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

Straman this, red herring that. I have never, ever heard anyone utter those phrases in real life or technical conferences. You would be laughed at for using those high-school debating terms.

LOL you are serious, aren't you?
You don't even seem to know what these terms mean. And yeah, usually these words do not come up often in technical discussions because smart people actually know what these terms mean and try to avoid such fallacies.
You on the other hand are like a fountain spewing them endlessly.

Through our bullying tactics, we have made up these rules of discussion. Oh that piece of data hurts? Let me just claim it is "straw man." If that doesn't work, then it must be red herring. If that doesn't work it is appeal to authority. If that doesn't work it is excluded middle or whatever that nonsense is called.

That is right, these terms are nonsense to you because you don't even understand them. And no, you cannot call out fallacies whenever you feel like it, that just further demonstrates your gross ignorance.

There is a basic level of understanding of logic, statistics, science ... that you should have when you participate in a technical discussion. But most importantly is intellectual honesty, all of which you demonstrated to lack over and over again (see 0 credibility).

Leave those things to someone who won't call you on it as a substitute for proper technical answer. You clearly demonstrate your lack of knowledge when you use these phrases.

The irony is breathtaking. It truly is.

Also, how about a technical answer to this:
>>>"But please show us where it demonstrates the audibility of a linear-phase lowpass with a transition band of roughly 2 kHz (that's what we find in modern devices), with a cutoff frequency above ~21 kHz."

>>>"And no honest person would answer a question what that audible difference is with: "I'm not going to tell you""
Do people have a different definition of honesty in Australia? I have been to your beautiful country and don't recall people speaking differently.

Can everyone see that? That reading comprehension problem? He again says I'm from Australia.
I've got old news (<- 0 credibility post) for you: I'm not from Australia. But hey, I've only referenced that post a trillion times.

It looks like I have to explain every word to you (quote from Wikipedia):

Quote

Intellectual honesty is an applied method of problem solving, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different ways, including but not limited to:

One's personal beliefs do not interfere with the pursuit of truth;
Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis;
Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another;
References, or earlier work, are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided.

Intentionally committed fallacies in debates and reasoning are sometimes called intellectual dishonesty.

"I am not going to tell you" is just that: a choice. Ton of data has been shared. Research report being discussed. Countless tests by me and others across wide range of test conditions. You have not accepted a single one. Mr. Xnor is righ, and the rest of the world include the experts who wrote the paper in question and others who reviewed it, wrong. Right. More demands for data is made. As if giving them more would make them more civil or interested in knowledge.

If you keep on doing this (and with this I mean all of this) then I will have to put you on ignore. You will be the first there, heck, you are a first for a lot of things on this forum, probably on the Internet.
I've explained to you why I'm skeptical towards your logs. I wanted to check if you truly can hear differences. You came up with excuses and made any possibility to remotely verify your abilities impossible. That's a prime example of intellectual dishonesty.

I ask you to repeat our listening tests. You know, double blind ABX tests. You refuse. Your refuse! If I were you I would go and change my alias and come back as a different person after this debacle. It is that embarrassing.

That you have extremely poor reading comprehension and reasoning abilities is embarrassing. I already explained this to you. Scroll back.
I am not going to play your backwards game where you either think you win or you think you win.

With straight face you walk around proud of this. Oh I am going to put it in my signature that I won't run any blind test to show whether I can or cannot tell the difference that others have reported beside Amir. Go ahead, I love to see my name in all of your posts. Someone will do a search and land on this thread .

Here's what you said:
>>>"But you refuse to [..] back your claims of inaudibility."
I neither claimed that filters are inaudible, nor does it logically make any sense to provide evidence for inaudibility. This kind of nonsense is what I'd expect to hear from a grade schooler, but not from a grown man.

This is the bottom of the basics. But you don't even seem to get those.

Yes, for the love of god, I hope that many people will find this thread. They won't believe this is real, until they hit page ~17+.

You talk big about science. But you have no idea what the AES organization is, or the provenance of papers published within. On page 1 it is declared to not be peer reviewed. I correct that. It is repeated again by Arny. I correct it one more time. And have to do it a third time at the end of this thread. Is it not clear that the vocal few here don't really read or understand audio literature?

Are you seriously telling me what I know and what I don't?
Where did I say the paper is not peer-reviewed? Do you even know what that means?

Quote from: xnor on 2014-11-24 02:09:00

Let me cut through this:

The conclusions are:

1. We don't all perceive non-linear distortions the same. This is proven beyond any doubt whatsoever. Anyone who wants to challenge this should show up passing the same tests. Therefor you cannot extrapolate your hearing as your belief as to what is or is not audible.

