HDMI not good for critical listening?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by pdxway, May 16, 2019.

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  1. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I think the audio issues are more related to the AVR quality, because using a digital out of the Oppo, should give the OP excellent sound.
     
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  2. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Yeah, I am sure my Marantz is better than most mass market AVR. I know for sure with HDMI, it is better than my Pioneer SC95.

    However, I did read that Marantz 8802a is a step up from 8801. In a forum, it was said that 8801 HDMI is not as good as direct RCA from Oppo 105. But, with 8802a, the HDMI audio is as good as direct RCA from Oppo. Something in 8801 might be the issue?

    Also, about non audible issue, I do wonder about this chart:
    [​IMG]

    Are you sure the noise below 5khz for the yellow color capture is not audible?
     
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  3. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    It's hard to understand how the OP's linked article claims we can hear jitter within .0005 samples of a 44kHz sampling rate pulse than our eyes can see from the 60 pulses per second on our displays at 60Hz and that includes the ton of added data of color fidelity. With all that data more so than audio we still don't see the flicker at 60Hz even over basic HDMI cables. No noise or distortion in displayed images.

    Why didn't that article post audio quality samples to back up those findings? I already know why. But for those that would like to get an idea here's an A/B comparison I found on YouTube that demonstrates all the differences in sound using different cables...



    Note the 70 comments of what others are hearing.
     
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  4. Newton John

    Newton John Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cumbria, UK
    This chimes with my experience of taking the HDMI output of a NUC running Roon ROCK to a Marantz SR6008. I obtained a just about acceptable sound, but not what I regard as suitable for critical listening. Yet the NUC sounded much better when connected via HDMI to a Linn Klimax DSM.

    This seems to indicate that it is the AVR not the HDMI connection that is the constraint on sound quality.
     
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  5. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    I wouldn't worry about PCM being the issue. I ran both DSD and PCM side by side. My conclusions? PCM gets unfairly maligned.
     
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  6. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    I think the author was trying to show us that technology advances could not help mass market AVR in matching sound quality of older, well implemented system.

    In that case, there is no need for audio samples. Just measurements charts are suffice.
     
  7. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Yeah, but then the implementation differences between different AVR/preamp might warrant new comparisons between DSD and PCM each time you get new AVR/preamp, don't you think?
     
  8. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Well I agree that the AVR might be the reason for not having good CD sound.

    But in my case, I use a processor which feeds into my regular sound system.

    The CD does not sound anywhere near as good going through the processor as it does when run as a transport through the DAC in the main system integrated.

    That would tend to indicate that the processor might be an issue, but when running a Blu-ray disk with music through the HDMI input of the processor, the music sounds fine and very dynamic, not flat and dull.

    I have no idea why this is.
     
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  9. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Based on the results of the article's measurements, my suspicion is that it is all down to implementation and cost consideration.

    May be AVR HDMI dac is optimized to handle certain movies format like Dolby and other popular online video and audio formats. To optimize for critical music listening might require more expensive implementation....Like $30K Mark Levinson no.502...:yikes:
     
  10. JediJoker

    JediJoker Audio Engineer/Enthusiast

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    I recently went through a similar experience with PCM vs. bitstream multichannel audio output over HDMI from the dedicated audio output of my Oppo BDP-103D to a non-lossless cinema format capable (no Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio) Yamaha AVR. For whatever reason, although it is capable of receiving the uncompressed PCM, it doesn't seem to play it back correctly. Channel levels are wrong and the mix doesn't even sound right, somehow, compared to the lossy Dolby/DTS, which seems to play as it should. Very frustrating.

    Such are the vagaries of mid-fi components.
     
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  11. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Read the vertical axis.
     
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  12. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Yes, I did.

    The author said this:
    "...A lot of the distortions we see with HDMI are centered close to our main excitation frequency. When the distortions are close to a loud signal, and our source certainly is one in this case, they can’t be heard. So mostly like these are not audible distortions. As we get farther from the main tones, the spikes can reach higher than level of audibility and the chance of this occurring with HDMI is higher than with S/PDIF."

    So, I am curious at what level would spikes further from main tones audible?

    Also, the author measured at one tone with one amplitude. I am curious about all other tones....Would a typical AVR create audible spikes at other tones at different amplitudes...
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2019
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  13. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
  14. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I think the pretty much have gotten that "jitter" thing under control for many years now.

