What is the cause of PCM glare? Bad recording or Bad DAC? Anything banish it?

caesar

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May 30, 2010
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Does anyone know what is the cause of PCM glare or edge? Some recently remastered cds I have, such as from MoFi seem to not have it at all. And some better dacs reduce it when playing older CDs.

Where do these artifacts come from? how do they get on the disk? Can the best dacs completely banish it?
 

Ken Newton

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Dec 11, 2012
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Does anyone know what is the cause of PCM glare or edge?

First, I do not possess definitive knowledge on the cause(s). However, my experiments lead me to mostly suspect analog artifacts injected during the signal conversion process. Such artifacts include, in no particular order, jitter converted in to correlated noise floor modulation, I/V converter dynamic errors, ground noise-contamination and output anti-image filter audibility. While a brickwall digital filter can have an easily audible affect on the sound as well, my experience has been that the digital processing - including the D/A conversion technology employed - is less responsible. Although, this is not yet conclusive in my mind.

Where do these artifacts come from? how do they get on the disk? Can the best dacs completely banish it?

Certain artifacts, such as jitter and anti-alias filter errors, are encoded in to the music data during the recording process. I know of no way for a DAC to remove jitter encoded in the data during recording. It is possible, however, for a DAC to remove the affects of the recorder's anti-alias filter (As Peter Craven pointed out in his AES paper on Apodizing filters.), but with some degree of audible consequence in the form of high treble cutoff. It's challenge enough for a DAC simply to not produce artifacts of it's own.
 
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Mike Lavigne

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Apr 25, 2010
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Does anyone know what is the cause of PCM glare or edge? Some recently remastered cds I have, such as from MoFi seem to not have it at all. And some better dacs reduce it when playing older CDs.

Where do these artifacts come from? how do they get on the disk? Can the best dacs completely banish it?

yes.

buy a Trinity dac. PCM solved. it is remarkable. owned it for 4 months. every anti PCM perspective I had is gone. the format is not the issue, it is execution. but unlike dsd which is trivial to get to sound good PCM is really hard to get to sound good.

3000 cd's I owned that I had ignored for 10 years were re-discovered and much loved.

the only problem is $56k.

or maybe the MSB Select dac II, at $90k might also be like that.

it turns out that to truly remove the high frequency glare it is necessary to build a very expensive labor intensive ladder dac. otherwise you have to cover that glare with coloration of one sort or another, or upsample it to Quad dsd and hear something a little different....nice....but missing a slight degree of energy and vividness.
 

7ryder

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Jan 31, 2015
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Or you could try a Schiit Yggdrasil with a Mutec MC3+ USB. No glare.
 

Ric Schultz

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Jun 21, 2013
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Mike,
If you have only heard Jriver doing Quad DSD upsampling then you have only heard one persons current take on software. Some say that HQ player is much better. Have you tried it? I had the Sony Happy One here and did some mods on it.....it does double DSD upsampling. After a ton of mods it was starting to sound good.....but then Sony released a new version of their upsampling software and it sounded way, way better. I am not saying that quad speed or even 16X speed (Meitner DA-2 DAC just released)....is as good as the very best straight PCM playback....this will have to be determined by those that have the means.....but....all software sounds different and the software just keeps getting better and better. Maybe a cheap chipless DSD engine with super high speed DSD upsampling software will win out in the end. We shall see...fun times ahead!
 

YashN

New Member
Jun 28, 2015
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If you have only heard Jriver doing Quad DSD upsampling then you have only heard one persons current take on software. Some say that HQ player is much better. Have you tried it?

HQ Player is much, much, much better for SQ.
 

Folsom

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Oct 25, 2015
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The biggest problem with digital is the incoming power. Some of the DAC's listed are better at reducing noise from the AC. DSD on the other hand covers it up with modulation and noise.
 

spazmatron

Banned
Dec 4, 2015
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The biggest problem with digital is the incoming power. Some of the DAC's listed are better at reducing noise from the AC. DSD on the other hand covers it up with modulation and noise.

i agree with this, i have no glare with my TAD d1000. look into your mains, its cheaper for us to sort that than buy mega expensive products that sort it internally. what you dont wont imo is any kind of cut off in the top end, its comes into the often traveled audio territory of treating symptoms not the cause and cutting off your audio nose despite your face.
 

RayDunzl

New Member
Jun 26, 2014
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When did PCM glare become a "thing"?

Here's something close: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/153-cd-players-dedicated-music-transports/1153074-digital-glare.html

For me, most CDs sound just fine.

Once in a while, one won't. I figure it is the recording, and not the reproduction (at least, not here), since good recordings sound, well, good.

Most recently, my buddy brought over 2001 A Space Odyssey Soundtrack - since it contains tunes by Ligetti, and we became interested in him due to a video posted here a few days ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmCmrZfybPQ

It was ok, enjoyable, but when the orchestral parts reached a peak, it got nasty. I called it grainy, he said overmodulated. Just that muddy mess of a sound, no clarity/transparency left in it.

