Great sounding system - $2K all in

[sandyk]

41 minutes ago, One and a half said:

And all that from a you tube audio, what a load of BS.

 

Perhaps it was just starting to warm up after only 9 minutes and 9 seconds ? 😉😉

[sandyk]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

it's trivially easy to point to video clips of sound systems, on the net

 

 Sorry Frank. but a Youtube  clip with 128kb/s .aac audio is INCAPABLE of giving a good representation of ANY high quality system, for starters because it needs to be captured again using at least decent quality Stereo Microphones in an optimised listening room ,digitised again using a decent quality A/D converter,(and that rules out most USB recorders) and then is limited by the HF bandwidth from Youtube's  only 128kb/s .aac audio which limits HF response to typically 16 kHz.

e.g. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live) as mentioned in another thread .

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w41d4t6u1gv1ypx/The Good%2C the Bad and the Ugly - The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live)-0x0002.aac?dl=0

 

 A conversion to 24/48 LPCM helps it a bit, although in theory it shouldn't be able to do this.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oq2dlunh9v11jlm/The Good%2C the Bad and the Ugly - The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live).wav?dl=0

[sandyk]

24 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Alex, as I've said many, many times ... a YT clip can't convey all the good qualities - but its standard is good enough to easily pick a sub-par presentation ... the latter is what the exercise is about; noting what's wrong .

 This thread is Great sounding system - $2K all in

 It is not possible to portray this from a room that was never designed for recording purposes, using typical microphones not designed for pro recording purposes, while using  an inexpensive recording setup which then has a further degrading A/D conversion, then after posting it to YouTube at a reasonable resolution, having them convert it again to a pathetic 128kb/s resolution, as well as adding further compression.

Add to that, that the Youtube player is far from as resolving as downloading it and playing it with a decent player S/W such as JRiver.

It is rather obvious that your brain MUST be doing "on the fly" corrections to what you believe it should sound like, before YouTube downsampled it and further compressed it .

 IOW,  you need  a vivid imagination, especially if listening to it directly with a Laptop having tiny limited 

frequency range speakers . 😝

[sandyk]

Quote

45 minutes ago, botrytis said:

Remember this is they gen that puts STACKS papers on his speaker and believes it helps......

 

MQA must be rubbing their hands together with glee at the acceptance of Youtube audio by people like Frank because it makes MQA sound great in comparison.  

[sandyk]

52 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Exactly what I would expect from the flimsy way of supporting them in space ... what I get is depth, tonnes of it; I like the vista opening up to the performance beyond the speakers; that world that exists within the recording.

 And all that from 128kb/s YouTube videos.🤣 

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Which video?

 

ALL of the Youtube videos with 128kb/s .aac audio that you keep making these claims for !

 How do you play them through your Bookshelf speakers ?

[sandyk]

53 minutes ago, fas42 said:

if I suspect that the YT data could give me more info, I DL the Opus audio, which gives me the best, 20kHz version; convert that to a WAV file, and play that in one of my better media players - on the laptop.

 

 Once again you prove my point. You are playing them through tiny little Laptop speakers that have buggerall frequency response below 100Hz and above about 11kHz.

I would bet that you haven't even done that with the vast majority of YouTube videos that you are replying to, where Opus audio as an OUTPUT format isn't an option either.

 The only way that I can directly play the pathetic 128kb/s .aac Youtube audio which is limited to around 16kHz via my main system, is to use the WiFi dongle of my Oppo 103

 Please post a screen grab of the Audio Spectrum  of one of these Opus Audio captures . I don't doubt that some use Opus for encoding as high as 20kHz but it appears that it is still  restricted to 128kB/s for playback

 

See also this discussion :

youtube-dl: Download Opus audio or AAC audio? - Super User

[sandyk]

24 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Ummm, nothing below 200Hz 😉 - but where do you get this nonsense about lacking treble output? Any headphone, no matter how cheap, can easily pump out high frequencies - tiny drivers are perfectly at ease with delivering this sort of sound.

