Lies about vinyl vs digital

[sandyk]

18 minutes ago, esldude said:

I've a weak digestive system. I couldn't stomach those TAS articles again.

 

 You don't need to

. You just need to learn to accept that many members are able to hear things that you don't necessarily agree with.

[Ralf11]

I  accept that many, many members think they hear differences that they cannot.

 

 

[sandyk]

43 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I  accept that many, many members think they hear differences that they cannot.

 

 

Perhaps they should use you as a Guinea Pig ?

https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/ultrasound-fires-up-the-auditory-cortexeven-though-animals-cant-hear-it-36660

 

[Rexp]

On 5/14/2019 at 3:38 AM, esldude said:

Here is an Audacity resample of the same 192 file.  I saved it as a wav instead of an aiff, but that won't make any difference.  

 

https://send.firefox.com/download/1af2ef1d48ecda79/#792ya3sGL2JKAH0pFhJYKQ

Just click on the link to download.  Available for 7 days or until 50 downloads.  

Do you think your 16/44 wav sounds the same as Pauls 24/192 aiff:

https://audiophilestyle.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=56129

? 

[STC]

15 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Perhaps they should use you as a Guinea Pig ?

https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/ultrasound-fires-up-the-auditory-cortexeven-though-animals-cant-hear-it-36660

 

 

Did the paper say that the ultrasonics is the inaudible part of the original audible frequencies?

 

Maybe, audiophiles should attach tiny ultrasonic transducer to the head sending pulses while listening to music. In short, it got nothing to do with the hypersonic musical content to begin with. 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

 You don't need to

. You just need to learn to accept that many members are able to hear things that you don't necessarily agree with.

 

Hi Alex - 

 

If you have ever trusted me on anything, trust me that those articles are pure junk. They are playing on people's need to believe, but they are horrid examples of the junkiest of junk science. This stuff is far far worse than anything else I have seen in print that wasn't a total joke. Don't believe a single word in them, no matter how much you may want to.  

 

No joke, no smiley - I am dead serious about that brother. 

 

-Paul 

 

[sandyk]

29 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

Hi Alex - 

 

If you have ever trusted me on anything, trust me that those articles are pure junk. They are playing on people's need to believe, but they are horrid examples of the junkiest of junk science. This stuff is far far worse than anything else I have seen in print that wasn't a total joke. Don't believe a single word in them, no matter how much you may want to.  

 

No joke, no smiley - I am dead serious about that brother. 

 

-Paul 

 

Paul

 I made no comments about the contents of the articles. I just quoted them as an example of many others preferring.wav over .flac like I do.

As for playing on people's need to believe, I take issue with that in my case, and I would be quite happy to perform Blind tests with well recorded material in both .wav and .flac on my own PC Audio setup to support this . 

I am also aware that Martin Colloms had issues with some of the contents of these series of articles  too, but decided not to respond to them.

 

[StephenJK]

11 hours ago, Paul R said:

 

Well reasoned, but a couple of other factors may be there as well. 

 

First, in the theory presented above, the results of ultrasonic sound may not be directly audible, but instead may change what a lister hears.  This is loosely-goosey without a lot of research, but it is at least possible. 

 

Any further, in in relation to commercial releases of music as well as to things like recorded vinyl, there is the issue of what CD Format does to the music. Commercially, you have brick wall filters that do all sorts of irritating things - alias problems, phase shift problems, and other similar issues. Can these change or affect the sound? I do not think it is even slightly controversial to answer that with a yes. They can certainly change the sound, usually for the worse. 

 

In in relation to recordings of vinyl, same issues may apply. Vinyl certainly has content above the Nyquist limit for audio. Can you hear that directly? No. Does filtering it out for CD resolution change the sound? Arguably yes. With vinyl, it is a little bit tricky, since when vinyl music is recorded, the bass is turned way down and the treble is turned way up. Equalization is required to make it sound right.

 

Incidentally, this is also one reason why CD and vinyl can sound different, even when from the same master. The CD process either did not turn down the bass, or sometimes even turned it up, since digital can easily reproduce it. Sometimes the treble was modified too. Point is, there are always more factors to look at than might be obvious when this subject comes up.

