Nose floor vs audible effects

[mayhem13]

A niche' market of those with a strong desire to be different, which for some reason yourself and others of a similiar mind equate with 'better'. How does one determine a or the most 'natural' recording? Where you in an isolated control room at the time with the unique ability for aural memory to be able to compare the recording vs the live performance playing at the time?

 

You have a preference for this type of thing, which means just that and nothing more......YOUR personal preference. Again we're back to this rediculous reference to all things 'audiophile'. WTF does that even mean?????? If live performance classical is somehow a prerequisite, show me the rulebook please so we can rename this hobby of ours and get on with in. 97% of the music listening world certainly have. It's this elitist BS that's fueling the downward spiral of high end audio to begin with.

 

The point of my arguement which went by the heads of you, Theresa and Alex is that a recording with today's recording and playback gear will never reproduce a replicant 3D representation of the original performance......not even close. The variables are infinite. Enjoy live music?.......go see one! God knows the artists could use the $$$.

[sandyk]

The point of my arguement which went by the heads of you, Theresa and Alex is that a recording with today's recording and playback gear will never reproduce a replicant 3D representation of the original performance......not even close. The variables are infinite. Enjoy live music?.......go see one! God knows the artists could use the $$$

 

Especially if you further process it using DSP !

I heard DSP in action at a friend's house on Sunday and Monday, and although it made a couple of female voices sound "nicer", I felt that overall, transparency had been degraded. It cleaned up a small area of the presentation at the expense of the overall picture. A couple of the IT types present didn't agree with me though. Obviously, some may prefer looking through rose tinted glasses with certain types of material.

On Monday morning before a couple of the guests arrived we tried a track from "LPO-Mahler- Resurrection", which has a lot of low level areas and a large dynamic range , which meant turning up the attenuator several notches.

Even the host had to agree that the non DSP version sounded markedly better.

I am not surprised that some people who use DSP don't find that high res material is an improvement. They have dumbed it down !!! Just because Anthony's system is incapable of a very good 3D representation of well recorded material, and he is unable to hear differences between USB cables and different Player software, that MANY members report, doesn't mean that others are unable to get much closer to the real thing. I doubt that we will ever get fully there in our lifetimes, if ever.

In the meantime, as George and Teresa have already said, some knowledgeable record producers are taking us much closer to that ideal.

[mayhem13]

Yep Alex......you got it.......I'm deaf and can't hear worth a crap. You, George and Theresa have your fingers on the pulse of all things audio! What was I thinking challenging the position of such a fine collection of audiophiles?

[sandyk]

What was I thinking challenging the position of such a fine collection of audiophiles?

 

There are very few posts from you , other than in the DSP area that agree with ANYTHING that most members report.

I think that says way more about you, than it does about the 3 of us ? .

How often do you even listen to other people's gear ? At least I get to regularly listen to and compare many different types of gear, as reported on here by many members, and George gets to review many different types of equipment.

[RealAudio]

I listen through headphones most of the time. So I get only venue acoustics, and no local acoustics layered over that...

 

No, by listening through headphones you get interaction between the headphones and your ear, which are just as "artificial" as your room acoustics.

[gmgraves]

A niche' market of those with a strong desire to be different, which for some reason yourself and others of a similiar mind equate with 'better'. How does one determine a or the most 'natural' recording? Where you in an isolated control room at the time with the unique ability for aural memory to be able to compare the recording vs the live performance playing at the time?

 

You have a preference for this type of thing, which means just that and nothing more......YOUR personal preference. Again we're back to this rediculous reference to all things 'audiophile'. WTF does that even mean?????? If live performance classical is somehow a prerequisite, show me the rulebook please so we can rename this hobby of ours and get on with in. 97% of the music listening world certainly have. It's this elitist BS that's fueling the downward spiral of high end audio to begin with.

 

The point of my arguement which went by the heads of you, Theresa and Alex is that a recording with today's recording and playback gear will never reproduce a replicant 3D representation of the original performance......not even close. The variables are infinite. Enjoy live music?.......go see one! God knows the artists could use the $$$.

