[KeithPhantom]

I have already answered everything.

You only addressed one of my points. What about the other questions?

 

[bigshot]

PS Audio is full of crap. It's all woo woo snake oil sales pitch. If that's your source, you shouldn't even be in Sound Science. Inaudible is inaudible. If he wants to claim that he can hear things that a century of science has proven can't be heard, he should submit himself to a fair test. If he ducks it and turns around and tries to sell people something based on that bologna, then I get to call him on it. That guy is full of it. And there's a word for people who continue to listen to him after the facts have been explained to them. But I'll get in trouble if I say it. See if you can guess what the word is. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think.

 

[KeithPhantom]

I don't know why people care so much of stuff that is in inaudible territory, stuff that's even below than the background noise of their place. Also, some think their ears are more sensitive than a microphone or an Audio Precision analyzer and think audio has a magical property that hasn't been discovered. Audio has pretty much been figured out, the equipment we have nowadays is capable of exceeding any human spec and the tools we use to design and measure them too.

 

[bigshot]

The reason that snake oil salesmen like Paul keep pointing at things outside the range of human hearing is because that is the easiest place to plant expectation bias. If you can actually hear something, you can hear it. That might conflict with what he is telling you you should expect it to sound like. But if he points at gamma rays or sunspots or plasma fields or supersonic frequencies with gigantic numbers representing them, the sucker has no frame of reference about what any of that sounds like, and there is no actual sound there to break the spell. That leaves the field wide open for bias to paint rosy, candy colored paintings all over the empty aether. If you want to sell something to someone that isn't really what you're telling them it is, you'll have a lot less blowback if you sell them something that they can't touch, hear, feel or see. Woo woo voodoo magic is the best place to plant the seeds of expectation bias. It's the manure where delusions grow and blossom. Suckers aren't interested in optimizing the sound they can actually hear. They are interested in pursuing magical thinking because it makes them feel like they know more than "experts". Classic Dunning Kruger.

 

[miksu8]

1. Processing virtually always occurs at 32bit or 64bit, regardless of whether the source files are 16bit or 24bit. So, the artefacts are at exactly the same level regardless of a 16bit or 24bit source!

2. Sure, but of course that's the freq response of your HPs (or speakers + room), the freq response of your ears and your personal preferences, which has nothing to do with the source file's bit depth!

3. Firstly, there is no mechanism/process which could cause that effect and Secondly, it is easily verified (with a null test for example) that the "sound to your ears" is identical with 16bit or 24bit. The only difference is ultrasonic content (above about 22kHz) and very low level dither noise, BOTH of which are inaudible (to your or anyone else's ears) at reasonable listening levels! The only rational explanation is therefore that you are "hearing" some difference that occurs AFTER the "sound to your ears", EG. Some bias in your perception.
3a. There are two conditions under which it can be possible to ABX a difference between 24/192 and 16/44:
A. Using a 24/192 recording with significant frequency content at 22kHz or higher that is causing IMD in your amp or speakers (within the audible spectrum) and comparing it with a 16/44 conversion, that obviously can't have any content above 22kHz and is therefore not causing any audible IMD. And ...
B. Using a very low level, non noise-shaped (TPDF) dithered test signal (or finding a very low level segment in a music recording) and amplifying it massively, so that the dither is audible.
In case "A", although one could discern an audible difference, the result is actually backwards. The 24/192 version is reproduced with unwanted distortion, effectively at a LOWER fidelity than the 16/44 conversion! In case "B" we have created an artificial scenario that CANNOT exist when we're listening to music recordings, in practice it would massively overload a system, blow your drivers and/or ear drums, as explained in the OP. Furthermore, the difference with this artificial scenario is the audibility of TPDF dither noise, NOT a "much less harsh presentation".
If you really can "ABX a difference in these rates" at reasonable levels, then you MUST provide the evidence, because you are contradicting a significant body of established scientific evidence!



Rob Watts does apparently "know something about this". Unfortunately though he misrepresents/lies about it!! From your linked post:



1. Obviously that's nonsense. If -6dB is the max for DSD, then how can a noise problem (or anything else) occur beyond the max? If -6dB really were the max, every SACD would be unlistenable because the very highest peaks could only be 6dB above the noise floor and the majority of the recording would be below the noise floor! The actual noise floor (in the audible spectrum) of SACD is NOT -6dB, it's about -120dB, which is easily verifiable.

