Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

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Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #100 – 2014-11-14 10:56:25

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-13 17:32:26

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-13 17:23:53
Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-12 00:21:31
Your computation there is psychoacoustically blind Arny as we have discussed. You cannot use a single digit SPL number for your room noise. You must look at its spectrum and see how much noise you have relative to threshold of hearing as I show in my article
I agree with the need to look at the spectrum, but disagree with your conclusions.

http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php...st&p=871182
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php...st&p=871270

It's really hard to find source material that has audible noise when you use 16-bit noise shaped dither. The current (Bob Stuart) test apparently used no noise shaping, and the wrong dither PDF.

Cheers,
David.

Sorry David. I read your link and it almosts reads word for word like my post and article. What is it that I am missing?

That 16-bit noise shaped dither is sufficient in all but pathological samples? That doing all the calculations properly and fairly delivers the conclusion: 16-bits is sufficient for a home delivery audio format?

You demand a peak level that causes instant hearing damage = unreasonable
You assume no noise shaping = unreasonable
You assume the best possible noise figures at home = exceptional but reasonable
You assume the best possible noise figures in the recording venue = exceptional but reasonable

The "problem" with this scientific justification is "the elephant in the room" (from another thread): the people claiming audible superiority aren't claiming to hear it only on exceptional material recorded and reproduced in exceptional rooms. They're claiming it sounds better, always. Whereas the ABX results back up the very limited and specific scientific justification.

I'm sure you realise the problem here: people take an article like yours and ABX results like Bob Stuart's, and say "here is scientific and double-blind proof that the fantastic audible improvement I hear all the time with hi-res is real and scientifically proven."

I'm fairly sure you understand the resentment here on HA: I think most people here believe that this delusion is exactly what such "science" is intended to perpetuate, hence it's not science: it's marketing, treading the line of implying something that's not true without actually saying it.

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Meanwhile, the subject is even more complex than my brief write-up. Noise that comes from the source is played through point sources of our speakers. Listening tests show that we can hear point noise over broad noise that is resident in the room.

I am aware of this (e.g. see Chapter 6). The Binaural Masking Level Difference is well documented. I haven't seen papers examining it near the absolute threshold of hearing, but they may exist. This is only relevant where the dither noise is higher than the noise in the original recording venue and above the absolute threshold of hearing at some frequency, and only when this is not masking by the music.

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As to your comment regarding content, it is fine for such existence to be rare. We can afford to preserve all that can be for ALL content for no cost today. I don't want to analyze each piece of music I get to determine whether something was stepped on. We can get a format that is transparent (> great than CD specs) and be done with all of these technical arguments. One only has to understand this topic if it is to justify lowering the resolution of the content. We are in no need of such lowering technologically and from business point of view.

We risk spreading essentially the same discussion over several threads, but I'll put it in this one for now.

I am asking "why?" You are asking "why not?" You want to reverse the burden of proof. Accepting that approach means we haven't finished yet. We will have 384kHz 32-bit next because "why not?", and that's still not the end of it. This is not engineering. This is lunacy. You want to believe there's no downside to this. I don't agree. The problems include:
1. We "improve" the wrong thing, to the detriment of other things that would introduce a real/greater audible improvement.
2. We lead the market to believe that this is what defines audio quality. We end up with idiocy like a 128kbps 384kHz 32-bit lossy format promoted as being superior quality to CD, because high sample rates are so important. Or idiocy like recordings from truly wrecked old analogue tapes, or dynamically crushed modern recordings, marketed as "high resolution" because high sample rates are so important. And get some people to spend money on this.
3. The kind of people who care enough to want decent sound, but don't have a lifetime to devote to separating reality from bullsh*t, will just give up and go and enjoy some other hobby instead.
4. Audio drowns in its own bullsh*t.

I am conceding (as is everyone else here) that under certain pathological situations 16-bits is not quite transparent. You are saying this means we should use more than 16-bit for all content, because you don't want to check whether it's necessary. Let me save you the bother. Parts of the audio world have been looking for samples on commercially released material that require more than 16-bits for well over a decade. We can't find them.

The evidence is, in the entirety of recorded music commercially released to date, 16-bits with noise shaped dither is sufficient. Someone may well argue "let's have more, just in case" but when we can't find anything to justify the "just in case", then enquiring minds will suspect there's another motivation.

If higher sample rates sound different, despite changing nothing in the audible range, why does this happen? Some people are of the opinion that if you do something, and it makes something sound better, just do it; no need to understand why. That's not progress. If the unexpected improvement reveals some unknown truth about human hearing or audio reproduction, there's more work to do and more improvements to chase once we understand it.

With the kinds of quantities of difference that we find in blind tests, it is very hard to prove these are not due to IM distortion.

