[DaveStarWalker]

A very good training = mp3 128 vs 16/24 wav. Blind test. ....

Maybe more relevant than the different masters of a same song.

But far more difficult. Believe me.

I have tried that, years ago (about 20 years ago...) : I wasn't able to tell certainly the differences.

By the way, these differences (degradations) are really... real, spectrogramm wise for instance... This is documented.

Conclusion ? You need to be trained for that kind of (very difficult) excercice.

 

[bigshot]

Lossy can be transparent. It just depends on the codec and data rate. I use AAC 256 VBR. That is 100% transparent. I would like to see something pick it out of a blind comparison with lossless. Ain't gonna happen.

Cirrus101, I'll answer your post when I get a some time. I burned through my quota today.

 

[gregorio]

It cannot be placebo. I refuse this idea of "it's all in your head, figments of your imagination, because you wanted to sooo very much!!". That's just gaslighting suicide and throwing years of audio listening experience out the window.

And this is a near perfect explanation of why audiophile marketing reliant on placebo/perceptual error is so effective!

As I mentioned previously, the audiophile world downplays perceptual errors and even when they are mentioned, they’re grossly misrepresented. Admittedly, aural perception/perceptual error is actually a complex subject area and we don’t yet know everything there is to know about it. On the other side of the coin, we started studying it over 2,000 years ago (Pythagoras), studied aspects of it intensively from about 700 years ago and for the last century or so have an entire branch of science specifically dedicated to it (psychoacoustics). Without trying to cover the whole subject in a few sentences, “wanting it sooo very much” can affect perception but that’s just one of countless potential biases, some conscious, some subconscious. We are constantly under the influence of these aural perceptual effects/errors, our ears change what we hear and our brain interprets the resultant information, balances it against information from our other senses and against our knowledge and multiple biases, does some processing to change the “sound” even before other parts of our brain starts to process all of the above and the result is the perception of hearing. All this happens in a fraction of a second, we’re completely unaware of it all and have virtually no conscious control over any of it! “Wanting it so very much” is just one variable/consideration of many that your brain is calculating and therefore it may affect the final perception construct significantly, not at all, anywhere in between and positively or negatively depending on all the other variables. Consider these two examples:

1. The whole history of western music/harmony from about 700 years ago is based on subconscious biases, a bias towards certain ratios of simultaneous notes/frequencies and against other ratios. In music terminology we call these consonance and dissonance respectively and with the exception of certain avant guard genres in the C20th, all western music/harmony was based on the juxtaposition of dissonance and consonance and another bias (expectation bias) that dissonance will “resolve” to consonance. In other words, without subconscious biases changing/influencing our perception of sound, almost the entire history of western music/harmony could not exist, we could not perceive music, it would just be semi-random sound!

2. Occasionally, in moments of fear or stress, we can hear our heart thumping loudly, the rest of the time we can’t hear it at all. Our hearts do not suddenly output 10,000 times more sound under stress/fear. So, there are two options, either: We subscribe to the audiophile myth of believing what we’re hearing, in which case you have to conclude that most of the time you’re dead because your heart isn’t beating or the actual truth: Most of the time your brain is drastically changing what you’re hearing, it’s filtering this continuous loud thumping out of your perception of hearing. Obviously we’re not dead most of the time and in the 1970’s, through some clever experiments, science discovered most of the properties of this heartbeat filtering process in the brain and about 4 years ago they identified the specific region of the brain performing this processing.

These are just two of many other examples which prove that our perception of hearing and the actual sonic reality are two quite different things and our perception is easily manipulated, both consciously and subconsciously. We’ve developed this because there are significant evolutionary benefits but it’s not so beneficial when we’re trying to use our perception to determine the actual sonic reality. Of course, our perception is what we’ve had all our lives, we’re mostly consciously unaware of the difference between our perception and the sonic reality and most of the time it’s irrelevant to our interaction with the rest of humanity because they too have the same biased perception/perceptual errors. Although the resultant perceptions and preferences can of course vary, which is why we can differing opinions that a piece of music is good or bad.