2. Our demand of a double blind ABX test is an empty bluf. Should the person pass it under all conditions we define, we can still call them a cheater and do away with the results. We refused to run them ourselves.

3. We now have award winning peer-reviewed paper showing that to better than 95% statistical confidence, filters have audible effects and so does dither/truncation. It is not 100% proof but it is heck of a lot better than anonymous members stomping their feet and singing "liar liar, pants on fire."

There. Live with these .

1. Where on earth do you see non-linear distortions? You don't even know what an LTI system is, but talk big about filters? What the..

2. No, I've already explained this to you. A log is only a starting point, not conclusive proof. Cheating, false positives are always a possibility. An intellectually honest person provides more than just a log, he/she will point out what was heard, where, with which system and setup readily. He/she will also will do everything to eliminate the chance of a false positive. (You on the other hand posted pages of noise to finally evade with an excuse. 0 credibility.)
Then the community will start trying to reproduce what was heard .... and so on and on. Already explained all this.
This is basic science stuff that is taught in middle school.

3. I also already told you that I take the paper for what it is, and there are still unknowns. Your stereotyping of me, which you even admitted, prevents you from actually understanding my position. You don't even care about any of this. All this is for you is a "war" (your own word), that you apparently need to win at all cost, which sadly seems to include your sanity.

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

Reply #552 – 2014-11-24 02:23:32

If you keep on doing this (and with this I mean all of this) then I will have to put you on ignore.

Why do you people say this? Isn't that an oxymoron? You want to ignore someone, ignore them. Why declare that you are ignoring them?

And why is it always said as a threat? I don't write my responses for you. This is a public forum not a private discussion. I have a point of view and you guys facilitate getting that out by the writing your posts. So unless you stop posting, then whatever else you are doing is of no consequence to me.

So please, by all means, don't wait for anything else. Put me on your ignore list. That should take the noise level of the thread down given how emotional your posts have been.

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

Reply #553 – 2014-11-24 02:33:50

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-24 02:23:32

Why do you people say this? Isn't that an oxymoron? You want to ignore someone, ignore them. Why declare that you are ignoring them?

And why is it always said as a threat? I don't write my responses for you. This is a public forum not a private discussion. I have a point of view and you guys facilitate getting that out by the writing your posts. So unless you stop posting, then whatever else you are doing is of no consequence to me.

So please, by all means, don't wait for anything else. Put me on your ignore list. That should take the noise level of the thread down given how emotional your posts have been.

I say this because you've reached a point that is far beyond my usual trolling threshold, but you continue. And by the post of the day it seems to get worse, which I never even deemed possible from any non-troll.
No, it is not an oxymoron. In the next paragraph you say yourself it is a public forum. Now think... think hard...
No, I haven't said that you're on my ignore list now. Learn to read.

I know that whatever I write has no consequences in your brain. After several pages of literally painful responses that much is clear to me, and should be to anyone really.

So you actually want me to put you on ignore? Jeez... it just got worse.

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

Reply #554 – 2014-11-24 03:09:18

Quote from: xnor on 2014-11-24 02:33:50

So you actually want me to put you on ignore? Jeez... it just got worse.

Seems that I can't win. You say you will put me on ignore list and I say do it now there is another protest on that. So don't! I don't know what to tell you.

P.S. My deepest apologies to you for mistaking you from Australia rather than Austria. I have temporary bi-focal glasses on a very high DPI display and just didn't notice the difference. My favorite engineering blogger Dave Jones is from Australia and routinely chastises people for confusing the two countries and here I am walking right into that. Again I am sorry. It was not intentional.

Speaking of Dave Jones and to bring some levity, here he is on "Audiophile Audiophoolery"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ERMu825m4

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

Reply #555 – 2014-11-24 03:13:41

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-24 01:59:53

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-24 00:58:30
I have never, ever heard anyone utter those phrases in real life or technical conferences.

Quote from: ajinfla on 2014-11-24 01:29:54
Of course not, those are taught in Logic classes.

Your English is failing you Ammar. I said I have never seen anyone use these phrases at a technical conference.

Honesty, basic reading comprehension and logic are not your bag Amir.

Can we get back to the topic of the BS paper, or is that one of your "worries" too now?
Perhaps contact BS to ask why so much obfuscation where even Amir was confused by the level of passage playback, speaker distance, etc? Or why no data for any system, speaker, switching software, etc are shown?
Any chance the BS paper follow up might include the 2L Hi Rez track vs an actual, 16/44 TPDF downsampled customer version?

cheers,

AJ

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

Reply #556 – 2014-11-24 03:42:43

Quote from: ajinfla on 2014-11-24 01:29:54

You should start a separate thread on your new methods for passing unsupervised ABX tests on Windows computers.

