When do measurements correlate with subjective impressions

[fas42]

18 hours ago, Jud said:

 

The one that I heard substantially before anyone else was slew rate limiting, and to me it was fingernails-on-chalkboard irritating, while from the reactions of others it seemed fairly innocuous to them. I own Spectral amplification, with a very fast slew rate. This led me to wonder whether I liked the Spectral stuff because I dislike slew rate limiting, or whether owning the Spectral stuff had made me more sensitive to something I was unaccustomed to hearing in my own system.

 

Just wanted to bring this up to raise the general idea that individual sensitivity to various forms of distortion may vary, and so @4est's original question may not have the same answers for everyone.

 

More likely the latter ... people have become so used to the typical misbehaviours of audio systems that they literally "expect it to be there" - "All rigs sound like that - it's just the way it is ...".

 

People complain that audio replay doesn't sound like the "real thing" - but then are unable to register that the sound replay is in fact quite distorted ... "it sounds like a typical high end system, therefore, it must be right".

 

When one has no trouble using the words "immersive", "effortless", even "magical" ... that in fact is nothing more than undistorted replay sound - the contents of the recording faithfully conveyed.

[Archimago]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

...

 

People complain that audio replay doesn't sound like the "real thing" - but then are unable to register that the sound replay is in fact quite distorted ... "it sounds like a typical high end system, therefore, it must be right".

 

...

 

With 2-channel audio, there's obviously a limit as to how close to the "real thing" the sound can approach...

[fas42]

8 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

With 2-channel audio, there's obviously a limit as to how close to the "real thing" the sound can approach...

 

Obvious? If a MCH recording is made such that direct sounds are encoded to present from behind one, say, then that would be true. But in terms of the subjective experience I have found that 2CH when working optimally ticks all the boxes - for me. The intensity, air, sense of instruments in full cry, which immerses one in the sound world that was captured, or created back in time, on numerous occasions has had me thinking, "I can't imagine how this could sound better ... I'm there!"

 

It's the "fool you!" quality of high standard SQ that makes the effort of doing what it takes to get there worthwhile - I have never had the slightest interest in MCH, because well done 2CH has always been enough.

[STC]

19 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

With 2-channel audio, there's obviously a limit as to how close to the "real thing" the sound can approach...

 

Without a proper definition of "real thing" we are just giving opinions. A binaural is 2 channel audio and it can sound almost indistinguishable to the real event. Even stereo with one or two instruments can fool you into believing that real instruments were behind the curtain. 

 

A sound is real when it fits all the necessary cues of spatial hearing. When one of the cues contradicts with the natural sound cues than you will know the sound is artificial. Of course, after years of reading reviews and marketing promotion we tend to believe that a sound is real when the tonal accuracy is closer to the real instruments. While this is not wrong but if the same sound is delivered via stereo than hearing two identical sound but with one image sends the contradiction message to brain which would tell you that it isn't real but a playback. We must remember that we have evolved over half a century with stereo sound to recognize them as a sound event by itself. This makes the judgment more harder.

[fas42]

34 minutes ago, STC said:

 

A sound is real when it fits all the necessary cues of spatial hearing. When one of the cues contradicts with the natural sound cues than you will know the sound is artificial.

 

I agree with this. The brain triggers into deciding that the sound is "not real" when a single cue doesn't add up - the amazing thing is how far this can be pushed, in terms of where one listens, trying to latch onto a cue that the sounds are fake ... the typical standard of stereo playback is well short of what's needed, and hence is trivial to catch out - merely move a bit to one side, and any sense of an illusion collapses.

[sdolezalek]

There is a relevant article by Marshall Nack titled "Qobuz and the Hard Drive" at Positive Feedback (https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/qobuz/) in which he laments that although streaming is now as good as music from the hard-drive, neither can possibly match a great CD-based transport/playback system.  In reaching that conclusion he plays back files from a USB drive attached to his MacBook and declares them permanently inferior to a state of the art CD playback system.  He seems to completely miss the fact that there might be affects on audio quality that result from the computer, the software playback system, the hard drive, the cables connecting them -- all of which are simply the computer audio equivalents of the transport, D/A converter, power supply, etc. that he has optimized in his CD system.  It's like a guy with a beautiful wooden sailboat saying he can't see how a motorboat would ever get you anywhere...