1) I am very used to my sound system, I am very used to listening to things on a daily basis acutely in it and 2) suddenly I've heard things I never thought previously possible to come out of my speakers - something new, something different, strikingly so, brutally even: new nuances, transients, realism in songs I took for granted by heart; it was a game-changer, a level-up, setting the bar higher of my entire system - with this simple change of DAC, which was the only component changed in the link.

That’s a very common fallacy, “this simple change of DAC” was NOT the only component changed in the link! There were various other components in the link that were changed; how you were listening, what you were concentrating/focusing on, what you noticed, your conscious biases, your subconscious biases and other potential variables your brain was subconsciously balancing/calculating, any one of which could be responsible for the difference you perceived. This is why there are a whole bunch of conditions required for scientifically valid listening tests.

How about this. What If:
1) Manufactures aren't properly rating these specs? who does the rating? is there any verification from an exempt third-party auditor?
2) They're deliberately delivering below specs items because most of us wouldn't notice anyway and it's cheaper?
3) Cheap chips could cause weird quantization errors, or other artifacts in its decoding?
4) The actual analogue electric current generated was garbled from it's original information packet from the digital data it received? yes, it can read vanilla specs, alright, but does that prove it emits the same equivalent specs in analog form with all of its integrity? is there any actual proof to this, testing, verification, auditing?

1. It is possible the manufacturer has made a mistake or deliberately published false specs (there are examples of both) and it’s pretty much standard practice to “game” the published specs. For example, use a dB weighting and/or measure the spec under optimal conditions that may not be representative of actual usage.

However, in the case of chips (and other components) the published specs are not designed for consumers, they’re intended for engineers. Equipment design engineers will have to measure the performance of the chips/components within their circuit design and would notice any faults or discrepancies. The professional audio engineers who use the equipment which contain those components also measure performance and would notice any significant faults/discrepancies. These facts cover all the points you’ve made here.

This 96khz format is a mistake, as is 192khz. Multiples of 44.1 are the proper way to avoid quantization errors.

Not sure where you’ve got this? Quantisation errors have nothing to do with the different consumer sample rates, quantisation errors are due to the bit depth, not the sample rate. The proper way to avoid quantisation errors is a process called “Dither” and as it’s a process required by digital audio, there are no quantisation errors (unless dither has deliberately not been applied or applied incorrectly).

No, but I think the point that the Mojo guy was trying to make is that cylinders have "Tangential tracking…no arc error…no skating error" compared to "Disks warp... arch error... skating errors introduced." of discs. Implying that our audio history could have had it much better (for the purist) if the standard format evolved upon cylinders instead of going to discs.

Sorry, I don’t really know the exact technicalities of wax cylinders, quite a bit before my time! I assume, as is almost always the case with analogue audio, that wax cylinders have certain technical advantages over disks and certain technical disadvantages but the one that survived the test of time was better on balance. As is also almost always the case with audiophile articles, the advantages are discussed and the disadvantages omitted (or vice versa) depending on the point they’re trying to push. Maybe cylinders really were technically better but I’d be surprised and would need some good solid evidence.

It seems this is because digital is actually so clean, true, perfect, sterile; a 100/100 copy. So it's about what digital is lacking: defects. The same with transistor vs valve/tube amps: there's some harmonic distortion added and we like it. Humans as we are, we actually like (controlled) defects.

That’s an oversimplification. In general we prefer higher fidelity over lower fidelity although there certainly is such a thing as “euphonic” distortion with some common types of music. However, while digital itself is lacking audible defects, what we record using digital isn’t. As you say, it’s a clean, perfect, 100/100 copy but a clean, perfect, 100/100 copy of what? Why can’t we add that euphonic harmonic distortion, plus any other subjectively pleasing defects we desire and then we’d have a clean, perfect, 100/100 copy which includes any or all of those defects? The answer is that we do and we always have! Today typically with DSP and earlier (and sometimes still today) we apply those “defects” either before conversion to digital or during mixing and mastering by converting to the analogue domain, using some vintage analogue device and converting back to digital again.

while the frequencies that have been chopped off from the MP3 file aren't exactly frequencies where music is prevalent or even within hearing range, for the purist, and for archival purposes, it is a loss that shouldn't happen.

