Category Archives: Testing

VLC, not quite audiophile

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Stephen Dawson

I’m reviewing the top model phones from three companies for audio performance. For assorted reasons http://allfreethings.com/cipro/index.html , I decided to try out the VLC player on them. The main reason was that thirty one gifts , as is well known, … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Digital Audio, Testing | 1 Comment

H.264 appears on Australian Digital TV

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Stephen Dawson

I’m still accumulating statistics on the rearranged digital TV stations , but stumbled across something rather unexpected. On Prime the ishoptv shopping channel, and the RACING.COM horse racing channel, don’t use MPEG2 video encoding. They’re now H.264, aka MPEG4-AVC (Part … Continue reading →

Posted in DTV, Testing | Leave a comment

Over-rotating CDs

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Stephen Dawson

Ages ago I mentioned here the Mythbusters episode where they destroyed a CD by spinning it way too fast (23 kamagra pills Buy Lipitor online without prescription ,000 RPM). Since 2005 video equipment has gotten a great deal better. The … Continue reading →

Posted in CD, How Things Work, Testing | 1 Comment

Siglent SDG1020 signal generator

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Stephen Dawson

So, here’s another signal generator to compare to those I looked at in ‘Noise and distortion in signal generation’. This is the Siglent SDG1020 , a dual output 20MHz, arbitrary waveform model. It uses 14 bits of resolution apparently. Here’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Audio, Testing | Leave a comment

You’re never quite sure what you’re going to get

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Stephen Dawson

Last year I reviewed the Western Digital TV Live media box for Sound+Image, along with a bunch of other media boxes, and I gave it high marks, not the least because of its ability to handle high resolution audio. For … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Testing | Leave a comment

Noise and distortion in signal generation

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Stephen Dawson

So this is interesting. Apparently, according to the fairly sparse specifications kupbezrecepty.com , the Velleman HPG1 signal generator uses a ten bit DAC, which suggests a fairly high noise floor. I figured I’d measure it to provide this blog with … Continue reading →

Posted in Testing | Leave a comment

Analogue vs Digital signal generation

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Stephen Dawson

In 1997, just starting out on this writing stuff, I decided I needed an audio signal generator. Off-the-shelf ones, to the extent that they were available at all, were way too expensive for me. However back in those days there … Continue reading →

Posted in How Things Work, Testing | 3 Comments

Does your device really display 4K?

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Stephen Dawson

That’s far from certain. A surprising number of 4K devices will downscale high resolution still images to 1080p, then upscale them again, losing detail in the process. This can be hard to see with regular photos, so here is a … Continue reading →

Posted in 4K, Testing | 1 Comment

Doubting measurements

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Stephen Dawson

The other day I was reviewing some very high quality bookshelf-sized loudspeakers, and decided I’d check their bass extension. What I measured was quite at odds with both my listening impressions and the manufacturer’s specifications. The makers say 50 hertz … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Testing | Leave a comment

Is digital inferior to analogue audio?

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Stephen Dawson

Linn Products is a very famous UK high fidelity equipment firm. It really came to prominence in the 1970s in making the argument that the turntable had been overlooked as a critical component in the playback chain. It’s contribution at … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Codecs, Imperfect perception, Testing | 3 Comments