I am interested in all of this, and I do retain an open mind. However, I think taking some imagined or real-but-tiny improvement, and selling it as the next big thing, will be bad for the audio industry. Remember last time? "SACD+DVD-A fought a war, and the iPod won."

Cheers,
David.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #101 – 2014-11-14 13:19:14

We talk about filters and PCM here.
Keep in mind the modern audiophile has no doubt DSD sounds better all the time as PCM because its differernt filter behaviour.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #102 – 2014-11-14 15:30:07

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-14 10:56:25

That 16-bit noise shaped dither is sufficient in all but pathological samples? That doing all the calculations properly and fairly delivers the conclusion: 16-bits is sufficient for a home delivery audio format?

I am on record agreeing with that. I hope you also agree with me that assuming "all the calculations are done properly" is not a given. Nor is it a given that is what the content producer did. MLXXX put up a version of Scott/Mark test on AVS forum where the conversion was done with Audacity. The converted version had incredibly audible noise. You would have had to been deaf to not hear it. See: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/91-audio-the...ml#post28872521.

Now he used an older version of Audacity but who knows how it does what it does? I use Adobe Audition CC. There is no documentation on its signal processing. It for example has a quality slider. What does do exactly? It doesn't say. Scott/Mark used Sonic Solutions. They guard their resampling as proprietary and an advantage. How do you know correctness?

All of this is immaterial anyway. As I have said, you guys are still fighting a forgotten war. At the risk of repeating my position: I am not here to prove that there is benefit to high resolution. I am here to prove that if I get the original stereo master, I don't have to worry about what you just said. Everything you say relies on the signal processing being correct and listening tests proving the same. Everything I just said requires none of that but simple logical reasoning. The original bits are available before conversion to 16/44.1. I have been having this argument for months with people but no one has shown why I am better off with someone else downgrading the bits before I get them.

If there is a benefit to down conversion, I can do it myself with full knowledge of the field and not leave it to someone in music production knowing what all of this means.

Please let me know why I am facing all of this resistance to the above position.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #103 – 2014-11-14 15:42:33

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-14 10:56:25

You demand a peak level that causes instant hearing damage = unreasonable

I a disappointed to see that forum argument with someone who has so much understanding of this field. There is no risk of hearing damage. We are not talking about a steady state tone at 120 db. We are talking about peaks that last few milliseconds in music. And that is critical because hearing damage has two components: level and duration.

Here is the US occupational standards with respect to workplace noise:

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You assume no noise shaping = unreasonable

Per my other post, unless you are the one producing all the music I am buying, this is not a justification for downconversion of 24 bit content to 16.

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You assume the best possible noise figures at home = exceptional but reasonable

I don't want to re-buy my music just because I build a quieter listening space.

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You assume the best possible noise figures in the recording venue = exceptional but reasonable

I don't want additional noise added to my bits when I can have them prior to that process. Practically every bit of recording is done in 24 bit these days. I want to have those bits. Plain and simple.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #104 – 2014-11-14 15:59:15

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 15:30:07

I use Adobe Audition CC. There is no documentation on its signal processing.

...

All of this is immaterial anyway. As I have said, you guys are still fighting a forgotten war. At the risk of repeating my position: I am not here to prove that there is benefit to high resolution. I am here to prove that if I get the original stereo master, I don't have to worry about what you just said.

If you distrust unknown signal processing, but hope to avoid it by buying 192/24 instead of 44.1/16, that's a pretty misplaced sense of safety you're clinging on to. Unless you're talking about a purist direct-to-stereo unprocessed audiophile recording, the downconversion is the last and least complex of many many audio signal processing options. Even in that case, it it sometimes an upconversion (e.g. 48kHz to 96kHz), and sometimes a cross conversion (e.g. DSD to 96kHz). This is no less problematic.

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Please let me know why I am facing all of this resistance to the above position.

I think I explained the problem with "why not" as well as I can in my previous most. Others my have other opinions.

Cheers,
David.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #105 – 2014-11-14 16:05:39

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-14 10:56:25

The "problem" with this scientific justification is "the elephant in the room" (from another thread): the people claiming audible superiority aren't claiming to hear it only on exceptional material recorded and reproduced in exceptional rooms. They're claiming it sounds better, always. Whereas the ABX results back up the very limited and specific scientific justification.

I think you continue to think I am a different person than I am. I was instructed to not tell you my background so we are stuck with you putting me in a different bucket than I am in.

I am not here to advocate any other person's point of view. I have not taken the above position. So writing that to me and asking me to respond to it is not logical.

My position which I keep repeating completely bypasses all of these arguments and your position above. It says let's get the original bits. We can do that now as we are not bound by the CD format. We can download them. I downloaded your 24/96 Khz samples with ease. What is wrong with downloading my next album that way? And let's remember that I can download high resolution content on demand but can't do that with CDs.

