Max wrote on Mon, 21 March 2005 18:06 |
crm0922 wrote on Sun, 20 March 2005 20:15 |
jimbo-baby wrote on Sun, 20 March 2005 07:28 |
i would love to see a proper reply from the apogee guy, but i've got the feeling i won't. i'd like to thank dan for being good enough to share his knowledge on this forum, and can only wish that his level of integrity would rub off on other audio designers/companies.
jimbo
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Agreed. It seems that apogee spent a lot of time complaining about Dan's rhetoric and little time defending their claims here and those in their advertisements.
I would like to see this defended if Apogee is ever to be considered a serious pro audio innovator.
Chris
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If you read through the entire thread from the beginning, you will understand...
Max
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Max,
I am sure many of the visitors to this forum view the "Daily Show" hosted by John Stewart. One of the recent guests was Harry Frankfurt, a Princeton professor and the author of the book “On Bullshit”.
I bought the book and read it. It contrasts bullshit with lying. ..." for the bullshitter, he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as facts may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says."... The liar knows that what he is saying in not true.
You said:
“Dan had deleted a number of our responses in this regard, so we have opted not to continue this discussion in his forum”.I deleted some of your repetitive salesman, non-technical responses but none of Lucas's. In fact, while you said
“we have opted not to continue this discussion in his forum” Lucas did respond and I have the statement from his last response below.
On Monday Dec 27 2004, an Apogee Sr. Design Engineer Lucas said on this thread:
“Bob and Dan,
We do CLAIM:
1. The Big Ben is an excellent low jitter solution if you need a master clock
2. If you have to clock to a very jittery source, you’ll get better results most of the time by having the Big Ben cleaning it up first.
We haven’t claimed anything else.”The Apogee guys did not answer any of the 3 questions below (and other questions). Instead they made the above 2 claims.
My unanswered questions are:
I. QUESTION: WHICH SOLUTION PROVIDES LESS JITTER AT THE AD LOCATION?
A. A REASONABLE FIXED CRYSTAL
B. BIG BEN DRIVING A CLOCK INTO A CHASSIS EQUIPPED WITH A PLL VIA A 10 FOOT CABLE?
II. QUESTION: CAN ONE EVER CANCEL OR REDUCE A RANDOM NOISE AT ONE END OF A CABLE WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT KIND OF JITTER ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING AT THE OTHER END?
(Or stated another say: Can one cancel, remove or reduce the receiver and PLL noise, some of it unknown, some totally random, by driving it with a clean low jitter clock? Driving it with any clock?)
III. QUESTION: CAN ONE MODULATE A LOW JITTER CLOCK WITHOUT ADDING JITTER?
A low jitter clock requires the utmost in Word Clock cycle to cycle REPEATABILITY . (Alternatively, for AES signal it requires the frame pattern to be repeatable). That requirement disables and negates any possible signal modulation. With no modulation one can not send any additional information to change the behavior of the “box” ahead (such as an AD).
The Big Ben connection to the AD is one directional. It sends a clock yet receives no signal back. Therefore, the Big Ben would have to figure out what is happening in a different box “all by itself” without any signals communicating that information. Once you overcome that impossibility, the Big Ben would have to figure out (among other things) how to send information to the AD to alter its behavior. That too is an impossibility, unless you introduce modulation which is jitter.
So you do not know what message to send, but you send it anyway by means of “not sending a message”.
My technical questions trump any claim to secret or proprietary methods for achieving the impossible. My questions exemplify solid and fundamental electronic engineering and physics principles. It was not surprising that Lucas and you completely backed away from your PREVIOUS posture, which was initially posited as Apogee’s secret technology of the 21st century against the old engineering of the last century.
You are now saying
"Our position on this has always been based on results and data compiled through listener experience…”What happened to your statement:
“until we developed technology that would make a difference”. What happened to what Lucas said:
“Just like you, I was convinced that internal clocking was the best thing to do. But here is what I found…. So yes we are very proud of our work and can imagine you don’t like to see someone succeed in something you thought was impossible.” This goes beyond bullshit.
Lucas, the current Apogee designer could not show technically that his gear would do what Apogee claimed because in fact the claims were impossible.
What happened after Lucas presented his very watered down 2 claims?
Your advertisements continue to espouse subjective listening tests. Does this advertising practice
CONTRADICTS the statement
“We haven’t claimed anything else?” After saying that you do not claim Big Ben will improve AD performance, Apogee advertising material pushes that same point using customer's testimonials to say it for you.
Suppose I want to sell you snake oil, but do not want to defend it (I know I cannot). I go and find a few people that believe the powers of my snake oil, and I provide advertising channels for them to say so… Is that OK? Audio has a lot of “snake oil”, because there is such a lack of accountability.
The Dan Lavry designs (AD500, DA1000, UV22 with Jerry) that Apogee manufactured and marketed could stand on their own without bullshit.
Dan Lavry
Lavry Engineering, Inc.
"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."