 

It is like storing your files in compressed format. Probably little or no harm storing in FLAC instead of AIFF, but with disk and cloud storage so cheap these days, why would you bother with compression that *might* have an effect in the future? Same idea also applies to high res. If you have genuine high res, why throw it away? It *might* make a difference to you in the future, even if it does not now. 

 

Just my $0.02 there! 

 

-Paul

 

Blue herrings aside, I’m a bit confused about your comment regarding FLAC files and compression. I see you’re a proponent of AIFF, and that’s fine by me. 

 

But, what do you suppose could ever occur that would cause a lossless compressed FLAC file to lose any resolution?  You generally present a sound argument, but with this I just don’t get your point. I have about 1,000 CDs (16/14.4 obviously) and over 1,500 LPs (24/96) all in FLAC format all compressed to the default level 5.

 

If AIFF has any particular advantage, then I can simply do a batch convert to that format?   

 

Historically, the issue was not only with storage but also with processor speed and resources to decompress. Now that neither is really an issue anymore, these types of comments don’t seem to have any relevance. 

 

Oh, and cloud storage?  The day I trust my 2 TB of lovingly recorded and painstakingly mastered music to some here-today gone-tomorrow bunch of servers in some dingy basement is the day that I go over Niagara Falls in a pickel barrel. 

[lucretius]

5 minutes ago, SJK said:

If AIFF has any particular advantage, then I can simply do a batch convert to that format?   

 

Niot sure that was a question.  dBpoweramp will do the batch conversion. 

[Paul R]

9 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Paul

 I made no comments about the contents of the articles. I just posted them as an example of many others preferring.wav over .flac like I do.

As for playing on people's need to believe, I take issue with that in my case, and I would be quite happy to perform Blind tests with well recorded material in both .wav and .flac on my own PC Audio setup to support this . 

I am also aware that Martin Colloms had issues with some of the contents of these series of articles  too, but decided not to respond to them.

 

I am not suggesting you can not hear differences from file types. I know other people that can do that too.

 

But those articles - they are just really bad junk.

[sandyk]

10 minutes ago, SJK said:

If AIFF has any particular advantage, then I can simply do a batch convert to that format?   

 Why not do a small batch convert to find out whether you can hear any differences with direct play using a quality Mac Audio player (not just iTunes) in both formats ?

If you can't, and you don't intend making any new equipment purchases in the foreseeable future, then just be happy with the .flac files you already have.

[StephenJK]

1 minute ago, lucretius said:

 

Niot sure that was a question.  dBpoweramp will do the batch conversion. 

Yes, that was my point. If one digitL file, other than embedded metadata has a supposed advantage then I can simply do that. It’ll take a couple of days to run, but I can do that after I retire. 

[lucretius]

11 hours ago, Paul R said:

It is like storing your files in compressed format. Probably little or no harm storing in FLAC instead of AIFF, but with disk and cloud storage so cheap these days, why would you bother with compression that *might* have an effect in the future?

 

You do realize that you can have uncompressed FLAC files?

[Paul R]

8 minutes ago, SJK said:

Blue herrings aside, I’m a bit confused about your comment regarding FLAC files and compression. I see you’re a proponent of AIFF, and that’s fine by me. 

 

But, what do you suppose could ever occur that would cause a lossless compressed FLAC file to lose any resolution?  You generally present a sound argument, but with this I just don’t get your point. I have about 1,000 CDs (16/14.4 obviously) and over 1,500 LPs (24/96) all in FLAC format all compressed to the default level 5.

 

If AIFF has any particular advantage, then I can simply do a batch convert to that format?   

 

Historically, the issue was not only with storage but also with processor speed and resources to decompress. Now that neither is really an issue anymore, these types of comments don’t seem to have any relevance. 

 

Oh, and cloud storage?  The day I trust my 2 TB of lovingly recorded and painstakingly mastered music to some here-today gone-tomorrow bunch of servers in some dingy basement is the day that I go over Niagara Falls in a pickel barrel. 

 

LOL!  Well said.  There is not any real advantage of AIFF over FLAC, it is just that why even bother to compress them if you don't need to? Since yours are already compressed FLAC files, I would not change them. 

