Question for Steph Dale

simond

Western Thunderer
I still have my original ipod 160Gb with the whirly wheel, though it’s gone a bit clunky with the passage of time and sometimes disconnects itself from the car in which it lives. Shame. It was wonderful when I spent large chunks of my professional life on a plane (a 4 day trip from Pune to Queretaro via Delhi, Frankfurt & somewhere in Texas, 36 hours one way, 37 the other being my personal record) accompanied by a pair of Sennheiser noise cancelling ‘phones.

I don’t miss the travel...

Best
Simon
 

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
Thanks Steph, I thought you were further on, but I'll share my thoughts for anyone interested. My interest was caught primarily by the scale of material available, rather than audio quality, which might not seem important but ultimately informed choices. I was fortunate to be invited to a three hour demo and listening experience of streaming. It seems that there are three or possibly four levels of audio quality, at the bottom MP3, think Spotify, which in all honesty and for the majority of users is quite adequate. Next is CD 44.1 kHz and indeed from my own listening perfectly acceptable. Associated is FLAC streams which are CD with the bits that are normally left out by a CD player included. Finally Hi Res. It becomes apparently obvious that the incremental gain in sound quality at each step diminishes, whilst the cost of moving to the next highest quality exponentially expands.

I could quite clearly hear step changes but above FLAC the eye watering cost didn't commend itself, so CD plus was the basic choice but in consideration that the recently acquired Quad pre amp had digital inputs with a high quality DAC, a box to convert internet 0s and 1s to digital audio 0s and 1s was needed. I looked at the Moon Mind, no DAC, but at £1700 was a rather expensive digital converter, and as alluded previously the CA CXN was less expensive at £800 but gave me one set of redundant DACs. So I was steered towards the Sonos connect, wifi in and digital audio out with an App that works for £350. I have to say it works, and well, at least as far as my ageing ears can detect.

Two issues, I had to move the hub from the study at the front of the house to somewhere in the middle, to get adequate wifi coverage. I've no doubt wired ethernet would be a major improvement. but thus far wifi hasn't been an issue. Network speed is though, I get my internet from BT, it's basic because BT won't offer me anything else, and the alternatives require digging up the front garden. The result is that whilst it can cope with MP3 and CD, FLAC runs out of buffer, especially in the evening. If your digits are on fibre you'll almost certainly have no problem.

Finally a word about sources. There are only two suppliers who will offer CD or better, Qobuz and Tidal. I'm trying out Quobuz on a 30 day freebie, which is interesting, they are a French company which lends the library a Gallic feel, most of what you would expect is there but there are some surprising omissions, k d lang for one. The UI works but it could be so much better. I have yet to try Tidal which is American which will give a different approach, but they appear to be on shaky financial ground. Ideally the Spotify front end with CD quality or better would be ideal.

This has been interesting and will develop further.
Regards
Martin
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Martin,

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is the difference between “internet 0s & 1s and digital audio 0s & 1s”?

I understand entirely your comments regarding the digital format, and thus when purchasing a system, the key element is a “good enough” DAC. The analogue signal path thereafter would take traditional lines, on which you can spend as much or as little as you can justify to yourself.

But binary is binary, isn’t it?

Best
Simon
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Simon,

The issue is how many bits you get, and whether they arrive on time. Neither CD nor internet are particularly good at the latter.

And binary is binary as a discussion point leads us down some interesting paths on the subject of subjectivism vs objectivism. This tends to embody itself in discussions around cables. I'm game if you are!

Steph
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Thanks Steph, I thought we’d covered the “how many bits you get” in Martin’s description of the encoding. I’m a bit (sorry) out of practice, as my most recent sound recording days were in India some ten years back - just dug all the old mixers, amps & synths out as young MrD has shown an interest.

Whether the said bits arrive on time is another point, but given the woeful reliability of bandwidth of FTTC I’d expect to buffer sufficiently to cover anything I was intending to listen to, rather than trying to stream it live. Actually, CDs were dead cheap in India, and I simply bought my LP collection in a different format - along with some newer stuff, of course, and I ripped the lot to hard drive years ago, hopefully using a good codec. I’m not going to do it again, and in her ever-present efforts to keep some of the house habitable, I’m guessing the good MrsD has disposed of many of the CDs too.

Cables? Digital or analogue?

I’d actually like to understand why the oxygen content matters....

Best
Simon

PS still waiting to see the t/t with the arm mounts fitted!
 

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
My thanks to Steph for answering Simon's question re digits. The other point to bear in mind is that the bit stream from the internet as well as the audio stream also has packets of data for the app controlling the whole thing, which you don't want in your audio, hence the need for a digital processor, most come with DACs for ease of connectivity rather than anything else.

I'm of a mind with Steph when it comes to binary, especially when it isn't. As for cables, a contentious subject if there was ever one. I was told in all seriousness that multi material construction was necessary because hi frequencies go down the middle of a cable and low freqencies around the edge, or was it the other way around. Which ever it was, its a load of b******s. Differing cables can certainly sound different, but the difference is according to the laws of physics and is measureable. I suppose of course if you've just spent £250, or more on a pair of unbalanced RCA double enders, it has to sound better or you have to admit being seduced by the snake oil salesmen and plain gulliblity.

