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91
General Audio / Sound differences in low vs high powered volume matched headphone amps?
Last post by BearcatSandor -
Suppose you set up 2 hypothetical amps from the same product line that differ only in power delivery at the headphone jack.  They are volume matched, but one volume pot is at 9 and one is at 3. If the weaker amp gets very close to the limits of it's output, but neither actually clips, are you going to hear a difference between them if you listen to music with a lot of dynamic range?

I'm looking at a fairly insensitive pair of headphones (86 dB), and wondering how much output power matters.
92
CD Hardware/Software / Re: How to clean CD?
Last post by DVDdoug -
I use glass cleaner.   I usually have some handy and it does a good job.

CDs don't seem to be sensitive to slight dust like records.    Regular light fingerprints don't seem to be a problem either,   Occasionally, I've had a bad smudge that causes problems.    I'd guess that 90% of my CDs have never been cleaned!

They are easier to clean than records because they are smooth and polycarbonate is much harder/stronger than PVC.

I've NEVER had any luck fixing scratches...   Many years ago I bought a polishing gizmo but it never helped...   Some people have had success polishing-out scratches but the problem is - The data-layer is on top (the label side) and the CD is read through the full thickness of the polycarbonate.   They can be more-easily damaged from the top and attempting to polish the top won't help and it you can possibly cause more damage.   (If you sandpaper the top of a CD you'll destroy it!)    The laser isn't focused on the bottom surface so small scratches or dust usually don't cause any problems.

BTW - The data on a DVD is in the middle of a polycarbonate sandwich so they don't get damaged from the top.   Blu-Ray data is on the bottom with a thin-hard protective layer.

P.S.    My scratched-CD solutions -
I think I've had an unplayable CD (or a CD that had audible defects when played) CD 3 times.    Most CD players have good error correction/hiding so you usually only discover problems when ripping.

In one case the CD was a few years old and had "gone bad".   I bought a replacement.   (I hadn't ripped the CD.)  In another similar case, I borrowed a copy, ripped and burned, and I saved the ripped copy.

I bought a new CD that had audio defects and the track listing didn't match actual tracks on the disc so it was just overall careless manufacturing.  I ripped the good tracks and returned it for a refund.

-----------------------------------------
It's more common to have a disc that plays OK but rips with errors or audible defects.    
Cue Tools has a repair feature, but I haven't tried it because I ripped my CDs before this was available, and I haven't had any problems recently.   This is obviously the BEST solution (if it works for your particular CD).

In the past, when I got a reported error but it sounded OK I've ignored it and I don't even remember which CDs/tracks those were.

With small (short duration) audible errors I've sometimes fixed them with Audacity or software made for removing vinyl clicks & pops. In most cases the result can be "audibly perfect".   In a couple of cases where I had skips or an unlistenable track, I just bought the MP3 of that one track.   Again, after time I don't even remember which tracks are downloaded MP3s.   (Maybe if it was my "favorite song" I'd buy a replacement CD instead of buying a lossy copy.)


96
Lossless / Other Codecs / Re: Lossless codec comparison - part 3: CDDA (May '22)
Last post by Porcus -
Actually it could be a point to distinguish "CDDA" between on one hand "CD rips" as in "music from commercial CDs or 44.1/16 stereo downloads" and "other sources converted to 44.1/16".

As for this:

Quote from: ktf on
Quote
it seems that the symmetric benefit at "denser" music.
Could you give an example, I don't see that in the data.

If you take The Ambient Visitor, Bobby McFerrin and Bach, which compress very well, I see a difference between FLAC -8 and OptimFROG max of about 4%-point, or about 10%. Looking at Jeroen van Veen that is about 6% point or > 20%.  However Skrillex and Merzbow see about 3% point difference, but because these compress much less, this translates into a difference of only about 4%. So, I think I see the opposite trend?

Well if you were to take white noise, all would evaluate to 100 percent, and you could then say it benefits the asymmetric because they are generally not so efficient and here they are equal. So that is a point.

What made me suspicious about this - and might have caught me in major confirmation bias! - is the observation that
* revision 5 has smaller files (better compression)
and
* TAK overtakes the insane ape and FLAC overtakes TTA.
So what I based my impression was how a couple of pairs that generally measure about the same do vary: high-setting TAK/Monkey's score compare to each other. Also TAK vs OptimFROG default and high-setting FLAC compared to TTA, but I have to admit I had an eye constantly on TAK/ape.

