Kudos to Amir

[NorthStar]

Again, it's not just a digital thing...

What a strange coincidence; I anticipated your reply.
...I deliberately omitted the word 'analog' in my last post just thinking about you, honest to God! :b

 

[Daveski]

What a strange coincidence; I anticipated your reply.
...I deliberately omitted the word 'analog' in my last post just thinking about you, honest to God! :b

Cool. You hooked me. You could've just not made a distinction and left it as generic 'distortion', as I think its kinda a distinction without a difference.

 

[NorthStar]

Yes, and the true essence of this thread is about Amir's article* regarding 'digital' jitter distortion, from 'digital' S/PDIF coaxial connection, and from HDMI ('digital' ) connection.

But I do agree with you, and I'm real glad that you brought it up; it completes the education, the analysis, the full analog/digital audio/video picture. :b ...Sight & Sound.

* Via Ethan's kudos to his article, bien sur. :b

 

[Gregadd]

=Ethan Winer;184628]Not at all. My contention has always been that jitter is too soft to be an audible problem. When Amir and I first debated this a while back I wasn't aware of how much worse HDMI jitter is than S/PDIF. So I learned something valuable from that exchange, and I even included that in my Audio Expert book. Now Amir is agreeing that as bad as HDMI jitter looks on a graph, the amounts he measured are not likely to be audible. So it's a win-win for everyone here, except those who constantly aim to create friction.

I am not sure what you are objecting to Ethan. Is it that you deny you are not but being much more moderate of late?
I never said you changed your mind on jitter. It does appear you overstated Amir's agreement with you. The point of moderation I referred to was your opinion :

However, I agree that audio designers need to aim higher than "borderline acceptable" for several reasons. For example, audio typically passes through many devices in a row, so if each is just barely transparent the sum of artifacts can be audible.

Ethan in OP

Believe or not I saw this thread as quite a concession by Ethan. He has been much more moderate of late.
His statement that designers should aim for more than borderline acceptable performance imo represents progress. See OP gregadd Post #40

When you consider all the times you have deemed devices "good enough" that is quite a concession.

 

[Ethan Winer]

I am not sure what you are objecting to Ethan.

What I object to is the constant nitpicking, and the constant disingenuous accusations. You said I conceded my original position and I showed that I did not. You said I'm being more moderate lately and I showed that I have always been moderate and reasonable. If stuff is too soft to hear, then it's too soft to hear! If you're unwilling to test this for yourself, or even listen to the example files I handed you on a silver platter, it's unreasonable to continue (for years now) insisting that I'm somehow wrong.

--Ethan

 

[NorthStar]

Normally, because of my fear, I would not comment.

BUT! I have to put my fear in its own grave! => I'm with Ethan here; there is sometimes an atmosphere of pressure reigning above heads, and it is bien dommage as it slows the pace of natural development.
Nobody in particular is in my vision here; it is simply an overall aura that sometimes pierce through the clouds of celestial 'audionation'.

Ethan is a great guy, and deserves the utmost respect like any other peaceful man on this planet!
And sometimes, here, I found that this respect is indeed missing.

Sincerely,
Bob

 

[MrAcoustat]

For me it is a question of respect, YOUR opinion is just as good as mine and mine is just as good as yours, then there is our PREFERENCES it is not because i don't like something that it makes it BAD, the same thing the other way around, it's not because i like something that it makes it GOOD, again it's simply a question of CHOICE, i have heard units with very good measurements sound BAD but i also have heard units with very bad measurements sound good, the only person that as the right to decide if it's good or bad is the person that is PAYING the bill, THAT'S YOU.

 

[opus111]

You said I'm being more moderate lately and I showed that I have always been moderate and reasonable.

Where did you show this?

 

[NorthStar]

Where did you show this?

Richard, Ethan has about ten posts in the last ten years!

* See, people can disagree with someone's opinion, and it is perfectly fine;
but there are ways to be nice in saying so, that's all. :b

"Where did you show this?"; sounds right to you?

 

[opus111]

Richard, Ethan has about ten posts in the last ten years!

You lost me.

* See, people can disagree with someone's opinion, and it is perfectly fine;
but there are ways to be nice in saying so, that's all. :b

So are you saying my question to Ethan isn't nice?

"Where did you show this?"; sounds right to you?

Sounds reasonable to me, yep.

 

[NorthStar]

You lost me.

So are you saying my question to Ethan isn't nice?

Sounds reasonable to me, yep.

Man, you're just too technical; is there any humanization in you?

TIP: Just forget the past for an instant, and start brand new fresh from zero right now. :b
Can you do it?

 

[opus111]

Man, you're just too technical; is there any humanization in you?

