Hi-Res - Does it matter? Blind Test by Mark Waldrep

[sandyk]

4 hours ago, gmgraves said:

1: An increased high frequency limit

Analog tape has little on it above 15 KHz. This is because the machines are not maintained beyond that frequency. The lack of calibration test-tapes coupled with difficulties in interpreting results at that frequency and higher, and the problem of self-erasure of high frequencies, make it impossible for analog magnetic tape to have any usable response above 20KHz (and response TO 20 KHz is rare), even at 15 ips!

Hi-Res “increased high-frequency limit” is of no use here.

 George

 Even many cassette decks had a frequency response to 30kHz including the Nakamichi decks that a friend and  I had back then.

You did however need to use high quality tape such as the TDK MA - Type IV Metal Cassette .

 Yes, I confirmed this by measurements at the time.

 

Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

38 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

I tried the listening tests with the X & Y files and while I think I hear a difference between them it isn’t as obvious for me as it apparently is for you. Can you give me any tips on what to listen for?

 See if you can hear any obvious distortion right from the very start.  A good quality high resolution file will usually have greater separation ("air")  between elements, and in this case the lack of processing artifacts due to the conversion to 16/44.1 and then putting it back inside a high resolution container again should also cause the original to sound a little softer and cleaner sounding  in comparison.

 That was the first thing that I thought noticed with these 2 files, and concentrated on this area initially to confirm what I had noticed.

 Perhaps FrederickV's PC or Laptop was a little noisy electrically too, as the differences should not have been this obvious ?

 Dennis has also remarked that Dither should have been used with the file converted to 16/44.1 , although I don't believe that it would have helped much in this case.

 Nevertheless, I have heard some examples in 16/44.1 that sound very much like high resolution material.

 A recent corrected example from  John Dyson of " Peggy Lee -Fever",  because of it's age, would not have been made in high res format, yet it sounds bloody fantastic without any hint of noise or distortion, even when you turn the volume right up !

It has an absolute purity about the sound . However, it was from a very good Master tape before anything else was mixed in.

 

 You also need to use gear with a very good Signal to Noise ratio to get the best from high resolution material.

[sandyk]

35 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Sorry, Alex, but what I said was that professional analog tape recorders weren’t “maintained” beyond 15 KHz because it couldn’t be done. I have had and used Ampex ATR-102s, Revox high speed B-77s, and Otari MX-5050s. All of them fell-off like a rock above 15 KHz! If they did have any response above 20 KHZ, it was so far down compared to their output level at 15KHz, and at such a low record level, as to be useless.

Not that I don’t believe you, but even using Dolby HX pro to manage self-erasure, I do not see how a cassette deck, creeping along at 1.5 ips, can have any response above 10-12 KHz even at a record level of -20 dB, and not much above 7 KHz at -10B

(which is 0 Vu on a cassette). Even if it did, I don’t see how you could measure something so low in level as the 30 KHz response of a cassette deck! The Nakamichi was a three-headed deck (I owned a 1000), and at the 1.5 ips linear tape speed and the narrowness of the tracks, you can’t even set or maintain azimuth alignment between the record and playback head above 7.5 KHz because, again, there aren’t/weren’t any test tapes that went higher than that. And believe me, even at 7.5 KHz, azimuth adjustment on a cassette deck was 100 times more difficult than on a professional 1/4 inch pro reel-to-reel deck!

 George

 There are numerous albums available from HDTracks etc.that have obvious HF info well above 22kHz, not just noise.

 In my case I used a 1MHZ Function Generator which I still have, as well as a 200MHZ Frequency counter, and I agree that it was fiddly though.  We also further extended the frequency response by adding a few additional bypass capacitors due to the long PSU tracks, and wire links.

 Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

My recollection is that Dire Straits' early recordings used tape running much faster (15 ips?), and if it was used by them or whoever produced them, I assume it was used by others. I have no idea what this does for response or maintainability thereof, though.

 Click on the image for a larger image.

[sandyk]

5 hours ago, FredericV said:

Off course x and y are different files, but if you download x twice and hear a difference between both copies, then something is obviously broken

NOBODY has said anything about downloading X twice and hearing a difference between both copies . Several prominent members have also questioned your methodology ,even Dennis on this occasion who was also readily able to hear the differences.

Quote

If you hear a difference from 2 files which both have the same cryptographic hash, you either are very good at breaking crypto (which I doubt) or you have a different issue.
 

If you are talking about the checksums being identical, then that is outdated  dogma and easily proved to be incorrect, just like Martin Colloms verified by way of 6 separate DBT sessions with my supplied .wav files from Dire Straits-Love Over Gold several years ago and published the results.

