Blue or red pill?

[Sonicularity]

5 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

One thing I suspect it'll 'prove' is that what I was hearing in the A/B/X is not detectable in any of the digital or analogue captures, no matter how they're analysed. You'd have thought there'd be some serious implications were this indeed the case.

 

Let's see...

 

Mani.

 

Since you were unable to identify a difference when facing only an A/B test, it appears that the only thing creating a difference is the setup switching from A to X and/or B to X.  I think we are left with the idea that perhaps there is no difference in the sound between the 2 test samples, only some anomaly that presents itself when using the equipment to make the switches.     

[semente]

7 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

I played the first track (used in the 'invalid' test) to Mans before we began anything, using both bit-identical SFS settings. He wasn't confident that he could hear a difference.

 

I played the second track (used in the 'correct' A/B/X) to Mans after everything was done. Again, he wasn't confident he could hear a difference. However, we both agreed that it's probably a somewhat learned skill discerning between such bit-identical settings - I've had many years of it as an XXHighEnd user, Mans only a few minutes.

 

Mani.

 

Mani, could you describe the aspects of the sound in which you focus to identify the differences in the Barber track?

[manisandher]

39 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

 

Since you were unable to identify a difference when facing only an A/B test...

 

We never did "only an A/B test". This is what we did first:

 

A, B, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X

 

I found this pretty much impossible. When listening to an X, all I had as a reference was the previous X. One or two Xs in, I was totally lost. Before the scoring I was well aware that most of my responses were guesses.

 

What we then did was:

 

A, B, X

A, B, X

A, B, X

...

A, B, X

 

I was much more relaxed and confident in this test than previously. I scored 9/10.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

14 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

... it appears that the only thing creating a difference is the setup switching from A to X and/or B to X.  I think we are left with the idea that perhaps there is no difference in the sound between the 2 test samples, only some anomaly that presents itself when using the equipment to make the switches.     

 

Instead of speculating, why not ask @mansr how confident he is that the A/B/X test was conducted well?

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

9 minutes ago, semente said:

Mani, could you describe the aspects of the sound in which you focus to identify the differences in the Barber track?

 

Sure.

 

I was listening to the piano transients - were they 'incisive' or 'blurred'/'soft'? With the female vocals, I was listening to her sibilance - acceptable, or too sharp and annoying.

 

Generally, it's much more about 'focus' than it is about the 'quantity' of any particular thing. For example, I didn't hear more bass, or more highs in one over the other, or anything like that.

 

But I have to say that I think doing an A/B/X is absolutely horrible. For me, it's like focusing on going to sleep - the more you do it, the further you get from your objective.

 

Mani.

[semente]

27 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

Sure.

 

I was listening to the piano transients - were they 'incisive' or 'blurred'/'soft'? With the female vocals, I was listening to her sibilance - acceptable, or too sharp and annoying.

 

Generally, it's much more about 'focus' than it is about the 'quantity' of any particular thing. For example, I didn't hear more bass, or more highs in one over the other, or anything like that.

 

Thanks.

 

27 minutes ago, manisandher said:

But I have to say that I think doing an A/B/X is absolutely horrible. For me, it's like focusing on going to sleep - the more you do it, the further you get from your objective.

 

Mani.

 

I can imagine. I hate even sighted A-B comparisons.

[rando]

43 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

Instead of speculating, why not ask @mansr how confident he is that the A/B/X test was conducted well?

 

Mani.

 

You mean the person who you paid to travel to your location, flattered in print here, and very likely seduced with rich foods and strong drink. 

 

@mansr how confident are you this test was conducted well?  The parameters changed substantially from NAS v local storage into some impenetrable software tweak.  I ask because the parts of this day trip that weren't socially enjoyable confuse me.  Not to auger discontent into a calm discussion.  

[look&listen]

7 hours ago, PeterSt said:

SFS = Split File Size = what was mentioned a couple of times by people and (by now) by nature : the read(er) chunk file size.

What read(er)?

[mansr]

2 hours ago, rando said:

You mean the person who you paid to travel to your location, flattered in print here, and very likely seduced with rich foods and strong drink. 

