'FeralA' decoder -- free-to-use

[PeterSt]

21 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lgccx2jdrj1dgtf/AACCQwLxlAyEZPE_1AHX8QWOa?dl=0

 

Same thing, except for two tracks. But it is so wrong in combination with the somewhat higher regions that it is impossible to listen to (it hurts).

 

I understand that you don't want to hear people talk about technicalities (I have no clue what you do want as you don't answer that repeatedly), so skip ...

But if you ask me things are digitally clipping (+32768 becoming -32767 instead of +32767). Audible on track 03 and 07 of Crime, and track 07 and 08 on Crisis.

 

I will now play the latter from CD and report in comparison about that re the bass.

[PeterSt]

13 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

There is one hell of a lot of approx 80Hz on down.

 

Nope, there is NOTHING. Intentionally (except for the last track). Mind you, to be certain I felt my woofers (they drop in at 230Hz). They don't move a bit. Remember, the first 50 seconds. And don't compare with your RAW versions, because there it may (or will) have gong wrong to begin with.

[PeterSt]

28 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Same thing, except for two tracks. But it is so wrong in combination with the somewhat higher regions

 

At listening to Crisis CD, I can now see that you seem to try to get something of bass by emphasizing the higher regions of it. So this runs into the lower mid (or upper bass if you want) which

a. makes voices to profound (I am not the only one any more on this one)

b. makes all as nasal as can be (though a bit Supertramp prone) though my horn speakers.

 

Otherwise I think I can see how you (or others) start working on this album. It would not be my favorite for best sound.

 

Last week I coincidentally played their first album once again. That is a whole different story ...

 

 

[PeterSt]

John, last bother before I am off for dinner etc. ...

 

After Supertramp and being quite annoyed of its sound already from normal CD, I put on this one:

 

 

So much more stereo. So much more open. So much more warm bass. So much more good sound from those days.

 

IOW, don't pull on dead horses too much.

(okay, I understand if you deem this cause by DolbyA then that's your purpose in the first place ... but the difference is too huge - try it)

 

Again, heads up.

[PeterSt]

8 hours ago, John Dyson said:

It is almost as if Supertramp is a benchmark programmed to fail -- really.  Audiophiles seem to like it, yet is real trouble to deal with.  Maybe they favor it

because the variant of FA (there are variants) or they didn't use FA.

 

FYI: I know Supertramp from 2 year prior to anyone knowing them and their first single. Back at the time (say 15 yo) I loved it. Today, however, nothing wants to be n my "demo" Galleries except these:

 

 

Normally "Demo" is used for the best sounding tracks hence it is ready for auditioners, but it may also contain albu,s which I want to revisit regularly because they fail but I feel that it is my system and they can be improved upon. Crime is in there for that reason (I still have hopes) already because it is a best album ever. The right-hand is their first I just talked about in my post from yesterday (sounds superb even though from end 60's begin 70's), and the middle one apparently sounds good enough to have a couple of tracks in my Demo.

 

 

If you want full harmonic bass from Supertramp, go for it, there.

I said "apparently" because tracks end up in my Demo in real time by the press of a button during playback at normal daily listening sessions for pleasure.

The fact that apart from their first for the good reason, nothing but this one shows up in there for good sound, is definitely telling. This already is so because back in the days they were among my favorites. Now, including yesterday's forced playback of Crisis, they don't "want to go" in there. They sound too poor.

 

Best of Times could be differently recorded / processed because it is a live album. So John, you may incorporate that in your analysis.

 

Btw funny, that It's a Hard World track, there's really singing through a telephone line. "Operator ...".

[PeterSt]

7 hours ago, John Dyson said:

+7 is a decoding sequence with calibration levels like this:

-63, -53, -43, -33, -23, -53, -43

 

My remark about Year of The Cat was about all being too "short". This is about the decays being shorter than reality. So focus on that first piano notes again in order to learn what I mean by this. Now:

 

Throughout for Crime I observed the same, if only the tracks are soft (and about all are the first 50 seconds). And because this is about "electric piano" as they were used in the days, the effect of sheer "cutting" becomes profound (those pianos flanger). So not short, but cutting. How this technically may work is this:

 

If there's certain "voices" (this includes instruments) which are at say +63dBFS only, they will be at zero or less when attenuated with 63dB. This is of course not the full voice, but the lowest frequencies in there first. 

