I am "fortunate" enough that I still can detect an 18kHz tone. Not brilliantly well, I have to move my head quickly in and out of the direct radiation path to pick it sometimes - whether this is of any help or relevance in picking differences I can't say, I note the content of useful levels of signal at these frequencies in most musical material is pretty hit and miss - then worrying about ultrasonics being present or absent IME is downright silly ...Remember the 19.2kHz tone you were concerned over and that was proved to be being generated by the sound card on my old Acer. Well here is the output of an old FM tuner (Sony ST515, the companion to the TCK cassette deck). As a youngster I could detect that pilot tone on FM broadcasts
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No, 18k seems to be the limit - one ear does it but not the other, the latter seems to be quite a bit worse, have to go down to about 14-15 before it registers anything, probably depends on the temperature, the humidity, my mood, tiredness, etc, etc ...
Yes, 18kHz is more like a sensation than a sound - an analogy would be what sherbet powder does on the tongue, a sense of fizziness rather than a taste ...
Yes, 18kHz is more like a sensation than a sound - an analogy would be what sherbet powder does on the tongue, a sense of fizziness rather than a taste ...
Just to get some context on 'noise' into the situation - by chance, I put on a cheap label, library CD of Smetana's Ma Valst, done in 1959 by Kubelik with Vienna Philharmonic on the PC this morning, to warm it up - the unit is on the other side of the room from me. Jeez, this is a noisy recording, lots of background muck and funniness - looked it up, and it's mentioned for bad mastering and editing ... but when it gets into its stride, this is music, big time! Big, rich, resonant sound, fills the room beautifully, the massed string tone is quite special at times, the climaxes, crescendos are gloriously deep and vast - knocks a lot of the timid, mousey audiophilia crap back into a dark corner, where it belongs ...
I'm on a flow! I was inspired to try a libary CD of house music - you would never believe a simple, small full range driver was delivering that hard biting kick, with the layers of effects floating on top of it. Trouble is, once you push a system just a bit harder you then hear the next layer of weaknesses - this sound started to develop an edginess, an uncomfortable quality - where's the problem? By trial and error, the worst weak link was the power plug in connector from wall wart to speaker unit - these are pretty pathetic at the best of times! I had attempted earlier to improve the quality by cleaning, and trying to make it somewhat gas tight. From hard experience, these usually don't do the trick, I was being hopeful!! So, will need to do a better job of sorting that out ...
BTW, this is a RESULT from a 'real life' Blind Listening Test, NOT a prediction.
It was very expensive and difficult to do but worth it cos it meant we didn't have to do it again.
I'm ALWAYS interested in preference. But to ask this question, I have to determine if the difference is reliably audible first. If the answer is NO in either case, this is as valuable as a YES answer.
There are MANY things that have a YES to audible difference & audibility that we can improve without wasting money & effort on stuff that has NONE.
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BTW, if you test the hearing of my true golden pinnae and the best speaker designers (not all the same people but some are) you'll find they ALL have some hearing affliction or other.
Gilbert Briggs commented on this phenomena in the 60/70s in the final version of his book Loudspeakers.
Hence the term "Blind as well as Deaf", used affectionately in the speaker industry.
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I misremembered. There was a matching integrated amp as a 3rd box. Something like a TA-F5L Sony TA-F5L / Integrated Amplifiers - Sony / Vintage Audio.
BTW, this is a RESULT from a 'real life' Blind Listening Test, NOT a prediction.
It was very expensive and difficult to do...
Well, I don't know how you do it, I just learn about this from my own self. I know precisely what I can do in 5 hours or 5 months or 5 years. As a simple hint: to sharpen your brain (because you are going to feel the sound instead of to hear it) you have to have a good physical condition. You cannot eat Paracetamol. You have to have enough sleep. And so on. There is nothing you can do if your condition is not fit. More than 5 hours is required to get to this fit condition.
If the objective is to sell, it is probably good to know preference of the target market, regardless of quality (if for mass market).
For me, can pick a difference is a simple and basic and most useless stage.
Second stage is to understand preferences. Many times I stated that sometimes I don't believe that there are preferences. It seemed that many times people just don't understand their own body. They don't understand what they really need.
Ask people to pick A or B in a blind test and ask them to live with it. They may not be able to justify their decision in the long run. Because they just do a simple listening and pick based on impression. I on the other hand had tried hard to find out what my body really wanted and what my body really didn't like, and constructed a priority list. I focus on fatiguing and enjoyable aspect. Tried to understand why I like to listening to music.
As a simple criteria, if I don't miss my sound system, then something is wrong with my system. Most of the time I sleep outside of my bedroom just to be able to listen to my system, and it is just a poor MP3 source and TDA2030A amplifier. If I plug in my best sources and amps, I will not want to go to work. That's the only problem with my system that I can't solve.
The ideal 'test track', for me, in any situation is that which is on the edge of being acceptable; that is, for a system in a particular state of optimisation, one where if the system is slightly off-colour then the sound becomes becomes more and more irritating, I start becoming edgy and will stop it as soon as practicable ... and, OTOH, if the setup has significantly improved then I'll want to keep listening, I then note aspects that hadn't really registered before, in a positive way.
I find this a very straightforward and reliable method of making constant, forward progress ...
I find this a very straightforward and reliable method of making constant, forward progress ...
16 x 24 bit test current result
I have placed the same ABX test in our local forum. The results by now, both forum results summarized, are as follows:
Current status of the 16 x 24 bit test:
Listener: Score
1: 6/7
2: 6/6
3: 12/14
4: 7/7
5: 2/9
6: 9/10
7: 6/6
Four other listeners said they could hear no difference.
I have placed the same ABX test in our local forum. The results by now, both forum results summarized, are as follows:
Current status of the 16 x 24 bit test:
Listener: Score
1: 6/7
2: 6/6
3: 12/14
4: 7/7
5: 2/9
6: 9/10
7: 6/6
Four other listeners said they could hear no difference.
New ABX test, now for hardware:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/246687-ultimate-listening-test-trial-no-3-a.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/246687-ultimate-listening-test-trial-no-3-a.html
What's this? Enjoying music for its own sake instead of pixel-peeping? Throw him off the forum!
FWIW I failed to tell the difference between the 16 and 24 bit clarinet recordings. This seems fair enough, since almost all of the energy in the difference file is between 15 and 20kHz (noise shaped dither?) and I've got hearing loss above about 16kHz.
I think these are 2 different points. I also have quite many historical recordings, starting from thirties (Rubinstein) with stunning musical quality. On the other hand, I enjoy good music + good recording + flawless playback more than the same in noise and distortions. No contradiction here.
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