Consensus about upsampling to 512 DSD

[fas42]

58 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

No system I've heard will pass this test. While the reproduction can be very accurate, there are always some ambiance/reflection/dispersion differences in the sound that make it obvious to a greater or lesser degree that the piano is not in the room. Now what?

 

Well, that's why I call my goal "convincing sound" - it may not fool someone who is prepared for the exercise of discriminating, or who is an expert in acoustics, or who knows the particular instrument intimately - but for the casual listener there shouldn't be any giveaways as to it being fake sound.

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Phooey !

 

Not familar with that engineering term ...

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

I've got the impression over the years that a rather important first step is to make a correct diagnosis of a patient's complaint, rather just than trying every possible treatment that may vaguely relate to the symptoms ...

 

I can't talk for others but I just grok the diagnosis ?

Then I tune their organs (ahem, with their consent)

[fas42]

And then they croak ...

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Not familar with that engineering term ...

 

 

When you mentioned "grunge filter" I had no idea it was an engineering term.You have to give us more clues that your advice is based on engineering principles?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

At its simplest, accuracy is the difference between the recorded and the reproduced waveform. The larger the difference, the less accurate the reproduction. If there's zero difference, the accuracy is 100%.

 

This holds true for an audio signal to the extent that you can accurately measure it with a tool that is 100% accurate measuring 100% of the signal.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

23 minutes ago, fas42 said:

And then they croak ...

 

well depending on the organ, maybe a little groaning?

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

When you mentioned "grunge filter" I had no idea it was an engineering term.You have to give us more clues that your advice is based on engineering principles?

 

Well, I found this definition ...

 

GRUNGE: Dead, incorrect or obsolete computer code, medical, health or other database information; slang term.

 

I appropriated it to refer to incorrect electrical signal, or noise shall we say ...

 

Perhaps better would have been a term following soon after,

 

GUNK: Any thing that degrades computer systems performance or security; aware, spy ware, cookies, etc; slang term.

 

 

My advice is based on pragmatism - I use what works, and if I feel engineering finesse is required to fine tune a method, then I'll bring it on board. Engineering tools like Spice certainly highlight where many of the weaknesses in conventional audio design occur; and then it's game on to rectify these.

[fas42]

56 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

well depending on the organ, maybe a little groaning?

 

Something like this?

 

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

10 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Well, I found this definition ...

 

GRUNGE: Dead, incorrect or obsolete computer code, medical, health or other database information; slang term.

 

I appropriated it to refer to incorrect electrical signal, or noise shall we say ...

 

Perhaps better would have been a term following soon after,

 

GUNK: Any thing that degrades computer systems performance or security; aware, spy ware, cookies, etc; slang term.

 

 

My advice is based on pragmatism - I use what works, and if I feel engineering finesse is required to fine tune a method, then I'll bring it on board. Engineering tools like Spice certainly highlight where many of the weaknesses in conventional audio design occur; and then it's game on to rectify these.

 

[semente]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

Have you ever considered that "tubey goodness" is actually more accurate sound - I have heard extremely expensive tube electronics, and often that's a lot closer to competent sound - solid state quite often comes with a nasty dollop of edginess, which may take some efforts to eliminate.

This doesn't make sense.

A valve amplifier can only be accurate if doesn't do any of the "tubey goodness" (read euphonic distortion).

[semente]

7 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

I need a head banging emoticon for Frank

 

 

 

tubey sound could be more accurate due to the type/sequence of distortion products produced - but I have never seen a study of this

 

or one could emulate a tube stage via MOSFET or J-FETs

 

 

now... DSD ... upsampling - how do we know if a DAC upsamples?

 

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

 Ahhh ... greater accuracy, that is, less distortion, is a result of the type of distortion ... interesting concept ...

 

In my view it's an absurd concept.

 

The only accuracy or fidelity possible in reproduction is to the recorded signal.

[semente]

5 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Hmmm... how do we measure accuracy ?

 

We have a series of things we talk about, including various types of distortion.  Do we take each factor, and add them up?  Do we multiply them by some sort of factor loading to equalize for psycho-acoustic preferences?

 

Pass a signal through an equipment, compare with the original signal. How simple is that?

[semente]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

There's obviously objective accuracy, of the type Paul refers. And then there's subjective accuracy ... the latter is incredibly tricky, would be a monster to define precisely, and vary per individual. IME, subjective accuracy is remarkably non-linear - there is at least one huge jump in the perception of that, triggered by a combination of objective accuracies which would be pretty hard to put numbers to.

 

The subjective accuracy you mention is not to the recording but to your idea of what the recording should sound like.

As as @pkane2001 Paul mentioned, it depends on your mood. It's a moving target.

Besides, if you are aiming at making recordings sound subjectivelly accurate then you'll be shooting a moving target because each recording has it's specific failings/requirements.