 I have previously posted Frequency spectrum response graphs of typical small Laptop speakers.

Unless your laptop cost over $2K you will also have a similar limitation. There is usually a very larger dip at just over 10kHz.

Even my fairly expensive ATH M70x which claim a response to 40kHz have this typical dip, but way less than typical inexpensive headphones. 

[sandyk]

26 minutes ago, fas42 said:

It's not the user that decides to use Opus; it's done as part of the automatic YouTube processing of the upload, it seems.

Which is as I said, and 128kb/s .aac audio is typically limited to around 16kHz maximum which is even inferior to FM  Stereo.

 

 Opus Audio is mainly used for encoding at lower bit rates than .aac audio. 

[sandyk]

14 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Tell me, if you talk to someone you know over that ultra, ultra primitive, lo-res phone system - do you have any trouble picking up that they are not in a good mood; that they are a bit off-colour; that they are not "their usual self"?

 That  ultra primitive, lo-res phone system  is a result of bandwidth constraints developed by Engineers before the availability of later generation Fibre Optic cables, the same commercial interests that saw AM Radio downgraded from 15kHz to 9kHz ( or less) the use of .mp3 carts for FM stereo , and now the use of crappy 128kb/s .aac audio for many DTV transmissions , despite the capability of HDTV to have 5.1 Dolby or multi channel DTS.

The same greedy commercial interests  have now even dumbed down high resolution Audio formats using bloody MQA.

 Analogue Telephony, after the advent of Rocking Armature receivers, and Electret microphones to replace the older carbon types had a vastly higher quality capability, at least in the Sydney Au. network. . 

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

What? Have you actually set up a microphone, in front of a laptop speaker, to capture what its output is?

 "Google is your friend " (Supposedly 😉)

Try using the search facility , or locate my original post i a reply to you where I showed a typical laptop frequency response.

[sandyk]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Opus on YT is 160kb/s; which is superior to other encoders working at a similar rate.

 So what ? They could have used 529kb/s .aac Audio which is vastly superior,and VERY close to CD quality,  and would have only needed transcoding to 128kb/s without a format conversion.

 

In any event, the output is STILL only a miserable 128kb/s .aac audio

[sandyk]

45 minutes ago, fas42 said:

What are we arguing here, Alex? YT is what it is - you work out the best method for extracting audio, from something uploaded - and use that ...

NO !

 Conventional wisdom is to start off with the highest possible permissible Youtube file resolution and then translate that to the required bit rate and format. Starting off with 529kb/s .aac will invariably result in a better sounding conversion to 128kb/s .aac by Youtube than starting off with, for example, 160kb/s Opus where you have already discarded quite a bit of the original data.

 P.S. 

 I t appears that Youtube doesn't want you to use decent quality audio to start with.

 

Quote

Select your download audio quality

1. In the YouTube Music app, tap on your profile picture.
2. Select Settings.
3. Tap Downloads & storage.
4. Tap Audio quality.
5. Select your download quality:
   • Low
     • Uses least storage on your device
     • Bitrate: 48kbps AAC
   • Normal
     • Default setting
     • Bitrate: 128kbps AAC
   • High
     • Higher-quality audio will use more storage on your device 
     • Bitrate: 256kbps AAC

 

[sandyk]

12 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Okay, this is about your belief that 529kb/s is accessible via some means,

 No. It's about GI=GO which is apparently what Youtube wants because of demands by VEVO in particular so that people buy the recordings in the videos, not save those they have downloaded. It's no surprise that they have optimised the Video though to attract attention.

Transcoding the 128kb's .aac audio to 24/48 LPCM does however result in a worthwhile improvement in Audio quality as even Dennis (esldude) verified a while back.

Check out the example of this I posted back on page 1 of this thread.

 

 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live) as mentioned in another thread .

