How long before somebody quotes the paper cited at the end as a reason
why measurements won't be able to explain differences in sound quality?
'Whatif: Supersonic Stereo' (http://what-if.xkcd.com/37/)
Julf's Profile:
garym wrote:
Unrelated to this thread, but interestingly, your eyes may be important
in what you hear (the reason many of us prefer double blind testing to
remove biases in comparisons).
Well, there is a special form of the Gurk Effect whereby seeing the
price tag of a piece of gear, or
callesoroe wrote:
hear differences in FLAC vs MP3/320 that removes over 70% of the
original music data ? It is audible
Do you have any credible evidence showing it is audible?
Julf's Profile:
callesoroe wrote:
It is quite logic.. and there is really huge differences in
sound Room and life in the music dissapears . and your ears gets
tired of listning to it in longer time.
Drum cymbals say DING and not Diing when listning to MP3
... Just an examble.
callesoroe wrote:
My only evidence is that the data of the original music file has been
dramatic reduced, and that is very audible in my setup.
Not quite. The data of the original music has been dramatically reduced,
yes. You can hear a difference. Yes. But one does not necessarily follow
callesoroe wrote:
The same track in a FLAC version and a MP3 320 CBR in a folder. Same
replay gain information. Testet both with replay gain off/on
And how did you implement the blind part of the test?
Julf's Profile:
callesoroe wrote:
random play
But to see if you got it right, you had to look? Or did you write down
your opinions, and cross-check them afterwards against the list of
tracks actually played?
Julf's Profile:
garym wrote:
So my only interpretation is that you either have very unusual hearing
(and I'm pretty sure you're not 8 years oldas young people do in
fact have very good hearing regarding high frequencies) or there is
something else not setup correctly in your setup.
Interestingly, it
jh901 wrote:
I do hope that we can all agree that pro audio doesn't offer some sort
of bargain or otherwise shortcut to achieving audiophile quality
fidelity.
What it generally offers is decent quality without having to pay a
premium for voodoo.
SBGK wrote:
Look at this article comparing 48kbps and 160 kbps streams
Interesting that out of 16 people the majority of them identified the
higher sample rate.
A majority identified the difference between 48kbps and 160 kbps
streams? Wow! More news at 11!
It might come as a surprise that
ralphpnj wrote:
This is true but there are plenty of very good consumer grade audio
products that offer decent quality without having to pay a premium for
voodoo. For example Blue Genes cables, NAD power amps, Cambridge Audio
equipment, Squeezebox Touch, Marantz receivers, Audio Engine
Archimago wrote:
I'll take option 3:
It sounds bad by design - nothing to do with pro-gear, audiophile gear,
etc... ie. tuned for radio, cheap car stereos, white iPod earbud,
mastered for iTunes.
In that vein... 'The Daily Mash: Tesco launces economy music range'
Kellen wrote:
I have tried all and cant tell a sound differences but have heard it
said its a possiblity.
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet - especially
audiophile forums. :)
Julf's Profile:
SoftwireEngineer wrote:
I have not done much testing but Spotify is easily discernible for me
from my original FLAC tracks.
Didn't someone show that spotify was using dynamic compression?
Julf's Profile:
DJanGo wrote:
So this background it too complex for those who are talking about
differences - but its quite simple and if more will tell others why
these audiophile nonsense would stay in the corner it belongs to.
I would so much like to agree with you. But there is one fallacy in your
Mnyb wrote:
You can't really make this up :)
Ah, a good one!
Computer operating systems are extensive and require many services,
which all compete for processing time. These processes are allocated
according to what are called priorities. It is known through the
world-wide consensus of
callesoroe wrote:
Totally agree with you in this. I have just purchased the new Eric
Clapton album Old Socks in 24/96 on HDTRACKS.com.
The album was available on release date in HD version FLAC. This is the
way to go...More of that please :)
Have you checked if it really is hi-res?
callesoroe wrote:
Sounds great. I have no reason to believe it is not. The bas response is
a lot better on my 24/96 files. This one too. And my Tact indicates it
is 24/96.
Well, yes, the Tact would indicate that, but it only looks at the file
format, not the actual sound contents of the
darrenyeats wrote:
Why would hi-rez have better bass response?
Because hi-res is Better? :)
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Archimago wrote:
IMO, good to see an article with a rational perspective.
