Bits is bits?

[fas42]

When all else fails, invoke alcohol - it's worked for centuries and centuries ...

[marce]

 

 

8 hours ago, Soothsayerman said:

 

Do you always have an arrogant dickhead attitude or is it only when you're talking about audio?

Cables can make a difference depending on the system and environment they're used in. My belief is that the point of rapidly diminishing returns happens a heck of a lot faster than most cable manufacturers would want you to believe.  But the whole notion that a bit is a bit in the grand scheme of essentially a very complex data bus is not true when it comes to streaming.   Now if you think that is snake oil, I personally do not care. 

 

If they are not a bit what are they then! Its an electrical pulse representing a bit (or two).

[marce]

8 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

I want an an arrogant dickhead USB cable - I can use it for punk rock

I want to know what passes for a personal insult on here, ignorant gets a wrist slap, dickhead....😁

I know Soothsayer was the one who used the insult.

[marce]

8 hours ago, esldude said:

I wonder when Audioquest will come out with Audiophile wireless.  Not the wire or cable, but wireless.  Maybe in the form of a waveguide?  We know them bits ain't bits all by themselves. 

I am trying to work out what a bit is, if it isn't a bit! I am really at a loss, this is why I posted the pic of the current pulse, what else could it be! Any ideas because I am at a loss... Even if I describe it as a fundamental sine wave with many added harmonics the knee frequency depending on the signal rise time, it is still a BIT!!!!

[marce]

8 hours ago, mansr said:

Not really my style.

Your cables could be marketed as "Cables from under the bridge"  with a rock solid presentation, using the best organic billy-goat wool dielectrics.

[alfe]

1 hour ago, marce said:

I want to know what passes for a personal insult on here, ignorant gets a wrist slap, dickhead....😁

I know Soothsayer was the one who used the insult.

 

Dickhead is for porn site, here the insult is Radiohead.

 

[fas42]

Or, MQAhead ...

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, alfe said:

 

Dickhead is for porn site, here the insult is Radiohead.

 

 What's wrong with Richard Cranium instead ?

[alfe]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Or, MQAhead ...

 or USBhead or galvanichead or gizmohead, bitsaren'tbitshead the list is very long😀

[esldude]

2 hours ago, marce said:

I am trying to work out what a bit is, if it isn't a bit! I am really at a loss, this is why I posted the pic of the current pulse, what else could it be! Any ideas because I am at a loss... Even if I describe it as a fundamental sine wave with many added harmonics the knee frequency depending on the signal rise time, it is still a BIT!!!!

It is all ones and zeros.  Various ways of transmitting and deciphering that.  Still it is 1's and 0's.  There is nothing else.  

 

It could be colored slips of paper, it could be two voltages with guard bands, it could be current levels or related resistance levels with fixed voltage.  It can be directional differences in current flow, or voltage or the way the wind blows.  It is all 1's and 0's.  And despite all the attempts by anyone to make it more analog or more intuitive it is none of that.  

 

The obfuscation by any other method is simply trying to deny the most simple of truths.  Twice as much or half as much is all it is.  Yet that is very powerful, efficient and liberating.  To try and approach it any other way is to deny the truth. 

[Blackmorec]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

You're apparently talking about the beloved audiophile sweet spot, that tiny, tiny little location in the room where it "all comes together". Umm, I have never been the slightest bit interested in that, because the universal sweet spot is a far, far nicer thing to have - it means that I can move around anywhere in the room, and the house, and there is a 100% consistency in what I hear - I don't have to be in a special spot for any "magic" to happen.

 

That microscopic audiophile sweet spot gets the job done, because you are making sure that the direct sound is so strongly 'concentrated' that the message in the recording finally makes sense - I see it as being akin to a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscope, where you have to have everything in alignment for any illusion to occur ... this is just not my cup of tea; what I'm after is the sense of real music making, irrespective of how I'm listening.

 

Hi Frank,

Would you like to share the attributes of the stereo sound waves that create the illusion and don’t change when you move? The problem as I see it is that in nature there’s a single signal that remains constant when you move, while in stereo there’re are 2 signals that change independently when you move, thus changing the signal you perceive. 

[STC]

4 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

Would you like to share the attributes of the stereo sound waves that create the illusion and don’t change when you move?

 

Basically he is telling that when standing in front  of left speakers while playing left channel balance test tone signal, he would still hear the sound coming from 30 or so degrees from his left side. It is all in the mind.   

