Is Audiophiledom a confidence game?

[kumakuma]

27 minutes ago, jabbr said:

I’m not much of a CD rom person — and rip all my music to my NAS, but @alfe who used to participate here is a real laser/CD/DVD/Blu-ray expert had posted some links to measurements etc that indicate otherwise — I’m not prepared to debate this beyond what he would say, and I trust him. Unfortunately he’s under very strict NDA at work and was not able to speak as directly as would be ideal.

 

I remember Barry D saying that he could hear differences between CDs pressed at different plants but that these differences disappeared when the CDs are ripped to a hard drive. Makes sense to me. 

[Jud]

1 hour ago, crenca said:

 

 

I wonder if my brush is not too narrow.  The good intentions of some certainly don't somehow cancel out the reality of the whole culture.  Again (and again) it must be said that this culture does not rest on the lack of information (for which "more information" is the antidote).  The confidence game can not be reduced to the (unresolved) dialectic of the "subjectivist vs. objectivist", and even if there was wholesale change/resolution to this debate tomorrow it would not change the culture fundamentally.

 

Whatever @jabbr or @barrows personal position is (or mine), the cultural fundamentals remain the same...

 

You see a culture and a dialectic.  If that ever existed (in the heyday of the print mags?), I think it’s long since been replaced by individuals going in all sorts of different directions, with what you call “radical subjectivists” representing a rapidly fading old guard.

[jabbr]

4 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I remember Barry D saying that he could hear differences between CDs pressed at different plants but that these differences disappeared when the CDs are ripped to a hard drive. Makes sense to me. 

Yes, I first heard that it’s best to rip to HD from @Wavelength Gordon Rankin and recall @bdiament saying the above as well.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, esldude said:

I get what you are thinking in a sense.  In another sense, if once we remove labels, and we have trouble distinguishing a $3 million device from a $10,000 device we already know something important.  The method of testing would need to be horribly mangled for that result to be misleading.  It wasn't that badly mangled.  One could quibble with the specifics, but the over-arching idea that the aura of the Strad is partly myth looks very likely at that point. 

 

Would you agree that in a blind audio test, if one source is allowed to be louder than another, it calls the result into question?  Are you certain whatever other sonic qualities would be involved would outweigh a basic loudness difference?

[mansr]

14 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

I remember Barry D saying that he could hear differences between CDs pressed at different plants

Seems highly plausible to me. Perhaps on a terribly designed CD player some noise from the tracking servo might become audible. Nobody in their right mind would use such a poor device.

 

Quote

but that these differences disappeared when the CDs are ripped to a hard drive. Makes sense to me. 

Yes, that makes sense. It also makes the original claim even less plausible.

[sandyk]

52 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Yes, I first heard that it’s best to rip to HD from @Wavelength Gordon Rankin and recall @bdiament saying the above as well.

 

Perhaps it brought the better sounding CD down to the level of the poorer sounding CD ?  

Several years ago at a C.A. Symposium , the vast majority of those present preferred the sound of the same music saved to SSD over that saved to HDD .

[jabbr]

21 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Perhaps it brought the better sounding CD down to the level of the poorer sounding CD ?  

Several years ago at a C.A. Symposium , the vast majority of those present preferred the sound of the same music saved to SSD over that saved to HDD .

I wouldn’t know — the CPU attaches to my DAC has no drive of any type — boots over the network — the CkearFog boots from SD but all my music comes across the network to RAM cache.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Seems highly plausible to me. Perhaps on a terribly designed CD player some noise from the tracking servo might become audible. Nobody in their right mind would use such a poor device.

 

Yes, that makes sense. It also makes the original claim even less plausible.

 

Is there a compelling reason differences in manufacturing tolerances could not create differences in playback jitter levels, which would vanish when the contents were stored as files on a hard drive?

[kumakuma]

7 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Is there a compelling reason differences in manufacturing tolerances could not create differences in playback jitter levels, which would vanish when the contents were stored as files on a hard drive?

