You mean as long as it's in agreement with your own belief?
Wow, challenging or contradicting your belief is an attack in your view.
Your real name isn't Merrill Wettasinghe?
Yes, it is likely a difference in the DAC processing between 16/44 & 24/192 but so what? The point is how difficult it is to get a positive result in a Foobar ABX test & thereby 'prove' that there is an actual audible difference. It is an example of a real world Foobar ABX positive result & what is needed to achieve this. Remember that he had already established his preference for 24/192 over long term sighted listening without difficulty but still found that he needed to find a specific aspect of the sound that would allow him to differentiate between 16/44 & 24/192 & this wasn't an easy thing to find - then he needed to do a substantial amount of training/warming up before he could reliably identify differences & finally he found that retaining focus during the testing was arduous.
All real world reports of an actual Foobar ABX test & was it you or someone else that asked how could a difference, established in sighted listening "automagically" disappear when doing Foobar ABX?
This example of ABX should answer this
He has done & posted another set of positive ABX results but this time for a series of generated files which were meant to emulate the sonic effects of jitter but again he had to find a particular aspect of the sound (not soundstage as in the 24/192 ABX test) & again this proved very difficult to find & similar training/warming up & focus issues were also reported for this ABX testing.
DF96,
Sorry I kicked off with you awhile back, and said a few things that maybe I should not have. I have since come to realise our intellects are so diametrically opposite that in many ways we are equals, and as such, I now consider you as part of my people. I admire the economy of your use of language and effortless application of problem solving logic. Not many people can do that.
So if you see me around, it’s all good.
ToS
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Reading back a post of mine I see I made a typo that doesn't read correctly
Instead of
"It's difficult to post cogently about the link between auditory processing & audio reply & often when I read back a post I find I have missed out an important point but can't edit/correct it."
It should read
"It's difficult to post cogently about the link between auditory processing & audio REPLAY & often when I read back a post I find I have missed out an important point but can't edit/correct it."
Ironic that the sentence itself contains an example of what is being said in this sentence
Instead of
"It's difficult to post cogently about the link between auditory processing & audio reply & often when I read back a post I find I have missed out an important point but can't edit/correct it."
It should read
"It's difficult to post cogently about the link between auditory processing & audio REPLAY & often when I read back a post I find I have missed out an important point but can't edit/correct it."
Ironic that the sentence itself contains an example of what is being said in this sentence
Markm4 --- finally got the system half way back to mighty-fine again and now it will be torn apart very soon. Better come over asap because I put up my house for sale and it was sold the first day on the market !
You can then look at mods done to DAC.
THx-RNMarsh
You can then look at mods done to DAC.
THx-RNMarsh
Holy war? Against blind testing? Really? Is that what you guys perceive this as?
That is kind of revealing and explains a lot. If you think that there is a holy war on blind testing (I don't think so), then the finger points as much backwards as it does forward.
Maybe this is a holy war for blind testing, not against it? And you will feel the heat if you say anything even slightly doubting its validity?
I am now seeing this in a new light, thank you.
😕 Upsampled stream should contain interpolated data and some smoothing, also different cutoff freq in output filter would add to the difference.
Richard,
I may be one of the few here with interest in this. Mr. Schulte exhibited his wares at RMAF back in 2006. It was easy to hear difference between a stock sacd player and one in which he had done his work. I might add that the same could be said for another exhibitor at the same show who was also a player modifier company.
In looking at the upgrade company website, now it seems that Mr. Schulte is all about shielding from RF/EMI. He used to be all about replacing stock passive parts with higher spec parts. He has never been about reengineering anything. And because he keeps his work proprietary and never shares anything specifically about what he does, he has never done well on audio forums.
I find it interesting that you would send your Dac unit to Mr. Schulte. And as you say, nothing changed but everything changed.
Be interesting to learn more after Mark pays you a visit.
Here's good overview of what I'm trying to say about auditory processing & says it better than I
Understanding Sound: Auditory Skill Acquisition
In other words auditory perception is dynamically creating & changing it's internal model based on the low level signal stream arriving through the auditory nerves. This internal dynamically changing auditory model is also a predictive model - predicting what sounds will come next. This is the source of mismatch negativity (MMN) - when a sound arrives which does not fit that predicted, attention/focus is drawn to it & the job of re-evaluating the internal auditory model so that the new sound fits & is no longer a mismatch to the new model.
