magiccarpetride;584122 Wrote: > In engineering terms, when we say 'noise' we don't imply audible noise > (in other words, noise is not associated with sound). For example, if > you're watching a movie that is streaming from Netflix, and if there > are interferences, you may notice that every now and then the picture > quality degrades and it becomes visibly pixelated (meaning, the objects > on the screen get distorted and start looking chunky and as if made from > Lego blocks). This phenomenon is termed 'noise'. It interferes with the > original signal, distorts it, and disrupts our viewing enjoyment. > > There isn't anything audible about that kind of noise. > > In a similar fashion, interferences that may occur while transporting > digital bits that carry audio signal will inevitably result in the > degradation of the sound quality. And that will interrupt our enjoyment > of the playback. > > We talk about the signal-to-noise ratio, not sound-to-noise ratio. Do > you get it now? > > > > I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about output (the sound waves > emanating from the speakers/headphones being faithful to the input). In > good audio systems, this faithfulness (or, fidelity, if you will) is > pretty high. In shitty audio systems, not even close.
It is trivial to prove that with a squeezebox there is no corruption of the bits - the process is "bit-perfect". The digital TV analogy is not relevant. What does matter are two things: 1) accuracy of clock-recovery from the s/pdif stream which can cause jitter (the impact of this very much depends on the design of the entire DAC) 2) real electrical noise (RFI etc) that can travel between transport and DAC via the digital cabling or transport and amp via the mains wiring and disturb the working of the DAC/amp and appear at the speakers as noise/loss of detail / soundstage etc... There are of course other sources of interference, it's not just the transport. And sometimes this interference can be airborne. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... Touch(wired/XP) - TACT 2.2X (Linear PSU) + Good Vibrations S/W - MF Triplethreat(Audiocom full mods) - Linn 5103 - Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Digital,Kimber Speaker & Chord Interconnect cables Kitchen Boom, Outdoors: SB Radio, Harmony One remote for everything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82520 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
