Is vibration over rated in solid state electronics

[Vladimir]

I make fart noises with my mouth on the DAC case like on a baby belly? How does it affect crescendos in spymphonic orchestra?

 

[lindsayt]

I make fart noises with my mouth on the DAC case like on a baby belly? How does it affect crescendos in spymphonic orchestra?

It'd be impossible to tell as your ears would be picking up your own noises and therefore not in a position to detect subtle differences in the sound from your speakers.

Try a different experiment.

 

[Vladimir]

I make fart noises with my mouth on the DAC case like on a baby belly? How does it affect crescendos in spymphonic orchestra?

It'd be impossible to tell as your ears would be picking up your own noises and therefore not in a position to detect subtle differences in the sound from your speakers.

Try a different experiment.

Perhaps a DBT with assistent doing the fart noises in another room randomly while I write down if I hear differences. We just need 5000 people repeating this test for the sake of science and love for music.

 

[Gazzip]

Theoretically, a DAC could suffer phase variations in the clock if the crystal was subject to vibration - and this could lead to jitter artifacts in the DAC output. I did a bit of Googling, and the effects are tiny - measured in parts per million for very high rates of acceleration of the crystal. Important if you are following Elon Musk to Mars and are wondering about the accuracy of your guidance system during the launch, but frankly a complete waste of time for home HiFi.

I was really careful to state that the million dollar question is audibility. It is measurable as noise in the signal and very real, so personally I would rather it wasn't present if it can be relatively easily avoided through vibration mitigation. Regardless of how far below the noise floor these artefacts are purported to reside I can hear it. Simple as that. If you can't then you can't. Also simple as that.

 

[Gazzip]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

 

[Vladimir]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

Vibration induced piezoelectric effect on quartz clocks. When a piece of quartz vibrates, it generates an electrical voltage.

 

[Gazzip]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

The crystal resonators which form part of the oscillator circuit do physically resonate. This is why they are sensitive to vibrations.

 

[Al ears]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

The crystal resonators which form part of the oscillator circuit do physically resonate. This is why they are sensitive to vibrations.

Those 'crystals' will continue to oscilate at the same frequency irrespective of external movement. Presumably if they changed then you would end up with no sound at all.

 

[Leif]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

The crystal resonators which form part of the oscillator circuit do physically resonate. This is why they are sensitive to vibrations.

Those 'crystals' will continue to oscilate at the same frequency irrespective of external movement. Presumably if they changed then you would end up with no sound at all.

And as you know that is the whole point of a quartz crystal, it has a fixed resonant frequency.

 

[Gazzip]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

The crystal resonators which form part of the oscillator circuit do physically resonate. This is why they are sensitive to vibrations.

Those 'crystals' will continue to oscilate at the same frequency irrespective of external movement. Presumably if they changed then you would end up with no sound at all.

No that is incorrect. Those crystals are susceptible to external vibration which can introduce phase variations (timing issues) within the DAC chip, which in turn produces jitter.

 

[Gazzip]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

The crystal resonators which form part of the oscillator circuit do physically resonate. This is why they are sensitive to vibrations.

Those 'crystals' will continue to oscilate at the same frequency irrespective of external movement. Presumably if they changed then you would end up with no sound at all.

And as you know that is the whole point of a quartz crystal, it has a fixed resonant frequency.

See above. I am 100% right on this. Can you hear vibration induced jitter is the real question, not is it there...

 

[Leif]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

The crystal resonators which form part of the oscillator circuit do physically resonate. This is why they are sensitive to vibrations.

Those 'crystals' will continue to oscilate at the same frequency irrespective of external movement. Presumably if they changed then you would end up with no sound at all.

No that is incorrect. Those crystals are susceptible to external vibration which can introduce phase variations (timing issues) within the DAC chip, which in turn produces jitter.

So my quartz watch gains or loses time when I am caning it round the local ice rink?

 

[Al ears]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

The crystal resonators which form part of the oscillator circuit do physically resonate. This is why they are sensitive to vibrations.

Those 'crystals' will continue to oscilate at the same frequency irrespective of external movement. Presumably if they changed then you would end up with no sound at all.

No that is incorrect. Those crystals are susceptible to external vibration which can introduce phase variations (timing issues) within the DAC chip, which in turn produces jitter.

So my quartz watch gains or loses time when I am caning it round the local ice rink?

The thought of that happening gives me the jitters..... ;-)

 

[Electro]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

Vibration induced piezoelectric effect on quartz clocks. When a piece of quartz vibrates, it generates an electrical voltage.

This is true .*good*

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39934323

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

Vibration induced piezoelectric effect on quartz clocks. When a piece of quartz vibrates, it generates an electrical voltage.

This is true .*good*

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39934323

very interesting but I must admit I'm still none the wiser. Can someone explain step by step in laymans terms. What is the quartz, how that happens.

 

[Leif]

So my quartz watch gains or loses time when I am caning it round the local ice rink?

The thought of that happening gives me the jitters..... ;-)

Why?

 

[Al ears]

Apologies for my poor attempt at humour.

For our non-English posters the expression 'gives me the jitters' means makes one nervous....

Of course your watch doesn't go faster and it is a good job that any vibration induced jitter cannot be hear.

 

[ellisdj]

Is it a case that you cannot hear it Until you hear it removed to a degree and then you can

 

[andyjm]

Of course your watch doesn't go faster and it is a good job that any vibration induced jitter cannot be hear.

Well, in principle, the frequency of oscillation (and the speed of your watch) could change slightly with vibration- but the effects are tiny and in audio terms the induced jitter in a DAC because of this is almost certainly inaudible.