AVS members who are here know this to be my position. But they are still up in arms. They are ready to hang themselves in their bedroom with this latest set of outcomes from my testing and Stuart's AES paper. Why? Because the real elephant in the room. That is, if you concede my position, you may inadvertently hand over a point to the other side. And we can't have that. Because who knows what they are going to do next if it is proven that we were wrong. That there can never be a double blind test that shows a difference between high resolution audio and reduced version to 16/44.1. I have been saying for years that such a possibility exists. But folks didn't want to hear it. So we have the mess on our hands where we said one thing, and the very standard of proof we require, proved it otherwise.

That is the real elephant in the room. And no one explains it better than a strong fellow objectivist on AVS and WBF Forums in the very first discussion thread I had with Arny:

well, in that case let me thank you [Amir] for your contributions. I KNOW I could not have kept my patience as you have, let alone maintained a sense of humour! It's funny how hard *we* can go to maintain our rightness, and how quickly that line is crossed where we no longer wish to learn (despite our objections to the contrary) where we fight tooth and nail...usually because we know our position is so tenuous that the slightest 'loss' means the whole game is over.

FFS, Amir has sat here page after page and SHOWN how, and under what possible conditions jitter may be audible. Hey, if it were a cable debate, and we showed with maths and sims that there could not possibly be a difference, well that would have proved it no? So why the **** in an 'argument' where the shoe is on the other foot does it suddenly become irrelevant what the science says??

My take on what the fear might be is the worry of what might happen if we concede a point of argument. The 'other side' will drive a frickin lorry thru the door if we do. I mean, there only has to be ONE person who hears a power cord (for sake of illustration) in what seems to be a proper test and the whole frickin lot of the rest of them will claim it as proof that they too can hear it.

No they can't, 'one in a million' means just that. But we KNOW every single one of them thinks they can hear it, using that person as proof, and even less urge to test the truth properly. After all it has been shown. So, we had better clamp down HARD on the one ever coming out, if only to keep the lid on the rest.

So, move on to something far less controversial than PCs, but as long as it falls into audiofool territory we had better clamp down on that too. It is just safer that way, keep each and every genie in the bottle. So the need to put amir in his place, and keep the lid hammered on tight. Because the ramifications of this little argument go waaaay past it's tiny borders.

""Oh, but amir has not given any evidence of audibilty"" (apart from the science you mean? The science that would be perfectly acceptable in a different argument, that the one we are talking about???).

Be totally honest here. If he told you that he had found, to his satisfaction, that turning the front panel on and off on his thingamabob had an audible difference, would you accept that? What then his findings of jitter? We know you would not accept his results, the genie is too terrifying to contemplate.

So don't come back at me with 'amir has yet to show audibility' ok? It is a definitional thing you know. Some things, by definition, are inaudible.

Bit like cancer, it cannot be cured hence any cure of cancer is untrue (why we are always then exhorted to donate to cancer research is beyond me). All of you could be right, it may be completely inaudible. But you sure as hell have not shown it by your arguments. Unless 'nanah nanah nah' counts as an argument.

Give it to an Aussies to say it so directly .

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I'm sure you realise the problem here: people take an article like yours and ABX results like Bob Stuart's, and say "here is scientific and double-blind proof that the fantastic audible improvement I hear all the time with hi-res is real and scientifically proven."

I'm fairly sure you understand the resentment here on HA: I think most people here believe that this delusion is exactly what such "science" is intended to perpetuate, hence it's not science: it's marketing, treading the line of implying something that's not true without actually saying it.

Ah, you did get there . Yes, I understand the reaction. But I could not care less. I am an objectivists. That calls for fairness. It calls for being unbiased at all times. If there are problems with what we, our camp does, I volunteer it. I don't let it come out from another channel and make us look like crooks that were hiding it.

If the people here have a position of hanging together instead of hanging with science and objective view of audio, then you are right. I won't get along with them. My hope though is that there are many who are not that way. Who like to see transparency. After all, we enjoy that in real life. Here is a quick story I have told on AVS (you will learn that I often tell such stories ).

I was on a jury pool for a criminal case. I get invited to come and sit in the jury box while they were deciding which one of us to keep. I expected the defendant to be in his sunday clothes, looking like anyone but a criminal. But no. This guy was sitting there and if you took a picture of him, you would swear he is guilty and there would be no need for the trial. I look at the judge and attorneys but they absolutely do not reflect any of this bias. I mean the guy was slouching in his chair full of contempt for the court and the judge. Yet the judge was referring to him as he would to the most upstanding citizen. I am sure deep down he has seen so many cases as to know the guilt or innocence of the guy. But he knew he had to be fair. And put aside all bias. It gave me a lot of comfort that heaven forbid, if I am mistakenly accused and sitting in that chair, I would have a shot at a fair trial no matter how the circumstances looked.

