For all you guys giving us a hard time, you could read this article which explains more about jitter and how it affects audio. These things really do make a difference!
@pgruebele Hi please explain how your product helps towards better sound, if any modern DAC reclocks the signal with its internal clock to more or less remove jitter?
@pgruebele This seems like a TOTAL waste of money. My integrated sound card's coaxial out will send out the exact same bits that this "audiophile" converter will, while not costing me an arm and a leg. People need to understand that, when it comes to digital, as long as the quality of a product crosses a certain threshold, (>99% of all products) then digital is digital is digital.
All this is doing is converting one digital signal to another. Only once it hits the DAC does expensive gear start to matter... to an extent. This should be where jitter correction should take place, in or just before the DAC of a high-end product. You'd have to have some SEVERE jitter to need something like this. Don't get sucked into the marketing!
The problem is that a DAC receiving SPDIF input is extracting its own internal clock from the SPDIF signal. You see, the SPDIF signal carries not only the audio data, but also the audio clock. If SPDIF did not also include the clock, then of course any SPDIF device would be good enough since there would have to be a huge clocking error to cause any problems. Unfortunately both the data and clock are important. DACs therefore use PLLs and other mechanism in order to try to extract as jitter free of a clock from the SPDIF signal as possible. Some DACs are actually pretty good at this and other are quite bad. This clock noise causes problems in the DAC's conversion to analog as described in this paper: http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/jitter1_e.html.
I believe in science and things that are measurable. There is no snake oil here, only sound engineering and science. That is why unlike many audiophile companies we publish specs like SPDIF clock jitter for our devices. Jitter is the single most important spec for an SPDIF device (or any clock/timing device for that matter), and some SPDIF outputs like those integrated into the PC motherboard can have 100 times more jitter in their output than our device.
@pgruebele I have no problem with the theoretical idea of jitter, nor that it is measurable. But given all the error-correcting that goes on in the D/A process, is it audible? That, in essence, is my problem with most of the highest-end audiophile products. They address an issue that may be real, and may even be measurable, and automatically assume that it is therefore audible, when most of the time, it's wishful thinking at best, and underhanded money-grubbing at worst.
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Thanks obry.
Sounds like you have a good ear!
For all you guys giving us a hard time, you could read this article which explains more about jitter and how it affects audio. These things really do make a difference!
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/jitter1_e.html
Thanks
-Philip
Aduiophilleo.com
@pgruebele
Hi please explain how your product helps towards better sound, if any modern DAC reclocks the signal with its internal clock to more or less remove jitter?
@pgruebele This seems like a TOTAL waste of money. My integrated sound card's coaxial out will send out the exact same bits that this "audiophile" converter will, while not costing me an arm and a leg. People need to understand that, when it comes to digital, as long as the quality of a product crosses a certain threshold, (>99% of all products) then digital is digital is digital.
All this is doing is converting one digital signal to another. Only once it hits the DAC does expensive gear start to matter... to an extent. This should be where jitter correction should take place, in or just before the DAC of a high-end product. You'd have to have some SEVERE jitter to need something like this. Don't get sucked into the marketing!
@pgruebele
Yes it does, but not at all in digital-to-digital conversion, only in analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog.
No hard feelings though, you're like some kind of natural selection for rich uneducated people, and as such I think I even like you :-)
@whiplash
Thanks for the interest whiplash.
The problem is that a DAC receiving SPDIF input is extracting its own internal clock from the SPDIF signal. You see, the SPDIF signal carries not only the audio data, but also the audio clock. If SPDIF did not also include the clock, then of course any SPDIF device would be good enough since there would have to be a huge clocking error to cause any problems. Unfortunately both the data and clock are important. DACs therefore use PLLs and other mechanism in order to try to extract as jitter free of a clock from the SPDIF signal as possible. Some DACs are actually pretty good at this and other are quite bad. This clock noise causes problems in the DAC's conversion to analog as described in this paper: http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/jitter1_e.html.
I also explain the same thing in more detail on this web page: http://audiophilleo.com/definitions.aspx?jitter
I believe in science and things that are measurable. There is no snake oil here, only sound engineering and science. That is why unlike many audiophile companies we publish specs like SPDIF clock jitter for our devices. Jitter is the single most important spec for an SPDIF device (or any clock/timing device for that matter), and some SPDIF outputs like those integrated into the PC motherboard can have 100 times more jitter in their output than our device.
Cheers
Philip
Audiophilleo.com
@pgruebele I have no problem with the theoretical idea of jitter, nor that it is measurable. But given all the error-correcting that goes on in the D/A process, is it audible? That, in essence, is my problem with most of the highest-end audiophile products. They address an issue that may be real, and may even be measurable, and automatically assume that it is therefore audible, when most of the time, it's wishful thinking at best, and underhanded money-grubbing at worst.