Thoughts around a Lejonklou Streamer

[matss]

I recently picked up an original US copy of a Jazz Album that was recorded back in 1959 (Cannonball Adderly on Riverside RLP 1148). Music and sound of this album is truly very impressive and I guess they had very poor equipment compared to todays standards. One of the factors for the musically superior sound of this album I think is the fact that they did not have any ways to try to manipulate the recording after it had been recorded. I also think that the early issues of CDs as stated above is better for the same reason because at that time they did not have all the powerful tools to manipulate that are available today.

I like this post and this quote in particular. Completely agree with this - quality in and level of manipulation with or without understanding what preserves quality through the chain has a severe influence on possible end quality out. Much more important than format according to my understanding.

Already Red Book Digital has theoretical performance possibilities any analog format only can dream about. But you have to know how to execute, in order to take advantage of these opportunities. To my experience too many examples of bad execution put real potential technological benefits to shame and give them undeserved bad reputation.

I find it interesting a lot of us found faults in early digital executions, where we now find pleasure in older CDs compared to newer high resolution formats. Does anyone see the same pattern as I in this?

/mats

PS. I have just recently been listening to downloads of some old BIS (Swedish record company) recodings from mid eighties/early nineties and they sound absolutely thrilling through my KDS. Standard 16/44.1 format recorded with minimal manipulation on well perceived digital equipment from the time. Mindblowing musicality and sound! It's a shame we see this level of performance so rarely come through on todays productions.

[matthias]

I strongly believe execution is much more important than format, in the quest for musical satisfaction.

Absolutely,
three more from BL, I promise for the last time:

"Hi Res as you have come to be sold on it, has everything to do with marketing and nothing to o with quality or artistic intentions or "the sound in the mastering room" , etc. All marketing buzzword lies.
The best and only true master of a digital release is the one at the NATIVE RATE in the mastering session. Any alteration to that master is a LOSS in QUALITY and artistic intention, etc.
A great converter at 44.1 blows away a lesser converter at 96k, a great engineer at any rate blown away a lesser engineer. Quality is not a sample rate number. Please stop."

"I could print with Pacific Microsonics Model Two at 192 and I choose 44.1. Others have their methods and work flow. Like everything in the studio it's about work flow and the taste of the engineer.
Nothing objectively better in higher rates. It's the gear and the ears not the sample rate. Marketing exists why? To make you think you need something and to take your money creating fear of NOT HAVING THE BEST! The native session rate is always the best master ... always ... and great 44.1 captures all, plus has no need to be converted to 44.1. 44.1 is not evil and is still the universal release rate.
44.1 with great hardware has MANY SONIC ADVANTAGES which have been lost in this penis measuring era of listening to air and details and comparing rates, nothing about music in that. It's just making some audiophiles feel important about themselves as they are fleeced.
Sorry if that hurts, yet it's the truth."

"I'm a mastering engineer, and I regularly print at 24/44.1 for the sonic advantages of 44.1 that are not often discussed. MQA taken from my 24/44.1 files to 24/44.1 MQA sounds off for sure, not true to the source.
"It sounds better to me" is really not of any value in this discussion , we need to compare to the source files, and THEN watch out for louder/brighter tricking us. MQA has harmonic distortion (louder) and alters the freq balance (brighter). This is an old trick in A?B of any audio."

Some source first principles.

Matt

[matss]

These quotes makes much more sense to me. Thanks Matthias. Completely agree with NATIVE RATE as the true master of a digital release. Higher resolution per se will not bring out any additional information beyond the resolution of the native rate format. That is how digital works as far as I understand. Manipulating this master with reclocking and/or requantisation will only bring in their own design challenges and possible loss of information, never add any mysteriously hidden data in the original master.

But I think NATIVE RATE can be higher than 16/44.1, and that could in my world properly executed bring in additional qualities compared to Red Book. At least up to around 50k sample rate and 20 bit resolution. Beyond that you are outside the envelop of human hearing and I beats me how we could be able to detect any further improvements on perfect lossless conversion from there.

But we have been proven wrong before...

/mats

[matthias]

These quotes makes much more sense to me. Thanks Matthias.

But I think NATIVE RATE can be higher than 16/44.1, and that could in my world properly executed bring in additional qualities compared to Red Book. At least up to around 50k sample rate and 20 bit resolution.