 

 

First of all, let's define our term. "Natural sounding recording", evokes a recording which sounds like one is listening to real musicians playing in real space. Real acoustical music (as opposed to largely electronic music) has certain characteristics that elaborately produced recordings do not capture. The one characteristic that is the most telling is sound-stage/imaging. When one listens to a live performance of acoustical instruments (which is all we are ostensibly discussing here, since MOST pop recordings aren't, by definition "natural", nor were they meant to be. So, let's take those off the table right now), they occupy space in the room and they interact with that room in various ways. A "natural sounding" recording transmits, in as far as it is possible, that space to the listener's environment. Unnatural sounding recordings which came about when multi-track recording (8 channels or more) came available starting in the 1960's, don't try to capture the space the musical ensemble occupies, but rather captures the instruments themselves. By capturing each instrument, or group of instruments separately, the recording process actually dis-assembles the musical performance, records each "piece" to a separate track and stores it that way. When the performance is re-constructed in the studio from those separate pieces, the reconstruction is done electronically using the mixing console and the position of each piece of the performance is artificially placed along an imaginary line stretching from the extreme right to the extreme left. There is no depth in this situation because those "cues" simply were not captured by the multi-miking/multi-track process. The next characteristic of realistic sounding recordings is the sense of balance between instruments in the performance. In a realistic recording, the balance between the various instruments is maintained by how the music is written by the composer, and how the conductor chooses to interpret what is written on the score. In a non-realistic recording, often, certain instruments, which are supposed to blend with other instruments stick out like a sore thumb because they were mixed too loud. Finally, a bunch of violins, all individually recorded, using one microphone per violin, simply cannot be mixed to sound like a string section! A string section is a mass of violins where the sounds of all of them together, mix in the air between the interments themselves and the listener's ears, and this cannot be electronically "faked". Multi-miked string sections sound like a number of solo violins playing at the same time. That is

not how a string section sounds in the concert hall. Finally, sticking two or three microphones inside of a piano, will not yield an instrument that sounds like a real piano. It can't.

 

Now, nobody is being elitist here, in spite of your protestations to the contrary. We are discussing characteristics of recordings that are important to our enjoyment of that recording's musical content. Others might not care about realism, and if that's you, then there are plenty of recordings out there that will suit you, and you are welcomed to them. "Natural sounding" recordings used to be the norm, now, most recordings are less and less natural sounding, so you get to take your pick. But there are a number of us, who take the goal of "high-fidelity" seriously - "...a high degree of faithfulness to the actual sound of the musical event, played back in one's living room". If that's not your choice, fine. But please don't come here and tell us that because some of us wish to discuss the subject of natural sounding recordings, that this makes us "elitists".

[mayhem13]

Sorry you wasted so much time on that lengthy reply with the intent on educating me as to what sounds natural and what doesn't. Again, you compare to a reference that you, I or anyone else is unable to certify.

 

Best to leave your viewpoint as the subjective opinion that it is and maybe take some time to understand transducers, power and polar response in an acoustic 3D space.

[gmgraves]

Sorry you wasted so much time on that lengthy reply with the intent on educating me as to what sounds natural and what doesn't. Again, you compare to a reference that you, I or anyone else is unable to certify.

 

Perhaps you can't tell when a recording sounds natural or not, but there are plenty of posters here who can, including me. If one knows what real music played in a real space sounds like, then that is the reference, and no other is required. And you're right it seems that I did waste my time.

 

Best to leave your viewpoint as the subjective opinion that it is and maybe take some time to understand transducers, power and polar response in an acoustic 3D space.

 

I probably know as much about those above mentioned subjects as anyone here, and because of my decades of live recording experience, I probably know a good deal more than many.

[dallasjustice]

Especially if you further process it using DSP !

I heard DSP in action at a friend's house on Sunday and Monday, and although it made a couple of female voices sound "nicer", I felt that overall, transparency had been degraded. It cleaned up a small area of the presentation at the expense of the overall picture. A couple of the IT types present didn't agree with me though. Obviously, some may prefer looking through rose tinted glasses with certain types of material.

On Monday morning before a couple of the guests arrived we tried a track from "LPO-Mahler- Resurrection", which has a lot of low level areas and a large dynamic range , which meant turning up the attenuator several notches.

Even the host had to agree that the non DSP version sounded markedly better.

I am not surprised that some people who use DSP don't find that high res material is an improvement. They have dumbed it down !!! Just because Anthony's system is incapable of a very good 3D representation of well recorded material, and he is unable to hear differences between USB cables and different Player software, that MANY members report, doesn't mean that others are unable to get much closer to the real thing. I doubt that we will ever get fully there in our lifetimes, if ever.

In the meantime, as George and Teresa have already said, some knowledgeable record producers are taking us much closer to that ideal.