This is why I don't think that the "euphonic" path is a fruitful one.

Besides, I have a theory that some of the people who search for euphony have probably never experienced listening to the better (meaning more accurate) systems. If they had they would not be masking the problems they have identified in playback with blush and botox...

[semente]

4 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I've certainly heard some poorly recorded pianos, but I've never heard one I wouldn't recognize as a piano. So, problem solved then? My audio system must be perfectly accurate?

 

 

If you can hear "poorly recorded pianos", or "out of tune" pianos, you are in the right path. ?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

My advice is based on pragmatism

 

I think you mean hypnotism ?

[semente]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Well, I shall go back to step 1 - are you able to use a recording, any recording, to assess the competence of a system? If you can't do this with some degree of 'skill' then everything you do will be hit and miss.

 

There are a lot of medical people floating around here - I've got the impression over the years that a rather important first step is to make a correct diagnosis of a patient's complaint, rather just than trying every possible treatment that may vaguely relate to the symptoms ...

 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, semente said:

This doesn't make sense.

A valve amplifier can only be accurate if doesn't do any of the "tubey goodness" (read euphonic distortion).

 

Well, this all kicked off because Ralf called his ARC LS25 full of "tubey goodness" - ARC are not known for making tone effects gear, which this review of the model next higher up supports, https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-research-reference-1-preamplifier-vt200-power-amplifier-measurements-audio-research-re. It just sounds like solid engineering, which is a major part of the battle.

 

I heard a rig using the full lineup of ARC Reference boxes years ago, and this delivered sound that was razor sharp, drilling holes through my ear drums with ease. But this wasn't the fault of the amp hierachy, it was merely passing on the wayward behaviour of the cold Benz cartridge ... euphonic?? Give us a break!!

 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, semente said:

 

Pass a signal through an equipment, compare with the original signal. How simple is that?

 

Quite hard, in fact. There's many a slip twixt ... ...

 

If it was simple, it would have been done ages ago - properly! And a difference that looks horrendous, visually, can be relatively benign to the ear - and, vice versa.

[semente]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Quite hard, in fact. There's many a slip twixt ... ...

 

If it was simple, it would have been done ages ago - properly! And a difference that looks horrendous, visually, can be relatively benign to the ear - and, vice versa.

 

There are or may be things that you/we can't measure yet, but the existing measurements do have some correlation with listening.

Perhaps more work needs to be done regarding measurement/listening correlation and audibility thresholds...

 

The problem with listening is keeping taste out of the equation.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, semente said:

 

The subjective accuracy you mention is not to the recording but to your idea of what the recording should sound like.

 

 

 

No, it's not. At times it's made very clear how very few people have experienced what it's like to have an audio system present a recording in a completely convincing way; the sense there is absolutely nothing between you and the environment in which the recording was made ... and this is one of them. Only those who have pulled this off understand what the experience is like, and the number who achieve it is vanishingly small, still.

[pkane2001]

5 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

This holds true for an audio signal to the extent that you can accurately measure it with a tool that is 100% accurate measuring 100% of the signal.

 

The good thing is we have tools that can do that, with a level of precision that is known.

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

No, it's not. At times it's made very clear how very few people have experienced what it's like to have an audio system present a recording in a completely convincing way; the sense there is absolutely nothing between you and the environment in which the recording was made ... and this is one of them. Only those who have pulled this off understand what the experience is like, and the number who achieve it is vanishingly small, still.

 

So I assume you’ve pulled this off, Frank? Tell us, how you know that what you heard was not all in your head, while the system  was just as pedestrian as all of ours, or as Mr. GUTB would say, it sucked?

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Quite hard, in fact. There's many a slip twixt ... ...

 

If it was simple, it would have been done ages ago - properly! And a difference that looks horrendous, visually, can be relatively benign to the ear - and, vice versa.

 

Difficult is not the same as impossible. If this can be determined objectively through measurements with proper tools then why insist on using completely unreliable subjective tests, instead?

[jabbr]

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

There are a lot of medical people floating around here - I've got the impression over the years that a rather important first step is to make a correct diagnosis of a patient's complaint, rather just than trying every possible treatment that may vaguely relate to the symptoms ...

 

Oooph — the Flexner report was published in 1910 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

 

It derided the then current practice of medical training under apprenticeship, where a patient would see any of a number of traveling salesmen “snake oil” purveyors who would listen to their complaints, “diagnose” and treat with a concoction of hopefully harmless herbs or potions or worse. 

 

It called for a more standardized and science based training. There are text books. There are well articulated methods. Treatments need to be proven. (Nothing is perfect however!)

 

Diagnosis: there is a specific teachable diagnostic method — you have nothing specific. 

 

Not that you are killing people with bad audio but you make my point.