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Mogami cables are awesome, that’s all I use now. I buy by the spool, and use Neutrik gold-plated connectors. But they do sell ready-made cables too. Lower capacitance and inductance than most other cables costing waaaaay more per foot.
As far as I knew everything exhibited some kind of load unless it was super-conducting. But that sort of goes beyond the scope of the discussion. 😀
So ~no load is no load, for the sake of simplicity here. 😆
As far as I know, the cable and adapters should have as little impedance as possible, unless the amp driving the load requires it in partnership with the load.
The whole rating on cable with impedance anyways is a thing from the old coax communication days, where they needed to know how much a very long coax run (we’re talking 50-100+ miles here) would have.
So you have cable rated for 50 ohms of impedance, but at what length does it hit 50 ohms? 😉 I think if you measure the cable, it’s very very low impedance already, and nothing near 50 ohms.
I don’t recommend using an adapter that has impedance or transformers unless you’re able to measure some improvement in signal to noise or distortion. 8)
Software control of the volume slider in windows.
Weird? Yes. Have I seen it done before? Absolutely. Ever used Real Player? 😉
[quote author=”Leif”]There is no disadvantage for a system used for broadcasting as there’s no way you’d try to adjust your listening level by adjusting the player. //Leif[/quote]
Yep. The only disadvantage at face value is that Windows’ volume control changing could potentially introduce zipper noise into the signal depending on how the soundcard drivers handle it. That’s one area I haven’t done much experimenting in.
Correct, the Breakaway Pipelines have the volume fader adjustments disabled by default. But not the channel mixer volumes, right?
So even if an x-fader was using the device for volume adjustments, it wouldn’t be using that.
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However, I don’t think that’s what you meant Hank, now that I’m reading again. I think you’re right Leif, that Hank meant the volume control of their media player. In this case, the output levels shouldn’t be controlled by the media player. They should be controlled by the volume control within breakaway. If the volume is attenuated before Breakaway, then Breakaway is going to compensate for it, until it runs out of range.
Have you tried using the volume control built into Breakaway, Hank?
Another thing you need to consider is that it’s bringing up the levels of the fades, so you might have to alter where your fades happen to get a smoother transition.
In other words, you might need to increase the threshold the fade starts and/or centers itself on (I don’t know what you’re using or the features, but any decent auto x-fader has an adjustable threshold)
For most purposes I’m using -9dBFS for the center of my x-fades, but it really depends on what "type" of dB the level detector is using. For RMS or some weighting, you will almost for sure want something lower than that.
Play around with it tho, see what happens. 8)
Dang… very loud & sounds very nice on Simple Minds – Alive And Kicking
Also nice on Steve Earle – Copperhead Road… sounds open in all the right places, but still has a very "Big City" image to it, without lots of the bad effects of getting a texture like this. This actually sounds decently open on speakers.
No problem at all with stream’s mp3 quality at all so far. 8)
[quote author=”Pepperjack”]OK Jesse. I have followed your instructions and am not seeing that encoder in my list.[/quote]
It’s not going to say that directly in SAM4…. you need to add one of the mp3 encoder types (i forget what it was called), and then in the configuration for that encoder you’ll be able to select the lame codec. (you may have to restart SAM4)
[quote author=”camclone”]i was trying to explain " flatness " to all ..192 KHz signal..[/quote]
ahh… frequency response. the bass tilt should have very little effect on the stereo separation – essentially none on 99.99% of all songs.what you might need to calibrate is the parametric EQ/s in the Calibration window. since I haven’t heard of anyone else having this problem… i can’t advise that you use any settings anyone else is using. and even so, you really need to calibrate your own specific card itself to confirm to yourself that the output actually is flat.
have you tried checking the response between mono & stereo on a scope?
It’s been so long that I don’t remember (but i think i do)… is SAM4 allows you to pick this or that from the list of FhG codecs…
But if you can select the F.A.S.T. codec… instead of the HQ codec… that alone should be a pretty good upgrade in the transparency of the encoding since that has been, for a while now, FhG’s reference codec.
