perfect sound Options

[Digitrax]

Room acoustics is an often overlooked factor, but it's probably something that you should spend the most time on, if you're after the "perfect" sound.
All your "perfect" equipment is wasted if you don't take care of that.

+1
Most speakers have relatively flat responses (±3dB for the range they do cover. It's not uncommon to see room nulls of 10dB or more (plus the inevitable 6-8dB boost at about 145Hz for the average 8-ft ceiling).

You can't do perfect sound with 2 channels. Next, please?

You can do sound just as "perfect"-ly with two well-placed speakers as with any other number* (assuming they're good enough). Bear in mind, the human acoustic sensory interface is ultimately limited to two inputs anyway (i.e. you only have two ears).

*(Which is to say "Not that perfectly at all")

This post has been edited by Digitrax: Sep 25 2012, 05:58

[WernerO]

Before one can objectively quantify the perfectibility of a music recording/replay
process one has to define its exact purpose.

Does one want to deliver and render a window onto a past acoustic event in some
other venue?

Does one want to deliver and render the musicians at one's own venue?


Just once? Or consistently for a wide range of recordings?


None of the above?

[pdq]

Like you, I will say Google it. There are several on AES's website. I believe it was around >220ps (don't hold me that, its from memory, I may be off).

Clearly there are thresholds of jitter that everyone on this forum could DBT.

From a back-of-napkin calculation of the jitter in a really good turntable, I get approximately 150,000ps (0.05% wow and flutter on a 3 kHz tone). By your estimate this must be really horrendous and completely unlistenable.

[Roseval]

250 ns : Ashihara https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ast/26/1/26_1_50/_pdf
50 ns: BBC: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1974-11.pdf
10 ns: Benjamin & Canon ''Theoretical and audible effects of
jitter on digital audio quality,'' - 105th AES Convention, #4826 (1998).
1 ns – 20 ps Adams : http://www.theaudiocritic.com/back_issues/...Critic_21_r.pdf
500 ns at 30 Hz - 20 ps at 20 kHz – Julian Dunn: http://www.nanophon.com/audio/jitter92.pdf

[pdq]

Thank you Roseval, that makes my point that not all jitter is equal, and to look at a single measured value is useless.

[Ed Seedhouse]

An ill formed question has no reasonable reply. In this thread the original question was so ill formed as to be unanswerable. The only response is to ask the questioner to define "perfect". For instance, not only don't we know how to build a perfect speaker, we don't even agree what a "perfect" speaker would be. What would the radiation pattern be, for instance? There is no agreement even on something so apparently straightforward as this this after sixty or more years of audio.

If you want a reasonable answer, ask a reasonable question.

[Martel]

Will I get PERFECT sound quality with the following setup?
Lossless music on laptop - connect via HDMI to a perfect receiver which in turn connects to perfect speakers.
What can go wrong?

Your HDMI sound card (is it an ATI/nVidia graphics card?) needs to be set to output PCM. What could possibly go wrong is that it could be set to something like Dolby AC3 and the chip/driver would be converting it to this lossy format before sending it to the receiver. I have never used this so I apologize in case I'm talking nonsense.

[shakey_snake]

Will I get PERFECT sound quality with the following setup?
Lossless music on laptop - connect via HDMI to a perfect receiver which in turn connects to perfect speakers.
What can go wrong?

The cars driving by outside, or the crickets in the field nearby. Or the washing machine running.

[DigitalMan]

Truly an odd thread...

Another issue is that while you can define a perfect codec and amplifier, a perfect speaker is not as straightforward. The ideal dispertion target response is subjective (omni vs. dipole, etc.)

This post has been edited by DigitalMan: Sep 26 2012, 03:11