DSP can be good or bad. It's just like anything else. When it's done right, the resultant improvement far exceeds anything any USB cable or any other cable could deliver. The reason cables matter much less in a truly great system is that all of those small improvements wrought from cables are far exceed by the DSP and therefore rendered obsolete.

 

Any self respecting audiophile will already have a calibrated mic and an ADC. If you do, then it would be easy and free for you to acquire real DSP experience in your own system without much fuss. That is, if you are really interested in the first place.

[sandyk]

Any self respecting audiophile will already have a calibrated mic and an ADC. If you do, then it would be easy and free for you to acquire real DSP experience in your own system without much fuss. That is, if you are really interested in the first place.

 

Having heard it in action for myself through very high performance gear into B&W 800 speakers worth around $30K retail, I have Zero interest in going there. Mahler-Resurrection, for example, sounded WAY better without it.

A small improvement in one area, in some Jazz or poor dynamic range Pop material, is for me too high a price to pay for the resulting loss in soundstage and transparency.

Why don't you try "The Storm" from the Chesky Hybrid SACD's 16/44.1 layer (Track 06- Dr Chesky's Magnificient...... 5.1 Surround Show) and see if it still sounds like a real storm with a very realistic illusion of height and the rain is in the room with you ?

You and Anthony, and the other hi res deniers, can stick with your DSP pasteurised , homogenised and sanitised 16/44.1, and Class D Amplifiers, but I sure as hell won't be going there.

[dallasjustice]

Having heard it in action for myself through very high performance gear into B&W 800 speakers worth around $30K retail, I have Zero interest in going there. Mahler-Resurrection, for example, sounded WAY better without it.

A small improvement in one area, in some Jazz or poor dynamic range Pop material, is for me too high a price to pay for the resulting loss in soundstage and transparency.

Why don't you try "The Storm" from the Chesky Hybrid SACD's 16/44.1 layer (Track 06- Dr Chesky's Magnificient...... 5.1 Surround Show) and see if it still sounds like a real storm with a very realistic illusion of height and the rain is in the room with you ?

You and Anthony, and the other hi res deniers, can stick with your DSP pasteurised , homogenised and sanitised 16/44.1, and Class D Amplifiers, but I sure as hell won't be going there.

 

It's funny you sounded the alarm about the thread getting derailed onto DSP in post #49, yet you were the first poster in this thread to bring up DSP in post #25. It's been amusing to watch you maintain your DSP screed throughout this thread in posts #25,#36, #40, #49, #53, #77 & #84.

 

Michael.

[sandyk]

It's funny you sounded the alarm about the thread getting derailed onto DSP in post #49, yet you were the first poster in this thread to bring up DSP in post #25. It's been amusing to watch you maintain your DSP screed throughout this thread in posts #25,#36, #40, #49, #53, #77 & #84.

 

Michael.

I feel strongly about the "Bits are bits" brigade" dumbing down digital audio with further non essential processing which creates a fine veil over HF detail due to wideband RF/EMI from the PC, so shoot me !

Of course, you and mayhem13 and others still refuse to accept that there is anything that can degrade those robust little 1s and 0s despite what the results of 6 Blind Tests in the UK, and TAS220 and 221 revealed.

We both know what you were leading up to when I posted my reply to you in Post 24.

[dallasjustice]

We both know what you were leading up to when I posted my reply to you in Post 24.

Since this thread was about DR, I tried to show you a simple and free way for you to measure your own room's DR. I had no other intention and I certainly wasn't grooming you for membership in the DSP illuminati. :-)

[sandyk]

Since this thread was about DR, I tried to show you a simple and free way for you to measure your own room's DR. I had no other intention and I certainly wasn't grooming you for membership in the DSP illuminati. :-)

 

You started this back in reply 16, and repeated similar advice in a later post.

 

Do yourself a favor before you hit reply: buy a calibrated mic, a good mic pre and quality ADC.

.

 

You are assuming that I don't know any of this already. If I wished to go there I would borrow my E.E. friend's DEQX and calibrated microphone . He doesn't use DSP either, and only used his gear to rebuild and fine tune his B&W 801 Xóvers.

( He worked as a Support Engineer for DEQX at one stage)

[dallasjustice]

You wouldn't be able to do what I suggested with a DEQX unit. I used to own an HDP-4. It's an all-in-one unit. It's not very sophisticated. The ADC isn't accessible via a computer. IMO, there are numerous design flaws with the DEQX. That's just one of them.

