How I tamed digital glare.


For months I have been trying to eliminate digital glare in the my system, which showed up most noticably in the upper middle frequency vocal range, especially female vocals. I tamed some by replacing the stock fuse in my dac with HifiTuning Supreme Cu on the sage advice of Chris Van Haus of VH Audio, resulting in a significant improvement in tonal density, detail and clarity. So far, so good. Today I lightly dusted the laser lens in my CEC transport with a microfiber cloth and was astonished to discover a substantial improvement! And the laser lens and drive compartment appeared clean to begin with (in a smoke free environment). I tried cleaning contacts, swapping power cords and interconnects, rolling the tube in my MHDT dac, and so forth, but this simple protocol was more effective than any of those experiments. I suppose results may vary as every system is unique, but for me this simple tweak was revelatory: greater clarity and a signifcant reducton of hash. Wish I had thought of tt in the beginning; it would have saved me considerable time and frustration.
pmboyd
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kosst_amojan
You didn’t cite any research. You posted a link to an industry trade group.
Not so, I wrote see "Also, research by Trock ..." and there is a lot of research by others.

You simply don’t want to look into it because you fear its conflict with your belief system. There is a w-h-o-l-e lot of scientific data on this. Are you an AES member, which would allow access to its presentations?
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Digital storage is not the issue.  It's turning the digital data into music.  The "A" in DAC.  Here timing is a big issue--how accurately, from a timing point of view, the converter is running.
kosst_amojan
... the mere fact you can run a piece of software off a CD 1000 times with a 100% success rate demonstrates the reliability of the medium.
Apples/oranges. There's a difference between reading a data CD and playing an audio CD in real time, as has been demonstrated in the research I referenced. There's no need to pretend that prior research doesn't exist.
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nonoise
Just because it can misread doesn't mean it will misread. There's so much built into it that compensates for errors as well as the fact that most are very well made, that it all comes down to trying to prove a negative.

Anyone can pipe up and ask how sure you are that it's not misreading the data? That's just trolling for trolling's sake.
Actually, no, errors on CD are well established and widely researched.  See IASA website. Also, research by Trock (which I think you can get from IASA) and others. There's no need to reinvent the wheel here, or to pretend that prior research doesn't exist.
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I think a lot of the negative talk about CDPs and their susceptibility to fail at any and every turn to correctly read the data is borne out of some very well done advertising by the audio computer industry. 

Just because it can misread doesn't mean it will misread. There's so much built into it that compensates for errors as well as the fact that most are very well made, that it all comes down to trying to prove a negative. 

Anyone can pipe up and ask how sure you are that it's not misreading the data? That's just trolling for trolling's sake. All of this is dancing on the head of an already crowded pin.

All the best,
Nonoise
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@effer The data is being played back over time.

Do all computers run the same program in the same amount of time?  Come to that, does the same computer always run it identically?

It doesn't matter exactly when a page loads.

Does does matter exactly when the trumpets come in...

Audio, what an amazing hobby.

Talking about CD vibrations, flutter and scattered light seems to be assessing analog diseases to a non analog entity.

How can it be possible?

Never heard of a Tesla losing engine power due to a unappropriate timing belt installation.

As Kosst pointed out, we should retrieve exactly the same data from every disc reader.

If this data reading system would be so unefficient, how can we successfully and consistently run programs and data from it?

The rationale behind this school of thinking is if we miss a single bit or data in the numerical string of data of an audio file, it will be audible.

It makes sense but an audio file is no different than any other numerical file, especially a program file.

Do you think that a reading error will not make a program fail ?

I would tend to believe that whether it runs or it crashes. 


About reading problems concerning the laser, 

first, if vibrations and all were a problem, this system of data retrieving would not work at all for computers,

second, compared to speed of light, the speed of non desirable movements of disk are kind of neglectible ...

When we know, we can prove it and explain it rigthly.

I do not pretend to know, I only pretend to be ... amazed!

kosst_amojan
Sorry, foggy, but I can't take all the credit for your posts getting punted. You showed up and made brutally repugnant statements that lowered your level of respect tremendously, and then you chose to attack people left and right.  

Brutally repugant? I think you are being overdramatic and acting overimportant, self-righteous and boorish you've become as big a boil on this site you don't even know what you're talking about what a moron! If I'm so repugnant you can alert the moderators and have me booted permanently, silly "little fella."
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kosst_amojan"Hi foggy, Your post above will be disappearing shortly, but I'll respond to it. "

That is so funny there is a pattern hear becoming apparent, evident, and obvious you have my post deleted but then feel free to post a response to my post creating an echo chamber where you talk to yourself! This makes you a powerful, influential, and authoritative person in the world of hi-fi congratulations!