 

Similar to the principle behind technology like SHM-CDs:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_High_Material_CD

 

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, kumakuma said:

 

Similar to the principle behind technology like SHM-CDs:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_High_Material_CD

 

 

Has anybody else tried burning CDs that were ripped to SSD, to Blu Ray discs ?

 A while back I lost 2 HDDs due to their old age, and then archived quite a few of my favourite CDs to BluRay to put away for safe keeping.  I tried them on  my Oppo 103 via my DIY DAC to verify that they were O.K. and was surprised just how bloody good they sounded !

[kumakuma]

16 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Has anybody else tried burning CDs that were ripped to SSD, to Blu Ray discs ?

 A while back I lost 2 HDDs due to their old age, and then archived quite a few of my favourite CDs to BluRay to put away for safe keeping.  I tried them on  my Oppo 103 via my DIY DAC to verify that they were O.K. and was surprised just how bloody good they sounded !

 

Why not just play the original CDs?

[sandyk]

27 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Why not just play the original CDs?

 

 Because the CD folders burned to a BR disc using the Blue Laser instead of the "Red" Laser results in less playback Jitter (more precise focus and burning using the Blue Laser) and they retain most of the gains from saving them to SSD vs. direct playback from a CD player. That's why I quoted the advantages you mentioned for SHM. i.e. improved Readability.

In other words they can often sound better than the original CD provided that the CD was well mastered.

 

There is also the advantage of many CD albums being available to play from  a single BR disc.

[mansr]

47 minutes ago, Jud said:

Is there a compelling reason differences in manufacturing tolerances could not create differences in playback jitter levels, which would vanish when the contents were stored as files on a hard drive?

Playback is controlled by a crystal oscillator. The CLV servo spins the disc at whatever rate keeps the fifo buffer from emptying. Minor imperfections in the pit pattern do not affect the readout rate from the buffer. In fact, the regulation of the rotation rate is anyway far less precise than the pit placement on the disc. The raw bit rate from the optical pickup is simply irrelevant.

[lucretius]

10 hours ago, Tony Lauck said:

Actually, your CDs have various bit errors encoded into the stream of pits.  This is almost certainly the case.  There are various levels of errors that can occur.  Some are eliminated by the first order error correction, C1 errors, some are eliminated by the second level of error correction, C2 errors, and if your disk is defective or damaged some may not be correctable and result in masking the error (by interpolating a bad sample).  If a disk is really damaged then playback will audibly glitch or even stop.

 

I have tools that work with my CD player to assess the quality of CD-R disks that I have burned.  This is basic QC that mastering engineers must do when they deliver physical disks to the pressing plant.  (This has largely been superseded by sending the bits to the pressing plant over the Internet, during which, FWIW, the encoded samples will be subject to various stages of compression and expansion.)

 

True! But why is this relevant?

[wgscott]

Because we are on page 42

[esldude]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Would you agree that in a blind audio test, if one source is allowed to be louder than another, it calls the result into question?  Are you certain whatever other sonic qualities would be involved would outweigh a basic loudness difference?

You know my answer on this one.  Equal loudness is highly important. 

 

It would be one of the biggest questions in my mind in any of the Strad comparisons I have seen.  I wish they had recorded all of them in a way that lets you gets some idea of how loudly they were played.  It was my opinion no Strad would play as loudly as carbon fiber violins.  I have no idea how well a violinist could adapt and produce something close to the same sound level as he or she plays. 

 

Then again one of the biggest claims is a Strad projects and plays louder than other violins.  Some studios that have recorded them report being told these play louder, you'll have to turn the gain down. Only to find no real difference. 

 

Still I would prefer that be worked out better. 

[esldude]

2 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Is there a compelling reason differences in manufacturing tolerances could not create differences in playback jitter levels, which would vanish when the contents were stored as files on a hard drive?

That is interesting. I have tried testing DVD players a few times.  Had the chance to sometimes test a couple of the same model.  They were bloody identical. Even cheap ones.  This playing CD's. As in example A would be identical to example B.  While yes two different models or brands would be different.  Mass manufacturing of cheap electronics is awfully impressive. 