Welcome matss,
I think the resolution is musically more important than the sample rate. So I would go for 24bit minimum and then increase the sample rate for comparison.

Matt

[matss]

20 bit resolution in theory gives you 120 dB dynamic resolution, which is the range from absolute silence to the threshold of pain and immediate hearing impairment. This is also the limit of human hearing. Under normal conditions this would not be possible to experience, due to background noise and other limitations. Why would you want a format to go beyond that?

50k sample rate or around that range gives you a little more useful space to ease the design requirements on the necessary brickwall reconstruction filter, to ensure freedom from aliasing products in the useful output signal. Could potentially result in better executed designs. Higher rates than that of course creates more headroom, but could also introduce additional adverse high frequency issues to battle in the design. Always a balance of design considerations.

/mats

[lejonklou]

If those numbers that quantify the limits of human hearing actually said anything about our field of interest - how to maximise the enjoyment of recorded music - vinyl would be terrible. So terrible that even really bad CD players would walk all over every turntable ever made.

As that is not the case, I see no reason to pay any attention to theoretical limits.

[matthias]

20 bit resolution in theory gives you 120 dB dynamic resolution, which is the range from absolute silence to the threshold of pain and immediate hearing impairment.

With PCM at decreasing volume levels the resolution decreases too. This is a bad thing. In contrast analogue and DSD do not behave in this manner. So it is a good thing to have a resolution of some more bits. I found an article that describes this much better than I could:

https://positive-feedback.com/Issue11/m ... erview.htm

Matt

[matss]

If those numbers that quantify the limits of human hearing actually said anything about our field of interest - how to maximise the enjoyment of recorded music - vinyl would be terrible. So terrible that even really bad CD players would walk all over every turntable ever made.

As that is not the case, I see no reason to pay any attention to theoretical limits.

A valid opinion. From that standpoint arguments for higher resolution formats to drive enjoyment of recorded music seem even less valid. I also believe in execution and source quality (quality of the recorded music) as much more important for musical pleasure, than which format the music is stored in.

/mats

[lejonklou]

If those numbers that quantify the limits of human hearing actually said anything about our field of interest - how to maximise the enjoyment of recorded music - vinyl would be terrible. So terrible that even really bad CD players would walk all over every turntable ever made.

As that is not the case, I see no reason to pay any attention to theoretical limits.

A valid opinion. From that standpoint arguments for higher resolution formats to drive enjoyment of recorded music seem even less valid. I also believe in execution and source quality (quality of the recorded music) as much more important for musical pleasure, than which format the music is stored in.

I agree regarding execution and source quality. When it comes to higher resolutions I remain open to whatever performs best in practice.

[MikeF]

Hi guys,

I appreciate the ongoing format discussion as instructive, however I have another very basic question:

Are there any news on the release of the streamer? Maybe I missed that.

Next, apart from NAS, for my own purposes it will be a consideration if the unit can act as "soundcard" of a PC like the DS do through songcast. Is this planned?

Best regards

Michael

[matss]

I have not seen any update on the streamer from Fredrik, since his post on page four. Apparently the project is paused due to too many variables out of Fredik’s own control in his quest for excellence. Specifically from software outside the audio pipeline. But I sure hope Fredrik and others are thinking hard to solve the issues at stake with digital audio.

/mats

[lejonklou]

Thank you mats, that pretty much sums it up.

As it stands right now, I'm looking for a new angle. On one hand, streaming services (Spotify, Tidal, Qobus, etc) are taking over the majority of people's listening habits. But to ensure a really fantastic reproduction of music, one has to do both storage and streamer in one integrated package. And I haven't yet figured out how to realise that in a reliable and predictable way. There are some hardware challenges and I'm thrilled to take those on, but the software challenges are bigger. I've tested some third party software, but so far they've all been buggy and inconsistent.

My team became overly optimistic after the third prototype streamer with its own control point software, which was really fantastic and we thought we'd nailed it. But then we ran into unexpected trouble. Hardware performance was not consistent when making several units (which unfortunately is true for all streamers, regardless of brand) and when cleaning the software from bugs and adding nice features, we found that every change affected performance. We tried shaving off all functions that weren't absolutely necessary, but that didn't really help. Even removing bugs could end up with a loss in performance, unless recoded and tested like crazy. After the discovery of some really strange parameters the project came to a halt. Hopefully a temporary one. But I still feel that a new angle is needed. Returning to vinyl was a big relief terms of how consistently good it is. Now I'm deep into perfecting a product in that area.