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Just to clarify, by the time the digital data arrives at the DAC it’s too late. The data has already been corrupted. Reed and Solomon were just two older gentlemen they told to do the best they could with errors and their error codes do pretty well with scratches and fingerprints. But that about the extent of it. The damage occurs as soon as the laser touches the pits and lands. Within a picosecond or so. The CD laser and detector simply read and record STOP and START of pits and lands. It doesn’t become meaningful digital data until later downstream.
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kosst_amojan" the data stream should be the same for any given CD every single time it's played regardless of the operating conditions"

What you are claiming here is the compact disk audio is always absolutely perfect everytime  but of course in the real world where most of us live outside of the trailer park that is not how things work and telling us "You don't seem to understand the nature of digital data on a CD" is not an argument in favor of your flawed assertion.
tom8999, Looking forward to hearing back from you on this. It was always that last bit of glare that eluded me until I got the MC-0.5.

I hope it works as well for you as it did for me.

All the best,
Nonoise
Nonoise - thanks for the tip on using High Fidelity’s MC 0.5 Power Conditioner to get rid of harsh Highs on vocals, piano strikes and horns at higher volumes. I will let you know how they work in my system. I just got done with multiple improvements in my system (speaker upgrade, IC upgrades, and a new Amp. I got much better mid range detail, but I generated some ‘glare’ at higher volumes as stated above. I will let you know how this turns out. 
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Buffering doesn’t help with the issues I referred to because the buffered data contains the distorted data. Buffering does help with shock, to prevent gross errors (skipping) but doesn’t stop more subtle degradation of the sound. Playing a CD without a cover on the CD may or may not help or exacerbate the scattered light problem. The photodetector bandwidth is rather narrow, but not monochromatic. All CD players are improved by isolating them, I don’t think that’s a big secret.
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geoffkait thanks, you hit the nail on the head.....Also to clarify, if a recording is bad, a music server won't help.
We know that glare and other types of noise and distortion in CD playback are produced by a number of problems inherent in CD players generally - you know, susceptibility to vibration, the vibration of the CD itself even when the player is isolated, and distortion produced by background scattered laser light getting into the photodetector. I use the word we editorially.
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I tamed the digital glare I was hearing when I went from a CD player to a music server.  I'm not trying to knock CD players, just saying in my system, files played back through a server sound smoother and more refined with no hardness or glare....that is unless it's on the recording.

@gulpson 

I learned that our posts and the posts of the person we were discussing were removed at the request of someone on this thread.  I still think anything said in an offensive manor should be removed regardless of how much progress the offender has made in his/her communicating skills.

Hmmm, it is interesting, indeed.


I had two posts removed in which I urged for softer approach to clearthink and, basically, praised him to some extent.


It really does not matter much, but such decisions are bizarre at least.

This is actually quite interesting a situation that every single one of my posts hear have been deleted while the rest of you continue to attack me without allowing me to respond you have told me everything you think about me except how often you think I should go to church! It is amazing that in the country that supposedly prides itself on Free Speech and the First Amendment you are so quick to delete, eliminate, and forbid anyone to defend themselves you have created an ECHO CHAMBER so that only you're thoughts are allowed and this is why so many people think America is beyond help good luck with you're closed, elitist, self-righteous group where only those who agree with you, look like you, and speak like you are allowed! I am sure this post will also be deleted because it will offend those who like echo chambers are afraid and disgusted by those who do not agree with them! Family Values! Love your children! Don't tell me to love it or leave it because you could not pay me to live in your oppressed nation.
rbach,

I agree with you completely. I just thought it should be recognized that one step was made. Not an easy one, I guess. Content and interpersonal communication is next.
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kosst_amojan"I'm flagging your post and I'm sure it'll be gone shortly. If your stereo is the thing you're most proud of in this world, you really missed out"
You are a very sad unfortunate person and you should leave your family values advise somewhere else I don't come hear to be preached to by the trailer park likes of you or  brag about my children and find it pathetic that you do it's you're problem if that troubles you and if you have this post deleted, I'll do the same to your bragging.
"Digital glare".....

OK, now I really feel pathetic, since I've Obviously become absolutely deaf.  Given that digital source material may be considered a tad 'crisp', I've felt that it may help to compensate for 'elderly high-end roll-off'.  But 'glare'?!  Fook, I'm happy to be able to discern 'nuance' at all..

*glare*  There.....notice that? ;)
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Kosst

While I agree whole heartedly in every way, we did hijack a thread and for that , again I offer apologies to the OP.


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You may think you’ve tamed distortion and noise in digital playback but you haven’t. Everything is relative. Until you’ve stopped the CD from vibrating and fluttering and have put the kibosh on stray laser light getting into the photodetector you’ve haven’t got more than around 75% of the way there, even after taking many steps. You simply would not believe the information on the disc that you cannot hear.