As I said in the article, the codecs used were the Fraunhofer, as implemented in Adobe Audition, or AAC in iTunes/Quicktime.

Quote from: andy o on 2009-04-29 22:50:18

That phrase doesn't make much sense in the context of your paragraph, so I didn't pay much attention to it. But now the question is raised. So you still stay "on the side" of pseudoscience even when you don't believe it? How intellectually honest (and sorry to keep repeating that phrase, but it can't be said enough times) is that?

Also, you seem to be making another mistake that most people just coming to discussions about science vs. pseudoscience make. You're assuming right off the bat that those are two equivalent points of view. Do you think creationism and evolution must be treated as equal theories too?

I obviously chose the side which appeared to be the most calm. Is that intellectually dishonest? I merely exchanged an awful position (B & W thinking) to one that is less worse (calmness). Am I therefore a traitor to my own intellect?

Here in this thread science vs. pseudoscience occupy two sides: left & right. I´m not assuming, I´m observing. As proof just read it again. You´ll find that there aren´t any shades of grey.

Quote from: andy o on 2009-04-29 22:37:09

pseudoscientific people tend to get VERY offended at the first criticism of their ideas and see it as personal attacks (religious people doubly so).

At the risk of it being assumed I am labeling myself as "pseudoscientific," it should be noted that I haven't responded angrily in this thread to criticisms of my writings and statements. What has annoyed me are the personal remarks made about my behavior, my income, my status, my education, my ethics, etc, none of which have anything to do with my opinions on audio.

Personally, I prefer to be on the side of Mr. John Atkinson. So far he appeared to be a really nice and charming person. He stayed polite and calm when others already were heated up. If that is a character feat of subjectivists I certainly stay with them - if only for that particuar reason. Though I don´t think that this is true. Because I believe in reasonable people, arguing and discussing friendly.

Regarding Mr. Fremer he is obviously a not so calm person. In his posts he displays a lot of anger. In that matter he is not so different than most of you: he furiously defends his positons.

And as one person said before all of this comes down to belief. I´m not looking into a discussion, I´m looking into a religious war, each side missionaring the opposite side. Coming from Germany I truly believe in the Age of Enligtenment and its outcome. Following this thread my hopes in a better future are shattered! We apparantly substituted the bible for AUDIO. And I almost thought that this was over in western civilizations...

Do I believe in DBT? Yes and No. If I would be forced to make a DBT with music I don´t know (e.g. Rock, Pop, Rap) I most certainly would fail. I couldn´t find a difference between 192 kBit/s & 320 kBit/s. But how could I? The reason is easy: the music and its sound is not known to me. I´m not even interested in it. How could I then find differences?

When it comes to orchestral music I certainly would be able (and I´m able) to hear differnces. I did post some DBT here before,

together with audio samples to show that differences existed between certain methods of upsampling 44.1 kHz material to 96 kHz. I wanted to prove that one can actually recreates 60-70% of the original 96 kHz sound and that it can be heard with a DBT. Guess what? I offered everything but no one bothered to do a DBT. I didn´t even expect this because it was a measurable & sonically observable test. It proves just one things: if something isn´t according to the agenda of objectionists you´ll simply ignore it. But since many of you advertise that music coded in a lossy codec is not different to the original wave-file it came from I hardly doubt now that there is any interest in testing anything higher than 44.1. I guess you would say that one can´t hear frequencies over 20 kHz anyway. Well there goes the whole shebang... so much for that.

DBT are therefore flawed (WARNING: opinion) in my mind. With music I know I´m able to pass them, with music or musical styles not known to me I fail. For a true and working DBT you´ll need IMO experience. Most of the time you have to know what you are looking for.

Subjectivist Warning:[/b] Now for some really wonderful, mad and subjective claims. If this is a TOS violation so be it. What comes now isn´t even worse to things that have been stated here before. I do a lot of upsampling for my personal listening pleasure. When upsampling I keep aliasing "artifacts" on purpose. Most of you would call them artifacts while in fact they are "imaging" products (at least with iZotope RX Advanced). At the same time I don´t want to waste space so I tend to use lossy codecs. I´ve tried every codec there is. AAC, OGG, WMA-Prof and WavPack lossy are able to use 24/96 as input. You can read the results here at TheSoundtrackZone (WARNING: highly subjective). I decided in favor of WavPack lossy - and I picked it by ear, only be ear. I guess this makes me a subjetivist - you can now start the usual bashing. As a sidenote you may want to read the other stuff at The Hifi Wonderland, I guess you´d find it pretty hilarious and entertaining.