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 hours ago, Soothsayerman said:

Do you always have an arrogant dickhead attitude or is it only when you're talking about audio?

This is a warning. Personal attacks aren’t allowed here. Attack the substance of comments not the author. 

[jabbr]

3 hours ago, alfe said:

 

Dickhead is for porn site, here the insult is Radiohead.

 

 

Paranoid Android USB cables aren’t designed for audio, just ok, computer

 

They come complete with jumpers that control the built in reverb

 

https://www.factmag.com/2017/05/21/radiohead-ok-computer-gear-effects-pedals/

[fas42]

12 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Hi Frank,

Would you like to share the attributes of the stereo sound waves that create the illusion and don’t change when you move? The problem as I see it is that in nature there’s a single signal that remains constant when you move, while in stereo there’re are 2 signals that change independently when you move, thus changing the signal you perceive. 

 

As STC says, it's all in the mind. As we grow up from a baby, we learn to process sound coming from a myriad of directions, that's been "messed up" by all sorts of obstacles, and torturous paths to reach us, and resolve what it "actually means" ... let's say we have a real piano being played in plain sight in front of us, and then all sorts of happen - a whole bunch of people move back and forth in front of us, or stand still in a solid block directly between us and the piano, or some barriers get lowered so that the sound can only reach us by "going around" some openings in various places - at any point do we lose the sense of listening to a real piano a short distance away from us?

 

Well, that's what occurs with audio playback when it reaches a certain quality level - over 3 decades ago I didn't have this great idea that I could tweak playback, and make magic pop out; it, just, happened! WTF, repeated however many times you want to, . So, I was playing with the actual behaviour long before I developed some ideas on why it occurs ... .

 

The unfortunate thing is that the ear/brain is very fussy, and requires a very high standard of replay; all the cues have to be in place, otherwise it's a fail - the plane never gets off the ground. And once you are able to invoke the illusion, it's trivially easy to make it evaporate - simply do something to cause the replay quality to degrade, just a bit; the presentation then immediately snaps back to the conventional stereo effect. Restore the SQ, and the illusion again manifests ... I was able to do this endlessly, at will, 35 years ago.

 

[Blackmorec]

33 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

As STC says, it's all in the mind. As we grow up from a baby, we learn to process sound coming from a myriad of directions, that's been "messed up" by all sorts of obstacles, and torturous paths to reach us, and resolve what it "actually means" ... let's say we have a real piano being played in plain sight in front of us, and then all sorts of happen - a whole bunch of people move back and forth in front of us, or stand still in a solid block directly between us and the piano, or some barriers get lowered so that the sound can only reach us by "going around" some openings in various places - at any point do we lose the sense of listening to a real piano a short distance away from us?

 

Well, that's what occurs with audio playback when it reaches a certain quality level - over 3 decades ago I didn't have this great idea that I could tweak playback, and make magic pop out; it, just, happened! WTF, repeated however many times you want to, . So, I was playing with the actual behaviour long before I developed some ideas on why it occurs ... .

 

The unfortunate thing is that the ear/brain is very fussy, and requires a very high standard of replay; all the cues have to be in place, otherwise it's a fail - the plane never gets off the ground. And once you are able to invoke the illusion, it's trivially easy to make it evaporate - simply do something to cause the replay quality to degrade, just a bit; the presentation then immediately snaps back to the conventional stereo effect. Restore the SQ, and the illusion again manifests ... I was able to do this endlessly, at will, 35 years ago.

 

Hi Frank,

I get all that. What I don’t get is why you believe this is something unique to you, when in fact its the ‘illusion’ that high fidelity stereo is designed and intended to create.  What you’re talking about is the brain not hearing 2 discreet signals and processing them as such, rather the brain is fooled into believing that its 2 ears are hearing what in the real world would be a multitude of point sources. Essentially it treats the 2 loudspeaker signals as if were a multitude of point sources, giving you a ‘sound stage’ that has width, depth and in the better ones, height. One no longer hears 2 loudspeaker signals, rather one hears musical instruments played as point sources as they would be in nature. 

In order to pull off this trick, the 2 loudspeakers signals need to have all the qualities the brain requires to treat the instruments as coming from a single source, namely amplitude, timing and phase that have the right relationship with one another. If those values are blurred and inaccurate then the brain detects 2 discreet signals and processes them as such. When amplitude phase and timing in both signals have the correct relationship, the brain combines the 2 signals as it does with any point source in nature, giving you the sound and its precise location. 