Per our kind moderator, this is a combo thread for both: http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php...st&p=880887

Hey krab, since no one can seem to keep the two topics separate, what do you think of my merging your two discussions into one enormous train wreck?

In the meantime, this discussion will now close.

Anyone who wishes to discuss the topic defined by the original post, send me a PM and I will re-open it.

I am OK if you want to petition him to re-open that thread and we continue the discussions there. For now, if you don't mind I leave you be the one arguing with his decision .

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

Reply #557 – 2014-11-24 10:21:21

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-21 23:11:19

Quote from: Kees de Visser on 2014-11-21 21:32:24
Besides the satisfaction of "having the studio quality", what would be the point of buying higher formats ?

If it is higher than how the music was recorded/produced, then I have no use for it. If higher is what is recorded and mixed, then I like to get my hands no those bits as I don't trust anyone to do the right things in the chain to bring it down to something lower.

(snipped list of higher prices for higher resolution)

Assuming you really want to listen to a particular recording of some music:
If someone records at 1MHz and charges you $100 per track, will you pay to get your hands on this?
If someone records at 10MHz and charges you $1000 per track, will you pay to get your hands on this?
If someone records at 1GHz and charges you $1,000,000 per track, will you pay to get your hands on this?

I'm just wondering what your limit is.

Your entire argument is that you have no limit ("If higher is what is recorded and mixed, then I like to get my hands on those bits"). You keep implying folks here are unreasonable for setting a limit.

For this discussion to make sense, I need to know whether you really mean what you say, or whether you do have a limit, but it's different from ours.

Cheers,
David.

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

Reply #558 – 2014-11-24 10:37:25

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-21 23:24:20

Can you answer the psychology of this?

You know the psychology. We see folks pushing barely audible / inaudible improvements to the detriment of easily audible improvements. It impacts negatively on the equipment and recordings that are available. Why wouldn't people who care about audio be annoyed about this?

Also, I think you're taking the flack for all the wild and unsubstantiated claims for hi-res that are thrown around in other places, even though the main argument you've pushed here is merely "why not"?

Cheers,
David.

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

Reply #559 – 2014-11-24 11:59:11

Quote from: MLXXX on 2014-11-23 19:53:28

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-23 17:49:39
Since you won't listen to my pleading to put aside your emotions and act objectively, please allow me to deal with this differently since this is what is dominating the discussion now:

Does the larger membership and forum moderators think this is what the discussion should be? That we ask for ABX DBT results as the forum TOS #8 requires but the moment it is present, we call the person a cheater? Is this how you like to be known?

I am only an infrequent contributor to this forum, and lack familiarity with personalities behind a number of the member names, but I have found the level of vitriol in this thread unusually high.

My reaction to an unexpectedly good ABX result would be firstly to query the equipment and the experimental technique. And then if reasonably feasible, attempt to replicate the test result with help from those who claim to have heard a difference (see below).

I agree. You'd normally start with an analysis of the laptop's output with these files and test files (with and without the headphones connected), and then an analysis of the performance of the headphones themselves. Not everyone has the equipment to do the first test, and few have the capabilities to do the second.

You'd normally leave the vitriol for rec.audio.high-end or where ever it is people like to converse in this way.

It wouldn't surprise me that much to find a laptop+headphones where hi-res sounded different from CD. I would want to analyse and understand what was happening before concluding that the best response to this discovery was to buy music in hi-res. That might be the right conclusion, but it might not be.

Cheers,
David.

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

Reply #560 – 2014-11-24 12:15:11

You know the psychology. We see folks pushing barely audible / inaudible improvements to the detriment of easily audible improvements. It impacts negatively on the equipment and recordings that are available. Why wouldn't people who care about audio be annoyed about this?

I wholeheartedly agree. Anyone who listens to a stereo recording and/or a modern pop/rock/.. song or even just gets blown out of the seat by a commercial break, wouldn't even dream of putting a 21+ kHz lowpass filter on a list of things to improve the audio.

Also, I think you're taking the flack for all the wild and unsubstantiated claims for hi-res that are thrown around in other places,

You'd probably include me here, but I have to disagree. He's getting flak because he's in a "war" that he has to win at all cost. Assuming that ones self-made enemies will blindly accept logs that are thrown around, not really question or object to anything that is said, glossing over fallacies ... is a huge mistake that backfired. It may work when you're a senior that can talk down on people, but not in a public forum, where you're not more equal than others.

