SQ comparison: Rock vs Windows OS on Roon

Ever hear a Blackberry buzz before a message comes in?

I’ve heard an air-gapped Macbook pro impact speakers just by scrolling around in Chrome. No electrical connection at all, no networking on. RFI from CPU/GPU.

Can you scientifically prove that claim? My question is rhetorical, obviously, because that can never be proven. Science cannot, with much confidence, proclaim to exhaustively identify all causes. When science propounded that the earth was flat, neither the fact nor the idea of gravitational waves was in anyone’s understanding. What are ALL the phenomena in a digital sound reproduction system that impact sound quality? No means of developing knowledge, including science, will ever be able to answer that question. We might actually, someday, identify all those phenomena, but we’ll never know that we have. The open-mindedness prompted by that fact is what makes science beautiful and what keeps it alive.

To add to @danny’s point further, I once heard low-frequency percussive sounds come out of my speakers when I slapped the speaker cables on the floor, like I was playing the speakers as a percussive instrument. How does Ohm’s law explain that? Computers don’t just generate bit streams.

I hate to be the bearer of bad new, fellas, but we just don’t understand the world as well as we like to think we do.

If this is the way you think science works, I have an invisible dragon in my garage I’d like to show you.

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I don’t understand your criticism, Adam, beyond the fact that it includes ridicule to prop it up, so I can’t intelligently respond.

You’re arguing from the position that it’s somehow the purpose of science to “prove” that claims – made without any evidence – are false. It’s actually the opposite: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

The last time I checked, a USB DAC operates on the packets it receives from a host computer through a cable. The operational parameters of all of those components are well understood and, most importantly, measurable. Anything else is meaningless metaphysics.

Also, Eratosthenes knew the earth was round, and measured it, in the 3rd century B.C. It was only until Western Civilization chucked the scientific method out the window in favour of a mystical world full of unverifiable claims that people forgot about it. We call that time the “Dark Ages”.

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Not if the extraordinary claims are not made on the basis of any science. For instance beleif like a flat earth. In that case the science is wholly incumbent on the dissenting parties.

It was not my intention to imply that. You might have gotten that from my use of the word “falsifiability.” Falsifiability is a core component of the scientific method. In order for a scientific theory to be a good explanation of observed events, the theory must identify observations that could be made that would show the theory to be incorrect. Not only do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, they also require a roadmap to prove them wrong.

The point I was making (at least the one you quoted), was that the history of science is full newly observed phenomena.

Given the point I was trying to make, I would have to disagree with your statement. If people working in any field were to assume that they understand everything about the systems they study (by dismissing other possibilities as “meaningless metaphysics,” for example), there would be nothing left to study. To contend that we understand “those components” exhaustively is an extraordinary claim, no?

Western Civilization invented what we now call the scientific method. Francis Bacon was the first to attempt to systematize it, in the late 17th century (I think). It’s not really fair to say that before Bacon there was no rigor in science, though. As with most things, it was a gradual development, starting, probably, with Thales in the 6th century BCE (again, I think).

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Bit perfect does not mean all will sound the same. It depends other factors such as noise, latency, timing and jitter. When a PC running on Rock, the transition layers between the OS and Roon playback software is closely coupled. The output stage in which Rock sends its data to USB-DAC, uses ALSA, this is direct kernel streaming resulted in very low latency.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Advanced_Linux_Sound_Architecture

Because, Rock is so light and possesses far less threads running the backgrounds, it generates less noise, this may be reason why I will able to hear the difference. This is because my i5 NUC is directly connect to USB-DAC, in this case I’m using Holo Spring R2R. The only way to test this is to have spectrum analyser that can sweep across to 100kHz, measure the noise output between same PC but with two different OS.

I can’t say that I notice a difference in sound quality going from Windows 10 to ROCK. I’m too lazy to try to A/B it with two drives. I have noticed, however, that I’m doing a lot more listening since I installed ROCK. Favorite ROCK feature: being able to check in on it using the IP address.

To add to @danny’s point further, I once heard low-frequency percussive sounds come out of my speakers when I slapped the speaker cables on the floor, like I was playing the speakers as a percussive instrument. How does Ohm’s law explain that? Computers don’t just generate bit streams.

That’s sound perfectly logical to me as an audio engineer. It just indicates a poorly designed overall feedback stage of your amplifier wich feeds back any signal generated by the microphonics of your speaker cable to the input of your amplifier and amplifies it again as higher output. That’s how overall feedback works. Nothing strange or magic about it at all.

I thought it was weird, because it might mean that the slap of the cable was converting kinetic energy into an electrical signal, like a piezoelectric device, and it was just cable + floor. The amp was a VTL ST-85 (tube amp), and the speakers were Aerial Acoustics 7b.

I love that the Roon community has turned into https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/ since ROCK release :slight_smile: Pretty soon I’ll only have to visit one forum.

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Audio Precision audio analyzer machines

The industry standard audio measurement machines. For some reason “forum objectivist’s” (primarily found on forums, rare in real life) think that after these machines go through another dozen generations of improvements, the tests they will perform at the time, will be the exact same tests they do today.

Those are good audio analyzers. Would be nice to see more manufacturers of “audio improvement” products use such audio analyzers in before and after test results.

I’m guessing (hoping) that was tongue firmly in cheek.

I bet in 50 years they will be better. What that tells me is they are subpar today compared to standards 50 years from now. However the human ear has been evolving for over 100000 years already. In 50 years I can’t see much for improvements.

Firmly in cheek :wink:

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I talk about Roon any chance I get in other forums. CA and Head-Fi mainly. I bet several became Roon subscribers (or at least trialists) from my posts / praise.

Maybe in the 2060’s there will be another retro resurgence and Audio Precision will start using vacuum tubes in their gear again :slight_smile:

I’m still waiting for the 8 track to come back before I make my next big audio gear purchase.

Yes the cable is either generating an electrical signal because of static energy between the cable and the floor or it can generate a signal bacause the cable find itself in a magnetic field so a signal is generated by moving the cable in that field.
Third is the changing parasitic capacitance of the cable by moving it. This genrates a signal as well, just like a condensor microphone. Some cables are more sensitive to it then others. I once made 20 xlr cables from a 100m microphone cable roll. They all suffered from terrible microphonics, so bad even that you could amplify the sound of someone walking on stage. And when rolled up you could shout in it and record it. And that was just cable, nothing attched to it. Cables from another roll where totally silent.