 

Or as STC says in the post above: "We must remember that we have evolved over half a century with stereo sound to recognize them as a sound event by itself."  

 

It is an interesting hobby in which you learn that the harder you pursue an absolute best, you more you learn that "best" might just be an indefinable objective; because even if we could measure it, the instrument needed would have to compensate for differences in hearing between us that are greater than the differences between the pieces of equipment we are trying to measure to compare.  

 

 

[Archimago]

2 hours ago, STC said:

 

Without a proper definition of "real thing" we are just giving opinions. A binaural is 2 channel audio and it can sound almost indistinguishable to the real event. Even stereo with one or two instruments can fool you into believing that real instruments were behind the curtain. 

 

A sound is real when it fits all the necessary cues of spatial hearing. When one of the cues contradicts with the natural sound cues than you will know the sound is artificial. Of course, after years of reading reviews and marketing promotion we tend to believe that a sound is real when the tonal accuracy is closer to the real instruments. While this is not wrong but if the same sound is delivered via stereo than hearing two identical sound but with one image sends the contradiction message to brain which would tell you that it isn't real but a playback. We must remember that we have evolved over half a century with stereo sound to recognize them as a sound event by itself. This makes the judgment more harder.

 

Yeah, i don't disagree that with binaural and sitting at the sweet spot, the sound is capable of taking on an excellent facsimile. Living and experiencing our whole life with reproduced content I'm sure will program the neurons to a certain way of experiencing the world. I know from previous discussions with Frank though that he's referring also to various ideas about distortion and that higher fidelity devices apparently are not needed in his way of looking at things...

[STC]

40 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Yeah, i don't disagree that with binaural and sitting at the sweet spot, the sound is capable of taking on an excellent facsimile. Living and experiencing our whole life with reproduced content I'm sure will program the neurons to a certain way of experiencing the world. 

I am only confining to the parts in quotes. The other part has been debunked long ago when excuses after excuses for not showing what exactly the changes were. Common sense says no laptop speakers can sound better than even the MidFi let alone the tiny laptops filling the whole room. If such modification can be done then there is no reason why only one elusive man achieved that. Perhaps audio Einstein in the making. 

[fas42]

51 minutes ago, STC said:

 Common sense says no laptop speakers can sound better than even the MidFi let alone the tiny laptops filling the whole room. If such modification can be done then there is no reason why only one elusive man achieved that. Perhaps audio Einstein in the making. 

 

And this is what I have to deal with ... 😁.

 

Ummm, a conventional system with decent amp and good sized speakers will fill a room - a laptop, with tiny speakers going full bore, means that I have to listen hunched over the keyboard, ears a few inches from the speakers ... you know, like listening to headphones with the cups moved away from your head, 🙂.

 

"Higher fidelity" components should make it easier - but you will be worried about damaging their resale value, by being too enthusiastic with mods. Lower priced items you can hack to the point of destroying key parts; and you will learn more that way. Especially, that the types of distortion that disrupt the sense of the music "filling the room" can be tweaked away in most instances, if one spends enough time at it.

[STC]

27 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

And this is what I have to deal with ... 😁.

 

 

For 35 years, right?

 

27 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Ummm, a conventional system with decent amp and good sized speakers will fill a room - a laptop, with tiny speakers going full bore, means that I have to listen hunched over the keyboard, ears a few inches from the speakers ... you know, like listening to headphones with the cups moved away from your head, 🙂.
 

 

So you bring the laptop around the room like that. No wonder the sound will be the same no matter where you are in the room. 

 

27 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

"Higher fidelity" components should make it easier - but you will be worried about damaging their resale value, by being too enthusiastic with mods.

 

That is not true. A state of the art tweaked system can fetch higher price. 
 

27 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

 

 

Lower priced items you can hack to the point of destroying key parts; and you will learn more that way. Especially, that the types of distortion that disrupt the sense of the music "filling the room" can be tweaked away in most instances, if one spends enough time at it.

Any person can write this statement and it will still be true. But what’s the use if you can demonstrate one simple point of the difference?  

[4est]

If we could please keep this on topic. This thread is about measurements correlating with subjectivity, not laptop speakers or multi channel unless they pertain to that.

[STC]

11 minutes ago, 4est said:

If we could please keep this on topic. This thread is about measurements correlating with subjectivity, not laptop speakers or multi channel unless they pertain to that.