... And what becomes zero (or less) will never expand to x any more. It's gone forever.

 

So John, that is what I hear now. But it is biased because of your explanation in that post from the quote above.

From Crime, from yesterday I recall to perceive the sheer hard cutting during the decay. I did not mention anything about it or other stuff, because you asked for "bass response" (pun).

I don't want to interfere with something I don't know anything about anyway, but at attenuating, the lower (volume) parts have to be treated less aggressive. As in : -96dB should not be attenuated at all or else you lose it (when processing in 16 bits (you will not, but it is about the gist)).

 

This is also how you lose the ambience out of everything. And how it thus becomes "dead birds" (my book).

[PeterSt]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

is so mellow ... what an intro!

 

What's wrong with that is that all is in the background, especially the (singer) voice. Mind the horn of the car. It is there but nothing more. Try John's version and you'll jump to the sealing. So all exactly the other way around. Also, around 1:05, what do you actually hear for instrument ? OK, I know it is an electric guitar chord-played (famous Supertramp sound). But here ? it's mush. Mellow much if you want ...

 

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

And,

 

 

is just downright amazing!!

 

Not so much so. Again the singer is way underwhelmed. Listen at 2:05. I am used to distinguish instruments. Here you can wrongly blend something like a ride cymbal into other noises. The cymbal changes (or disappears) because of those noises. So this is "nothing" in my book. I guess this is emphasized even more when I'd play this on the main rig (where all the highs pop out). 

 

Quote

bloody good stuff!! 😁

 

That is the point. It is ...

[PeterSt]

7 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Please PM me for now

 

This is harder for me because of less required responsibility for what I'm spouting. But it depends on the subject. Here's something that is nicely vague, as I am guessing it largely:

 

John, it could well be that your processing of the downsampling fails (massively). It could also well be that you don't even listen to the snippets yourself (for a longer time by now, because why would you once it worked).

 

You could investigate the 24 to 16 bits process, as it seems that you could do something wrong with the thought of how to do this. For example: Ever very long back I had the idea that adding 8 bits should lead to louder volume "on top". This, while it appeared to be the other way around: it adds lower level at the bottom.

Now why do I think that you do similar in wrong fashion ?

 

Your 16/44.1 (or 16/48 - I did not check them all) is not really 48dB too loud, but if anything it is 24dB. I myself took this for granted for "years" (really so) as it would be some odd way of doing things for you. But what I keep on noticing is that you don't go into that, when the remark about it is made. I did a couple of times (in not urging fashion) and @KSTR did too. Also, it without further thinking, for me it seems the result of expansion.

But how can you ever: the one time imply my volume to be at -40dBFS and the other time have it at -16dBFS. Man, people's windows go out if this goes unexpectedly. One thing why others may not be bothered: I have my volume normalized by standard, and thus any lowest level "congestion" works out to an enormous boost in level. You talked about this yourself regularly, so you should know what I mean without further explanation.

I never talked about it, but to me this is also an indication of "the wrong", in the sense of: if that much expansion is possible from a (new) native signal, a lot has to have vanished from the original signal. Too much compression undone. ... I may refer to my "too short" and the "cut" sound, I talked about yesterday.

 

If I am right, this public posting is justified, because you may have plagued yourself for a very very long time without reason; people might learn how a project almost terribly failed without real reason.

For now I will leave it at this as a teaser. ... Things to work out ... (and more by PM).

[PeterSt]

6 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Whatever is happening, lets try to keep this discussion going until it is resolved --

 

 

4 hours ago, KSTR said:

SoX is limited as it's 32bit integer internally so while it can take FP input and output it still clips internally when "overdriven".

 

 

On 4/17/2021 at 8:11 PM, PeterSt said:

But if you ask me things are digitally clipping (+32768 becoming -32767 instead of +32767). Audible on track 03 and 07 of Crime, and track 07 and 08 on Crisis.