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-23 00:51:24

even though the main argument you've pushed here is merely "why not"?

With qualifiers, and this really needs to be stressed, I am not even inclined to disagree.
There are still massive problems with that if I think of the prices of >44.1/16 tracks (some would say it's a scam), the misrepresentation of scientific findings and science in general to fit the agenda of people selling equipment (which they will tell you that you have to have as an audiophile) ...

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

Reply #561 – 2014-11-24 12:23:07

Ah, so the premium cost of CD over MP3 is justified. But past that, it is a sin.

The rules we invent. It is like saying you can go from 3 to 4 bedroom house. But oh, more than that? It is a sin.

I use lossless for several reasons:
1. So I can encode my music into whatever lossy format I need in the future without introducing transcoding artefacts
2. So I can check the files on my HDD against AccurateRip at any point
3. So I can play my music through a surround sound system without revealing artefacts that were inaudible in stereo

These are real demonstrable benefits. It's not just about getting that warm fuzzy feeling from inaudible perfection.

I'm quite pragmatic though. Where some decent master is only available to me in lossy, whereas what's available as a lossless version is audibly inferior, I'll take the lossy version.

I think some other justifications for lossless do have a correlation with your argument, e.g.
"I want a perfect copy of what's on the CD even if I can't hear the benefit" / "I want a perfect copy of the master even if I can't hear the benefit"
"I want to do my own lossy coding because someone else might mess it up" / "I want to do my own downsampling because someone else might mess it up"

You would argue it's just a question of degree. I would suggest the evidence that lossy audio coding introduces audible problems is strong enough to make it a scientific fact. I would suggest the evidence that downsampling audio to CD quality introduces audible problems is nowhere near as strong. It may be right, or wrong.

Cheers,
David.

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

Reply #562 – 2014-11-24 14:08:17

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-24 10:21:21

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-21 23:11:19
Quote from: Kees de Visser on 2014-11-21 21:32:24
Besides the satisfaction of "having the studio quality", what would be the point of buying higher formats ?

If it is higher than how the music was recorded/produced, then I have no use for it. If higher is what is recorded and mixed, then I like to get my hands no those bits as I don't trust anyone to do the right things in the chain to bring it down to something lower.

(snipped list of higher prices for higher resolution)

Assuming you really want to listen to a particular recording of some music:
If someone records at 1MHz and charges you $100 per track, will you pay to get your hands on this?
If someone records at 10MHz and charges you $1000 per track, will you pay to get your hands on this?
If someone records at 1GHz and charges you $1,000,000 per track, will you pay to get your hands on this?

I'm just wondering what your limit is.

Your entire argument is that you have no limit ("If higher is what is recorded and mixed, then I like to get my hands on those bits"). You keep implying folks here are unreasonable for setting a limit.

I have no limit and yes, people here are illogical to have one. There is some confusion in what you are assuming about me though. So let me tell you another story .

I am working for Sony and my boss and I are practically living on airplanes going on 10 hour flights to and from Tokyo from SF Bay Area. This is early 1990s without all the technology we have to entertain ourselves (you should have seen me with my portable CD player and stack of CDs). On one of the flights, United gives us this survey to fill out about our interest in supersonic jets that would cut the time to 3 hours or some such thing. I start to fill it out and I get to your type of question: would pay 2X, 3X, 10X or something like that. Before I had a chance to think about it, my boss says, "check the 10X." I say but I don't think I will want to pay that much just to save 6 hours. He said the smartest thing: "let's motivate them to build it; once there we can decide if it is worth it or not. If they don't build it, we will never have a choice!" From now on I always check the most expensive box in such surveys .

So back to your question, I don't care what the retail price is. I want to encourage a stream of releases that are before the final mastering of the CD where both the 16/44.1 conversion and loudness compression occur. Yes, not all of them are free of the latter but more and more they are.

Answering your question then, my motivation ha nothing to do with the sampling rate. I don't care if the pre-CD master is 48 Khz. I take the better sounding one! Take Adele Live at Albert Hall. I think the Blu-ray version is only 48 Khz sampling but it is world's better than the CD. The latter has surely put through the grinder as it is not listenable compared to the Blu-ray version. This is what getting the upstream bits enables: a shot a better mastering. And a good shot at that.

When I bought the album in question, the L2 Nordic Sampler, I opted for 96 Khz. There was 192 at higher price still but it didn't matter to me. I was happy to see that supersonic version but chose one notch lower. In this case I knew there was no loudness compression applied to the 96 Khz so I opted for that. But you know what? I regret not getting the 192 Khz now just for the extra $4. I might go back and get that one just to compare even though it would set me back another $28 (really crappy of them to re-charge you the full amount for another sampling).