Multi Channels? My favorite topic! where and who is talking about it?

[Jud]

@pkane2001, I was wondering three things:

 

1. Are you reasonably sure from measurements and/or listening that the jitter in DISTORT sounds like the jitter in actual DACs?

 

2. What (other) forms of distortion does jitter cause?

 

3. Can you provide a subjective description of what jitter and the distortion(s) it causes sound like?

 

First question is pretty much for Paul; if others have reasonably *precise* answers, feel free to jump in on the other two.

[4est]

36 minutes ago, Jud said:

@pkane2001, I was wondering three things:

 

1. Are you reasonably sure from measurements and/or listening that the jitter in DISTORT sounds like the jitter in actual DACs?

 

2. What (other) forms of distortion does jitter cause?

 

3. Can you provide a subjective description of what jitter and the distortion(s) it causes sound like?

 

First question is pretty much for Paul; if others have reasonably *precise* answers, feel free to jump in on the other two.

I think you bring up a good question here Jud. I am not sure if it is reasonable mimicking distortion signals simplistically and using that as representative of real world distortion effects directly.

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

@pkane2001, I was wondering three things:

 

1. Are you reasonably sure from measurements and/or listening that the jitter in DISTORT sounds like the jitter in actual DACs?

 

2. What (other) forms of distortion does jitter cause?

 

3. Can you provide a subjective description of what jitter and the distortion(s) it causes sound like?

 

First question is pretty much for Paul; if others have reasonably *precise* answers, feel free to jump in on the other two.

 

Simulation is the simplest way to reproduce an effect for study. Before anyone claims that it's not reasonable to do so, one would at least need to understand what is being simulated and how, and then have a coherent explanation for why the simulation is invalid

(@4est)

 

Jitter is a fairly simple concept. How it affects a DAC analog output is known and can be measured. DISTORT provides a display for what jitter does to the test signal and lets you apply variable amounts of different types of jitter to it. Compare it to measurements published, and you'll see that it can reproduce a really wide variety of jitter found in the wild.

 

DISTORT produces jitter by introducing timing errors into the signal. These errors are very precisely controlled because they are computed at a high numerical precision. In fact, you can easily apply below femto-second jitter using DISTORT, or use a 0.0001Hz frequency to modulate the clock.

 

Here's the deal: I'm not going to tell anyone what jitter sounds like or if and how much I can hear. That's not very interesting to anyone. Try it yourself and you tell me.

 

All I can say is that it becomes an audible problem in my testing only when the amount is really large. Femto-second precision isn't necessary in a clock, but maybe your ears and your equipment are so much better than mine that you'll hear it. So, try it! 

 

[jabbr]

20 hours ago, Jud said:

there are things like the Aphex Aural Exciter, literally a piece of electronics to produce noise and hash,

The best kind:

 

[Jud]

14 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

That's not very interesting to anyone. Try it yourself and you tell me.

 

All I can say is that it becomes an audible problem in my testing only when the amount is really large.

 

It's interesting to me, and I'll tell you why.

 

You ask someone new to astronomy to watch through a telescope for an asteroid. They ask "What does one look like through a telescope of this power? What should I watch for?" Your reply is "That's not very interesting to anyone. Try it yourself and you tell me." What are their chances of spotting an asteroid?

 

Replay that last conversation. Your response now is "Let me show you several examples so you get a sense of what to watch for." What are their chances of spotting an asteroid now?

 

So Paul, are you hearing the effects of jitter only at higher levels because it's only ever audible to humans at those levels, or because no one has trained you to notice what lower levels of jitter sound like?

 

What's the training effect? It seems to me this becomes important in determining whether we can be subconsciously affected by levels of distortion we haven't been trained to consciously notice.

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

It's interesting to me, and I'll tell you why.

 

You ask someone new to astronomy to watch through a telescope for an asteroid. They ask "What does one look like through a telescope of this power? What should I watch for?" Your reply is "That's not very interesting to anyone. Try it yourself and you tell me." What are their chances of spotting an asteroid?

 

Replay that last conversation. Your response now is "Let me show you several examples so you get a sense of what to watch for." What are their chances of spotting an asteroid now?

 

So Paul, are you hearing the effects of jitter only at higher levels because it's only ever audible to humans at those levels, or because no one has trained you to notice what lower levels of jitter sound like?