That is me in a nutshell in these topics. I don't like it when I ask Arny to show us any documented double blind tests and he says the only one is from 30 years ago and I have to go and buy the magazine. And I buy it and see that it is an amplifier test where positive outcome was achieved. Isn't that embarrassing? Is this the way we want to appear in front of general public? And let's remember that this forum is indexed by Google and open to all to read, not just forum members.

So no, please don't ask me to worry about the clicks among forum members here or elsewhere. Folks want good side of me? They need to stick to science rather than to some camp whose goal is to ridicule our fellow audiophiles.

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I am interested in all of this, and I do retain an open mind. However, I think taking some imagined or real-but-tiny improvement, and selling it as the next big thing, will be bad for the audio industry. Remember last time? "SACD+DVD-A fought a war, and the iPod won."

I already addressed this David. There is no repeat of SACD+DVD-A. There is no format war. There is no new physical format. Labels are offering high resolution stereo masters and people are buying them. Folks here can cry all they want, talk about "train wrecks" and such and it won't matter. Yes, the difference may be small or nonexistent. Your view that this data does not come out is incorrect. With advent of free Audacity, every kid is performing spectrum analysis and posting results. And on forums like WBF, people are frank and quick to slam HD downloads that don't sound better.

P.S. Gosh. This forum software gives you no chance to fix spelling errors before declaring that you have edited your post! But that is all I did .

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #106 – 2014-11-14 16:11:59

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 15:42:33

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-14 10:56:25
You demand a peak level that causes instant hearing damage = unreasonable

I a disappointed to see that forum argument with someone who has so much understanding of this field. There is no risk of hearing damage. We are not talking about a steady state tone at 120 db. We are talking about peaks that last few milliseconds in music. And that is critical because hearing damage has two components: level and duration.

I understand this, but we are putting the noise shaped dither at the threshold of human hearing, and shaped to it. At this replay level, I can now hit 120dB SPL peak. Anything that gets anywhere close to digital full scale is extremely loud. If you need more bits, it's to go even louder. I understand instantaneous peaks vs RMS level very well - but hitting 126dB (17-bits), 132dB (18-bits), 138dB (19-bits), 144dB (20-bits) even briefly - come on. I hate dynamic range compression more than most, but at that kind of level I would welcome it!

Cheers,
David.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #107 – 2014-11-14 16:15:24

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-14 15:59:15

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 15:30:07
I use Adobe Audition CC. There is no documentation on its signal processing.

...

All of this is immaterial anyway. As I have said, you guys are still fighting a forgotten war. At the risk of repeating my position: I am not here to prove that there is benefit to high resolution. I am here to prove that if I get the original stereo master, I don't have to worry about what you just said.
If you distrust unknown signal processing, but hope to avoid it by buying 192/24 instead of 44.1/16, that's a pretty misplaced sense of safety you're clinging on to.

I think you misunderstood what I wrote. I want the master prior to conversion and remastering to 16/44.1. If that is the same fidelity, so be it. If it is better, that much the better .

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #108 – 2014-11-14 16:41:36

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 16:05:39

AVS members who are here know this to be my position. But they are still up in arms. They are ready to hang themselves in their bedroom with this latest set of outcomes from my testing and Stuart's AES paper. Why? Because the real elephant in the room. That is, if you concede my position, you may inadvertently hand over a point to the other side. And we can't have that.

I would be delighted to run a fair double-blind test proving that hi-resolution audio delivers an audible advantage. There is no shame in new ABX tests which prove audible differences where previously they could not be found. Heck...
http://home.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_md.htm
...there would be no HA if we all believed that one!

However, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." A few of the results posted, if they were obtained fairly, are the start of some useful evidence. Many are just the result of badly set-up or performed tests. I haven't seen you discount these faulty tests, but then I haven't trawled through all the relevant threads.

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And on forums like WBF, people are frank and quick to slam HD downloads that don't sound better.

You know, people who really are objective about this stuff are very rare, anywhere. On the whole, where people care about this stuff (99% don't!) I see about 70% claiming something sounds amazingly night-and-day my-wife-heard-the-difference-from-the-kitchen better just because it's an SACD, 10% reciting something they've read here or from Monty without really understanding it about why it can't possibly sound any better, 10% trying to figure out which version really sounds better, and 10% crying at the cost and effort of figuring out which of 7 different compromised versions of their favourite album is most worth listening to.

Cheers,
David.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #109 – 2014-11-14 17:44:34

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 16:05:39

AVS members who are here know this to be my position.

Amir, speaking just for myself, I know nothing of the sort. I actually don't know what reasonable position to ascribe to you because of your habitual self-contradiction and ignorance of posts containing reasonable questions.

