06-18-2021, 09:33 PM
I have carefully read John Atkinson's article published in "Stereophile" very complete, but with many doubts and truths.
I think we still have a lot to learn about digital signals and how to transmit them via cable or wireless without audible damage.
I have personally verified that it becomes difficult to convey a digital signal for a few tens of meters, with cable, passing through some switches.
The following statements have convinced me that we don't know much about it yet,
John Atkinson writes:
1) It is that if the ones and the zeros coincide, the sound must be identical.
2) "bits are bits"
3) Furthermore, it can be shown that a digital master tape and a digital copy of multiple generations have identical data (in a bit-for-bit comparison), even if they do not sound the same.
5) Clearly, some other phenomenon is at work. The most likely source of audible changes in digital audio is jitter.
6) The minimal amount of jitter in the word clock that synchronizes the D / A converter affects the musicality of digital playback. A shift of only 100 picoseconds (0.1 nanoseconds or 1/10 of a billionth of a second) in the word clock causes audible conversion timing errors.
For many years I have been concerned with getting good music reproduction and digital is the best solution for me. I have now verified that the signal passing through multiple switches deteriorates and I think due to the Jitter, but I have neither the tools nor the skills for such measurements.
Finally, because by replacing the DC power supply of the single switch I get so much difference. On the latter topic I am in tune with "philrandal" which finds the cause in the very high frequency noise that passing through the power supply interferes with the digital data and therefore an excellent power supply with high PSRR eliminates the problem.
Will there be anyone out there, a digital sound professional, who knows more about such interesting topics?
Thank you all
I think we still have a lot to learn about digital signals and how to transmit them via cable or wireless without audible damage.
I have personally verified that it becomes difficult to convey a digital signal for a few tens of meters, with cable, passing through some switches.
The following statements have convinced me that we don't know much about it yet,
John Atkinson writes:
1) It is that if the ones and the zeros coincide, the sound must be identical.
2) "bits are bits"
3) Furthermore, it can be shown that a digital master tape and a digital copy of multiple generations have identical data (in a bit-for-bit comparison), even if they do not sound the same.
5) Clearly, some other phenomenon is at work. The most likely source of audible changes in digital audio is jitter.
6) The minimal amount of jitter in the word clock that synchronizes the D / A converter affects the musicality of digital playback. A shift of only 100 picoseconds (0.1 nanoseconds or 1/10 of a billionth of a second) in the word clock causes audible conversion timing errors.
For many years I have been concerned with getting good music reproduction and digital is the best solution for me. I have now verified that the signal passing through multiple switches deteriorates and I think due to the Jitter, but I have neither the tools nor the skills for such measurements.
Finally, because by replacing the DC power supply of the single switch I get so much difference. On the latter topic I am in tune with "philrandal" which finds the cause in the very high frequency noise that passing through the power supply interferes with the digital data and therefore an excellent power supply with high PSRR eliminates the problem.
Will there be anyone out there, a digital sound professional, who knows more about such interesting topics?
Thank you all