    I use my CD player's as transports, so my DAC's have been external.

    I have played CD's through different player's (as transports) and they all sound the same to me.

    They all sound just exactly what I expect them to sound like, music, nothing more and nothing less.
     
  15. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Interesting, the charts for random and periodic jitters do not match the patterns of htmi measurements for AVR.

    Random jitter chart:
    [​IMG]

    Periodic jitter chart:

    [​IMG]

    HTML measurements chart:
    [​IMG]

    Something else is at work here....
     
  16. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    There's plenty of postings on YouTube comment sections asking what jitter sounds like on quite a few videos that claim jitter is real but not one demonstrating what to look for. One dude that linked to the site I posted was the only one.

    If this was a real problem people experience with their audio systems then their should be a lot more demonstrations. Do you have anymore solutions looking for a problem with regard to audio quality? I'm still trying to find what Audirvana does to the sound as an alternative player on my MacMini but all I get is people saying it really makes what they hear in their digital music both CD and HiRez sound better. Listen to what this PS Audio spokesman says about my MacMini's DAC upsampling the audio feed and "muckying up" the sound, the reason he uses Audirvana...



    He uses USB cables. Not one A/B demo on what to listen for. I can't download this Audirvana because I have an old OS so I just gave up trying to find out for myself. Even SHF threads on this subject don't help.

    I can't help but feel I'm being sent on an audio quality snipe hunt. It certainly is a time waster researching this.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2019
  17. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    You won't get HI FI audio out of HDMI, you'll only get 0's and 1's including error correction bits. You could listen to it but it won't sound pretty.

    The Hi Fi sound will only be recreated after a DAC have made all the calculations including checking the error correction formula to know that what it has received is indeed the same signal that was recorded. The sound emerging from that will only be as good as your DAC and whatever is after.
     
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  18. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    How do you test whether a DAC is good?
     
  19. SteelyNJ

    SteelyNJ Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    I have an Oppo 93, and Oppo 105 and the same Marantz SR 7012 receiver as you. Absolutely no complaints using HDMI between the Oppo players and the receiver. In fact, one of the reasons I bought the Marantz was so that I could simplify my audio and video connections via HDMI and get away from using optical and digital coax in conjunction with separate video cables, as was necessary with my older Sony receiver which lacked HDMI inputs and outputs.
     
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  20. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    Reviews, your ears and ultimately what you pay is what you get. Most DAC's included in equipment sound good anyway but if you want something superior you better have deep pockets.
     
  21. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    If then you can't use quantifiable scientific testing, it's a crap shoot. What does "superior" sound like if there's no one there to hear it because it's inaccessible. I really want to believe a tree makes a sound if it falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, but I don't think throwing money at it is going to make it real.
     
  22. Bill Mac

    Bill Mac Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I use HDMI from a Oppo 205 to an Emotiva XMC-1 with Dirac room correction for multichannel music. Excellent SQ with no issues and I'd say jitter is totally inaudible. Not really interested in graphs and measurements showing the existence of jitter when using HDMI. With that I'm quite happy and for the first time in quite a few years have no interest in "upgrading" any of my components. My system is definitely not "high-end" by some peoples standards but it sure sounds good to me :).
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2019
  23. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    Why can't you quantify it, you can run as many test as you like on expensive equipment, there are probably thousands of cheapDAC's you can test too does that mean you'll buy them all to test them? It'll be expensive too. You might not buy an expensive DAC but obviously plenty of people do otherwise all the companies producing them would go broke. Now if you feel better thinking that the expensive DACs are not better than the cheap ones then that's good news for you because you'll be happy spending less.
     
  24. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    And you have a state of the art DAC in your Oppo UDP-205, so you could use the analog output of the 205 straight into the analog input of your line stage preamp.

    People and their graphs, why not just listen and see if it sounds good?
     
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  25. gd0

    gd0 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies

    Location:
    Golden Gate
    Sorry for the off-topic, but...

    Asking because you both have current-model AV processors (I'm still using a steam-driven Marantz SR8000). When playing music with your stated hookups, do you ever experience the first second or so of the first track being cut off? Presumably due to handshake delays.

    It's been a lingering problem for many years, but no one ever seems to address it.

    My future plans have the music source being JRiver thru a Mac Mini, HDMI to an AV processor/receiver.
     
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