Meyer and Moran debunked by Meridian's Robert Stuart

[gmgraves]

So, why is someone who thinks all DACs sound alike less entitled to be here than someone who thinks vinyl is better than computer audio?

 

 

I don't remember saying (and I don't see) anything in my above comment to even intimate that Grave is not entitled to post here. Of course he has just as much right to post here as you or I do. I do, however, reserve the right to wonder about his motives.

[gmgraves]

Many of the exhibitors at this past year's Capital Audio Fest were using Redbook, and though some of them were doing so as bragging rights I think most of them recognized that the general public wanted to hear equipment playing normal/realistic source music (the kind of music people have been collecting over the past 20 years). This was a welcome change from everything being high res esoteric music that no one had ever heard before. Of course one of the best sounds of the show was United Home Audio's R2R tape deck (sorry - I suppose this is blasphemy on CA).

 

 

I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating. That a certain recording is so-called high-res does not always mean that the resultant disc or file automatically sounds superior to 16-bit/44.1, because the sample-rate and bit depth isn't the only arbiter of audio quality. I have (as I'm sure we all do) standard 16-bit/44,1KHz recordings that sound magnificent and I have high-res files and discs on DVD-A, SACD, Blu-Ray, and downloads that sound simply dreadful by comparison and the opposite is also true. I'm not in favor of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[sandyk]

I have (as I'm sure we all do) standard 16-bit/44,1KHz recordings that sound magnificent and I have high-res files and discs on DVD-A, SACD, Blu-Ray, and downloads that sound simply dreadful by comparison and the opposite is also true.

 

Where I have preferred the original RB CD version, it is invariably due to insensitive remastering of the high resolution version.

[gmgraves]

Where I have preferred the original RB CD version, it is invariably due to insensitive remastering of the high resolution version.

 

 

Well, yeah! You can't make a purse from A sow's ear (so the saying goes). If the master doesn't sound good, then no version of it, in any format will ever sound good, So it is all down to the mastering. A beautifully mastered CD (JVC XRCD) of an excellent recording (Fritz Reiner's Chicago Symphony recording of Prokofiev's Lt. Kije, recorded for RCA Red Seal Lewis Layton) will (and does) sound so much better than the BMC SACD release of the same performance that it's difficult to believe that they are from the same analog master tape!

[Skeptic]

Further tests probed the audibility of 16-bit quantization with or without a rectangular dither. Results suggest that listeners are sensitive to the small signal alterations introduced by these filters and quantization.

16-bit seems to be insufficient when no dither, or imperfect dither is used? I am shocked.

 

Discrimination between filtered and unfiltered signals was compared directly in the same subjects using a double-blind psychophysical test. Filter responses tested were representative of anti-alias filters used in A/D (analog-to-digital) converters or mastering processes.

I do wonder what they mean by "filtered and unfiltered" in this context. I would hope that the tests are being done correctly, but with way they are testing dither, I am skeptical.

 

It's a shame that the paper is not available publicly. But if this was truly some breakthrough I'm sure that it would be more widely available.

 

 

However, things like this are the reason that I buy high-res audio.

If it is undithered, or improperly dithered, the errors are significantly further from being audible than a bad 16-bit file.

 

Same thing goes for sample rate, though I'm generally less concerned about that. Most high res files only have spurious tones or noise above 24kHz or so, not audio information.

For example, what the hell is this? There's a 21kHz cut-off but the "high res" information somehow appears to be aliasing.

[Jud]

I know I'm being a nit-picky, curmudgeonly grammar-scold here, but the use of terms like "debunk" and "disprove" to describe the effects of research like this on the state of our knowledge realllllly bugs me, because it implies a level of finality that it's unlikely that any of us will see during our lifetimes. "Challenge" is, I think, a superior alternative.

 

OK. Rant over. Now to hopefully find a way to download the paper for reading on the plane on Sunday. Perhaps I'll even understand some of it.

 

Nicely said. I'm toying with the idea of subscribing to the AES e-library to have access to this and other papers.

[goldsdad]

For example, what the hell is this? There's a 21kHz cut-off but the "high res" information somehow appears to be aliasing.

 

That's imaging - a result of upsampling.

[A_F_Z]

How can I contact by email with Michael Capp at Meridian?

[Sam Lord]

How can I contact by email with Michael Capp at Meridian?

 

I expect he'll reply if you ask for him to directly respond to a reasonable question. Bob Stuart has always been easy to talk to; it's a good outfit:

 

meridian audio contact

[A_F_Z]

What other company with research skills for competent and successful implementation of the method?

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