 

Probably not related, but still noticing ...

[PeterSt]

20 hours ago, PeterSt said:

One thing why others may not be bothered: I have my volume normalized by standard, and thus any lowest level "congestion" works out to an enormous boost in level.

 

@John Dyson, I hope it is clear that this is the same as what you refer as ReplayGain ?

(I just don't call it like that because in normal circumstances no gain as such is used - only attenuation)

 

7 hours ago, John Dyson said:

The difference on the .wav file is (31.41 - 8.24) is pretty much the same as (23.66 - 0.49).

 

So why is this the 24dB of difference that I see and told about ??

(the 24 dB is on estimation because it is my Volume Normalization that makes that visible and it varies per track or album**).

 

**): With the snippets I need to do it per track while with full albums I do it per album.

 

To be hopefully clear: If I would not apply my Normalization, then the snippets would be "without sound" with the same -dBFS output volume. With pre-amp one would normally turn up the volume (knob). Not so when you don't use a pre-amp. Then you'd use -dBFS values which are readily visible.

 

 

This is totally normal for any good album without too much compression. Notice that the -31.5 is some norm I determined as a randomly compressed album. All on the right side which is less attenuated (like -21dBFS is that) is less compressed. The higher numbers (lower minus values) on the right side than the left side are more compressed and not - or at least less on par (to my standards).

 

Here you see Crime and how it Normalizes as the Album :

 

 

 

Here you see the first track and how it Normalizes as the Track - coincidentally the same as the Album :

 

(notie the T now being active in the top-left corner)

 

 

Here you see the snippet of that track and how it Normalizes - mind you, this is PLUS 6 now :

 

 

(and the PLUS indeed would be gain - I allow a maximum of 6dB of sheer boost)

 

FYI If we don't allow the gain, I'd need to attenuate a bit more and this comes from it :

 

 

Lastly, if I make it the same output level (right hand side) as the 88.2, then this shows :

 

 

(this is attenuated 1 dB more because of the step size of the volume at those levels (see the -60dB by now)

 

For your convenience the "original" from your decode to compare repeated (from above):

 

 

So in this case this is 28.5dB difference. But notice: The snippet is heavy on silence because of the overweight of the lead-in (the schoolyard sounds) and is faded at the end. So logically it is softer overall.

 

Anyway the original message : 

a. if I don't apply the normalization then nothing is audible (say 24dB too soft);

b. if I do apply the normalization then the windows go out.

 

Ad b.: As discussed before (also by you, John), this is because of way low compression; see the first paragraph of this post.

But this is what I always thought, because the 88.2 shows very normal behavior on the compression.

 

(I am afraid this all is not very clear (English))

 

Interesting would be to now listen to the "full demos" - the ones I judged and described earlier on. Will do that in today's listening session (12 hours+ from now).

 

 

 

 

 

[PeterSt]

9 hours ago, John Dyson said:

when decoding without modifying levels, FA materials usually end up being between -6/-7dB to -2/-3dB.

 

I am not sure whether I already said similar, but we realize that 6dB is half of the total headroom, do we ? It would mean a max (digital) plus value of 8191 (minus the same). This can-not-work ...

 

THUS if you first for all your good reasons threw out half of the higher (!) resolution data in order to get the result, then down convert to 44.1 (or 48) you will have thrown out the data for real, never mind it is still 24 bits. The "horizontal" sampling rate can't catch that resolution (this is harder to explain for me, but with this hint you can work it out yourself while waiting on a decode ;-)).

 

Apart from throwing out resolution data, the sound will be grainy from it.

Notice that the original Crime of the Century suffers from the same problem in the base; It comes with 6dB too low level, and that can't be restored to anything normal - there will be no bass and way way too much dynamics (you'd expand the transient jumps without smoothing support).

 

Summarized, you can use 1,5 - 2dB for filter activity and leave it at that (expanding that to -0dBFS would already incur for inconsistencies), but you surely can not throw out half of the data and think it can be brought back by highering the level. OK, doing that from -6dBFS could at least be done consistently (multiply all by 2), but still half of the resolution would be lost.

