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Post by notneeson on Feb 14, 2022 12:56:57 GMT -6
The Burl is awesome, but I always think about how a Silver Bullet in front of a competent clean AD might yield even more flexibility with all of the transformer/opamp goodness.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 14, 2022 13:42:02 GMT -6
I'd print these two mixes I'm working on for you to hear...
I'll find something better maybe. So would I just take the mix, go back into the Burl and print. One with the Convert using its own clock and the other with it slaved to the Burl?
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 14, 2022 15:16:05 GMT -6
If you are going to compare them, I’d suggest running each of its internal clock, that’s how they were designed to be run , not off external clocks.
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Post by jmoose on Feb 14, 2022 15:35:52 GMT -6
Like vs better. We are talking about sound you prefer and equating that with better, as if there is a measurable improvement. Not certain how you measure more or less depth or resolution in switching clocks but keeping converters constant, but you may hear differences. I’d just go with what ever set up you think you prefer. That’s usually what I do…but isn’t that what we’re all here for? Possibly. But the devil is buried in the details. Everyone is going to have preferences and saying "I like this more then that" is great. Love it! But preferences are subjective and can't be qualified or validated by fact. Saying something "is better" is usually based on fact. Better for you or me? That's opinion. At the core A vs B? Purely better is validated by fact. Things like spec sheets and measurable performance. Unfortunately very few of us really have the ability to test & validate converter specs and qualify "better". Does that box really have a noise floor of -130dB? Who knows! I certainly don't have the gear to measure anything like that, nor the desire. So ultimately that leaves us to yak about "subjectively better" which is only based on opinions & why we have these endless debates. The only real world test I've found that matters for converters, and its something we can all do very easily... and do it everyday without even realizing it... and we did this in the days of analog tape machines too. Compare what we feed the converter to what comes back. Think of something tangible. Like a U87 on a Martin D18 through our favorite front end chain. Preamp > maybe add a little top end EQ 'cause the strings are a bit dead > compressor of choice for a bit of leveling > storage/tape We can take that chain & plug it into line ins on the desk or even directly to the monitor controller. And that's the real sound. As good as it's ever gonna get. Now switch the patch cable from monitor box and shove it through the round trip conversion. AD/DA - Does it sound the same or did it get mangled? In the tape days we'd sweat alignment tones and try to get "flat" or reasonably flat response from the tape machine. If things came back radically different it meant we fucked up. I don't see the converter debate any differently. Seems like not all that long ago, maybe a decade & change that the overwhelming goalpost for conversion was to be invisible. That if the converters were really doing their job you wouldn't notice them. Going back to old boxes in the day... like a Digi 888 we'd jam a signal through there and yeah wow. It didn't sound the same. Mix prints off a desk to DAT machine? Yeah, kinda different sounding. ADAT converters? Hail Satan & prepare for the beating. Somewhere back there I bought a used Mytek converter from Beartracks in NY. Was stereo & only 20 bit still have it but haven't used it in ages. They used that as a front end for the Sony DASH machine because it sounded WAY better then the internal converters. Better as in - more like the source. Less mangled. One of my friends was the chief engineer there... the Mytek & DASH were moved along when PTHD came along. The Mytek (among other things) was deemed unnecessary and my friend let me try it. Was mixing to DAT at the time and wow yup easy choice. Sounded more like the output of my Trident desk. Better is better until its not better. And sometimes better isn't even better. Its just different. Can't help but think of an EP I produced a couple years ago. One of the guys had a home studio & was saying how much he wanted & needed a Burl because "everyone on forums says they're the best" - Meanwhile he's got a $100 Audio Technica mic plugged into a Focusrite box. Tried to explain he was fine... reality is tracks he cut at home sat perfectly well next to everything we did in the big room on a Neve with any mic you could think of. Said you want better? Up the game? Go buy some microphones or a channel strip. And I've heard dozens of stories like that. The purple place is filled with 'em. To me that's the danger in confusing opinions & preferences with a term like "better or best" that implies non debate-able facts. What's really amusing to me is that everyone is looking for the dopest, most awesomest box with crazy dynamic range... noise floor of absolute zero and only .00000009% harmonic distortion... only so they can toss on a bunch of tape, console & other analog emulation plugins to restore all the noise & grit that they wanted to eliminate with the converter. Think about that.