So the illusion you speak about is based on amplitude, time and phase. 

Now to the point you claim you can move anywhere without changing this stereo image. In nature when you hear a sound it is always a point source, i.e it emanates from a single point. The fact that the sound reaches your ears at different times, with different phase and amplitude is what provides the directionality. When you move, the sound reaching your 2 ears changes, but although your position changes, the position of the sounds source  remains static. That’s because amplitude, phase and timing arriving at each ear have changed as a function of your position.  This is not true for stereo. As you know, distance and amplitude have a relationship. Amplitude will drop by -6dB (half) for every doubling of distance. 

With a stereo system, when you move around, the signals reaching your ears still change as a function of your position,  but because when you move, you are changing your position to 2 sound sources at different locations (the loudspeakers) each of those signals will change differently. In nature if you move you either get closer or further away from the sound source, and the signal reaching your ears reflects that change.  With a stereo system, when you move, if you move anywhere from dead centre, you’ll get closer to one signal and by definition further away from the other so the amplitude, phase and timing of the signal reaching your 2 ears changes much more dramatically. 

As an example, lets say you’re centred listening to a signal where the amplitude is exactly the same in both channels. The signal will appear to emanate from directly between the 2 speakers. Now move laterally to the left.  The amplitude of the signal from the left speaker will increase, in inverse proportion to the distance and the amplitude of the signal from the right speaker will decrease in a similar ratio. thus when you move around with a stereo pair of loudspeakers it is physically impossible for the perceived signal to remain the same 

 

 

[sandyk]

A NICE POST !  Including this part too.

Quote

 giving you a ‘sound stage’ that has width, depth and in the better ones, height.

 

[fas42]

50 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

Hi Frank,

I get all that. What I don’t get is why you believe this is something unique to you, when in fact its the ‘illusion’ that high fidelity stereo is designed and intended to create.  What you’re talking about is the brain not hearing 2 discreet signals and processing them as such, rather the brain is fooled into believing that its 2 ears are hearing what in the real world would be a multitude of point sources. Essentially it treats the 2 loudspeaker signals as if were a multitude of point sources, giving you a ‘sound stage’ that has width, depth and in the better ones, height. One no longer hears 2 loudspeaker signals, rather one hears musical instruments played as point sources as they would be in nature. 

 

Yes, this is conventional, decent stereo reproduction. What I talking about is that the illusion is so strong that even with one's ear within inches of a speaker driver, on one side, that one is unable to perceive that the sound is coming from that moving surface - over the years, I have come across only a couple of individuals who have experienced this, and understand what I'm talking about.

 

Quote

 

With a stereo system, when you move around, the signals reaching your ears still change as a function of your position,  but because when you move, you are changing your position to 2 sound sources at different locations (the loudspeakers) each of those signals will change differently. In nature if you move you either get closer or further away from the sound source, and the signal reaching your ears reflects that change.  With a stereo system, when you move, if you move anywhere from dead centre, you’ll get closer to one signal and by definition further away from the other so the amplitude, phase and timing of the signal reaching your 2 ears changes much more dramatically. 

 

There's the theory of how your mind will interpret what it hears; and then there's the reality - the way the illusion manifests has always been the same, over the years, with different speakers and ancillary equipment - the common factor is how well anomalies in the reproduced sound, caused by the playback chain, have been attenuated.

 

Quote

As an example, lets say you’re centred listening to a signal where the amplitude is exactly the same in both channels. The signal will appear to emanate from directly between the 2 speakers. Now move laterally to the left.  The amplitude of the signal from the left speaker will increase, in inverse proportion to the distance and the amplitude of the signal from the right speaker will decrease in a similar ratio. thus when you move around with a stereo pair of loudspeakers it is physically impossible for the perceived signal to remain the same 

 

 

 

I have spoken how it works with a true mono source, identical signal to both speakers, many times; I'll describe it now in this fashion: the speakers are hidden behind a curtain, sitting on a laterally movable platform, which is audibly undetectable. You are sitting stationary on a chair, dead centre; and while the track plays that moving platform shifts the pair of speakers from side to side, as far as they can travel. And what you hear while they're in motion changes not one iota, as a subjective experience, .