Quote

For this discussion to make sense, I need to know whether you really mean what you say, or whether you do have a limit, but it's different from ours.

Let me address the "ours" part. I am going to make an assumption that neither one of us has any interest in half a million dollar supercar. Personally even if I had the money, I wouldn't buy it. I have no use for it in any form or fashion. I am assuming there are many people like me. Should we start a campaign to outlaw development and sales of these cars? Yes I know, you are going to say it goes faster so there is real value. But put that aside for a moment as I just said, knowing that I have no interest in half a million dollar in a car. You are in the same boat with me. Should we go and get them to not be legal to sell?

That is what you are saying in your post. That how much something is priced for a different audience should be cause for us to get together here, and call each other names if someone disagrees.

I founded a company called Madrona Digital. Our "poor" customers have net worths many multiples of me. And the higher ones can afford to buy small countries . No, we don't sell them any high-end audio gear. That is a stupid business for anyone to try to get into (AJ will figure this out one day). But we will install automated lighting and shades that combined would cost $200,000! I don't wake up in the morning having any negative feelings about that or the fact that high-end lighting systems exist. In my own house the lighting system cost about $25,000. Someone with a $2 light switch just blew a gasket . I used to feel the same way but then I started to think of all the ways it would make our life more enjoyable and put it in. Just this week my wife and I decided that if someone rings the doorbell on the Intercom, it would be nice to have the front lights come on for 10 minutes but only if it is after dark. 20 minutes later that is how it worked.

Is the above of value to mass majority of people? No. Just like a 4 bedroom apartment.

Where I think the vocal few go wrong is that they pick battles when no one is asking them. If someone tries to convince me to buy a supercar, the will get strong, strong arguments. I want a large comfortable car because I haul a ton of stuff and drive far distances. It is fast enough for me and handles well enough. Everything about a supercar would be a step back for me at higher cost. So you are going to hear these arguments. But folks getting together in another forum trying to decide which supercar to buy? More power to them. They are not trying to convince me to buy so why business or logic do I have for shedding a tear.

This is what is wrong with the argument you are making. What business of ours is there to set a limit on price or specs? I don't buy LPs but people make them and folks buy them. Good for them all. It creates jobs and improves the economy . Ask me to buy an LP and I tell you that the convenience of digital is so important to me that I don't even want to hear it.

I am writing this long post because this is the ultimate problem and the cause of all of these written battles. People think they have some duty to fight these battles. They even fight the battle when no one is here to represent the other side! The only person we have who is promoting "snake oil" is AJ with his $2,300 cables. I have said no such thing.

If I ask them why they say they want to save some individual from wasting their money. Fine. But at what cost are you doing that? Xnor is determined to get there at the expense of looking totally unprofessional and going after someone who is interested in discussing the topic using double blind tests and science/research of audio. That would be like two republican leaders tearing each other up with the goal of signing up more democrats!

Here is the reality of it: the above is not the reason Krab, Any, AJ, mzil, xnor, etc. post what they post. Nope. We gather in these forums because it feels good to be known as an authority. Many people pick what I call "good enough" as their platform. It seems safe. We can immediately wear the cloth of "science" and say nothing is better than another, listening test says this and that, some textbook that we have read says something else and we are golden. We become the hallway monitor in school. Walk around the forum and stomp on any kid we can find.

Losing that power is a big deal. This is why xnor posts and posts. And before him Krab, Arny, AJ, mzil, etc. Mzil for pete's sake used to sell audio gear. The very same gear he is here to say should be illegal to buy! Give me a break.

I am not here to join a crowd for that reason. And certainly won't join the camp and be requested to paper over faults in our arguments. I want 100% transparency. Let me repeat: I want 100% transparency. If there is something wrong with our argument, we better offer it before the other camp does. We raved and raved about Meyer and Moran proving that there is no value to high resolution audio. All the while we heard the arguments that said, "wait a second, these guys didn't know which end was up; they didn't even test to see if their content was high resolution!" No, carried their report under our arm and used it as our bible to stomp on the other camp.

Well, that era is over. Far more careful test has been run which is the topic of this thread. And what do you know? It has a different outcome! What to do now? What? Oh, let's attack the messenger. Let's say that Amir is a cheater and see if we can create some smoke. Let's keep saying that an authority like James Johnston, my former audio architect and AES Fellow, would never agree with any of this. Well, this is another page from his presentation:

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

Reply #563 – 2014-11-24 14:19:07

amir, would you be so kind to just take a quick (it's only 4 seconds) listen to imp_urhp.wav with your laptop at a similar volume level you made all those other ABX logs with and tell us if you hear something?

