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Topic: Real-world comparisons of 24-bit and 16-bit music from Linn Records -  (Read 58353 times) previous topic - next topic
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Real-world comparisons of 24-bit and 16-bit music from Linn Records -

Reply #75
The point is indeed wether the differences are heard blind or not blind. I used to head differences between power cables and such kind of stuff. I can confirm that they were not subtle. They were obvious... and they were disappearing under blind listening conditions. Sometimes even just before the blind test begins.

For some people, the differences remain audible during the blind test, while their answers are no more exact than randomness. Superb examples can be dug out from the listeners comments in two power cable blind tests linked in the new topic : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=82777

So yes, audible differences are big. Obvious. But they are not caused by the sound. They are in the listener's head. And that's no offense, as James Jhonston said in the presentation of Ethan Winer, "Audio Myths Workshop", at the AES in 2009.

Quote
If I play the same thing twice [...] you will remember two different things. This is no hallucination, this is no deception, [...] it's not those... pejorative word... it's just how human being works.

If you have reason to think things are different, you're likely to listen differently, you're likely to focus on different things, and you're likely to remember different things.
Or if you're maybe convinced everything sounds the same... you're still yourself that way.

So this makes the point whenever you do auditory testing, that any test that you do for auditory stimulii, it has to have falsifiable design. It means that you have to actually be able to tell if something is actually detected or if its something that you either conciously or subconciously steered yourself into notice. You have to be able to test that. Now, it basically means that you have to do a blind test.
Because if you know what the two things are, your brain is gonna use this information. I don't care how smart you are, how trained you are, who you are, there hasn't been examples yet of somebody who can avoid. It's just life.


People that hear big differences that way are a minority, but they exist. Many people hear subtle differences that way, and some not at all, I think. Or maybe they can hear small differences, but they don't state it because they know that their perception changes, and they directly translate it into "I don't hear any difference".

It's all about the origin of the difference, the ear-brain system or the audio source, rather than about the size of the difference.