Agree. I was just reading the review of a pretty high-end pick-up
cartridge that the reviewer really praised - but the review actually
included measurements as well. Almost brickwall-like drop at 20 kHz, up
to 3%
mlsstl wrote:
As a somewhat different view, over the years I've noticed sometimes
people assign convoluted or interesting descriptions and explanations to
what they hear. For example, researchers have known for decades that a
slight difference in volume doesn't come off as one source being
mlsstl wrote:
even the much vaunted LP format doesn't really capture what was on the
original tape
Indeed. The LP is the equivalent of maybe 12 bits @ 44.1 kHz on a good
day, with significant harmonic distortion and wow/flutter. A really good
tape can get close to 16/44.1, or almost CD
Archimago wrote:
Are those measurements on line? Would love to have a look...
Unfortunately they seem to be subscriber-only. But the results seem to
be typical. Here are some other ones:
'hi-fi world: cartridge tests'
I first thought this was a April Fools joke, but seems these guys are
for real - well, for whatever real means. Audiophile Ethernet cable.
Only 4594 / £3875 / $5886 for a 8 m cable.
http://www.audioquest.com/ethernet/diamond
The correct direction is determined by listening to every batch of
RonM wrote:
does keeping levels high mean that the groove, in effect, must be wider,
reducing the the total groove length for a side?
Yes. If you have a lot of high-amplitude stuff, the inter-groove gap has
to be increased. If you look at the grooves on a LP, you can actually
tell the loud
jra...@wbs.co.za wrote:
I will keep an open mind
Keep an open mind #8211; but not so open that your brain falls out --
Richard Feynman
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Archimago wrote:
Hey guys, was stroll the magazine racks this evening and looked at the
most recent (I think) The Absolute Sound. Essentially the last page
where Neil Gader interviews Mark Waldrep of AIX Records.
Waldrep clearly talks about vinyl as standard definition and mentions
the
Mnyb wrote:
good morning btw (07:20 here) time for - some music in whatever format-
to the coffee :)
Unfortunately, for me, it is Dutch radio... At least there is coffee...
Julf's Profile:
ralphpnj wrote:
Many classic rock multi-track recordings sound terrible because of the
way they were originally recorded.
And all on pretty limited multi-track tape, through preamps and mixers
with lots of early-generation crappy opamps, and things like plate echo
units. And then audiophiles
jh901 wrote:
The improvement will be described by any skilled listener as anything
but slight. You couldn't be more wrong if you tried, but there is no
more discovery ahead for you. Sadly.
Any skilled listener should spend some time in a modern recording
studio, learning about both the
w3wilkes wrote:
Hedy Lamarr (coinventor of spread spectrum RF which is still used today
and in the day porn star)
Not sure I would describe her as a porn star, based on that one 1933
movie, where the nudity is pretty tasteful. The rest of her movie roles
have been pretty much respectable.
ralphpnj wrote:
By the way, as far as I can tell the Audiophile section of this forum is
one of the few places where discussions about audio include empirical
measurements, logic, and common sense.
There is always Hydrogen Audio...
SBGK wrote:
the problem is your measurements don't account for the empirical
evidence of changes to sound caused by any number of factors.
All modern science is pretty much based on empirical evidence, but to
qualify as empirical evidence, observations have to satisfy a bunch of
criteria,
Soulkeeper wrote:
Some people wouldn't know the scientific method if it bit 'em in the
buttock. Don't listen to the noise; Listen to the signal. :)
Unfortunately audiophoolery seems to involve a fair bit of cargo cult
science.
heisenberg wrote:
Anyone had a chance to listen to the newest Beatles reissues on vinyl?
I've read a few mutually contradictory reports and was wondering whether
it was worth buying some of those LPs?
The ones that were mastered digitally?
heisenberg wrote:
Just because something has been messed with at the source and while
travelling to its destination, doesn't automatically mean it cannot be
fixed at the point of consumption.
I would love to hear how you can remove noise and distortion afterwards.
And I am pretty sure a lot
garym wrote:
And read a bit over a hydrogenaudio.org.
I second that recommendation - but with the caveat that before you post
anything on HA, make sure you have read and understood the Terms Of
Service of HA, and make sure you follow them.
Mnyb wrote:
Or as I always try say carry around one liter of water in a ten liter
bucket (or gallons and a drum if it pleases you more :) )
Ah, but the extra big container makes the water taste more airy! :)
Julf's
garym wrote:
I'm hoping that eventually, perceptual codecs are good enough that I can
create really tiny quality lossy versions of all my 10,000 CDs, and they
all fit on a small chip that is implanted in my arm. This will work well
when I'm in the old folks home. No DAC, no cables, no
P Nelson wrote:
It is $5 and is available from HDTracks. I was thinking about getting
it to try some of these high sample rate tracks
Well, it is at least an affordable way to try out the binaural
recordings - not everybody's cup of tea. As for trying out high sample
rate, the problem is
heisenberg wrote:
Same can be done with electricity, no? Using power conditioners? Or is
it the case of 'once the shit hits the fan, there's not enough water in
the river Ganges that could wash it off'? And if so, how so?
