Listen to cable directionality

[Sal1950]

Just watched it myself, and I can imagine (even though I had it turned down 'cause my wife was sleeping - this is how I watch all my "guilty pleasure" Marvel Comics and science fiction films, though my wife did cry when Captain Kirk died in that godawful Star Trek movie).

 

Curious what surround codec/speaker arrangement your using for movies?

I enjoyed Beyond up to the point they exactly rehashed Spocks dead in Khan? That lack of imagination in writing kind of spoiled the rest of the movie for me. Technically (CGI and sound) it was great IMO.

[esldude]

Something like Qsound can positions sounds all around you. It uses processing of timing and comb filtering to trick your ears. Simply setting up good gear and knowing what you are doing will not accomplish the same thing. I think it also is being ignored that I said stereo can get about the front third right. I would call it 2 and a half d sound. You can get good left-right and front-to-back positioning. Some sense of hall and sometimes height. But it is all in front of you and usually away from you. You are not immersed in a total 3D soundfield in the sense you are if you are listening live at a location. I do think more channels will work better for the extra immersion. Or you need prior processing like Qsound. You aren't going to be able to accurately do that after the fact to regular two channel source material.

 

Testing of the most accurate stereo miking methods, has shown crossed figure 8's (Blumlein miking) to be judged most accurate. This was done by recording real musicians and playing it back for listeners. Having them place instruments and see which methods matched what was recorded. Or having them listen and compare to charts of what was recorded. Some others do well, but crossed figure 8's has been judged closest to correct more than once.

 

Of course the problem is rarely are such recordings available for you to listen to at home.

 

As Jud mentioned, timing, frequency and phase is all you can extract from the channels however many their are. Something like the upmixing might be somewhat convincing, but an accurate depiction of the extra dimensions simply isn't encoded in conventional stereo recordings. The new object based formats (Atmos, Auros and whatever the other one is called) work in a different manner than just reproducing a given number of channels. Simply shooting stereo thru them isn't going to be the same as a recording made in that format.

[Sal1950]

I personally don't think people can hear that kind of stuff in an A/B test. (I'm prepared to have you differ with me there. )

 

Why bother, we've had that disagreement too many times. I find it simply a lame cop out.

[witchdoctor]

BTW, talking about "destroy the set" movies I think a good power conditioner and power cords make a difference. Dynamics at loud volumes can sometimes sound compressed and I hate that feeling of loudness just sounding boomy. I think the processor, amp and speakers are more important but once you have them POWER can get you to the next level without breaking the bank. Of course YMMV. Check out this article that does a pretty good job articulating what I mean:

 

http://mrgcustom.com/press/Electronic%20House%20Jan%202016%20Issue%20-%20MRG%20Theater.pdf

[witchdoctor]

Curious what surround codec/speaker arrangement your using for movies?

I enjoyed Beyond up to the point they exactly rehashed Spocks dead in Khan? That lack of imagination in writing kind of spoiled the rest of the movie for me. Technically (CGI and sound) it was great IMO.

 

I upsample to 192/24 PCM with my Asus Xonar U7 soundcard for auro 3D upmixer. If I use dolby atmos upmixer I will use the dolby codecs, if I use DTS upmixer I use DTS codecs. The upsampled PCM to auro 3D sounds the best of the 3 in my system.

[Jud]

Curious what surround codec/speaker arrangement your using for movies?

I enjoyed Beyond up to the point they exactly rehashed Spocks dead in Khan? That lack of imagination in writing kind of spoiled the rest of the movie for me. Technically (CGI and sound) it was great IMO.

 

Hi Sal - just two speaker stereo, as in my sig, no surround processing. That's why I said "I can imagine...."

 

Imagination can be a powerful thing. I always thought the Blade Runner soundtrack was terrific. Remember at the beginning when Leon is taking the Voight-Kampff test and there's a knock at the door? The first time we played the movie at home, the door to our house at the time was behind us, and in spite of the fact the speakers and TV were in front of us, the knock sounded so realistic my wife and I both involuntarily turned around and looked.

[esldude]

Hi Sal - just two speaker stereo, as in my sig, no surround processing. That's why I said "I can imagine...."

