[bfreedma]

Question for you AS, seriously. Don't you ever wonder why is it that you cannot get perfect or even excellent results when transferring vinyl or cassette tape to 16/44 or even 24/192? Are you not curious given a/ in both cases you are going from a lower resolution to a higher one so while there will be no improvement it should not result in any degradation (bit like transferring analog vhs to digital dvd)? Even if your beliefs that measurements lie or whatever, and so answer no to a/ are you not even the slightest bit curious how so many others are able to achieve a perfect transfer consistent with the measurements and validated through double blind tests?

Yes, I am seriously aware of all you have stated.

Curiously, you mention analog vhs transferto digital dvd. I am not a videophile, I have cancelled TV completely over a decade ago - yet, last time I did check the "pancake" TV s ( plasma, LED, whatever ) some say 5 years ago, it was ONLY the highest of high end models that did not bother me in a casual viewing test - just looking at picture of say a footbal match - or any other sport not practicing how much time one can be perfectly still. Likewise, a good S-VHS tape played on a GOOD
( that means modified TOTL ... - there never were such units available for sale, made possible only some 2 decades - or more, up to present time - after these units originally appeared on the market; only after electronic components of sufficint quality became available )
S-VHS player/recorder gives - to me - a better picture quality than most DVD players.

And, judging by your reply ( absolutely nothing wrong with it, it is perfectly in line with the current state of science and acceptance of pratices in the industry ) , you really should hear that anecdote...

Yet another claim that a hugely expensive and unobtainable device is better than some cheap consumer electronics. Even if you were correct, how is this meaningful to video reproduction, let alone audio reproduction?

I find it interesting that you make these long convoluted posts yet won’t answer what’s preventing you from posting the “proofs” you claim to have to the internet. If you can’t answer the question, then I can only assume you’re using it as an excuse and that the data you claim to have doesn’t exist. So humor me - what are the specific technical, political, or domain knowledge issue(s) preventing you from posting them? I’d be happy to help you resolve the problem if you actually have one.

Edit. And for everyone’s benefit, learn how to reply correctly so I don’t have to edit responses because you can’t use the quote feature correctly.

 

[analogsurviver]

Theorethically you should hear that digitazed analog recordings sound the same, but you don't because of bias and placebo.

Theorethically. But that has - so far - never been the case. Not even with DSD128. And I would have LOVED it if it was bias or placebo. In the mid/late 70s, I was a teenager and could not afford nearly as many direct to disc analogue records that were current then as I have wished; now, with the most desirable new/sealed or mint copies pushing a grand, it boils down to the same thing.

The reason(s) lie elsewhere.

 

[71 dB]

S-VHS player/recorder gives - to me - a better picture quality than most DVD players.

I had an S-VHS player years ago and it certainly did not give better picture quality than what DVD is capable of (I have seen abyssmal DVDs such as Spielberg's "1941" in my life but that's because the sourse material has been really really bad). Not even closely! Anyway, we are a decade beyond "DVD-era" and people interested of picture quality use Blu-ray or/and 4K ultra HD Blu-ray.

 

[TheSonicTruth]

Question for you AS, seriously. Don't you ever wonder why is it that you cannot get perfect or even excellent results when transferring vinyl or cassette tape to 16/44 or even 24/192? Are you not curious given a/ in both cases you are going from a lower resolution to a higher one so while there will be no improvement it should not result in any degradation (bit like transferring analog vhs to digital dvd)? Even if your beliefs that measurements lie or whatever, and so answer no to a/ are you not even the slightest bit curious how so many others are able to achieve a perfect transfer consistent with the measurements and validated through double blind tests?

Yes, I am seriously aware of all you have stated.

Curiously, you mention analog vhs transferto digital dvd. I am not a videophile, I have cancelled TV completely over a decade ago - yet, last time I did check the "pancake" TV s ( plasma, LED, whatever ) some say 5 years ago, it was ONLY the highest of high end models that did not bother me in a casual viewing test - just looking at picture of say a footbal match - or any other sport not practicing how much time one can be perfectly still. Likewise, a good S-VHS tape played on a GOOD
( that means modified TOTL ... - there never were such units available for sale, made possible only some 2 decades - or more, up to present time - after these units originally appeared on the market; only after electronic components of sufficint quality became available )
S-VHS player/recorder gives - to me - a better picture quality than most DVD players.