2. If the last one wasn't bad enough, this assertion is way beyond nonsense, it's utterly ridiculous! Consider that the theoretical limit of 24bit is -144dB but it's only in theory, in practice we can't achieve anywhere near that level because if 0dB is say the sound level of a truck driving past from about 10ft away, then -144dB would roughly be the sound level produced by two hydrogen atoms colliding! Of course, the sound of two hydrogen atoms colliding is way, way below the ability of speakers/drivers to reproduce and of the human ear drum to detect. So, talking about a real world signal at -144dB is very silly indeed BUT here's Rob Watts talking about a "-301 dB signal", which is roughly 100 million times lower than -144dB! So what's 100 million times more than "very silly indeed"?? The best I can come up with is "utterly ridiculous beyond imagination" which apparently, in Rob Watts marketing BS language, translates to "essential for the perception of sound stage"! It makes Monty Python seem entirely reasonable ... you've got to laugh!!!

3. And neither does an "off the shelf" $2 DAC chip with a standard linear phase filter!
3a. True but obviously you don't need more speed than a stock DAC chip.
3b. That's interesting, many/most pro audio ADC/DACs use 6 bit resolution at similarly high sample rates, I wonder why Rob Watts "cheaps out" with only 5 bits?
3c. Nonsense, of course you can dither a DSD system, if you couldn't all SACDs would be swamped with noise and un-listenable. It's true that you can't dither a 1bit DSD system adequately enough to linearise all quantisation distortion but you can reduce it to below audibility.

Sorry, but it's one of the oldest audiophile marketing tricks in the book: Take some issues that are inaudible, purely theoretical or miniscule to the point of laughable, FALSELY describe them as "massive and unique problems", explain how your new/super-duper DAC solves them and is therefore "massively" better than other DACs and worth it's MASSIVELY over-inflated price!!!

G

I agree that there is some advertisement jargon in Rob's posts. About dithering - how is it possible to dither 1 bit DSD? Is it somehow converted to more bits so that dithering becomes possible?

 

[gregorio]

[1] About dithering - how is it possible to dither 1 bit DSD?
[2] Is it somehow converted to more bits so that dithering becomes possible?

1. Dithering is a probability function applied to a batch of samples, noise-shaped dithering in the case of 1bit DSD. So it can be applied at any arbitrary amount/level. Typically you'd need 1 - 2bits of dither to fully linearise all quantisation error, which obviously isn't possible if you've only got 1 bit to start with. So, with 1-bit DSD, it's applied at a level significantly less than 1bit (the equivalent of around 0.17 bits rings a bell but I could be mistaken), which therefore does NOT fully linearise all quantisation error. In other words, it is NOT possible to properly dither 1 bit DSD, there will still be some quantisation error distortion. In controlled tests though, this distortion is not audible.

2. This is what nearly all DACs do, they're multi-bit (typically about 6bit) delta/sigma converters. However, you can't convert 1bit to multi-bit, apply dither and then convert back to 1 bit DSD, because the conversion back to 1 bit would obviously introduce 1 bit quantisation error again and we'd be back where we statred.

If you're interested in the details, I'd recommend Lipshitz & Vanderkooy, who've published several papers on the subject of dithering 1-bit DSD. Also, Gerzon & Craven, who published the mathematical proof/rules of noise-shaping at the end of the 1980's.

G

 

[GearMe]

I have already answered everything...

So here's the challenge you face...

This forum will often throw the 'prove-it', 'show me the data', etc. argument at anyone voicing an opinion that is considered different than the accepted views held in the Sound Science forum. Fair enough...the forum's title surely indicates the group's focus here.
(FWIW, I tend towards a Sound Science 'mindset' for amps/dacs/codecs/etc given a background in engineering/business/data analytics,)

Additionally, you will make absolutely no headway with this forum if you talk about 'inaudible' frequencies having an impact on your listening experience...unless you have the data from a properly executed test...subjected to peer review (i.e. AES, etc.). Or, if it's your data from a test you've run, prepare to have your methodologies heavily scrutinized. And...if they don't meet the group's standards, then either back to the drawing board for you or 'thanks for playing' which could be frustrating to a newcomer.

So, given this rinse/repeat scenario, I've often found myself wondering what the benefit/purpose of this small group really is for the Head-Fi community.

Is it for helping people along the journey of gaining a better understanding of the Science behind the Sounds we hear through our systems?

Which...would be a noble effort requiring high levels of patience, positivity and mentoring skills from the group!
Like this

Thanks @jlawler for participating. You have my respect for actually taking the time and effort to do the test and post the results.