I'm still not understanding - what's humanization? Putting liberal smilies after questions would achieve it?

TIP: Just forget the past for an instant, and start brand new fresh from zero right now. :b
Can you do it?

You lost me (again) - seems we're inhabiting those non-parallel universes still.

 

[NorthStar]

I'm still not understanding - what's humanization? Putting liberal smilies after questions would achieve it?

You lost me (again) - seems we're inhabiting those non-parallel universes still.

Alright,

1. Ethan started a positive thread in thanking Amir's article in Widescreen Review mag.

2. Eventually Amir will make that review available to all of us, right here.

3. We just scraped the 'jitter' issue from HDMI and S/PDIF connections; we don't know yet the full spectrum and the components and their parameters and measurements and how who when why and what.

4. We are truly only discussing among us.

5. Nothing's wrong with anything and anyone.

6. I'm out, and without any emoticon. ...Cheers

 

[Gregadd]

What I object to is the constant nitpicking, and the constant disingenuous accusations. You said I conceded my original position and I showed that I did not. You said I'm being more moderate lately and I showed that I have always been moderate and reasonable. If stuff is too soft to hear, then it's too soft to hear! If you're unwilling to test this for yourself, or even listen to the example files I handed you on a silver platter, it's unreasonable to continue (for years now) insisting that I'm somehow wrong.

--Ethan

Oh well I tried to extend the olive branch.
Please quote where I said you conceded your original post or made any disingenuous accusations. I am sure I did not.
I am not nitpicking at all. I was privy to the original debate where you were in my opinion defeated by Amir. It seems everyone else moved except you.
You were unable to sustain your position that jitter was non-existent ,inaudible, or subject to masking effect. Finally in what can only be termed as grasping at straws you claim jitter is masked during peaks. For practical purposes is practically meaningless because peaks comprise only a small portion of music.

Despite that your self congratulatory praise entitled Kudos to Amir I still find you to be more temperate of late.Even a moderate can be more temperate..

 

[Whatmore]

Can I suggest that the mods open a completely separate "Have a go at Ethan" subforum where everyone can put the boot in to their heart's content ?

 

[Orb]

Can I suggest that the mods open a completely separate "Have a go at Ethan" subforum where everyone can put the boot in to their heart's content ?

Hehe, I think it is more than "have a go at Ethan", as there are some on here with pretty technical backgrounds or follow those with such, so the problem is when a poster oversimplifies a subject to suite their own narrative and ignores any other information (reminds me of talking about timbre in another thread).
In the same way quite a few of us could had taken the bait when one made the comment about there being no "stair-step" in digital audio without defining scope and ignoring EE lectures-etc on transfer functions (just one example of many that could be used in the complete process) - again oversimplification for a personal narrative IMO.
But yeah it should not need to become personal or turn into a group type bullying attitude - which is what I notice John Atkinson has to put up with on hydrogenaudio even though he himself has a solid classicial science degree and research lab position before being an audio journalist, while members at HA (was one myself but never joined in such discussions) ignored just how technically extensive JA's audio knowledge is.

Cheers
Orb

 

[Groucho]

Could the experts clear up one thing for me: would I be right in thinking that the amplitude of the distortion components due to jitter are directly proportional to the music signal amplitude? i.e. if I halve the signal amplitude, the amplitude of the jitter-induced components also halves? If so, the horrendous SNR figures for some HDMI implementations (which actually look worse than cassette tape!), are not actually quite as bad as they look: during quiet passages the 'noise' due to jitter also reduces, unlike analog systems where the background noise is more-or-less constant in level.

 

[opus111]

The jitter scales with the DAC's output signal amplitude, which with most of today's DACs isn't the music signal amplitude because they're putting out lots of ultrasonic hash which varies little in level.

 

[Groucho]

The jitter scales with the DAC's output signal amplitude, which with most of today's DACs isn't the music signal amplitude because they're putting out lots of ultrasonic hash which varies little in level.

OK, thanks. So even with a near-silent music signal you would still get a similar level of jitter noise at the DAC output as with a full scale signal? Some of the figures I've seen for HDMI elsewhere really are quite bad, then!

 

[opus111]

It does very much depend on the kind of DAC chip in use - some are using switched-capacitor output filters which they claim reject jitter. For the ones that don't have charge dumping circuitry with on-chip filters, yes its really quite bad the jitter from HDMI. With, say an AD1955 which uses (I think) a 5 or 6 bit DAC, the noise due to jitter will track down with signal level until the signal is only occupying about 3 LSBs of the DAC (say around -24 to -30dBFS), below that it'll be fairly stable as the OOB noise will be above the signal.