--> This is not so when expanding to 24/88.2 first, do your operations there, and leave it at that. Normalizing level in there would also be fine. After that downsample to 24/44.1 by decent means ... also fine (but better not).

[PeterSt]

The last I listened to was 2.2.9S-0; my comment below thus only reflects that or earlier versions:

 

On 5/2/2021 at 1:13 PM, John Dyson said:

I don't know what is going on about my hearing, but  It doesn't seem like it is a 'mental processing' fatigue, but instead my hearing isn't able to withstand a certain kind of strain.

 

John, it is so wrong that no brain is able to cope. This is except for 2 or 3 versions and along the way I told you about those. But you seem to go your own way and instead of using those versions as a base and work relatively to those, you implement new ideas and it drifts off (wildly) again. N.b.: You did not receive comments about 2.2.9S-0 and a few more, because you explicitly asked not to.

 

Yes, I will bet you that you are quite explicitly destroying your hearing with this; Your brain inherently will know how music is to be (it will especially know about human voices) and listening to e.g. 2.2.9S-0 is plainly impossible for me. It is literally hurting. But contrary to you, I will stop listening after 10 seconds of two tracks (of either Supertramp or the general Demos) and quickly escape. Read: from natural reasons I will not allow further damage. I = my brain. I quickly recover - you can't because your urge is in listening to the results.

Also the fact that you are dependent on more than one person for aiding your hearing, should be killing as such already. It is like your three best advisors and friends giving you three totally different options to choose from while one option is allowed only; you will be literally in circles between the three and the necessity to choose is straining already (and from an other angle than the hearing issue).

 

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

I am actually responding to your quote only, which is obviously what you came up with yourself and which won't be without reason; Unconsciously you will feel that something like that is going on but you refuse to accept that (another straining position).

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

 

Later today I will listen freshly to 2.3.1.A-0 and report by PM.

Peter

 

[PeterSt]

15 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

As a simple example, in one example location, to soften the dynamics in the super-highs, some of the EQ has to INCREASE the strength of the super-highs.

 

FYI (but probably known already), higher resolution (is theoretically more highs (EQ)) softens the dynamics. This is always the case.

In the end this is dangerous because it requires speed of the system. If the system can't cope (on e.g. slew rate) then you're only implying distortion. So ... you may also wonder whether your system is on par to begin with. Read: the better you make the resolution the more it requires speed, the more distortion will be your share when the latter is insufficiently present.

And the other way around : take out all the transient stuff and the system won't add distortion. However, now it will sound "dead".

 

There are so many reasons why this can't be done by listening. It can only be done that one and only good way.

 

N.b.: Most of the stuff I listen to, is the highest transient possible (I do this to make the (commercial) system sound the best it can, so the highest transient material is the best material for "testing"). While this material sounds the most holographic and esoteric or theatric or whatever special, sounds like total rubbish on other averagely good systems; they just don't have the speed to follow, or mush the resolution by (inaudible) noise otherwise.

 

I know how difficult it is to be at the really highest level of detail which requires the lowest level of noise to begin with; do one small thing out of order (like a playback buffer size) and it sounds nasty. Read: the balance between good and really bad is ever so small/fragile.

[PeterSt]

31 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

About tracking or following up on previous versions,that might be true but the decoder is like a 4D tetris game -- things don't work in a simple linear way as in normal day-to-day

interactions with technology.

 

Not important, but possibly funny:

 

Those who create sound with synthesizers (I do), will know how ever so fragile modulation changes will change the sound drastically. And, where you may not perceive a modulation at a higher frequency, it may be profound at a lower. And the other way around.

 

So what you are (un)doing is modulations of several sorts and they are stacked.

 

I have already been thinking what would happen (for beneficial result) if you could provide the "modulations" in a stacked fashion in a .WAV file (MP3 would be better, but might technically fail), so I could apply that file as a convolving file on to played notes with (even gliding) pitch and volume. Or even more practical:

Have two wave files, one with original CD music and the other with your convolving elements, and morph the two together until something overshoots. From there, there's this idea :

 

Have each of those elements in a separate convolving file, and dial it in for level with originals. Happy ? then fix that with the original, and play that back as a next original, to be morphed with a next element. And so on, as many times as you like. And at playback also in the pitch you like to hear.

