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A high quality CD Player

venton said:
Interesting, is there really a machine that can measure soundstage? If we play an identical recording through different dacs, some would hear different soundstages. But the data would be identical so I'd assume a machine would measure the same for both, yet the brain would disagree.
I do find the whole thing fascinating. A clarinet has a certain waveform, a piano has a different waveform, and so on. Yet when we mix a whole band together, the speaker can't independently move for each instrument. It moves in a certain waveform that conveys each instrument, different tones, volumes, chords as a single waveform. The brain, effortlessly puts this together and hears it as seperate things. I'm surprised if any machine can match this feat.
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Careful! We're creeping into psychoacoustics territory... :)

The ears+brain work together in strange ways to recreate a "soundstage" - lateral positioning is mainly decoded from relative left-right emphasis while depth is mainly decoded from phase shift detection. Much of this is from a mix of direct and reflected signal. The key is the way in which the brain "decodes" the complex combination of waveforms received by the ears and passed to brain as electrical impulses.

If we accept this explanation of how we perceive a soundstage then any attempt to construct a "machine" that can both detect and measure "soundstaging" is likely to be one monumental exercise. In order to create such a machine, the creator (not capitalised) would need an accurate and detailed understanding of just how this perception is done and I'm not sure that science has enough information and understanding of the ear:brain functioning to enable such a machine to be built.

The other aspect lies in the relative intensity of some of these spatial cues used by the ear:brain to conjure up these perceptions of depth (particularly) as the intensity levels of some of the depth cues is very low in relation to the "musical information". The audio rig needs to have a very low noise floor to enable the listener's ear:brain to detect enough of these cues to re-create the soundstage and if the noise-floor is too high, these cues will be masked and render the soundstage erratic in its presentation (due to music's continual variations in intensity).

Obviously, if we detect depth from phase shift cues, then the audio rig needs to maintain phase accuracy to allow this perception function.

So, what may be a feasible solution - rather than building a machine that can re-create a soudstage and measure it - is to rather build a machine that can detect and measure the various types of spatial cue "enabling" characteristics (e.g. noise floor, phase accuracy, left:right amplitude accuracy, etc.) and, based on whether or not these measurements fall within some yet-to-be-defined limits, to give a mechanical equivalent of a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the system's potential in this area.

But I'm merely hypothesizing... :)

Dave
 
radamel said:
They aren't truly good because IMO there are better ones. :)

Based on my experience I'd name the Esoteric K-03, especially if the external Master Clock is added.
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I see. That's experience of comparing the Copland and the Esoteric, is it?
 
I remember a fantastic story about a Copland CDP, whose owner asked a third party modder to add an external clock, the clock was duly added and the 'modder' showed the owner a cupful of parts which had been 'upgraded' , a few months later the fascia panel expired and the owner sent the machine back to the distributor for repair.
The external clock had been connected to the display panels supply causing it to fail.
The owner asked whether the other upgrades were ok, 'what other upgrades' came the reply!
Keith,
 
mattgbell said:
I see. That's experience of comparing the Copland and the Esoteric, is it?
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You must have missed my PS.

But IIRC as you've said before that you didn't find a significant difference listening to that Copland it isn't difficult to assume that it's not a truly good digital source.

Perhaps it would be easier for you to listen to the Esoteric to conclude for yourself.
 
radamel said:
You must have missed my PS.

But IIRC as you've said before that you didn't find a significant difference listening to that Copland it isn't difficult to assume that it's not a truly good digital source.

Perhaps it would be easier for you to listen to the Esoteric to conclude for yourself.
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Yes, I missed your PS. It was unnecessary though, as it was pretty obvious you hadn't actually had any experience of the Copland.
 
Purite Audio said:
I remember a fantastic story about a Copland CDP, whose owner asked a third party modder to add an external clock, the clock was duly added and the 'modder' showed the owner a cupful of parts which had been 'upgraded' , a few months later the fascia panel expired and the owner sent the machine back to the distributor for repair.
The external clock had been connected to the display panels supply causing it to fail.
The owner asked whether the other upgrades were ok, 'what other upgrades' came the reply!
Keith,
Click to expand...

Got any positive anedoctes about the competition Keith?
 
radamel said:
They aren't truly good because IMO there are better ones. :)

Based on my experience I'd name the Esoteric K-03, especially if the external Master Clock is added.

PS I must say that I never heard that specific Copland so please take what I've just wrote with a pinch of salt.
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Expectation bias.
 
radamel said:
If you say so, you must be right.

Have you done a direct comparison between the Copland and the Esoteric?
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The onus isn't on me - it's on you. You expect one to sound better than the other and have stated so. But you've only heard one, not both. Don't project on me please.
 
wyjsar said:
The onus isn't on me - it's on you. You expect one to sound better than the other and have stated so. But you've only heard one, not both. Don't project on me please.
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I could be wrong of course. The Copland may be a better player than the Esoteric.
It doesn't seem very probable to me though taking into account that apparently it failed to impress Mattgbell and IME the Esoteric almost always impresses people who listen to it.

But again, I'm just hypothesizing. If you'd find this somewhat pointless I'd be tempted to agree.
 
You sell external clocks don't you Keith (M2 Tech Evo Clock)?
They must work or you wouldn't sell them.
 
muzzer said:
You sell external clocks don't you Keith (M2 Tech Evo Clock)?
They must work or you wouldn't sell them.
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If Keith sells them not only they work they also are guaranteed to improve SQ due to their proper engineering and superior specifications. :cool:
 
venton said:
Interesting, is there really a machine that can measure soundstage? If we play an identical recording through different dacs, some would hear different soundstages. But the data would be identical so I'd assume a machine would measure the same for both, yet the brain would disagree.
I do find the whole thing fascinating. A clarinet has a certain waveform, a piano has a different waveform, and so on. Yet when we mix a whole band together, the speaker can't independently move for each instrument. It moves in a certain waveform that conveys each instrument, different tones, volumes, chords as a single waveform. The brain, effortlessly puts this together and hears it as seperate things. I'm surprised if any machine can match this feat.
Click to expand...

As you say, the human brain has learnt (well, learns) to recognise individual instruments in a mix. As far as I know, no machine has been made to do this. However, there's no reason, as far as I can see, why one couldn't be made, but would not underestimate the difficulties. Given that it would have little real world use I doubt it will happen any time soon. That said, it's just the sort of thing that would add to an artificial intelligence solution, so who knows?

I think the key point is that the components of soundstage can be measured. A machine could, I think, ultimately use the greater precision it can apply to better pinpoint the width and depth cues.

In reality regards "If we play an identical recording through different dacs, some would hear different soundstages" it comes back to whether you are happy to consider the fragility of human perception. A robot may one day score 10/10 in a DAC double blind ABX. I doubt any of us ever will.
 
And how about those of us that think 'soundstage' is one of the most utterly useless 'measures' of good music reproduction ..?

It's certainly one of the things I care less about; and for almost all recordings but the most 'purist'/repressed forms of recording it's an arbitrary construct at root anyway; a kind of sonic production firework, utterly unrelated to the essential depiction of music.
 
martin clark said:
And how about those of us that think 'soundstage' is one of the most utterly useless 'measures' of good music reproduction ..?

It's certainly one of the things I care less about; and for almost all recordings but the most 'purist'/repressed forms of recording it's an arbitrary construct at root anyway; a kind of sonic production firework, utterly unrelated to the essential depiction of music.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, we'll program the robot to cover the other things too.
 
Oh good.
Meanwhile I leave the oscilloscope on to deal with the tedious business of 'listening to music', whatever that is -along with ascertaining my pleasure with the hifi.

measure.jpg
 
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