 

What's the training effect? It seems to me this becomes important in determining whether we can be subconsciously affected by levels of distortion we haven't been trained to consciously notice.

 

Ha! You had to bring astronomy into it!  With the right telescope, an asteroid can be very easy to spot, even for a novice. Think of DISTORT as a very good telescope

 

Different types of jitter sound different, different amounts also sound different. But how can I tell if I can't hear low-level jitter because of lack of training or because it's not audible to me, or inaudible to everyone? How could I possibly know the answer to that? 

[CG]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

@pkane2001, I was wondering three things:

 

1. Are you reasonably sure from measurements and/or listening that the jitter in DISTORT sounds like the jitter in actual DACs?

 

2. What (other) forms of distortion does jitter cause?

 

3. Can you provide a subjective description of what jitter and the distortion(s) it causes sound like?

 

First question is pretty much for Paul; if others have reasonably *precise* answers, feel free to jump in on the other two.

 

OK,  no number 1.

 

Now, for a broad and vague answer to 2...  Sorry in advance if I'm not precise enough for you.

 

Jitter is another term for modulation of the clock signal.  This could be amplitude, frequency, or phase modulation.  (The latter two are tightly related.)   Also easily found through a web search.

 

The nature of digital to analog conversion is pretty much like a mixer or modulator.  A mixer as in radio, not as in a recording studio.  This kind of mixer is mathematically a multiplier.  The rest is best explained by others, easily found in an internet search.

 

What that means is that the audio tones coming out of your DAC are the product of the clock signal and the digital modulation.  So, any  imperfection on the clock appears as modulation on each output tone.  Discrete tones on the clock will show up as discrete sidebands of the audio tones.  Random or not-so-random noise on the clock will show up as spreading of the desired audio tones, starting at the base.  The larger the clock modulation, the larger the modulation of the tones.

 

These can be seen in various spectral plots displayed in product reviews.

 

But, here's something else to consider.

 

Phase modulation on the clock essentially means that the phase of the desired audio tones also roll around with the phase modulation of the clock.  All the tones get this treatment.  

 

Isn't that like rocking your speakers back and forth to that modulation?  Think about that one.

 

Of course, I have no idea what the severity of that might be on the sound.  Lots and lots of variables.  So, no claims from me.  But, I know guys who made experiments and have found that very low frequency phase noise on the clocks seems to have an audible effect. By very low, I mean sub Hertz.  

[pkane2001]

42 minutes ago, CG said:

Of course, I have no idea what the severity of that might be on the sound.  Lots and lots of variables.  So, no claims from me.  But, I know guys who made experiments and have found that very low frequency phase noise on the clocks seems to have an audible effect. By very low, I mean sub Hertz.  

 

That's where DISTORT can help. You can apply sub-Hertz modulation to a clock and see what sounds like. Apply it to a simple sine wave or to a full orchestra recording. You decide how much of each type of jitter to apply, from simple sine-wave, to random, to 1/f noise, to correlated and then listen, see if you can tell the effect.

[jabbr]

38 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

That's where DISTORT can help. You can apply sub-Hertz modulation to a clock and see what sounds like. Apply it to a simple sine wave or to a full orchestra recording. You decide how much of each type of jitter to apply, from simple sine-wave, to random, to 1/f noise, to correlated and then listen, see if you can tell the effect.

You are really trying to get me to install Windows aren’t you?

[pkane2001]

Just now, jabbr said:

You are really trying to get me to install Windows aren’t you?

 

I heard others had good luck using it with Wine on Linux and Mac.

[Bill Brown]

Uh-oh...didn't realize it was Windows-based.  I am a Windows (and computers in general) moron

 

How would drinking wine help me on a Mac?  Just kidding.

[pkane2001]

14 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Uh-oh...didn't realize it was Windows-based.  I am a Windows (and computers in general) moron

 

How would drinking wine help me on a Mac.  Just kidding.

Wine helps in all cases

[ray-dude]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

 

That's where DISTORT can help. You can apply sub-Hertz modulation to a clock and see what sounds like. Apply it to a simple sine wave or to a full orchestra recording. You decide how much of each type of jitter to apply, from simple sine-wave, to random, to 1/f noise, to correlated and then listen, see if you can tell the effect.

 

I should have my new Windows music server up and going in the next month or so.  Once it is (and after a glass or two of wine), I'm eager to fire up DISTORT and hear directly what these different levers do.