[fas42]

 

1 hour ago, Blackmorec said:

Essentially it treats the 2 loudspeaker signals as if were a multitude of point sources, giving you a ‘sound stage’ that has width, depth and in the better ones, height.

 

If someone claimed they had a rig that could do it all, I would ask for Prologue/Crunchy Granola Suite from Hot August Night, at max revs ... .

[fas42]

Interestingly, I have just come across this video, which does quite a nice job of demonstrating the qualities that interest me ... ignore the irrelevant candy at the beginning, .

 

 

 

[STC]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

let's say we have a real piano being played in plain sight in front of us, and then all sorts of happen - a whole bunch of people move back and forth in front of us, or stand still in a solid block directly between us and the piano, or some barriers get lowered so that the sound can only reach us by "going around" some openings in various places - at any point do we lose the sense of listening to a real piano a short distance away from us?

 

This is known as binaural hearing. That’s how human and animals hearing works. This can be explained. Nothing new you are adding. Real sound emits from a single point unlike the stereo playback. This what distinguishes and give you the artificial feel when hearing a playback. 

 

I am not denying that we have developed to associate to a fake dual point source stereo sound to be perceived like the real event but this is just a state of conditioning of the mind. Some musicians can never find a musical playback to be real while some could easily recreate the soundscape of the original event. Just like we have learned to recognize our friends voice over the phone but if you could rewind to your first experience of using a telephone you would realize that you needed to be convinced that the voice heard over the phone speaker belongs a person. Slowly, you would able to equate the two distinct voice as one.  

 

In real situation, if you we blindfolded and ask to identify the individuals based on the voice, it would be an easy task but listen to the a previously unknown persons voice over the stereo speakers and then try to identify which voice belongs to whom and you will be surprised that how unreliable is your hearing. 

 

Could you list one reference track that you like and confirm you have heard the same played live unamplified. I am just curious what is that you are constructing in your mind. 

[fas42]

Just now, STC said:

 

This is known as binaural hearing. That’s how human and animals hearing works. This can be explained. Nothing new you are adding. Real sound emits from a single point unlike the stereo playback. This what distinguishes and give you the artificial feel when hearing a playback. 

 

OK, it's that "artificial feel" that can be eliminated by competent stereo playback. Less than competent reintroduces the artificial quality - the rig that I first started my journey on 35 years ago slipped back and forth between these two "modes" ... with one mode obviously being preferable.

 

Just now, STC said:

 

Could you list one reference track that you like and confirm you have heard the same played live unamplified. I am just curious what is that you are constructing in your mind. 

 

Probably the easiest here would be any classical piano pieces - the intensity, sheer punch of a real piano is something that many rigs struggle with ... I have had plenty of exposure to real pianos over the decades, and I must say that live playing is often a touch of a letdown - the instruments and playing are not of the standard as that in the recordings.

[Ralf11]

41 minutes ago, STC said:

 

This is known as binaural hearing. That’s how human and animals hearing works. 

 

Will a lateral line give you binaural hearing?

 

It could, I suppose...

[STC]

21 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

OK, it's that "artificial feel" that can be eliminated by competent stereo playback. Less than competent reintroduces the artificial quality - the rig that I first started my journey on 35 years ago slipped back and forth between these two "modes" ... with one mode obviously being preferable.

 

 

Probably the easiest here would be any classical piano pieces - the intensity, sheer punch of a real piano is something that many rigs struggle with ... I have had plenty of exposure to real pianos over the decades, and I must say that live playing is often a touch of a letdown - the instruments and playing are not of the standard as that in the recordings.

 

As usual you avoided providing a

direct answer. If you want to hear the intensity of a piano then a concern hall is not the place. 

 

And lastly, none  of the Youtube posted by you which you claimed to have ticked all the boxes were classical. 

[STC]

2 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

Will a lateral line give you binaural hearing?

 

It could, I suppose...

 

I am not sure I understand the question. Binaural is hearing the sound with both ears. In nature, Sound emits from one source. It can be a tiny point or a large point but the direction from where it emerges is a from a specific area. 

 

As an example, a gong of 8 inch diameter at 60 degrees still originates from the same direction like a 6 feet diameter gong at the same place. Due to a bigger area of radiating surface the bigger gong maybe hard to precisely placed but the sense of direction can be still localized. In short it can be lateral or vertical.