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Post by svart on Sept 3, 2024 9:25:59 GMT -6
Honestly I think time has rendered objective tests like this completely irrelevant.
They compared the converters to what they did to a reference, but it says absolutely nothing about what you'd do without the reference.
"it didn't sound as wide" doesn't say anything about how you might pan things a little wider subconsciously if you weren't comparing two different sources.
As a wise man once said, "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it'll live it's whole life thinking it's a failure".
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Post by Dan on Sept 3, 2024 10:56:12 GMT -6
The non cheapo chips from all the big brands are all fine: TI, Cirrus, ESS, AKM, AD. Some of them have inadequate band rejection or place half band filters in suboptimal spots (the slight increase in aliaising is rolled off if placed right and over -100db down by 20khz) and many manufacturers choose the minimum phase filters on the chip because they are incapable or don’t want to devote the resources to make a nice sounding analog section. Another thing is many budget manufacturers or ones going for lower latency will tack on a minimum phase filter to a linear phase on the chip that has inadequate band rejection. They don’t want to use a more expensive chip with a real filter or pay for additional dsp to have their own. Then they will often claim there is not a difference and you cannot hear rising distortion in the top end or a drastic phase shift. These are very audible in my opinion. The lack of clarity is huge. The problem is if the harsh end isn’t really there, you’re changing it for nothing. RME not the ADI-2 Pro has this problem and still does and I’m not really a fan of the ADI-2 Pro but it’s better than a lot of other stuff. So does Steinberg. So did a lot of older converters from 10-15 years ago. The cheap stuff is all awful and gets in the way. The midrange stuff can be mediocre to good ime sometimes in the same unit like MOTU or not sound bad but be horrible to use in the real world like the Focusrite Claret and the Reds that have digital control are horribly overpriced because the sound still isn’t there like the better multichannel converters but they want the price for the Dante ecosystem. UAD is similar. I still run a RME Fireface 800. Im just used to TotalMix and i like it never crashes. Would you recommend to upgrade? I have a MetricHalo 2882 linked to it, i thought about doing the 3D upgrade to make it run with my M1. Would you think it would make a difference to use upgraded MetricHalo instead of RME and ink the other way round? prob just get a monitoring da and not use the total mix for volume control to it because total mix truncates. |
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Post by chessparov on Sept 3, 2024 11:53:48 GMT -6
I spent around $32 total for an 'ol Mackie Blackjack that has CIRRUS LOGIC converters. (And them Boutique  Onyx Pre's) Actually cool for simple stuff/Travel. Audacity now has "ReScan" so it works like a Champ on Windows 10.  Chris |
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,083 
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Post by ericn on Sept 3, 2024 14:24:28 GMT -6
Conversion really hasn’t changed in the last 10 year or so. We are not the target market of the current chip designers, for years we sort of piggybacked on the consumer demand, but now it’s all about ultra compact, lightweight and low current draw for Bluetooth devices, all those wireless headphones.
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Post by Dan on Sept 3, 2024 15:15:55 GMT -6
Honestly I think time has rendered objective tests like this completely irrelevant. They compared the converters to what they did to a reference, but it says absolutely nothing about what you'd do without the reference. "it didn't sound as wide" doesn't say anything about how you might pan things a little wider subconsciously if you weren't comparing two different sources. As a wise man once said, "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it'll live it's whole life thinking it's a failure". You cannot fix what you cannot hear. You cannot pan more. than hard L and R. You cannot fix what's in between when you have poor stereo image from jitter, rising distortion in the top end, and thousand or more degrees of phase shift. If your tracks are digitized through a poor converter, there is nothing you can do to mitigate that distortion.
There are hard limitations to inferior gear. Do not kid yourself.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 3, 2024 15:50:03 GMT -6
Conversion really hasn’t changed in the last 10 year or so. We are not the target market of the current chip designers, for years we sort of piggybacked on the consumer demand, but now it’s all about ultra compact, lightweight and low current draw for Bluetooth devices, all those wireless headphones. Interesting point. In other words there's no sense in waiting for a big leap in audio quality, any gains we'd be interested in would be surrounding portability and mobility. For example... maybe we'll soon see USB mics with Lynx level conversion. That could be cool. Or better versions of that thing Tascam makes that sticks on to the end of a microphone. Imagine if Lynx or Apogee came out with something like what I linked below and it was somehow comparable to their flagship products. tascam.com/us/product/dr-10x/top |
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Post by Dan on Sept 3, 2024 16:11:37 GMT -6
Conversion really hasn’t changed in the last 10 year or so. We are not the target market of the current chip designers, for years we sort of piggybacked on the consumer demand, but now it’s all about ultra compact, lightweight and low current draw for Bluetooth devices, all those wireless headphones. Interesting point. In other words there's no sense in waiting for a big leap in audio quality, any gains we'd be interested in would be surrounding portability and mobility. For example... maybe we'll soon see USB mics with Lynx level conversion. That could be cool. Or better versions of that thing Tascam makes that sticks on to the end of a microphone. Imagine if Lynx or Apogee came out with something like what I linked below and it was somehow comparable to their flagship products. tascam.com/us/product/dr-10x/topYou will not see that because of what power a usb port can provide. The gains in the last 10 years have been clocking, minitiarization, and heat dissipation since the good ASRC chips, LMEs and TI Sound Plus opamps came out. Heat is the enemy. The SNR improvements are irrelevant. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 3, 2024 16:18:45 GMT -6
Interesting point. In other words there's no sense in waiting for a big leap in audio quality, any gains we'd be interested in would be surrounding portability and mobility. For example... maybe we'll soon see USB mics with Lynx level conversion. That could be cool. Or better versions of that thing Tascam makes that sticks on to the end of a microphone. Imagine if Lynx or Apogee came out with something like what I linked below and it was somehow comparable to their flagship products. tascam.com/us/product/dr-10x/topYou will not see that because of what power a usb port can provide. The gains in the last 10 years have been clocking, minitiarization, and heat dissipation since the good ASRC chips, LMEs and TI Sound Plus opamps came out. Heat is the enemy. The SNR improvements are irrelevant. I wouldn't bet against what can be done with tech that has multi-billion dollar value in other industries. My takeaway from Eric's observation is that nobody is competing for better sound anymore, they're competing for smaller chips with lower power consumption. So even the limitations of USB or whatever else could be overcome by power sipping chips. Also, the Tascam device I mentioned is battery powered. That's actually its big downfall from what I read, the battery life sucks. |
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Onyx Pre's)
