Archimago wrote: 
> Thank you for the link Mr. Krueger!
> 
> So, I feel like I'm missing something here and curious about practical
> implications:
> 
> 1. As for the actual claims of "The Audibility of Typical Digital Audio
> Filters in a High-Fidelity Playback System" per the title, what exactly
> did they find here? (Other than suboptimal dithering being audible...)
> 
> 

Since they didn't test filters that were "Typical Digital Audio Filters
in a High-Fidelity Playback System" and instead tested filters with a
misch-mash of parameters with inherently flawed listening tests of their
own contrivance; they found out what their inherently flawed listening
tests revealed related to that cats-and-dogs set of filters.  The paper
was about straw men.

The other big straw man came from a lack of understanding of ABX testing
as it is practiced today in audio. They referenced a 1950 paper about an
early form of ABX testing that was not the interactive process that is
used in audio today. When corrected, they went back and referenced a
later paper that cited the same 1950 paper. I guess you can't teach old
dogs new tricks. 

At any rate their excuse for ignoring ABX testing was a repetition of
the false claim that ABX is necessarily a 2AFC listening test which as a
practical matter is not true. ABX as practiced today is interactive and
therefore many choices about how to execute the test are up to the
listener. The listener has the option of using ABX  as a same/different
test, and many say they exercise this option.  

The paper's own test methodology locked their listeners into
fixed-length arbitrary samples, while many ABX testers prefer shorter
samples of their choosing. What we know about how people detect audible
differences favors shorter samples of the listener's choosing.

> 
> 2. What device uses 16-bit RPDF dithering which would be of any
> significance for the hi-fi enthusiast these days?

I have no idea of any such device being commonly used.  Hi Fi
enthusiasts generally only use DACs, and unlike ADCs, dither is not
central to the operation of DACs. 

The predominate source of dither involved with a typical piece of hi fi
gear is generally the digital recording. If we adopt the model of
recordings being made with ADCs that have less noise then their sources
which seems reasonable, then the actual dithering noise in the recording
can easily be the background noise from acoustical and analog sources
that are an inherent part of the recording process. Analog noise
generally has a Gaussian PDF which  more strongly resembles TPDF dither
than RPDF dither. 5


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