[The FlatEarther]

Frederick, I find your last sentence intriguing. Having recently heard Tundra at Antony’s which was my first experience of a Lejonklou product and how musical it was, A Lejonklou Urika could be amazing!

[jraskin]

when cleaning the software from bugs and adding nice features, we found that every change affected performance.

Out of curiosity, I have some questions. I can imagine that the software is complex: it must continuously interact with the network, react to events generated by the user, apply computationally demanding digital signal processing algorithms and yet provide the data in real-time to the DA convertor, etc.

What is the general architecture of your software ? I guess that some of the code must be executed while respecting some strong real-time constraints, e.g. feeding the DA convertor with the data, while others are less time critical... If processing of data that is not related to the direct feeding of the DA convertor influence the sound, it may be the case that the power consumption of part of the circuit is influencing the quality of the analogue output of the DA convertor. I guess that this implies that there are non trivial design decisions to take in order to separate as much as possible the different kind of processing tasks and make them as independent as possible of each other...

All the best,

JF

[AlbannachFE]

SNIP

But to ensure a really fantastic reproduction of music, one has to do both storage and streamer in one integrated package.

SNIP

(long time 'lurker', first time poster)


Does this mean that you have completely given up on the idea of separate components, and in particular, a separate DAC?

Personally speaking, I've no interest in computer audio (CA), only the most musical replay possible from 'direct' CD replay, so a seperate DAC would be of more interest that an integrated streamer/DAC, let alone a storage/streamer/dac.

I understand your desire to control the process from start to finish, in an attempt to guarantee the end result, but given the (apparent) 'moving target' that CA seems to be, not to mention the different requirements in terms of functionality etc. that individual users might have, as well as the software issues etc. that you have touched upon, might a separate box approach not still be worth considering?

Just a thought?

[matthias]

But to ensure a really fantastic reproduction of music, one has to do both storage and streamer in one integrated package.

Fredrik,
do you mean that the storage has to be in the same case as the streamer, not as Linn doing it with Klimax DS?
I would prefer to have the storage separate from streamer and maybe streamer separate from DAC.

Matt

[tokenbrit]

But to ensure a really fantastic reproduction of music, one has to do both storage and streamer in one integrated package.

Fredrik,
do you mean that the storage has to be in the same case as the streamer, not as Linn doing it with Klimax DS?
I would prefer to have the storage separate from streamer and maybe streamer separate from DAC.

Matt

I don't understand, Matt. There are plenty of solutions in the market place that satisfy your preference - they may not be made by Lejonklou, but I'd rather that Fredrik aims for the most musical solution, and then determines what compromises, if any, might be necessary to bring a digital device to the market successfully, rather than start with design preferences that sacrifice the "fantastic reproduction of music", and results in a Lejonklou streamer that is not much or no better than what's already available since it follows the same basic architecture & principles.

[matthias]

I don't understand, Matt. There are plenty of solutions in the market place that satisfy your preference - they may not be made by Lejonklou, but I'd rather that Fredrik aims for the most musical solution, and then determines what compromises, if any, might be necessary to bring a digital device to the market successfully, rather than start with design preferences that sacrifice the "fantastic reproduction of music", and results in a Lejonklou streamer that is not much or no better than what's already available since it follows the same basic architecture & principles.

Many apologies, you are right.

Matt

[HansW]

AFAIK, his preferred format is 24bit/44.1kHz in contrast to 24/96.

Huh! I didn't quite expect that. So high resolution is fine but high sampling rates are not? I'd like to know whether he's reached those preferences on specific equipment or whether he finds it reproducible anywhere.

A potential explanation may be one that I heard Scott Berry of CAD (Computor Audio Design) provide a couple of weeks ago. He finds high frequency noise to be the main obstacle in trying to get goid sound from digital sources. He therefore does everything he can to reduce this in his dac designs including no oversampling, no dsd and no switched mode power supplies. If he is right, higher sampling frequencies create problems that need to be dealt with if the benefits are to exceed the liabilities.

There are several other companies that have gone down this non-oversampling route, such as Metrum, Vertex, Audio Note etc, to avhieve a more 'analog' sound.

Best regards

Hans

[matthias]

AFAIK, with NOS DACs you get images at multiples of the sampling frequency:

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/foru ... od/?page=3

Interesting to read the comments of "Miska".

