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11 minutes ago, esldude said:

Surprise, surprise. 

 

Not really. I once dedicated Ill Communication as one of the really better sounding albums.

image.png.d24983aa646839ba74121841a3d24c7b.png

11.4 this one.

 

I don't want to shock people, but this one sounds even better:

image.png.bed5f6aee96e53a3a5756ebc85817441.png

5.1.

 

Lush^3-e      Lush^2      Blaxius^2.5      Ethernet^3     HDMI^2     XLR^2

XXHighEnd (developer)

Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer)

Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer)

Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier)

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52 minutes ago, esldude said:

2L downloads don't convince me the hires is some leap forward.  They are the most honest comparison files I know of available for people to listen for themselves.  I personally can't hear they are an improvement. But I'm old enough higher frequencies aren't going to be audible to me

 

This is dangerous because yesterday I said quite the opposite. And you can't blame me for hearing above 13KHz. I think I also said it is not about that at all. Still it is the super most obvious that exactly that HiRes (DXD from 2L) works out. Nothing works out for me, but DXD from 2L does.

But then I made a DAC for it ... (sort of, see yesterday's post).

Lush^3-e      Lush^2      Blaxius^2.5      Ethernet^3     HDMI^2     XLR^2

XXHighEnd (developer)

Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer)

Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer)

Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier)

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1 hour ago, esldude said:

2L downloads don't convince me the hires is some leap forward.  They are the most honest comparison files I know of available for people to listen for themselves.  I personally can't hear they are an improvement.

 

I have to say I kind of agree with you here. If I 'upsample' both the 16/44.1 file and the DXD file to 705.6 before playback, then they sound pretty similar to my ears. Most DACs will do some sort of upsampling, filtering and SDM before playback, which seems to homogenize the sound IME.

 

However...

 

31 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Still it is the super most obvious that exactly that HiRes (DXD from 2L) works out.

 

If I upsample the 16/44.1 to 705.6 (or 352.8) but play the DXD natively (no 'upsampling', filtering or SDM) then the DXD sounds vastly superior. This has absolutely nothing to do with FR.

 

(Actually, the difference is so stark that I'm tempted to capture the output of my DAC with an ADC set to 16/44.1 - I'm sure the difference will be clearly audible, and yet the spectra should be virtually identical. Will give it a go when I have some time.)

 

Mani.

Main: SOtM sMS-200 -> Okto dac8PRO -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Tune Audio Anima horns + 2x Rotel RB-1590 amps -> 4 subs

Home Office: SOtM sMS-200 -> MOTU UltraLite-mk5 -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Impulse H2 speakers

Vinyl: Technics SP10 / London (Decca) Reference -> Trafomatic Luna -> RME ADI-2 Pro

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1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

Could be - there are some dastardly frauds out there. I can not imagine the Gaga person recording in low res though. I may not like much of her music, but she definitely seems to be a production genius. 

 Paul

Speaking of Lady Gaga , you may be correct about her production values.
Lady Gaga- Joanne for example is in 24/44.1 and to my surprise her voice doesn’t sound too bad after using SeeDeClip Duo Pro as they don’t appear to have used cursed digital compression this time, or very little of it, and the original wasn't too bad either.
Not that I am a fan of hers, but it was just an exercise to give me something to do.
 

 Regards

Alex

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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10 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 Most of us know that you were also  having a shot at ALL High Res LPCM, NOT just that particular image.:P

 You have made it perfectly clear in other posts that this is your position as regards to high res LPCM.

 In the example that I posted a screenshot of,  it is very obvious that there is GENUINE musical content to past 50kHz , and any conversion to 16/44.1 will completely remove everything that was present above 22kHz.

 

I'm sorry to disapoint you but most of you are wrong. I was replying to Rexp. 😉

 

Regarding Redbook vs. High Res, this is where I stand:

 

 

I will buy High Res if it's on sale and the price is close to that of the cheapest used CD/SACD version I can find. I won't go into the trouble of ripping the DSD layer of an SACD or the High-Res layer of a DVD-A (I only have one of the latter anyway, and it's a 1960 recording).

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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9 minutes ago, manisandher said:

If I upsample the 16/44.1 to 705.6 (or 352.8) but play the DXD natively (no 'upsampling', filtering or SDM) then the DXD sounds vastly superior.

