audiobill said
In what specific ways did you "dull down" your system when you bought your PWD? And how did you feel about doing that?Your explanation, well…
–SSW
Well… having had the good fortune to A/B the PWD II and the DirectStream on several occasions, on different systems, I stick by my assertion that the PWD is really no competition for the DS DAC. As for expectation bias, Paul snuck the DS in on me. Not only did I not know it was DSD output that I was listening to, I didn’t even know what the heck the mysterious black box was until he told me what it was. Can I accept that Dr. AIX’s reader didn’t like the DS? Sure, but seems that the accolades of one reviewer after another are more than a little bit out of sync with a guy that thinks his DAC needs a nose-blow.
Ear wax?
What I just don’t get is why Mr. Waldrep would risk his credibility denouncing a device that he has never listened to. I do get that he feels that DSD is inferior to PCM as an audio format and that his livelihood (currently) is dependent on this premise. Fine. His work with PCM is impressive, but no one will listen to it w/o a DAC of some sort.
The better the DAC, the better his recordings should sound. The better they sound, the better they should sell. Some have opined that the sound of a DSD file fed to the DirectStream is not what they had hoped for and that they prefer the sound of PCM with this kit. Mark could hang his hat on that instead of carelessly dismissing a DAC that works as well as Paul and Ted’s. Leave playback to the playback experts and visa versa recording, Mr. recording expert. Heck, perhaps you might benefit from what PSA’s marketing focus has been all along; how good the DS DAC makes PCM sound.
His latest email:
Dr. AIX
I started this daily blog back in 2013 after reading many of the daily posts by my friend Paul McGown at PS Audio. I’ve known Paul and read with interest his daily thoughts. I don’t always agree with his sentiments and we strenuously disagree on the value of DSD but I like Paul and have even owned some of equipment back in the day. I figured if Paul can carve out a chunk of time to compose a few hundred words, I could do the same thing. That was over 770 posts ago…I have missed a day since April of 2013.
But I’m beginning to feel like I’m residing in the bizarro world of Superman lately. A reader pointed me to some recent posts by Paul (they are in the comments from a day ago) that bear on the same “bits as bits” debate. Paul’s position is summed up below:
“The point I was hoping to make is that the mediums and what it takes to retrieve the data from those mediums causes different sound from each, even though the bits are coming out in the same number and order,” came from one of his recent comments. I have no reason to doubt his beliefs but it still comes as a surprise that he would try to pull the proverbial curtain on his readers and customers. Let me reiterate what I’ve been writing about recently, if a stream of raw PCM digital data is delivered by a replicated disc, CD-R, RAM buffer, hard drive, punched paper tape, Exabtye cartridge, USB stick or flashlight beams, there is absolutely no way that there will be any sonic differences when identical data streams are presented to a high-end DAC with proper clocking. There are no sonic differences for the reasons of storage media.
He’s been making the case that identical data isn’t actually identical data (either it is or it isn’t…clocking is separate). Error correction is also a factor, but given accurate extraction of digital data from any storage media, the game is over.
I guess I should do yet another data comparison similar to the ones that I’ve done in the past when this debate raged. The last time I ventured into this mess, I took a new DVD-Audio disc and captured the “Mosaic” track onto my hard drive. Then I treated the surface of the disc with “special” goo ioncluded in an audiophile accessory called the “Auric Illuminator”, carefully following the instructions. I did a polarity reversal AND a data compare and was not surprised to learn that the data from each source were absolutely identical. When played through the same system and DAC using the same clock, the sound was identical. The “Auric Illuminator”, which was highly recommended by numerous online publications and printed magazines, was a bust. No change. Perhaps if you leave your catalog of CDs out in the sun on the dashboard of your car, the special goo might help restore their playability, but for normal discs…nada.
How do we get past the continued fiction spewed by high-end makers of hardware, cables, and even software? Yes, software companies do it too. Record companies want sales just as much as the hardware snake oil vendors. This is a quote I found on the Elusive Disc site referring to an FIM production on CD (remember a CD is a CD is a CD at 44.1 kHz/16-bits…no amount of voodoo is going to alter the stream of ones and zeros and the resultant fidelity).
“FIM’s glass mastering-disc engineer maintains expertise in the latest technologies: he currently uses a special blu-ray recordable mastering thermal process technique to create small smooth grooves which result in precision fidelity. He is meticulous in ensuring the best track pitch and the distance between the spiral of the pits, to reduce the amount of noise the tracking servo in the drive picks up from adjacent tracks, thus ensuring the best parameters on Cross Talk (XT) by minimizing the servo noise of the Drive during playback of the replica results.”
This paragraph is so nuts that I’ll parse it tomorrow and let you know exactly what it means.
Just give me the 44.1 kHz / 16-bits samples so that my high-end DAC can convert the digital stream back to analog music.
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Dr. AIX lives in a parallel universe. I should say I do not mind to live there. It should be simpler and cheaper. Because everything corresponds to the known theory. And he’s got no doubts.
In my universe, the CD’s “treated” with microfiber cloth and distilled water sound “cleaner”. (The theory behind it says, that the water removes the static electricity, that, when the disk rotates, adds to the jitter). If Dr. AIX says, that my disks were dirty, OK, so be it… But the sound is different, and I get less errors (tried with EAC before and after cleaning).
