96Khz vs 192Khz

[atrocity]

- The first drop record changer that could play odd record sizes automatically.

They pre-dated VM'sTri-O-Matic?

I think we are a wee bit off topic.

Yeah...I plead fascination!

 

[Owen Smith]

I agree that tubes and transformers color the sound with 2nd order harmonics. 2nd order harmonics are desirable in music recording. That is why professionals seek out new and used equipment with tubes and or transformers...

No harmonics are desirable in music recording, the ideal is an exact copy of what arrived at the microphone. If you want to mess with the sound after that then by all means do so, but accept and document that you're messing with it and in strict audio terms degrading the recording.

 

[Sal1950]

I agree that tubes and transformers color the sound with 2nd order harmonics. 2nd order harmonics are desirable in music recording. That is why professionals seek out new and used equipment with tubes and or transformers...

Not all the time! The pro's you refer to are creators, they use different bits and pieces of gear to paint a color in sound. We are supposed to be recreators, listening to what the artist-engineers expected us to hear.
If its your preference to color a sound in a particular way that's up to you. But then you'll forever lose the ablity to hear the uncolored source. (unless you sell and then buy new gear).

 

[jimfisheye]

I can get every flavor of distortion I ever want on a mix element with Soundtoys Decapitator plugin. There's no hardware that offers anything elusive that can't hit. Not even any old ratty tube gear. Distortion and saturation are absolutely tools to use in a mix when appropriate. Sure wouldn't want any of that in a playback system though!

 

[MidiMagic]

They pre-dated VM's Tri-O-Matic?

No. But the Tri-O-Matic could automatically play only the three standard record sizes (12-inch, 10-inch, and 7-inch).

The Collaro Conquest can automatically play any record size from 12-inch to 6-inch.

I have some 8-inch, 6.5-inch, and 6-inch records. My Collaro plays them all automatically.

I am still trying to see how a transformer induces second harmonic distortion. A hysteresis effect? Or is it that the transformer was connected to a push-pull tube driving system?

 

[Owen Smith]

Transformers are not perfect devices, you get eddy currents and other strange effects. Laminated transformers behave differently to toroidal, so before anyone could say what distortion they might introduce they'd need to know the type.

 

[scifi]

Ge, Si, tubes and transistors
http://www.rickresource.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=415236
http://antiquesci.50webs.com/VirginCommies.htm

 

[par4ken]

Transformers are not perfect devices, you get eddy currents and other strange effects. Laminated transformers behave differently to toroidal, so before anyone could say what distortion they might introduce they'd need to know the type.

Transformers can be made very good (but good ones are expensive). The advantage of them is that they provide galvanic isolation. They are used professionally to drive balanced lines and eliminate hum and other noise pickup. Solid state line drivers and receivers can and are often used due to lower cost but they don't provide the galvanic isolation that a transformer does.

Likewise you could use a solid state pre-preamplifier with a moving coil phono cartridge or a step up transformer. I would argue that the transformer is better as it provides both galvanic isolation and introduces no noticeable noise or distortion that you might get with an active circuit.

 

[ssully]

Ge, Si, tubes and transistors
http://www.rickresource.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=415236
http://antiquesci.50webs.com/VirginCommies.htm

Another quite non authoritative source -- a guitar forum....and leading to you citing ancient silliness from Malcolm Hawksford re; distortion in analog amplifiers , somehow hoping it related to quantum mechanics.

Where's the measurements+ audibility data (from blind tests)? That's what constitutes evidence.

And of course, F-A to do with 196 vs 96kHz sample rates, the actual topic of this thread.

You're just throwing sh*t at the wall and hoping some will stick, aren't you?

 

[MidiMagic]

Transformers can be made very good (but good ones are expensive). The advantage of them is that they provide galvanic isolation. They are used professionally to drive balanced lines and eliminate hum and other noise pickup. Solid state line drivers and receivers can and are often used due to lower cost but they don't provide the galvanic isolation that a transformer does.

Likewise you could use a solid state pre-preamplifier with a moving coil phono cartridge or a step up transformer. I would argue that the transformer is better as it provides both galvanic isolation and introduces no noticeable noise or distortion that you might get with an active circuit.

No noise? Eliminate hum pickup?

I was running sound for a band when the electric guitar started making an awful hum. I was checking the wiring when I noticed the guitar player had put the direct box (unbalanced to balanced transformer) next to the wall wart for his effects pedal. The transformer in the direct box was picking up the magnetic field from the transformer in the wall wart. Hmmmmmmmmm.

 

[par4ken]

No noise? Eliminate hum pickup?