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

Reply #564 – 2014-11-24 14:59:32

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-24 12:23:07

These are real demonstrable benefits. It's not just about getting that warm fuzzy feeling from inaudible perfection.

As is the case with getting the high resolution master prior to loudness compression and remastering for CD/MP3/AAC release. We need no double blind test, no signal processing lessons, nothing. I like to have the option to buy the original before a photocopy was made.

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

Reply #565 – 2014-11-24 14:59:58

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-23 17:49:39

Since you won't listen to my pleading to put aside your emotions and act objectively, please allow me to deal with this differently since this is what is dominating the discussion now:

Since logical reasons for so-called high resolution audio seem to be lacking, strong advocates of it must be ruled by their emotions and not acting objectively.

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

Reply #566 – 2014-11-24 15:01:08

And who is doing that?

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

Reply #567 – 2014-11-24 15:07:17

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-24 14:59:32

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-24 12:23:07
These are real demonstrable benefits. It's not just about getting that warm fuzzy feeling from inaudible perfection.

As is the case with getting the high resolution master prior to loudness compression and remastering for CD/MP3/AAC release. We need no double blind test, no signal processing lessons, nothing.

The original is the tracks prior to mix down, and this is almost never for sale.

If you have the tracks prior to mix down, it takes serious work to obtain something that most people want to listen to.

Quote

I like to have the option to buy the original before a photocopy was made.

Of all the things that happen to the original tracks during production we know for sure that any downsampling to 44/16 is surely the most subtle and comparing it to photocopying is a complete and total distortion of the truth.

Most naive audiophiles have been sold the lie that their recordings would sound significantly more lifelike if they were in a high resolution format, and we now know that is for sure a lie out of the pit of hell.

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

Reply #568 – 2014-11-24 15:19:45

Quote from: xnor on 2014-11-17 18:32:43

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-21 23:24:20
Can you answer the psychology of this?
You know the psychology. We see folks pushing barely audible / inaudible improvements to the detriment of easily audible improvements. It impacts negatively on the equipment and recordings that are available. Why wouldn't people who care about audio be annoyed about this?

They can be annoyed all they want. But they have no business taking it out me.

I know all the arguments. And I know which ones are right, which ones we have made up to win a battle.

The moment anyone, ever, puts forward Meyer and Moran as a proper test, we need to boot them out of the objectivity camp. And certainly out of the camp of knowing anything about proper listening tests.

The moment anyone starts to make technical arguments when they have no professional or educational background in audio against someone who does, we need to boot them out of the objectivity camp. Lest we want to endorse that by reading forum posts, you wind up more knowledgeable than your doctor about medical field.

The moment anyone gets personal and makes comments like this in a technical thread:

Is amir deliberately obtuse? Is he trolling? Or is that just the way he is?

We need to boot them out of objectivity camp. Lest we want to look like a bunch of immature 16 year old games on a forum arguing about which is better: xbox of Playstation.

The moment anyone uses debating phrases like "appeal to authority" when a research paper is referenced and the author's qualifications are put forward, we need to boot them out of the objectivity camp. Lest we want to be seen as totally confused about how these discussions work in real life.

The moment someone is more interested in arguing than lifting a finger to run some tests, or buying a paper and reading it prior to arguing it is wrong, we need to boot them out of the objectivity camp. Lest we want to endorse that running with tag lines and repeating what others say is something constructive.

The moment someone questions the integrity of someone as a way to dismiss their hard work in producing data for the discussion, we need to boot them out of the objectivity camp. Lest we want this discussion to go right down the gutter and be ignorant of what FUD is.

This is what separates us. I won't do or endorse such things.

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Also, I think you're taking the flack for all the wild and unsubstantiated claims for hi-res that are thrown around in other places, even though the main argument you've pushed here is merely "why not"?

It is even stronger than that. It says that anyone arguing against high-res is wasting their breath and forum bandwidth. This movement unlike the past ones is not at all governed by these arguments. This is not 2007. This is not a format battle that has cost to bring a new physical format to the market.

For me personally, yes, I like to have the option available to me. I foresea a future where CD format will decline. Before that happens, I like to see a solid market for digital downloads at > 256 kbps MP3/AAC. My entire career has been built on understanding both the business and technical aspects together. And I am telling you, one day we will wake up and all we can find is lossy compressed stuff with clear step down in quality to say nothing of loudness compression. I run into this situation multiple times a month now.

So join me in dialing down the rhetoric. No one or animal is being harmed here. Let's be truly objective and see the benefit here.

