Please Educate Me


If I can’t find the answer here, I won’t find it anywhere. 

Something I’ve wondered about for a long time: The whole world is digital. Some huge percentage of our lives consists of ones and zeros. 

And with the exception of hi-fi, I don’t know of a single instance in which all of this digitalia isn’t yes/no, black/white, it works or it doesn’t. No one says, “Man, Microsoft Word works great on this machine,” or “The reds in that copy of Grand Theft Auto are a tad bright.” The very nature of digital information precludes such questions. 

Not so when it comes to hi-fi. I’m extremely skeptical about much that goes on in high end audio but I’ve obviously heard the difference among digital sources. Just because something is on CD or 92/156 FLAC doesn’t mean that it’s going to sound the same on different players or streamers. 

Conceptually, logically, I don’t know why it doesn’t. I know about audiophile-type concerns like timing and flutter. But those don’t get to the underlying science of my question. 

I feel like I’m asking about ABCs but I was held back in kindergarten and the computerized world isn’t doing me any favors. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do. I’ll be using Photoshop and I’ve got it dialed in just right. 
paul6001
But VW sound different when played on a NAD CD player than they do when played on a Parasound CD player. Why? Aren’t both players reading the same ones and zeros?
An audio system is at the same times a transfered and translated and transformed information flows from different levels and through different " dimensions"(analog/digital mechanical,electrical and acoustical) to the listening EARS....

How in the world could 2 pieces of gear give the same audible results with so many different factors playing together or one against the others on different levels?

Your question dont adress the problem but turn his back on reality; a cd reader dont ONLY read bits, but work in a chain of multiple gear elements with multiple interacting dimensions... The ears dont listen to "pure" bits, nor to "pure" sine waves, the ears listen to a complex acoustical resulting phenomenon in a specific room called  voice or musical "timbre"....

Think again and your question will dissolve itself in front of the complex reality....All questions have a meaning for sure, but sometimes the question lost his accute meaning when simply confronted with reality.... Your question is there to put ourself face to reality indeed....

My best to you....




«Never ask a question against the wind»-Anonymus Smith

«Always face your wife if asking a question»-Groucho Marx
Indeed, digital music is represented by 1's and 0's.. yet the resulting output is analog and is supposed to be music. Music is produced using devices that turns these bits to sound (DAC's).  Analog output sounds very different with different circuitry. Think of the myriad of amplifiers available in the marketplace...  Hope this makes sense. 
«Always face your wife if asking a question»-Groucho Marx

@mahgister....I've done that...it's almost as dangerous as not...*L*
I'm not even sure if there was a question here.

One of the biggest sources of variance over time have been:

- Clock quality
- Type of DAC
- Upsampling or oversampling and algorithms
- DAC output stage
- Noise sources, like power supply and digital ground loops

The quality of the clocks and jitter elimination circuits has vastly improved since about 2010.  For the most part it's almost a moot point.

DAC's and how they are configured matters quite a bit.  For instance, some DAC's use multiple parallel DAC's simultaneously per channel to achieve the lowest noise, distortion and highest output current capabilities.

Next, how about those output filters?  Up or oversampling can affect the response through the top octave.  Upsampling or asynchronous sample rate conversion rely on lots of math to interpolate between the original samples.  They don't come out with the same results. Older upsampling could clip the signal in the interpolated samples. Hopefully everyone is now aware of this.

Lastly is the output buffer. A preamp stage, even if it has no volume control, which ensures uniform output regardless of the downstream device.

And... none of this matters if you can't hear it.  Buy the cheapest device which looks good and you can't hear better from.
«Always face your wife if asking a question»-Groucho Marx

@mahgister....I’ve done that...it’s almost as dangerous as not...*L
Facing your wife was not recommended in this aphorism to give a better lie, it was recommend because she will spot you with a bad lie on the spot and it will be easier for her to forgive you..... 😉
I never lied to my wife more than 5 seconds....

All wives are also mothers and they will forget about your " bad" lies like they forgive children...

But if you think you are a "good" liar, and dont even need to face her, you are already dead before the first lie... 😁



«Any lie must contain truth»- the serpent after the closing of  Eden