Thread: New site up

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Post by rammiepie August 14, 2015 (91 of 211)
Wartybliggens said:

. It's the recording and mastering that really matter (a lot), and the listener's playback equipment.

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Right on with that sentiment. I do have some spectacular sounding RBCDs which have benefitted from superior recording/mastering techniques.

But then my investment to make it sound that way is way over the top, as well. And of course the inverse is true when the recording (no matter what the pedigree) is lackluster.

Post by Marpow August 14, 2015 (92 of 211)
Wartybliggens said:

Yes, "better than CD quality" is meaningless from the listener's perspective. All the talk of DSD vs PCM is nonsense, and so is thinking that we're really getting better audio quality beyond 16-bit / 44.1kHz for playback. It's the recording and mastering that really matter (a lot), and the listener's playback equipment.

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Right on brother, what you say is what I have learned over the past year to be very truthful.

I have come to a very strong opinion that my equipment, room correction, etc is where it all comes down to.

Rammiepie talks about it all the time, and people sometimes laugh, but he has insight that should not be taken lightly.

I have tried so hard to make it "the disc" that matters, and it is not true, for me.

I have come to opinion that it is all of the above, and it is very hard to HAVE all of the above. Critical listening from an audiophile point of view has made me better for the most part, but I also tell myself to lighten up as it has always been about the music.

Thanks for your opinion.

Post by windhoek August 14, 2015 (93 of 211)
Marpow said:

I have come to opinion that it is all of the above, and it is very hard to HAVE all of the above. Critical listening from an audiophile point of view has made me better for the most part, but I also tell myself to lighten up as it has always been about the music.

Damn, you sure as hell squashed and squished the nail's head right there Markie; bang on brother!

At the consumer end, hifi is supposed to enable us enjoy music and if it doesn't, we've either got duff discs or unhappy hifi blues. I find it easy to get my toes a-tapping, my air guitar a-strumming and my air autotune a-tuning and if I play something that does nothing for me, nada, zilch, it's time to move it on for all we want to do is enjoy music, the raison d-etre of owning (sometimes expensive) hifi in the first place :)

Post by arnaoutchot August 15, 2015 (94 of 211)
keskitalop said:

I have as yet been unsuccessful in trying to log in. It tells me my password is incorrect. I get a prompt to enter my email to reset my password then it informs me that details will be sent to my email but I never receive an email. Has anyone else had this happen?

Same with me. My e-mail is the same which is listed on the old site. No mail arrives. Anyone got a solution there ? Thanks ...

Post by k-spin August 15, 2015 (95 of 211)
I'm sure you've already thought of this but have you checked your junk mail folder?

Post by Adrian Cue August 16, 2015 (96 of 211)
Wartybliggens said:

Yes, "better than CD quality" is meaningless from the listener's perspective. All the talk of DSD vs PCM is nonsense, and so is thinking that we're really getting better audio quality beyond 16-bit / 44.1kHz for playback. It's the recording and mastering that really matter (a lot), and the listener's playback equipment.

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

A somewhat late and lengthy reaction:

Your reference to the article “24/192 Music Downloads ...and why they make no sense” has stirred up the minds of many music enthusiasts. It is good to remind the forum members now that this site is moving into HiRes audio, with the possibility to start tackling downloaded material.

For many the problem is that Chris ‘Monty’ Montgomery’s article cannot be easily verified and certified, especially if readers have little or no knowledge of the subject matter. One gets easily bluffed by this computer specialist. For me, and possibly others, it looks like blahblahcadabra, some of which I understand and some of which I have problems with. But what nags me most of all is the pre-conceived idea as expressed in the title. Is it meant to say that audiophiles are nuts? That better than CD quality has no sense? Is there a hidden agenda? The article is high on technical aspects but, sadly, low on music.

The question of 16 or 24 bits is about less or more resolution. And for laymen it seems logical that more resolution is better than less. But what anyone listener hears is a different thing. It’s not only a matter of equipment etc. but also as to how he or she listens (car radio, ghetto blaster or monstrous audiophile set-up), to what extent his or her ears (and brain) are trained over the years, and finally, what kind of music is recorded; and how and for what purpose is it produced.

The famous adagium ‘garbage in is garbage out’ remains as valid as ever. There are excellent RBCD’s which are preferable over bad SACD’s. So, better leave this aspect aside.

It may be clear that with classical music (and other forms of real music making like, for instance, jazz), produced by serious companies, engineers do not tamper more with a recording than is required for reaching the best possible quality standard. As for the pop scene, I fear that the situation differs quite considerably. Most of it is electronic anyway. At a pop concert there is no real sound. Everything is amplified and basses overblown. Sound pressure is high and, indeed, damaging for your ears if you sit too close. Pull the electric plug and the band lies flat. A symphony orchestra carries on. A stringed contra bass is quite something else than a plucked bass guitar. A trained ear can hear that, equipment permitting. (This is ‘generally speaking' and not meant to imply that there are no well-engineered rock titles available).