This applies to both A and V files ,which I am able to generate readily from the same source file, yet can both SOUND and LOOK a little different, especially when using high resolution monitors with in the recent case as one member did, side by side on his 4K monitor.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/dire-straits-love-over-gold-shm-sacd-reviews.256624/page-3#post-6812567

 Hi Jud

 I have the original Vertigo 800 088-2 version made in Hanover W.Germany by Polygram and it sounds way better than any remaster that I have heard. It was manufactured in 1982.

 

Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

Perhaps a small part of the audible differences ?

 

Zero crossing - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Zero_crossing

A zero-crossing is a point where the sign of a mathematical function changes represented by a ... At audio frequencies,
such as in modern consumer electronics like digital audio players, these effects are clearly audible, resulting in a 'zipping' sound
when rapidly ramping the gain, or a soft 'click' when a single gain change ...

[sandyk]

Re X and Y

 Note also the much higher noise level right from the start of track X, which undoubtedly continued right through the  track 

 Y noise level is also shown at a much higher magnification level which can be readily seen in the attached.

 

Click on the image several times for a much larger image.

[sandyk]

4 hours ago, FredericV said:

Please send those files to me for further analysis.

 

!. I no longer have the exact same files that were evaluated in the 6 DBT sessions several years ago.

2. More recent examples have been checked by al.fe's parent Asian company and a 50 page report prepared.

( In case you don't already know, al.fe designed my internal LG GGW H20L Blu Ray writer and has several patents in the Optical storage area.)  They found no differences in the Digital realm, just like Mansr found none in the samples used in the sessions both he and Mani participated in. The files would need to be checked in the Analogue realm at the output of a DAC.

 I have far better comparison files available  these days, where you still will not find any differences using current Digital techniques.

 They are Music Video files where you can both see and hear differences at the same time, if you use a high quality Monitor and play them through a revealing audio system.

One member here viewed a pair of them side by side on his 4K monitor and reported this :

"Wow Alex.  I looked at the first two links...big quality difference in the video.
How are they different?  Or, what did you change when recording them?" 

[sandyk]

29 minutes ago, marce said:

This couldn't be two identical files are different, could it...

As the files are identical if you sent them me and I renamed them how would you tell which is which... Want to try it.

I have no interest in playing your stupid games . 

As far as I am concerned I have done far more than enough in the last >10 years already.

 Neither are my reports any different to those from several HiFi reviewers around the same time.

The only thing different is that I have dared to mention the "sacred cow" called checksums, and had a series of 6 correctly performed DBT sessions performed on the .wav files I supplied to verify my results .

 I am damn sure that these reviewers made sure that their CDs were accurately ripped too.

BTW, my previous skirmishes with you in DIY Audio would have pre-dated this magazine article.

 

Click on the image several times for a larger image.

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, marce said:

It was a serious question and would be a valid test.

As to doing something, present the same belief with no backing evidence, you could have got a degree in electronics in less time and solved all our audio issues.

As for the joke advert from Hi-Fi Choice, April 2009, probably the first...

Any more humorous articles to back you up or maybe a bit of name dropping... Martin hasn't appeared for a while!

 

 Anything that challenges your firmly entrenched beliefs is a joke to you. Neither was the attached a joke. It was a mini review of the Naim Uniti Serve.

 

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, audiobomber said:

This is the message I sent to Alex before I knew which file was which:

I found Y had more relaxed and natural sounding highs with more depth/ambience. If that wasn't the true hi-rez file, I will be shocked and dismayed.

 Y was indeed the real 24/96 file,  as can be seen in my previous Sound Forge 9 screen grab.

 Your observations were spot on.

 According to FrederickV , most participants previously have actually preferred the noisier 16.44.1 X file.

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, esldude said:

I preferred Y as well, but that doesn't tell me much.  Should we assume you, FrederickV, Audiobomber, and myself are wrong, because most people preferred X?  And if you insist we were correct, well this bit of data doesn't support the idea.  Which is actually illuminating in regards to this methodology of yours where you send out files, count as positives those that agree with you and dismiss those that don't.  

 It's not my problem if people like yourself and several other participants in this thread are unable to hear what many others report, including the benefits of higher resolution audio formats such as 24/192 and DSD, due to not accepting what  many Audiophile members are telling you, when you treat all solutions to the various problems such as IsoRegens , improved USB cables, markedly lower noise PSUs  etc. as Snake Oil .

