Sound Science Corner Pub

[gregorio]

My voice sounds weird with mic. I recognized it's me, but it's distorted relative to my natural voice.

That doesn’t address my point.

People that love tube distortion share the same sentiment that I do.

No they don’t. I’ve never heard anyone share the same sentiment that cranking up the levels reduces listening fatigue.

Recoded music with tube distortion is closer to how my brain perceives unamplified live sound.

Exactly my point, your perception is apparently telling you that music amplified with tube distortion is unamplified, the opposite of what is actually occurring!

G

 

[Slaphead]

My voice sounds weird with mic. I recognized it's me, but it's distorted relative to my natural voice.

Nobody hears their recorded voice as the same as when they speak, and most people hate hearing their voice replayed back to them.

You do not hear your voice as other people hear it - all distortion is due to your cranium and inner ear - not the mic recording your voice.

 

[gregorio]

There must be more to it than that for a well regarded publication to state this as a good reason in favor of a 32 bit float?

It is generally well regarded but it’s not always right. This article is largely just echoing the marketing. I did however give some examples of when 32bit float files can be useful.

32-bit float audio allows for more flexibility in post, as it prevents digital clipping by enabling the adjustment of gain without introducing distortion.

In post we mix in 64bit float, so 32bit audio files make no difference to our flexibility and we’ve been able to add gain without distortion for many decades, even before digital mixing. There are specific, rare circumstances when it might be useful, certain offline batch processes for example.

Captures a dynamic range up to over 1500 dB

Yep, that’s pure marketing. A dynamic range of 1500dB wouldn’t just destroy any mic, it would destroy the entire solar system, we definitely cannot capture such a dynamic range!

Eliminates the Need for Perfect Gain Staging

There’s no need for perfect gain staging with 24bit recording. We can have 30dB of headroom no problem. However, in practice it might have a benefit sometimes with extremely low budget/amateur productions, as amateurs sometimes try to set the gain way higher than they should.

Perfect for live music or location recording where unexpected changes can lead to clipping.

Possibly but it’s hard to imagine an unexpected change greater than 30dB but not great enough to clip the analogue chain.

This guy gives an example of what a 32 bit float in a music file means,

The guy gave an example of massively clipping a mix and then recording that down to a 16 and 24bit recording, a scenario beyond incompetent. You wouldn’t expect even a beginner to do that. And, there’s typically no reason to record a music mix to an audio file until it’s completed and needs to be transferred, at that stage you still need ensure it doesn’t exceed 0dBFS regardless of what format you use, because downstream might only be using fixed point (or lossy compression) and then the dynamic range will be clipped above 0dBFS. An exception could be a transfer to a mastering engineer but I already mentioned that use.

G

 

[Ryokan]

Yep, that’s pure marketing. A dynamic range of 1500dB wouldn’t just destroy any mic, it would destroy the entire solar system, we definitely cannot capture such a dynamic range!

So that's why they were banned

The guy gave an example of massively clipping a mix and then recording that down to a 16 and 24bit recording, a scenario beyond incompetent. You wouldn’t expect even a beginner to do that. And, there’s typically no reason to record a music mix to an audio file until it’s completed and needs to be transferred, at that stage you still need ensure it doesn’t exceed 0dBFS regardless of what format you use, because downstream might only be using fixed point (or lossy compression) and then the dynamic range will be clipped above 0dBFS. An exception could be a transfer to a mastering engineer but I already mentioned that use.

I thought he was demonstrating what happens to an audio file if it's above 0dB, the peaks will be clipped. But with the 32 bit float you can restore all the peak information that is lost at lower bit rates?

 

[BS5711]

My voice sounds weird with mic. I recognized it's me, but it's distorted relative to my natural voice.

I bet your recorded voice sounds normal to other people.

 

[Ryokan]

I bet your recorded voice sounds normal to other people.

Whenever I hear my recorded voice I think of Quantum Leap when he looks in the mirror - that's not me!

 

[gregorio]

I thought he was demonstrating what happens to an audio file if it's above 0dB, the peaks will be clipped. But with the 32 bit float you can restore all the peak information that is lost at lower bit rates?

He was using a DAW (Ableton) where he added a huge amount of gain to a drum loop, to take it way over 0dBFS, which you can do in a DAW because they’re 64bit float. He then recorded the output of that to 16 and 24bit files. That’s a demonstration of what happens when you add gain way over 0dBFS in a float environment and record it to a fixed point format. That scenario wouldn’t exist in real life though, there’s no reason to output that drum loop to an audio file, plus you wouldn’t deliberately add loads of gain above 0dBFS and if you inadvertently did something to cause it to go over 0dBFS (for example an EQ boost), you can just turn the volume down again because you’re in a 64bit float environment.

G

 

[danadam]

So if you do stupid things then it helps.

Such way of promoting things reminds me of "Friends" and Joe's ad of MilkMaster 2000

 

[Ryokan]

So if you do stupid things then it helps.

Maybe they're not always so stupid?

 

[colonelkernel8]

That’s your experience which is definitely different from mine. Without my brain, I could never interpret sound waves do I. This is where discrepancies between what is measured and how it’s perceived lies. I don’t interpret the same sound waves as you and if the specific accurate measured gear sounds like headache inducing fatigue to me, it’s crap to me no matter what. The distortion laden tube amplifier that I use OTOH sounds like real music to my own personal perception. Zero listening fatigue with tube distortion to my perception

The discrepancy is bias. That's literally it.

 

[BS5711]

@theveterans

This might be of interest to you.

https://tu-dresden.de/mn/psychologie/ifap/kknw/die-professur/news/we-hear-what-we-expect-to-hear

A summation and critical take away for audio enthusiasts would be this:

Dr Alejandro Tabas, first author of the publication, states on the findings: "Our subjective beliefs on the physical world have a decisive role on how we perceive reality ..................................................... all that we perceive might be deeply contaminated by our subjective beliefs on the physical world."

 

[theveterans]

The discrepancy is bias. That's literally it.

I’m a human not a machine

 

[BS5711]

I’m a human not a machine

That is completely at odds with your insistence that you can simply "listen" for objective changes between gear without taking the measures needed to remove human bias and perceptual errors as much as possible to isolate genuine changes from simply perceived changes that may or may not be real.

I have no argument with somebody say they simply enjoying tinkering with audio gear and like how something sounds despite that they may be biased and even maybe hearing something that isn't there because the gear looks good, cost a lot, has great reviews or whatever.

What I do have an argument with is folks that claim they "know what they hear" and rely on that above all else like they are above bias, perceptual errors etc, that is exactly what you seem to do based on what you portray here.

If science that has carried out scans of the brain during audio testing indicates that " ..... all that we perceive might be deeply contaminated by our subjective beliefs on the physical world .... " as the above linked article I don't understand the instance that you know better and can simply listen and be certain of what is going on.

 

[theveterans]

What I do have an argument with is folks that claim they "know what they hear" and rely on that above all else like they are above bias, perceptual errors etc, that is exactly what you seem to do based on what you portray here.

I know what I heard that's how I'm able to cure my system to the sound signature that suits my preference. Every part of my system contributes to its overall sound. I swap things, some of my human bias gets thrown here and there but the end result is I absolutely love how my system is sounding after all those tweaks and curated component matching

 

[BS5711]

I’m a human not a machine .....

I know what I heard .....

I guess you don't see the disconnect here.