I read the post by 2Bdecided @ Nov 14 2014, 02:56 (http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?act=findpost&pid=880696) and agreed with it as being a reasonable characterization based on my AVS experiences.

But now it has all been denied. I don't know what to think. In that context the claim "AVS members who are here know this to be my position." is simply not true.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #110 – 2014-11-14 18:30:30

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 15:42:33

So let's leave such arguments to AJ, mzil, Arny's of the world and keep the level of discussion at high technical level.

Yeah, at a high technical level like the +/- 10% volume method and "hearing" SPDIF cables, "power regenerators", etc.
That's pretty high.

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 15:42:33

Practically every bit of recording is done in 24 bit these days.

Right, in 2ch. Because the scammers and shysters have abandoned any pretense of wanting fidelity to original soundfields, which the extra file size could be used for (via added channels) and have conned the audiomorons into believing that 99% of distributed music, like 5db dynamic range Neil Young studio electronics recordings, need anything more than 16/44 for fidelity to the real thing (whatever imaginary construct that may be).

cheers,

AJ

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #111 – 2014-11-14 19:16:57

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2014-11-14 17:44:34

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 16:05:39
AVS members who are here know this to be my position.

Amir, speaking just for myself, I know nothing of the sort. I actually don't know what reasonable position to ascribe to you because of your habitual self-contradiction and ignorance of posts containing reasonable questions.

Well, your memory is as bad as mine. Fortunately the Internet keeps these things around forever. On the master thread on AVS on Monty's write-up, this is what I said on page #1 after your posts: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/91-audio-the...ml#post21750075

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The goals for setting a standard here shouldn't be what is adequate but what has some safety margin as to give us high confidence of inaudibility. In that regard, we need to also allow for less than optimal implementations. To that end, Bob Stuart has published a much more authoritative version of this report at AES. Here is an online copy: http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF. These are his recommendations:

"This article has reviewed the issues surrounding the transmission of high-resolution digital audio. It is
suggested that a channel that attains audible transparency will be equivalent to a PCM channel that
uses:
· 58kHz sampling rate, and
· 14-bit representation with appropriate noise shaping, or
· 20-bit representation in a flat noise floor, i.e. a ‘rectangular’ channel"

So as we see, the CD standard somewhat misses the mark on sampling rate. And depending on whether you trust the guy reducing the sample depth from 24-bit to 16 bits, we may be missing the right spec there too.

Ultimately, I think to the extent bandwidth and storage have become immaterial for music, it is best to get access to the same bits the talent approved when the content was produced. For a high-end enthusiast, there is no need for them to shrink down what they recorded before delivery. Let the customer have the same bits and then there is no argument one way or the other .

You spent the next month arguing with me that the above was not right starting with this response: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/91-audio-the...ml#post21750677

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Interestingly enough this paper is neither an AES conference paper or a JAES article." At least I can't find it published that way. It appears to be a rewrite of a 1988 (24 year old!) article in the now-long-departed Audio magazine. It's a corporate white paper that has no standing as an industry standard or recommendation.

This paper is arguably part of the support for SACD and DVD-A which are now known to be failed technical initiatives that failed to make it in the mainstream consumer marketplace.

[...]

The paper in question is full of unsupported assertions. Probably the most honest statement it contains is:

[... quotes Monty's graph]
The key sentence above is: "... unnecessary reproduction of ultrasonic content diminishes performance."

Enough said, eh? ;-)

Apparently not since we are still discussing it. As you hopefully recall now, I showed that Bob Stuart's paper was a Journal paper and nothing remotely like "corporate white paper that has no standing as an industry standard or recommendation" that you said.

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But now it has all been denied. I don't know what to think. In that context the claim "AVS members who are here know this to be my position." is simply not true.

My bad. I thought you would remember such argumentative threads that go on for so long. No worries. It is all linked here now. That thread was refreshed this year and I think it would be fun to see what else you had written in the past: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/91-audio-the...ml#post24395228

Arny Krüger wrote:

> "Tushar" wrote in message
> news:803qsp$2uj$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > Could someone explain in laymans terms how the dsd technology used
> in
> > the SACD format is different from the PCM used in the CD and if it
> is
> > superior what are the reasons.
>
> I would like to do that, but the technical literature that I've
> been able to pull together from various sources so far lacks the
> detail I feel I need to reliably do so.
>
> Reading between the lines and speculating wildly, SACD seems to me
> to be a bit stream-oriented digital data coding technique, one that
> effectively uses data words of various lengths for different parts
> of the audio spectrum and/or sound levels. There seem to be claims
> that such data that is transmitted is not subject to lossy
> compression, but if, as I may erroneously or correctly infer,
> different parts of the frequency and/or amplitude domains are coded
> with different length data words, then it SACD is in fact a form of
> perceptual (lossy) coding. FWIW, HDCD seems to have implemented a
> subset of these benefits.