 

Hi Mani - So what you're saying is that when DXD is upsampled to 705.6, it actually destroys sound. Right ?

Lush^3-e      Lush^2      Blaxius^2.5      Ethernet^3     HDMI^2     XLR^2

XXHighEnd (developer)

Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer)

Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer)

Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier)

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10 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 Most of us know that you were also  having a shot at ALL High Res LPCM, NOT just that particular image.:P

 You have made it perfectly clear in other posts that this is your position as regards to high res LPCM.

 In the example that I posted a screenshot of,  it is very obvious that there is GENUINE musical content to past 50kHz , and any conversion to 16/44.1 will completely remove everything that was present above 22kHz.

 

I listen mostly to classical music and from my experience I would deem a higher bit depth more important than a higher sample rate.

What worries me about conversion to 16/44.1 is not losing the very low level information above 22kHz which I cannot hear an my speakers may not reproduce but the distortion introduced by filtering.

 

This is the 3rd movement of Sibelius VC (Batiashvili - Sony 24/96), my high sample-rate recording with the highest frequency content; note that all information above 20kHz is at -90dB or below:

 

vE3Avhz.png

 

Rock-pop, jazz and most other genres are close mic'ed so things get a lot busier at higher frequencies. Even though I do buy some jazz from time to time it's mostly from the 50s and 60s and I prefer not to spend money in High Res recordings of this genre.

 

This is "Night And Day" from Bill Evan's album "Everybody Digs Bill Evans":

 

YwzI3QK.png

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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Off topic...

 

11 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Hi Mani - So what you're saying is that when DXD is upsampled to 705.6, it actually destroys sound. Right ?

 

Hi Peter, yes that's certainly the case here.

 

But it's actually worse than that... If I fix the output to 352.8 in XXHighEnd, just switching the AP filter on/off changes the sound of the DXD file. (I'm sure I mentioned this to you a few years ago, but we obviously dropped it.)

 

Mani.

Main: SOtM sMS-200 -> Okto dac8PRO -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Tune Audio Anima horns + 2x Rotel RB-1590 amps -> 4 subs

Home Office: SOtM sMS-200 -> MOTU UltraLite-mk5 -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Impulse H2 speakers

Vinyl: Technics SP10 / London (Decca) Reference -> Trafomatic Luna -> RME ADI-2 Pro

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21 minutes ago, semente said:

Regarding Redbook vs. High Res, this is where I stand:

My apologies.:$

The wording of your reply about the noise suggested otherwise on this occasion, as this thread appears to be mainly about

trying to discredit High Res recordings.

 

Alex

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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7 hours ago, Jud said:

Yes. I'd like to know what the level of measurable difference, if any, would be for a typical recording chain between the original signal and a Redbook result (Redbook because I'm not interested at the moment in mp3 or other lossy compressed formats).

What do you mean by original signal? Typical recordings are multi-tracked at 44.1/48 kHz with a substantial amount of processing and mixing before a CD release eventually pops out. Comparing any individual microphone feed to the final CD wouldn't make any sense. It's not supposed to be the same.

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2 hours ago, manisandher said:

If I upsample the 16/44.1 to 705.6 (or 352.8) but play the DXD natively (no 'upsampling', filtering or SDM) then the DXD sounds vastly superior. This has absolutely nothing to do with FR.

 

(Actually, the difference is so stark that I'm tempted to capture the output of my DAC with an ADC set to 16/44.1 - I'm sure the difference will be clearly audible, and yet the spectra should be virtually identical. Will give it a go when I have some time.)

 

Here are two 16/44.1 captures, from the analogue output of my DAC. One is the DXD file (downloaded from 2L) played back natively (no upsampling, filtering or SDM) and the other is the 16/44.1 file (downloaded from 2L) upsampled to 352.8 using XXHighEnd's AP filter (but still no SDM).

 

2L-092, Jan Gunnar Hoff, Living, track 01:

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1T3rUw-f42ef5xWlXkj4IiR5pgLdQyoYX

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=188f-KoMAkg6-krSEei19VVaoe4DA8qC_

 

I believe there is an audible difference between these two captures; not as much as when the DXD and 16/44.1 files are played back directly, but it's still there. (I actually did 3 quick blind comparisons and identified the DXD capture correctly each time - not scientific, but then again, even 10 blind ABXs wouldn't convince some people around here 😉.) The DXD file played back natively has more clarity and is more strident. Just more realistic. And yet, taking a cursory look at their respective spectra, they look pretty much identical to me.

