Is Digital Audio Transmission Really Analog?

Incredibly well explained. Thank you.

High end audio is full of crystal healing, golden ear, anti-science, crackpots and snake oil salesman. There is variability in the analog parts of the signal path, but none in the digital (assuming there isn't a device malfunction of some sort).

Thank you

Greetings from Toronto ❄️☕️
In the end ..we don’t listen to test tones nor frequency sweeps..we listen to music ..literally emotions given form ..and like many other arts ..it’s beauty is in the eye ( or in this case EARS ) of the beholder.
Now personally, spending more and more money hoping to find that unicorn that’ll take you to audiophile nirvana…is a fools game .
I firmly believe that beyond a certain level of performance that makes you happy the improvement of a few percent ( if that’s even quantifiable) at double the cost ( it’s exponential??) isn’t in the end worth it …that being said get what sounds good TO YOU.
A great video 👍👍

Absolutely phenomenal work, a great service to all.

I kind of do want measurements done on my drinking water.

The water analogy he presents makes no sense, of course you could measure purity levels of water to figure out why one tastes different from the other.

There are, of course, much more complex modulation schemes for digital data than the simple 1 = high, 0 = low voltage. For example, with digital TV, digital radio, Wi-Fi and xDSL. They typically use QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation and use both phase and amplitude. That is most definitely analogue in transmission, but what is important is how that signal is demodulated and interpreted as digital data and the absolutely essential error correction. Schemes like QAM are typically used to maximise the data throughput on limited bandwidth and which are often noisy. As anybody used to broadcast digital TV can attest, if the required signal to noise ratio falls below the critical level, there's very little room between a perfect signal and one with none. You tend to get catastrophic breakup, not subtle loss of detail.

I should add, that just to confuse the sort of audiophile pseudo-science that sells vastly overpriced network switches and the like, the very process of advanced modulation and de-modulation involves its own DAC and ADC conversion. That's because, whilst in principle the mathematics of modulation/demodulation is analogue in nature, and we might theorise it is possible to use analogue circuits to modulate and de-modulate the signal, in practical engineering that lead to massive modems stuffed full of active and passive components and which performed poorly.

To overcome this, the very process of applying the required filtering during the demodulation process has been moved into the digital world, so that we can use the power of mathematics directly on the incoming signal. Thus on, say, a DSL signal, it will be first digitised, not as a the digital data we are transmitting, but as a digital representation of the modulated waveform. It is that digital stream that we then run through digital logic to perform fast Fourier transforms and the like.

The key technology in doing all this at extremely high speed whilst using very little power is called Digital Signal Processing (DSP), one of the wonders of the modern world and, I would say, a vastly under-appreciated. It is no exaggeration to say that, without DSP, much of the modern world, and especially modern communications, would be impossible.

Now I'm not sure what the audiophile community would make of all this. That is the modulated representation of our digital data stream is often corrupted and goes through its own DAC/ADC and error correction process entirely separate to the DAC/ADC of the audio data. Are they going to start claiming that they can reduce the jitter in the QAM modem chipsets and this will make some astonishing difference? Their claims are just so wildly at odds with the way technology works, that I would not put it past them do do so.

Quantum mechanically isn't it all digital?!

I''ve done the pepsi challenge and I could tell coke from zero or Pepsi immediately.
considering I always said I prefer coke, it was such a relief to be right xD

lying and hypocrisy stains life.

♥

I am going to a taste testing extravaganza next week at a Michelin Star restaurant. I am taking my thermometer, colour spectrum analyzer and freshness radium gauge. Luckily I will not need to eat a single bite to judge the best meal. I learn so much through these video's.

I am so very glad that I watched this video with the detailed explanation. It helps explain how very poor our hearing sense is...we should not rely on them at all when listening. Obviously, test equipment is much better for judging music. Thank you kindly for the enlightenment

The amount of outrageous bullshit talk in the so called audiophile world and their apologists is mind bending.

I really enjoy your videos. I would welcome a follow up to this video when it comes to Dante Enabled Interfaces, USB-C, or SPIDF interfaces.

Absolutely excellent presentation.

You opened my eyes with many videos as well as others who were deceived about what really is high-quality audio accessories. Thank you Mr. Amir

Hello Amir could you share your thought on the technics su R1000 which digitize the analog signal of vinyl without being a class D amp which they claim.
For what I understand the Technics Jeno engine does with the analoge signal such as with vinyl is jitter elimination noise shaping optimisation and a phono stage that uses digital processing for a more accurate perfomance.
does this technique makes any difference.
Your knowledge would be highly appreciated.

Audio test does not need to be blind. That’s nonsense and has nothing to do with science. Do you blind test the picture quality on a TV as well ? Measurement and real life listening complements each other and there is no contradiction between them.

Thank you Amir. Yet another great presentation. In engineering we have simple paradigm : knowledge->methodology->discipline-> verification. You show expertise across all. Others sell voodoo based on subjective opinions, especially in HIFI.

Thanks for a really informative video. A small cry for HELP though, from an oldie. Please don’t use the crimson typeface on a black background. It doesn’t show up very well so I miss your emphasised main point! Actually, I wish I could slow your speech down a little as well? But I enjoy the content of your videos - you get to the nub of the matter.

I love that comment about as worthless a fortune of chinese fortune cookie... I will use that one...

Darko has a point though. I think that measurements for distortion and shit like that is all good, but at the end of the day your own ears are really the only tool you need.

I d like to start crowdfunding an event where all these reviewers are subjected to a series of blind tests.