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Post by jhsmastering on Feb 14, 2022 17:04:30 GMT -6
That’s usually what I do…but isn’t that what we’re all here for? Possibly. But the devil is buried in the details. Everyone is going to have preferences and saying "I like this more then that" is great. Love it! But preferences are subjective and can't be qualified or validated by fact. Saying something "is better" is usually based on fact. Better for you or me? That's opinion. At the core A vs B? Purely better is validated by fact. Things like spec sheets and measurable performance. Unfortunately very few of us really have the ability to test & validate converter specs and qualify "better". Does that box really have a noise floor of -130dB? Who knows! I certainly don't have the gear to measure anything like that, nor the desire. So ultimately that leaves us to yak about "subjectively better" which is only based on opinions & why we have these endless debates. The only real world test I've found that matters for converters, and its something we can all do very easily... and do it everyday without even realizing it... and we did this in the days of analog tape machines too. Compare what we feed the converter to what comes back. Think of something tangible. Like a U87 on a Martin D18 through our favorite front end chain. Preamp > maybe add a little top end EQ 'cause the strings are a bit dead > compressor of choice for a bit of leveling > storage/tape We can take that chain & plug it into line ins on the desk or even directly to the monitor controller. And that's the real sound. As good as it's ever gonna get. Now switch the patch cable from monitor box and shove it through the round trip conversion. AD/DA - Does it sound the same or did it get mangled? In the tape days we'd sweat alignment tones and try to get "flat" or reasonably flat response from the tape machine. If things came back radically different it meant we fucked up. I don't see the converter debate any differently. Seems like not all that long ago, maybe a decade & change that the overwhelming goalpost for conversion was to be invisible. That if the converters were really doing their job you wouldn't notice them. Going back to old boxes in the day... like a Digi 888 we'd jam a signal through there and yeah wow. It didn't sound the same. Mix prints off a desk to DAT machine? Yeah, kinda different sounding. ADAT converters? Hail Satan & prepare for the beating. Somewhere back there I bought a used Mytek converter from Beartracks in NY. Was stereo & only 20 bit still have it but haven't used it in ages. They used that as a front end for the Sony DASH machine because it sounded WAY better then the internal converters. Better as in - more like the source. Less mangled. One of my friends was the chief engineer there... the Mytek & DASH were moved along when PTHD came along. The Mytek (among other things) was deemed unnecessary and my friend let me try it. Was mixing to DAT at the time and wow yup easy choice. Sounded more like the output of my Trident desk. Better is better until its not better. And sometimes better isn't even better. Its just different. Can't help but think of an EP I produced a couple years ago. One of the guys had a home studio & was saying how much he wanted & needed a Burl because "everyone on forums says they're the best" - Meanwhile he's got a $100 Audio Technica mic plugged into a Focusrite box. Tried to explain he was fine... reality is tracks he cut at home sat perfectly well next to everything we did in the big room on a Neve with any mic you could think of. Said you want better? Up the game? Go buy some microphones or a channel strip. And I've heard dozens of stories like that. The purple place is filled with 'em. To me that's the danger in confusing opinions & preferences with a term like "better or best" that implies non debate-able facts. What's really amusing to me is that everyone is looking for the dopest, most awesomest box with crazy dynamic range... noise floor of absolute zero and only .00000009% harmonic distortion... only so they can toss on a bunch of tape, console & other analog emulation plugins to restore all the noise & grit that they wanted to eliminate with the converter. Think about that. Mic drop. 'Nuff said.
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Post by the other mark williams on Feb 14, 2022 17:32:49 GMT -6
OK - very, very interesting. Mixing a tune. It's waaay brighter in the 1-3khz region clocking with the Burl. Like waaay brighter. I would make significant cuts in the upper mids listening this way. Going back to the Convert as master clock, the upper mids are much less and the sound stage kind of flattens out. I've been successfully using the Convert for a couple years with no issues (that I've necessarily noticed) in the mids. But maybe I'm magically hearing more detail. Or maybe the external clocking is degrading the Convert's sound. I need to print a mix with both, adjusting EQ to what I think is right...then see what's up. John, correct me if I'm wrong, b/c I may be confused here, but aren't you using Sonarworks as you listen, and Sonarworks is calibrated to your room with your Convert as master clock? I wonder if Sonarworks would come up with a different calibration file with the Convert clocked off of the Burl?
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 14, 2022 17:49:29 GMT -6
Would really come down to how different is each frequency’s volume from the original sine wave volume dependent on what’s different in the signal chain ?
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 14, 2022 18:26:33 GMT -6
OK - very, very interesting. Mixing a tune. It's waaay brighter in the 1-3khz region clocking with the Burl. Like waaay brighter. I would make significant cuts in the upper mids listening this way. Going back to the Convert as master clock, the upper mids are much less and the sound stage kind of flattens out. I've been successfully using the Convert for a couple years with no issues (that I've necessarily noticed) in the mids. But maybe I'm magically hearing more detail. Or maybe the external clocking is degrading the Convert's sound. I need to print a mix with both, adjusting EQ to what I think is right...then see what's up. John, correct me if I'm wrong, b/c I may be confused here, but aren't you using Sonarworks as you listen, and Sonarworks is calibrated to your room with your Convert as master clock? I wonder if Sonarworks would come up with a different calibration file with the Convert clocked off of the Burl? Quite possibly.