I don’t know why I always forget about this too, but you can use Lame as a DirectShow codec, which you can select in SAM4’s encoder. Here is the full Lame 3.93.1 WIndows binary package…
http://stashbox.org/867062/lame3.93.1.zip
Unzip, navigate to the "ACM" directory, right-click on LameACM.inf and select "Install". You should then be able to see this codec in SAM4 under which-ever of the mp3 encoder types allows you to select one of your system’s codecs. You should see "Lame ACM MP3 Codec" in the list of codecs. (you might have to restart SAM in order to see it, check if it’s there without restarting 1st of course)p.s. Sadie’s show sounds pretty decent right now. Higher quality source files perhaps? Also sounds nice without the constant and sometimes inappropriate "sizzle" of the BBE… Are you still hearing the BBE texture to your liking?
[quote author=”Leif”]any peak-controlling element before it in the chain becomes a distortion generator with no benefit.[/quote]
I will agree with this. Of course.So with a lossy codec used as the transmission format… the question becomes "what is an acceptable addition or reduction to the existing loss in peak control".
This is not an objective thing to consider unless someone comes up with an accepted standard to measure the loss of peak control. (is there one already?) And even then, it could only be used to confirm if the gain/reduction in peak loss correlates with trends in subjective opinions on whatever aspects of the sound were being listened for by the subjects. Data that would be interesting just the same though. 😀
Of anyone here, Leif should know that my personal opinion is that not only NO addition is acceptable, but that any reduction possible of is the direction to try to go. ~Perfection would be no loss at all of whatever the intended "sound" is, being played back by a ~reasonably perfect linear system, in as ~reasonably uncolored environment as possible.
"Reasonably" in this context is mostly limited by how much money one can spend on this endeavor, but as many that have read some of the insane things "HiFi" enthusiasts have spent money on… cash is not always a defining factor of a transparent playback system or listening space. 😆
[quote author=”Pepperjack”]It’s just for me to hear around the house.[/quote]
Then if you decide that on your playback systems the BBE sounds more to your liking, then by all means use it, and take Leif’s suggestion and turn your final drive all the way down to -6dB so that there’s no final peak limiting. It’s also worth the effort to try to eliminate any limiting going on in the multiband. Some presets do this more than others. The current versions of Breakaway don’t show the multiband limiters in a separate meter/color, so it’s sometimes hard to judge, but generally any time any of the bands have very short "bursts" of additional gain reduction… much faster than the normal compression movements… that is the multiband’s limiters at work.But first… try putting the BBE before Breakaway. You should be able to get a similar texture, with more consistency on the final sound.
If you have to put a BBE after Breakaway, try putting it on the playback system that most benefits from it, and after the stream has already been decoded so that there isn’t any un-needed extra DA/AD conversions.
Finally, if you’re just streaming around the house… consider switching to EdCast, because you can stream with FLAC muxed with Ogg… aka OggFLAC. This is not only lossless, but fairly low delay as well. You’ll need to use IceCast v2 server for this purpose.
-J 😳
p.s. for personal use, Leif’s suggestion of setting the final drive low enough where the final limiters are not kicking in is a great idea no matter what other processing or playback system EQs are being used or not. your ears & especially your brain/emotions will thank you.
[quote author=”Leif”][quote author=”JesseG”]Since peak control isn’t an issue for an internet stream[/quote]
How do you figure, exactly?
///Leif[/quote]
Technically it’s not an issue for FM broadcast either, if one doesn’t care about competitive loudness… within reason of course… eventually you’ll need to start caring about noise, but then we’re talking about a huuuge amount of peak control lost.
Pepperjack & I haven’t said anything about clipping, going over -0dBFS, or modulating past 75kHz. And Pepperjack and I are not talking about trying to control the loss of peak control with further dynamics processing. Unless I am mistaken.
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And you’re right, I should re-phrase my comment at least within this specific context… Peak control isn’t an issue for a lossy internet stream. As long as you are not clipping into the encoder, and not clipping from the decoder, then the only distortion added should be from the codec itself.
Is this not correct?