The frequencies removed from an MP3 file are frequencies that cannot be heard and therefore will make no audible difference (due to auditory masking), even for the purist. It’s not suitable for archival purposes in many cases because an archive will possibly be remixed or remastered and frequencies that were masked in one mix/master may not be masked in another, so you might run into issues if those masked frequencies have been removed. If you want to discuss this further, it really needs a different thread.

G

 

[71 dB]

This 96khz format is a mistake, as is 192khz. Multiples of 44.1 are the proper way to avoid quantization errors.

What the heck do you mean by that? Quantization errors can't be avoided with any sample rate because it would require infinite bit depth. However, we can use dithering to mold the quantization error into noise that has zero correlation with the music. This means the unavoidable error inducing quantization process doesn't cause distortion, only slightly increased noise floor. We can even make the dither less audible perceptually by using shaped dither. It is all about selecting the bitdepth high enough to push the noise floor down enough to be totally inaudible. In consumer audio this is about 13 bits.

You probably mean samplerate conversions? Yes, multiples of a certain samplerate makes things easier in that sense, but it is not impossible to do arbitrary samplerate conversions extremely accurately using sinc-resampling. I have myself written (some 20 years ago) Matlab code to resample impulse responses measured with MLSSA (using weird samplerate) to produce material for listening tests (music samples convoluted with impulse responses). Because it was about listening tests, the sample rate conversion had to be as accurate as possible to avoid it change the sound. Anyway, 44.1 kHz is not the only "standard" sample rate in use! In video produtions 48 kHz is the standard so in that sense 96 kHz and 192 kHz are completely valid as multiples of 48 kHz. 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz may look very arbitrary compared to each other, but they are not: 44100/48000 = 147/160.

In a way all commonly used sample rates are a "mistake", because the optimal samplerate for audio is about 60 kHz. It is enough for human hearing up to 20 kHz while allowing gentle relaxed anti-alias and reconstruction filters without unnecessarily high bandwidth.

It seems this is because digital is actually so clean, true, perfect, sterile; a 100/100 copy. So it's about what digital is lacking: defects. The same with transistor vs valve/tube amps: there's some harmonic distortion added and we like it. Humans as we are, we actually like (controlled) defects. Take the "lo-fi" genre, for example. Adding vinyl pops and clicks and hum to songs. Not always do we crave for perfection; there is beauty in imperfection.

It doesn't really matter at which point of audio reproduction chain pleasing defects are created. "lo-fi" genre does this in the production phase so that everyone hears the "same" defects when using transparent reproduction of sound. Digital productions can be "too" clean and sterile to sound pleasant. That is a danger all producers should be aware of and address in the production phase. Extreme sterile feel can of course be artistic intent, although I believe this is rarely the case. Something as simple as causing very small fluctuations (e.g. low-pass filtered white noise) of gain can be enough to remove the sterile feel without perceptual decrease in fidelity.

People who have volunteered to stay in absolute silence in anechoic chambers, where you can listen to the sound of your own body organs, often cannot stay there longer than 15-30 minutes, reporting uneasiness and even hallucinations.

At first being inside an anechoic chamber is an intense experience, because the total lack of "acoustics" around us is something we never experience in normal life. However, the more time you spend in anechoic chambers, the less intense it feels. I worked for years in an acoustic lab (in fact that pic looks like one of the smaller chambers from that lab, but I could be mistaken because unechoic chambers look so similar of obvious reasons.) and while only a small fraction of it was working inside anechoic chambers, I also measured loudspeakers in anechoic chambers. My ears got used to the "lack of acoustics" so that it felt just like being in a very damped/quiet place. Typically I spent just a few minutes at a time inside the chamber for example changing the position of measuring microphone etc. so it is hard to say how I would feel after 15-30 minutes, but is doesn't sound scary to me. My HRTF was measured once and it took a long time, but it was constant bursts of measuring noise so it wasn't absolute silence. Generally I liked it inside unachoic chambers because it was so peaceful and quiet. After being inside one for a while the outside world feels very noisy! A small lab room feels almost like a catheral for a few seconds before hearing adjusts back.

Humans need noise; birds chirping, insects, wind blowing, rain drops, a fan turned on for noise or even a TV set on any channel to help some people to be able to sleep.

