Lenses have a resolving power, the minimum angular separation of two point sources before they become one spot with a single brightness peak. Resolving power for a camera lens can vary across the field markedly, especially for wide-angle and zoom lenses, and radial and tangential performance will differ, and of course wavelength matters too.
Most of the lens aberations contribute to lowering the resolving power below the diffraction limit, and the worst-case resolving power across the image field is a useful figure-of-merit for a lens.
Most of the lens aberations contribute to lowering the resolving power below the diffraction limit, and the worst-case resolving power across the image field is a useful figure-of-merit for a lens.
I asked you because I wanted to know if you were just guessing or you really know what you are talking about when it comes to "Experience in spotting the difference helps" in DAC sound comparison. I would say you were just guessing but feel free to prove me wrong.Exactly, on both accounts.
I don't have time to start looking for documented evidence of something that is also common experience... I'd prefer if Evenharmonics did it
I'm guessing however, he had a narrow focus in his question and was playing the usual card of "show the evidence of hearing subjective differences in audio quality".
A commonly played card in these discussions and if you don't have the return play ready to go (some documented study), it is seen by the player as a defeat by their opinon/play. If you do have the documeted study ready to play, then the player then throws doubt on that study - which isn't easy to prove either way unless it was your study.. And so the game player feels they've won another round .
Some folks like to discuss things, some folks like to just play the argument game!
The argument game is quickly very boring for anyone without an ego that needs regular massage.
So, hopefully, Evenharmonics is entering into discussion rather than playing games. It's very hard to tell with just text communication... although one can look at past form perhaps...
If an on chip sensor rate is applied (discrete oversampling) then super resolution is going to help create more.
Conclusions
That's the very thread that made me start to realize the conclusions I wrapped up today in that new thread:
State of Audiophile world in our Era, and how things changed
Wow, what a journey...
That's the very thread that made me start to realize the conclusions I wrapped up today in that new thread:
State of Audiophile world in our Era, and how things changed
Wow, what a journey...
In your quotes you deliberately conflated completely different things.. I presume mostly you're out for argument and not actually that interested in discussions or making efforts to learn.
I heard that a lot, but i found that -on the contrary- the longer it is, the less your brain can potentially spot a difference.
Best music excerpt time would probably be somewhere between 5sec and 25sec.
Audio memory is very very short.
The thing to remember is NOT all blind test falls in the ''everybody fails'' pit. There is always a threshold. And these threshold proves that ABX test is a valid method. At the very least, it proves that some things show bigger differences than other, who falls in the more...subtle. If any.
I remember the first serious blind test i organized back in 2010... MP3 v.s. AAC v.s. CD v.s. HD 24/96.
I had to lower the quality til 64kpbs (!) MP3 files, to find the threshold where MOST people (not all!) could spot it. That was a shock. I was able to do it, so was my audiophiles buddies... But few participants were not. To my big surprise.
As ''low'' as 192kbps.... no one could spot any of the files. So the threshold was somewhere between 96 and 128kbps. MP3 only, AAC was impossible to spot either.
And i'm not even talking about the 24/96 v.s. HD or the AAC 256kbps... No one was even close. MP3's were challenging enough.
So, YES, thresholds are the key here. ABX shouldnt be discarded because a threshold is not yet found.
I'm pretty sure if you ABX a Pepsi and a glass of Vodka, you'll find it.
The conclusion is that ABX testing for audio quality is useless if you had to drop the MP3 to 64kpbs for differences to be noticed ... the bluntest tool in the box springs to mind
This is the sarcastic page of the thread, scott. I don't even own a dedicated dac.
Convert a live performance with audience clapping to high bit rate mp3. If you cant hear the difference between this and the cd original you should really give up on high fidelity.
Once you can spot mp3 you can easily hear the artifacts in anything but the most compressed pop music.
Not obvious to the casual listener, but once learned it stays with you. Like picking up tones in fm broadcasts.
Once you can spot mp3 you can easily hear the artifacts in anything but the most compressed pop music.
Not obvious to the casual listener, but once learned it stays with you. Like picking up tones in fm broadcasts.
I think there are some sources where it matters more than others.
Information is not always cyclical no matter how we try to define it as such. Clapping is a great example. Heavily saturated guitars are another.
I'm more interested in listening to music than audience clapping, does that make me a "casual listener"?
Nah I've listened to numerous ABXs and rarely get them right. However, it always amazes me that the people using better equipment in commercial records still sound better which is a conflicting statement, until you consider a few things.
People always normalize the recording levels for the converters when top tier converters may shine at higher levels than lower because of higher headroom. This could be the case with DACs as well, I dunno. I suspect the process of "making things equal" does just that.
Of course if your $30 DAC hits a nice THD+N with a high dynamic range, then the scientific side of me is really, really suspicious of the higher end units assuming the lower tier stuff is measured by the same standards.
We should 100% be critical in every way haha.
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Haven’t we been talking about this since the first 16bit Sony CD player was ‘blown away’ by denons new 20bit? But wait forget all that crap we tried to sell you about more bits being better, what you really need is a 1 bit dac, arent the lies told to promote capitalism beautiful?..gear is all about swearing you can hear the cash, newness, rarity and prestige of your new toy IN the music...bring that $3000 dac over lets do a double blind test with my Sony esd1000 and hi-fi berry...if you have any high-end cables or speaker wire you need to repent about bring those too. Your ears are emotional and very sensitive to the money your brain wants to spend/has spent, don’t let them lie to you
Exactly. However, if you are in the business of selling / promoting those products, would you publicly acknowledge it?
Some of the guys who are very anti-good dac are that way for an interesting reason: its because they are 'reformed' audiophiles. Given how adamant they are that they are right this time and that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong, an idiot, and or a crook, just imagine the kinds of things they must have been saying and believing back before they became 'reformed'
Some of the guys who are very anti-good dac are that way for an interesting reason: its because they are 'reformed' audiophiles. Given how adamant they are that they are right this time and that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong, an idiot, and or a crook, just imagine the kinds of things they must have been saying and believing back before they became 'reformed'
Some critics rationally bound their statements with qualifiers such as "you can't hear below -100db THD+N anyway" and others, so at least some keep it open for discussion.
I'm a fan of anyone's discussion when they openly declare their metrics regardless of their ultimate accuracy because it's good discussion. But you're right, we don't often have that given the conviction we see.
What they don't have is the supporting evidence. Arguments would end quickly only if they have such thing.
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