On the whole, I find this thread pretty pointless right now. We (including me) are people who discuss matters that won´t interest 99% of the world population. They are happy with their iTunes stuff, their MP3, their iPod. That´s the normal way of things. For us it is different: we are geeks, true nerds. I would go so far as to describe some of us as basement dwellers. We all need to get a life. For that I have my boyfriend... oh, did I mention that I´m gay? All this personal message writing about marriages somewhere in the states really is stupid. I feel strongly offended by that... well actually not so strongly. At least I can think of some of you as childish and by that keep my own arrogance.

Quote from: Cavaille on 2009-04-29 23:32:15

Quote from: andy o on 2009-04-29 22:50:18

That phrase doesn't make much sense in the context of your paragraph, so I didn't pay much attention to it. But now the question is raised. So you still stay "on the side" of pseudoscience even when you don't believe it? How intellectually honest (and sorry to keep repeating that phrase, but it can't be said enough times) is that?

Also, you seem to be making another mistake that most people just coming to discussions about science vs. pseudoscience make. You're assuming right off the bat that those are two equivalent points of view. Do you think creationism and evolution must be treated as equal theories too?

I obviously chose the side which appeared to be the most calm. Is that intellectually dishonest? I merely exchanged an awful position (B & W thinking) to one that is less worse (calmness). Am I therefore a traitor to my own intellect?

If you think one side is any more right or wrong because calmness, niceness or rudeness, then yes.

Quote from: Cavaille on 2009-04-29 23:32:15

Here in this thread science vs. pseudoscience occupy two sides: left & right. I´m not assuming, I´m observing. As proof just read it again. You´ll find that there aren´t any shades of grey.

You're assuming based on mislead observations. The misleading seems to be done by your belief that niceness leads to being "right" somehow. Or at least right enough for you to take "their side".

I don't know exactly what you mean by "left & right". You can say up & down, 1 & 2... it's ambiguous, don't know what you're trying to get at. Are you trying to say that science and pseudoscience are two equivalent positions, intellectually and philosophically? That they both deserve the same time and attention from people seeking truth?

I realize I didn't address an earlier question on this. As I said in the article, the codecs used were the Fraunhofer, as implemented in Adobe Audition, or AAC in iTunes/Quicktime. All the spectral analyses were performed on the digital data using a PrismSound DScope, there was no conversion back to analog. If I remember correctly - my lab notes are in the office and I am at home - I played back all the files (other than the FLACs) using iTunes on a Mac TiBook to route the decoded PCM to the AES/EBU output of a Metric Halo MIO2882, which in turn fed the AES/EBU input of the DScope. If my memory is faulty, I will post a correction.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Quote from: Stereoeditor on 2009-04-29 23:40:03

As I said in the article, the codecs used were the Fraunhofer, as implemented in Adobe Audition, or AAC in iTunes/Quicktime.

The Fraunhofer codec has long been surpassed in its quality*. Try this one if you want the state of the art. For AAC you should prefer encoding through Quicktime directly over encoding in iTunes, unless you want 256kbit/s ABR. Then you can use the new iTunes plus preset and still get the highest conversion quality as I have analyzed here. You need iTunes > 8.0 for the latter. The Nero AAC codec has shown to be even more robust against ABXing and could deliver better quality in some cases.

*Quality in the sense of the inverse number of known positively ABXable "killer" samples.

BTW, could anybody explain in short words what the "peanut gallery" idiom means in English?

If this is *all* you think that's going on in this thread, maybe you aren't reading enough of it....or maybe you shouldn't read it at all. 
May I direct you to the Stereophile forum?

Quote from: andy o on 2009-04-30 00:02:45

Quote from: Cavaille on 2009-04-29 23:32:15

Quote from: andy o on 2009-04-29 22:50:18

That phrase doesn't make much sense in the context of your paragraph, so I didn't pay much attention to it. But now the question is raised. So you still stay "on the side" of pseudoscience even when you don't believe it? How intellectually honest (and sorry to keep repeating that phrase, but it can't be said enough times) is that?