Is that glare?

It made me wonder about the source - did they do a transfer from a film print or what?

Others seemed to be unhappy with it too - http://www.amazon.com/2001-Space-Odyssey-Various-Artists/dp/B0000033WB#customerReviews
 

Johnny Vinyl

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
May 16, 2010
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yes.

buy a Trinity dac. PCM solved. it is remarkable. owned it for 4 months. every anti PCM perspective I had is gone. the format is not the issue, it is execution. but unlike dsd which is trivial to get to sound good PCM is really hard to get to sound good.

3000 cd's I owned that I had ignored for 10 years were re-discovered and much loved.

the only problem is $56k.

or maybe the MSB Select dac II, at $90k might also be like that.

it turns out that to truly remove the high frequency glare it is necessary to build a very expensive labor intensive ladder dac. otherwise you have to cover that glare with coloration of one sort or another, or upsample it to Quad dsd and hear something a little different....nice....but missing a slight degree of energy and vividness.

I'll live with glare, thank you!
 

Gregadd

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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From the beginning.
 

Ken Newton

Well-Known Member
Dec 11, 2012
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When did PCM glare become a "thing"?

The term "glare" strikes me as rather accurate analog for describing a certain subjective discomfort that many of us have often experienced from CD playback since it's inception. To me, optical glare produces the sensation that the illumination has been dramatically increased while the contrast has been dramatically decreased. It washes out colors and provokes a strong feeling of unease that makes one want to turn away from the image. It makes the eyes want to shut down a bit in defense. That's a pretty good descriptive analog to how common CD playback often used to make my ears feel.
 
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esldude

New Member
Comes from the recording. I heard very similar sounds that people call digital glare with many Philips or DG LP's (yes they were analog sourced and not LPs of digital recordings). Yet you didn't get glare like that from Telarc LPs which were sourced from digital nor from their CDs. Digital or PCM glare is not an inborn trait of digital.

I do believe the LP process blunts such sound, and is why it may be more common in digital sources. The problem is the recording though not digital.
 

BruceD

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Dec 13, 2013
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Doesn't completely eliminate it but odes for a tad warmer smoothness presentation--or apparent to Moi--makes some discs more "bearable "

Just a good squirt of the dishwashing liquid rubbed over the play side to a brisk lather and hot /cold water rinse--pat dry with paper towel

Voila play and be surprised ;)

BruceD
 

Mike Lavigne

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Apr 25, 2010
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Ok so from I can gather, the consensus seems to be that it is from the recording rather than the medium

in the case of DG pressings; they tend to have a bit of an edge, the Philips not so much. Philips are consistently among my very favorite classical pressings. when I hear recent DG vinyl reissues I find they are full bodied and not edgy. so my take is that the 60's and 70's DG analog mastering seems to tend toward edge, but the recordings are just fine. even later DG pressings that were digitally mastered seem less edgy than earlier DG analog sourced pressings. funny and ironic that.

I have plenty of DG and Philips pressings, but I'm not claiming any ultimate truth......just my own take on the subject.

getting back to redbook; it does have a tendency toward a less than behaved top end and lack of depth in general through most dacs. so yes; it is the medium as we mostly hear it. but I've heard that medium be just fine. so its not a simple answer. it depends on the lengths one is willing to go......and....above all......what one's reference is. if you were raised on redbook then what's all this hubbub about anyway. all is well and ignorance is bliss. if you have been a dsd disciple for 15 years then redbook has issues.
 
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NorthStar

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Feb 8, 2011
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I have some quality music recordings on Philips and on DG. And I have some strident music recordings on DG...older ones.
On Telarc it's missing the essence...the soul ambiance, in general and in my opinion. The music is incomplete on Telarc, I find, on average. ...From my own Telarc music collection of course. Telarc has a vast catalog, with subsidiaries, and SACDs too. They cover all music genres, from classical orchestral to jazz to blues and movie scores.

Digital is "glare" ...there is simply no two ways about it; anything that is unnatural sounds "glare". ...With a "shine" shoe polish on top, stored inside a shoe box, just too "shiny" to walk outside on the grand alley of the opera hall.

Some mat glare is more affordable, pleasance wise. ...From the ECM record label for example. ...And still retaining some presence. ...DiGitally wise.

Glare, look @ the underside of a compact disc, it's there...glare. And look with a powerful microscope, it's pits that are larger and smaller...all glaring there...unnatural binary system like computers. In comparison look @ an album under the mat (microscope), it's full of valleys and precipices...zigzagging. It looks more like The Rockies...more natural...and rough.
Propel a diamond's cut in the valleys and it'll cut everything in its path, even clouds of dust and rain and fog.

I have some digital records (analog LPs, albums) that have lots of glare as well.

@ the end it all depends, of the music recordings, the mediums, and of the art of mastering in music recordings and delivery systems. ...The artists playing, and the music they're playing. ...Their voices and the microphones used and the techniques employed.

Glare is a natural attribute of the unnatural digital medium. IMO
 

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