Saturday 30 May 2020

BLIND TEST RESULTS Part I: "Is high Harmonic Distortion in music audible?" Procedures & Settings


As you perhaps know, over the years, there have been a number of blind tests conducted here on the blog - "Does high bitrate MP3 sound different from lossess FLAC?", "Does 24-bit sound different from 16-bit?", "Audible difference between linear vs. minimum phase filter?", "Do digital audio players sound different playing 16/44 music?" - for a sampling over the last while...

The question this time being posed is whether harmonic distortions are audible in music, and if so, perhaps through this test, we might be able to get a sense of the level of audibility. Remember that this is a complex question... It's not just "YES" or "NO" because it can depend on the AMOUNT of distortion in question. Furthermore, we can look at ODD vs. EVEN distortions. There are also questions around HIGH vs. LOW order amounts contributing to audibility.

Tuesday 19 May 2020

MUSINGS/MEASUREMENTS: Netgear Nighthawk S8000 (and audiophile ethernet switches)

Netgear Nighthawk S8000 GS808ES (~US$95).
Over the years, as "Distributed Computer Audio" setups have became the main music playback mechanism for many of us, audiophile companies have released various products supposedly to enhance each component in the computer system.

Last week, we talked about an expensive audiophile server computer for example. As you know, over the years, USB cables, hub-like "regenerators", "filters" and "reclockers" have been released by companies. "Audiophile" ethernet cables likewise have been on the market for many years now.

I suppose it was just a matter of time that ethernet switches became a target for the small audiophile cottage industry with products like the SOtM sNH-10G (US$800), JCAT M12 Gold Switch (€4165) and less expensive M12 Magic (€2550), UpTone EtherREGEN (US$640), Paul Pang modified switch (€279) based on D-Link DGS-108 (US$30), AQVOX SE Switch (US$950) also based on D-Link DGS-108 I think, Crux Audio Silent Angel Bonn N8 (US$399), Fidelizer Etherstream (US$395) based on Cisco SG110D-08 (<US$50), Melco S100 (£1999), Linear Solution OCXO Audiophile Switch 2.0 (?US$500) that looks like it's based on TP-Link TL-SG108 (~US$20), expensive line of Ansuz PowerSwitches among a few other options.

Saturday 9 May 2020

MUSINGS: Windows Server 2019 update, RSC performance issues with Aquantia 10GbE AQC107, and expensive audiophile server computers (like the Wolf Audio Alpha 3 SX)...


Hey everyone, as mentioned last time, this past week I've been updating my Server computer (Intel i7-7700K based, 32GB machine) over to Windows Server 2019 Standard. It has been a few years since updating to Server 2016 which was an upgrade from Server 2012 R2 before that and Server 2012 initially installed in 2013! I figure it was about time to back-up all the essential data and totally start fresh. Some of the hard disks are 10 years old (a couple of Western Digital Greens and Red drives) and also on my list to be replaced soon. As you've probably experienced, while Windows has improved significantly, over years of use, it can bog down with inefficiencies from old installs hanging around. While maintaining IT stuff is generally not much fun, like "spring cleaning", it's necessary...

My choice for the Server operating system is due to some work related functions (web serving) I needed for this machine - stability, speed and security are more important than application compatibility. In that regard the Windows Server family has over the years proved to be reliable. For my audio and video server needs, as a platform to run RoonServer and as a fast NAS, the speed is certainly appreciated.

Saturday 2 May 2020

MUSINGS / MEASUREMENTS: Multiple subwoofers to reduce nulls. The USB/UFO faithful. And thanks for the blind test submissions!


A few weeks back, I ran into this interesting article - "Is the room the most important component?".

In summary, it seems like the article is basically saying that we can rearrange our gear or perhaps treat our rooms in ways that sound good, thus making the room less important than a general consensus might suggest. There seems to be an undertone of trying to downplay the role of the sound room and suggesting that one can spend more money on high quality gear and still benefit. OK, sure, to some extent that's true; but there are obviously limits. After all, if the room is way too small, cubical, highly reflective and impractical to treat, speakers inappropriately shoved deeply against walls, or if there is no space behind the seating position, there's obviously no point spending $$$$ on gear that one can barely appreciate! In my opinion, the quality and size of the room and quality of the gear (especially speakers) should be reasonably balanced.

IMO, without doubt, the room does play a major role in the sound quality; I think it would be silly to suggest otherwise even though I have heard some completely deny this over the years! For example, objectively we can easily show the nodes (nulls) and antinodes (peaks) resulting from reflections and standing waves in our small domestic listening rooms. Subjectively, these effects/limitations are easily audible as well. The way we arrange the speakers will interact with the inherent properties of our listening room in ways much more significant than much of the concerns "hardware audiophiles" often speak of or obsess over (like which CD player/DAC/streamer/server we use, cable differences, or if jitter even is audible :-).

The above should be obvious to readers already. Over the last month, with "social isolation" in place, there was time after work to try out something I've wanted to play with for awhile. Let's see if I can smooth out the low-frequency response in my room by experimenting with the use of an additional small subwoofer...