My time is nearly up here. I hope everyone thinks through these things and become at least as professional as you David. It would be a huge step forward even if we don't fully agree.

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

Reply #569 – 2014-11-24 15:34:19

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2014-11-24 15:07:17

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-24 14:59:32
Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-24 12:23:07
These are real demonstrable benefits. It's not just about getting that warm fuzzy feeling from inaudible perfection.

As is the case with getting the high resolution master prior to loudness compression and remastering for CD/MP3/AAC release. We need no double blind test, no signal processing lessons, nothing.

The original is the tracks prior to mix down, and this is almost never for sale.

No, the step before CD mastering is the stereo mix at the recorded/mixed bit rate and sampling rate which is almost always higher than the CD. They don't jump from the multitrack recording directly to an MP3.

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I like to have the option to buy the original before a photocopy was made.

Of all the things that happen to the original tracks during production we know for sure that any downsampling to 44/16 is surely the most subtle and comparing it to photocopying is a complete and total distortion of the truth.

Why? A photocopy can be excellent or crappy. The copy may have saturated colors or be true to the original. The former would be like loudness compression in music.

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Most naive audiophiles have been sold the lie that their recordings would sound significantly more lifelike if they were in a high resolution format, and we now know that is for sure a lie out of the pit of hell.

What is a lie is saying that about "most" audiophiles with no data to back it. Or imply that audiophiles are naive. Go to a forum like our WBF and you see the reality is not remotely like that. Here is a random example on "bogus" high-res downloads: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.p...i-res-downloads

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For a while it seemed that there was a fuss about upsampled 16/44.1 files sold as "hi-res", either in SACD's or 24/96 PCM (or even 24/192) and HDTracks responded by more carefully vetting the albums they sold. Now more recently the trend has reversed and there are a lot of "new" titles coming out. Acoustic Sounds has Stevie Wonder "Hotter Than July" and "In Square Circle", both known to be (and obviously) from 16/44.1 masters, MFSL has SACD's of Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" and Los Lobos "Kiko" (likewise), HDTracks is selling The Allman Brothers "Complete Fillmore East Concerts" as a 24/192 download even though it was a 24/96 transfer from the analog masters (identified as such at prostudiomasters.com even though they also sell a 24/192 version, and there is even a low-pass filter used at about 29 kHz), the Jerry Garcia store sells a 24/176.4 album made from a 16/48 DAT master, and the list goes on.

These people are not stupid Arny. And certainly not the stereotype you paint them to be. You just need to go to the right forum where proper discussion happens instead of immediate war because someone dared to talk about high-res files. There, you see real knowledge at levels that you and I don't possess. Did you know the stuff he is sharing above down to where the master came from? I didn't.

You ask and get educated on the proper stereo masters and then you can make an economical choice as to buy or not buy. Can't do it here because DBT is demanded and if provided, you are accused of cheating if the outcome is positive. So step out of this cocoon and you see that the reality is not what you imagine, or more likely, say to make an argument.

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

Reply #570 – 2014-11-24 15:37:23

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-24 14:08:17

Let's keep saying that an authority like James Johnston, my former audio architect and AES Fellow, would never agree with any of this.

Quote from: Woodinville on 2012-08-14 00:07:23

Let's start: "how do you even imagine that one can hear a difference between two systems, one with noise 98 dB down and the other 146dB down, when the level is set to peak at 96dB?"

How do you (Amir) explain how "obviously difference" fails to show up in even the worst kind of ABX test? (unless it is the unsupervised, Windows pc, online cheatable variety, which are worthless and unrelated to the anti-ABX BS paper)

I have yet to see a whit of evidence that "high-rez" matters for final presentation to a listener. Have you any, bearing in mind that citing non-blind-testing proves nothing but the incompetence, the complete and total incompetence, of the person citing it as evidence.

Bear in mind the hard evidence for the persistance of loudness memory while you're at it.

08-01-2014, 10:07 PMjj_0001 avsforum
I have my doubts that SACD or DVDA are much, if any, of an improvement, but the test is just blisteringly hard to run, and more likely to respond to artifacts, either positively or negatively, than it is to actual differences. Time alignment, level alignment, frequency response in-band can all throw it positive, lack of training, bad test environment, bad time alignment, etc, can also cause false negatives. Subject verification, likewise, is an important issue.

So, I remain undecided, but I note that I own a lot of CD's and not a single SACD or DVDA, except for some people have sent me.

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

Reply #571 – 2014-11-24 15:50:15

Quit posting Ammar and addressing me. Once I saw you going to shows and demonstrating your gear with snake oil stuff like modded players, I wrote you off as having any opinion worth discussing. All it took for you to change your colors was the opportunity to make a buck.