 

 

 

 

 

You started this back in reply 16, and repeated similar advice in a later post.

 

.

 

You are assuming that I don't know any of this already. If I wished to go there I would borrow my E.E. friend's DEQX and calibrated microphone . He doesn't use DSP either, and only used his gear to rebuild and fine tune his B&W 801 Xóvers.

( He worked as a Support Engineer for DEQX at one stage)

[sandyk]

It's all academic anyway, because I have no interest in doing so. I am not fanatical about room EQ like some of you, just taking normal accepted measures to reduce room resonances and reflections, which decreased external noise, as well as helping to reduce noise from the room into other parts of the house where the family watch TV etc.

[sdolezalek]

Anytime I hear the level of stubbornness and vehemence shown on both sides of an argument like this thread is currently showing, I wonder whether (a) there are two types humans -- one that is frequency sensitive over all else and the other which is impulse sensitive over all else and that because the two types simply hear differently they can never agree, or (b) people are so locked into their own personal worldview that they cannot dare acknowledge that there might be a different truth or at least another equally plausible explanation, but whichever it is, it saddens me that we seem to spend more time bashing each other than contributing to our respective enjoyment of music -- which is why I thought we were all here for in the first place.

 

I can honestly say that certain individuals who I once respected for bringing new, intelligent and interesting views to these discussions have now degraded themselves to a "ignore unless you are really bored" status. Was that your objective?

 

As to the specific question being bashed around, I would note that on my critical listening system I care more about impulse response, prat, clarity, whatever you want to call accuracy of impact and timing more than all else and every attempt at DSP has disappointed me. On the other hand at my desktop computer system, I seem to prefer the right equalization and frequency response over impact and clarity. Maybe that is because my desktop system was never good enough to sound "real" whereas messing with my reference system always seems to take away that realism.

[mkrzych]

I think that now we're "little bit" off topic. Just suggestion.

[sdolezalek]

Sorry Krzysztof, to bring it back around to your original guestion I belong to the group that believes there are changes in the sound that occur well above the noise floor that we may not yet be able to properly account for statistically or numerically. That puts me in the same group that generally takes the view that hi-res files have impacts that cannot be explained in the context of Nyquist and sampling frequency. I personally tend to believe that these are both filtering artifacts and the lack of filtering artifacts and that 16/44 might actually be good enough if these filtering issues can be fully dealt with.

 

But if you subscribe to the notion that hi-res could only matter to those who can hear well above the 20 kHz threshold, then it would similarly make sense to subscribe to the notion that these same benefits can only be heard on systems that can actually produce 120db or greater of dynamic range above the noise floor.

[mkrzych]

Sorry Krzysztof, to bring it back around to your original guestion I belong to the group that believes there are changes in the sound that occur well above the noise floor that we may not yet be able to properly account for statistically or numerically. That puts me in the same group that generally takes the view that hi-res files have impacts that cannot be explained in the context of Nyquist and sampling frequency. I personally tend to believe that these are both filtering artifacts and the lack of filtering artifacts and that 16/44 might actually be good enough if these filtering issues can be fully dealt with.

 

But if you subscribe to the notion that hi-res could only matter to those who can hear well above the 20 kHz threshold, then it would similarly make sense to subscribe to the notion that these same benefits can only be heard on systems that can actually produce 120db or greater of dynamic range above the noise floor.

 

Thank you. You cannot hear above 20kHz, but I saw some dissertations that we might feel it somehow. To me most of the things lay down to the mastering quality and DAC architecture (filtering) and that's why probably we care about high resolution, because it has potentially better mastering and all digital operations are done above the hearing range which may produce cleaner sound with better S/N in the audible range. I think also that recording with high resolution microphones may capture more details of the venue and the instruments timbre and those artefacts could be audible in the human hearing range. Thus I think if the equipment is able to lower the noise floor as much as possible the result of the sound might be better because more room for the real music at the end. Question however is again - how much noise floor from the equipment is too much and will be audible?

 

What do you think?

[sandyk]

Have you guys experimented with different input filter values at the input to a high quality amplifier ?

You may be surprised just how different (better) even good quality 16/44.1 material can sound with a considerably higher 3dB HF roll-off point, even though the existing one may result in the amplifier being only a couple of dB down at 100kHz.The same applies with the output filters of DACs .

[mayhem13]

I think that now we're "little bit" off topic. Just suggestion.