Maybe because my ears are so used to anechoic chambers, I prefer complete silence when I sleep. As a very introverted person I have a very rich "inner world" inside my head where I go to when I am trying to fall to sleep. This inner world is full of imaginary stuff so that I am not "alone" in the silence. Or I might practise imagining four-dimensional space-time: In silence eyes closed it is easier to "see" in my mind how for example black wholes bend space-time. I wonder if people who need static noise or sounds of rain to sleep have anything between their ears...

In that sense, analog imperfections adds that "grit" which makes some people more comfortable. It's ASMR for them.

I wouldn't say it is the exact same thing. It is more like the fact that our hearing expects sounds to have some level of imperfections, because perfectly clinical sounds are a product of somewhat modern technology.

 

[DaveStarWalker]

I have an idea brewing in my head to try ABX, blind listening, etc, with earphone adaptors cables :

Then :

For example.

All else being equal, except for these DAP output adapters.

The first one is made with a type 6 Gold-silver-palladium-copper cables.
The second one with parallele pur copper PCOCC-A cables.

From a methodological point of view, it seems simple to me to try blind swaps... the cable for the headphones remained the same.

Exemple :

What do you think about that?

 

[71 dB]

The frequencies removed from an MP3 file are frequencies that cannot be heard and therefore will make no audible difference (due to auditory masking), even for the purist.

G

This is the big idea, but in practice people can learn to hear the data compression at least with lower data rates such as 128 kbps when auditory masking is not able to mask defects 100 %. Admittedly at higher data rates hearing data compression becomes extremely challenging if not impossible.

 

[71 dB]

OK thanks

Easy load? Your impedance curse is angled or not ?

Yes, easy load. An amp that is designed to drive 4 Ω speakers should have a field day driving my 8 Ω speakers.

 

[DaveStarWalker]

Yes, easy load. An amp that is designed to drive 4 Ω speakers should have a field day driving my 8 Ω speakers.

Yes indeed.
Okay, I couldn't read your signature on the phone. But with the computer I could. These are good products. NAD, it works very well.

 

[castleofargh]

It cannot be placebo. I refuse this idea of "it's all in your head, figments of your imagination, because you wanted to sooo very much!!". That's just gaslighting suicide and throwing years of audio listening experience out the window. I will refrain from throwing personal adjectives at you like Dave did, but I can sense he may have experienced what I have experienced regarding two things: 1) I am very used to my sound system, I am very used to listening to things on a daily basis acutely in it and 2) suddenly I've heard things I never thought previously possible to come out of my speakers - something new, something different, strikingly so, brutally even: new nuances, transients, realism in songs I took for granted by heart; it was a game-changer, a level-up, setting the bar higher of my entire system - with this simple change of DAC, which was the only component changed in the link. In Dave's case, it was cables instead (seems unlikely to me but I won't get into that). I could agree that it might not have been the DAC chip itself. It might have been something else within its implementation? Something I cannot quite put my finger on, maybe the output stages are now properly set? impedance? amplification issues? I frankly do not know. But who cares. It is better now, that's what matters, for whatever reason. But I will not abide to the idea that it is non-existent. Something real exists that changed and I just cannot trace it. Whatever 'problem' there was in my system, there is no more, thanks to it. It fixed something I heretofore didn't know I needed.

Just like with Dave, I have no idea what your experience really was. Maybe you're both right, maybe not. Why should I take all you say at face value? Because I like you? Because you're some guy on the internet and nothing false has ever come out of "someone on the internet"? We keep arguing about the wrong things here. What's missing isn't a nice rational explanation as to why you're right or Gregorio is. What's missing is any sort of supporting evidence to your statement.

- is someone's self confidence a mark of truth? nope.
- is a sighted experience something highly reliable? nope.
We could and usually should stop here.