 

Mani.

Main: SOtM sMS-200 -> Okto dac8PRO -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Tune Audio Anima horns + 2x Rotel RB-1590 amps -> 4 subs

Home Office: SOtM sMS-200 -> MOTU UltraLite-mk5 -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Impulse H2 speakers

Vinyl: Technics SP10 / London (Decca) Reference -> Trafomatic Luna -> RME ADI-2 Pro

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3 hours ago, esldude said:

Would you rather have a Neumann U47 at 44.1 or a LowEnd USB microphone at 96 k?

 

Sample rate just isn't that important to the end quality.  It is a tiny cherry on top at best once everything is in really fine form. 

 

Totally depends. Why not use the U47 for recording at 96k, 192k, one even DSD?  I am not sure why you see it as an either or. 😁

 

Actually, sample rate at recording time is very important, depending upon how close you want to get to the microphone feed. YMMV, however, I do not believe it it is quite so cut and dried. 

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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22 minutes ago, manisandher said:

Here are two 16/44.1 captures, from the analogue output of my DAC. One is the DXD file (downloaded from 2L) played back natively (no upsampling, filtering or SDM) and the other is the 16/44.1 file (downloaded from 2L) upsampled to 352.8 using XXHighEnd's AP filter (but still no SDM).

 

2L-092, Jan Gunnar Hoff, Living, track 01:

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1T3rUw-f42ef5xWlXkj4IiR5pgLdQyoYX

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=188f-KoMAkg6-krSEei19VVaoe4DA8qC_

 

I believe there is an audible difference between these two captures; not as much as when the DXD and 16/44.1 files are played back directly, but it's still there. (I actually did 3 quick blind comparisons and identified the DXD capture correctly each time - not scientific, but then again, even 10 blind ABXs wouldn't convince some people around here 😉.) The DXD file played back natively has more clarity and is more strident. Just more realistic. And yet, taking a cursory look at their respective spectra, they look pretty much identical to me.

One of them clearly has rolled-off highs. This is the difference of the spectra:

image.thumb.png.c21f613752ff99092abcef6101db192b.png

 

The recordings contain mostly noise above ~10 kHz, which is why the difference also turns into noise there.

 

Which DAC did you use for this? What does the "AP" filter do?

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30 minutes ago, mansr said:

One of them clearly has rolled-off highs. This is the difference of the spectra:

image.thumb.png.c21f613752ff99092abcef6101db192b.png

 

 

A couple of quick questions:

 

1. So, there's a maximum of 0.4dB difference at ~11kHz - am I reading this right?

 

Edit: You've already said it's pretty much noise above 10kHz. So the main difference lies at <0.2dB below 10kHz, correct?

 

2. Would you expect me to be able to hear this difference?

 

Mani.

Main: SOtM sMS-200 -> Okto dac8PRO -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Tune Audio Anima horns + 2x Rotel RB-1590 amps -> 4 subs

Home Office: SOtM sMS-200 -> MOTU UltraLite-mk5 -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Impulse H2 speakers

Vinyl: Technics SP10 / London (Decca) Reference -> Trafomatic Luna -> RME ADI-2 Pro

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1 hour ago, mansr said:

What do you mean by original signal? Typical recordings are multi-tracked at 44.1/48 kHz with a substantial amount of processing and mixing before a CD release eventually pops out. Comparing any individual microphone feed to the final CD wouldn't make any sense. It's not supposed to be the same.

 

Original SDM signal in the ADC/workstation immediately upon initial digitization before decimation. My notion is the live DSD256 recording would serve as a very rough approximation.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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1 hour ago, mansr said:

What do you mean by original signal? Typical recordings are multi-tracked at 44.1/48 kHz with a substantial amount of processing and mixing before a CD release eventually pops out. Comparing any individual microphone feed to the final CD wouldn't make any sense. It's not supposed to be the same.

