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Topic: Toms Hardware PC Audio Article (Read 12960 times) previous topic - next topic
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Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Tripped over this article on Toms UK site.

Page 18 talks about blind testing and page 16 talks about comparing DSD and PCM. The conclusion at page 19 is probably going to upset some people....

Not read it all but I was pleased to see that blind testing had at least been part of their protocol.
lossyWAV -q X -a 4 -s h -A --feedback 2 --limit 15848 --scale 0.5 | FLAC -5 -e -p -b 512 -P=4096 -S- (having set foobar to output 24-bit PCM; scaling by 0.5 gives the ANS headroom to work)

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #1 –
The most important page is probably the last page:
Quote
Anything Above $2 Buys More Features, Not Better Quality
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #2 –
Not really surprised about the conclusion.
Quote
Neither lower-end solution can drive headphones and speakers concurrently, let alone automatically mute speakers when headphones are connected.
Eh? At least my ALC889 can do both... in the former case it requires to set the "make front and rear devices output two streams simultaneously", in the latter, ticking the "mute rear output when front jack is plugged in" option.

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #3 –
My ALC898 can do the same.

Btw, the new ALC1150 further improves performance quite a bit (depending on the implementation of course) over older chips.
"I hear it when I see it."

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Nick.C on
Tripped over this article on Toms UK site.

Page 18 talks about blind testing and page 16 talks about comparing DSD and PCM. The conclusion at page 19 is probably going to upset some people....

Not read it all but I was pleased to see that blind testing had at least been part of their protocol.



They appear to have blown the level matching phase. What is so difficult about measuring the voltage across the final transducer?

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #5 –
Well, I agree that measuring the voltage would have been more precise, but I like their attempt of evening out the overall volume despite differences in frequency responses.
"I hear it when I see it."

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #6 –
Quote from: xnor on
Well, I agree that measuring the voltage would have been more precise, but I like their attempt of evening out the overall volume despite differences in frequency responses.



It is unfortunate that 4 out of the 8 UUTs provided high enough source impedances that there  might have been audible differences simply due to frequency response variations as used.

I am surprised that so many allegedly good suppliers would stumble on such an obvious point.

>$1,000 DACs that cann't drive real world mainstream headphones as well as a $29 Sansa Fuze? LOL!

That said, there are ways out - one is to say that differences from a trivial causes was going to lead to audible differences (BTW that any mere level matching effort would not manage well enough) or hold their noses and add a blameless buffer stage, or equalization.

I can put on my devil's advocate hat and say that they bent over backward to avoid hearing differences that were there and that my friend is bias.  If bias towards hearing differences is bad, then so is bias towards not hearing differences!

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #7 –
The output impedance sentence I get but other than that I have no idea what you're talking about..
"I hear it when I see it."

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Nick.C on
Tripped over this article on Toms UK site.

Page 18 talks about blind testing and page 16 talks about comparing DSD and PCM. The conclusion at page 19 is probably going to upset some people....

Not read it all but I was pleased to see that blind testing had at least been part of their protocol.

I'd like to note a few things however:

-In order to drive an HE-6 or god forbid electrostat, a specific and powerful IS required. But those are kindda rare. And by powerful amp I'm talking higher than Objective amp. And this is coming from an Objective fanboy.
-Were there anything on amps in the Tom's Article? Surprised a HD800 was driven successfully on integrated.
-ALC chips are just specifications. You can implement the chip in a myriad of horrible ways that does not unleash the chip to its full potential. There is a lot of interference in the PC and implementation of audio chips vary from mobo generation to generation, vendor to vendor. A lot of people still run old motherboards which on top of possible introducing hissing and such, can literally have just bad audio. My 2008 rig was a prime example. My new Haswell-based rig is just fine, however.

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #10 –
Realtek gets tons of a unjustified hate not because their specs aren't good, but because they are the go-to choice by motherboard manufacturers and the implementation tend to be on the subpar side especially on the budget models. Which isn't surprisingly since audio is an afterthought compared to the rest of the core logic required of a computer.

Heck, the fact you can get decent analog sound out of a $50 PC motherboard is helluva ton more impressive than some $1000+ standalone DACs working on placebo pills.

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #11 –
Hmm, the first image had a caption criticising a power amp for not having a DAC. They're going to be really angry when they look for the volume control and source selector...

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #12 –
Quote from: Palladium on
Realtek gets tons of a unjustified hate not because their specs aren't good, but because they are the go-to choice by motherboard manufacturers and the implementation tend to be on the subpar side especially on the budget models. Which isn't surprisingly since audio is an afterthought compared to the rest of the core logic required of a computer.

Heck, the fact you can get decent analog sound out of a $50 PC motherboard is helluva ton more impressive than some $1000+ standalone DACs working on placebo pills.


The analog output from my PC is definitely noisy, which is particularly ironic considering the obvious audiophile pretensions VIA had when they named their implementation:



Luckily, a $30 external DAC was all that was needed to provide noise-free stereo playback.

Toms Hardware PC Audio Article

Reply #13 –
Quote from: Dark_wizzie on
-In order to drive an HE-6 or god forbid electrostat, a specific and powerful IS required.


According to Inner Fidelity  HE 6 Review

the HE-6 is like a 60 ohm resistor - easy enough.

The tough part is their rather stunning lack of efficiency which is said to be 27 mW for 90 dB SPL.  Scale that out to 110 dB and you are talking 2.7 watts into 60 ohms which takes just over 40 volts.  That is way outside the zip code where most portable digital players live.  It's even way outside the zipcode where the O2 (Objective) headphone amp lives.  You're basically talking a low current version of a 200 wpc power amp.

If this seems incredible please note that the HD 650s require 0.13 mW to achive the same SPL level, about 200 times less.

Inner Fidelity HD650 review 

It takes only a couple of volts to drive them to the same SPL and with an even higher impedance, its a comparative walk in the park.