Well, in my student days we were toying around with the idea of
darrenyeats wrote:
In audio life (!) we have equipment like power amps and transducers that
distort in various ways that are not natural at all, one being
intermodulation distortion. However, IM distortion from ultrasonic
frequencies can appear in the audible band. If the ultrasonic
darrenyeats wrote:
What complicates things is that there might have been a situation where
paying a lot (for example a CD player in the 80s) could make a
significant audible difference but this has ceased being the case in the
2010s (for decently engineered digital sources). However, people
ralphpnj wrote:
What about the novelty of the LP cover? To me a stack of LPs with their
big, beautiful cover art is way cooler than a stack of cheap CD jewel
cases with their tiny, hard to read covers and booklets.
Well, yes, the fold-out poster from Queen's Jazz lost something in the
SoftwireEngineer wrote:
First time, we have comparative datapoints
Have you checked out Hydrogen Audio?
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Archimago wrote:
But one wonders though - why would they do that?
they just made the 24-bit version louder by 0.2dB's to show a
difference.
A 0.2 dB gain increase does two things - it makes the louder version
sound slightly better, but it also fills in any zero padding from a
Zombie wrote:
Every recording has its own natural playback level where it sounds
best...
Or you could just use loudness or tone controls.
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garym wrote:
My preferred method of listening to music is to see the artist live!
I don't go to concerts any more. Just can't stand the lack of spatial
resolution, and the digital roughness caused by the DSP employed in the
modern digital concert mixers, and I am pretty their sound systems
heisenberg wrote:
True. But even the best digital master can be outdone by the best analog
master.
You do realize that most pickups have distortion 1%, very limited
frequency range, and wow flutter that makes any jitter measurements of
digital gear look rather petty...
Archimago wrote:
As it is Friday afternoon, I wish every one a good (hopefully relaxing)
weekend!
Very enjoyable. I just have to point out on error - there is no way
anyone could get a laboratory space in Akihabara
these days.
Anyway, I warmly recommend a subscription of 'The Chap Magazine'
garym wrote:
You must be one of those rabid naysayers without a really good front
end as well;-)
I guess so. I guess I challenge the rabid yeasayers to find me a pickup
with less than 1% distortion... :)
Julf's
heisenberg wrote:
are you aware that you can make a fortune showing people who they can
easily get decent digital sound?
No, the money seems to be in making people think it is extremely
difficult and requires very expensive and esoteric gear.
heisenberg wrote:
I don't listen to music with measuring instruments, I use my ears
instead. Some people think that's silly, but that's how I am -- old
school.
Your ears tell you that you like the music. My measuring instruments
tell me why you like it. The first part is needed to enjoy
Archimago wrote:
Since the Audio CD came out in 1982, it's only been what, ~30 years
since the rise of digital? To not have a digital-savvy editor by this
point is on the order of government-level incompetence ;-)
Well, it reflects the audience. I am sure we have all noticed the
average age
Wirrunna wrote:
Then there was this http://sound.westhost.com/dynamic-range.htm article
in the venerable Wireless World in the 1970s
I sooo miss Wireless World!
Julf's Profile:
netchord wrote:
you may quite rightly say I don't know what I'm talking about, but you
can't say the same about what I hear.
Not what you hear, but what you believe you hear. Can you prove you
really hear what you believe you hear?
Hint: The answer I *know* what I hear is wrong. You don't.
Apesbrain wrote:
Do a Google search on designing a good listening room and you'll find
many resources.
'Ethan Winer's book' (http://www.ethanwiner.com/book.htm) (and his
'forum' (http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/forums/24/1)) are
a good resource too.
netchord wrote:
you're assuming that because two files are identical, they must sound
identical to different users. you're not accounting for the key
variable, the hearing of the listener. until you can measure that, you
can't say with authority they sound the same, no matter how the file
netchord wrote:
i don't believe the latter statement is true, and my own experience
proves it...to me.
I would be curious to hear how you verified your observations to guard
against perceptual bias.
Julf's Profile:
darrenyeats wrote:
an improvement may be unnoticeable but improving performance (even
inaudibly) is always a good thing and might add up eventually to an
aggregate improvement in performance which is audible.