Also, you seem to be making another mistake that most people just coming to discussions about science vs. pseudoscience make. You're assuming right off the bat that those are two equivalent points of view. Do you think creationism and evolution must be treated as equal theories too?

I obviously chose the side which appeared to be the most calm. Is that intellectually dishonest? I merely exchanged an awful position (B & W thinking) to one that is less worse (calmness). Am I therefore a traitor to my own intellect?

If you think one side is any more right or wrong because calmness, niceness or rudeness, then yes.

*sigh* I give up on you.Sorry,

Quote from: andy o on 2009-04-30 00:02:45

Quote from: Cavaille on 2009-04-29 23:32:15

Here in this thread science vs. pseudoscience occupy two sides: left & right. I´m not assuming, I´m observing. As proof just read it again. You´ll find that there aren´t any shades of grey.

You're assuming based on mislead observations. The misleading seems to be done by your belief that niceness leads to being "right" somehow. Or at least right enough for you to take "their side".

I don't know exactly what you mean by "left & right". You can say up & down, 1 & 2... it's ambiguous, don't know what you're trying to get at. Are you trying to say that science and pseudoscience are two equivalent positions, intellectually and philosophically? That they both deserve the same time and attention from people seeking truth?

Left: Side 1 - Right: Side 2. And if one wants to know everything and would like to judge unbiased, yes, then he/she must consider all possibilites out there. Even the most hilarious ones. I always was for knowing every opinion and every side - in a calm way (no pun intended).

John, if you can wait a bit, I'd like to run off a really quick proof-of-concept WAV/MP3 plus plot demonstrating that such an issue is not intrinsic to the MP3 format and is likely due to quantization noise.

since you did call him a "collective assimilation attempt"  , I have to ask you,
...

But I must make the point that I was not so much interested in cherry picking the very best codecs but wanted to use _typical_ codecs.

Quote from: Axon on 2009-04-30 00:18:05

John, if you can wait a bit, I'd like to run off a really quick proof-of-concept WAV/MP3 plus plot demonstrating that such an issue is not intrinsic to the MP3 format and is likely due to quantization noise.

I'd be interested in your findings. Certainly, every lossy-compressed file has to be converted to PCM in order to be presented to the DAC, thus I felt FFT analysis of the equivalent PCM files was a legitimate analysis technique.

Regarding FFTs, I have checked what notes I have here. I used a 32k FFT with the DScope using the 7-term PrismSound window, which has very low leakage between bins. I also repeated all the work using Adobe Audition's 32k FFT and a Blackman-Harris window, but the results were not significantly different. It is probable that those data were used to generate the plots with SigmaPlot (which is what I use to create many of the graphs published in the magazine).

BTW, could anybody explain in short words what the "peanut gallery" idiom means in English?

Like I said before, I too am more or less impressed with how JA keeps his debates cool. That said - just because some people here are acting hotheaded doesn't mean they're not in the right. I've gravitated towards a (slightly) more moderate position on this whole thing because of the facts on the ground, and not because of the (im)politeness of various factions. I urge you to do the same. You seem to be getting close to ad hominem territory by dismissing peoples' comments on their emotional nature.

I don't think many complaints about JA (and Stereophile) as a whole are valid. But I still think many are. The goal here is to state one's claims assertively and without hyperbole.... which is surprisingly hard to do. Those of us reading must not be prejudiced by others's emotions and should judge their statements impartially.

I urge you (and perhaps JA!) to study up on the lossless vs. redbook discussion that I was involved in a few weeks ago. That goes into quite a lot of detail on why people like us are so upset over all of these discussions - and particularly, in my opinion, why some situations exist where DBTs are literally useless, but that reflects very poorly on those opposed to them.

My experience says otherwise. For specifically chosen samples, I can get accustomed to them in a matter of minutes in the prelims to an ABX test. Some of my finer ABX moments have happened with music I was not all that accustomed to, and might only have listened to 4-5 times beforehand.

Sorry - I searched your post history regarding the 44.1/96 thread, and you claim doing a test, but you never actually posted the results AFAIK. Am I missing a link?

"Objectivists" are not dogmatic. Look back at the reconstruction filter debate - I think the discussion of the issue was incredibly strong, and the issues involved were not dismissed out of hand. One guy did get a 5/5 with a specially crafted (and perhaps pessimal) filter design. Is that knock-down evidence? No. More testing needs to be done. But it is very suggestive, and does appear to mean that the "accepted wisdom" that reconstruction filters are largely irrelevant might be on shakier grounds than we believed.

