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AD/DA conversion

Does A/D D/A retain 100% of the original informations

  • No

    Votes: 12 57.1%
  • Yes

    Votes: 9 42.9%

  • Total voters
    21

TLS

pfm Member
Do you think that an analogue signal converted to digital, then converted back to analogue retain 100% of the original information?
 
If the A/D is transparent then yes, I have experimented with placing a Lynx HILO in the loop and I can't hear any difference,
Keith.
 
No electrical circuit is perfect.

What resolution for example? 24@384 in a studio is going to be better than 16@44k1.


To paraphrase a 3 laws of thermodynamics joke I heard years ago:

You can't make something sound better, only the same or worse.
You can only make it sound exactly the same at -273C.
You can't reach -273C.
 
The resolution required has to be linked to audibility.
As always with hi-fi, there is a threshold above which going 'better' brings no practical benefit.

What I will say is that even recording my TT into the onboard system in my Macbook delivers results pretty close to the original - even in that less than ideal electrical environment and at 16/44.
So even when there are losses, they are trivially small compared to those we see in other parts of the chain.
I don't know why people worry about it. Well, I do, but that's for another discussion ;)

For perspective it's worth remembering that the capability of even a budget soundcard is far superior in terms of resolution than the studio kit that produced many of the recording in our collections, other than stuff produced in the last decade. Many of us own and enjoy vinyl mastered and produced via pretty primitive digital kit.
 
I guess a lot depends on how good the analogue circuits are, if the digital conversion is objectively transparent then the analogue I/O needs to be as well, not easy.
 
Keith, If you think the Linx HILO is transparent (and I'm sure it is), why would you look forward to hearing 32/384?

I guess a lot depends on how good the analogue circuits are, if the digital conversion is objectively transparent then the analogue I/O needs to be as well, not easy.

Yes, that's where differences are more likely to emerge IMO.
I don't think it's a difficult job though. Even sub £100 units get reasonably close to source, so only s little extra effort and cost is required IME.
Easy enough to test - just chuck the processor into the tape loop and compare processed to direct having matched levels.
 
But Rob, do you remember Eunji seemed to be able to hear the ad da chain when we did a test at yours? Some ears! Interesting to try again with proper kit.
 
But Rob, do you remember Eunji seemed to be able to hear the ad da chain when we did a test at yours? Some ears! Interesting to try again with proper kit.

That was using the loop through an iMac!
But yes she has good ears.
 
No AD/DA chain can retain 100% of the information, it will at least lose some in the analogue stages. But a decent AD/DA loop should be able to retain all of the audible info in one loop through.

I've never been able to achieve that though and I've had a few decent A/D's through here on dem.
 
on the basis that I can't hear any difference between my TT direct nd the AD/DA'd monitoring signal I think it's as transparent as you'll ever need. Of course information must be lost - you just won't ever miss it.
 
My post is pretty much as others have posted here but I'll elaborate a little

Any conversion process is going to be lossy, wheather or not you can here any loss is another matter and would be largely down to the resolution you are encoding/decoding in and also the quality of the ADC/DAC you are using, they are not all equal.

Some DACs are plain crap, many consumer sound different but are enjoyable to listen to.

Studio/Pro dacs tend to be much more transparent and more difficult/impossible to tell apart but not particularly musical, this is not a criticisim of pro dacs at all, they just tell it how it is as opposed to showing you the recording through rose tinted specs like most consumer products do, I suspect that if you were to pass the rose tinted sound of vinyl/consumer digital products though pro ADC/DACs the sound resulting difference would be indistinguishable to mere mortals.

I like my rose tinted specs for what its worth and will happily continue to use my turntables along with my cd players and my ds, none of which are truly transparent but all of which sound fantastic to my ears :)
 
I think the use of 100% is adding to the confusion. I think your intention is to say is it audible. This is easy enough to try out. Id more happily stick a signal though a dozen round trips through a decent dac/adc than go near a valve amp if I were concerned about retaining the original signal.
 
I think the use of 100% is adding to the confusion. I think your intention is to say is it audible. This is easy enough to try out. Id more happily stick a signal though a dozen round trips through a decent dac/adc than go near a valve amp if I were concerned about retaining the original signal.

the above test is 60 generations deep.
 


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