I always feel conflicted about Darko Audio because I really like his presentation style, and there are scarce number of audio reviewers who have his music tastes (deep into electronic music), but he perpetuates a lot of the pseudoscientific and "religious" attitudes towards hi-fi. I guess you have to just take everything with a pinch of salt, to carry on the cooking analogies. To quote the great Stewart Lee, you can prove anything with facts ...

Thanks, I enjoy learning from you. Also, there are too many products for the average audiophile to evaluate, so I watch your videos to get an idea of which ones add value to my listening experience.

Terrific work Amir - Thanks

Hey Amir, thanks for the very informative video! I am embarking on an audiophile journey and I'm glad I watched this earlier rather than later...
I have a question for you regrading digital output all the way to the loudspeakers (Genelecs with digital input). I know you touched briefly on AES/EBU, but I'm having difficulty figuring out how to connect my source to the speakers using AES/EBU - I understand I won't need a DAC, since the Genelecs have them. So in your opinion what would be the easiest way to e.g. connect my computer to them using the digital inputs? Or should I just get a DAC and connect to the analog inputs?

People like Darko are what happens when they are too lazy to research further than surface level knowledge. Reminds me of my early 20s selling audio cables thinking I knew what I was talking about because I was able to recite the printed talking points on the package.

Analog doesn't exist, our universe is discrete, this is a non question. Analog media is made of discrete particules, magnetic, sylus jumps, electrons... 🙂

Hi, Amir!
How can you explain the fact that the same DAC connected via USB to different computers loaded with different OSes, Windows or specialized audio OS, playing same audiofiles sounds differently, and that differs only from PC to PC, regardless to OS? When I discovered that, I've overheard all my notebooks and one of them sounded frankly dirty (regardless of OS and player) and at the end I chose the one that sounded most clear, but mostly clear sounded my friend's Macbook Pro. And he also easily heard that difference. Nay, we used two different DACs in our test and had the same effect.

I'm not so technical. I stream tidal. Not mga.bullshit.i have a cd player 😂16.44.done probably ❤😂

I can't easily "taste" all audio devices in the world and measurements help me remove items from consideration as well as reviews and online demos.

Love your passionate and competent work Amir, is a fortune there are competent and trusted people like you (and other moderators) and fora like ASR who can educate us in choosing the best gears (or simply learn how to evaluate the performance of our gears). Keep going on this way please. Best regards from Italy !

If you get only half a bottle delivered and it gets confused for no bottle ...

So, the conclusion is: don't buy your dac based on price and especially not based on listening.

Is analog audio really digital. Ultimately we live in a quantum universe where particles have quantum energy states where they jump from one state to another without passing through any intermediate states. Nobody knows how. There is also a minimum distance called the Planck distance. Quantum mechanics still has a lot of unsolved mysteries. It's barely a hundred years old so it needs more time. Among two important things that are killing physicists now is the current theory can't be reconciled with the theory of relativity which is believed equally valid and it can't explain gravity. I've been struggling for years to try to understand Q-bits and quantum computing but it still escapes me. What they tell me makes no sense to me.

I will Never buy any audio product / accessory until Samir reviews it first...

I see why the audio people "hate" you. Great presentation based on science.
Mr. Pete-------->
aging hippie

Hi! Firstly I would like to thank you for an interesting and very pedagogic presentation! I am a material engineer since long and hifi-interested for the last ten years. My strategy is to do the last tuning of the sound in the system with cables and other tweaks to minimise vibrations. I can hear a difference between different cables, specially for analogue but also digital, even if it is smaller. And that is not according to what you explain. I can imagine that cables, steered or not, gives some deteriation of the signal. If a disturbed signal in respect to time, interval or noise enter a the digital section of a DAC it is corrected by different filters. But a signal is energy and the part that is redirected by the filter must go somewhere. Where does this energy go? May it affect the analog part of a DAC? I would be happy if you can throw some light on this topic!! Best regards /Staffan

I stopped watching Darko's videos when he turned off his comment section and stared making videos on high end cables

My main man

As far as I remember from John Darko's video he said he's not worried about measurements, he leaves that for the measurement professionals (like you, Amir 😁). He gives his personal opinion on which equipment he likes the most... And, as always, it's a very subjective opinion.
I agree that jitter will affect the audio quality and that a more expensive equipment won't necessarily sound better than a cheaper one. However, I also agree that a very (measured) accurate equipment may sound worse than a "less accurate", there's a lot of factors that influence the final sound, including the use of matching equipment, contributing to the overall synergy.

Amir is king of the specious argument, supported by selective data. I'll wait for my comment to be removed.

if we measure something and the difference is below the threshold of hearing, and then ABXed it and hear the difference anyway, does this mean that we have the wrong idea about where the threshold of hearing is, or that we are measuring the wrong thing?

I’m very grateful to this channel, and a few others, for providing objective measurements and explaining the science behind the technology of the hobby that I enjoy. This information was missing from the hobby space, mostly, until relatively recently, and even when a publication did provide measurements, it was done mostly, in my opinion, as a way to lend credence to the subjective opinions being offered.

I don’t mind, mostly, the subjective reviewers, Some of them provide useful information, provided they tell viewers what their preferences and biases are, which a few do. But when they are hostile to science and measurements, or try to “debunk” the validity of measurements, then they open themselves up to rebuttal. I’m again grateful to Amir and others like him (not many!) who take the time to explain whether the criticism is valid or not.

Dude misses that the noise in the analogue electrical signal representing the digits is important because this getting into the DAC and affects the analogue amp in the DAC as well as the conversion electronics in the DAC. Sad that this misinforms due to superficial knowledge and dismissal that there could be more going on.