And, judging by your reply ( absolutely nothing wrong with it, it is perfectly in line with the current state of science and acceptance of pratices in the industry ) , you really should hear that anecdote...

"yet, last time I did check the "pancake" TV s
( plasma, LED, whatever ) some say 5 years ago,
it was ONLY the highest of high end models that did
not bother me in a casual viewing test - just looking
at picture of say a footbal match "

Where did you view the ones that you did - in a store or at someone's house? And were those displays calibrated, or at least taken out of 'Shop' mode or had their user settings adjusted to reasonable levels?

 

[analogsurviver]

Yet another claim that a hugely expensive and unobtainable device is better than some cheap consumer electronics. Even if you were correct, how is this meaningful to video reproduction, let alone audio reproduction?

I find it interesting that you make these long convoluted posts yet won’t answer what’s preventing you from posting the “proofs” you claim to have to the internet. If you can’t answer the question, then I can only assume you’re using it as an excuse and that the data you claim to have doesn’t exist. So humor me - what are the specific technical, political, or domain knowledge issue(s) preventing you from posting them? I’d be happy to help you resolve the problem if you actually have one.

Edit. And for everyone’s benefit, learn how to reply correctly so I don’t have to edit responses because you can’t use the quote feature correctly.

THAT is the core of it all. Because, like in cycling where light/durable/cheap can not exist at the same time in the same product ( but can in any combination of just two preperties ), you can not have some cheap consumer electronics AND quality. I am NOT delihted by this fact - but, it is, unfortunately, true. Video is perhaps even more illuminating than audio - because any person with reasonable eyesight would describe a picture relatively similar to other person, whereas in sound we do tend towards hearing subjectively different things than objectively presented.

"yet, last time I did check the "pancake" TV s
( plasma, LED, whatever ) some say 5 years ago,
it was ONLY the highest of high end models that did
not bother me in a casual viewing test - just looking
at picture of say a footbal match "

Where did you view the ones that you did - in a store or at someone's house? And were those displays calibrated, or at least taken out of 'Shop' mode or had their user settings adjusted to reasonable levels?

This was in the official Sony distributor shop that since then moved to another location. How or in which mode - or not - were the TVs calibrated or whether the user settings have been adjusted to reasonable levels I do not have the foggiest; I used to frequent that store in about half year period solely because I have been using Sony's best Mini Disc ( full RBCD ) to record some concerts where it has not been either practical or worth carrying the S-VHS and/or CD-R recorder - some 100:1 difference in bulk. And 1GB Mini Discs were ONLY available in official Sony stores. That TV test was made more AS an afterthought/curiosity only - I was NOT in the market. If I were, you can bet I would be checking what is going on at the time, would try to check the reviews, would insist on properly set TVs, etc, etc. As it was, it is about the same type quality of observation as RBCD CD camp saying analog record is bad - without probably ever hearing what it can do under optimum conditions. Except that TV "test" has been carried on a whim and lasted for - maybe - 20 minutes.

OK, now I will have to turn into "submarine" till the end of month. First, today I will try to get the turntable with that HF cart going as it should be going. TBH, I should have used linear tracking arm ( I do know - from experience - that the stylus in question prefers, by not a small margin, linear arms ) - but both of my Eminent Technology ET2 armwands are "occupied" by another cartridges - and setting them both up to the same level if dimounted is approx 4 days work - each (ouch...) . That is too much just for the measurement(s) to be taken.

Then I have a very important recording on 27th - with, to me, even more important rehearsal the day before. I have to check and prepare the equipment - as it will be all out effort. And most likely another recording on 29th - again, rehearsal the day before.

Here, the shortest crash dive video I could find :

 

[bfreedma]

THAT is the core of it all. Because, like in cycling where light/durable/cheap can not exist at the same time in the same product ( but can in any combination of just two preperties ), you can not have some cheap consumer electronics AND quality. I am NOT delihted by this fact - but, it is, unfortunately, true. Video is perhaps even more illuminating than audio - because any person with reasonable eyesight would describe a picture relatively similar to other person, whereas in sound we do tend towards hearing subjectively different things than objectively presented.


