HAKAI playground

[FairPlayMotty]

Two for me.

[OscarH]

Another set of clips... a three-way tie...
I can assure you the subwoofer is off, that Bassline just isn’t easy to handle for the poor iPhone.

Again, there are changes to electric components so while I’ve done my best to match volumes you’ll have to try to see past the slight variations.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yurj8pkjjmnr ... D_nva?dl=0

[beck]

To me four.mov is great! :-)

[Tendaberry]

No. 6 would be my pick, only there Daniel Lanois' bass seems to play along with the rest of the band.

[beck]

I believe more in Tendaberry than myself in these matters so I move my pawn to six.mow. Hopefully more will put a vote on one of the clips. :-)

[OscarH]

Yeah, I’m holding back the reveal a bit longer, hoping for a few more players to join.

What I can reveal is that I find these comparisons very difficult myself.

[tokenbrit]

I'll play, trusting that any variations in volume haven't misled me... I'm going with 6 too.
4 - emotion without timing
5 - timing without emotion
6 - soul & swing together

[David Neel]

For some reason I can't get enough volume to be confident. On what I have managed to hear, six is best, but it's also the loudest...

[tokenbrit]

For some reason I can't get enough volume to be confident.

I hear you.

[David Neel]

I hear you.

:))

[markiteight]

Another set of clips... a three-way tie...
I can assure you the subwoofer is off, that Bassline just isn’t easy to handle for the poor iPhone.

Again, there are changes to electric components so while I’ve done my best to match volumes you’ll have to try to see past the slight variations.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yurj8pkjjmnr ... D_nva?dl=0

Six. Like Tokenbrit said it all just seems to come together.

[FairPlayMotty]

Yeah, I’m holding back the reveal a bit longer, hoping for a few more players to join.

What I can reveal is that I find these comparisons very difficult myself.

Kith did a comparison of his phone recording the same track via the same equipment with a good quality microphone using his DSLR. It's on the Snakeoil website. It reveals what he already knew by his ears. The top end and bass aren't picked up by a smartphone mic. People on here assume the poor recording by phones will be consistent player to player. I don't believe it's that simple.

[lejonklou]

Kith did a comparison of his phone recording the same track via the same equipment with a good quality microphone using his DSLR. It's on the Snakeoil website. It reveals what he already knew by his ears. The top end and bass aren't picked up by a smartphone mic. People on here assume the poor recording by phones will be consistent player to player. I don't believe it's that simple.

We have known that all along. The magic with using comparative clips is that it's possible to evaluate the fundamental musical qualities with them.

For those who don't use the Tune Method, comparative clips recorded with a phone make no sense.

[OscarH]

Good morning,

Thank you all for your contributions. Again, I have not made any attempts to hide that I'm a complete Tune Method novice. Input from more experienced members is much appreciated.

There have been two sets of clips; ONE vs TWO and then four vs five vs six. As you will soon see the responses have been somewhat scattered.

* TWO is the same configuration as five.
* ONE is the same configuration as four.
* six was only tried once.

* ONE/four is the hakai into the ESI gigaport DAC
* TWO/five is the old HP mini laptop into the Hegel H80 integrated DAC
* six is the hakai into the Hegel H80 integrated DAC.

Reading the spec of the Hegel I noticed that the USB input is said to operate in "adaptive mode", which as far as I understand is largely the same principal as "isochronous". So I thought it would be worth a try. I'm not sure the results are conclusive but certainly interesting.

As per the "DAC discussions" tread I do have some difficulties with the output levels. ONE/four was recorded with the amp at 72, TWO/five at 51 and six at 47. If someone suggests there is a malfunction in the interface between the hakai and the Gigaport I can't dismiss this.

I do have some tweaks to try with the hakai. I also have some more USB DACs to test.

As far as conclusions go I think we can at least all agree that digital audio isn't trivial.

[beck]

As far as conclusions go I think we can at least all agree that digital audio isn't trivial.

Agreed! :-)

[FairPlayMotty]

Kith did a comparison of his phone recording the same track via the same equipment with a good quality microphone using his DSLR. It's on the Snakeoil website. It reveals what he already knew by his ears. The top end and bass aren't picked up by a smartphone mic. People on here assume the poor recording by phones will be consistent player to player. I don't believe it's that simple.