 

@mansr how confident are you this test was conducted well?  The parameters changed substantially from NAS v local storage into some impenetrable software tweak.  I ask because the parts of this day trip that weren't socially enjoyable confuse me.  Not to auger discontent into a calm discussion.  

I suppose it's theoretically possible that Mani could hear the keyboard clicks through two closed doors and thus gain an unfair advantage. It is also possible that the time between samples was correlated with the selection although I tried to avoid that. For publication in a scientific journal, I'd do things more rigorously, but I still trust that Mani didn't consciously cheat.

[beerandmusic]

I haven't read through the thread yet, but my main curiosity is MANSR able to suggest he learned anything at all?

 

[pkane2001]

4 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

I'd say it's telling us that XXHighEnd is actually outputting data identically with the two SFS settings, hence the bit-identical captures verified by Mans. And yet they still sound different to the human ear! Understanding the exact mechanism at play in this instance is of interest more generally too, because it'll be the same mechanism that causes playback from two different locations to potentially sound different.

 

 

My initial feeling was to demonstrate as many different things as possible to Mans, including how a file sounds from a NAS vs. from a local disk or memory. But all we would then have had were some subjective thoughts on what we both heard.

 

As soon as we starting to think about doing an A/B/X (which was my idea, admittedly) I started thinking about how best to do this practically. Changing SFS in XXHighEnd seemed the easiest option. I agree it's not very applicable to many here, but that was never the point of the thread. The point was to give Mans a taste of the 'red pill'.

 

Mani.

 

There are two main factors that can alter audible playback of recorded (PCM) audio. Actual sample values (bits), and sample timing. Just because bits were (mostly) the same says nothing about timing. Since in a standard SPDIF transmission the clock is derived from the timing of samples, and thus fully controlled by XXHighEnd, then it's possible that XXHighEnd is changing this timing enough to make the differences audible. 

 

That's why the result is a bit disappointing to me, as the simplest explanation of the differences you heard is just poor timing or even missing samples due to SFS=0.1 in XXHighEnd. Peter does not deny this possibility. I still hold out the hope that analog captures will show some differences in jitter pattern between the two settings.

 

Whether or not Mans got a taste of the 'red pill', he'll have to answer for himself 

[rando]

 

 

@mansr As much as I would have liked to explore the very British act of skullduggery that's not what I was leading towards.  There was a softly spoken hard line drawn in forwarding this invitation.  What changed for you during and after this test (if anything)?  

 

After reading through the results pages I'm not sure if this was a somewhat mixed result or ideas and opinions are slowly coalescing. 

[phosphorein]

4 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

I'd say it's telling us that XXHighEnd is actually outputting data identically with the two SFS settings, hence the bit-identical captures verified by Mans. And yet they still sound different to the human ear! Understanding the exact mechanism at play in this instance is of interest more generally too, because it'll be the same mechanism that causes playback from two different locations to potentially sound different.

 

Mani.

 

Why would this be true?

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, manisandher said:

But I have to say that I think doing an A/B/X is absolutely horrible. For me, it's like focusing on going to sleep - the more you do it, the further you get from your objective.

 

 It may be fine for those without a vested interest in the results, but it's a different matter when it's your credibility at issue.

 It's then not the normal way that you listen to , and enjoy music.  It can be quite stressful as Mani has found too.

.

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, phosphorein said:

....Understanding the exact mechanism at play in this instance is of interest more generally too, because it'll be the same mechanism that causes playback from two different locations to potentially sound different - (Mani as quoted by Phosphorein)

 

 In some cases, even when the files saved at 2 different storage locations are completely saved to System Memory before playing them with a suitable S/W player !

[fas42]

8 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Better don't pin it down on the SFS. The number of parameters as such are quite countless (there are also parameters active nobody knows about because they are not separately/explicitly settable) and they each serve the same purpose : influence the DAC. It is the way how they combine that determines the SQ direction. like it is really possible to imply more bass or more highs or more mid, etc. Of course it is not about more mid and such but about how the more realistic reproduction is dialed in. It's only that it takes a life time (Mani feels he runs short of that) plus that with a new (approved) (W10) OS build we can start all over.

