IEEE 'golden ears'

There, I knew it was a good idea to drop out of the IEEE about 30 years ago.

John

Hello Thomas,

That is indeed weird. I would never advise anyone to compromise safety or violate UL regulations.

Often the best approach in audio gear is to get rid of switchers altogether and replace them with properly designed low noise linear power supplies. Your electricity bill might go up a few cents per month ;-)

Regards, Joerg

I found a link to an article:

about improving audio from a DVD player. First step: swap out bridge rectifier diodes and buffer cap on the line side. Second step: exchange the X-rated caps across the line voltage for non-certified audiophile caps costing $13 each!

What oh what has become of the IEEE?

Thomas

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert McNeice is a business and information-technology consultant for the financial services industry. He is an audiophile and occasional tweaker.

wonder if he is an ieee member?

martin

I dropped out 40+ years ago when they started charging an outrageous price for the Proceedings.

Re-joined about 5 years ago so I could get member prices for copies of papers.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

And doesn't it show?

-- "Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it." (Stephen Leacock)

To access that information, you MUST first:

1) Have a current membership of the IEEE, 2) Have a Credit Card 3) Part with USD 25,-- to to download a paper, that either MIGHT have the answer your question (but, equally likely, instead might be an answer to the researchers problem: "How do I get Job to pay for my trip to " ....

I am getting sooo cynical over all those "URGENT - ABSOLUTELY THE VERY LAST CHANGE" BUMF envelopes.

The author probably thinks DVD players have tooobz in them ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

"Fred Bartoli" wrote in message news:42cb1a13$0$21703$ snipped-for-privacy@news.free.fr...

Jonathan

Maybe, but Audiophools are impotent:

--
  Keith

Which is entirely *ILLEGAL* to do !

Apparently turned into a talking shop for buffoons.

The idead of improving a producvt with 'boutique' parts is plain assinine. Manufacturers already use the best part for the job at the relelevant price point.

Rather than buy a $150 CD player and 'upgrade it' with $150 of 'boutique parts - just go and buy a $300 player. The manufacturers can buy parts far, far cheaper than the individual can and aren't to dumb as to do some of idiotic things suggested in the article.

What bothers me almost more than anything is that author apparently thinks that 'boutique' caps for EMI suppresion on the ac line side will have the remotest influence an audio quality.

Also the concept of 'better bass' by tweaking the PSU is idiotic when applied to a CD player. The load on the PSU is essentially constant. It's not like a power amplifier at all. Essentially the author apparently knows nothing about good practice for audio power supply decoupling too.

Graham

"Jim Thompson" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Digital Vacuum Device?

--
Thanks,
Fred.

"Jonathan Westhues" a écrit dans le message de news:tZEye.4281$ snipped-for-privacy@news20.bellglobal.com...

Are you serious?

--
Thanks,
Fred.

By the .de in your headers, I presume you're outside the USA and the IEEE site discriminated against your IP address. I'm in the USA, I'm not an IEEE member, and it shows me that page. Perhaps you can read it through a proxy site in the USA, such as anonymizer.com or even babelfish.

-----

message

in

Excerpt from some customers comments:

'Excellent job on this fantastic new product. Your thorough attention to detail and understanding of audiophiles is a great achievement...'

Certainly yes, from the marketing POV :-)

--
Thanks,
Fred.

The .de is merely where it is p.t. cheapest to $corp to unload the data.

I can read the IEEE spectrum just fine - I was mocking the IEEE for always going for your wallet, the way they charge for access to the most trivial information - in this case the IEEE Transactions Database, where one quite often will end up shelling money for papers with fine abstracts and crap content (if it was not for Google, that is - many charged-for papers are on the open internet as well).

Well, if the digital parts are okay, the analog side of a very cheap DVD player may not be that hard to improve.

And the price points above 'minimum' are probably filled with features, not with quality. OTOH providing decent audio is so inexpensive one wonders why some devices do not output any bass at all...

Thomas

You assume it needs improving ? A $2 DAC today for example is a very competent performer. Decent op-amps are 'two a penny'. Where is the realistic improvement to be made ? You can put in 'high-end' op-amps for sure but I challenge anyone to measure any difference compared to relatively run-of-the-mill devices.

However many low end players have DACs integrated into the chipset and I wouldn't expect the best of these. You'll get a separate DAC by buying the more expensive model as well as the 'features' that actually cost next to nil to implement.

I would also wonder that.

I know for sure that replacing the X caps isn't going to help it one tiny bit, nor will exotic PSU reservoir caps.

If you were to present me with a CD player with 'poor bass' and a schematic. I doubt that it would take more than a couple of hours to find a scientific explanation for it.

Incidentally, good pcb layout is a factor in getting good sound and boutique parts will not help that one jot.

Graham

to

Well, too small SMD output capacitors are one, muting switches might be another (though I doubt the latter - are they even still in use?)

wouldn't

expensive

Well, the price is set by marketing, not by manufacturing cost. I bought a very decent satellite receiver package (DVB tuner, LNB, dish, 25 meters of coax, two scart cables, plugs, huge colorful retail box) for

69 euro. In Iraq, something similar is sold at less than 50. The usual price here is more like 110 euro, even if one shops around. Similarly price in the US seems to be from around 120 us$. Quite some differences for what is quite the same down to the CPU/SOC used.

I definitely agree on that.

Like my keychain MP3 player. Works fine connected to speakers, but connected to headphones bass is lacking.

Indeed the keychain player is also hissing... which could be impossible to solve.

I guess it depends on the value of your time, and whether one enjoys doing this.

Thomas