 

I have the Pionner DVD somewhere, that has tremendously high jitter whenever starting a track, that gradually drops to a very low and steady level over 15 seconds.  JA had it on his list of players that wouldn't do 16 bit performance due to jitter.  He made a mistake.  After 15 seconds it was a low jitter player.  When that 15 seconds is averaged over his 60 second jitter signal it looks bad.  

 

As long as the sample values make it thru you'll have no trace left after going to an HDD or SSD.  I have tried recording hours of the DVD player and values always make it thru the Toslink.  Not one error. 

 

Nothing to hear here folks.  Move along......

[esldude]

23 minutes ago, wgscott said:

Because we are on page 42

Isn't the answer to all philosophical riddles 42?   Or was that 23?  No not 23 that is the flavors in Dr. Pepper.  I think it is 42.

[esldude]

Since we are on page 42..........

 

Would it be your opinion that a faith healer, who has come to understand the con game of audiophillia, be doing a more ethical thing a more moral thing to become a purveyor of audio goods and give up the faith healing gig?  Or is it more ethical and beneficial to con people about healing?  I mean it isn't real, but it does give people hope.  Audiophiles don't need hope the way lame or blind people do.

[lucretius]

6 minutes ago, esldude said:

Isn't the answer to all philosophical riddles 42?   Or was that 23?  No not 23 that is the flavors in Dr. Pepper.  I think it is 42.

 

Yes, the answer is 42.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(novel)

[jabbr]

7 hours ago, esldude said:

Since we are on page 42..........

 

Would it be your opinion that a faith healer, who has come to understand the con game of audiophillia, be doing a more ethical thing a more moral thing to become a purveyor of audio goods and give up the faith healing gig?  Or is it more ethical and beneficial to con people about healing?  I mean it isn't real, but it does give people hope.  Audiophiles don't need hope the way lame or blind people do.

 

Thats why Jesus has left helping the lame & blind to MDs and now sells the microRendu!

[jabbr]

9 hours ago, esldude said:

As long as the sample values make it thru you'll have no trace left after going to an HDD or SSD.  I have tried recording hours of the DVD player and values always make it thru the Toslink.  Not one error. 

This is an excellent example about how crossing a clock domain with a FIFO buffer reduces jitter. The side effect of using the HDD as a FIFO buffer is vastly increased convenience.

 

Now @alfe can produce examples where CD has lower jitter than HDD and he is in a rather good position to know. In any case regardless by using really good transceivers, electronics which are designed to extremely high tolerance — namely a high performance 10Gbe switch that can maintain a signal across kms of distance, I can reduce any jitter from either mechanical process, as well as drastically reduce noise ie improve signal integrity for pennies on the dollar because the industry is scrapping the 10Gbe equipment for 100Gbe. No “audiophile” design needed, this stuff just works.

 

How do I know?  because it has been measured and there are countless published papers. Do fiberoptic Ethernet cables have a “sound”? Yes they are all fantastic  That’s from the subjectivists who honestly we need in order to see if our technology makes a difference (I don’t claim to have golden ears and have a really hard time saying that something I’m working on sounds great because the alarms of “bias” start sounding off — I could never be good at marketing)

[Tony Lauck]

On 10/20/2017 at 6:11 PM, barrows said:

Of course, there will always be room for improvement: this is like the tangent line (is that what it is called, forget my math), which gets closer and closer to the axis, but never actually meets: same thing as diminishing returns...

 

For each individual, where they might stop, on this pursuit, will be different.  If they stop at all...

One of the principal aspects of this life is the potentially infinite gap between "need" and "want" for those who are exceptionally skilled at making themselves miserable.

 

[Ralf11]

Does most hifi equipment have a single clock domain or > 1?

[jabbr]

18 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Does most hifi equipment have a single clock domain or > 1?

 

The best equipment has 2 or more. The DAC has an internal "master" clock and the data coming in has a different clock. Its possible to use the external clock to generate a DAC clock (eg PLL) but that generally has higher "jitter".