 

Even using a simple, untouched laptop, with the inbuilt sound system, including speakers it's easy to hear the variation when altering parameters. My HP, Windows 8.1, originally built as a "multimedia" m/c, sounds pretty blah!! with foobar - I looked around, Media Monkey looked interesting, and turned out best. Big array of parameters to play with, along the lines of Peter's software - and I narrowed it down to a precise combination to give the best sound - quality starts being lost as soon as one moves from the optimum numbers, etc.

[esldude]

So I am lost as to what was determined so far.

@mansr  and @manisandher

 

Was the digital feed bit identical or not?  Was there just a glitch in recording that gave some differences in the bits?  Is it determined that the recordings were in error, but actual bits listened to by Mani were the same?

 

Is anything learned from the analog captures?  Of course other than diagnostic purposes those don't really mean anything if the bits differed.

 

And I am commending both for the transparency about what went on here.  Definitely the way to do this. 

 

I don't know how feasible it is, but maybe this was the shakedown attempt to work out the bugs and another fresh session is really needed.   When I have done similar things myself this is nearly always the case.  When things just worked as planned I almost feel something has to be wrong as its too easy.  

 

Also quoting the initial idea from Mani:

 

I'd start by simply copying a track from my NAS to a local folder in the audio PC and playing the identical files back from their respective locations. That'll break his belief system right there. We can then explore other areas if he's interested.

 

Mani.

 

Somewhere along the way it morphed into something very different.  

[STC]

6 minutes ago, esldude said:

Was the digital feed bit identical or not? 

 

They were identical but how the DAC processed the two different SFS settings is something unknown and obviously it appears to make a difference. Mani already said that the files captured from the digital output sounded the same so we can conclude bit-identical files do sound the same. 

 

If there is anything to learn from this experiment, my take would be DAC processes files differently when the upstream process changes. I expect the analogue signal to show some difference. 

 

It also proved that the difference is not readily audible as Mani failed to recognize the difference with a different track. What matters here is @PeterStclaim that audible difference with SFS is real. Does this also mean others changes made to the bit-identical files before reaching the DAC could alter the sound? Maybe...but too insignificant to be reliably identifiable.

 

 

 

[rando]

38 minutes ago, esldude said:

So I am lost as to what was determined so far.

@mansr  and @manisandher

 

Was the digital feed bit identical or not?  Was there just a glitch in recording that gave some differences in the bits?  Is it determined that the recordings were in error, but actual bits listened to by Mani were the same?

 

Is anything learned from the analog captures?  Of course other than diagnostic purposes those don't really mean anything if the bits differed.

 

And I am commending both for the transparency about what went on here.  Definitely the way to do this. 

 

I don't know how feasible it is, but maybe this was the shakedown attempt to work out the bugs and another fresh session is really needed.   When I have done similar things myself this is nearly always the case.  When things just worked as planned I almost feel something has to be wrong as its too easy.  

 

Also quoting the initial idea from Mani:

 

I'd start by simply copying a track from my NAS to a local folder in the audio PC and playing the identical files back from their respective locations. That'll break his belief system right there. We can then explore other areas if he's interested.

 

Mani.

 

Somewhere along the way it morphed into something very different.  

 

This was at heart what I was asking.  Only in less structured terms.  I didn't want to create a situation that put social pressure to deliver excitement over using their own words to describe what really came of this trip.  Which quite realistically might be completely unrelated to what they set out looking to do.

 

Somewhere along the way it morphed into something very different.

[sandyk]

17 minutes ago, STC said:

Mani already said that the files captured from the digital output sounded the same so we can conclude bit-identical files do sound the same. 

 

 Garbage !

 They may have sounded the same after being captured and saved to HDD/SSD again,(additional processing) but that does NOT mean that they did when they were played originally.

You are reading into this what you believe the results SHOULD have been according to your present limited knowledge of the subject.

ManI also had available to him other comparison files that had been saved to the same device, that he could have also used, but he simply ran out of time.