Some sound difference will be big enough for everybody to just accept a testimony. Do you doubt that I can tell my headphone setup playing the hires version of Baby shark apart from a lawn mower by hear? Nobody will. When it's that big we have a fairly universal agreement that it's audible and that no amount of bias will really matter to settle the question of audibility.
That will probably still work for our ability to perceive audible differences between 2 headphones in most cases. Even though the swapping method is terrible based on listening test criteria, I don't expect anybody to call you out on it and doubt your ability to tell most headphones apart by ear. But already I felt the need to say "most headphones".
DACs and cable are known to have minimal impact on audio(measurements tend to say so). Suddenly we're in the realm of exotic anecdotes and small sound differences. Many of which will be inaudible. We'll face an entire range of personal values when it comes to trusting those testimonies. Some audiophiles have the false but strong belief that if something measured differently then they can hear that difference. Some people put their head in the sand anytime the notion of psychological bias is brought up. Some will acknowledge biases but only for other people, "not me, I know better, I have experience"(every professional reviewers). Some people will demand blind tests and won't trust anything sighted because they want to know about hearing ability and nothing else.

You will not find for small differences the same consensus we have for huge ones. Even worse, you will find that the very notion of what's a small difference changes greatly from one listener to the next, the same way 100$ is a lot for one guy and irrelevant to another. What I call irrelevant in term of audibility, someone on this forum will have described as night and day difference. So when you tell us that you've heard a clear difference, what am I to think?
All those issues and what I wrote before about how people suck at judging their own experiences of small cues under sighted conditions, just add to the already terminal matter of trusting a random testimony on the web that's not demonstrated in any way.


Maybe your experience is as real and big as you say. There is a bunch of possible cases we know of, starting with one DAC having a louder output than the other, some grave failure to filter enough input noise, some clipping with full scale signal, some radical differences in the reconstruction filter implementation that starts well within the audible range or turns into an aliasing factory...
Any half competent designer should have worked on mitigating all those potential issues, but at some point, some guys designed R2R NOS filterless DACs(which is basically the same as making a digital converter while denying the sampling theorem that makes digital audio possible). And more amazing, some people bought into the "more analog" DAC BS.
Same thing with cables, there are well accepted scenarios that have nothing to do with rediscovering science. Some here decide to ignore those scenarios when discussing cables or DACs in general for the sake of pushing an idea about spending money for the wrong reasons, but of course reality still has those scenarios.

My point here is that it doesn't even matter if your impressions are correct or not because we can't get to that point. What you have to offer isn't and really shouldn't be convincing others. I'm obviously not saying this to attack you, it's just a fact that empty statements on the web aren't the gold standard for trust. You or anybody else, it's the same.
Some people just say things that aren't entirely accurate and we have to account for that possibility.

 

[castleofargh]

I have an idea brewing in my head to try ABX, blind listening, etc, with earphone adaptors cables :



Then :



For example.

All else being equal, except for these DAP output adapters.

The first one is made with a type 6 Gold-silver-palladium-copper cables.
The second one with parallele pur copper PCOCC-A cables.

From a methodological point of view, it seems simple to me to try blind swaps... the cable for the headphones remained the same.

Exemple :



What do you think about that?

I think the single ended one will sound audibly different ^_^

 

[DaveStarWalker]

I think the single ended one will sound audibly different ^_^

Yes indeed lol

Just illustration pics.
I think it can be tried. And that's an elegant and potentially effective way to do it.

 

[cirrus101]

Cirrus101, I'll answer your post when I get a some time.

Take your time. You've contributed enough.

your brain is calculating and therefore it may affect the final perception construct significantly

Yes. I am aware of those things. I work in audio post-production, and I know how maddening it is during final mixing and the insane levels you can get going back and forth from mix A and B, tweaking incessantly as your brain tricks what you've just heard, and if you spend long enough in that mix, you end up hating everything altogether. Been there. Will keep on doing it in the future just the same, out of love for the thing. Love-hate, yknow?

In this case, as you say, it would mean I don't need any good quality gear at all (provided it covers the basics): I have the very best sound system on Earth right in my head! FOR FREE. INCLUDED W/ FREE UPGRADES FOREVER!

