[some1x]

There seemed to be a extremely high frequency sound in the background. I wouldn't listen to it for more than a few repeats.

 

[kyrie]

Audiophile USB with 24/96 upsampling passed with flying colors.

Argh, that high-frequency tone almost made me deaf....

 

[roadtonowhere08]

I bet this file was created by Miracle Ear; they could use some extra business.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcachola I sure as heck can't hear it. Guess it can't ruin *my* hearing any worse than it already is...

I think it may be able to... sound pressure is sound pressure. If it were me anyway, I wouldn't take the risk (of cranking it up loud and listening repeatedly).

 

[halcyon]

[size=xx-large]WARNING![/size]

Please do not adjust the level so that the first tones are "normal listening volume". Start with REALLY LOW volumes, because the last tone is really loud, even though you don't hear it as loud.

If you crank it up, the last 19 kHz tone might not only destroy your tweeters (if you use loudspeakers, something which I definitely recommend AGAINST), or it could damage your hearing.

The 19kHz sound is LOUD!! We just don't hear it, because the frequency is so high and our hearing sensitivity drops towards higher frequencies. Just because you don't hear it as loud, doesn't mean it can't cause damage!

Damage is related to playback intensity levels (dB) not perceived loudness (sone).

So, don't be fooled even if the last 19 kHz doesn't "sound like" it's loud. Believe me, it is VERY LOUD! Loud enough to damage your hearing, if you play it too loud.

So, be careful: don't crank it up and don't do many repeats in a row.

I'm not kidding.

Additional tidbits

Now that I have hopefully scared you, here are some additional tidbits:

0) You should hear PURE simple tones. No warping, no "up and down sine-wave like sounds", no ambulance, absolutely no noise, no distortion. Just pure unadultered simple tones (like phone DMTF tones).

1) All sound cards that resample will produce artifacts with this sample. If you can't hear them, it could be your headphones.

2) This sample can also be a useful test for high frequency playback ability of your headphones. I have tested this with HFI-650, HD-600, AKG 271S and Grado SR-60. The best headphone to spot the artifacts from my Audigy 2 is Ultrasone HFI-650. AKG 271S masks the artifacts almost completely. So, test with high-frequency capable, not-rolled-off headphones (in that regard this is a test for headphones as well, if your soundcard resamples/makes artifacts).

3) Many people will be happy and say "Hey, I can hear 19kHz". Some will say, "it's almost more like a feeling than hearing". This latter is a sign you are already playing it at dangerous volume levels. Also, let me just remind that our hearing is not a brick wall filter. I could make some of you hear 21kHz, if I played it back at insane levels. However, that would just permanently destroy part of your hearing and possible even cause you a nose bleed, so it's not very useful

So, to recap: the sensitivity of our hearing diminishes towards higher frequencies at "normal / safe" playback intensity levels. If you can't initially hear it, it's normal. Many 20 year olds can't hear it at normal play back levels, they need to raise the volume (which can be dangerous).

4) When using upsampling/re-quantisation (like with Foobar) you should hear artifacts, although they are more than likely to be diminished from the artifacts you hear with a resampling soundcard with no additional upsampling. So, if you don't hear any artifacts with upsampling, you are missing something. There are still some artifacts, they can be just very hard to notice. But again, don't crank it up and don't play this in a loop many times. I'm not just saying it, I mean it.

5) This sample can also be used to test one part of the quality of the upsampling engine. For example, I've used the Foobar SSRC engine (good), Wavelab (horrible results) and Sound Forge (best I've found) upsampling engines (with different settings, but all upsampling to 96kHz). The differences vary quite a lot and some engines do it much better than others. You could also use this to test your cd-players upsampling, but PLEASE DO NOT use it to play back on your speakers. Especially ribbon tweeters are really not meant for insane playback levels and you can easily kill them. And boy, are they expensive.

6) On Creative cards (sans EMU) you can reduce the distortion by using relatively high quality upsampling (say SSRC in Foobar 2000) combined with Windows/Creative Mixer settings in Windows: set the volume to 75% max or even as low as 50%. Even if you compensate this lowering of software volume by pumping up the headphone output volume, you can get reduced clipping. So, this actually shows that all creative cards (sans EMU) have two problems: they have resampling related aliasing distortion (IMD) and they have also volume control related clipping distortion. You can minimize both by upsampling to 96kHz and by setting volume control to 50%/75% (try both) in Windows.

7) There is another sample, that is again recorded at full volume. It's also very good for testing your sound cards resampling algorithm and clipping problems:

10 second clipping distortion test sample at full amplitude (c. 170-200 Hz tones) - FLAC 528 KB
http://www21.brinkster.com/roina/cd-check_test_10s.zip

(Note: That is free hosting space with limited download quota. If it gets clogged up, somebody else has to host the file)

This time there are not any super high frequency tones, but the same warnings still aply: don't crank it up, don't repeat listen to it.