The Hi-res fans want the best available and their trained ears and those with high-end equipment do hear differences between CD and SACD, and some even between PCM and DSD, in spite of what some experts are trying to prove, supported by graphs, measurements and an array of spectrum analyzers and wotnot.

Tests, whereby about half the audience had it wrong when having to ‘identify which was 16/44.1 and which was high rate’, proves nothing more than what it says, namely that almost half the audience got it right. (“In 554 trials, listeners chose correctly 49.8% of the time. In other words, they were guessing”). Apart from the fact that the conclusion drawn does not seem to be a very academic one, it is of importance that many more than I would have anticipated got it right: I would have thought that audiophile music lovers, listening with good ears and brains to well recorded ‘real’ music, able to have a ‘good guess’ are no more than a small percentage of the public at large. Looking at it from this angle, the result is very promising indeed!

Today I was able to compare a downloaded multi-channel FLAC file from the Norwegian company 2L, who are running a HiRes Download - test bench (http://www.2l.no/hires/) for the evaluation of future consumer delivery formats. Comparing the same music (Mozart violin concerto) with the physical format (SACD) in DSD quality, I did hear a difference. The disk being more detailed, with a better spatial sound stage than the FLAC file. Not only because of the bits, but also because of the much higher sampling rate, bringing it closer to the analogue sine wave form (the article states that this is not true, demonstrated by an oscillographe, but I find myself in good company, as it furthermore claims that even some PhD’s have difficulty in understanding the facts) . And to be sure (because I knew which was which) I invited another pair of well trained (and much younger) ears, confirming what I had heard.

Another point: Sounds under or above what the average ear can hear (say, under 30 Hz and above 16.000 Hz) do matter. Supposing, as the article says, that inaudible high and low frequencies create an ‘uncontrolled spray of intermodulation’, this would mean that such frequencies do influence the audible sound. Isn’t it one of the shortcomings of the paper that the tone produced by real instruments has not been measured? Who says that a violin produces no inaudible (to the human ear, that is) over and undertones? So, one might argue that the ‘added’ frequencies are essential for getting closer to the real sound as produced by anyone instrument, giving back the typical timbre and nasal sound of oboe, as well as the shattering noise of the trombone. Damaging to the ear? A bat doesn’t! Dogs don’t shy away! It’s not the frequency but the decibels that damage the ears; the ‘earphones-loud-pop-syndrome’, one might say.

Another shortcoming is the total neglect of the brain. Not the ear but the brain plays the predominant role when listening to music. Listening is a skill that can and should be learned, like learning and understanding a language, whereby, according to Oliver Sacks, professor of neurology and amateur musician, the “immensely complex, multilevel neural circuitry that underlies musical perception” occupies many more areas in the brain than language does (Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia, Tales of the Music and the Brain, Vintage books, New York, 2008). The ear is nothing but the antenna of the brain. It is the latter who translates the “special resonances, synchronizations, oscillations” into what we perceive as music.

I will and cannot quarrel with all the measurements. Important is what I hear, and what kind of musical emotion I receive from the larger dynamics and greater detail of the ‘higher than CD resolution’. I’d rather trust my ear-fed brains than ‘scientific blahblahcadabra’.

Post by hiredfox August 16, 2015 (97 of 211)
arnaoutchot said:

Same with me. My e-mail is the same which is listed on the old site. No mail arrives. Anyone got a solution there ? Thanks ...

Perhaps it is selective and he doesn't want you? ;-)

Post by hiredfox August 16, 2015 (98 of 211)
Adrian Cue said:


The question of 16 or 24 bits is about less or more information.

Are you sure about that? Greater bit depth means more accuracy not more information. It is only one value at a time.

Post by AmonRa August 16, 2015 (99 of 211)
rammiepie said:

Anyone who visits SA~CD.net is doing so for Better than CD quality 'assurance.'

Not those who are interested in analog tape transfers. Which are much less than "CD quality" to start with. Injection molding them on a SACD does not change the fact. At least they are not getting it, even if mistakenly expecting.

Post by AmonRa August 16, 2015 (100 of 211)
Adrian Cue said:

Tests, whereby about half the audience had it wrong when having to ‘identify which was 16/44.1 and which was high rate’, proves nothing more than what it says, namely that almost half the audience got it right. (“In 554 trials, listeners chose correctly 49.8% of the time. In other words, they were guessing”).

If you are talking about the M&M test, you have no clue. You apparently have no idea what this kind of blind testing means.

If the test group gets it 50% right, it means the difference can not be heard. It does not mean half the people can hear it and the other half not (you could just as well claim not hearing the difference is true because 50% failed, actually majority here, 50.2%) The same result can be achieved by guessing or by tossing a coin. You have to have 95% confidence level to make it statistically probable that it is not guessing. For 10 trials it means 9 right, for 20 trials 15 correct answers.

Your kind of writing proves how ignorant lay people are about scientific matters and testing, and how easily they are manipulated.

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