DolbyA decoding feedback -- 'feral' examples (yes/no)

[STC]

3 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Good news -- major upgrade to beyond a bug-for-bug, but better emulation of DolbyA.  I have removed the 'bug-for-bug' on some of the behaviors (due to certain kinds of drive limits.)  By removing those limits, the sound quality has become astonishingly better yet.  Refer to this as posted on another forum:

 

 

-----------------------------------------------------

 

Gang -- the new version of the DHNRDS (actually, I haven't officially produced a release yet, will do so tomorrow) is still working very well :-).

PLEASE ENJOY, and feel free to criticize (kindly :-)).

 

I'd suspect that most people reading this already know the context of the DHNRDS DA decoder, basically intended to resurrect older recordings, eliminating the DolbyA HW as a quality limitation.   Note that the DolbyA HW isn't all that bad for mixing down, because the material being mixed tends to have relatively simpler dynamics and signal statistics.  The DolbyA doesn't do too bad for mixing down, but could be improved on.  Where the DolbyA really falls down is handling the final mix.  All of the interactions in the individual signals added together are too much of a challenge for DolbyA HW.  (Lets keep in mind, the DolbyA was designed in the middle 1960s, and Ray Dolby was pretty much a magician designing the DolbyA itself.)   The DolbyA design has definite indications of genius in the circuitry -- it is MUCH MUCH more intricate than an initial read of the schematic might suggest!!!

 

* Most of my decoding is done on the brighter side...  It can be toned down, but choosing the correct EQ is tricky as hell!!!  Also, the recordings could stand a little better balance -- again I chose a brighter decoding result, but can be tamed.

 

I unleashed the DHNRDS DA from being 'Bug for Bug' compatible with the DolbyA, and basically changed it to be 'as good as possible'.  The sound might be VERY different than you expect, esp for ABBA. LindaR should seem REALLY good also. Of course, my taste might not be quite right.   My own initial opinion is 'astonishing' sound quality.

Mega Caveat: IS very tricky to undo the EQ that was done to skip the DolbyA decoding step -- I can provide the parameters that I used, and you can try passing the material through a true DolbyA if you wish -- given the parameters that I provide. I doubt that you would like the sound of the DolbyA in comparsion, but each of us has our own opinions. :-).  Normal professional use of the DHNRDS does NOT need for the EQ correction, but decoding feral DolbyA is a very tricky thing to do!!!

Please be tolerant of me about the Carpenters recordings. You might notice more sibilance than normally desired. I think that part of the issue is that the true DolbyA cannot track the signal, so it was enhanced to compensate. Since the DHNRDS DA can track ANY audio signal, the boosted sibilance is passed through cleanly. If mastering the Carpenters material, it might be a good thing to run it through a sibilance processor or maybe change the pre-decoding EQ a little on the most egregious songs. Usually a little bit of manipulation in the 6kHz range can help, but the pre-decoding EQ is totally vanilla and is intended to be correct, not just to sound good!!!

I have produced some snippets (full recordings on request) of some stuff that has probably not been heard as cleanly for at least 30yrs. So far, there are some 'Linda Ronstadt' recordings, and some 'ABBA'. Carpenters is coming in another hour or so, and also I plan to produce some Olivia Newton John snippets.

The Linda Ronstadt examples are NOT 'manipulated' after decoding, and I don't plan any manipulation of ONJ or Carpenters either. (More will likely be coming, e.g. Bread -- which REALLY sounds good now.) The ABBA stuff has been slightly manipulated after decoding because their tonal balance is too biased away from the bass range, so I have added about 1.5dB below 360Hz on ABBA for easier casual listening.

Of course, LindaR and ABBA are done, and I have the correct decoding parameters for Carpenters and running the decode just this second.
 

I'd suggest checking the repository now (or whenever) and looking again every day or so for new stuff.

 

www.dropbox.com/sh/g7bye8uii2ashq1/AACyGhV4R5FYZXDFlAz3HNFoa?dl=0

 

Were there any revision since 25 Sept 2019 ( emailed )?

[John Dyson]

5 minutes ago, STC said:

Were there any revision since 25 Sept 2019 ( emailed )?

OMG -- Major improvement.  Basically, instead of Bug for Bug, but better MD, IMD, the new one has better drive for the stronger/intense gain variations.  It pretty much eliminates the garble that exists in both the DolbyA HW and the DHNRDS DA until a few days ago.