This was in the official Sony distributor shop that since then moved to another location. How or in which mode - or not - were the TVs calibrated or whether the user settings have been adjusted to reasonable levels I do not have the foggiest; I used to frequent that store in about half year period solely because I have been using Sony's best Mini Disc ( full RBCD ) to record some concerts where it has not been either practical or worth carrying the S-VHS and/or CD-R recorder - some 100:1 difference in bulk. And 1GB Mini Discs were ONLY available in official Sony stores. That TV test was made more AS an afterthought/curiosity only - I was NOT in the market. If I were, you can bet I would be checking what is going on at the time, would try to check the reviews, would insist on properly set TVs, etc, etc. As it was, it is about the same type quality of observation as RBCD CD camp saying analog record is bad - without probably ever hearing what it can do under optimum conditions. Except that TV "test" has been carried on a whim and lasted for - maybe - 20 minutes.

OK, now I will have to turn into "submarine" till the end of month. First, today I will try to get the turntable with that HF cart going as it should be going. TBH, I should have used linear tracking arm ( I do know - from experience - that the stylus in question prefers, by not a small margin, linear arms ) - but both of my Eminent Technology ET2 armwands are "occupied" by another cartridges - and setting them both up to the same level if dimounted is approx 4 days work - each (ouch...) . That is too much just for the measurement(s) to be taken.

Then I have a very important recording on 27th - with, to me, even more important rehearsal the day before. I have to check and prepare the equipment - as it will be all out effort. And most likely another recording on 29th - again, rehearsal the day before.

Here, the shortest crash dive video I could find :

You misunderstood my post. DVD and Blu Ray players are cheap, available, reasonably durable, and outperform s-vhs for the vast majority of applications. And that’s without beginning to discuss the long term stability of tape vs. disc based storage.

That you made a definitive statement comparing two video formats when you have no idea how the various displays you viewed them on were calibrated borders on comical.

 

[pinnahertz]

Curiously, you mention analog vhs transferto digital dvd. I am not a videophile, I have cancelled TV completely over a decade ago - yet, last time I did check the "pancake" TV s ( plasma, LED, whatever ) some say 5 years ago, it was ONLY the highest of high end models that did not bother me in a casual viewing test - just looking at picture of say a footbal match - or any other sport not practicing how much time one can be perfectly still.

You ave judged ALL modern TVs based on one demonstration of one with an inferior source signal! A huge part of making HD video work is compression, and like all forms of bit-rate reduction, lossy compression, there are many methods, data rates, and widely varying results. And TVs all vary in their ability to decode and process compressed video. Sony, even of 5 years ago, should have been excellent. But demo material is critical, and from your description, what you were watching was like trying to audition an audio system with a low-rate mp3.

Likewise, a good S-VHS tape played on a GOOD
( that means modified TOTL ... - there never were such units available for sale, made possible only some 2 decades - or more, up to present time - after these units originally appeared on the market; only after electronic components of sufficint quality became available )
S-VHS player/recorder gives - to me - a better picture quality than most DVD players.

You are a riot! Good thing you've never auditioned a wire recorder! Audio on a high-speed steel wire? You'd LOVE it!

Seriously? There is no possible way S-VHS, modified (making it invalid for comparison of formats, BTW), or not, can beat a well-mastered DVD played through an up-converter (standard now) to an HD TV. And who cares anyway? We're WAY past DVD, and well into resolution that exceeds film with new high-efficiency codes. The only way you could possibly think the above statement is true is to not have seen the right valid demonstration. S-VHS is noisy, low bandwidth, limited to 480i, and loaded with time-base errors. DVD, raw, is 480p (720x480), has no time-base errors, has variable bit-rate as needed, and because it's a fixed pixel format can be up-converted to a much larger frame with surprising improvements. And that's the old, outdated DVD...as I said, we've moved on.

But, you need to understand technology like the DVD. Compression on DVD is variable, depending on content. And the degree to which the total maximum and minimum bit-rate is adjusted is highly variable. You can master a DVD at 10.5 Mbp/s fixed, or you can set the maximum lower and make it automatically varied using two-pass (analysis/compression) AND drop in manual cues for the compressor to open up for critical high-motion sections. Early DVD authoring (think mastering)ignored much of this, and there are many bad examples, but they don't define the formation.

