Do you believe this Schiit? I don't.

mountainjoe said:

You can't argue that these cables lengths are so short that the losses are irrelevant to return loss and then argue that 3dB of attenuation will add jitter. On such short lengths, 3dB of attenuation should not materially affect the eye pattern unless there is a lot noise being introduced into the system. Resistive attenuation by itself will not increase jitter - this will only happen if the SNR at the receiver is impacted.

And if jitter is dominated by the reflections in the system, then adding 3dB of attenuation could actually improve jitter performance.

Lastly, if any such implementation doesn't have at least 3dB of margin, then it is grossly under-designed imo..

Cheers, Joe

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Empirical Audio said:

If the signal is attenuated by 3dB, then it is out of spec. This is not RF we are talking about, this is a specified digital signal with a 0.5V P-P voltage and timing spec. There is a maximum risetime specified, but no minimum risetime, BTW.

3dB attenuation will likely cause more jitter because the reduction in amplitude will increase the risetime. Also, the detection of the edge may not be exactly at the zero volt crossing (I'm certain it's not actually), so reducing the amplitude will place the detection point on the edges at a slower slew-rate time on the waveform.

When you are talking about picoseconds of jitter, these can easily add significantly. Even signal passing through one more buffer gate can add a few psec to the jitter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

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microstrip said:

IMHO the experience you are addressing is irrelevant to this debate. I systematically bring electronic and instrumentation facts that are objectively relevant, addressing they are many times weak and too superficial to be correlated with the subjective aspects.



Yes, but galvanic isolation has its intrinsic problems, mainly that the impedance of this devices is variable versus frequency and have resonances. It is a classical compromise in instrumentation. Can you provide a link to this independent test?

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Empirical Audio said:

If you read my white paper, you will see that it is the risetime of the source that determines the minimum length. Very short, like 6 inches is good and longer than 1.25m is good. Between those lengths, most cables will add significant jitter. This has been independently ABX tested BTW.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

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Empirical Audio said:

This would likely be a new driver with a new output impedance and a different risetime. If all of these are optimized, the DAC will generate lower distortion due to lower jitter.



There is no "signal boost" going on. The DIP reclocks the data and a new driver outputs this to the DAC. It is all about jitter. I have modded the DIP in past years to improve the output section and the clock. There is only so much that can be done with mods though. If you want to hear REALLY LOW jitter, try out one of my Synchro-Mesh reclockers with 7psec of directly measured output jitter at the end of my 4 foot BNC cable. You will not find anything else on the market that has jitter this low. Here is are the measurements:

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=157348.0



Galvanic isolation is a double-edged sword. Yes, you will eliminate common-mode noise from ground-loops that can impact jitter. On the other hand, if you are using a pulse transformer, this will add some jitter, depending on the quality of the transformer. I like to do it without transformer on the output if possible, but I offer both versions on all of my products.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

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Empirical Audio said:

If the signal is attenuated by 3dB, then it is out of spec. This is not RF we are talking about, this is a specified digital signal with a 0.5V P-P voltage and timing spec. There is a maximum risetime specified, but no minimum risetime, BTW.

3dB attenuation will likely cause more jitter because the reduction in amplitude will increase the risetime. Also, the detection of the edge may not be exactly at the zero volt crossing (I'm certain it's not actually), so reducing the amplitude will place the detection point on the edges at a slower slew-rate time on the waveform.

When you are talking about picoseconds of jitter, these can easily add significantly. Even signal passing through one more buffer gate can add a few psec to the jitter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

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morricab said:

What type of rise times are we talking about here? nanoseconds or longer? shorter?

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morricab said:

And risetime is impacted because of RC time constant changes? Otherwise, simply adding a resistor shouldn't change the rise time significantly.

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Given that there is a maximum rise time specified are you saying that there are differences in jitter caused when the risetime is slower or faster but within that limit?

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I would think that jitter would arise, not by the rise time per se but in a fluctuation of that rise time. A resistor might cause a change in risetime but it should be a constant and not lead to variable risetime... or?

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morricab said:

i realize there is no "boost" per se just that the signal going out has a higher level than the one coming in. I have no doubt that there are better jitter boxes out there now but I have found the Monarchy to be quite effective on most systems I have inserted it into...just goes to show how far off many of those systems are to begin with as people don't take this aspect of digital seriously enough.

Based on the test results I saw of Monarchy vs. other competitors from that era (early 2000s I think) the galvanic isolation was a big plus because the others ALL had jitter added through the power supply and the Monarchy was the only one then that really did what it said on the box.

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Empirical Audio said:

Isolation is certainly important, but if I had to choose between really low jitter and isolation with higher jitter, I will choose the lower jitter, and I do.

Steve N.

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mountainjoe said:

Agree with this point - I think the two (psychoacoustically) predominant forms of distortion with digital is jitter and group delay distortion introduced by digital filters (though of course can also come from analog filters).

I believe the human sense of hearing is particularly sensitive to temporal distortions as these do not happen normally in nature - most folks here probably already understand this.

Cheers, Joe

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Empirical Audio said:

Interesting. What is a Temporal Distortion?

Steve N.

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