 

THIS IS A MAJOR MAJOR update...   Give a few of the examples a listen (I made mp3s available to get a quick check, but they don't quite do the recordings justice.)

 

The best way to describe the sound -- very pretty.   I mean, VERY VERY VERY pretty!!!

 

I haven't done the official release yet, probably tomorrow.  Still might catch a last minute bug, but it is pretty damned good now.

 

John

[John Dyson]

48 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

OMG -- Major improvement.  Basically, instead of Bug for Bug, but better MD, IMD, the new one has better drive for the stronger/intense gain variations.  It pretty much eliminates the garble that exists in both the DolbyA HW and the DHNRDS DA until a few days ago.

 

THIS IS A MAJOR MAJOR update...   Give a few of the examples a listen (I made mp3s available to get a quick check, but they don't quite do the recordings justice.)

 

The best way to describe the sound -- very pretty.   I mean, VERY VERY VERY pretty!!!

 

I haven't done the official release yet, probably tomorrow.  Still might catch a last minute bug, but it is pretty damned good now.

 

John

I made another mistake on 'The Carpenters'.  Will be fixed by the morning.  Fixing feral DolbyA is really hard to do!!!  (The decoder works well, but the user -- me -- has troubles.)

 

John

[STC]

48 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

OMG -- Major improvement.  Basically, instead of Bug for Bug, but better MD, IMD, the new one has better drive for the stronger/intense gain variations.  It pretty much eliminates the garble that exists in both the DolbyA HW and the DHNRDS DA until a few days ago.

 

THIS IS A MAJOR MAJOR update...   Give a few of the examples a listen (I made mp3s available to get a quick check, but they don't quite do the recordings justice.)

 

The best way to describe the sound -- very pretty.   I mean, VERY VERY VERY pretty!!!

 

I haven't done the official release yet, probably tomorrow.  Still might catch a last minute bug, but it is pretty damned good now.

 

John

ok. I will wait for the final version ..... if I am still in your mailing list.  

[John Dyson]

7 minutes ago, STC said:

ok. I will wait for the final version ..... if I am still in your mailing list.  

Ah...  If people are still expecting results there, I'll be happy to supply them!!!   It will also help me share with a few others.

 

This is SOOOOOO painful sometimes.  It is like only 1.5dB error is a MAJOR problem...  If that error is BEFORE decoding, it makes a huge difference.  If that error is AFTER decoding, then it is like a bit of tone control.

 

The mistake I made on Carpenters is 1.5dB too much below 750Hz.  The EQ for material has become much more complex than what I used before.  The DHNRDS is so damned accurate and clean, then fixing any minor error is actually helpful.

 

I'll try to have the demos ready on Friday night 1November, maybe about 8pm EDT USA time.   The demos will be there approx 3-5days.

I will announce it on the list.

 

John

[John Dyson]

Here, I am announcing the 'completed' version of the ABBA decodes.  In this public forum, all I can do is to provide snippets, but they are representative of the results.  Most of the examples are mp3 for space saving reasons, but a few examples are .flac.   There is a very significant difference in my own perception of sound quality, where mp3 seems to sound more rough...  It is possible that the extreme temporal behavior of the recordings is pushing mp3 a little too hard.  However, enjoy - if there is anything in particular that you already have a copy, but would like a potenially better one -- just tell me, we can make the logistical arrangements...  Here are the ABBA snippets, representative of each of the ABBA albums...   Carpenters are almost complete (within one iteration), but a few Carpenters albums came out substandard.  I also have new Olivia and others that are either ready or close-to-it!!!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vi7qwhk741two7b/AACjoiazLhfbY08nFADk7Ttma?dl=0

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

Here is an interesting result -- decoding an A&M 2010 remaster of Breakfast in America (SuperTramp) -- the 'logical' song.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zcw62d0q9lqdktq/02 - The Logical Song.flac?dl=0

 

THIS IS NOT PERFECT -- however, I found the improvement noticeable.  I haven't tuned it in yet.

 

[John Dyson]

Got some MEGA COOL Supertramp snippets...  We did some comparisons -- with feedback from some 'golden ears' that are pickier than Alex, with fantastic success.  (Alex:  these are the original-style of decode, not the rabbit hole approach.)  I don't have full copies available to the review group yet, but here are some killer snippets...

