Tonality control adds a lot of noise (Bass only, in fact)
Measuring the behaviour of the tone control on my Node 100 with BluOS 4.2.0, I see a few interesting things:
1. Level is decreased by approx. 6dB
Good ! Then no risk of overload by pushing Bass/ Trebbles. That's how it should work.
2. Enabling tone control has a negative (but not dramatic) impact on SNR
Not so good, but quite expected
3. Changing trebble setting has no signficant additional effect on noise level than just activating tone control
4. Changing bass setting; whatever the value, literally KILLS the SNR
We speak of a -30dB SNR impact for ANY setting.
-6dB, -0.5dB, +0.5dB, +6dB...
Well, except for 0dB.
I guess it's kind of a bug.
Could you check and fix that, please ?
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OK, so adding more details
I measured using Audio Precision Multi Tone 32 signal (24 bits 48kHz)
The signal is in a WAV file on my computer, shared with the Node 100.
It's then played through SPDIF output to an RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE.
The RME is connected to my PC with USB
So the signal path is purely digital: No analog conversion.
Measurement is done using Virtins Multi Instrument 3.9.9.2
NB: Don't worry about the Voltage measurement. It's just wrong.
Here is the measurement when tone control is disabled
Here it is when I switch Tone control on, but all controls are on 0dB
We lose only 10dB (6dB of which are due to the -6dB level change to avoid saturation)
That's pretty good actually.
Now with some Trebble change (-6dB)
This has very little impact. This is the worst case scenario: all other trebble settings are better.
But what happens if we dare to touch Bass control ?
It doesn't even cover the CD dynamic range - and still in full digital 24 bits !
We've lost 36dB of dynamic range just by modifying bass level by 0.5dB.
All other bass settings give similar results.0 -
Of course, that does have very little impact on the analog output, since this one is VERY weak...
But I only use the Node 100 with its digital output, anyway.0 -
Measuring the same signal through Analog output, the best result we get is for -12dB volume
because at 0dB or fixed volume, the output is saturating:
It's 0.23% TD+N, which is not good
As from -1dB (2 notches below max level), we get results close to the "best".
Again, this saturation only occurs in the Analog path.
There is no such thing in digital domain, as the measurements in the post above show.
Bottom line: with analog output, don't use fixed volume, but lower the level by 2 notches at least for best results.
By the way, there is very little impact of the volume control on sound quality.
We can check that by comparing the (pure digital) output through SPDIF at full / fixed volume (identical)
to the results with a small level decrease
This difference is negligible, of course.
So the level control itself is well implemented.0 -
Tested today on my brand new Node N132
BluOS 4.8.15This stupid bug is still there:
Digital loopback with Tone control in
All is OK
Same with Bass correction -0.5dB
We loose 40dB of dynamic range !
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And in case you're wondering weither that makes a difference on the analog output for the Node 2025 (N132), the answer is YES
Without tone control
With Tone control active
With Bass -0.5dB
30dB loss !
We are now more than 20dB below CD quality
That kind of thing makes the difference between "Good enough" and not !
Why to invest in a good DAC chip and a "correct" implementation of it, if that's to eventually screw it with a poor software ?0 -
Would you guys mind acknowledging this ?
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This has also been reported by end users at AudioScienceReview with the flagship Node Icon.
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