It doesn't get worse than confusing HDCD with SACD. Or saying SACD is a form of lossy compression.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #112 – 2014-11-14 19:18:33

TLDNR

and

TSDNR

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #113 – 2014-11-14 19:23:15

Quote from: ajinfla on 2014-11-14 18:30:30

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 15:42:33
Practically every bit of recording is done in 24 bit these days.

Right, in 2ch. Because the scammers and shysters have abandoned any pretense of wanting fidelity to original soundfields, which the extra file size could be used for (via added channels) and have conned the audiomorons into believing that 99% of distributed music, like 5db dynamic range Neil Young studio electronics recordings, need anything more than 16/44 for fidelity to the real thing (whatever imaginary construct that may be).

You are suffering from double confusion on this matter AJ. First you did not understand my post where I was talking about recording being in 24 bits. Just about everyone uses 24 bits there and if you want to dispute that, I don't know what to tell you.

On adding more channels, the market has spoken. The music buying industry is young people who want their tunes with headphones and such so we are stuck with stereo. Multi-channel music's era came and gone. Sure, there is a path through Blu-ray but highly limited. If you want to boil the ocean by advocating that the whole market transform around your wishes, go ahead. I don't like hitting my head against the wall nearly as much as you do.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #114 – 2014-11-14 19:35:21

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-14 16:41:36

However, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

They don't really. This line came from a couple of devotees in the skeptic camp and has no other foundation. I don't know why it keeps getting repeated in these discussions as if it is a universal truth.

That aside, who is to say what is extraordinary? To my wife, it is extraordinary claim that blu-ray looks better than DVD. She thinks they look the same. Do I need to come up with extraordinary proof to show she is wrong? I do not.

To many lay people me passing the 320 kbps MP3 test is extraordinary. Are we going to let them set the standard and make me jump through a thousand hoops to prove otherwise? Not logical yet that is what I had to do for Steven as he kept insisting that he knows more than me.

Quote

A few of the results posted, if they were obtained fairly, are the start of some useful evidence. Many are just the result of badly set-up or performed tests. I haven't seen you discount these faulty tests, but then I haven't trawled through all the relevant threads.

I will do so now. I discount all of them. Every test has flaws. But we are told that if we pass a "DBT ABX" folks would believe. Well, we passed them and passed them all. Yet, it has managed to do absolutely nothing. Now they are all out to discredit validity of these tests. Which way is up now? We have schmucks now saying we have to have witnesses to prove we did not doctor up some log to win a point online. Really?

I did not say that we can prove anything with these tests. I was told passing would make people believe so I participated. Now folks want to distance themselves from the very tests/results. Clearly they were misguided in thinking I could not pass the tests, right?

I don't care to prove to anyone here high resolution is better. I want to show them that attempting to bully people into submission by demanding ABX tests and throwing stuff they have read online about audio science can backfire and backfire big. They have two choices now. Change their views or stay with them and look totally illogical and biased to the core. The latter is what they are doing.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #115 – 2014-11-14 19:55:11

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 19:23:15

Multi-channel music's era came and gone. Sure, there is a path through Blu-ray but highly limited.

Really? The majority of homes have 2ch vs MCH systems? Ever been to a movie theater?
The MCH systems are already in place. Whats missing is the sanely done encoding/content/decoding (like PSR!!!)....which the "High end" market should be leading the charge for...instead of "Hi-Rez" (or heaven forbid analog) 2ch audio fashion jewelry moronic stupidity.

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 19:23:15

If you want to boil the ocean by advocating that the whole market transform around your wishes, go ahead.

Like your "Hi-Rez" original 2ch file distribution demands? That no one can hear in supervised, non-doctered up tests, as your friend and real credentialed expert JJ keeps telling you? What % of the "whole market" is demanding "Hi-Rez"?

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 19:23:15

I don't like hitting my head against the wall nearly as much as you do.

By now you should know I much prefer wailing your head with the weapons/ammo you always provide me with (like ITU-BS1116, thanks, even if it flies over Davids head ).

cheers,

AJ

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #116 – 2014-11-14 20:02:04

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2014-11-12 14:51:56

The answer has been given - good content representative of what consumers listened to was apparently not used. Tricked up laboratory freak recordings were apparently used.

Do we actually know that to be true though, meaning MUSIC recordings were used, and not some concocted test generated signal? Although you made a good point that it would be easy to use a dynamic range expander to gimmick an existing music recording to make it seem to have an unusually wide dynamic range, which strains 16/44 (especially if it's been purposefully hobbled), it has always struck me that the paper's abstract reads: "Two main conclusions are offered: first, there exist audible signals that cannot be encoded transparently by a standard CD..." Note they used the word "signals", not "music".