Again, all of that is about the DVD, and we've moved on. The same principles apply, but now with Blu-ray we have data rates up to 30Mbp/s, highly efficient codecs that can deliver 3840×2160 at 60p in a 16:9 frame. And we have moved on past that with files-based video.

But you're welcome to stick with VHS. It is, after all, analog.

And, judging by your reply ( absolutely nothing wrong with it, it is perfectly in line with the current state of science and acceptance of pratices in the industry ) , you really should hear that anecdote...

Please, spare us any more anecdotes. The will convince no one in SS.

Seriously, get your hands on a wire recorder. Modify it. Hey, get two and lock them together for stereo, and edit by tying knots! And dub the result to a 45/45 wax cylinder. It'll take some modification to do that, but then you'll have a stereo wax cylinder, all analog, mastered without tape, that nobody else can play...or would want to.

 

[castleofargh]

now VHS is also a superior media?
and watching the old tube telly was superior to watching modern TV too? talk about selective memory and old stuff fanaticism.
I need to call bull man for help


@analogsurviver, I think I've got it. forget about ultrasonic content sounding better, you don't know how to prove it most likely because you're wrong. forget about some false preconceptions on analog when in effect the output of a digital system is usually much better clocked than analog media played back.
no instead I have the true common denominator for the stuff you prefer and find superior. they all have a crippling amounts of noise. you weren't mad and you do probably hear the difference. it just was noise all along. mystery solved, you love noise. what do you think of my hypothesis? for DSD I'm guessing you found a way for all the noise shaping and filtering to fail on your system. or maybe just knowing that the original signal has only 1bit is enough to make your heart race thinking about all that quantification noise so the sound feel good? IDK.
I'm not joking. doesn't this seem more rational than most of the stuff you say to justify the superiority of ultrasounds, vinyls, VHS, old CRTs, and soon, IDK, horse carriages? nothing would surprise me at this point.

 

[Steve999]

Descartes promoted the development of a new science grounded in observation and experiment. . . Applying an original system of methodical doubt, he dismissed apparent knowledge derived from authority, the senses, and reason. . .

René Descartes, (born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, France—died February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden), French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher.

https://www.scribd.com/document/340123941/Generalitati-Despre-Descartes

Descartes was also a founder of the modern theory of sense perception, including sound, breaking away from the Aristotelian school that had held sway for centuries:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/#TheSenPer

5. Theory of Sense Perception

As the new “mechanical philosophy” of Descartes and others replaced the Aristotelian physics, the theory of sensory qualities had to undergo substantial change. This was especially true for what came to be known as the secondary qualities (in the terminology of Robert Boyle and John Locke). The secondary qualities include colors, sounds, odors, tastes, and tactile qualities such as hot and cold. The Aristotelians maintained that these qualities exist in objects as “real qualities” that are like instances or samples of the quality as experienced. A red thing possesses the quality red in just the same way it possesses a shape: it simply is red, and we experience that very redness when we see a red object (the “resemblance thesis” as mentioned in Sec. 3.5).

Descartes sought to replace “real qualities” with a mechanistic account of qualities in objects. He rendered light as a property of particles and their motions: it is a “tendency to move” as found in a continuous medium and radiating out from a luminous body. When light strikes an object, the particles that constitute light alter their rotation about their axis. “Spin” is what makes light have one color rather than another. When particles with one or another degree of spin interact with the nerves of the retina, they cause those nerves to jiggle in a certain way. This jiggling is conveyed to the brain where it affects the animal spirits, which in turn affect the mind, causing the mind to experience one or another color, depending on the degree of spin and how it affects the brain. Color in objects is thus that property of their surface that causes light particles to spin in one way or another, and hence to cause one sensation or another. There is nothing else in the surface of an object, as regards color, than a certain surface-shape that induces various spins in particles of light.