Of course, that would be awesome! The end result of this approach would, most likely, be an overall increase in the knowledge-base of Head-Fi and also the size of this group as its reputation for being helpful SMEs spread throughout the rest of Head-Fi.

Or is it something entirely different?
Only you can judge how this interchange is/has been beneficial to you. If you find the dialogue helpful...that's great. If not...don't expect much to change -- the 'data' says otherwise.

 

[Davesrose]

I agree that there is some advertisement jargon in Rob's posts. About dithering - how is it possible to dither 1 bit DSD? Is it somehow converted to more bits so that dithering becomes possible?

Noise shaping and 1-bit converters

"Most A/D converters made since 2000 use multi-bit or multi-level delta sigma modulators that yield more than 1 bit output so that proper dither can be added in the feedback loop."

 

[bigshot]

Is it for helping people along the journey of gaining a better understanding of the Science behind the Sounds we hear through our systems?

The problem is not with the group. It's with individuals who come here with the express purpose of trolling us. Look at the patterns... The trolls generally arrive in pairs. They draw in people to spend a lot of time explaining things to them. Then they totally ignore what is shared with them and go on repeating their false claims. They shift from one subject to another, jumping from one thread to another to plant seeds of chaos, then sit back and fan the flames. One of the pair will take the lead until that one's grip on the individual posting style he's adopted begins to falter, then he'll disappear and the other one takes over like a tag team. Their arguments always are the same... we can *perceive* ultrasonic frequencies through bone conduction/brain waves/whatever. We can hear things that can't be measured. ABX isn't the best way to judge sound. Science doesn't know everything. You aren't scientific enough... It's like a broken record. Ask them to cite an authority and it's always the same snake oil salesman in the same youtube video. I think it's pretty clear that these aren't all individual people. One person, or a small handful of people, are coming back over and over again under different aliases just to jack with us.

Everyone agrees that it's nice to be nice. If someone comes to us with the sincere interest in doing the research, and expending the energy to understand, they get a LOT of help from this group. Gregorio's posts are encyclopedias of information if someone wanted to take the things he talks about and do a little googling to figure them out. I see names and avatars here of people who started out arguing with us and realized their error and now have joined in agreeing with us. They rarely admit it outright, but it's pretty easy to see what they learned here. I have one win under my belt helping a doubter conduct his own listening test and figuring things out for himself. If we are approached properly, someone could gain a lot from this group.

But there's no respect gained without respect offered. I'm not going to waste my time tossing pearls to the swine. None of us have to be here. We post because we want to help. That is a given. But the person needs to want to be helped first. If they don't and they're just here to mess with us, the gloves come off. Nothing wrong with that. Eventually it isn't fun for them to jack with us any more and they go away. We should think about how we can help accelerate that process.

 

[ScareDe2]

Inaudibility is fake news. There are many undergoing researches about ultrasounds and their impact on humans. Your claims only rely on audiometry using air conduction. Science is not settled about an audible limit. Science is not settled about anything in fact not even what is a women or a men. It uses the 20-20khz conventionally because this is what is commonly observed in practice.

 

[bigshot]

You make this stuff up. You used to not know much and just went on your feelings. Now you're Mr Science and you know all about "cutting edge research". Your mask is slipping. Time to jump to another user ID.

 

[Davesrose]

Sorry, science itself has settled on what is a male vs female vs asexual species. Now recently we have been having an awareness of psychological sex identification (but anatomy is pretty conclusive). I can't name call...but 20hz-20khz is the accepted auditory range for air conduction (a few studies indicate maybe down a few more hz). The tests that have indicated ultra high frequency hearing are special circumstances (most readibly, divers being able to hear 100khz+). When it comes to high frequencies, instruments don't have fundamental notes going to 20khz, and LFE goes from 40 or 37hz and starts rolling down. There's also a wide variety with individual anatomy: ear shaping is different with folks and with age we have reduced frequency range hearing. I am fortunate enough to have pretty good hearing for my age (in my 40s and hear up to 17khz....and I know that's my max and I don't have super abilities past that).

 

[bigshot]

 

[Davesrose]

Bigshot, you're giving too much credit! That chimp is enough a chemist to have the conditions to not have exploded the lab.

 

[KeithPhantom]

For now, it seems he got something correct, there is a gradual increase of intermodulation distortion in the interpolation implementation of Windows Audio Stack due to poor filtering (potentially audible since IMD is around -40 dBFS). Archimago measured the Windows Audio Stack and Linux (PulseAudio), Linux showing a pretty good result. Here the link: https://archimago.blogspot.com/2015/11/measurements-windows-10-audio-stack.html