 

 

[acg]

13 minutes ago, STC said:

 

They were identical but how the DAC processed the two different SFS settings is something unknown and obviously it appears to make a difference. Mani already said that the files captured from the digital output sounded the same so we can conclude bit-identical files do sound the same. 

 

If there is anything to learn from this experiment, my take would be DAC processes files differently when the upstream process changes. I expect the analogue signal to show some difference. 

 

It also proved that the difference is not readily audible as Mani failed to recognize the difference with a different track. What matters here is @PeterStclaim that audible difference with SFS is real. Does this also mean others changes made to the bit-identical files before reaching the DAC could alter the sound? Maybe...but too insignificant to be reliably identifiable.

 

 

 

 

It seems as though you are thinking about this one way when you could be thinking about it another way.

 

In some ways the changed parameter, the SFS should be thought of as a red herring.  The SFS did not change any bits and Peter has commented that SFS is reliant on many other factors before it becomes a factor itself for SQ.  So instead of thinking about SFS, let's think about "changing the electrical processes in the AudioPC", which afterall is what XXHE software primarily does, and primarily by changing how the cpu uses current (there are other ways of course but that is the main way).

 

So we have bit identical files...therefore the information (or bits) the dac gets is the same in each scenario.  But how the AudioPC does its job is slightly altered by changing the SFS number. 

 

Quote

If there is anything to learn from this experiment, my take would be DAC processes files differently when the upstream process changes. I expect the analogue signal to show some difference. 

 

My understanding is that the SFS dictates how large the blocks of RAM are that hold the information before it is sent to the dac, and not how the dac receives the "bits".  I just bought into that red herring myself...sorry.

 

Quote

It also proved that the difference is not readily audible as Mani failed to recognize the difference with a different track.

 

It did no such thing.  It suggests that Mani managed to get confused when the original test protocol was used, but that all changed when ABX was used.  This "confusion" was actually predicted by others earlier in the thread. 

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, acg said:

 

It seems as though you are thinking about this one way when you could be thinking about it another way.

 

In some ways the changed parameter, the SFS should be thought of as a red herring.  The SFS did not change any bits and Peter has commented that SFS is reliant on many other factors before it becomes a factor itself for SQ. 

 

Why the insistence that only bits are significant? It is a well-known fact that poor timing of samples can cause jitter, and that large jitter can be audible. Before postulating noise or other less likely (and less measurable) causes of audible differences, can we please eliminate the well-known and obvious ones, first?

[acg]

16 minutes ago, rando said:

Somewhere along the way it morphed into something very different.

 

I dunno that it did morph into something very different.  Mani and Mans needed to find something to test that would satisfy both of their objectives and sensibilities as well as the prerequisites for recording the digital and analogue feeds.  It is not unsurprising that the exact things being tested have changed from those initially put forward, but at its core the invite was for a non-believer (I hate that word and all its connotations - sorry Mans) to come and either participate or manage controlled listening where the proponent (Mani) thought he could blindly and correctly identify differences in sound between two bit-identical musical tracks where the only difference is how that file is managed by the AudioPC.  From the reports so far I think that objective has been achieved:  using ABX Mani reliably identified a change in SQ between two bit-identical dac feeds when a computer software parameter changed.

 

 

[STC]

14 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Garbage !

 They may have sounded the same after being captured and saved to HDD/SSD again,(additional processing) but that does NOT mean that they did when they were played originally.

 

Garbage to you!

 

Changes in SFS may also change other parameters. That affects the DAC process.  And I think that is important because despite appears being identical before reaching the DAC, SQ can change during digital to analogue process.  Mani could only tell the difference when he had a reference. Otherwise, whatever difference is insignificant. Go read his second post. 

[acg]

6 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Why the insistence that only bits are significant? It is a well-known fact that poor timing of samples can cause jitter, and that large jitter can be audible. 

 

I insist on no such thing, quite the opposite in fact.  Based on Mani's ABX results the bits are NOT the only significant things.

 

 

6 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

Before postulating noise or other less likely (and less measurable) causes of audible differences, can we please eliminate the well-known and obvious ones, first?

 

Sure, go ahead.