Anyway, from alphabet down, disregarding those which end up "close to 50", and the oddball signals. "*" seems to confirm my perception, "-" against it, "." well uh.
* Animals as Leaders: TTA and Monkey slightly better than FLAC and TAK
- Alea Diane: counter, against my perceived observation yes
. Krauss: would be a "*" but is maybe too close to 50 and default frog doesn't shine
- Vivaldi:
* Apocalyptica: TTA and Monkey slightly better than FLAC and TAK
. Berlage: counter for TTA, but TAK beats ape.
. Bert Kaempfert: TTA and Monkey slightly better than FLAC and TAK, but this is close to average
* McFerrin: TAK beats ape and default frog
. Cavallro: close to 50
* Coldplay. Although default frog does not shine, Monkey's soundly beats TAK and TTA beats FLAC
* Confido Domino Minsk. Well TAK doesn't win by much, but this isn't TTA's fave
*? Daft Punk. Maybe the ape blinded me.
skipping some odds and near-50
* Dvorak: frog and TTA not happy
. Epica: I had this as "*" because of the ape, but ... ah maybe not the others
* Equilibrium: look at ape and TTA
* Fanfare Ciocarlia: ditto but to a lesser extent
*? Fatboy Slim: maybe unfair to judge this based solely upon how well the frog fares
- Flanders recorder.
*? Fors/Bjelland. TTA does not agree, it likes this piece.
. FreeSound ambient: odd signal, I scrolled past
* Verdi: TAK beats default frog, FLAC narrowly beats TTA
- Horacio Vaggione disagrees with me
. and so would Gotovsky do except the frog isn't overly happy
. Stravinsky ditto
*? In Flames. I had this as an example due to the ape, but comparing all three I was maybe ...
* Powerslave. Of course I paid attention to what happens to that album ...
.? Jean Guillou. Would be a - hadn't it been for the frog.

That was page 32 of 64, looks like a place to stop.
97
Support - (fb2k) / Re: Files located on NAS will not populate Album List
Last post by anamorphic -
Not sure about this, but you have done the ol' "Map a network drive" to a drive letter in Explorer? So the path you are adding starts with a drive letter, i.e. N:\Music ? Have you tried deleting and recreating the mapped drive?

You are not running foobar as administrator? (Maybe elevated privileges issue)

What is the exact build/version of your Windows 10? Perhaps the issue can be reproduced by someone, or that can be ruled out...
98
Lossless / Other Codecs / Re: Lossless codec comparison - part 3: CDDA (May '22)
Last post by ktf -
Quote from: Porcus on
* Hm, since I am too lazy to check: Is the Revision 4 corpus a subset of the Revision 5, or did you also remove signals?
I started mostly from scratch, only adding sources from revision 4 when I couldn't find better alternatives. Most revision 4 sources did not return in revision 5.

Quote
* Also, since I cannot check: the Pokémon album you have both as hi-res and as CDDA. Are they ... what we in music would speak of loosely as "the same mastering" (in that the difference would be very low volume if the 192 were carefully resampled to 44.1)? The results are a bit different between 192 and 44.1
They were generated from the same programs with the same emulator but with different settings.

Quote
* What was the recording chain of your diffuse sound fields recording? Is there any suspicion about that phenomenon "2" that TBeck points out in reply #12?
Sounds were recorded with a Zoom H4n and normalized in Audacity. So it it highly likely that OptimFROG benefits from the mentioned holes, yes.

Quote
it seems that the symmetric benefit at "denser" music.
Could you give an example, I don't see that in the data.

If you take The Ambient Visitor, Bobby McFerrin and Bach, which compress very well, I see a difference between FLAC -8 and OptimFROG max of about 4%-point, or about 10%. Looking at Jeroen van Veen that is about 6% point or > 20%.  However Skrillex and Merzbow see about 3% point difference, but because these compress much less, this translates into a difference of only about 4%. So, I think I see the opposite trend?
100
CD Hardware/Software / Re: How to clean CD?
Last post by Porcus -
If they are straight outta the box, then the problem is probably at the pressing plant.

Also, if there are dirty scratches that are hard to get rid of, distilled water is unlikely to be of any help.
But, anyone: some places in the world, tap water is slightly chlorinated: is there any reason that this should be any problem to the plastic?