 

Most of my online storage is AWS or Apple, so I think that pretty safe. I do worry about the terabytes of images I have stored up with Adobe though. Have to do something about that sooner or later. Something besides keeping a copy here on local storage, which I already do.

 

-Paul 

 

 

[Paul R]

2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

You do realize that you can have uncompressed FLAC files?

 

Sure, and that is probably a good option.

 

There is nothing wrong with keeping your files in either AIFF or FLAC format. Or WAV or ALC if those are what you prefer. I just feel a little more comfortable with my files in uncompressed format. That is just me though. 

 

 

-Paul 

 

 

[StephenJK]

Just now, sandyk said:

 Why not do a small batch convert to find out whether you can hear any differences with direct play using a quality Mac Audio player

(not iTunes) in both formats ?

If you can't, and you don't intend making any new equipment purchases in the foreseeable future, then just be happy with the .flac files you already have.

I don’t expect you to follow my very few posts. I started a thread with loss of soundstage using PC playback as compared to, in this case, a Bryston digital player. 

 

The latest DAC, about a week ago is a PS Audio DSJ.  Testing with the same setup, JRiver with USB or Bryston BDP with AES/EBU still gives a slight edge to not using a laptop, at least in my setup. This is with 24/192 files recorded on my system from MOFI albums to a Korg MR-2000S. 

 

I would need more from you than a “why not try it out” for me to consider comparing one digital file to another. Bit depth, sure. Sampling frequency, yeah. Digital file type? Can’t really say. 

[StephenJK]

6 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

You do realize that you can have uncompressed FLAC files?

Of course!  But they are what they are and I just haven’t seen the need to make a change. It ain’t broke......

[StephenJK]

8 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

LOL!  Well said.  There is not any real advantage of AIFF over FLAC, it is just that why even bother to compress them if you don't need to? Since yours are already compressed FLAC files, I would not change them. 

 

Most of my online storage is AWS or Apple, so I think that pretty safe. I do worry about the terabytes of images I have stored up with Adobe though. Have to do something about that sooner or later. Something besides keeping a copy here on local storage, which I already do.

 

-Paul 

 

 

I’m glad to hear that. And now I can cancel my trip to Niagara Falls with my pickle barrel. 

 

All kidding aside, I have a minimum of five copies of digitized music on drives in at least four different places. I don’t trust anybody with my music or my data. 

[Ralf11]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

Perhaps they should use you as a Guinea Pig ?

https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/ultrasound-fires-up-the-auditory-cortexeven-though-animals-cant-hear-it-36660

 

 

you'd be better than me as a pig

[sandyk]

20 minutes ago, SJK said:

I would need more from you than a “why not try it out” for me to consider comparing one digital file to another. Bit depth, sure. Sampling frequency, yeah. Digital file type? Can’t really say. 

 You don't need a Batch convert to find out..

 It would only take a small amount of your time if you had the appropriate S/W,(even the Freeware Foobar 2000 should do this)  to convert a few of your favourite high quality tracks to find out .

[sandyk]

33 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

You do realize that you can have uncompressed FLAC files?

You can also have uncompressed Zip files for music delivery.

[lucretius]

9 minutes ago, sandyk said:

You can also have uncompressed Zip files for music delivery.

 

Do you have a player that can play zip files?  ☺️

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, lucretius said:

 

Do you have a player that can play zip files?  ☺️

I said music delivery, NOT playing them.

 Cookie Marenco from Blue Coast Records sends out her files as UNCOMPRESSED Zips to help prevent degradation .

A.S. member elcorso (Roch) did a series of tests with Cookie Marenco before she commenced doing that.

[lucretius]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

Cookie Marenco from Blue Coast Records sends out her files as UNCOMPRESSED Zips to help prevent degradation .

 

Why zip the files in the first place?

[sandyk]

6 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Why zip the files in the first place?

 

 Are you unable to understand what I typed ?

 It's simply a waste of my time further discussing things like this with members who refuse to accept ALL Subjective reports, even when performed by a highly acclaimed Recording Engineer.

 

IF you are genuinely interested,  send elcorso a PM for details on the series of tests that were carried out.