What uncontroversial audible differences cannot be measured?

[kumakuma]

2 minutes ago, Snowmonkey said:

 If you can always measure a difference between two non-bit-identical recordings, your question could be paraphrased as "Are there ever audible differences between two bit-identical recordings?

That question has a familiar ring to it.

 

We haven't had one of these "discussions" in a while.

[kumakuma]

1 minute ago, Snowmonkey said:

 

Not since Sandyk flew off the radar (I hope he's OK).

 

So do I.

 

I've heard that he's either in poor health and/or moved to a small town without Internet access.

[kumakuma]

13 minutes ago, Snowmonkey said:

I didn't even realise hydrogen had two bonding electrons 

 

Audiophile hydrogen has three.

[kumakuma]

25 minutes ago, fas42 said:

A very crude recording of the Buddy Guy style of thing being played on that home theatre setup, done years ago,

 

 

Amateur hour for the recording, I had huge problems with the recorder clipping, and you can hear the circuits being pretty hopeless in handling the dynamic range - the mic had to be turned to face the rear wall to help solve this.

 

Sorry for the quality, but it may give some an idea of the impact it produced.

 

 

Can you remind us what we are supposed to be hearing in this video?

 

I compared it to the original with the same speakers and DAC and I didn't hear anything earth moving in your version.

[kumakuma]

21 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Everyone hears differently, but what I am looking for are the signs that if if I happened to have had the same, rather poor quality recording device - it was a low cost Fuji camera - in the environment where a guitarist happened to be playing, that the type of sound would be comparable. It's not meant to sound "spectacular", or a pristine, super nice, playback system - rather, it should not give away clues that it is in fact a recording being listened to ... that's the idea

 

I get where you're coming from but I would argue that using a low fidelity recording to show high fidelity is like handing an art appraiser a newspaper picture of a painting and asking him whether or not it's an original.  

[kumakuma]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Of course it's not going to work like that - I was very frustrated at the time that the quality of capture was too poor to be really useful - so I only did it a few times, as a record of what was going on. I only posted it because of the Buddy Guy mention, and Paul, and AJ, implied that a simple HT system can't do something worthwhile - just keep in mind, that these are plastic 3" speakers, driven by chip amps, rated at about 15W ...

 

I agree that sounds better than it should have although I would have edited out the conversation with the missus at the beginning...

[kumakuma]

23 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Audiophile remasters don't work, IME. A friend is a keen Yes fan, and we compared the specialist remasters, to the original release - the remasters were all about simplifying and spotlighting the original content, and to our ears were a relatively poor rehash, compared to the first version - the complexity and depth to the music making had been discarded, and weren't in the same league as a listening experience.

 

I think it depends on what kind of music you're into. I've got hundreds of remastered jazz albums and the remastered version is usually (but not always) the best sounding version.

 

@Teresa

 

One additional audiophile label I can recommend is Sound Liaison (http://www.soundliaison.com). The four albums they have recorded by Carmen Gomes are especially good.