Not really. Your own preferences are your own preferences. Some people like tube amps, some people like oversampling, some people like massive amounts of eq. One's opinions are to be respected. I use a headphone amp without a particularly good objective reason - that doesn't make me a subjectivist.

What is not to be respected are statements of fact, or superiority, based on false justifications. It's one thing to like tube amps, but it's an entirely different thing to justify that preference for specious reasons. I don't defend using my headphone amp, and you don't defend using upsampling. And that's the way it's supposed to be! I keep going back to that linked thread... I liken DBTs to a higher form of communication. Without them, one's subjective statements are intrinsically less meaningful, because of all the biases we observe in ourselves (and observe in others and in the sociological literature).

I agree that very little of this debate impacts the audio buying decisions of most people. But it remains an extremely important debate when related to formats - particularly CD vs MP3, and CD vs vinyl/highres. It is also important in the context of midrange consumers like myself.

Regarding your test setup... as I believe Stereophile alluded to a few years ago, using a complete playback stack, rather than doing the analysis on the pure MP3 file decoded to WAV/AIFF, opens you up to the vagaries of whatever format the digital data is passed around as. How sure are you that iTunes was decoding to 24 or 32 bits? How sure are you that the Halo was outputting the full 16 bits?

Certainly, every lossy-compressed file has to be converted to PCM in order to be presented to the DAC, thus I felt FFT analysis of the equivalent PCM files was a legitimate analysis technique.

I edited in one more sentence there that might make it clearer. But... you're giving up on me? Thank you for your thoughtful arguments by the way. You haven't really made your point across though have you? How am I being black & white exactly? What are your arguments for treating pseudoscience with as much respect as to science? Cause I don't see any, just blank statements.

You're assuming based on mislead observations. The misleading seems to be done by your belief that niceness leads to being "right" somehow. Or at least right enough for you to take "their side".

So that just means that you don't understand why scientific claims are more valid than pseudoscientific claims. You don't seem to get the meaning of evidence and falsifiability. Even in the realm of wild claims, some have more validity than others because of the virtue of being (1) clear and (2) falsifiable. Pseudoscientific claims fail in both cases. If we had infinite time, sure, why not "look into" invisible dragons in our garages. Until then, I'll stick with reasonable endeavors.

You imply a black & white thinking. Well, Reality doesn´t work that way because it truly is "shades of grey" though people love to embrace their prejudices.

All scientific claims are provisional.  That means they always 'asymptotically' approach 'absolute' truth.  But that doesn't mean that it makes sense to think it's just as likely that there really ARE unicorns, as not.

Actually, some pairs of things really don't sound different.  And some pairs of things really do sound different.  Is that too 'black and white' for you?

One's opinions are to be respected. I use a headphone amp without a particularly good objective reason - that doesn't make me a subjectivist.

What is not to be respected are statements of fact, or superiority, based on false justifications. It's one thing to like tube amps, but it's an entirely different thing to justify that preference for specious reasons. I don't defend using my headphone amp, and you don't defend using upsampling. And that's the way it's supposed to be! I keep going back to that linked thread... I liken DBTs to a higher form of communication. Without them, one's subjective statements are intrinsically less meaningful, because of all the biases we observe in ourselves (and observe in others and in the sociological literature).

I know that science aims at the absolute truth.

But I also know that this absolute truth can change. And Unicorns are a fine example because some 500 years ago people believed in them and they were a "fact" in daily lives. For example the royal throne of Denmark is (as it is claimed) made out of "Unicorn Horns". Now we know that Unicorns do not exist which renders that throne ridiculous.

I wanted to make clear that most things are in constant flux, even if it is not perceived that way right now.

And if one wants to know everything and would like to judge unbiased, yes, then he/she must consider all possibilites out there. Even the most hilarious ones. I always was for knowing every opinion and every side - in a calm way (no pun intended).

You did not. I didn´t post my own test because I could very easily have been manipulating it. Which of course shows what I maybe thinking about others here - assuming that people are manipulating in order to meet their agenda. I myself wouldn´t have manipulated - but I wanted to forgo any possibilty of that kind of discussion. This presents myself in an unflattering light but I´m willingly accepting this.