With this sample, if you hear anything except steady dual tone (to most it sounds like one steady sound - not rising/falling), then you have problems. Many will hear horrible noise or modulated distortion that is played on top of the original signal, masking it.

8) There is another older thread about this same issue here are Head-fi, but with the search disabled...

That's all I can think of now... Play safe!

Cheers,
Halcyon

 

[dd3mon]

Interesting.. I have two sound cards currently in use, and Audigy 2 and an M-Audio Revolution (both tests done with latest release of Foobar2000).

Through the Audigy 2 this sounded like crap without resampler. Using kernel streaming and resampling, it still sounded like crap (crazy ambulance style distortions). Using WaveOut w/o resampler was crap. However, WaveOut with resampling (to 48khz) is perfectly clean.

Through the M-Audio things went much better. Resampled or not, the output was good. However, there was a very small amount of soft distortion ("ambulancing") with kernel streaming on. Using WaveOut this was eliminated. Interesting results.

Apparently kernel streaming does screw up the signal to a small extent. And, as I suspected, creative screws up the signal hardcore while resampling (but letting foobar do it with ssrc works fine).

-dd3mon

 

[commando]

On my acer's headphone out with Senn 280s and AKG 271s all I can hear is phone tones. No trace of highs, possibly masked by my mild tinitus. I'll try it on my sonica/pimeta/cd3K at work tomorrow though.

Edit - my ears are ringing worse than usual now. Can someone please add a stronger warning on the first message to stop other people doing this.

 

[lcachola]

Quote:

Originally Posted by commando On my acer's headphone out with Senn 280s and AKG 271s all I can hear is phone tones. No trace of highs, possibly masked by my mild tinitus. I'll try it on my sonica/pimeta/cd3K at work tomorrow though. Edit - my ears are ringing worse than usual now. Can someone please add a stronger warning on the first message to stop other people doing this.

Yeah, no kiddin'. This was ridiculously irresponsible of someone to post this without ANY kind of warning knowing the experimental nature of head-fiers. My tinnitus masks the highs as well - no change in sound pressure or anything. I've known for several years my hearing was bad, so there's no surprise there.

 

[tortie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy Hmmm, I'll convert it to WAV and post it somewhere later this evening so the Windows Media Player guys can try it. (If anyone else has the time to do it before I get around to it, please go ahead!)

Thanks wodgy

Can't play the old file with WMP

 

[roadtonowhere08]

Question: what's the point of all this testing? If you like what your headphones are putting out, enjoy your music. It seems like some of you are spending more time on testing your equipment than actually using them for what they are for, to listen to music with. I have a lot of respect for a lot of you, and I have gained MUCH knowledge from you, but testing tones and enduring dangerous high frequencies is just rediculous. These results are confirming what we already know, good sound cards don't distort and poorly designed ones do... big whoop. Go enjoy your equipment or I will be forced to find out where you live, take it from you, and enjoy it for myself.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon 4) When using upsampling/re-quantisation (like with Foobar) you should hear artifacts, although they are more than likely to be diminished from the artifacts you hear with a resampling soundcard with no additional upsampling. So, if you don't hear any artifacts with upsampling, you are missing something.

I disagree here. Proper upsampling is as clean and pure as a baby's bottom. I hear *no* (zero, zilcho, none) artifacts upsampling to 24/96 with the WinAMP SSRC WaveOut plugin. Udial sounds exactly the same as playing the sample back at 16/44.1.

Edit -- yes, it's definitely upsampling (as indicated both by my sound card's control panel readout and WinAMP's status display. If you disagree with me in terms of artifacting with upsampling, please say why and explain your rationale.

 

[halcyon]

fewtch,

I disagree, because I've extensively tried and tested it. Read the hydrogenaudio.org thread in full and see all of my posts.

I've even used better upsamplers than WinAmp/WaveOut SSRC or Foobar2K SSRC and if I listen to the upsampled results carefully, I can hear small artifacts even with the best of upsamplers.

So there, that's the reason

regards,
halcyon

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon fewtch, I disagree, because I've extensively tried and tested it. Read the hydrogenaudio.org thread in full and see all of my posts. I've even used better upsamplers than WinAmp/WaveOut SSRC or Foobar2K SSRC and if I listen to the upsampled results carefully, I can hear small artifacts even with the best of upsamplers. So there, that's the reason regards, halcyon

I guess you've got better ears than I do (or just a different soundcard, maybe). Sounds perfectly clean from here. I can't think of any logical reason why upsampling would produce artifacts -- again, unless it's back to the original topic, that something is wrong with one's setup in some way.

I see in your equipment list that you're using an external DAC. Some sort of jitter between the card and DAC at higher sampling rate modes could be producing artifacting.

 

[raif]

any chance of getting a version we mac people can use?

 

[Haribo]

Seems perfectly clean on my setup (see sig), using Kernel Streaming, 44.1kHz and 16bit fixed-point output.