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #117 – 2014-11-14 21:17:21

Quote from: ajinfla on 2014-11-14 19:55:11

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 19:23:15
Multi-channel music's era came and gone. Sure, there is a path through Blu-ray but highly limited.

Really? The majority of homes have 2ch vs MCH systems? Ever been to a movie theater?

I have not in a long time. Last time I went though was for watching a movie, not listening to music. I used to live in Florida in 1980s. Do they now play music in the theaters there?

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The MCH systems are already in place. Whats missing is the sanely done encoding/content/decoding (like PSR!!!)...

No. Really? That is what I said and you thought I was talking about equipment. Bad AJ. Bad!

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which the "High end" market should be leading the charge for...instead of "Hi-Rez" (or heaven forbid analog) 2ch audio fashion jewelry moronic stupidity.

Leading the charge? Now that would be stupid. High-end customers make such a tiny portion of the market that no one would care if they all went on hunger strike. But since it is important to you let's see you lead the charge. Go ahead and I will be behind you (not really but I am here for moral support).

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Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 19:23:15
If you want to boil the ocean by advocating that the whole market transform around your wishes, go ahead.

Like your "Hi-Rez" original 2ch file distribution demands? That no one can hear in supervised, non-doctered up tests, as your friend and real credentialed expert JJ keeps telling you? What % of the "whole market" is demanding "Hi-Rez"?

You seem very agitated AJ. Everything OK in life? When was your last physical? Measuring blood pressure once in a while is a good idea.

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Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-14 19:23:15
I don't like hitting my head against the wall nearly as much as you do.

By now you should know I much prefer wailing your head with the weapons/ammo you always provide me with (like ITU-BS1116, thanks, even if it flies over Davids head ).

cheers,

AJ

There. You got it out of your system. You can do your victory dance now.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #118 – 2014-11-14 21:46:23

Quote from: mzil on 2014-11-14 20:02:04

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2014-11-12 14:51:56
The answer has been given - good content representative of what consumers listened to was apparently not used. Tricked up laboratory freak recordings were apparently used.

Do we actually know that to be true though, meaning MUSIC recordings were used, and not some concocted test generated signal? Although you made a good point that it would be easy to use a dynamic range expander to gimmick an existing music recording to make it seem to have an unusually wide dynamic range, which strains 16/44 (especially if it's been purposefully hobbled), it has always struck me that the paper's abstract reads: "Two main conclusions are offered: first, there exist audible signals that cannot be encoded transparently by a standard CD..." Note they used the word "signals", not "music".

Actually I have far better knowledge now. I reactivated my AES membership and obtained a PDF of the convention paper for the princely sum of $5.00. ;-)

Here's what is known about the playback system:

"To minimise unknown variations in the signal, we
implemented our test lters at 192 kHz, so that orig-
inal and test signals were presented as 192 kHz 24-
bit PCM format to the system independent of test
condition. Signals were sent to a Meridian 818v2
Reference Audio Core using a high-quality USB ca-
ble, which was connected to a pair of Meridian
DSP7200SE digital loudspeakers. This signal path
was digital from the computer into the loudspeak-
ers, and entered the analogue domain in the indi-
vidual 192 kHz D/A converters feeding each loud-
speaker drive unit. The playback system had a wide
frequency response (up to 40 kHz determined by the
tweeter), had very low dierential group delay, and
showed a compact impulse response with insigni-
cant ringing.

"The volume control of the playback system enabled
listeners to adjust playback level in 1 dB steps, pre-
sented via a UI showing relative volume scale of 0-
99 dB. During the tests, listeners were asked to listen
with the volume control in the region of 74{76 dB,
which they could adjust for comfort. For a system
gain of 75 dB, the loudest peak passage was mea-
sured as 102 dB SPL at the listening position, some-
what lower than the level we would expect from a
live performance at a distance of 3 m. This level was
chosen for comfort, and because it was high enough
for details to be audible but also low enough that 16-
bit RPDF dither would be inaudible at the listening
position [30]. The system acoustic gain of 105 dB
SPL for 0 dBFS was conrmed using an octave-wide
band of pink noise centred at 1 kHz with an average
level of -20 dBFS, which gave a level of 85 dB SPL
at the listening position.

Here's what is known about the recording

"The recordings used were selections from The signals
used were extracts from Haydn's String
Quartet Op.76 No.5 in D \Finale, Presto" from
\Nordic Sound (2L Sampler)" 1, issued with a sample
rate of 192 kHz using 24-bit PCM23.

