[tranhieu]

I don't know if this is common among pc based audiophiles, but I'm currently experiencing some very strange distortion, which I used to think that it was mainly due to the inability of the system to produce that frequency well enough. Yet with my current rig: foobar -> asio -> hiface -> buffalo 24 dac -> balanced b22 -> k1000 I don't think that's the cause. The recording I'm having trouble with is an audiophile grade one, properly ripped so that is perhaps not the case either.
 
Can anyone shed light on this? I would be really appreciate.

 

[Mad Max]

Please divulge all the gory details on this distortion if possible.

 

[upstateguy]

Quote:

I don't know if this is common among pc based audiophiles, but I'm currently experiencing some very strange distortion, which I used to think that it was mainly due to the inability of the system to produce that frequency well enough. Yet with my current rig: foobar -> asio -> hiface -> buffalo 24 dac -> balanced b22 -> k1000 I don't think that's the cause. The recording I'm having trouble with is an audiophile grade one, properly ripped so that is perhaps not the case either.
 
Can anyone shed light on this? I would be really appreciate.

 
How do you know the distortion is not in the recording?
 
USG
 
 

 

[jiiteepee]

Lossy or lossless source?
 
Audio sample ...
 
jiiteepee
 

 

[Uncle Erik]

My guess is that whatever you're using as an amp is clipping.

You're getting weird distortion in the bass, right?

 

[tranhieu]

http://www.mediafire.com/?d5i5trgzkpx4829
I extracted this song from a complete wav file. Strange enough only this one get distorted, the rest of the cd is ok so I'm not sure it's because of the way it's recorded or anything else.
 
It's not the bass that gets distorted, it's the mid...

 

[labrat]

Delete

 

[Mad Max]

It seems the music isn't all that well recorded or it is a crappy bootleg or something.

 

[Yoga Flame]

I just listened to it and there was distortion for me also. Sometimes mistakes can happen even with audiophile labels. I have a 24/96 track from 2L that has very audible clipping at one point.

 

[germanium]

I listened to it & it seems to be the microhone is ever so slightly overloaded on her peaks  but nothhing out of the ordinary. Peaks do not seem to be clipped as I was watching the wave file as it was playing & did not see any obvious signs of clipping. I annilyzed it through Sony's sound forge 10 pro & it found no clipping. So what you are hearing is the sound of the microphone & or any post proccessing. I would rate the sound of this recording as overall very good. There does seem to be some possable limiting going on to prevent clipping as the sound does come very close to clipping level at several points on her voice. This may be what you are hearing. At no point did I see any flat topping of the waveform though. On playback in sony's sound forge 10 though I can tell that she is definately hitting the limiter pretty hard at -.1db so it is the limiter you are hearing. Her voice though on my system remains pretty clean for the most part & only takes on a slight raspyness on peaks where she hits the limiter hard. this sound though is not nearly as bad as I've heard in live concerts that are close miked

 

[tranhieu]

Thanks every one for your input. I'm a bit relieved now that it's not because of my system that cannot keep up with the music.
 
Quote:

I listened to it & it seems to be the microhone is ever so slightly overloaded on her peaks  but nothhing out of the ordinary. Peaks do not seem to be clipped as I was watching the wave file as it was playing & did not see any obvious signs of clipping. I annilyzed it through Sony's sound forge 10 pro & it found no clipping. So what you are hearing is the sound of the microphone & or any post proccessing. I would rate the sound of this recording as overall very good. There does seem to be some possable limiting going on to prevent clipping as the sound does come very close to clipping level at several points on her voice. This may be what you are hearing. At no point did I see any flat topping of the waveform though. On playback in sony's sound forge 10 though I can tell that she is definately hitting the limiter pretty hard at -.1db so it is the limiter you are hearing. Her voice though on my system remains pretty clean for the most part & only takes on a slight raspyness on peaks where she hits the limiter hard. this sound though is not nearly as bad as I've heard in live concerts that are close miked

May I ask what is flat topping? And what do you mean by her voice reaching the limiter (what's limiter in this context btw?)?
 

 

[germanium]

Quote:

Thanks every one for your input. I'm a bit relieved now that it's not because of my system that cannot keep up with the music.
 

May I ask what is flat topping? And what do you mean by her voice reaching the limiter (what's limiter in this context btw?)?
 

Flat topping is what happens when a signal is clipped. Limiters are used to prevent clipping & reduces the amount of distortion you would hear otherwise. They introduce thier own distortion though which is more benign than outright clipping is. It is that distortion that you are hearing. Clipping causes distortion that is much worse than limiting. Limiting is used allong with compression to maximize the overall loudness of the recording. Compression seemed to be used in a very limited sense or not at all in this recording but limiting was definately used. her voice has good dynamic contrasts but would have been even better if the whole recording were 6 db softer & no limiting was needed, however many people whould have then said the recording was too soft.
 
 

 

[tranhieu]

How can clipping exist in a lossless file to begin with? I thought clipping was caused by the inefficiency of an amp that cannot push enough juice for fones/speakers to produce an exact range of frequency?

 

[germanium]

Quote:

How can clipping exist in a lossless file to begin with? I thought clipping was caused by the inefficiency of an amp that cannot push enough juice for fones/speakers to produce an exact range of frequency?

 Yes clipping can occur even in recordings . Digital recording has a very hard ceiling for max volume & record companies that do popular music recordings push the volume as much as possable, many times into hard clipping. A lossless file of such recordings is still going to be clipped. Note the word lossless. If the original is clipped so will be the lossless file. Even lossy files made from such a recording will be clipped.
 
In analog recording the tape would saturate before going into hard clipping giving rise to harmonic distortion long before hard clipping became a problem so analog recording had a soft ceiling for max loudness compared to digital recordings hard ceiling.

 

[joe_cool]

Quote:

http://www.mediafire.com/?d5i5trgzkpx4829
I extracted this song from a complete wav file. Strange enough only this one get distorted, the rest of the cd is ok so I'm not sure it's because of the way it's recorded or anything else.
 
It's not the bass that gets distorted, it's the mid...

Finally got around to checking this recording. In my opinion there is no digital clipping but there is considerable "fogginess" on voice peaks first heard about 1:15 into the track. My guess is there was a "limiter" used in the mastering process and the track lost about 6db of the peaks. Sadly not unusual but very disappointing, such a beautiful voice.