Anyone who really believed in what you say would have proudly gone to the show, use a PC, AVR and garden variety cable. But no, Mr. Ammar Jadusingh goes there and sells us all with $2,300 speaker cables, modded players and expensive amplification. No principals. No ethics. "Do as I say and not what I do."

I write articles like this on speaker wire: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.p...is-not-12-Gauge! You go to shows and put in "flat" speaker cables. I bet that added air to the music, removed the harsh digital edges, etc.

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

Reply #572 – 2014-11-24 16:03:07

Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-24 15:19:45

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2014-11-24 10:37:25
Quote from: amirm on 2014-11-21 23:24:20
Can you answer the psychology of this?
You know the psychology. We see folks pushing barely audible / inaudible improvements to the detriment of easily audible improvements. It impacts negatively on the equipment and recordings that are available. Why wouldn't people who care about audio be annoyed about this?

They can be annoyed all they want. But they have no business taking it out me.

I think that it is well known what people take out on you Amir.

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I know all the arguments.

You fooled me.

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And I know which ones are right, which ones we have made up to win a battle.

You fooled me.

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]The moment anyone, ever, puts forward Meyer and Moran as a proper test, we need to boot them out of the objectivity camp.

Nope. I'll take what that to mean that you want to boot them out of the Amir camp, and of course that is your right.

However, the Amir camp is not the objectivity camp.

I've explained to you what M&M is and what it is not. You have not learned a thing!

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And certainly out of the camp of knowing anything about proper listening tests.

Given that how you've apparently swallowed the recent Meridian work, hook line and sinker...

Given the kind of crap that we've found you bragging about on AVS...

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The moment anyone starts to make technical arguments when they have no professional or educational background in audio against someone who does, we need to boot them out of the objectivity camp.

If memory serves Brad Meyer studied Engineering at a well known Ivy League school, I think Harvard.

Given the monumental gross errors of yours that I corrected almost daily over at AVS, who are you Amir?

L

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

Reply #573 – 2014-11-24 16:27:45

I write articles like this on speaker wire: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.p...is-not-12-Gauge!

I was a bit surprised at how easily you dismissed the possibility that the story of the coat hanger speaker wire was in fact correct. Taking your own data, two coat hangers would have a resistance of 38.8 milliohms, which into a 4 ohm load results in 0.08 dB of loss in the coat hangers. Even you would have to admit that this would not be audible.

I was also surprised that you do not seem to know the proper way to do a four wire resistance measurement, as indicated by your taking measures to clamp down hard on the ends of the wire to make good contact, as well as zeroing out probe resistance. In a proper four wire measurement none of this is necessary, but it would take a few seconds longer to attach four wires to the cable instead of two.

All in all I am not surprised that you found what seems to be a large variation in cable resistance, given how suspect you measurement technique was.

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

Reply #574 – 2014-11-24 16:31:01

Quit posting Ammar and addressing me.

Nope. You could try putting me on ignore, but you know that doesn't work for me.
Generally speaking of course, ignoring arrogant, elitist, condescending, "Hi end" audiophile bullies doesn't work in real life....or cyberspace.

But no, Mr. Ammar Jadusingh goes there and sells us all with $2,300 speaker cables, modded players and expensive amplification.

Nope, still sell only speakers, ranging from $1800-$8500/pr. The accoutrements are not for "us all", just folks who "worry" about things like that. Know any?
Makes no sense to exhibit my speakers to you Amir, if you're going to be stressed an "worried". If it would ease your mind further, I could use some of the $50,000 (2012 pricing) ML amps you peddle[/i].

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In comparison testing I have done, switching amplifiers using the classic class D configuration always sport incredible low frequency control and power. They beat out linear class AB amplifiers almost regardless of price. What they give up though is high frequency fidelity which I find somewhat harsh. The distortion is highly non-linear and challenging to spot but it is there. The Mark Levinson No 53 is the first switching amplifier I have heard which does not have this compromise. Its bass is amazingly authoritative: tight and powerful. Yet the rest of the response is absolutely neutral and pleasant.

If you have not heard these unique amplifiers, I highly encourage you to come into our showroom for a listen. We have a pair on hand driving our Revel speakers. I am confident that they will improve the sound of your current speakers given the ease with which they can drive any load regardless of how difficult they might be (and many high-end speakers are difficult to drive). We are happy to let you evaluate them with your own system to see the benefits of this technology. Hearing this amplifier was an eye-opener for me. I think it will be for you too.

My, my, that sounds mighty subjectivist..ish...despite you being in "our" camp...per self analysis.