 

[andyjm]

That depends how susceptible the system is to vibration, and the quality of the system, but the fact that some forms of damping is on both the cheapest hi fi systems to the expensive systems tells you all you need to know from the perspective of damping and why used. But whether it makes a difference on budget systems, whose sound would be less noticeable, is I think the issue.

+1

Most manufacturers from bottom to high end do engage in some kind of damping for their SS. On higher end gear it is not unusual to find stillpoint feet and full supension PCB assemblies as standard.

DACs are a great solid state example of where vibration can be a real issue. The oscillators (even "low noise oscillators") associated with the clock are extremely sensitive to vibration and shock. Any shock or vibration to these components can produce large phase deviations leading to congestion and improper queing, AKA jitter. Put simply the frequency of the clock becomes irregular. Vibration isolation is therefore of paramount importance for a DAC to operate faultlessly. The big question is always are the errors caused by oscillator vibration audible? I believe I can hear it, but everybody has a different point of view.

Then of course there is the question of capacitor microphonics, which if audible would be a much wider issue...

thats interesting and I agree. Do you know in laymans terms how movement or vibration has the effects on a dac.

The digital to analogue conversion process is cotrolled by a clock (oscillator). This is a computer timing circuit that controls the speed of the digital signal to analogue signal conversion process. The clock tells the audio DAC chip to operate 10's of thousands of times a second. When the DAC chip "fires" at the instruction of the clock it takes the next digital signal (sent from the transport) and creates an analogue voltage that matches it and which can be amplified by an analogue amplifer. This is the basic premise of digital to analogue conversion.

Now imagine that the clock's regularity has been effected by vibrations. The DAC chip fires inappropriately and fails to produce an accurate analogue representation of the digital information. These signal issues associated with "off timing" are known as jitter. Make sense now?

but how is the dacs regularity affected by vibrations. I'm with you on the score vibrations affect non moving electrical circuits, as I understand it exclusively to be the case with circuit designers, but have never understood it. Thanks for trying to explain.

...because the DAC's rate of fire is governed by an oscillating clock which is sensitive to vibration.

how is it sensitive. The mechanism? It's not a physical moving clock obviously.

Vibration induced piezoelectric effect on quartz clocks. When a piece of quartz vibrates, it generates an electrical voltage.

This is true .*good*

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39934323

very interesting but I must admit I'm still none the wiser. Can someone explain step by step in laymans terms. What is the quartz, how that happens.

Quartz is a mineral that exhibits the 'piezo electric effect'. When a voltage is applied to a quartz crystal it changes shape slightly, and in turn when force is applied to a crystal to make it change shape it produces a voltage. A common application is a spark igniter, where a spring loaded plunger hits a quarts crystal and produces a spark to ignite a gas flame in a cooker or boiler.

In a crystal oscillator, a specially cut quartz crystal is included in a resonant circuit - a bit like the escapement in a watch. The crystal changes shape at a regular speed (a bit like a pendulum in a clock) producing a small voltage which is effectively amplified and fed back to the crystal to keep it oscillating. The frequency is driven by the size and cut of the crystal.

 

[Al ears]

Of course your watch doesn't go faster and it is a good job that any vibration induced jitter cannot be hear.

Well, in principle, the frequency of oscillation (and the speed of your watch) could change slightly with vibration- but the effects are tiny and in audio terms the induced jitter in a DAC because of this is almost certainly inaudible.

That's a good job otherwise you would have a lot of people who carry Digital Music Players around in their pockets complaining somewhat.. ;-)

 

[Vladimir]

Apologies for my poor attempt at humour.

For our non-English posters the expression 'gives me the jitters' means makes one nervous....

Of course your watch doesn't go faster and it is a good job that any vibration induced jitter cannot be hear.

That's why I've always owned mechanical watches. *secret*

 

[Gazzip]

Of course your watch doesn't go faster and it is a good job that any vibration induced jitter cannot be hear.

Well, in principle, the frequency of oscillation (and the speed of your watch) could change slightly with vibration- but the effects are tiny and in audio terms the induced jitter in a DAC because of this is almost certainly inaudible.

That's a good job otherwise you would have a lot of people who carry Digital Music Players around in their pockets complaining somewhat.. ;-)

There are some recordings of induced decoding jitter in well known recordings of songs you will know. Five or six levels of jitter intensity are demonstrated, from the kind of jitter we are discussing here to jitter that can never happen in real world audio scenarios. They are on the web somewhere so I will post a link later. Jitter simply manifests itself as background noise in some of these recordings, and in others it is not audible. Nothing more and nothing less. No implosion of the signal or total audio breakdown, just noise, so it is perfectly reasonable to assume that those pocket players are in fact presenting jitter to their listeners.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

Well I own a ATACAMA Av rack that's made out of bamboo and each section has spikes I brought it not for its clams I brought it to fit all of my stuff on and there are not many hifi / Av racks out there that will fit large amplifiers like I've got .

very expensive for what they are but worth it to find a bit of furniture that will do the job probably .

I understand that people buy theses racks for TTs which I totally understand and maybe the CD player as well but I would of thought when your spending big money on a good quality CD player this day and age it would have the anti vibration stuff built inside and the feet that's attached to the player well my CD player as 2 kinds of feet you can change the feet into spikes just by taking the caps off or leave the caps on for standard feet .

in regards to whether solid state amplifiers are affected by vibrations I do not think so even though again yamaha have used to kinds of feet on my amplifier and marantz does the same but inside there top amplifier so no I do not think amplifiers are affected by vibrations as there no moving parts inside .