We have known that all along. The magic with using comparative clips is that it's possible to evaluate the fundamental musical qualities with them.

For those who don't use the Tune Method, comparative clips recorded with a phone make no sense.

The part I find worrisome is the following. The more efficient a player is in dealing with the top and bottom ends of the sonic spectrum the more likely it is in my experience to sound distorted in the clips relative to a player that replays less detail. Some of the clips I uploaded suffered from that effect. The less effective player sounded best to most people. I would avoid clips in future that truly test the extremes of the sonic spectrum to negate that effect.

[lejonklou]

The part I find worrisome is the following. The more efficient a player is in dealing with the top and bottom ends of the sonic spectrum the more likely it is in my experience to sound distorted in the clips relative to a player that replays less detail. Some of the clips I uploaded suffered from that effect. The less effective player sounded best to most people. I would avoid clips in future that truly test the extremes of the sonic spectrum to negate that effect.

If the clips sound distorted, perhaps the volume was too high? Lower it and record again.

I don't quite agree with your conclusions. I have tuned subwoofer settings with the help of clips and had a 100% agreement with what we heard in the room. There was close to zero difference between the sound of the clips, but one felt more right and easily flowing than the others. The only way to tell them apart was with the Tune Method.

That said, clips are not fully reliable and should be used with a healthy dose of skepticism.

[FairPlayMotty]

If the clips sound distorted, perhaps the volume was too high? Lower it and record again.

I don't quite agree with your conclusions. I have tuned subwoofer settings with the help of clips and had a 100% agreement with what we heard in the room. There was close to zero difference between the sound of the clips, but one felt more right and easily flowing than the others. The only way to tell them apart was with the Tune Method.

That said, clips are not fully reliable and should be used with a healthy dose of skepticism.

I trust them in some choices of music but at the extremes I have a healthy dose of scepticism.

I'm about to load Snakeoil OS onto a microSD card adapter and test it using the same clip I used for the Intel 320 vs the MiniPCIe SSD. It feels like another waste of time but at least I know I tried another possibility before sending it to room 101, the Intel 320 seems unbeatable :)

[ThomasOK]

I'll play, trusting that any variations in volume haven't misled me... I'm going with 6 too.
4 - emotion without timing
5 - timing without emotion
6 - soul & swing together

Definitely find 6 easily musically superior. I think tokenbrit pretty much nailed it with the descriptions.

[kallesprätt]

Volumio 2.411 running MPD 21.16:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cre8ifp7o4sx8 ... 4.mov?dl=0

Debian 9 Stretch:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/if3ev20wh4te5 ... 6.mov?dl=0

[beck]

Volumio for me. I think this is the best I have heard from your system kallesprätt. :-)

[kampak]

yes, for me too.
volumio wins by an interesting big margin.

[tokenbrit]

Volumio 2.411 running MPD 21.16:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cre8ifp7o4sx8 ... 4.mov?dl=0

Debian 9 Stretch:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/if3ev20wh4te5 ... 6.mov?dl=0

Thanks for posting. Do you happen to know what version of MPD your were using on Stretch? Also, how was the Volumio install: does it overwrite the whole disk or did you partition the drive to be able to boot to Volumio or to Debian?

One more (last ;) question: were both playing from the same media server, accessing the files in the same way?

[kallesprätt]

Thanks for posting. Do you happen to know what version of MPD your were using on Stretch?

Debian 9 Stretch was running MPD 21.5

Also, how was the Volumio install: does it overwrite the whole disk or did you partition the drive to be able to boot to Volumio or to Debian?

I was using Rufus to write the imagefile to the Intel 320, and that overwrites the whole disk.
I used two different Intel 320 disks to do the comparison, so no dual boot.

One more (last ;) question: were both playing from the same media server, accessing the files in the same way?

Volumio was grabbing files via cifs from my LS-NAS and Debian Stretch was feed from Asset UPNP on LS-NAS using Kazoo

[tokenbrit]

Thanks kallesprätt. I appreciate the clarification(s)

I need to get a second 320 SSD to try Volumio as I don't want to overwrite my Debian Buster / MPD 21.11 install (just yet ;)