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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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 |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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. |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
"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? |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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. |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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 |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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. |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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)? |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
"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. |
#10
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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. |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
"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. |
#12
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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. |
#13
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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 |
#14
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
"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. |
#15
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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 . |
#16
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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. |
#17
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
"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. |
#18
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Any impressions on the EMM Labs CDSA-SE CD/SACD player?
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. |
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