ASR Audio Science Review forum YouTube Channel

[pkane2001]

 

17 minutes ago, fas42 said:

if every show has people with orange faces, then I get a bit sick of this - this doesn't reflect how the world is for me ... but if I see a purple face, a pink face, a brown face, a washed out, dull coloured face, and lo and behold, every now and then a naturally coloured face ... then, I think I'm in a pretty good place ... see?

 

So you can't see through the orange to the natural color that was in the original recording? I'm SHOCKED! 😱

 

[pkane2001]

41 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

P.S. @Andyman can you find someone on Earth who agrees with your logic on this? I'm all ears, but I think it's faulty. I'll even listen to the most objective people on this one. What does @pkane2001 say? I'm all ears. 

 

I'm not an advocate for DSD as a storage or recording format. But arguments that converting to DSD somehow destroys the original sound is similar to an argument that upsampling destroys music. When done properly, both can represent all the audible signal in the original PCM. Any possible differences would then be due to the design choices made in software or hardware that convert it to analog. Some DACs process DSD directly, simplifying D-to-A circuitry, others may convert DSD to PCM only to convert it back to DSD. Most Delta-Sigma converters do the conversion to DSD without asking, so very frequently it can't be avoided. 

[pkane2001]

8 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Ahh, the original recording has orange, "as the natural colour" ... geddit? 🤪

 

So you only watch orange shows? I'm confused, but not surprised ;)

 

Quote

if every show has people with orange faces...

 

[pkane2001]

42 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Sorry Paul, but this makes no sense to me. Define "properly". And I am not asking Miska.

Not making mistakes and using wrong filters or wrong algorithms.

[pkane2001]

17 minutes ago, Andyman said:

Presumably the intention of all DSP is to improve something. But excepting those algorithms which preclude bit perfection, in what way do they differ with respect to accuracy? Mine's more perfect than yours?

 

A reconstruction filter is a mathematical necessity for proper reproduction of frequencies below Nyquist/2. Filters can be leaky and even introduce phase and frequency artifacts. Many modern DACs reconstruction filters still pass through a lot of energy above 22.05kHz and this results in images in the audible band. I suspect most poorly filtered DACs are done so because it was cheaper and easier to implement. Some are "designer" filters meant to add something to the sound, rather than make it more accurate, and sometimes it's just incompetence. In these cases, upsampling or applying filters in software can make the DAC more accurate. 

[pkane2001]

6 hours ago, opus101 said:

 

The '/2' here I believe is superfluous - Nyquist is already fs/2.

Yes, I actually typed Fs/2 first, then changed it but not not the /2 :)

 

[pkane2001]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Paul, you should start making DACs. This is really the strangest BS 😉 of all times. Really. Undoubtedly unintentional, but it is (again) getting more and more crazy in this thread.

 

Ask Miska why he implemented a filter A, B, C etc. Try to drag out of him that he did that to create a certain sound. I'll bet you he won't say that. He merely would say something along the lines of:

- Distortion shifts to an other location, less harmful to you if you are sensitive to it.

- Filter B is an improvement of filter A. A remains for those who like it.

- Filter C is a general improvement for XYZ.

And no filter is perfect because that can't exist in reconstruction.

 

Happy to lose the bet. I don't care. I have my own filters. 🤗

 

Peter, I don't know what you're arguing against. Filters are designed. Certain filters are designed poorly, less accurately, causing images, and ringing, oscillations in frequency and phase in the pass band, etc. Some of these are designed because someone thought they sounded better. Some are designed this way because they're easier to implement. If you're arguing that these don't exist, you've not measured many DACs.

[pkane2001]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

There is nothing like "poorer". There's just an enormous difference in approach between e.g. genuine NOS (no filter at all) and Rob Watts with 1M filter taps. Let's say that DSD is somewhere in that spectrum too, working with different properties (like upsampling way more, right into the DSD domain).

 

What you guys seem to have fortotten (in the midst of what should be 10K posts about it, if not way more) is that NOS is accurate towards the time domain and 1M taps is accurate towards the frequency domain. The more "accurate" in either of these ends of the spectrum, the more inaccurate the other end will be.

So it is the skill to be something in the middle (anywhere but not at one of the ends) and make the one the best for your (designer's liking) and the other the least harmful technically.

 

Miska will tell you the same. It is only that my liking is towards the time domain and his liking is towards the frequency domain.

Nice eh ? two blokes ever back starting the same thing, but with different technical aims. Both worked out to its best. Both overruling what happens in-DAC. that preferably being a NOS/filterless DAC because it does nothing in the first place.

 

Are you telling me that 1M tap linear-phase FIR filter will be inaccurate in the time domain? Really? Can you explain how that happen when phase is kept linear? I'm curious.

[pkane2001]

4 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

I see. You just invented the perfect filter. It is 100% good in the frequency domain as that it is 100% good in the time domain (assumed that a 1M tap filter is any sort of 100%). A world's first.

Or would you attest that the 1M tap filter sucks in the frequency domain ? Only then you could theoretically be right.

 

How are the measurements doing ? (decoy attempt)

 

I didn't say it's perfect, but it can be as perfect as you want and doesn't require any new invention or guessing. A 1M tap linear-phase FIR filter doesn't suck. Theoretically speaking :)

 

Measurements are going well. I have a few samples of Lush^2 ready for blind testing, just going through some final adjustments and testing :)

 

[pkane2001]

18 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

And that is what I called "BS" between quotes and with wink.

I don't see anybody do that explicitly. Not even myself. Haha.