All I need is to use my brain to enhance every sound I want at the power of my will. I just need to really really reeeally want it, and it will happen. Like magic. Suddenly, I can turn this hillbilly violin into a Stradivarius with the sheer power of my bias! Wow. I love this bias. It's better than any DSP or plugin for christ's sake . Thanks for unlocking this power in me! You're a guru. You should make followers and stuff.

all western music/harmony was based on the juxtaposition of dissonance and consonance

Yes, I've read about it in a music history book. It seems that with every century, what was previously considered "dissonance" and heresy to be applied into music (which had a certain sacred aspect to it), slowly sounded more pleasing and acceptable to the ears. I think nowadays is the ultimate level of this process, since there are some artists out there that basically only make noise.

in moments of fear or stress, we can hear our heart thumping loudly

I've never witnessed this myself, to be honest.

your conscious biases, your subconscious biases and other potential variables your brain was subconsciously balancing/calculating

So much for the bias. But here's the thing, I'll tell you a story. I once purchased a device called ToneRite©, and what it does is that it plugs into an acoustic instrument like a guitar, and it vibrates the strings as if you were playing. This stimulation would work the tone in the wood and 'open it up'. Of course, skeptics were (are) all over this device to say it's worthless and la-dee-da, so I made a personal comparison of my acoustic guitar with two videos showing before and after 1 month using it. There was an evident, clear response from the guitar that had been improved, and it was audible in my comparison. Then some guy on YouTube commented it was not a fair display, because in the first video the mic was placed in a certain way, and the second it was slightly different. To which I've argued that yes, while it is true that changing the axis of the mic will affect the sound, it DOES NOT change the sound that dramatically. If a sound could be changed like that just by re-positioning the mic's, then nobody would need good guitars made out of good wood, you could buy the simplest ones and just use the 'mic trick' during recording. Which isn't true. And if the change was so insanely subtle that a mere mic positioning change would cast a shadow over it, then it would mean the ToneRite© is indeed useless. But that is not what happened in the comparison shown.

So as you can see, while bias is real, the bias for trying to disprove something is even worse, as it can cause denial of evident effects; I think it's all about being honest with yourself at all times. If you're a cunning man with a big ego, I'd definitely take into account a strong bias from that person; but we all know ourselves, and as long as you're earnest in your efforts and being sincere with yourself, ie: it does not matter that I have either 'wasted money' or 'found the holy grail', the important is the truth above all else, all things must pass, then I think you can get to good results which might not please a scientific community, but are enough to please oneself.

The professional audio engineers who use the equipment which contain those components also measure performance and would notice any significant faults/discrepancies. These facts cover all the points you’ve made here.

That is very generic. How can you be sure the integrity of a pure digital information was converted in analogue as perfectly as that could ever be done, for all brands, for all chips, for all models? Sure, the signal comes out, it's within the 20hz-20khz the spectrum at the desired amperage - Checked! Not faulty! Next please! But hey, does that account at all for parameters which might be relevant to the quality of that signal? I don't think so. I think they may be outputting different things which are not measured or not within their faulty/discrepant check-list.

Quantisation errors have nothing to do with the different consumer sample rates

You're right, my mistake, I meant resampling.

Why can’t we add that euphonic harmonic distortion, plus any other subjectively pleasing defects we desire and then we’d have a clean, perfect, 100/100 copy which includes any or all of those defects?

We can, and, in fact I often do that by rerouting signals from my tube amp back into the recording. That's nothing new, as a gazillion other people also insert tape compression and other artifacts, etc. Dozens of digital plugins do that emulation quite well too. What I have meant is that those people who argue "analog is better than digital" are actually people who prefer to have everything they hear within that analog imperfection realm they love. Despite the labels/producers/musicians choices. They don't want their first print of a good old vinyl to be digitalized, remastered and played back 'clean' for them which is different from what they remembered. As for new artists, they'd rather have the vinyl feeling too, even for those sterile commercial mixes, because its comfortable for them, that's why turntables are still a trend today.

The frequencies removed from an MP3 file are frequencies that cannot be heard and therefore will make no audible difference (due to auditory masking), even for the purist.

I disagree; a .FLAC and .MP3 sounds different; even if something is "outside audible frequencies"*, it is still there; resonating in the room and in your head. It does not matter that the ears cannot pick it up; you're not annihilating those frequencies existence just because you cannot pick it up with the tiny hairs inside the ear; the speakers might try to reproduce them too, which can have a positive or adverse effect as they try to reproduce more frequencies in a lossless file than a lossy one.

* I digress here in that .FLACs always sound sharper - especially with classical music. A rock or pop song can do fine in 128kbps .mp3, but classical music will sound duller, as if some of the attacks and decays are not as sharp, as real life instruments are not hingered by any chopping of frequencies and all those affect our body as a whole.

