On another related note check out
http://antipodesaudio.com/articles.html . I received this link in a marketing email this morning to spend money on upgrading my music server. Of specific interest to this topic string are two links on this page to: 'Of Faith & Science' and 'Design Approach' (I could not get direct links to each specific topic article, so have to include the full marketing pitch -- sorry). Yes, it is marketing bumph, but I think this string's readership may find these two specific articles interesting, either in agreeing with what is put forth by Mark or in knocking holes in what has been stated, as you think is appropriate.
Yep, I've seen this sort of thing numerous times before. It's nonsense but potentially it's not only nonsense, potentially it's very good marketing and it's very good marketing because it sounds entirely reasonable. In fact, to some/many who believe they hear differences, it probably sounds far more reasonable than the actual facts! However, with some basic factual knowledge and the application of some logic, it's really not very difficult to see that it's just nonsense. The author hopes that the reader either doesn't have that basic knowledge, isn't capable of simple logic or if they are, that they won't think to apply it. The basic arguments of this and similar articles are along the lines that digital audio is just a theory/model, models are not reality, theories are theories rather than absolute proof, science doesn't know everything and therefore it's just childish to accept on faith that there is no possibility of there being anything more than only zero's and one's (binary data bits). The reason this is nonsense is because these arguments do not matter, they are totally irrelevant! Let's pretend for a moment that the proven maths/science and demonstrated facts don't exist and assume hypothetically that there definitely is "something else", something other than just zero's and ones. A digital to analogue converter chip is by definition digital and therefore it's designed to accept only zeros and ones, as with all digital devices it's programmed (with zeros and ones) to perform instructions/calculations on other zeros and ones. Therefore, if we feed this "something else" into a DAC chip there are only two possible outcomes; either the chip is unaware of the existence of that "something else" and therefore completely ignores it or it throws an error/crashes because it only understands zeros and ones. In other words, this "something else" (regardless of what it is) either has absolutely no effect at all or causes there to be no output, no other options are possible. And of course, the same is true of all digital processing units, not just digital audio devices, zeros and ones or nothing.
Personally, I'm convinced by the proven math/science and the lack of any reliable evidence even hinting at the possibility of there being "something else". However, I cannot be absolutely certain there is not something else, all I can be absolutely certain of is that if there is something else, we'll need an entirely new technology for it, it can't be digital audio because digital audio by definition of being "digital" is only zeros and ones. So, whether or not there is "something else" or whether or not I or anyone else is open to the possibility of there being something else is completely irrelevant, as are all the other similar arguments about theories and what science might not know.
The question about this and similar articles is; why was it written? Either the author is just an idiot who effectively doesn't know what "digital" means or we come right back to point #2B above: If we accept the science and facts, that there can be no audible difference and therefore no reason to buy a competent DAC capable of more than 16/44 and no reason to spend more than $10 on a competent USB cable, where does that leave the digital audio equipment manufacturing/retailing industry? They only have two options. 1. A race to the bottom (who can produce the cheapest competent 16/44 DAC or USB cable) or 2. Marketing! Either simply ignore the science and present some nonsense marketing claims, misrepresent the science to back-up nonsense marketing claims or discredit the science and then any nonsense could be "fact"! Along with other some other time-honoured basic marketing techniques; price point, appearance and testimonials, just to name a few, that's more than enough to exploit the difference between audible and perceivable.
The Design Approach article is basically "
The trouble with applying accepted science to music is we don’t have a reliable objective measurement of how well a piece of equipment conveys the emotion that was conveyed in the original performance." Which again is complete nonsense! It's not the job of an audio reproduction system to convey or reproduce emotion, that would be the job of an emotion reproduction system (if there were such a thing)! It's the job of the artists and engineers who created the recording to make sure that the audio contains and elicits the desired emotions, then it's just a case of reproducing that audio as accurately as possible. To reproduce/convey the emotion perfectly, the audio reproduction system therefore does not even need any awareness of emotion and entirely contrary to the claim; we can very reliably objectively measure the accuracy of audio reproduction (and therefore the conveyance of whatever the recording contained). The very last thing I would want is an audio reproduction system which markets itself effectively as an emotion reproduction system because that implies it is not trying to accurately reproduce audio (and therefore the art and emotion put into that audio by the artists) but is somehow deciding what it thinks is emotion/art and changing the audio from what the artists intended. This falls under the "misrepresent the science" marketing ploy. And the opening sentence "
Our approach to product development is highly scientific, using blind testing to verify all findings", is of course just a bold faced lie, as blind testing is not "highly scientific", it's not even lowly scientific! The minimum requirement for science is double blind testing and even then, only with certain provisos and conditions!
The author of the article writes reasonably eloquently, so most likely he/she is not an idiot but is simply employing marketing tactics. However, I can't completely discount the possibility that he/she is simply employing marketing tactics and is also an idiot!
G
