Blue or red pill?

[mansr]

31 minutes ago, manisandher said:

I cannot discern any of this in the analogue captures, and am sure I'd fail an A/B/X miserably using them. Whatever caused the differences I heard (and can still hear clearly when listening directly) seems not to have been captured with the ADC we used.

If what you heard isn't in the captures, there are only three options:

1. The effect was caused by your amps being connected.
2. You were unknowingly reacting to something external to the audio playback.
3. You got lucky.

[STC]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

If what you heard isn't in the captures, there are only three options:

1. The effect was caused by your amps being connected.
2. You were unknowingly reacting to something external to the audio playback.
3. You got lucky.

 

I don’t think Mani got lucky. But he can always, produce other results to support the initial 9/10 score. 

 

It it is quite possible the amplifier and loudspeakers to amplifier whatever slight difference compared to headphones listening. 

 

@manisandher did you try to listen to the analogue capture through your system? 

[manisandher]

16 minutes ago, mansr said:

If what you heard isn't in the captures, there are only three options:

1. The effect was caused by your amps being connected.
2. You were unknowingly reacting to something external to the audio playback.
3. You got lucky.

 

I'm happy to entertain 1. The other two not.

 

What about the ADC not being up to the job? Having compared it many times to source material, it is clearly far from transparent.

 

Mani.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, STC said:

I don’t think Mani got lucky. But he can always, produce other results to support the initial 9/10 score. 

Unless someone can reliably reproduce the results, it is a very real possibility.

 

2 minutes ago, STC said:

It it is quite possible the amplifier and loudspeakers to amplifier whatever slight difference compared to headphones listening.

The long (10 m) cables between the DAC and amp might also play a part.

[manisandher]

40 minutes ago, STC said:

 

@manisandher did you try to listen to the analogue capture through your system? 

 

The system that we used for the A/B/X? Sure. The analogue captures sound massively degraded compared to the original file (and to the spdif captures). They seem to have lost the cues I heard in the A/B/X.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

Just now, mansr said:

Unless someone can reliably reproduce the results, it is a very real possibility.

 

What? A 1% probability is a "very real possibility"?

 

Let's say we had conducted a further 9 A/B/Xs, and that I scored 10/10 in each. So that would have been 99/100 correct. It wouldn't have made one iota of a difference, because you could still claim:

 

27 minutes ago, mansr said:

2. You were unknowingly reacting to something external to the audio playback

 

There is zero evidence for this - it's pure speculation founded on nothing. And furthermore, there's is no way to disprove it.

 

This is all straight out of a Schopenhauer textbook.

 

Mani.

[mansr]

6 minutes ago, manisandher said:

What? A 1% probability is a "very real possibility"?

So those 1%-ers people keep complaining about aren't real either?

 

6 minutes ago, manisandher said:

Let's say we had conducted a further 9 A/B/Xs, and that I scored 10/10 in each. So that would have been 99/100 correct. It wouldn't have made one iota of a difference, because you could still claim:

 

43 minutes ago, mansr said:

2. You were unknowingly reacting to something external to the audio playback

There is zero evidence for this - it's pure speculation founded on nothing. And furthermore, there's is no way to disprove it.

There's insufficient evidence either way at present. Were it up to me, I'd repeat the experiment under better controlled (double blind, for instance) and varied (other hardware, locations) conditions.

[semente]

2 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

This is what I heard in the A/B/X:

 

 

I cannot discern any of this in the analogue captures, and am sure I'd fail an A/B/X miserably using them. Whatever caused the differences I heard (and can still hear clearly when listening directly) seems not to have been captured with the ADC we used.

 

Mani.

 

I see. I hadn't realised that you couldn't distinguish between the two analogue captures. I haven't sat down and given them a proper listen yet.

[beerandmusic]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

If what you heard isn't in the captures, there are only three options:

1. The effect was caused by your amps being connected.
2. You were unknowingly reacting to something external to the audio playback.
3. You got lucky.