I was running sound for a band when the electric guitar started making an awful hum. I was checking the wiring when I noticed the guitar player had put the direct box (unbalanced to balanced transformer) next to the wall wart for his effects pedal. The transformer in the direct box was picking up the magnetic field from the transformer in the wall wart. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Shitty transformer! Likely unshielded. Those wall warts make me cringe as well, they are also cheaply made and are unshielded, the use of a proper proper power supply would be much better.

 

[atrocity]

No. But the Tri-O-Matic could automatically play only the three standard record sizes (12-inch, 10-inch, and 7-inch).

The Collaro Conquest can automatically play any record size from 12-inch to 6-inch.

I have some 8-inch, 6.5-inch, and 6-inch records. My Collaro plays them all automatically.

I'd have loved that as a kid. Always bugged me that I couldn't play those tiny yellow kiddie 78s automatically!

 

[MidiMagic]

I can and do play them automatically, as well as some 8-inch German polka records.
I have the original Mickey Mouse Club set from 1955 and several later records by Jimmie Dodd.

I hated the fact that our Tri-O-Matic could not play them automatically.
I got my first Collaro Conquest in 1970.

 

[par4ken]

The best pro a/d, d/a's I know of are Crane Song. he builds them discrete.

To me it is all about clock and jitter. jitter_1

I did work for the military recording high power firearms up to 50cal at the shooters ears. I used RME converters using I believe using the National chip sets, at 192k and I have software where I can see and measure the impulse wave form. Pretty good recordings...s

This talk about jitter makes me wonder if using higher and higher sample rates helps reduce the effect of jitter by pushing the artifacts above the range of human hearing? Likewise in a system with little or no jitter the higher sample rate would make no audible difference? Pure speculation on my part but it might help explain why some insist on the very high sample rates while other think of it as a complete waste of storage space?

I haven't listened to the audio files in the link yet so I can't even say what jitter sounds like (or if it's even audible) but as with all things audio it would seem best to try to reduce or eliminate it, if at all possible.

 

[DuncanS]

Jitter & Phase Noise are the same thing measured in different ways, Jitter in time, Phase-Noise in frequency. So what Jitter does is smear the point of switching on a digital signal, it can reduce the size of the eye pattern in digital signal links leading to error - that is if the system hasn't been designed properly. It is in effect modulation, so when looked at on a spectrum analyser it is seem as a smearing of a single frequency. It can be a problem in high data rate RF communication systems - again if it hasn't been designed properly, or if there is too much in-band interference.

What a good digital 'HDMI-like' signal should look like: even this has jitter but it is insignificant as the decision point as to whether it is a 0 or 1 is in the centre, so it is easily determined.

What Phase Noise looks like: first what a sinewave would look like with some Phase-Noise, then that sinewave as a spectrum, showing a single frequency and the 'skirt' caused by Phase-Noise

In audio equipment if the jitter/phase-noise is audible the piece of kit is junk and should be chucked out!

 

[ssully]

This talk about jitter makes me wonder if using higher and higher sample rates helps reduce the effect of jitter by pushing the artifacts above the range of human hearing?

Talk of jitter makes me wonder if anyone worried about jitter has ever proven they heard it.

Audible jitter is one of the great bogeymen of audiophile lore.

 

[DuncanS]

Talk of jitter makes me wonder if anyone worried about jitter has ever proven they heard it.

Audible jitter is one of the great bogeymen of audiophile lore.

They are probably also searching for Rocking horse poo!

 

[par4ken]

So I was just doing some more recording today vinyl to the computer. I noticed my level was set a bit high but this time the peaks maxed out at zero. Obviously the ADC had reached zero level, which was indicated on the programs level meters. I stopped the recording and it was clipped.

So what must have happened previously (when I reported that I could go above zero while recording) is simply that I had saved a partially processed file then reopened it thinking is had not been processed at all. That file had levels above zero. When normalised it dropped in level to zero max. Sorry about the confusion. I still swear by using 32-bit float for recording though, no worries at all about clipped signals.

 

[par4ken]

Talk of jitter makes me wonder if anyone worried about jitter has ever proven they heard it.

Audible jitter is one of the great bogeymen of audiophile lore.

Possibly but if the jitter was bad enough it surely would become audible. I still haven't listened to the files in the link posted about jitter but expect to shortly. A lot was made of jitter in the past, I suspect that it is not much of a problem today.

 

[ssully]

If anything is 'bad enough' it becomes audible. The question is whether jitter is 'bad enough' often enough to be something a rational person should worry about.