Category Archives: Testing

VLC, not quite audiophile

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

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 10). … Continue reading

Posted in DTV, Testing | Leave a comment

Over-rotating CDs

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

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 its … Continue reading

Posted in Digital Audio, Testing | Leave a comment

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

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

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Noise and distortion in signal generation

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

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Analogue vs Digital signal generation

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?

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

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

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Is digital inferior to analogue audio?

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