Matt

[Music Lover]

After the discovery of some really strange parameters the project came to a halt. Hopefully a temporary one. But I still feel that a new angle is needed.

Bad news for sure, but I hope you learned a LOT in "phase 1" if we can call it that...
That wisdom is surely brought into "phase 2".

As always, the most important thing is to learn.
Good luck with the future development!

[lejonklou]

Frederick, I find your last sentence intriguing. Having recently heard Tundra at Antony’s which was my first experience of a Lejonklou product and how musical it was, A Lejonklou Urika could be amazing!

Thank you!

I'll keep working on it until I've exhausted all ideas that I've collected since the first prototype in 2012. I'll let you know when I'm getting closer to a final product! I think it's going to cause quite a stir.

[lejonklou]

when cleaning the software from bugs and adding nice features, we found that every change affected performance.

Out of curiosity, I have some questions. I can imagine that the software is complex: it must continuously interact with the network, react to events generated by the user, apply computationally demanding digital signal processing algorithms and yet provide the data in real-time to the DA convertor, etc.

What is the general architecture of your software ? I guess that some of the code must be executed while respecting some strong real-time constraints, e.g. feeding the DA convertor with the data, while others are less time critical... If processing of data that is not related to the direct feeding of the DA convertor influence the sound, it may be the case that the power consumption of part of the circuit is influencing the quality of the analogue output of the DA convertor. I guess that this implies that there are non trivial design decisions to take in order to separate as much as possible the different kind of processing tasks and make them as independent as possible of each other...

We've tried different architectures. The initial idea was to separate everything, in particular the music feed from other processes, but in practice it soon turned out to work better to integrate most processes and keep a steady work rate. There are so many parts of this field where we (or most of us) have general ideas and views about how things work that are simply not correct. Like many audiophiles when mentioning "vibrations": Their gut reaction is to add damping until they are removed. But anyone who's ever understood at least the basics of an LP12 knows that's a very ineffective approach. A common assumption in digital audio is that fluctuations in the power consumption (or supply) can influence the analogue side of the D/A converter. But in fact it's much more critical how such fluctuations affect the digital stream of data before it arrives at the D/A converter. There's lots to perfect in that field and it's controlled by both hardware and software.

[lejonklou]

SNIP

But to ensure a really fantastic reproduction of music, one has to do both storage and streamer in one integrated package.

SNIP

(long time 'lurker', first time poster)


Does this mean that you have completely given up on the idea of separate components, and in particular, a separate DAC?

Personally speaking, I've no interest in computer audio (CA), only the most musical replay possible from 'direct' CD replay, so a seperate DAC would be of more interest that an integrated streamer/DAC, let alone a storage/streamer/dac.

I understand your desire to control the process from start to finish, in an attempt to guarantee the end result, but given the (apparent) 'moving target' that CA seems to be, not to mention the different requirements in terms of functionality etc. that individual users might have, as well as the software issues etc. that you have touched upon, might a separate box approach not still be worth considering?

Just a thought?

Hi AlbannachFE and welcome to the forum (now as poster)!

I haven't given up on anything, but I don't think it's possible to made a stand alone DAC that performs well regardless of what you feed it with. Even if the source material (the music file) is of very high quality!

In fact, I think it's easier for us to achieve a great musical result by making everything BUT the DAC. In other words, the digital machine that feeds the DAC of your choice. But if we could arrive at such a product, I would not be able to resist making the DAC too.

If we for a moment ignore the difficulty of making each product and only focus on how to arrive at the best possible result, I think the optimal order would be to first release a NAS (use it with the streamer you prefer), then a digital music machine/streamer without DAC (use it with our NAS and the DAC your prefer) and last of all the DAC (if possible as a plug in board in the digital music machine).

[lejonklou]

But to ensure a really fantastic reproduction of music, one has to do both storage and streamer in one integrated package.

Fredrik,
do you mean that the storage has to be in the same case as the streamer, not as Linn doing it with Klimax DS?
I would prefer to have the storage separate from streamer and maybe streamer separate from DAC.

No, sorry, I didn't mean that. With 'integrated package' I simply meant several boxes that were made to work with one another.

There is quite a lot of performance to be gained by ignoring the standard network protocols and letting the storage and streamer communicate in their own optimised way. But then they won't be able to communicate with other network products, as people have come to expect.