Lessloss

I was intrigued by all the chatter about the Toshiba SD-3950 so I bought one and I've been pretty impressed with it. I haven't made any mods yet though. However, in researching the 3950 I came across this link:

http://www.lessloss.com/about.html

Has anyone here looked into this outfit or utilized their services?
 
Interesting. I read through all of their material and although there is still an element of "hype" to their literature the theory is essentially OK.

Jitter is conceivably the most often heard fault after conversion of digital audio - according to most experts in the field. Like IM distortion and other anomolies in analog audio, the quantity and severity are left open to interpretation. Some IM distortion is inevitable and as far as I can tell some jitter is inevitable. Can we hear this fault? According to many (usually those with a 'solution' to sell) you can. Does it affect the audio itself? Maybe.

I am very happy with my run-of-the-mill digital audio setup; my so-so JVC CD player, my HP XU800 server and my Creative Live! DAC. I play both CD's and MP3's off my server thru one of my vintage Sansui amps. I also play CD's with the JVC directiy on the Sansui's. Both sound great! Do I hear any jitter or IM distortion? Hardly. My ear-brain connection (not an audiophile gold-plated cable :p: ) simply doesn't function that quickly.

I suspect that this product is like any other audiophile product; you didn't realize you needed it until they put that bug in your ear and made you think that your equipment was somehow imperfect :D !

I don't buy it.

Paul
 
Good points. But in looking over all of the effort people are putting into removing the physical aspects of "jitter", is it simply a lost cause if the jitter caused by timing errors isn't also addressed? I guess my real question remains whether or not the fundamental CDP design errors these folks single out are truly legit. And if so, why aren't more major manufacturers addressing them? Simply so there can be a cost point differentiation to justify between a $100 deck and a $10,000 deck? I don't really think so.
 
Hi, Liudas from LessLoss here. There are other manufacturers who address this issue of Jitter. dCS and (I think) Burmester are two of them. Why their prices for these top models are so expensive has to do with their sound quality. But ask any digital audio professional and they'll tell you that even pro studio gear which handles the Jitter phenomenon properly doesn't get into that kind of money (especially when we're talking about two channels of audio!).

Liudas
 
Wadia is another manufacturer who also implements the correct Master/Slave configuration in their products.
 
Could the issue of jitter be addressed simply by using a large buffer with a clocked output? It would seem that this would isolate the jitter problem altogether.

Thankyou liudas, for making yourself available for this thread. It takes a brave soul sometimes, to step up to bat for a product in a public forum.

Mike
 
Originally posted by Yosemite
Could the issue of jitter be addressed simply by using a large buffer with a clocked output? It would seem that this would isolate the jitter problem altogether.

Thankyou liudas, for making yourself available for this thread. It takes a brave soul sometimes, to step up to bat for a product in a public forum.

Mike

Ditto that sentiment. Brave indeed.

I'll take a chance here and respond to your question by suggesting that it's not a buffering issue but one of missing timing information.

The sync signal that would allow a circuit to synchronize a stream of data that has been interrupted by some mechanical issue(s) is simply not available. I think that is the problem.

Paul
 
The important things would be what quality the clock would be, and its distance from the DAC chip. Jitter is a parasitic frequency modulation of the clock's signal. In our solution, when the CD player is slaved to the DAC, there is no need for a large buffer. Indeed, a one-bit buffer is all that is needed, whose output is timed by a Jitter-free clock. But, in systems where the CD player is digital Master, and the buffer's output is timed asynchronously (from another indepedant low-Jitter generator) the buffer needs to be large enough to avoid the inevitable timing discrepencies between the two (now both Master) clocks. One of them will, at least to some degree, work faster, and if the buffer is too small then one would encounter data loss.
 
Guess that my thought was.... Once a bit of the stream was in the buffer, it could be strobed out with a strictly controlled clock. Liudas method eliminates this and keeps things simpler.... Simpler is usually better, and a more direct path is a more elegant solution.

I'd like to try it if I can ever accumulate enough bucks for more than a Goodwill purchase. :rolleyes:
 
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