 

When posters start to speculate as to the answers with ' I think' or 'might be' and so on, threads are going to get intense because there's some of us that either currently or used to work in these areas professionally and just happen to know what we're talking about. The problem with hobbyists is unknowns often become the realm of a distorted form of exploration when the answers have always been available if they bother to spend the time researching in the appropriate materials.

Dithering, filters, jitter reduction, current stabilization within complex circuits.......these have all been adressed within manufacturing and telecommunications years ago. It's the reason you can get a 30th generation file from across the globe completely intact and bit perfect........but for some reason here, on CA you need linear power supplies and ridiculously expensive USB cables to move a file less than three feet.

 

Without being insulting( not my intention), I don't know what else I can say other than don't speculate or listen to those who intentionally do. I'll leave you to your discussion now as I have nothing more to contribute that has any hope of helping this thread or forum return to the planet from which they came.

[sandyk]

threads are going to get intense because there's some of us that either currently or used to work in these areas professionally and just happen to know what we're talking about.

Please don't stand in the wind, or the tickets will blow off !

Yes, you are right, and everybody who hears things that you personally don't believe in must be wrong.

You really need to go and visit someone in your own country like Superdad and let him prove that he can hear the differences that he has described in those threads with very long names. I would be surprised if ether John Swenson or Gordon Rankin couldn't alter your blinkered view about USB cables, and why so many members report hearing marked differences between USB cables. John would most likely be able to demonstrate the noise going along for the ride with the binary data on the USB cable too, and explain why most DACs handle this problem with varying degrees of success.

[speavler]

so i probably shouldn't comment on the improvements i discovered from upgrading the power cord to the linear power supply to my antimode dsp?

 

[gmgraves]

When posters start to speculate as to the answers with ' I think' or 'might be' and so on, threads are going to get intense because there's some of us that either currently or used to work in these areas professionally and just happen to know what we're talking about. The problem with hobbyists is unknowns often become the realm of a distorted form of exploration when the answers have always been available if they bother to spend the time researching in the appropriate materials.

Dithering, filters, jitter reduction, current stabilization within complex circuits.......these have all been adressed within manufacturing and telecommunications years ago. It's the reason you can get a 30th generation file from across the globe completely intact and bit perfect........but for some reason here, on CA you need linear power supplies and ridiculously expensive USB cables to move a file less than three feet.

 

You have brought up a point that I have often pondered. Many audio hobbyist, here, especially those without technical backgrounds often tend to look at the entire field of recorded and reproduced music as a somehow "special" signal; one that does not have to necessarily follow the laws of physics or the known properties of electronics. They come up with so many things that cannot be, and insist that their experiences must be gospel because they heard the results that they are now attributing to the supernatural. Just a few of these things are that you can't copy a digital audio file without somehow changing it, or two files with the same check-sum can still sound different, bi-wiring speakers brings more to the table than simply doubling-up on the wire gauge, etc. I have purposely avoided some topics; the "can-of-worms" aspect of which will simply start another round of pointless debate. As you say, many of these subjects have been analyzed and tested decades ago, and the efficacy of the theories behind the solutions now being used in many industries have been found to be factual and foolproof. But to this response many here will protest by saying that these other industries aren't using these theories and techniques to record, transmit, or play-back high-res music and are therefore irrelevant to high-end digital audio! Why certain people continue to believe in audio voodoo is beyond me. They say that they hear these impossible phenomenon so therefore they must exist, and obviously science has yet to catch-up with their ears. The possibility that their ear/brain is "lying" to them is simply not seriously considered by many of these people. I mean, this is, after all, a hobby for most people, and if believing in audio nonsense makes the true believer happier and more secure in the sound of his/her system, who am I (or you or anyone else) to say that they are wrong? Best to stay out of those kinds of discussions altogether. It's difficult to do sometimes because the wrongheadedness of some of the assumptions being touted as gospel can be maddening. I find that I just have to keep saying to myself "You'll never convince a flat-earth proponent that the world is round" and just don't even try. I wish I could say that I was 100% successful at staying out of such discussions, but I can't.

 

Without being insulting( not my intention), I don't know what else I can say other than don't speculate or listen to those who intentionally do. I'll leave you to your discussion now as I have nothing more to contribute that has any hope of helping this thread or forum return to the planet from which they came.

 

My only advice here is to carefully pick the threads and subjects to which to respond.

Another point I'd like to make is that with some people, just the act of disagreeing with them is enough to be called "insulting". I never try to insult people I'm debating with, but still many have found me insulting, good intentions notwithstanding.