I hate to admit, but in my universe the darned Ethernet cables “sound” differently. I remember that I wrote in this and in SlimDevices forums that it’s not possible, unless there is something with the shielding, but alas… The bits are the same, as Dr AIX would have measured, but the sound is different.
And then we back to the same problem - probably we measure the wrong things. But if you have no doubts, you will not move anywhere, you will remain the same.
As a friend of mine would say, Dr. AIX is very religious. He believes in the Old Measurements. OM! Or Ohmmmm!
Well, he writes “there is absolutely no way that there will be any sonic differences when identical data streams are presented to a high-end DAC with proper clocking.”
This sounds correct. If the data stream is itself identical in every way, and it is subsequently is processed with “proper clocking” everything should sound the same.
The issues are what is an “identical data stream” and “proper clocking.”
Elk saidHmmm... Utopia? (Or oxymorons? )The issues are what is an “identical data stream” and “proper clocking.”
If Dr. Aix receives 99 testimonials that praises the DS and 1 that criticizes it in the commentary field, he will pick the one that supports his view. It is pretty evident that this is about preconceptions and defending his standpoint. He should be protected from himself.
Well, you know the typical counter to that (and I get this from non-audiophile friends all the time), is that those that like it have deluded themselves after spending so much money…of course you hear an improvement. It’s easy to refute stuff when you throw blanket statements out like that. I also get the same crap from Anti-Vaxers and other Anti-Science folks when you provide them with scientific fact; they always come back to “well big pharma wants you sick because MONEY!”
Sometimes I wish I could live in the world of “bits is bits,” “all amps sound the same,” “high end cables are snake oil” people. Things must be so simple and certain. But why do they come off angry more often than not?
Well, he’s got us all riled up again… Interestingly, the note that I put in the USB cable thread from Galen Gareis alludes to possible bugs in the digital transmission pathway that are not addressed by Mr. Waldrep. Give it a good (couple of) reads. I know that there is a lot of info presented there but he alludes to possible signal timing issues that may not be addressed by our equipment and cabling that could affect sound quality. Quiz on Tuesday. Here is a guy who has no real skin in the game. He is primarily a vinyl guy and has a decent digital setup, but not high end. He doesn’t sell anything, will not make a dime linked to Belden’s sales, and listens to digital as his second choice. For my own part, USB and Ethernet cabling does sound different. In a recent informal shoot-out I chose the “cheap-assed” USB cable as my pick of three, two of which were “designer”. The one I picked was a $11 Belkin Gold. I suppose you could say that I was biased by price,
but I really didn’t know which cable was which.
We all tend to engage in this behavior; gather in and embrace that which supports our views, eschew the rest.
Very comforting.
Hmm, edit function seems to be missing? Anyway, again I find myself scratching my head over Mr. Waldrep’s comments. His work is outstanding and continued improvement of the digital playback pathway could presumably make his recordings sell better. Of course then there are those that will claim that his recordings are flawed by the very medium that he chose to produce them with. Digital will never never be the equal of an analog master, forever. End of story. Inconceivable! Any argument to the contrary would just presume a hidden bias to sell digital recordings, right?
lonson said Sometimes I wish I could live in the world of "bits is bits," "all amps sound the same," "high end cables are snake oil" people. Things must be so simple and certain. But why do they come off angry more often than not?They are angry because we challenge their belief system and they feel threatened. Threatened has two basic responses, fight or flight. Those that stay to fight, defend their systems with anger. But they are not alone, and all of us are vulnerable to this on some level. Think about religion and how threatened people get when their belief systems are challenged by the obvious. They have stories and myth to explain that which they observe and cannot explain, but if those stories and myths are challenged, this upsets their entire belief structure and puts into question their entire life and its meaning. Not small stuff! And we all have our belief systems, and they are no less anything to any of us.
Yep.
Paul McGowan said
They are angry because we challenge their belief system and they feel threatened.If that statement doesn't summarize (in a blunt sort of way) human nature, I don't know what does .... One of the nice things about this forum is there are a large number of folks who don't have cast in stone belief systems (with respect to audio, we're not going beyond that). We can discuss things with a relatively open mind and learn in the process. While I can't speak for anyone else, I've found that I know so little that I have to keep an open mind. In contrast, I do find it a turn off when someone states something in absolutes, there are always exceptions. Well maybe not for death and taxes ...
…and Michigan S***S
Will, Willl, Will … Even though I am not a sports fan, especially basketball, I will say … Oh how I hate Ohio State!
That’s the spirit!
I believe that Paul has it right. Fight or Flight.
“CHANGE” is a huge step for many, especially when it concerns “views” that have been cultivated and protected over time.
Funny how we can all look back and see how a previous “view” was later discovered to be less than true but how SOME will fight to protect what they “view” today as Hoyle rather than embracing the opportunity to retest it.
Makes life interesting though. 
Elk said Well, he writes "there is absolutely no way that there will be any sonic differences when identical data streams are presented to a high-end DAC with proper clocking."All:
Taken in context, is there really any disagreement with the quoted text? This statement strikes me as non-controversial (but perhaps it is beside the point?)