 

[analogsurviver]

[

now VHS is also a superior media?
and watching the old tube telly was superior to watching modern TV too? talk about selective memory and old stuff fanaticism.
I need to call Bull**** man for help


@analogsurviver, I think I've got it. forget about ultrasonic content sounding better, you don't know how to prove it most likely because you're wrong. forget about some false preconceptions on analog when in effect the output of a digital system is usually much better clocked than analog media played back.
no instead I have the true common denominator for the stuff you prefer and find superior. they all have a crippling amounts of noise. you weren't mad and you do probably hear the difference. it just was noise all along. mystery solved, you love noise. what do you think of my hypothesis? for DSD I'm guessing you found a way for all the noise shaping and filtering to fail on your system. or maybe just knowing that the original signal has only 1bit is enough to make your heart race thinking about all that quantification noise so the sound feel good? IDK.
I'm not joking. doesn't this seem more rational than most of the stuff you say to justify the superiority of ultrasounds, vinyls, VHS, old CRTs, and soon, IDK, horse carriages? nothing would surprise me at this point.

Just at periscope depth - and What A Language ...



Noise is not such a lovable creature after all . It gives a false impression of acoustic space, among other things. Not good. The only REALLY quiet recording (noise free) I have made was DSD128 converted to 192/32 float - but most commercially available DACs can not play this format back.

BTW - why do you think I am looking forward to DSD256 - or even higher - if not for getting the quantization noise down enough - say NEVER above -100dB , from very low (say 10 Hz) up to whatever the bandwidth the digital is limited to, but not lesss than 100kHz dead flat and some reasonable gentle rollof above ?

Proving the superiority of > 20 kHz is easy - IF you use wideband equipment - from the recording microphone through all locks and lambdas trough to the final transducer.. For the more enerpreneurish, that can be had even using bluetooth headphones. I do have such a thing - and the difference it makes on the face of every listener I have ever let him/her try it is always astonishment and positive surprise. My horse carriages travel in time - picking (mostly) the best each epoch has to offer.

 

[pinnahertz]

Noise is not such a lovable creature after all . It gives a false impression of acoustic space, among other things. Not good. The only REALLY quiet recording (noise free) I have made was DSD128 converted to 192/32 float - but most commercially available DACs can not play this format back.

Just a basic question or two....
1. What have you done about thermal noise, which is higher than 32bits, higher than 24 bits...etc. Especially in a microphone.
2. What have you done about room noise? Are you recording in the Microsoft "Quietest Room On Earth" in Redmond? It's barely quiet enough for 24 bits, not even close to 32 bits.
3. Either you're playing this stuff back at Microsoft, or you've suffered irreversible hearing damage by increasing the maximum SPL to somewhere above the theoretical maximum SPL that air can transmit without distortion caused by air itself, and you're stone deaf. Where are you playing your mythical recordings?
4. What nice musical sounding microphones are you using that have flat response to 100kHz and noise below molecular/thermal noise?
5. Would you mind reducing your verbal noise to somewhere below average? (That means cease and desist).

BTW - why do you think I am looking forward to DSD256 - or even higher - if not for getting the quantization noise down enough - say NEVER above -100dB , from very low (say 10 Hz) up to whatever the bandwidth the digital is limited to, but not lesss than 100kHz dead flat and some reasonable gentle rollof above ?

Oh I do have an answer for that!!!!

Proving the superiority of > 20 kHz is easy -

The one thing you have proven, beyond a doubt, is that it is not easy to prove superiority of > 20kHz, because you haven't proven it in 5 weeks of nonsense posting. Not one tiny shred of evidence, nothing but wild and unsubstantiated statements that are opinions stated as fact without proof. You have zero credibility. It's all up from here, but you don't post proof even after dozens for reminders, requests and demands.

You have nothing here but myth, and tons of it at that.

 

[KeithEmo]

The original marketing for SACDs (DSD) WAS in fact very good.

They showed a picture of a sine wave.
Next to it they showed a PCM signal - which, to the human eye, looks like a more or less random digital signal.
Next to that they showed the DSD version.
On the DSD version you could "see the shape of the sine wave in the pulses" (you can see that the pulses get closer together and further apart as the voltage goes up and down).
Therefore, clearly, even though both are digital, the PCM signal looked like random digital data, while the DSD version "looked sort of like the analog signal if you squint" - so "the DSD signal is more like analog"

They actually ran ads and printed brochures with those pictures - and that justification for "why DSD was more like analog".

