2. digital
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1s are 1s, 0s are 0s, right?

I have been in somewhat of a debate over on the "PC Audio" forum here at A'gon. In a thread titled "Sound card with external DAC."

I would like a few opinions on whether Redbook data is just data, meaning that it really makes no difference what cable is used to transmit the digital signal or which transport is used to obtain it.

It seems logical that so long as the signal is in the digital realm, that 1s and 0s are well, just that. But I digress, personally I feel that everything makes a difference. Transports and cables both can effect the sound.

Am I just hearing things? Or maybe is the end product(sound) more than the sum of its parts (data)? Your thoughts are appreciated.
distortion
bomarc
501 posts
 
Picking up on your last paragraph, I'd say you are probably just hearing things in this case. (Which doesn't mean you're crazy, by the way. Tests show that humans have a tendency to hear differences even when none exist.) There probably are some really bad cables out there that actually make a muck of things, though I suspect badly designed transports and DACs are more likely the culprit, if indeed there is a culprit. But audio is simply not a data-intensive application, so getting it right is close to trivial for engineers who know what they're doing.
distortion OP
571 posts
 
What about comparing a low dollar laser/pickup to a high dollar one. Would there not be a few 1s and 0s lost here and there? Or misinterpreted somehow?

I didnt mention DACs as thats too obvious, in my comparisons the Speakers, Amps, Preamps, Cables, everything from the outboard DAC on stayed the same. All the obvious culprits didnt change, just the digital domain stuff.

It stands to reason that as long as the transport succesfully gathers data from the disc, it wouldnt matter how poorly designed it is. But clearly it does.

And yeah Hpshps, I read a bunch right here under the "Cables" forum. Its just that this is a fun topic for me. =)
viggen
838 posts
 
You answered it yourself. Everything makes a difference.
quadophile's avatar
quadophile
418 posts
 
During last decade or two there were those who worried about 1's and o's while some of us were happily listening to vinyl, it does not even have the error correction system (adding 1's and 0's on its own)

Someone said "There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who know binary and those who don't"

Happy listening...and hope you don't miss any beat!
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Unsound...The electrical signal that transmits digital data (a pulse train) can be greatly distorted, and the receiver can still reconstruct the original data perfectly,

Your example: 010101 vs 0 1 0 1 0 1. I believe you are thinking of jitter.

How about 16 bits: 01 0 10 1 0 1 01 01 010 1.

If the receiver outputs 16 bit words to its D/A at uniform intervals based on its own clock, it doesn't matter how irregular the incoming serial data transmission was.

Furthermore, some of the zeros can be misread as ones, and the correct original word can still be recognized, thanks to the error correcting encoding of the data, but that's another topic.
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