 

I would be my idea to observe each of the elements (them being as raw/native as possible) for faults. I think this can be done (per element I mean) because it is my way of working at "system development" for audio too. Thus, I am able to hear through the faults elsewhere, to be covered for later. One element at a time, is the devise. Btw, you can see that happening in my "critiqueing"  (PM) so far; lift out the good elements, tell you to not touch those, and at the very end of the report, tell what to relatively change.

It is only that you don't do that, thus far. Hahaha.

 

John, IMHO there have really been some pearl versions already, those being better at aspects than the originals (from CD). But they are rare and same to emerge accidentally (no matter how much you want them to emerge purposely - but you should not care about that).

 

[PeterSt]

I did not have the focus to seriously observe and put down worth while comments (busy making a serious dinner), but the fact that I listened throughout Crime without ever thinking** to hop over to something better, should be speaking ...

 

**): with hunches at times of an "oh wow ?" ...

 

 

PS: V2.3.1H-0

[PeterSt]

6 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Have the decodes been

too bright?

 

As far as I can tell, on April 29 I reported about the "L" version of the time and explicitly called the highs OK. You can read back on it in your PM.

I don't know about highs in later versions because other things bothered me.

 

Peter

[PeterSt]

On 5/23/2021 at 3:04 PM, John Dyson said:

ATTEMPT AT PUBLICLY RESOLVING THE DECODER PROBLEMS

 

From several angles I start to have the impression that I am talking to myself.

Where are those other people ? anyone ?

 

On 5/23/2021 at 3:04 PM, John Dyson said:

The V3.0.8G release (or whatever released in the next few days)

 

There hasn't been any new that I could see, thus:

I have been listening to the 3.0.5D "Demos" and I think I have a different kind of response than other times;

 

Those Demos (with Carpenters, ABBA, Beatles, Al Stewart, etc.) sound better than they have done before. But now a next issue arises: they all sound the same. For me, as a provider of neutral sound, this is killing.

I think it is unavoidable that the dynamic EQ may not be so dynamic as you want, or else I won't understand what the EQ-ing is supposed to do. Anyway, it adds serious flavor.

 

I would like to add that very far away those Demos could be subject to improvement of old recordings-times, that is, this is how others may perceive it. However, with a "best" reproduction system, those oldies are so enormously transparent to begin with, that each small hint of sauce will be killing indeed.

If I can't bring this across, then bad luck.

 

The good news is that any track on a singular basis (not having the context of the others) sounds accurate, fresh and balanced. This is what you wanted. But John, believe me, this is where hardware development starts. So if I'd make a D/A converter without audible/measurable distortion but which has a same flavor all over (tracks and albums and artists) then very maybe one person who likes that flavor will not sell this DAC within a month (after that he will), but for me it will be total failure. Mind you, I might be extreme in that "neutral" department, but coincidentally I create "extremely good" sounding products (by not let having them an own sound). Your goal is about "extremely good" just the same. Now how to get rid of the flavor ...

 

Peter

[PeterSt]

3.0.10L-0 is the better one over 3.0.10.M-0.

 

Yesterday I found 3.0.10L-0 already quite good in absolute sense and today I right away found 10M the lesser one.

Later, out of the blue my wife told me that the music sounded "sharp". Indeed I think this is true, especially after presenting her the 10L from yesterday. She told me without any hints:

-Warmer

-Less dynamic (ha !)

-Less pumped up.

 

The pumped up would be about "stressed" (overdoing its best to sound right and with that fails on everything).

The less dynamic is one you are looking for BUT:

 

Yesterday it was my observation that 10L could show less of that. Although I don't know the examples any more, but "ragget" would be my description of the highs at times. Say the opposite of silk.

 

Generally 10L lacks punch and 10M lacks even more of that. I am confident there is no difference in the low-mid in both, but the more highs in 10M depicts it.

