I think the biggest snake oil theory is the belief that there's some sort of 'holy grail audiophile nirvana' encoded into CDs that only the greatest high end, no-feedback, non-oversampling, directional-cyrogenic-cable, class-A, green-markered, you-get-the-idea playback system can reveal.
Meanwhile the recording team probably did just as much blow as the band during the studio sessions, and at one point the producer likely gave up and decided "f** it, it's good enough for the label"...
Meanwhile the recording team probably did just as much blow as the band during the studio sessions, and at one point the producer likely gave up and decided "f** it, it's good enough for the label"...
I stand in awe at the number of times the argument of how a square wave looks like at the output of a linear phase filter is used.
and I mean awe. it is so basic and yet...
on one hand, high-end whines about phase distortion caused by limited FR.
on the other hand, how is an infinite-bandwidth signal (that's what an ideal square wave is) supposed to look like when run through a linear phase (no phase distortion, that is) LPF?
and how come they always forget there's no such thing as infinite bandwidth signals in music to begin with and, given all prerequisites for Shannon-Nyquist are met, no such "horrendous" artifact like that pre-ringing cash-cow ever exists?
and before anyone picks on that: yes, I agree they can sound good, but is it for the reasons they tell us?
sometimes I do this. I first listen to a song on the PC system in the bedroom. the crappiest 2.1 thing one can imagine. all bass boosting means used, otherwise there's only mids. I think some song sounds promising and I move to the decent system in the living room and I go WTF. unlistenable.
I guess "mixed and mastered for the boom box" theory has some truth in it.
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Yes but The Cd's put in the equipment at the shows look standard...and the systems produce a much different presentation...
I'll give an example play a CD on a system with Maggies and then on a standard speaker...is there a difference in detail?
Or does it show the recording as rubbish...<<thats the problem..if its not there in the first place then thats it..
So the source sets the standard..
Regards
M. Gregg
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So-called dipole speakers with rear-firing drivers, side-mounted woofers and all that stuff might well give some wacky ambience effects.
1. Maybe it sounds good only on one kind of recording - the sort with lots of reverb and ambience. Maybe it's adding something to the recording that shouldn't be there. Maybe it would sound terrible with the wrong sort of recording.
2. Maybe it's just simulating the effect of surround sound - e.g. Dolby Pro Logic simply encodes 'rear' information as being in anti-phase on the left and right channels. It's a fairly benign process because it can add a degree of pleasing ambience on any stereo recording, plus the encoded sound can still kind of be OK on just plain stereo speakers, where the anti-phase gives a kind of 'stereo-widening' that also appears as ambience.
If we want a kind of enveloping ambience that is true, controllable and doesn't affect inappropriate recordings, why don't we ditch stereo and go the whole hog with multi-channel surround? The thing is, I'm pretty happy with stereo if it sounds more-or-less real over a fairly limited area.
It can go both ways.
I used to work in a lab. We had high pressure liquid chromatography equipment - expensive stuff. Anyway, one system was failing its calibration. As usual the autosampler was blamed. All the usual fault finding was done. All the usual maintenance and changing of parts was done, but the problem remained.
I tested the system with a peak output simulator. This creates a perfect analogue Gaussian peak. It was attached to the input that the detector would normally be attached to. I fed the system with 6 simulated peaks and calculated the coefficient of variation. The CV was something like 2%. Normally the POS gives a CV of 0.1%. The max limit is 1.5%. So there had to be a problem with the Analogue to Digital Convertor and its electronics.
I told this to my supervisor but was completely dismissed. It could not possibly be the electronics because digits are digits and are perfect!?! I was a mere level 3 technician so was ignored.
4 weeks later and the system was still not working. About £10,000 had been spent on engineer call out costs! Still no solution. Eventually a grade 3 scientist comes along and does the Peak Output Simulator test. Everyone suddenly agrees that it is the electronics that is the problem! I was right all along but nobody listens to a grade 3 technician!
The moral of the story: keep an open mind!
I used to work in a lab. We had high pressure liquid chromatography equipment - expensive stuff. Anyway, one system was failing its calibration. As usual the autosampler was blamed. All the usual fault finding was done. All the usual maintenance and changing of parts was done, but the problem remained.
I tested the system with a peak output simulator. This creates a perfect analogue Gaussian peak. It was attached to the input that the detector would normally be attached to. I fed the system with 6 simulated peaks and calculated the coefficient of variation. The CV was something like 2%. Normally the POS gives a CV of 0.1%. The max limit is 1.5%. So there had to be a problem with the Analogue to Digital Convertor and its electronics.
I told this to my supervisor but was completely dismissed. It could not possibly be the electronics because digits are digits and are perfect!?! I was a mere level 3 technician so was ignored.
