Topic: I Need an opinion about SPDF connection

I use usb connection and it's all ok.
But (just for "sport") testing SPDF connection I realized something strange,
or it may be not, and this is my question:

The main bargraph under spectrum analyzer is normal (it indicate variations
between 0 and -25 db, so far away from overload, according to musical content), but the Global Level Meter reach
very often 0db (red led on).
Is it normal or my source have an output too high ?

State overview:

Input  Sync SR   State Bit
Sp co  lock 44.1 cons  24
AES     --  --    --   --
USB     --  --    --   --
SRC     SPDIF
Clock Source      INT


Thanks

2

Re: I Need an opinion about SPDF connection

The global level meter shows the raw signal, the Analyzer bargraph the output signal according to your volume setting. Set it to 0 dB and it will show the same as the global one.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

3 (edited by sinarca 2017-12-11 19:23:28)

Re: I Need an opinion about SPDF connection

MC wrote:

The global level meter shows the raw signal, the Analyzer bargraph the output signal according to your volume setting. Set it to 0 dB and it will show the same as the global one.

Thank Matthias for the answer, but...

Ok that spectrum bargraph change with ADI-2 Pro volume setting, but I wanted to refer to the global one
(under SPDF column). Input level of the SPDF signal (red led lite on loudest musical peaks)

We shouldn' t avoid any red clipping ?
Isn't that my Fiio deliver a too high SPDF signal ? (red led lite on) ?

4

Re: I Need an opinion about SPDF connection

The ADI-2 does not indicate real overs, but (as ususal) the highest digital level.. To see the real deal you should use DIGICheck, 4 Bar Level Meter, and activate OVS in the meter settings (F2).

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: I Need an opinion about SPDF connection

Thanks. I have so many things to learn...

Re: I Need an opinion about SPDF connection

Anyway found the guilty. My player software has an option called Z-Boost.
It raise a lot the volume, but caused clipping.
Unchecked and...OK.

Re: I Need an opinion about SPDF connection

...sometimes (or rather often, it depends) the trick for best audio results lies in ignoring most or all the functions that seem to have made it to a product only as a way to justify its price, or to win in a comparison chart against competitors ("this has it, others do not"), despite the function having any use in real world, or beneficial effect.

home hifi enthusiasts from the '70s, '80s, '90s might remember the age when devices started to grow more buttons and switches than trees in a forest. 

the subsequent wave of "esoteric" audio devices, then, came with hardly even a power on and off switch.

in reality, the war for keeping position on the market often invents medicines before the illness even appears to affect population.

where i failed in my predictions is, i had not envisioned that the same would have happened to software products, exactly in the same way.

which leads to: if you don't know exactly what it does, or how it does it, ignoring it might help to avoid the worst.

like what you are currently describing here, on this forum: adding gain (and, thus, digital clipping) to music program material that's most likely to have been mastered already on the "as hot as possible" area of peak levels won't improve your listening experience.

had you chosen a lesser converter, with no reliable read-out of levels, you wouldn't have possibly learnt it was happening.

but, alas, there's no learning possible without trial-and-error process, or the academia.

which means, when you finally learn what caused it, and you just solved it: now you know more! which is why some of us in audio develop obsessions that are such fun to live with: like audio. :-)

keep searching, keep reading, keep asking. answers just wait to be found (and shared)!

Re: I Need an opinion about SPDF connection

Hi rbbrnc, you are right and I agree with you.

I was one of the home hifi enthusiasts from the '80s, '90s, but I stayed away from esoteric devices and
I have never regretted it.

Just one thing to add to your statement on software. I think like you it's better don't touch what one don't know, but in my case it was selected by default :-( So I  ended up in a trap ! But fortunately ADI-2 pro has clipping level indicator and saved me :-)