The lacking of punch seems to be prevalent in all of the 1 million versions so far. To me it seems that this could be your means to perceive a more clear sound. Clear = less distorted, or the better perception of that when so. Thus:

 

Fuzz it up !

[PeterSt]

18 hours ago, John Dyson said:

A new version will be created later on today

 

Hi John,

 

I did not keep track of the latest version relative to your last post here. I suppose 3.0.11N-0 is not a newer one ?

Not at all to rush you, but currently I am waiting, and you could be waiting too. 😊

 

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

 

One other thing; I tried to tell you that the dynamics were too high (the M version already a tad and the L version more so), but do I read correctly that you want to add more of that ?

IOW, maybe you misread my Dutch.

 

Those too high dynamics should be in the 1000-2000Hz range - might that help.

And otherwise no worries. ... You could be trying to solve it with more dynamics UNDER 1000Hz (I feel that that could help just the same so the higher freq dynamics become less profound).

N.b.: Not many people may know, but transient speed in the mid range is way more important and interesting then the higher frequency (e.g.) needle ticks. That usually leads to "fake" resolution. The mid range speed is quite another beast.

 

Peter

[PeterSt]

41 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

As one of my correspondents mentioned, paraphrased:   there is a point where the EQ must be in control of the USER.

 

Then this correspondent could be as old-fashioned as per the time we needed bass and treble knobs on our preamps. 

[PeterSt]

3 hours ago, John Dyson said:

The decoder is simply about attempting, more and more succeeding, to return the recording to the original.  Even though I resisted talking about 'Lamb' specifically for about 1wk, the decoder comes fairly close to the original, without the 3-5dB of proper low level compression and  'wiithout the expected aging of the vinyl'.

 

John, pardon me ... I am trying to read texts like these with the required interpretation hence context of your hearing. ... Even if I read this 20 times, there can't be truth in what you are saying. If you can not hear well, you can not hear well, and you would not be able to judge this (see quote) just the same. This also comprises the decoder being perfect for "years" and as many times as days exists in those years.

I hope you don't need these texts for your own motivation because IMHO it really is not useful.

 

Just saying (and derived from your conversation with Jonathan - not really with me because I learned how to deal with it (I think)):

 

Generally, in parallel two streams exist:

1. The user making (IMO) useful comments, like no running water in whatever song to be heard, while there should;

2. You going your own way after (!!) such message, taking out the reference of that message, possibly claiming that no versions will be lost because you save them all (which I believe). Later, you may come back at the issue (like you do here with Lamb) but nobody has a reference any more because you are thee+ versions further.

 

It all reads like a trick (read : sales trick while you sure are not trying to sell anything).

 

If you ask for help, again IMHO, you should react to that before proceeding with your own ways.

The best example could be me myself (and you). The responses are countless, but in the end are useless for myself because in no circumstance that I recognize, you attacked the issue and a new version accompanied with a "so Peter, did this help ?!?" ever is in order. What does happen all the time is a "OMG, again all changed !" from my side. Do you realize this ?

 

Somehow I started this post with telling that you can't know yourself what "is" correct. You should know by now because of the number of days in those years, etc., right ?

Mind you, I work quite similar with my own customers. If day tell me that running water has disappeared, by response would definitely be "Okaay, then we'll get that back for you". But I could also say "and what about that bass then ? is that for the better now ?".

John, I am not telling you how to live your life, but it is you who ask for help. In that case to some extent those who provide the help have some small rules too. They don't want to see their help debunked. And I know, you are not doing that explicitly. But doing it implicitly brings not so much difference ... (avoid it and proceed with your own thing).

 

PS: If I had something to say about the last 2 weeks, I would say that you should immediately cut out the sudden LP stuff. It is not related by miles, LP sucks anyway, and apparently it creates new decoder or EQ version and those who helped have to start over again ? WHY ? who starts the LP sh*t ? It was mentioned. This does not really mean that now all should sound like LP. For heaven's sake, I hope not.

 

PPS: I am not suddenly over a hurdle with this post. No problem. But I read the "all is perfect now" one time too many; you cannot hear that and with that can not know that. You present it as fact ...

OK ?