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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,534
Great Green Arkleseizure
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Great Green Arkleseizure
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,534 |
Well, I guess my statement about "rounding errors" in the upconversion from 44.1kHz to 96kHz wasn't quite accurate, but at least I remembered it was a bad thing! Thanks be to Meridian for simply upconverting to 88.2kHz, instead of providing a worse sounding solution to meet to marketing hype of 96kHz. Thanks for the detailed explanation Simon. I am going to take two asprin and re-read it!
[This message has been edited by Frank (edited 07-20-2001).]
561, DSP5500s, DSP5000C, analog sides and rears
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 49
Mostly harmless
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Mostly harmless
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 49 |
Two things:
1. Meridian apparently has some interest in supporting 192KHz. According to their online speaker brochure, the DSP8000 speakers support this data rate.
2. Simon's analysis of sample rate conversion is misleading. Here is one common way of solving the multirate DSP problem:
44.1 and 96 actually have a ratio of 147:320. To convert from 44.1 to 96kHz we do something like this --
a) Insert 319 "zero samples" between every input sample. That raises the rate to over 14 MHz.
b) Remove these with a low-pass FIR filter, with a sharp cutoff frequency of, say, 24kHz.
c) Discard 146 out of every 147 samples. In practice, the DSP never even computes the samples we are throwing away.
Notice that you need to compute filter coefficients only once for every sample rate conversion pair, such as 44.1->48 or 44.1->96. These are computed ahead of time and stored in memory (firmware).
Granted, this approach is harder than a simple 2:1 upconversion, but it's not really that difficult.
Chris Cooper
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Posts: 2,314
Senior Shouting Officer
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Senior Shouting Officer
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,314 |
just a little bit of extra Meridian praise:
Im using a Meridian 518 right now to make a mix off some old CDs I have (Genesis). The noise shaping and gain controls make the result seem even better than the original- now thats impressive!
- Jerry
Best regards,
Jerry
Main System: 861v6, DSP8000s in corners, DSP7000s Center and Sides, 1-9 humans.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 145
Hitchhiker
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Hitchhiker
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 145 |
>>I spoke with Meridian and they told me that if the market were to choose SACD over DVD-A then they would find a way to do it on the 861. However they were pretty sure that DVD-A content would far surpass SACD in quality and quantity. Especially since the only SACD's that I've seen are from Sony and they dont have enough SACD's available for the buying public with the artists that we are all looking for.<< That certainly hasn't been the case so far. Last time I checked, there were around 60 DVD-A discs in the US with 5 more upcoming. On the SACD side of the ledger, there are over 200 SACD discs now available in the US and I'm told that Sony/Philips claim a total of over 350 SACDs available worldwide. (For the record, I heard the same thing from the Meridian reps at CES - Soon there will be many more DVD-A discs than SACD, etc etc. Hasn't happened though - and we're well past the time when the DVD-A proponents said it would...) As to SACD labels, there are a number of Audiophile Labels supporting the format as well as Sony. Rather than list them all (over 20 record labels), I'd suggest a look at the SACD catalog through June on Acoustic Sounds' Web Site at http://www.acousticsounds.com/acoustic/catalog/sacd.html . It lists the SACD labels and discs available via that vendor. It may not be all of the US SACD releases, but it's a pretty complete listing in my experience. Looks to me like SACD support is in Meridian's future.... ![[Linked Image from softronix.com]](http://www.softronix.com/ubb/smile.gif)
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 145
Hitchhiker
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Hitchhiker
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 145 |
>>The 861 is a reference product, Meridian do DIGITAL, Meridian do MLP what possible benefit is there to Meridian or it's reputation by adding analogue passthrough? Especially is you are digital theatre, plus your passing analogue from todays current players, I think not.
If the content owners feel that the only way to protect their IP is to force analogue outputs then I for one will not be buy a SACD player anytime ever.
Is it just me that thinks analogue passthrough on a 861 is about as stupid as you can get (especially for SACD), Meridian may prove me wrong of course and I'll be eating these words(-: <<
Well, dCS is indeed using the SACD Firewire Standard in their SACD products (the Elgar Plus out now has the Firewire In and the upcoming dCS SACD Transport will have up to 8 channels of Firewire SACD digital out.) So SACD with Firewire Digital Out will be available for those who want/need it.
The newer Sony Multichannel/Stereo SACD players are coming out with speaker/bass mgmt built in. So that may address the portion of the market that wants digital out primarily for that purpose.
As for Multichannel Analog Bypass, Lexicon has it in their new processors. And Tag just announced it as an enhancement for their processors.
Will Meridian be the sole processor maker that hold out re: this feature? We'll see.
