[Ethan Winer]

Thanks Bob. If I don't do it, who will? :-)