 

The statement above belies a fundamental difference between your and my desired music and philosophy. No doubt we will never agree. I’m fact it is exactly my desired audio experience to listen to vocals sounding as close to the mic feed as possible. For me it is supposed to be the same (or at least give me as close to that illusion as is possible)

 

 

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

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17 minutes ago, manisandher said:

A couple of quick questions:

 

1. So, there's a maximum of 0.4dB difference at ~11kHz - am I reading this right?

Right.

 

17 minutes ago, manisandher said:

2. Would you expect me to be able to hear this difference?

Assuming you can indeed hear a difference, this is as likely as any.

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48 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

A couple of quick questions:

 

1. So, there's a maximum of 0.4dB difference at ~11kHz - am I reading this right?

 

Edit: You've already said it's pretty much noise above 10kHz. So the main difference lies at <0.2dB below 10kHz, correct?

 

2. Would you expect me to be able to hear this difference?

 

Mani.

 

Differences start a bit before 10kHz, but are well below 0.5dB:

image.thumb.png.bb5c6f2067421f4285d01342c722bdb1.png

 

There's also a small clock drift between the two captures (about 0.13ppm, the blue line indicates the difference in timing before correcting)

image.thumb.png.070d2a32ad17fd6649f2fdb0e3d8e863.png

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1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

Totally depends. Why not use the U47 for recording at 96k, 192k, one even DSD?  I am not sure why you see it as an either or. 😁

 

Actually, sample rate at recording time is very important, depending upon how close you want to get to the microphone feed. YMMV, however, I do not believe it it is quite so cut and dried. 

Now don't stoop to sophistry.  You're ignoring the context to be obtuse.

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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@mansr, @pkane2001, I'm going to start a new thread to look into what could be causing the audible differences - don't want to corrupt this one. Your input would be much appreciated there, once it's up.

 

Mani.

Main: SOtM sMS-200 -> Okto dac8PRO -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Tune Audio Anima horns + 2x Rotel RB-1590 amps -> 4 subs

Home Office: SOtM sMS-200 -> MOTU UltraLite-mk5 -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Impulse H2 speakers

Vinyl: Technics SP10 / London (Decca) Reference -> Trafomatic Luna -> RME ADI-2 Pro

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8 minutes ago, manisandher said:

@mansr, @pkane2001, I'm going to start a new thread to look into what could be causing the audible differences - don't want to corrupt this one. Your input would be much appreciated there, once it's up.

 

Mani.

 

Using @pkane2001  Deltawave software, one may find some clues looking at the relative phase delay between both files.( without clock drift correction ). Rgds.

phase.thumb.jpg.3b9083287d76b762676e21c02ff8b643.jpg

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1 hour ago, Jud said:

Original SDM signal in the ADC/workstation immediately upon initial digitization before decimation. My notion is the live DSD256 recording would serve as a very rough approximation.

Most ADCs use a multi-bit sigma-delta A/D converter. The data it produces is then digitally processed on-chip to produce PCM or DSD output. The 1-bit modulator providing the DSD output may well cause at least as much "damage" as the decimation filters used for PCM.

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1 hour ago, mansr said:

Most ADCs use a multi-bit sigma-delta A/D converter. The data it produces is then digitally processed on-chip to produce PCM or DSD output. The 1-bit modulator providing the DSD output may well cause at least as much "damage" as the decimation filters used for PCM.

 

Certainly a possibility, though one would hope the folks doing the recording for the labels sold on NativeDSD would be sufficiently finicky to use a reasonable modulator.

 

If you have a closer proxy to suggest from which you can derive a spectrogram (potentially playable on a consumer DAC - I have some thoughts about other things I might like to do to compare the files), of course I'd be interested.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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18 minutes ago, Jud said:

Certainly a possibility, though one would hope the folks doing the recording for the labels sold on NativeDSD would be sufficiently finicky to use a reasonable modulator.

The modulator is whatever the chip designers at TI, AKM, or wherever concocted.

 

18 minutes ago, Jud said:

If you have a closer proxy to suggest from which you can derive a spectrogram (potentially playable on a consumer DAC - I have some thoughts about other things I might like to do to compare the files), of course I'd be interested.

I'm still struggling to understand what exactly you're looking to achieve. We already know that the noise level in a 24-bit recording is determined by microphone preamp, not the ADC. What does it matter if a couple of the lowest bits are altered by the decimation filter?

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