 

What do you think about these two filters? Actual implementations, measured at the output:

 

 

 

[pkane2001]

6 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

But that's a really good point, Chris.  Which HQP filter is the "most accurate"?  Based on my limited understanding of digital filters, I think it's the Closed Form filters, which not many like.  How about you?

 

"Like" and "accurate" are not necessarily the same. My PKHarmonic VST plugin lets one add arbitrary levels of harmonic distortion to audio. There are many who prefer their music with a dash of distortion, even among the objectivist crowd :)

 

A filter has very well defined mathematical properties. The one that introduces less distortion in the audible band wins the accuracy competition. This can be evaluated mathematically, or by measuring. What makes the closed-form filter better than others?

[pkane2001]

7 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

I never said "better".  Closed-form is non-apodizing.  I think the whole "accuracy" claim in this context is more hubris than science.

 

Not hubris, mathematics. 

[pkane2001]

22 minutes ago, 57gold said:

Interesting, understand that Mytek's "improved" analog volume on Brooklyn+ adds some distortion to "warm up" the sonics.  

ASR disliked that feature, as opposed to just recommending users to stick to "cleaner" digital volume control.

 

Generally, I'd say the same thing: distortion is messing up the accuracy of audio reproduction. And yet, some prefer the "messed up" sound, as long as it's messed up in certain, pleasing ways.

[pkane2001]

40 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

I'm not getting this.  I have no desire to proclaim the "accuracy" of my playback chain based on the use of HQP.  But that claim seems to be of great import to some.

 

I think we are talking about different things. I make no claims about HQP filters or the overall chain.

 

A filter is a mathematical construct. It works better or worse for the purpose of reconstructing sampled audio depending on design and implementation. This accuracy can be measured and/or evaluated mathematically -- this is an objective measure, not a preference. Whether or not this is audible, or whether you like or dislike its effect, has little to do with mathematical accuracy. A poorly designed filter can cause all kinds of distortions and errors in the signal. A well-designed (mathematically accurate) filter should not. 

 

[pkane2001]

18 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

I was under the impression that a well-designed filter was the same as any other well-designed filter as far as the audible range is concerned.  But, apparently, folks have preferences among the "well-designed" filters.  I cannot reconcile this.

I can’t speak to that, having no preference other than a filter with linear phase response, a deep out of band rejection and low in-band ripple. Beyond this, I don’t find filters very exciting ;)

 

[pkane2001]

 

1 hour ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Which is the most "mathematically accurate" HQP filter?

No idea. I assume most are competently designed based on what @Miska described earlier in the thread. I’d not use a minimum phase filter. 

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, JoshM said:

This is different from serving as a check on a manufacturer’s claimed specs, though. One needs to perform the same tests as the manufacturer’s specs. The above doesn’t do that. 
 

More importantly, how is paying writers bad, and why would advertisements necessarily lead to more bias than accepting donations?

 

Despite likely being very well-off, Amir is soliciting donations for his reviews. He is a paid writer. He also clearly wants page clicks and attention. Both of these are likely to create sources of bias.

As said above, he obviously figured out early on that slamming “audiophile” brands (except ones he sells) and hyping cheap products was the path to attention and donations, and he’s followed that ever since. Right now he’s claiming he knows more about designing headphones than Abyss’s engineers. I’m not a huge Abyss fan, but at a certain point an ego of that size becomes horrifically comical.

 

@asdf1000 let me know that he's no longer allowed to post here, so don't expect an answer.

[pkane2001]

5 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Now that things have calmed down a bit:

 

It's always been very interesting to me not only what we hear, but what we *could* hear if trained.  That means we've always been hearing it, and noticing it subconsciously at some level, but just haven't consciously noticed.

 

I assume Miska (1) doesn't have superhuman hearing, and (2) might do a reasonable job at being able to discern differences in HQPlayer filters.  (Either assumption could be wrong of course, the second more likely.)

 

If true, this might mean different emotional reactions to music played through filters in which the untrained cannot consciously discern differences.

 

How can something too subtle to be consciously noticed have an emotional effect?  There is academic research showing emotional effects up to and including breaking out in a cold sweat from subconscious stimuli.

 

Hi Jud,

 

Breaking out in cold sweat might be more related to being inside an fMRI machine than perceiving the effects of ultrasonic frequencies. Just guessing ;)

 

[pkane2001]

2 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

🙂 No fMRI in these particular studies.  

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_gambling_task

 

I think I've seen this one before ;)

 

[pkane2001]

12 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Not if you use headphones. 

The headphones to ear interaction is no less complex than speakers to room and in some ways more.

[pkane2001]

Just now, Rexp said:

And? 

Try to hear what a mastering engineer heard, even with the same electronics and headphones he used.

[pkane2001]

2 minutes ago, Rexp said:

We would be listening to exactly the same sound. We would hear it differently but that is irrevalent. 

 

How do you listen without hearing?

 

[pkane2001]

6 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Late there is it? 

 

Just curious why it's important to reproduce a sound that you can listen to but can't hear.

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, Rexp said:

I'm curious to know what you're smoking? 

Why, you want some?

[pkane2001]

13 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Couldn't be, the subjects weren't consciously aware of the stimulus causing the effect (breaking out in a cold sweat as measured by galvanic skin response).

 

You can read a summary at the link below, and there are academic papers with more detail.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_gambling_task

 

Edit: By the way, in the audio sphere there are also academic papers regarding training effects, where phenomena that people tested as not hearing or hearing unreliably are after training able to test as hearing or hearing more reliably.

I’m not sure what the IGT experiment means to audio testing or listener training, Jud. Can you please explain how it’s applicable?