This can happen at a number of levels - the conscious one where a sudden sound consciously captures our attention, involuntarily but it can also happen at a lower level where we are not consciously aware of the mismatch but the re-evaluation & re-modelling still occurs, requiring processing power. This is often felt as an unease or disinterest in the playback & we listen to our systems & play music less, as a result
The soundtream (playback audio stream) that has fewer or no mismatches creates less processing effort & allows us to connect more deeply with the music/sound as we are not using our limited processing resources to work out the MMN changes needed to the auditory model. We often experience this as a more relaxed listen & more interesting listen. The release of the processing resources that would otherwise be used for MMN reconciliation can now be used at a higher level to connect us more emotionally to the music/performance or just the sounds
When you see this model of auditory perception & understand its implications you begin to understand what's going on with the likes of the Ape in the midst auditory illusion & also with ABX blind testing - the cognitive load (processing power used elsewhere) affects what we perceive. In the case of the Ape audio we are asked to focus on the conversation between the females in the sound stream as they move about in a binaural soundscape. At some point a voice enters from right saying continually "I am an ape, I am an ape" & it moves slowly across the soundstage to exit on the right. A large percentage of people don't perceive this voice. This is the auditory equivalent of the visual perception video where we are asked to count the number of times a basketball is passed/bounced between people moving around in the video. AT some point a man dressed as an ape passes through this scene from right to left. Again many people do not perceive this ape when asked if there was anything unusual in the scene
In ABX testing we have a cognitive load - we are trying to focus on a particular sound in a part of a music track & hold it's character in memory while changing to another track & absorb the character of the same sound & then compare them with a third track which is either A or B (but unknown to the user) & determine which character of the aspect of sound matches A or B.The cognitive load in this process is different to our normal auditory processing. The example I gave of a real ABX test shows all of these aspects but the underlying thing to understand is that auditory perception (like all our perceptions) is a dynamically changing model of the sound it is receiving through the ears & the nerve impulses generated & received via the auditory nerves
So all that's left to do is establish how JC designs, how RNMarsh's modified DAC, how MarkW4's DAC experiments, & all the others who report similar perceptual changes to their systems - all that's left to do is figure out what aspects/characteristics in the sound waves are resulting in the same impression - all is changed - sound is more interesting/relaxed/believable - affecting us at a deeper level
Easy, huh?
Understanding Sound: Auditory Skill Acquisition
In other words auditory perception is dynamically creating & changing it's internal model based on the low level signal stream arriving through the auditory nerves. This internal dynamically changing auditory model is also a predictive model - predicting what sounds will come next. This is the source of mismatch negativity (MMN) - when a sound arrives which does not fit that predicted, attention/focus is drawn to it & the job of re-evaluating the internal auditory model so that the new sound fits & is no longer a mismatch to the new model.
This can happen at a number of levels - the conscious one where a sudden sound consciously captures our attention, involuntarily but it can also happen at a lower level where we are not consciously aware of the mismatch but the re-evaluation & re-modelling still occurs, requiring processing power. This is often felt as an unease or disinterest in the playback & we listen to our systems & play music less, as a result
The soundtream (playback audio stream) that has fewer or no mismatches creates less processing effort & allows us to connect more deeply with the music/sound as we are not using our limited processing resources to work out the MMN changes needed to the auditory model. We often experience this as a more relaxed listen & more interesting listen. The release of the processing resources that would otherwise be used for MMN reconciliation can now be used at a higher level to connect us more emotionally to the music/performance or just the sounds
When you see this model of auditory perception & understand its implications you begin to understand what's going on with the likes of the Ape in the midst auditory illusion & also with ABX blind testing - the cognitive load (processing power used elsewhere) affects what we perceive. In the case of the Ape audio we are asked to focus on the conversation between the females in the sound stream as they move about in a binaural soundscape. At some point a voice enters from right saying continually "I am an ape, I am an ape" & it moves slowly across the soundstage to exit on the right. A large percentage of people don't perceive this voice. This is the auditory equivalent of the visual perception video where we are asked to count the number of times a basketball is passed/bounced between people moving around in the video. AT some point a man dressed as an ape passes through this scene from right to left. Again many people do not perceive this ape when asked if there was anything unusual in the scene
In ABX testing we have a cognitive load - we are trying to focus on a particular sound in a part of a music track & hold it's character in memory while changing to another track & absorb the character of the same sound & then compare them with a third track which is either A or B (but unknown to the user) & determine which character of the aspect of sound matches A or B.The cognitive load in this process is different to our normal auditory processing. The example I gave of a real ABX test shows all of these aspects but the underlying thing to understand is that auditory perception (like all our perceptions) is a dynamically changing model of the sound it is receiving through the ears & the nerve impulses generated & received via the auditory nerves
So all that's left to do is establish how JC designs, how RNMarsh's modified DAC, how MarkW4's DAC experiments, & all the others who report similar perceptual changes to their systems - all that's left to do is figure out what aspects/characteristics in the sound waves are resulting in the same impression - all is changed - sound is more interesting/relaxed/believable - affecting us at a deeper level
Easy, huh?
Why would you think some charlatan with a chintzy website full of statements like the following can upgrade a Benchmark DAC3? There is literally nothing on his website that I can see to indicate actual experience in mitigating EMC issues or any test equipment beyond a blurry shot of a sine wave off what looks to be a Tek 2xxx series scope.
From his site:
"RCA caps such as these INCREASE airborne RFI collection due to the sharp metal 360 degree edge which attracts RF like a magnet out of the airwaves. Total RF into the RCA jack is INCREASED. No wonder audiophiles never liked these."
LOL
The Upgrade Company - EMI/RFI
He's also a promoter of quack medicine.
I am surprised someone with your background would explore such an obvious scam.
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Stunning, Mr. Marsh is proud of his involvement in LLNL and promotes this nonsense.
Read more, unbelievable, it's like the Dr. Bronners soap label.
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I too am interested in what RFI/EMI treatment will be found in the DAC but I'm particularly interested in your more detailed impressions of the change in sound, Richard
When you said i had to refund or redesign amps that have the ability to show or hide sound information, I assumed you thought the amp was wrongly designed.
The big question has always been: when there are differences in amps sound, which one is the 'correct' one? Of course, for you, it is important to ask first if there exist differences.
There is another similar statement: "Good amps tend to sound the same. If one amp marked to sound differently it is most probably because it is wrongly designed". People are confused. I'm not.
+/- 120 volts AC WTF .Don't think so. Richard seems to trust that people's reports of hearing audio sound quality improvements following modifications usually tend to be reliable. More on the skeptical side, myself.
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