I originally did some decoding that was intended to match the A&M 2010 Remaster of 'Breakfast in America', and the results were 'better', but still some issues where I disagreed with the sound.   Instead, I produced some 'from scratch' decodes witihout the forced fake-dynamics that were in the first, A&M 2010 emulating decode.

Where 'Breakfast' is pretty good -- the 'Crime' album as decoded by the DHNRDS is an emotional experience -- Supertramp can definitely sound better than some of the CDs.

In an hour or so, I might throw in a 'Money for Nothing' decode into the same directory...  I am still deciding about the decoding choices on the Dire staits thing.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ab9nhtqjforacd8/AABvt7IYgoob7VXxpN0ekK6ra?dl=0

 

 

[sandyk]

9 hours ago, John Dyson said:

I don't have full copies available to the review group yet, but here are some killer snippets...

 Hi John

I found Rudy particularly interesting, especially with the realism of the storm and the more precise location of the voice in the soundstage, and the improved quality of the voice itself with one version.

 

Regards

Alex

[fas42]

Hmmm - for the umpteenth time ... 😜.

 

... tried The Logical Song, and the -r version has crippled treble ... the sparkle of the percussion elements has been heavily dulled - even my poor laptop sound, which I'm getting more used to, tells me that I would never pick the -r to seriously listen to, 🙂.

[John Dyson]

14 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Hmmm - for the umpteenth time ... 😜.

 

... tried The Logical Song, and the -r version has crippled treble ... the sparkle of the percussion elements has been heavily dulled - even my poor laptop sound, which I'm getting more used to, tells me that I would never pick the -r to seriously listen to, 🙂.

Yes -- I know the crippled treble that you are speaking of when comparing with undecoded material.  When you are used to the distorted treble with sustain in the sound, then the cleaner/sharper treble will sound wrong.  I have been getting near opposite results from some real musician 'golden ears' where they are hearing missing overtones when compared with other decoded material.  Of course, compression (undecoded) will falsely boost details that weren't meant to be boosted.  It is kind of like compressed vocals tthat can sound fuller -- doesn't mean that they are accurate -- just boomier and re-enforces maleness of bass deficient voices.

When doing these comparisons, recognize that there is a diminishment of expected accuracy of the years, starting with the majority of original CD releases that weren't DolbyA decoded, and the reason why vinyl had stuck on for so long becaue vinyl was mostly decoded correctly.

I understand your sentiments, but when getting feedback from musians that know what the sound should sound like (still imperfect because of source material), then it gets the situation into proportion.  Decoded material will usually not sound quite right on a boombox, yet will sound better when being immersed in the music on high quality equipment -- also understanding the limitations of the source material.

 

John

 

[sandyk]

53 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Hmmm - for the umpteenth time ... 😜.

 

... tried The Logical Song, and the -r version has crippled treble ... the sparkle of the percussion elements has been heavily dulled - even my poor laptop sound, which I'm getting more used to, tells me that I would never pick the -r to seriously listen to, 🙂.

 

Perhaps you should have traded your Laptop in, instead of repairing it ?

[fas42]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

I understand your sentiments, but when getting feedback from musians that know what the sound should sound like (still imperfect because of source material), then it gets the situation into proportion.  Decoded material will usually not sound quite right on a boombox, yet will sound better when being immersed in the music on high quality equipment -- also understanding the limitations of the source material.

 

John

 

 

You know I'm going to disagree with you, John 😝 ... we're back to the bell curve of unpleasantness that is part and parcel of the audio journey - with low cost gear, 'ordinary' recordings sound fine, but start sounding worse and worse, the more "high end" you go - until you get past the peak of the highlighting of distortion artifacts, and move down the slope on the other side, towards fully competent playback.

 

"High quality equipment" normally isn't - I've only come across a handful that were not mine that didn't make a complete mess of 'more difficult' recordings - so I would need to to listen to precisely what the musicians were using, to judge playback quality, before accepting their verdict.

[sandyk]

12 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You know I'm going to disagree with you, John 😝 ... we're back to the bell curve of unpleasantness that is part and parcel of the audio journey - with low cost gear, 'ordinary' recordings sound fine, but start sounding worse and worse, the more "high end" you go - until you get past the peak of the highlighting of distortion artifacts, and move down the slope on the other side, towards fully competent playback.