If the captures do not sound nearly as good as original testing, then the captures are not transparent or near accurate, and so none of above is accurate.  Furhtermore, 9 out of 10 eliminates ANY possiblilty this was luck.

 

I have finally concluded in my own head that mansr is out to lunch, and he lost a lot of credit with me anyway...not that anyone cares...but if above is all he can come up with, he is a loser.

 

I would suggest cheating is a higher possibility than luck...

[Rexp]

2 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

I'm happy to entertain 1. The other two not.

 

What about the ADC not being up to the job? Having compared it many times to source material, it is clearly far from transparent.

 

Mani.

The Tascam is likely culprit, maybe redo with your Prism.

[psjug]

39 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

If the captures do not sound nearly as good as original testing, then the captures are not transparent or near accurate, and so none of above is accurate.  Furhtermore, 9 out of 10 eliminates ANY possiblilty this was luck.

 

I have finally concluded in my own head that mansr is out to lunch, and he lost a lot of credit with me anyway...not that anyone cares...but if above is all he can come up with, he is a loser.

 

I would suggest cheating is a higher possibility than luck...

Really I don't get being so emotionally attached to all this.  I think it's all fun and I learn a lot here.

Edit: I can understand being emotionally attached if you make the equipment or software being discussed, or performed the tests, but not so much for the rest of us.

[lmitche]

3 hours ago, manisandher said:

For example, I didn't hear more bass, or more highs in one over the other, or anything like that.

FWIW, I had the pleasure of hearing Patricia Barber live on Monday night at the Green Mill in Chicago following the Axpona weekend. I sat very near the piano inside the zone of enhancement with the PA speakers behind me. I heard a clear direct point source of sound to every instrument and voice on the stage.

 

The sibilance in Patricia Barbers voice is natural, I could hear it directly, but not really noticable unless one focuses on it. But it is there nevertheless so don't expect zero sibilance on her recordings. That would not be right.

[rando]

1 hour ago, beerandmusic said:

II have finally concluded in my own head that mansr is out to lunch, and he lost a lot of credit with me anyway...not that anyone cares...but if above is all he can come up with, he is a loser.

 

I would suggest cheating is a higher possibility than luck...

 

The funny part about this is I wouldn't have made a joke about cheating were it not for the fact everyone involved was trying so hard to remove discrediting elements.  Neither of them are a loser.  Please don't read the entire thread all the way back through to trust me everyone involved looks at worst, silly. 

 

Don't be the one who drags this into a silly argument.  

[STC]

4 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

The system that we used for the A/B/X? Sure. The analogue captures sound massively degraded compared to the original file (and to the spdif captures). They seem to have lost the cues I heard in the A/B/X.

 

Mani.

 

I gave it another try with my main system and suspect there could be some different. Will find a way to do a proper DBT.

[sandyk]

25 minutes ago, STC said:

 

I gave it another try with my main system and suspect there could be some different. Will find a way to do a proper DBT.

 The analogue captures appear to be a lost cause, as they are quite degraded compared with the digital captures.

 If you are going to give them a good listen, I would suggest that you do it with the digital captures. 

Elcorso (Roch) can also tell you that digital files downloaded via the Internet do also suffer degradation , as he did some experimentation for Cookie Marenco about how best to retain the quality of her Blue Coast high resolution downloads.

They found that providing them as UNCOMPRESSED Zips resulted in the least degradation.

 

The Freeware Zipcreator can be used to create Uncompressed Zips (an option)

[pkane2001]

25 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Elcorso (Roch) can also tell you that digital files downloaded via the Internet do also suffer degradation , as he did some experimentation for Cookie Marenco about how best to retain the quality of her Blue Coast high resolution downloads. They found that providing them as UNCOMPRESSED Zips resulted in the least degradation.

 

Please, not that again! 

[jabbr]

6 hours ago, mansr said:

If what you heard isn't in the captures, there are only three options:

1. The effect was caused by your amps being connected.
2. You were unknowingly reacting to something external to the audio playback.
3. You got lucky.