 

Imagination can be a powerful thing. I always thought the Blade Runner soundtrack was terrific. Remember at the beginning when Leon is taking the Voight-Kampff test and there's a knock at the door? The first time we played the movie at home, the door to our house at the time was behind us, and in spite of the fact the speakers and TV were in front of us, the knock sounded so realistic my wife and I both involuntarily turned around and looked.

Don't how you were watching it, but some DVD players had SRS which was one of those pseudo qsound processing chips. They would do things like that when listening in stereo.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Computer Audiophile mobile app

[Jud]

Don't how you were watching it, but some DVD players had SRS which was one of those pseudo qsound processing chips. They would do things like that when listening in stereo.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Computer Audiophile mobile app

 

Interesting. I think it was long enough ago that it may well have been a Laserdisc!

[Sal1950]

Hi Sal - just two speaker stereo, as in my sig, no surround processing. That's why I said "I can imagine...."

 

Ah OK, as I said I was just curious, many have different music and HT rigs. I maintained that for many years but now the MCH rig does double duty. I would suggest you not miss the opportunity to set one up in your new house. Good stereo can only go so far in creating a great movie experience. The $ investment doesn't have to be large, a fairly modest HT rig is sufficient to surpass stereo in the immersive movie experience.

[Sal1950]

Interesting. I think it was long enough ago that it may well have been a Laserdisc!

LOL, I think my 55" Sony has that SRS sound option for it's crappy 2 3" rear firing speakers.

[witchdoctor]

Something like Qsound can positions sounds all around you. It uses processing of timing and comb filtering to trick your ears. Simply setting up good gear and knowing what you are doing will not accomplish the same thing. I think it also is being ignored that I said stereo can get about the front third right. I would call it 2 and a half d sound. You can get good left-right and front-to-back positioning. Some sense of hall and sometimes height. But it is all in front of you and usually away from you. You are not immersed in a total 3D soundfield in the sense you are if you are listening live at a location. I do think more channels will work better for the extra immersion. Or you need prior processing like Qsound. You aren't going to be able to accurately do that after the fact to regular two channel source material.

 

Testing of the most accurate stereo miking methods, has shown crossed figure 8's (Blumlein miking) to be judged most accurate. This was done by recording real musicians and playing it back for listeners. Having them place instruments and see which methods matched what was recorded. Or having them listen and compare to charts of what was recorded. Some others do well, but crossed figure 8's has been judged closest to correct more than once.

 

Of course the problem is rarely are such recordings available for you to listen to at home.

 

As Jud mentioned, timing, frequency and phase is all you can extract from the channels however many their are. Something like the upmixing might be somewhat convincing, but an accurate depiction of the extra dimensions simply isn't encoded in conventional stereo recordings. The new object based formats (Atmos, Auros and whatever the other one is called) work in a different manner than just reproducing a given number of channels. Simply shooting stereo thru them isn't going to be the same as a recording made in that format.

 

Here is a quote from HT Review journalist Sandy Burger after seeing the demos at CEDIA:

 

But what impressed me more were the two-channel music clips (some Enya, along with an as-yet-unreleased Chesky CD) up-mixed for Dolby Atmos on the fly. I'm normally not terribly excited about DSP-processed music, but at the risk of going into complete cheese-ball territory here, Atmos really did add an entirely new dimension to the stereo recordings, in a way that made me think that I might want to live with an object-based surround system on a permanent basis.

 

http://hometheaterreview.com/cedia-2016-show-report-and-photo-slideshow/

[esldude]

Getting back on topic, does anyone have any more choices or descriptions of listening to the files? If no one is about to post their listening impressions I'll reveal the answers soon.

[pdxway]

Getting back on topic, does anyone have any more choices or descriptions of listening to the files? If no one is about to post their listening impressions I'll reveal the answers soon.

I mentioned a while back I would check with my other setup, but I got too busy with other tasks. So, no, not going to provide further impression other than I can't hear a difference with my Samsung Note 5 phone with a v-moda headphone.

 

Looking forward to hear the answers.