The problem with that approach is that it leads to everything matters,
and then you
netchord wrote:
i listened to two file types, through the same system, with all other
variables constant.
But you knew which file type was which? In that case, there was no guard
against perceptual bias.
There seems tp be a decent 'ABX app for the mac'
darrenyeats wrote:
That may be a problem but it doesn't mean it isn't true ...
Well, it might be true but it might not make any sense. Everything
matters - even the flutter of the wings of a butterfly in Brazil. But
should I worry about it, or spend money to avoid it?
netchord wrote:
i don't understand this demand for proof.
Proof is what it takes to differentiate between an opinion and a fact.
Opinions are OK, just don't expect anyone to accept it as a fact without
proof.
Julf's
darrenyeats wrote:
Well, I didn't say everything matters.
True. I was using the opportunity to take a swing at a typical
audiophile truism.
My point is, each thing that might REALLY, LOGICALLY reduce distortion
isn't necessarily detectable in a blind test on its own. But a
combination of
Mnyb wrote:
Yeah experimental errors
Actually I missed the point where we learned that he used server side
decoding . Then everything is not just the same hen entering the DAC by
actually from the point where it leaves the computer ?
And it is a good example of perceptual bias to for
Quad wrote:
Do you think you are able to discern Diet Coke and Coke?
No idea, as I haven't had a Coke in 25 years. And it is not very
relevant - as has been pointed out, they are chemically different.
But I can. Here I stand; I can do none other (double blind tested, I
promise). So what's
Archimago wrote:
I would still argue (ultra-kamikaze-like) that if one could tell a
difference between FLAC vs. WAV vs. AIFF vs. APE vs. WV vs. ALAC, then
there's *something wrong with their hardware*!
Sure - but first I would like to verify that one actually can tell the
difference. No
ralphpnj wrote:
You are both quite right Archimago-san and Julf-san!
Domo arigato!
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heisenberg wrote:
So my question is: are the perceived differences to be attributed to the
differences in formats (lossy vs. lossless), or to the differences in
ripping the contents of the CD? (fyi, I've used the regular iTunes
ripping procedure).
Just like Wombat suggested, I would suspect
Wombat wrote:
Not that i am interested in this to much but reading about this
headroom it must be something en vogue since the DAC2 arrived.
And why would the headroom be an issue?
Julf's Profile:
Wombat wrote:
For example
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=98753hl=benchmark
Look closely in the sig of the member John_Siau.
Most likely they created a problem we didn´t had before we knew it :) I
don´t worry about it to much but my idea here costs nothing and may
Wombat wrote:
May be or may not be.
Which part don't you agree with?
This thread is about creating headroom.
Sure. Is a discussion about the possible need for that headroom
inappropriate?
Julf's Profile:
darrenyeats wrote:
The problem is the oversampling that happens in the DAC. If you have say
a 44kHz input it gets converted to a higher rate internally (still
digital) and some of the new data points can be over 0db. Benchmark
refer to this as DSP headroom in their DAC2 marketing materials;
Mnyb wrote:
Would a more natural signal that just touches 0dB for one sample be
a problem to?
Yes.
Is this really limited to asrc ? could not any digital filter used have
this problem .
It is a problem in any situation where you have to interpolate between
two samples, so most DSP
Julf wrote:
Wish I had time to draw the picture
Found a very good discussion on the topic: 'Gearsluz - Tips and
techniques: Intersample peaks'
(http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showwiki.php?title=Tips-and-Techniques:Intersample-peaks)
A relevant quote: Ceilings of .3 or .1 etc dBFS
darrell wrote:
the advocacy of empirical evidence as the basis for our understanding of
reality is important in whatever field.
Ramen.
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Archimago wrote:
I want to see a *real* piece of music (not some synthetic test tone)
that needs +5dB headroom (not to mention +11dB as in one of the other
threads). I'm thinking a 3dB headroom (1/2-bit) should be enough for
upsampling...
And even if you hit that very special +11 dB beast,
Gandhi wrote:
The most common view, when I google it, is to connect the shield only at
the *source* end, to avoid ground loops, which seems reasonable.
And the ideal scheme is to use floating, fully differential inputs and
balanced connections, and keep signal ground and safety earth
ralphpnj wrote:
Good point but not really applicable since sound travels at the speed of
sound (DUH!) and not at the speed of light.
I am assuming that the comment from EricBergan was humorous.
Julf's Profile:
ralphpnj wrote:
my suggestion is the Einstein effect
'XKCD: Einstein' (http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/einstein.png)
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ralphpnj wrote:
Does one to be a real audiophile to understand the comic?