In a former life some may know I worked for the BBC and pre digital the whole of the studio complex in various buildings around BH in London, and every other centre in Britain was connected together by twisted pair telephone cable. Whilst this has limitations in cross talk and noise, neither of those were such to prevent a live Prom on The Third Programme being as good as the FM transmission system allowed. Indeed I would contend that technical quality in broadcast audio has by and large greatly diminished in the last 25 years. Cables are the very least of the problem in audio reproduction.

Regards
Martin
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Picture quality too, Martin!

At a conference many years ago, when the BBC were starting to outsource their programming, I asked, naively, what was being done to maintain and improve picture quality. The smart arse in the chair responded with "What do you mean by quality?" As it was a technical conference I think the meaning of the question was entirely obvious, but the respondent, having given his smart arse reply to which he didn't want my response went on to describe the various meanings of quality.

The picture quality we commonly see now would simply not have been tolerated "when I was a lad". The BBC actually paid people to train their technical people. Those training departments simply no longer exist.

Brian
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
As for cables, a contentious subject if there was ever one. I was told in all seriousness that multi material construction was necessary because hi frequencies go down the middle of a cable and low freqencies around the edge, or was it the other way around. Which ever it was, its a load of b******s. Differing cables can certainly sound different, but the difference is according to the laws of physics and is measureable. I suppose of course if you've just spent £250, or more on a pair of unbalanced RCA double enders, it has to sound better or you have to admit being seduced by the snake oil salesmen and plain gulliblity.

Interesting that - electron scatter is certainly a measurable phenomenon, as is surface conduction. It's something that's taken very seriously in RF cable and component design for some applications (perhaps not broadcast!!!). The contention, of course, is what the real-world effect is at audible frequencies when attenuated in the earth's magnetic field. There's more to cable design than R, C and L and some of it is certainly beyond the black arts - and I'm not just referring to hi-fi cables here, but real-world Phd-and-bar applications.

There certainly is a lot of crap out there about cables, but some of it is certainly not hyperbole. It can be very interesting to do a genuine double blind testing of cable architectures. I had exactly your point of view until I did it in an unfamiliar system.

Oh, and you're very, very right about broadcast quality. Even DAB is mono :(

Hehe - see what I mean, @simond? Look what you've started... :))

Steph
 

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
Nor me either, although the recent expenditure makes me wince if I think too much about it. I am consoled by the cost of the new bedroom furniture today.

Regards
Martin
 

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
Picture quality too, Martin!

Wholeheartedly agree Brian. It is interesting to realise that after Alastair Milne was disgracefuly dumped as DG, the Board of Governors appointed Michael Checkland who was by profession an accountant. Now I recognise the skills that accounts have and bring to the running of an organisation, but in my experience when they are in charge everything other than the bottom line goes down the toilet. If the BBC made half decent programmes then you might excuses the dilution of quality in engineering, but as it is I think the BBC has been emasculated by several goverments and the generally poor quality of programme makers who no longer are willing to take chances. It is to all intents and purposes commercial broadcasting without advertising. We are all the poorer for it, and Checkland got a knighthood for wrecking the BBC. Rant finished.
Regards
Martin
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
We are all the poorer for it, and Checkland got a knighthood for wrecking the BBC

I was part of a small team in BBC Bristol who filmed the leading players at the time of Alisdair Milne's sacking. Phil daly, retired Head of centre, Bristol ran the team and Frank Gillard did the interviewing. It was all fairly hush-hush and the deal with participants was that the material wouldn't be used before they passed away. So if a programme is ever made from the material it probably won't appear for another twenty years. All the team were sworn to secrecy but I have to admit I couldn't remember any detail at this remove in any case. :)

But major players in Milne's downfall were Marmaduke Hussey, chairman of the board of governors and Leon Britten, Home Secretary at the time. Hussey was a Thatcher appointment about three months before Milne's sacking.

Marmaduke Hussey, Baron Hussey of North Bradley - Wikipedia

If I remember correctly Milne was sacked while he was sailing home from holiday. Checkland was appointed immediately, but the person who had the most impact was John Birt who was Checkland's assistant and who became Director General a few years later on Checkland's retiral. Most people reckon that Birt had the greatest deleterious effect on the BBC.

I do remember us filming a long piece to camera by Frank Gillard who summarised all the interviews we had made. I would like to see it again as I remember it being a superb observation of the government's influence on the BBC, but I doubt if I will.

This is getting miles away from Hi-Fi gear. I have to confess that the state of my ears now renders everything like medium wave reception - with tinnitus. :)

Jim.
 

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
Very interesting Jim, I wonder like you if that will ever be aired. As you say John Birt was the real death knell, thankfully I had moved on by his time. I'm sorry to hear about the tinitus, excuse the pun, my sister in law suffers from it as well, so I know a bit about the constant noise.
Regards
Martin
 
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