[plissken]

Getting back on topic, does anyone have any more choices or descriptions of listening to the files? If no one is about to post their listening impressions I'll reveal the answers soon.

 

Give us the reveal...

[esldude]

Hopefully there aren't lots of people who have been too busy to try and this spoils it for them.

 

Okay for each track I will list whether A or B is the direction following arrows. I determined the order by flipping a coin. Heads A was normal and B reversed. Tails the other way around.

 

Track

1B

2A

3B

4A

5B

 

I do believe that Jud got them all correct.

[Middy]

I cheated a bit from going back to A then........... 5 secs in play B. But Bs was what I liked out the 2 tracks...what direction no idea...

 

Has that list of songs been posted? Just lovely....

Fun regardless.. thanks for posting them

 

Sent from my SM-G900F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

[pdxway]

Hopefully there aren't lots of people who have been too busy to try and this spoils it for them.

 

Okay for each track I will list whether A or B is the direction following arrows. I determined the order by flipping a coin. Heads A was normal and B reversed. Tails the other way around.

 

Track

1B

2A

3B

4A

5B

 

I do believe that Jud got them all correct.

 

Hmm, interesting. I think Jud guess based on loudness differences instead of sound quality?

[Speedskater]

OK, I have a few minutes here, so I'll go over what I have been thinking about. Hopefully in the next week or so I'm going to actually try this out.

This all starts with how shielding actually works, note this is electric field shielding, NOT magnetic field shielding, THAT is a whole different ball of twine.

[..........more........see linked post..................]

So there you go a whole new topology of cable that is actually based on real live physics.

John S.

Thinking more about this post, I'll stik with my understanding of experts like:

Neil Muncy(RIP)

Ralph Morrison

Henry Ott

Jim Brown

Bill Whitlock

Keith Armstrong

 

In that the cable shield should act as an extension of the chassis shield. Think of the chassis as a metal box and the cable shield as a metal tube bonded to the box.

[esldude]

I cheated a bit from going back to A then........... 5 secs in play B. But Bs was what I liked out the 2 tracks...what direction no idea...

 

Has that list of songs been posted? Just lovely....

Fun regardless.. thanks for posting them

 

Sent from my SM-G900F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

 

Oops Sorry about the music list.

 

track 1

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton. All your Love. That was an MFSL gold CD.

 

track 2

Fiona Apple on her album Tidal. Slow like honey.

 

track 3

Mighty Sam McClain on his album Give it up To love. Got to have your love. This one is an Audioquest CD which made it fitting for this purpose.

 

track 4

Myles Davis Kind of Blue the song was Flamenco Sketches This one is from a SBM (gold super bit mapping CD)

 

track 5

Ana Caram is the singer. I think it was from her album Amazonia. Which was an early 90's Chesky recording. It may have been from the Chesky sampler. I somehow forget now, and I am not in a position to confirm it either way at the moment. Should have kept metadata with test tracks.

[esldude]

Hmm, interesting. I think Jud guess based on loudness differences instead of sound quality?

 

 

We now know who has the good ears and the good gear that's all.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Thinking more about this post, I'll stik with my understanding of experts like:

Neil Muncy(RIP)

Ralph Morrison

Henry Ott

Jim Brown

Bill Whitlock

Keith Armstrong

 

In that the cable shield should act as an extension of the chassis shield. Think of the chassis as a metal box and the cable shield as a metal tube bonded to the box.

 

I tend to agree with you. I cannot comment on the technical reasoning itself. All that I can say is that in many, many decades of legions of cable "engineers" struggling to find some slight advantage over the competition in either real or mostly imagined sound quality, I have never seen any implementation of Swenson's idea in an unbalanced cable, easy though it might have been to do.

 

So, hmm, is Swenson a genius who has a simple, easily implemented insight that has defied generations of other stupid, pedestrian practitioners locked in tradition-bound ideas? Maybe, but that seems a stretch. I mean, cable guys have in some cases been swinging for the fences via exotic metallurgy, putting in dielectric charging devices, inserting proprietary filter networks, varying winding geometry, cryogenically freezing the cables, etc. when all they had to do was provide an extra wire. Sometimes, that extra wire was already there in the "bundle", but just not configured as Swenson suggests. You be the judge.