I don't think a real audiophile would get it at all. It is making fun
(among other things) of the argument by appeal to authority by
pointing out that taking every statement Einstein ever made as literal
declarations of
ralphpnj wrote:
You gentlemen have made my day. It's good to know that I'm not alone in
my search for truth in audio.
Too bad we mostly hang out in the audiophile section of a forum for a
discontinued music playing system :)
bakker_be wrote:
As I was reading 'this post on metal-fi'
(http://www.metal-fi.com/dynamics-the-numbers-game/) I came across 'this
link on Sound-on-Sound'
(http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm). At first
read it seems a plausible explanation, but can we really all be
netchord wrote:
the act of listening to music, whether live or recorded, is not
something one does with only one sense engaged.
Indeed. That is precisely why one hears things that aren't necessarily
caused by the actual pressure waves travelling through the air.
garym wrote:
No, many have pointed out how it *is* possible that there could be a
difference (and I agree). Things such as electrical noise/interference
caused by the equipment doing the transmission of the bits, etc. But in
my science training, we were taught to always look for (and control
darrell wrote:
This is simply not true. search this forum (or the internet in general)
for Sampling Theorem. It can be heavy going for the non-mathematician,
but the short version is that digital audio can perfectly reconstruct an
analogue sound wave.
Not true! There are all those sharp
'Wine tasting is bullshit'
(http://io9.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshit-heres-why-496098276)
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ralphpnj wrote:
That's so PCM! Don't you know that the asynchronous USB + $500 USB cable
+ DSD combo solves all these problems, why just look at a recent issue
of any high end audio magazine :)
Or if it doesn't solve the issue, at least it covers up the sharp
corners with HF hash and
And then there is the classic BS: 'Pen Teller: BS - The Truth About
Bottled Water' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdvJOF-2mm0)
(the best part starts at 2:00)
Julf's Profile:
I am glad I live in Amsterdam, where the only concern is dogs (and deer)
peeing in the aquifer areas. But then again, people here like the Amstel
beer, and if you see what is floating down the Amstel river...
Julf's
ralphpnj wrote:
Have you been to the newly reopened Rijksmuseum yet?
Not yet - the queues are still too long.
By the way, what wine goes best with raw herring? (I know, not wine,
BEER!)
No, no no - genever. The only justification for genever (the dutch
failed attempt at making gin)
is that
ralphpnj wrote:
Let me know when you finally get to the Rijksmuseum, a little first hand
review would be greatly appreciated.
Will do!
look how thin and fit most of the Dutch are - biking and raw herring, a
good way to stay thin.
The Calvinist tradition of you are not supposed to enjoy
And this all would of course not be an issue at all if people would have
kept following the original Philips/Sony recommendations of how much
amplitude margin to leave in a digital recording (as specified in the
original CD standards)
Archimago wrote:
Behold the horror of track 7 - Molly's Reach Around
Well, I guess someone was bound to produce the antithesis of John Cage's
4#8242;33#8243;...
Julf's Profile:
Archimago wrote:
DSD Tests out...
Excellent! Thanks!
One small wish - I would love to be able to subscribe to your blog
updates. Any chance of 'enabling RSS on your blog pages'
(http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=enanswer=41450topic=12455ctx=topic)?
Archimago wrote:
A straight forward DiffMaker test... I think the conclusions are quite
clear!
I am relieved to see that Claude Shannon (and pretty much every
information scientist after him) was right after all. News at 11... :)
netchord wrote:
your title is very odd. how does one apply definitively objective
criteria to an inherently subjective phenomenon?
It is subjective, and it isn't. You can use objective criteria to show
that the resulting sound waves in your listening room are exactly the
same, but how you
JerryS wrote:
Lots of references to ABX testing in this forum. Is there any
theoretical reason why this should be more robust than triangle testing?
i.e. picking the odd one out from 3 unknowns played in random order,
two are A and one is B or one is A and two are B. Somehow, this makes
SBGK wrote:
Interestingly this is the methodology used by JRMC to prove that JPlay
has no affect on the sound.
Which methodology? ABX or the difference tests of Archimago?
I don't have any view on different lossless formats, I use Wav files
because I don't want the noise associated with
Mushroom_3 wrote:
Maybe he writes for Hi-Fi News and Record Review (the self proclaimed
oldest hi-fi magazine in the world).
This month's issue has a group test of USB cables. Needless to say the
most expensive cable, Crystal Absolute Dream (a snip at £6480/m) came
out top.
Indeed - I
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