advertisement


MDAC first listen (part XVIII)

Status
Not open for further replies.
GrumpyOldMan said:
Sorry if I missed it, but did you already try the factory reset, on the off-chance that there may be an issue as described above? (Hold both SEL buttons down when turning it on) (regardless of the LakeWest logo as already explained by John)

I don't know if it will clear everything out, I was surprised that when switching to an older version and back to a new one, it had retained some of the newer settings (ex.: labels)... but it may be worth a shot anyway.
Click to expand...
Already did the factory reset multiple times Grumpy :)
 
JohnW said:
OH - yes, it only displays the Lake-West when exiting the Revision "Menu" on power-up. Normally you would not see the Lake-west logo.

I've forward you my address in here in Czech - I can take a look at your unit as long as you cover the shipping costs.

John
Click to expand...
Hi John, thanks so much for your email.
Great to have you support this issue. Could you please tell me
- if and how I need to pay costs from Czech to the Netherlands.
- what happens with my warranty if you applied the Soverein+ update

I really look forward to hearing back from you.

Regards from the Netherlands
 
Hi Dominik / John,
I'd like to ask - if you're going to backport some A.08 features to A.11 - to reconsider excluding the playback stop/start on the mute button feature (when on USB), which was requested by some forum member, if I recall correctly.

My reasons follow:
  • if I want to pause/stop/play a song, I use the play/pause and stop buttons
  • if I want to mute the playback (but still keep it playing, ie. internet radio stream), I use the mute button
  • pausing a playback results in "no music" situation, like does muting the output
This makes me wonder why was this feature implemented or requested in the first place? Perhaps the fade out / fade in effect was desired? Well, as far as I know, software players can do that nowadays (including Foobar2000), so there's no need for a DAC-side solution.

The thing is that I have several issues with the A.08-style mute button:
  • it sends a pause/play keypress, waking up my computer monitor whenever I just want to mute the music for a few seconds - this happens on windows as well
  • it complicates listening to live streams - the player has to somehow know to ignore the pause/play commands or to re-connect after play ... otherwise it just buffers the input and provides old stream contents upon unpause --- not mentioning other use cases like video playback (TV stream), where mute should really just mute the sound

Thanks and good luck,
Jiri
 
i think i will upgrade my dac when getting a new setup, i don't want any audible distortion/noise, this ofcourse includes room noise. async 192khz usb is a must have for my next dac. ofcourse it have to work flawless with linux, other operation systems isn't that important for me.

my future setup may consist of

dac » electronic filter » amdflifyer » speakers
dac » electronic filter » class D amps » sealed subwoofers
i am considering constructing the electronic filters class D amps, subs for my self since i can't find anything that offers what i am looking for. i will use a microphone to be able to improve the room, if i am lucky i won't need any electronic filter for my front spekars, but i will need it for 16 18 inch woofers, first i will get amplifyer, dac, speakers.

audiolab mdac is pretty interesting, except it only have 96khz over usb. i know it is highly unlikely to make any audible difference but 48khz isn't transperent with my current $300 setup so i an't to be on the safe side(i hear above 24khz btw).
 
anjora said:
ofcourse it have to work flawless with linux
Click to expand...
Good luck with that. There's a lot of DACs that work flawlessly, but those are rather non-hifi ones, like Creative SoundBlaster, various M-Audio USB cards, and so on.
Even when you get the USB audio protocol out of the equation (as pretty much all USB dacs implement USB Audio Class 1 or 2 correctly), there are still problems with the USB transfer itself (like the MDAC has for 88.2K and 96K) or other environmental problems (like Arcam rPAC has - even trying to read mixer levels triggers something that appears to be a firmware bug, forcing you to power off/on the device).

The thing is that cheaper non-hifi DACs are owned by a much larger portion of the population and chances are that some of the owners report bugs to the linux kernel and developers create workarounds/hacks to make that device work "flawlessly" for the end user. The device still does non-standard things, but now the kernel knows about them and how to work around them.

As with any other audio or non-audio piece of hardware, the testing is done just on a few major platforms (with linux still not being considered major) and if it "somehow works", then it's released. Any further standard-compliance testing is considered unimportant if not required. Like the rise of USB flash drives using custom SCSI commands, if you remember that.

The good news is that I've been able to work around most issues (including the MDAC and rPAC one) for my use cases, so it mostly can be dealt with. It's just not flawless.
 