 

"High quality equipment" normally isn't - I've only come across a handful that were not mine that didn't make a complete mess of 'more difficult' recordings - so I would need to to listen to precisely what the musicians were using, to judge playback quality, before accepting their verdict.

 Frank

 G.I  Still = GO  !

[fas42]

To get some perspective, try anything, and I mean anything on the Zildjian channel on YouTube - of course, being the most famous company that produces percussion instruments, what would they know about how their products sound?

 

This is a nice meaty number,

 

 

 

This comes across very well on the Toshiba - not HP - laptop; the gutsiness is fully there, with plenty of nice cymbal splash happening - this is what the "real thing" sounds like, and what I aim for.

[sandyk]

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

This comes across very well on the Toshiba - not HP - laptop; the gutsiness is fully there, with plenty of nice cymbal splash happening - this is what the "real thing" sounds like, and what I aim for.

 

 What weird video format is that in ? MKV  perhaps ?

 The 1920 x 1080 downloaded version will not play the audio with JRMC25, VLC player or GOM player in my setup.

Perhaps they are using this Video format to circumvent YouTube converting it to low bit rate .aac audio ?

[John Dyson]

34 minutes ago, fas42 said:

To get some perspective, try anything, and I mean anything on the Zildjian channel on YouTube - of course, being the most famous company that produces percussion instruments, what would they know about how their products sound?

 

This is a nice meaty number,

 

 

 

This comes across very well on the Toshiba - not HP - laptop; the gutsiness is fully there, with plenty of nice cymbal splash happening - this is what the "real thing" sounds like, and what I aim for.

What is the purpose of demoing something from YouTube, obviously compressed and distortion box on instrument?  In this case, there is zero way that one can ever determine what is correct.   BTW -- a lot of YouTube stuff is also stealthy DolbyA encoded, but I cannot tell here withtout further research...  It is either encoded or not, and cannot say unless carefully check.  I could show a picture of a flower also, which would also be meaningless for the discussion...

John

[John Dyson]

53 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You know I'm going to disagree with you, John 😝 ... we're back to the bell curve of unpleasantness that is part and parcel of the audio journey - with low cost gear, 'ordinary' recordings sound fine, but start sounding worse and worse, the more "high end" you go - until you get past the peak of the highlighting of distortion artifacts, and move down the slope on the other side, towards fully competent playback.

 

"High quality equipment" normally isn't - I've only come across a handful that were not mine that didn't make a complete mess of 'more difficult' recordings - so I would need to to listen to precisely what the musicians were using, to judge playback quality, before accepting their verdict.

Note that my decoding operatiion was driven by other generally inferior mastering results done by professionals, but with DolbyA HW instead of the more clean and more coherent sound of the DHNRDS (in this case, the term 'coherent' is technically correct.)  Different masterings have different sounds, but most are oddly time-spread and have weird modulation effects in the sound.

If you claim that the DHNRDS resutls are less clear in some ways, you must be comparing with an attrocious undecoded source - which sadly appeared and distort peoples hearing with expectations of unrealistic sound qualities.  The most interesting feedback that I have been getting elsewhere includes a musician who prefers vinyl because it DOES sound more accurate -- you know, the unmastered digital distributions.

There are SOME people who prefer vinyl for enjoyment ol legacy equipment, better quality because of better mastering, or even neurotic reasons, but this musician has the gravitas and hearing clarity to be able to cleanly distinguish the DHNRDS advantages that he has heard so far.  Also, it is amazing how quickly he can catch my botched decoding attempts.  He doesn't just like the DHNRDS because of technology or whatever.  In fact, he has been immensely skeptical of the DHNRDS -- yet has an open mind.

The cool thing about having an open mind -- not being locked in to confused notions -- is that one can actually learn.

 

When someone who has the 'chops' can publically change their mind, that shows a certain maturity that is often difficult to find, even in us older, more 'age-wise' mature people.

 

 

John

[John Dyson]

Hey gang -- I just made a bunch of demos for a recording engineer who has shown interest and watched the progress of the DHNRDS over the years (I think that he has been watching for 3-4yrs, before it was DHNRDS and total crap.)   Anyway, I made a plethora of demo snippets (these are appropriate for public review -- I hate snippets!!!)

