IS EVERYTHING DEBATABLE, REALLY?

[kumakuma]

12 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Now dont crucify me here.I keep on saying I am not an engineer. How can mathematical abstractions of a 1 or a 0 be magnetized? Something is magnetized - inst that that something an analog representation, albeit binary (either this or that),of 1s and 0's?

 

[kumakuma]

4 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 so I'm still seeing an analog representation of digital, as seen by the read/write heads, even when stored. Is that not fair to say. Digital is an abstraction.

 

You've been hanging out with the wrong crowd here on CA.

[kumakuma]

11 hours ago, sandyk said:

I was well aware of how the data was stored magnetically, as we were taught this at Training School, complete with diagrams . Any resemblance between the 1s and 0s going in , to the pattern saved magnetically, and later recovered via the Read Heads is purely coincidental !

 

If the relationship between what you put on the storage media and what you got off it had been "purely coincidental", the technology would never have been adopted.

 

Digital communications and computers work because the physical representation of the digital data doesn't matter.

 

In other words, I can send you two identical files, one on a USB drive and the other on computer punch cards. Once the files have been read into your computer, they will be still be the same.

[kumakuma]

25 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Help! Arguing about whether digital is digital is a mighty big dead end - it's just a way of storing data about a musical performance ... it's how to get that data to the ear with minimum corruption on the journey, that matters ...

 

I agree but when it comes to computer-based audio, not everything matters so I think that having a correct understanding of the digital domain is important so that resources can be focused on what does matter: the digital/analog interface and the analog portion of the playback chain.

[kumakuma]

2 hours ago, SoundAndMotion said:

 

Apologies if I have failed, but I try to use “analog” and “digital” as modifiers, not as free-standing concepts. And in the context of this forum, we ALWAYS want to end up in an analog domain to hear the music. Therefore the presence of noise voltages (I hope we can agree this is an analog signal) anywhere in the system (yes, even on top of digital signals), that subsequently find their way to the final analog signal is a problem, if audible.

 

Although noise so large that it takes the analog voltage out of the range defined to represent particular digital encoding is typically either detected and corrected, or it results in gaps. And happily this is rare. 
I don’t have personal experience with noise so large that it invades the final analog pathways of my system through some form of coupling (ES, MS or EM or through the common power supply connections), but this is certainly not only possible but has been measured in other systems. Maybe I’m deaf.

 

So when people say:

 

I have a problem with the inaccuracy of “doesn’t matter”.

That is all I meant to say.
 

 

It means that some people condescendingly say “doesn’t matter” cuz it’s all only 0’s and 1’s, implying analog noise is irrelevant. And I’m saying you can find voltages representing 0’s and 1’s, but I agree with you that talking about 0’s and 1’s has no meaning, without understanding that analog voltages or magnetic fields or capacitive charge or ... must be in the correct range so the value or transition happens at the right time.

 

 

I was the one who said:

 

Quote

Digital communications and computers work because the physical representation of the digital data doesn't matter.

 

Please note two things in this statement:

 

1. It is not referring to the playback of music and the required conversion of the digital data to analog signals.

 

2. It is not saying that analog noise doesn't exist or that it is irrelevant.

[kumakuma]

5 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Agreed.

 Barry Diament also found that CDs from different replication plants often sounded a little different despite identical binary content. 

 

And that those differences disappeared when the CDs were ripped to his HDD.

[kumakuma]

2 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

Isn't that odd?

 

Why odd?

[kumakuma]

Just now, gmgraves said:

 

Really? You don't think that a commercial CD release from different plants that when compared, were found to sound different from each other, but when ripped to one's computer, sound identical because the differences have disappeared, is odd? Well, I hope I don't offend you when I say that I find your reaction to that conundrum odd!

 

The stamping of commercial CDs is basically an analog process so perhaps minor differences between CDs causes the CD player to have to work a little harder on some CDs than others, causing minor differences in sound quality.

 

However once the CD has been ripped, you're into the digital domain and any physical differences that once existed between these CDs no longer exists.

 

 

[kumakuma]

2 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Of course you have NEVER tried such things based on purely IDEOLOGICAL grounds !

 

 

I have a confession to make.

 

My reluctance to try these tweaks is due to FEAR.

 

I have a compulsive personality disorder with strong perfectionist tendencies so I'm deeply afraid that if I start down this road I will end up like this poor lost soul:

 

 

[kumakuma]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 And considerably poorer as well ?

 

As well as divorced...

[kumakuma]

29 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

On the face of it, that seems to be a reasonable explanation, but ostensibly, what's on each CD are a series of pits embossed into the plastic which the playback laser registers as ones and zeros representing each sample. If the check sums between the same material stamped by two different plants is the same, then they should sound the same. I thought about jitter in once CD over the jitter in another, but it's a stamping process, the disc isn't moving when it's being made. One disc might be helically displaced from the same material made by another manufacturing plant, but once the read starts, being slightly off from another maker shouldn't matter. If the mastering laser was introducing jitter, a quick check by a QC person with a magnifying device should show that along with any other mastering defects encountered. so I think that should eliminate mastering jitter as the cause of the "difference". I really have no idea as to what the problem can possibly be that would cause identical program material to sound different from two different disc manufacturers. I don't doubt that it happens, mind you, I just can't imagine what would cause such a thing. 

 

I've never personally experienced what Barry reported on so I have no additional insights.

 

Alf shared with me a confidential document (with a Mission Impossible self-destructing link) a number of months ago that showed test results for different commercial CDs and there appears to be a lot of variation between them.

 

Whether these variations are enough to cause audible differences in certain environments, I don't know. I don't think Alf knows either.

[kumakuma]

11 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

I don't know either as I too have never experienced the phenomenon the Barry Diament described. 

 

BTW, I no longer have Alf's report but I suspect that it was generated by a device like this:

 

http://www.datarius.com/products/stampermastercd.html

[kumakuma]

The posts made to this thread in the last few hours have provided proof that the answer to the question posed in the title is a resounding "YES" although the question probably should have been:

 

CAN FOLKS ON THIS FORUM AGREE ON ANYTHING, EVER?

 

 

[kumakuma]

26 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

  I doubt that my CSIRO friend Jeff from Brisbane would though.

Incidentally, my CSIRO friend from Brisbane was one of the very first to confirm my reports about audible differences between music files with identical check sums, and as a Phasure Forum member finally convinced Peter St. to listen to my supplied comparison .wav files, where both Peter and a friend reported hearing differences. Attached is a photo of my Class A Preamp design that my CSIRO friend from Brisbane constructed.  

 

 

I'm not Australian so I have to ask this. 

 

Does having a "CSIRO friend from Brisbane" a code word for something else that only Australians understand?

 

You repeated it three times in one paragraph so I'm guessing that it means something other than you know someone at this organization. I tried looking it up online but Google wasn't very helpful.