No ... you have no basis for limiting the options to 3, in fact:

 

4) The captures are suboptimal 

 

I continue to wonder why the focus on these captures ... tells me nothing 

[pkane2001]

33 minutes ago, jabbr said:

No ... you have no basis for limiting the options to 3, in fact:

 

4) The captures are suboptimal 

 

I continue to wonder why the focus on these captures ... tells me nothing 

 

I think the captures were useful, as they were meant to help document any differences Mani heard during the test.

 

As it turns out, they did confirm that the PC transmitted bit-perfect data to the DAC and to the recorder. And that the analog captures did not contain any obvious large differences that could account for what Mani had heard. As for the reasons for this, I agree that the captures were insufficient. And the test itself didn't have all the possible controls to help pinpoint the real cause.

 

Overall, I thought this was a worthwhile test and discussion, and certainly an interesting outcome.

[adamdea]

5 hours ago, semente said:

 

I see. I hadn't realised that you couldn't distinguish between the two analogue captures. I haven't sat down and given them a proper listen yet.

Several people have tried to ABx the analogue captures and not succeeded.

I have suggested to people that that in addition they try to ABx the analogue vs digital captures too (having level-matched them) . I am not convinced that the ADC conceals anything audible. I was not able to  Abx them once they are level-matched.

Maybe others can, but I would not leap to the conclusion based on sighted and un-levelled appearances.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, adamdea said:

I have suggested to people that that in addition they try to ABx the analogue vs digital captures too (having level-matched them) . I am not convinced that the ADC conceals anything audible. I was not able to  Abx them once they are level-matched.

 

There is a massive difference in quality between the digital and analogue captures. Requiring an ABX to prove this is a total joke.

 

Anyone, with half-decent gear, should be able to hear an immediate and obvious difference within the first few notes. If you can't, I'd be happy to tell you what to listen out for.

 

Mani.

[esldude]

4 hours ago, jabbr said:

snip....

 

I continue to wonder why the focus on these captures ... tells me nothing 

I think that is pretty obvious.  The focus on the captures is that they were shared to everyone not there.  If the captures were good enough, you would get to hear what Mani heard.  Are they good enough?  I think they are plenty good enough below 30 khz.  As the source material was 44.1 should be fine. 

 

Mani and Peter disagree.  If they are willing to do it, just for us spectators, Peter could get with Mani and determine what ADC would be good enough that Mani either has or can borrow and use.  Repeat the captures of the two software settings, confirm that Mani hears it in the captures and share those with us.  

 

 

[esldude]

2 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

There is a massive difference in quality between the digital and analogue captures. Requiring an ABX to prove this is a total joke.

 

Anyone, with half-decent gear, should be able to hear an immediate and obvious difference within the first few notes. If you can't, I'd be happy to tell you what to listen out for.

 

Mani.

You have to know when you say that someone will ask well okay show us.  

 

Can you use foobar or other ABX software to do this incredibly easy abx on digital vs captures (once you match levels)?  If it is so easy as you say.  

[manisandher]

29 minutes ago, esldude said:

Can you use foobar or other ABX software to do this incredibly easy abx on digital vs captures (once you match levels)?  If it is so easy as you say.  

 

What's the point? If I got 10/10, which I would, they'd say something was amiss.

 

And anyhow, anyone who believes that it's not possible to discern any difference between the digital and analogue captures would have to accept that a DAC with a ~25 year-old 16-bit chip is essentially audibly transparent, which I doubt they'd be able to bring themselves to do .

 

Mani.

[acg]

It seems to be the sticking point at the moment Mani...maybe give it a go. 

 

This had been a most interesting thread for me.  Thanks for your time and effort thus far. 

[sandyk]

5 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Please, not that again! 

 

Closed minded members won't accept what Mani is saying either, despite the 9 out of 10 result, which now according to some of you must have been a fluke ! Many of you can hear differences with USB cables etc. but you refuse to accept that a signal travelling through numerous underwater repeaters etc. can't also suffer from noise related problems, or  the server used to redistribute the files, which probably uses a less than low noise SMPS.