This recording can be downloaded in a number of different formats from here:

https://shop.klicktrack.com/2l/35847

Price in 24/192 format: $6.00

I have it on hand and it seems to be a fairly typical string quartet recording, kinda phasey sounding and lots of room reverb, with what appears to be room tone that is about 70 dB below peak recorded levels.

The recording contains over 6 seconds of room sound before and after the playing of the musical selection. There are also brief segments when no music is being played at appropriate intervals within the musical selection.

"This piece of music was selected for its suitability of
recording quality, dynamic range, instrumental tex-
ture and ease of performing the test, based on pre-
liminary data that we do not include here. Subjec-
tively, this recording was clean and had low back-
ground noise. The recording was apparently free
from modulation noise and contained spectral con-
tent up to at least 40 kHz.

This is what is known about the test procedures:

"The recording was divided into musical phrases to
reduce possible distraction. The mean length of
phrase was 11.9 s with a standard deviation of 1.8 s.
The whole recording was used. A table giving the
start and end times of the sections used here is given
in an Appendix to this paper.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #119 – 2014-11-14 21:49:21

Can we stick to the facts at hand rather than digging up dirt, assassinating each others character, and other ad hominem tactics which stand only to antagonize rather than progress the discussion?

My use of a question mark was rhetorical (this time).

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #120 – 2014-11-14 22:22:58

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2014-11-14 21:46:23

The recording was apparently free
from modulation noise and contained spectral con-tent up to at least 40 kHz.

40 kHz at how many dB down though, and was there nearby HF sound to perceptually mask it? [Pretending for the moment those frequencies are even audible, of course.] String instruments aren't exactly known for having strong ultrasonics in the absence of nearby maskers.

"The whole recording was used. A table giving the start and end times of the sections used here is given in an Appendix to this paper."

Since the WHOLE recording was used, then by definition some of those segments contain musical silence or at least the musical lulls you spoke of. This would make noise floor comparisons quite easy if conducted in a dead quiet listening room, despite his claims "there was no rectangular dither problem, trust me" perhaps, and enough to show statistical significance.

The volume control had "1dB increments" but I sure hope that wasn't the same contraption to do the level matching! Does he say to what precision that was accomplished?

Did the listeners hold an A/B toggle and could switch at will or were they told, "This one is A, the computer display will show when it switches to B automatically for you, etc." ?

Unless the speakers were used near field, then their actual room SPL at 40 kHz comes into question since the polar response pattern of tweeters [one inch dome, "semi horn loaded"] up at that frequency becomes extremely narrow and they shoot out like a laser, or say a spot light instead of flood light, and the actual acoustical power in the far field is steeply reduced at that frequency. Does the paper explicitly say the 40 kHz was MEASURED at the seated position [and with what distance, mic, and with what SPL meter that goes THAT high?] or is his claim of 40kHz actually just the 1m response as typically measured anechoicly, as I suspect?

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #121 – 2014-11-14 23:04:15

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-14 10:56:25

1. We "improve" the wrong thing, to the detriment of other things that would introduce a real/greater audible improvement.

Bingo. While Amirm and Stuart and Neil Young are flogging this technology, we're still getting 'loudness wars' mastering. And we are still stuck ina 2-channel paradigm. And listening in rooms that are often horrendous, acoustically.

What the hi rez cheerleading squad is doing is akin to trying to focus all attention on the font of a document that is too often contains gibberish.

The question is why...why would this be the focus, when *all of them* know where the actual 'obvious and audible and known about for years' problems lie?

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #122 – 2014-11-14 23:08:47

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2014-11-14 21:46:23

Signals were sent to a Meridian 818v2
Reference Audio Core using a high-quality USB ca-
ble, which was connected to a pair of MeridianDSP7200SE digital loudspeakers.

For a system gain of 75 dB, the loudest peak passage was mea-
sured as 102 dB SPL at the listening position, some-
what lower than the level we would expect from a
live performance at a distance of 3 m.

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #123 – 2014-11-14 23:36:36

Did you know that Beryllium domes can have significant oil can resonances well above 22.05Khz?

I wonder what would happen if you drove such a direct radiator dome to > 108db, when direct radiator domes start exhibiting serious non-linearities >95db or so, without the benefit of a 22k low pass filter?
Could it result in lower band IM products?
Is that why Soundstage never tests direct radiator domes >95db when they start exhibiting a full 3db of compression?

I'm very curious what types of measurements BS & Co did here.

cheers,

AJ

Audibility of "typical" Digital Filters in a Hi-Fi Playback

Reply #124 – 2014-11-14 23:57:12

Their higher end speaker's response above these amazingly can defy Nyquist with a 44.1 or 48kHz sampling rate input!

"Specifications DSP8000 SE

PERFORMANCE
## Frequency response in-room 20Hz – >32kHz ±3dB (for inputs at 44.1kHz or 48kHz)."

Notice