 

The question is whether an ungrounded, floating shield has any value at all. Kimber goes further and uses no shield at all on interconnects, claiming their superior winding geometry apparently "does it all" and shielding apparently "causes sonic problems". And, many of their interconnects have received rave reviews, for whatever that is worth - not much to me, frankly. The question is whether Swenson's idea is really any different in result than Kimber's, and whether either or both beat the conventional wisdom about grounding the shield.

 

All of this is of course about an outdated technology using ancient RCA plugs. I am glad that I had the wisdom years ago to switch to balanced XLR cables throughout my system. I have no regrets whatsoever.

[sandyk]

We now know who has the good ears and the good gear that's all.

 

That's crap. The tracks would have been chosen on the individual's sound preferences , and many would not have heard any of the tracks previously to know how they should sound.

By your own admission , you yourself never heard differences either way with this cable , yet you do another lot of A/D conversion through a cheap USB A/D converter and expect people to choose between versions where there were 5/8 of SFA difference before you even re-recorded them. It was a simple exercise in guess work on the recipients' part and was incapable of producing any meaningful results . It may have been a fun exercise, but that's all.

[17629v2]

You keep saying you have no idea how to measure imaging. That's the point of my question. If the human ear-brain system uses loudness, timing, frequency and phase to locate sound sources in real life, then we know what to measure in an audio system to tell us how it is doing with respect to imaging.

 

How to manipulate our location perception is very well known. (See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSound.) These effects depend on very precisely manipulating the factors I mentioned. So correspondingly, when those factors are measured, one has an excellent idea of a system's performance with regard to imaging and localization.

 

It's not a contradiction to say that our systems can't yet do this to the point that we are convinced we're hearing "reality." Two channel stereo and multichannel both fall short of that, as do other attempts to fool our senses into thinking we're perceiving reality, like CGI. The quality of all of these does seem to be improving, though.

 

This is something else, and not what I was talking about. You can't measure the imaging qualities of a component. Of course imaging can be manipulated by whoever is making the recording. How well the components themselves handle imaging is what I was referring to. You can't look at a spec sheet to determine how well a piece will image.

[esldude]

That's crap. The tracks would have been chosen on the individual's sound preferences , and many would not have heard any of the tracks previously to know how they should sound.

By your own admission , you yourself never heard differences either way with this cable , yet you do another lot of A/D conversion through a cheap USB A/D converter and expect people to choose between versions where there were 5/8 of SFA difference before you even re-recorded them. It was a simple exercise in guess work on the recipients' part and was incapable of producing any meaningful results . It may have been a fun exercise, but that's all.

 

Sour grapes Alex over not getting them correct? Calm down my comment was a joke.

[sandyk]

Sour grapes Alex over not getting them correct? Calm down my comment was a joke.

 

BULLSHIT !

 

Here is the interesting bit.

By his own admission , Dennis was unable to hear ANY differences between the directions of his cables, even BEFORE he took the analogue outputs and did another A/D conversion on them.

 

From his original post:

I listened this morning Alex. It seems maybe your version has a softer more intimate quality to it.

The difference I hear is very small however. Might not even be real. What is different about it?

 

Hmmm. Dennis is unable to hear any differences whatsoever between his own files, even before they are uploaded,or for that matter , directly into his own gear BEFORE re-encoding them,yet he hears this difference between his own file 2a and the version I sent back to him.

(Post 59 http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/listen-cable-directionality-29939/index3.html)

 

Then in an email he says "I listened thru mine and yours twice each. I thought it sounded slightly different.

Not what I would call markedly. I'll have to try it again tomorrow and see if it still sounds different to me"

 

Next day " ....They do still sound a little different to me, but that isn't unexpected...."

 

 

Most interesting. He can't hear any difference whatsoever between his own 2 files,

yet by his own admission he hears differences between my version and his own, but can't verify them through the pathetic Foobar ABX.

All that says is just as many other members report, that ABX is useless unless the differences are VERY noticeable.

They would need to be like the differences between a cow and a prize stud bull !!!

 

Alex