4 weeks later and the system was still not working. About £10,000 had been spent on engineer call out costs! Still no solution. Eventually a grade 3 scientist comes along and does the Peak Output Simulator test. Everyone suddenly agrees that it is the electronics that is the problem! I was right all along but nobody listens to a grade 3 technician!
The moral of the story: keep an open mind!
Well,
When is a 0 a 0 and when is a 1 a 1...at what voltage is the transition...
Yes laugh...thats why the one laptop could program a PLC and another could only read it...
I have also seen a non inductive carbon resistor give an extra 10 meters of digital control distance..
Regards
M. Gregg
When is a 0 a 0 and when is a 1 a 1...at what voltage is the transition...
Yes laugh...thats why the one laptop could program a PLC and another could only read it...
I have also seen a non inductive carbon resistor give an extra 10 meters of digital control distance..
Regards
M. Gregg
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Or don't have a manager who can't find his @ss with both hands, a magnifying glass, and a flashlight. And maybe have one with some listening skills.
This kind of thing never happens in our lab (where, coincidentally, HPLC is one of our techniques). Never. I'd fire our lab supervisor if he acted that way.
I take a different moral from this story: truth does not depend on who says it. Facts are facts; they still stay true even when nobody believes them.admc007 said:
Having said that, weighing alleged truth in an area I am not familiar with can be helped if the people telling me things have been found to be correct in areas I do know something about. On the other hand, people who habitually talk nonsense should not feel hurt if I ignore them on the rare occasions when they happen to be right.
I don't think anyone except high-level programmers who have no idea that ADCs and DACs are analog contraptions believe that
IMO there's too less objective back-slapping nowadays. take this example: some manufacturer fit non linear phase filters to their DAC chips from the factory because the hand waving eventually worked
and let me tell you this. although the differences are easily measurable with the most basic equipment and as ill-conceived the idea of the non linear phase filter is, instant switching from different filter types is way, way less audible than one would think
just to stay with this example.
or take the example I gave in another thread, my friend who believes that the speaker impedance plots found online are purposely smoothed. he has more than enough knowledge in the required fields to draw a conclusion, I'd say he exceeds mine in this respect. but God-knows-who's hand waving got to him.
superiors have very statistics-driven minds and for good reason. in their view (and they are statistically right) the lower the experience and expertise, the lower the probability that a reported problem is real.
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but yeah, got masters degree in god-knows-what
Around here, a piece of paper is no guarantee that you know anything. Nor is a lack of one an indication that you don't. We concentrate on data and results, everything else is useless.
But there is an extra variable or two in there that means this test doesn't prove the non-transparency of 16/44.1. That the differences in mastering may have extended to more than just digital vs. analogue..? Maybe they decided to compress the dynamic range a bit? Maybe they just pressed a few dB quieter. Maybe the vinyl quality happened to be poor on the digitally remastered ones. Maybe the printing of the artwork was inferior and this affected your judgement? And there's presumably no guarantee that the A->D and D->A was done well in these particular cases.
It's trivially easy to insert a 16/44 A-D-D-A into a signal chain. I've done it myself.
So far, everyone who has tried it and taken care to match levels has not been able to tell the difference (except at pathological volume levels when there's no signal and you can hear the noise floor- see Lipshitz/Tiefenbrun). Lot of criticisms of those bold enough to publish their results, zero contradictory data after 30 years of criticism from folks in the fashion audio sector. Maybe someone will step up with contradictory data, but it hasn't happened yet, and I'm not holding my breath.
So far, everyone who has tried it and taken care to match levels has not been able to tell the difference (except at pathological volume levels when there's no signal and you can hear the noise floor- see Lipshitz/Tiefenbrun). Lot of criticisms of those bold enough to publish their results, zero contradictory data after 30 years of criticism from folks in the fashion audio sector. Maybe someone will step up with contradictory data, but it hasn't happened yet, and I'm not holding my breath.
Well I guess I've just missed it every time it's come up. I've missed all the times that someone on this forum claims that extra distortion is somehow better.
If you see this again, please ping me, I'm intrigued. I can imagine that it's happened, I just don't remember seeing it.
Speaking of sand (we were) I think you guys need to pull your collective head out of it and remember that not all harmonic distortion is audible, even at levels as high as ~1%. It's the age old story of harmonic masking. The research goes back at least to the 1920s. I'm sure you know it, even if you choose not to comment on it.
Some devices can have fairly high distortion without it being audible. Sometimes it's audible but not objectionable. The former should still be called High Fidelity because it is, aurally - and that's what matters. That latter might not be true Hi-Fi, but doesn't get in the way.
Then we get into the topic of noise, and what it can can can't do for the signal.
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