This is evident with the recent nasty attacks on Uptone and John Swenson by one member of this small vocal group of Anti Audiophiles.

I note also that Kumakuma doesn't appear to have enough confidence in his own  listening abilities to even  report what differences (if any) he heard between the X and Y files, despite saying previously that he had listened to them, and that he would post his impressions.

 

[sandyk]

47 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Alex - This is a warning. Stop the personal attacks. 

 

So  it's OK. for both Kumakuma and Ralf11 to continually snipe at me including telling me to cut back on the medication and worse ?

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, esldude said:

Got around to comparing your x and y files in some software.  Blue is x and white is y.  A more than 10 db difference in much of the upper octave.  I wonder if on the louder more transient portions this is why it sounds different.  It does go down with lesser differences into the top 2 khz I can hear.  So often audible differences turn out to be FR variation.  

 

Dennis

 This would appear to be similar to what people may expect from the comparisons discussed in the title of the thread. .

 A couple of other prominent members have also expressed misgivings in this thread about the implementation of the comparisons..

 In this case, as you are aware, these files were direct from the links provided by FrederickV

 

Alex

[sandyk]

11 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

where is the STFU post??

Daverich4 is correct.

It wouldn't be the first time I have been told to do this by you. 

Most likely it was in one of your self Moderated threads, and was removed by you, like many of my posts are even when they are completely on topic and non confrontational if they don't support your intended conclusions.

[sandyk]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I take a 'low res' recording, say CD or MP3. and upsample to some Hi-Res format - not one iota, one shred of extra, meaningful information has been added to the track - yet, it sounds better than the original file I started with …

 Frank

 This is even more obvious when very low bit rate .aac encoding as used by YouTube and elsewhere is converted to LPCM. 

I have previously posted examples of this.

 The interesting thing though, is that if you convert low bit rate .aac to a much higher bit rate .aac it doesn't improve it much, if at all.

 

Alex

[sandyk]

38 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Sandy is the only member here to receive multiple behind the scenes warnings because of his belligerence and rage at others. I don’t always call him out. 

Chris

 Part of the problem here is due to provocation caused by frequent removal of my posts by Ralf11 in particular. without a reasonable excuse .

The post quoted by Kumakuma, like so many others, was removed. When the thread needed cleaning up by the OP , this post should also have been removed.

 However only my posts are usually removed in the needed tidying up of the threads.

 Yes, I agree that you have better things to do.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/56979-who-has-tried-out-different-usb-cables/page/7/#comments

kumakuma  
Senior Member
kumakuma 
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  #163 
Posted Saturday at 12:00 PM 
   On ‎11‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 11:47 AM, sandyk said:

Just remember that Admin will be able to view all of your deleted posts to decide whether the deletions were warranted or not.

 

I'm sure Chris has better things to do with his time.

 

 

[sandyk]

19 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Interesting. 
 

When I talked to Archimago at Axpona he mentioned the possibility that people with certain types of hearing damage may be prone to hearing high resolution files. This was only based on his very very very limited sample, but it’s kind of interesting. 

 

 John Dyson also mentioned this recently after 2 courses of antibiotics were needed to rectify a Eustachian tube blockage.

 He noticed certain types of distortion hat he had previously missed as his hearing recovered over a period of about a week..

[sandyk]

It would be more helpful to the present situation if  Rexp , Kumakuma and Ralf11 deleted their replies.

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Makes sense that changing the .aac rate won't help matters ... the 'better' sample still has to be decoded, on the fly, and if that is the underlying issue, that is, the processing required is the root cause of the SQ lacking - then there won't be an improvement.

 If the YouTube player did a conversion of the low bit rate audio to LPCM right at the time of loading the file for playback, which often takes several seconds, then everybody would be able to hear them better, perhaps resulting in increased sales of the recordings without increasing the bandwidth needed.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said:

We've had high resolution for a couple of decades and nobody cares at the consumer level. And if you take out Japan does anyone care about DSD? 

 

 Do you bother to look at other areas of this forum ? 

There are numerous USA and elsewhere members that love their DSD.

[sandyk]

2 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

They don't add up to anything but a rounding error in the market.

 

 Sad, but true.

[sandyk]

25 minutes ago, Miska said:

If someone is making hires releases, it only makes sense to invest into hires capable microphones as well.

 

Barry Diament for example uses microphones that are only 1dB  down at 40kHz for his 24/192 recordings.

[sandyk]

10 minutes ago, esldude said:

Ribbons are definitely not wide bandwidth, but they seem to capture something special in the sound. 

 

Pleasing colouration perhaps ?