You probably mean samplerate conversions? Yes, multiples of a certain samplerate makes things easier in that sense, but it is not impossible to do arbitrary samplerate conversions extremely accurately using sinc-resampling. I have myself written (some 20 years ago) Matlab code to resample impulse responses measured with MLSSA (using weird samplerate) to produce material for listening tests (music samples convoluted with impulse responses). Because it was about listening tests, the sample rate conversion had to be as accurate as possible to avoid it change the sound. Anyway, 44.1 kHz is not the only "standard" sample rate in use! In video produtions 48 kHz is the standard so in that sense 96 kHz and 192 kHz are completely valid as multiples of 48 kHz. 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz may look very arbitrary compared to each other, but they are not: 44100/48000 = 147/160.

Yes that's what I meant. Very interesting. I've been fiddling with different resampling techniques using different FIR presets in a music creation program I have, and it's amazing how it changes the sounds of the samples that you load into it. Depending whether its a more electronic chiptune sample, or a realistic acoustic instrument, the resampling chosen (linear, sinc, etc), alters it significantly.

By the way, "147/160" of what?

Something as simple as causing very small fluctuations (e.g. low-pass filtered white noise) of gain can be enough to remove the sterile feel without perceptual decrease in fidelity.

That sounds good.

A small lab room feels almost like a catheral for a few seconds before hearing adjusts back.

That must've been a precious moment! Thanks for sharing that. Little unique things in life some of us get to experience.

As a very introverted person I have a very rich "inner world" inside my head where I go to when I am trying to fall to sleep. This inner world is full of imaginary stuff so that I am not "alone" in the silence.

Same here! But most people have troubled lifes and suffer from anxiety, depression and start to panic, because they cannot escape their problems or themselves. But that's a whole other topic! lol

 

[cirrus101]

Just like with Dave, I have no idea what your experience really was. Maybe you're both right, maybe not. (...)

I trust Nano. She seems nice. If she wants to be a cat, why not. Each to his own. If I want to indulge myself in good music due to my bias, why not. At least the bias improved the music, so it's money well spent, eh? (j/k)

Pro tip: you don't need to trust anyone on the internet, just take with you any information you find relevant and move on. If mine or anyone else's testimony means nothing to you, that's fine really. However if someone else felt the same as I did, and finds common ground with my experience, then it was worth sharing it. I've read other reviews here in this forum which matched things I have experienced and I am glad they took the time to do so. It's a really good feeling when you don't feel alone in the universe because another mind experienced the same as you did, so you can correlate to the experiences of others and not just silently experience your own. Because, you know, we cannot enter into anybody else's minds, we're stuck with our own unto death.

 

[71 dB]

Yes that's what I meant. Very interesting. I've been fiddling with different resampling techniques using different FIR presets in a music creation program I have, and it's amazing how it changes the sounds of the samples that you load into it. Depending whether its a more electronic chiptune sample, or a realistic acoustic instrument, the resampling chosen (linear, sinc, etc), alters it significantly.

Linear interpolation certainly creates distortion in re-sampling, but sinc-interpolation should not. What kind of re-sampling have you tried (from what freq. to what?) Are you sure you don't confuse re-sampling and pitch-shifting (the latter is MUCH trickier to do well)?

By the way, "147/160" of what?

44.1 kHz is "147/160" of 48 kHz.

Same here! But most people have troubled lifes and suffer from anxiety, depression and start to panic, because they cannot escape their problems or themselves. But that's a whole other topic! lol

I have suffered from those things too, but when I do, background noise doesn't help at all. When panic hits I have to go out in the night to walk around. That helps me.

 

[71 dB]

Okay, I couldn't read your signature on the phone. But with the computer I could. These are good products. NAD, it works very well.

I had tons of problems with my NAD CD player. First a full bridge rectifier blew and was repaired (now 4 times "bigger" just in case). Then soon after the motor that operates the disc tray blew and was replaced. NAD is garbage these days, but I am a NAD fan so it is what it is... The NAD amp measures one of the worst amps but apparently the problems are inaudible and I am very satisfied with the performance. It is just shame that the stupid amp can't send digital sources to "ZONE 2" which I use to drive my headphone adapter/cross-feeder.