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w41d4t6u1gv1ypx/The Good%2C the Bad and the Ugly - The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live)-0x0002.aac?dl=0

 

 A conversion to 24/48 LPCM helps it a bit, although in theory it shouldn't be able to do this.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oq2dlunh9v11jlm/The Good%2C the Bad and the Ugly - The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live).wav?dl=0

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I do that all the time, also - I take one of my CDs to play on another person's system ... oh man, that sounds bad!! ... Must be the recording, of course!! 🙃

 More likely it is EXPECTATION Bias .😄

[sandyk]

17 minutes ago, fas42 said:

it will be undo everything I've learnt up to now, and show me that my understanding of audio so far was wrong"

 Come on Frank, we all know that is BS.😉

You are never likely in this lifetime to again accept that your understanding of Audio was wrong, as you did fairly recently with the "bits are bits" dogmanure.  🤣

 

[sandyk]

29 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I would very much expect them to sound a touch different.

 Why should they sound improved, NOT just a little different? 

.aac is a LOSSY format and you shouldn't , at least in theory, appear to be able to obtain a little extra info from both ends of the spectrum as Dennis also reported in one of his replies. Why can't the same apply as in my previous reply if the files are regenerated using an optimised PSU etc. ?

 

 Let's not go there again though.😉

  

 

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, fas42 said:

that's why you have the madness of a thousand and so variations of parameters, to "make it better" ... just ask Peter, 😉

I don't need to ask Peter. My reports in this area predated his, with Peter originally saving some test files that I supplied to a member of his Phasure forum.( Jeff was a CSIRO Scientist from Brisbane)

 

 Can we now please get back to the topic of this thread ?

[sandyk]

33 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I tried processing the .aac version -- you judge...   It appears that the recording was compressed a little, which causes some troubles in louder passages...

As I previously mentioned , Youtube appears to use additional compression on most material.

The 16kHz limitation of 128kb/s .aac  hasn't helped either, as has Youtube's requirement of no more than 256kb/s .aac source material.

 In fact, the Youtube version of what could have been a very good performance if available on a well MASTERED DVD or BluRay leaves a helluva lot to be desired unless perhaps you are listening to it in a car.  

 

Yes, your decompressed version does sound a little better, but I deliberately avoided using any additional processing other than conversion to LPCM to show that 128kb/s .aac audio can be improved to a small extent.

[sandyk]

😉

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

I tried processing the .aac version -- you judge...   It appears that the recording was compressed a little, which causes some troubles in louder passages...

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cz6dwf33htkjfz4/The Good%2C the Bad and the Ugly - The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live)-0x0002.wav?dl=0

 Forget Youtube, which only makes MQA sound good.

 This is how The Danish National Orchestra should have sounded . It's in the original 24/48

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o5lb3graj95xk9p/17. Who Wants to Live Forever (From ''Highlander'').wav?dl=0

 

[sandyk]

19 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

 

I apologize guys but I've just reminded myself that I left the iron on in my other home which is unfortunately in another country, so I may be away for a while..

 

Please continue your exciting exchange without me. 

 

Maybe a good idea would be to keep it enjoyable..(?) 

 

Add to that, the possible 2 weeks time in Quarantine at both ends .😉

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

he's been experimenting with coupling caps in his Naim amps - will see what special stuff has been unleashed by these mods, 😀

 The best sounding  coupling caps are NO coupling caps.

I.O.W. D.C. coupled 

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

but that the human mind can somehow reverse the damage that's been done through poor recording, editing, or mastering techniques.

Tom

That may be true to a small extent, as in my case, due to hearing damage and the Acoustic Neuroma pressing  on my right ear canal, occasionally, especially when my BP is a little elevated, it can take a short period before my hearing 

" locks in",  especially  to voices with accents, a bit like an electronic P.L.L. (Phase Lock Loop) locking in, but taking a little longer. 

 

Perhaps Frank also has some degree of hearing damage ?

Alex