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Posts: 491
Paranoid android
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Paranoid android
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 491 |
Brain,
You keep going on about this dcs product! My Sony Playstation 2 has a firewire port! My point is so what. Great for them, but I don't see see a SACD player that's supposed to support it. It ain't going to happen, if the big boys (Music Companies) don't agree then it won't happen and this is why this product is so much brochureware.
Now lets talk about something that already had approval, a properly encrypted digital link, MHR. The Meridian DVD-A player will use this, you can stick those six extra interconnects back in their box.
You know when CD first launched, oh there were no CD's and millions of LP's. It matters not that we are talking about hundred of SACD's and DVD-A's, neither is mass market yet, my money as previously stated is on DVD-A because the only difference as far as joe punter is concerned is that there's an extra A in DVD-A, guess what ask 10 people in the street two questions
1) What is SACD
2) What is DVD-A
I bet more know what the DVD bit is. More importantly when they come to buy a new player and it can do the A bit, that's a bonus for them, bit like the playstation 2, I get a crappy software DVD player, but hay it's a games machine!
SACD has crashed and Sony are trying to put the fire out, it will soon join their, "how did we get it so wrong" hall of fame along with betamax.
Bass management in new SACD players, like that's going to make all the difference, we spend thousands on products from Meridian to have a bastard signal feed into our pedigree kit, I think not.
If tag and Lexicon and prepared to risk their reputations on implementing analogue pass through I wish them luck. Leave analogue to Audio Research I say. Analogue pass through does not belong on a digital processor, not just a Meridian processor in IMHO.
Martin.
[This message has been edited by mgarthwaite (edited 07-23-2001).]
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 166
Hitchhiker
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Hitchhiker
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 166 |
ccooper,
I did not say that we need to calculate the coefficients on the fly- I merely mentioned that we would have to store them somewhere and dynamically select the correct set on a sample-by-sample bosis. I didn't calculate the lowest common factors of 44100 and 96000, so my 10ms snippet was three times as long as necessary, reducing the number of necessary coefficients by a factor of 3 to "only" 6400.
My point about each filter sounding different is still valid. The whole filter bank will roll through with a 3.33ms period (300Hz).
The filter I describe is a polyphase filter.
The filter you describe is a polyphase filter- the giveaway phrase is "In practice, the DSP never even computes the samples we are throwing away."
Thanks for pointing out my factor of three, though.
Live long and prosper,
Simon.
[This message has been edited by Simon the Whale (edited 07-24-2001).]
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 145
Hitchhiker
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Hitchhiker
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 145 |
>>You keep going on about this dcs product! My Sony Playstation 2 has a firewire port! My point is so what. Great for them, but I don't see see a SACD player that's supposed to support it. It ain't going to happen, if the big boys (Music Companies) don't agree then it won't happen and this is why this product is so much brochureware.<<
Well, dCS has shown their SACD Transport with the SACD Firewire Standard Output at CES, HE 2001 and several other shows. Ship date is this September.
So there is indeed an SACD system that offers digital input and output.
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 1,567
Working on the ultimate question
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Working on the ultimate question
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 1,567 |
I am reposting this from the AVS Forum. It was posted by Bob Sorel here: www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/005445.html Hi guys,
I just got the latest issue of The Absolute Sound, and I found this report directly comparing the Water Lily Acoustics recording of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Nature's Realm. Robert E. Greene put together a panel of serious and experienced listeners to compare the three formats, since the exact same analog master tape was used to create all 3 versions. Here is a quote:
quote:
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Both SACD and DVD bettered the CD. The SACD has enhanced resolution of space and a cleaner top end. High percussion instruments were noticably improved. And the scratchiness was reduced. Without DVD and memory for comparison, SACD might have seemed revolutionary.
But DVD won the day - decisively - on all fronts. The high percussion and harp sounded nearly flawless, by far cleaner and more realistic than on CD and much cleaner than on SACD, which sounded veiled and grungy in comparison. Spacial impression on DVD was more convincing than on the others. And the whole sound had an exquisite purity. Gone utterly was any sense of scratchiness or dirt. Massed strings has the purity and beauty characteristics of the best vinyl but without the slight vinyl "scrape" that inevitably rides along on LP playback. The DVD sound was what I had hoped for from this recording. People who have worked with 192 khz-sampling recording tell me that it goes even further in these directions than the 96 khz of DVD. But the 96k is already a major advance. The DVD sounds gorgeous!
Many listeners are mightily impressed by SACD. Relative to CD, I can see why. But don't decide until you have heard the same material in all three formats. Nothing else is really a valid comparison. And don't fall for the idea that SACD is "almost analog." The final signal indeed looks a bit analog-like, but the process of making a SACD transfer or recording involves what amounts to running the sound through a computer program. I have nothing against that if it works, but it is not "analog-like." To my ears, it is really DVD that sounds analog-like, in the positive sense.
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