Also, to be fair, I've heard several cases where the Red Book CD layer and the DSD layer on a hybrid SACD sounded different...
And where the DSD layer sounded "smoother" - presumably because it was mastered "to sound more like audiophiles like".
(And, no, whenever I've converted from one to the other myself, in either direction, I've never noticed that sort of difference.)

I've also suspected that the main reason that MANY SACDs sound cleaner is simply because DSD is almost impossible to edit - and extremely difficult to mix.
(Until recently there were only one or two products capable of mixing DSD audio without converting to PCM.... and most current ones still involve an internal conversion of sorts.)
Therefore, most direct DSD recordings, and most SACDs, are the equivalent of "direct to disc recordings" - and lack most of the complicated, and often unfortunate, editing and effects that are almost always applied to PCM recordings.
And, likewise, almost all older SACD versions of pop and rock albums were converted to DSD after being mixed and mastered in analog.
As a result, the majority of DSD recordings are much simpler, or were actually recorded and mixed in analog rather than DSD, and many do in fact sound very good.

no wonder you like his posts. what you both do is mix all the unrelated stuff you like together and consider you liking them as evidence of similitude and superior fidelity. if I like pizza and licking rocks, but I don't like salmon, have I demonstrated that rocks are superior food?
when you guys associate DSD with tapes and vinyl, then put that team against CD, it makes just as little sense to me. first, they couldn't have less in common, whatever marketing you saw about DSD being close to analog really got you good. second, your personal preferences are not how you measure fidelity! never was, never will be.
enjoy what you enjoy, praise what you like for being what you like instead of claiming objective superiority you haven't and cannot demonstrate. this need to disguise anything you guys like as objectively superior, I don't know if it's motivated by your own insecurity? or maybe a form of sunk-cost fallacy where after years of investing in analog gears, you just can't stop to agree that they're now inferior techs? but your behavior and "arguments" are those of fanaticism, not those of men who give a crap about science and facts.

 

[bigshot]

The title to this thread is really loaded, and it limits the scope of what we talk about.

No it doesn't. The loudest people in this thread aren't talking about testing to prove or disprove myths at all. Have you read the first post in this thread all the way through yet? That's the context, not the ridiculous comments.

 

[Glmoneydawg]

I had an S-VHS player years ago and it certainly did not give better picture quality than what DVD is capable of (I have seen abyssmal DVDs such as Spielberg's "1941" in my life but that's because the sourse material has been really really bad). Not even closely! Anyway, we are a decade beyond "DVD-era" and people interested of picture quality use Blu-ray or/and 4K ultra HD Blu-ray.

Yep vhs wasn't even the best format of that time period....sony wouldn't licence beta video to other companies...it killed the format.....tv, news ect continued to use beta because it was clearly superior......sony didn't make the same mistake twice...

 

[Steve999]

No it doesn't. The loudest people in this thread aren't talking about testing to prove or disprove myths at all. Have you read the first post in this thread all the way through yet? That's the context, not the ridiculous comments.[/SIZE]

I did actually! It's great! And you'll find few people more skeptical of unsubstantiated audio claims than I am. But it seems to me that the idea that we are going to "test myths" has a kind of built-in bias. Now actually it says we are testing audiophile claims and myths, which has a little more balance to it, but still we are saying, hey you, audiophile, you're on the spot. I just think the idea that we are testing audio claims and myths, or even better, audio claims and hypotheses, would be less loaded and a broader and richer subject matter. That's all. The great majority of the stuff that gets tossed around after the first post in this thread is thoroughly addressed in the first post and was generally debunked 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. It's tired and worn territory. And then we go into yet other stuff that is even more off the wall with no testing at all.

I agree the loudest people in this thread are way OT. They are making some really wild and untrue audio claims, addressed in the initial post, which I believe are pretty much settled subjects, but not testing them, or somehow managing to go even further afield than that, into video etc. etc. If they were testing their unusual claims to a degree where I might think, now wait a minute, he's got something there, I would get it. A lot of times that's how progress is made, even if it doesn't end up hitting the mark on the first try or in the end.