Having a degree in psychofysiology I feel qualified to state that being able to hear above 24 khz is extremely unlikely unless the test tone is played at an energy level that will burn any tweeter to cinders.
 
jirij said:
Hi Dominik / John,
I'd like to ask - if you're going to backport some A.08 features to A.11 - to reconsider excluding the playback stop/start on the mute button feature (when on USB), which was requested by some forum member, if I recall correctly.<snip>
Click to expand...
Of course some of us like it that way...

Since you two (J&D) try to make everybody happy, let me abuse that one more time :p :
How about adding a "Mute Button" menu item to choose between "Mute" and "Mute & Pause"?

Cheers,
P.
 
There's a good reason why seperate buttons exist. Please leave "mute" just mute and "pause" just pause. It's more logical and for a device that should retain it's WAF, no non-standard things should be introduced to it's operation.
 
I also think the "pause on mute, unpause on unmute" feature is pretty bad.

I've lost count how many times my audio-using applications have freaked out because on unmute foobar2000 (it's always in the background) started playing using WASAPI exclusive mode.
 
anjora said:
i know it is highly unlikely to make any audible difference but 48khz isn't transperent with my current $300 setup so i wan't to be on the safe side(i hear above 24khz btw).
Click to expand...

I assume this statement falls down in translation. Do you mean that you can hear improvements from listening to material above 48khz?

This does not mean that you can hear 24khz directly, just that you perceive artefacts present in the replay process. The chances of you being able to hear 24khz are pretty much ZERO.
 
sq225917 said:
I assume this statement falls down in translation. Do you mean that you can hear improvements from listening to material above 48khz?

This does not mean that you can hear 24khz directly, just that you perceive artefacts present in the replay process. The chances of you being able to hear 24khz are pretty much ZERO.
Click to expand...
Actually i both hear both raw sinus tones above 24hz and improvemeant from using samplingrate above 48khz(sound exchange), the tones above 24khz is usually extremily weak(about -100dB).
 
jirij said:
Good luck with that. There's a lot of DACs that work flawlessly, but those are rather non-hifi ones, like Creative SoundBlaster, various M-Audio USB cards, and so on.
Even when you get the USB audio protocol out of the equation (as pretty much all USB dacs implement USB Audio Class 1 or 2 correctly), there are still problems with the USB transfer itself (like the MDAC has for 88.2K and 96K) or other environmental problems (like Arcam rPAC has - even trying to read mixer levels triggers something that appears to be a firmware bug, forcing you to power off/on the device).

The thing is that cheaper non-hifi DACs are owned by a much larger portion of the population and chances are that some of the owners report bugs to the linux kernel and developers create workarounds/hacks to make that device work "flawlessly" for the end user. The device still does non-standard things, but now the kernel knows about them and how to work around them.

As with any other audio or non-audio piece of hardware, the testing is done just on a few major platforms (with linux still not being considered major) and if it "somehow works", then it's released. Any further standard-compliance testing is considered unimportant if not required. Like the rise of USB flash drives using custom SCSI commands, if you remember that.

The good news is that I've been able to work around most issues (including the MDAC and rPAC one) for my use cases, so it mostly can be dealt with. It's just not flawless.
Click to expand...

Hmmmnn. I'm not convinced that USB is the best way. Get a dlna client with a wired ethernet connection and use minidlna, or equivalent, and you don't have to worry about kernel issues, cards, etc. Sounds pretty good to me.

- Richard.
 
anjora said:
Actually i both hear both raw sinus tones above 24hz and improvemeant from using samplingrate above 48khz(sound exchange), the tones above 24khz is usually extremily weak(about -100dB).
Click to expand...

You must have really special ears.
 
Richard Kimber said:
Hmmmnn. I'm not convinced that USB is the best way. Get a dlna client with a wired ethernet connection and use minidlna, or equivalent, and you don't have to worry about kernel issues, cards, etc. Sounds pretty good to me.

- Richard.
Click to expand...
Sure, I might as well buy a linux-centric PCIe card with SPDIF outputs and live happily ever after :)
 
anjora said:
Actually i both hear both raw sinus tones above 24hz and improvemeant from using samplingrate above 48khz(sound exchange), the tones above 24khz is usually extremily weak(about -100dB).
Click to expand...

What speakers or headphones are you using ?, is my assumption that most speakers start rolling off at 22khz correct.
So you could actually hear up to 30khz maybe with the right gear ?. Quick someone drop a coin in china and see if he can hear it!.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


advertisement


Back
Top