I often supply both .mp3 and .flac (.mp3 only when the material isn't all that critical), but .flac is the reference quality source.  These decodes are superior to what were appreciated in other forums and are a wider set of selections.

 

Very few of these are poor decodings -- I am a little worrried about the quality of the .mp3 on some of the Supertramp songs though -- esp on 'The Logical Song', where .mp3 is doing too much damage.  Just realize that in some cases, .mp3 and/or the Dropbox .mp3 decoder is screwing up some of the demos.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/90pdyi084bofje7/AACrdifmkZfKfPUJRprWwYdGa?dl=0

 

I'll probably pull these in a few days -- I have some recordings that i want to send to Alex (some Linda R big band stuff that he sent me to do some decoding tests on.)

 

John

[Racerxnet]

John,

 

I noticed that one of the file sample rate was 44.1 and another 88.2 of the Supertramp encodes. Reason??

 

MAK

[sandyk]

30 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I'll probably pull these in a few days -- I have some recordings that i want to send to Alex (some Linda R big band stuff that he sent me to do some decoding tests on.)

Hi John

 I am hoping for results like the other Linda Ronstadt tracks that crapped all over the 24/192 commercially available version , despite being in your case, from a 16/44.1 source originally.  This clearly demonstrated showed that high quality mastering is even more important than the actual format they are recorded in.

It would be great though  if your S/W could do the same for what is generally available in high res that still had some genuine HF content in the original old masters.

 

Kind Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

18 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

John,

 

I noticed that one of the file sample rate was 44.1 and another 88.2 of the Supertramp encodes. Reason??

 

MAK

 MAK

 John processes the original 16/44.1 in 24/88.2 most of the time and saves them in .flac format usually.

 They are still 44.1 but in an 88.2 container. Note also the absence of HF rubbish unlike normal Hi Res files.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

What is the purpose of demoing something from YouTube, obviously compressed and distortion box on instrument?  In this case, there is zero way that one can ever determine what is correct.   BTW -- a lot of YouTube stuff is also stealthy DolbyA encoded, but I cannot tell here withtout further research...  It is either encoded or not, and cannot say unless carefully check.  I could show a picture of a flower also, which would also be meaningless for the discussion...

John

 

"Obviously compressed"... so you're saying that the sound of the cymbals, in this video by the company who manufactures them, has been deliberately distorted - so their aim is to give a false impression of what their products sound like, to people who might be interested in buying them?

[John Dyson]

25 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 MAK

 John processes the original 16/44.1 in 24/88.2 most of the time and saves them in .flac format usually.

 They are still 44.1 but in an 88.2 container. Note also the absence of HF rubbish unlike normal Hi Res files.

When starting with a 44.1kHz/16 bit source, because of the nonlinear processing in the DHNRDS (but very carefully controlled), there might (probably not)  a benefit to 'faster than' 44.1kHz and 'more than' 16bits in the output.  How much more?  Well, approx 1.5 bits more of audible resolution improvement, and the use of the higher data rate might keep more accuracy in the desirable effects of the nonlinear processing.  For 20kHz limited material, it probably doens't make any difference (per the diagram above.)

 

Even though 'not as good' as starting with 96k or 88.2kHz at 24+bits or resolution, it might be advantageous in this case to distribute at a higher data rate to avoid up/down conversions later in the chain.  Looking at the display above, I doubt there really is a benefit to above 44.1kHz sample rate, I guess...

 

About the 'cr*p' above 20kHz...  The DHNRDS does not ADD cr*p like a true DolbyA would.  Since most of the time, I am starting with 20+kHz BW limited material, and even though the DHNRDS is 'wide open' up to 40kHz in its processing, there will be little production of obvious splats about 20kHz -- MD & IMD avoidance is a special behavior in the DHNRDS nonlinear processing.  If starting with full bandwidth material with splats, the result will tend to show fewer/weaker splats after DHNRDS DA processed.   I'll have to run some of the Carpenters HD singles tracks through the decoder to show the relative transparency of the DHNRDS...

 

John

 

[fas42]

56 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

When someone who has the 'chops' can publically change their mind, that shows a certain maturity that is often difficult to find, even in us older, more 'age-wise' mature people.

 

 

John

 

Someone who has heard how good normal CDs can sound, and did this 35 years ago, has no need to be enthusiastic about someone else's pet project for remastering them so that they "sound better" on typical hifi rigs - sorry!