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Post by Guitar on Feb 14, 2022 18:35:04 GMT -6
I would think inconsitencies in the mic position would make more difference from one measurement to the next than a tiny difference in distortion/ noise floor. Frequency response should be unchanged by clocking schemes.
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Post by wiz on Feb 14, 2022 18:43:15 GMT -6
Can you run a mix ….even verse chorus … of both would love to hear it Cheers Wiz Would it even be printable? If you can hear... it should be printable... What I am most interested in is hearing something done off its clock , compared to clocking it to the other one... Essentially I want to hear what jitter sounds like... never have been able to find an example of what it does to the mix. cheers Wiz
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Post by wiz on Feb 14, 2022 18:44:23 GMT -6
John, correct me if I'm wrong, b/c I may be confused here, but aren't you using Sonarworks as you listen, and Sonarworks is calibrated to your room with your Convert as master clock? I wonder if Sonarworks would come up with a different calibration file with the Convert clocked off of the Burl? Quite possibly. If you shot the room with the convert... run the mix off clocked off its master, and one off the burl. Dont remix just run off a section of each would be cool that's what I am chasing.. cheers Wiz
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 14, 2022 18:54:00 GMT -6
So if there’s completely no difference, they should null, correct?
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 14, 2022 19:06:55 GMT -6
Yes, but the two converters could have time domain differences, ie process at slightly different speeds, which might affect nulling ?
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Post by wiz on Feb 14, 2022 20:39:48 GMT -6
So if there’s completely no difference, they should null, correct? If there is no reverbs or randomising stuff (eg superior drummer not converted to audio) etc going on in the track.... then they should null. If everything is converted to audio within the project, should null .. cheers Wiz
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Post by matt on Feb 14, 2022 21:27:02 GMT -6
Long time B2 AD (and DA) owner here. I moved to a Pure 2 several years ago but have switched back recently. I've found that I like it better, I just don't hit it as hard (-18 to -14 on average) as I used to. Now I want a B16 Dante BDA4M/BAD4M as an "upgrade". Figures.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 14, 2022 21:37:31 GMT -6
Just fyi…the attenuator is after the transformers…so all that’s doing is attenuating the signal that’s coming in. If you want more transformer color you hit it harder on the way in.
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Post by jmoose on Feb 14, 2022 21:45:02 GMT -6
I would think inconsitencies in the mic position would make more difference from one measurement to the next than a tiny difference in distortion/ noise floor. Frequency response should be unchanged by clocking schemes. Correct. Clock shouldn't affect frequency response. If it does that would mean something is broken... The other rub with clocking? Some converters resolve to their internal clock no matter what you feed it. Unless there's a real problem... clicks & pops etc clocking shouldn't make any real difference.
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Post by sirthought on Feb 15, 2022 0:24:27 GMT -6
So, John, which model did you buy? BAD8? Mothership?
I'm curious how many channels of AD you are thinking helps your studio setup.
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 15, 2022 6:20:32 GMT -6
Thought it was the b2?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2022 6:32:17 GMT -6
Would it even be printable? If you can hear... it should be printable... What I am most interested in is hearing something done off its clock , compared to clocking it to the other one... Essentially I want to hear what jitter sounds like... never have been able to find an example of what it does to the mix. cheers Wiz Well you'd need to know what to look for, unless something's absolutely dire the effect of jitter can be subtle. In essence it'll start to shrink stereo field presentation so you'd probably find it difficult to pick out instruments for example. In a worst case scenario you'll start to hear nasty harmonic distortion. Happens all the time over long distance digital calls where jitter is measured in ms not pico..
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 15, 2022 9:13:54 GMT -6
Maybe I’ll have some time to do this today.
I’m definitely not hearing the stereo field shrink.
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 15, 2022 9:26:49 GMT -6
Not big on talking about shrinkage, but u be u !
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 15, 2022 13:08:04 GMT -6
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 15, 2022 17:42:18 GMT -6
Hey popmann - I remember you mentioning that once you started hitting the Burl less when you printed, you really loved it. I noticed here when I printed that (somewhat) mixed one that it can really add a lot of top/upper mid info when you push those transformers. Was that your experience?
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Post by wiz on Feb 15, 2022 20:02:59 GMT -6
First of all thanks for doing this, appreciate the time and effort. There is a problem with the second set of files, the no fx files... they are both the convert clk , no burl file there. I listened to them all and like all of the burl ones.... I am listening to the transformers on the burl and its AD... would need the burl no fx file to here just the difference clocks make... I wonder why the null file is sort of pulsing at the same rate....? Great sounding track, right up my alley, geeze I wish I lived in Nashville sometimes....8) cheers Wiz
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