I can hear single opamps and I can hear differences between dacs. In my case its mostly because I listen for clues resulting from small nonlinearities. While it may be hard for members of the general public to hear such things, I personally don't think its unusual among people that tend to populate audio forums. IMHO, there is simply some fraction of the general population whose brains notice small differences in sounds. The fraction may be small enough that most research hasn't picked it up, and or results from such people may have been discarded as outliers by researchers (expectation/experimenter bias).
Also, a very personal experience is that my grown son was not by nature able to hear small differences despite being a reasonably well rounded musician. Over a period of about a year I repeatedly pointed out small audible effects/defects to him on our stereo. Eventually, he learned to recognize every small sound I told him about and after a few additional years he is starting to notice some additional types for himself.
One big confounder in the subject area is that some people who claim to hear differences really do not listen carefully nor are they able to pass fair testing (trickery is unfair and extremely biased to a particular desired outcome). Those are the ones who buy silly over-priced gear that does not deliver on its claims. Unfortunately, there are too many of them in the general population. On this forum my impression is that there are more careful listeners than careless ones, but there are some of both. Please don't make the mistake of stereotyping all people as being the same, stereotyping is way over-used around here too much of the time.
EDIT: Since I mentioned testing above, I need to also say that most of the careful listeners can be trained to pass ABX or preferably A/B blind testing. It is harder than sighted testing and it takes some practice to learn how to do it well blind. Novices subjected to ABX without proper training will produce a relatively high amount of false-negatives. A/B is known to produce less false negatives and should probably be used preferentially when possible.
There are more thoughts and experiences that could be talked about, but will stop here for now
Also, a very personal experience is that my grown son was not by nature able to hear small differences despite being a reasonably well rounded musician. Over a period of about a year I repeatedly pointed out small audible effects/defects to him on our stereo. Eventually, he learned to recognize every small sound I told him about and after a few additional years he is starting to notice some additional types for himself.
One big confounder in the subject area is that some people who claim to hear differences really do not listen carefully nor are they able to pass fair testing (trickery is unfair and extremely biased to a particular desired outcome). Those are the ones who buy silly over-priced gear that does not deliver on its claims. Unfortunately, there are too many of them in the general population. On this forum my impression is that there are more careful listeners than careless ones, but there are some of both. Please don't make the mistake of stereotyping all people as being the same, stereotyping is way over-used around here too much of the time.
EDIT: Since I mentioned testing above, I need to also say that most of the careful listeners can be trained to pass ABX or preferably A/B blind testing. It is harder than sighted testing and it takes some practice to learn how to do it well blind. Novices subjected to ABX without proper training will produce a relatively high amount of false-negatives. A/B is known to produce less false negatives and should probably be used preferentially when possible.
There are more thoughts and experiences that could be talked about, but will stop here for now
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I don't feel special, if that is what you are implying.
The general public is the majority of the population that listens to recorded music. They have been studied to model what humans on average find to be acceptable sound quality. I didn't involve them, other people already have.
Only with a very specific fast switching protocol and (as you have admitted) your ear stuck right in the speaker. whilst I am happy to accept (pending a sample greater than two having tried this) that there is a possible method here to enhance sensitivity, it infers inaudibility when listening to music.
Well makes a change from wife in the kitchen!
Bill, that was with recordings of single opamps. So many layers of masking going on it was incredibly difficult. I came up with a protocol to fit the difficulty of the circumstances.
Now I have a much lower distortion reproduction chain here, and listening to an opamp right here is *far* easier that listening to one in a recording. Same for dacs, I would expect recordings of dacs to be hard to tell apart as compared to in-person.
Actually, I'm surprised I have to explain the above to you. Seems quite obvious to me.
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By the way, if anyone wants to try their hand at listening to recordings of devices, years ago Lynn Fuston, a recording engineer with an online presence, made a CD of various ADCs so that other people looking for an ADC could get an idea of their audible differences. I bought it for $35 and listened to it every day because I already got burned twice with ADCs I didn't end up liking and therefore got rid of.
The recorded ADCs were very hard to tell apart at 16/44, although some of them more than others. I was determined to listen until I knew which ones I could be happy with.
In later years after that happened, the ADCD as it was called, was sold online for $5 with the 16/44 wave files all downloadable. I bought a copy of that too in case I wanted to train anyone else to hear the differences. I still have the files on a back disk up somewhere. Since the 3D audio website seems to be gone or down, there is apparently no place to buy the $5 collection of files any more. Therefore, I would be willing to let a few people try learning to hear the small differences at 16/44 via borrowing my copy. A feature of the CD/files is that the names are obfuscated so they can be used for self-blind testing. There is a decoding table in the pamphlet included in the CD jewel case (also a downloadable copy of it with the audio file downloads). I warn people though, some of the recordings are very difficult distinguish from one another and it will take practice at careful listening to hear their differences. The good news is one can acquire a new skill or improve an existing one.
The recorded ADCs were very hard to tell apart at 16/44, although some of them more than others. I was determined to listen until I knew which ones I could be happy with.
In later years after that happened, the ADCD as it was called, was sold online for $5 with the 16/44 wave files all downloadable. I bought a copy of that too in case I wanted to train anyone else to hear the differences. I still have the files on a back disk up somewhere. Since the 3D audio website seems to be gone or down, there is apparently no place to buy the $5 collection of files any more. Therefore, I would be willing to let a few people try learning to hear the small differences at 16/44 via borrowing my copy. A feature of the CD/files is that the names are obfuscated so they can be used for self-blind testing. There is a decoding table in the pamphlet included in the CD jewel case (also a downloadable copy of it with the audio file downloads). I warn people though, some of the recordings are very difficult distinguish from one another and it will take practice at careful listening to hear their differences. The good news is one can acquire a new skill or improve an existing one.
No at all, I still do some self-blind testing, and or blind test others. Don't know how/why you draw so many flawed conclusions.
To make it very clear: What I was claiming is that less masking distortion and noise makes it easier to spot a difference. Again, I should think that would be obvious.
That's the crux of his claims. Have you noticed that he won't disclose the details of his DAC listening test setup?
Probably meaning that it needs to be confirmed.
Your contribution to OP's question is...?
No such case in real life to cite. So, you are just saying this, as in speculation.
Don't know. They are electrostats, so probably similar to other electrostats. I suspect most of the distortion in them comes from the step up transformers that turn amplifier outputs into high voltage.
For low level distortion listening I would probably use headphones. Audeze LCD-X are very good, and so is the Neurochrome HP-1 used to drive them. LCD-X
Nothing that bothered you here?
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/AudezeLCDXSN7454971.pdf
LCD-X (Fazor) | DIY-Audio-Heaven :
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/AudezeLCDXSN7454971.pdf
LCD-X (Fazor) | DIY-Audio-Heaven :
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You left out: "The distortion is impressively low. About the same levels of the LCD-3
Below the same plot except shown in percentages." that was just above the graph you posted.
And also: "Do note that some of the distortion ‘spikes’ may well have been caused by sounds in the demo room from ears unlimited when it was measured there. When it would have been measured in a very quiet room the results may well have been somewhat better." That was written just under the same graph.
Anyway, no claims they are perfect. They are very good though, much easier to hear small details than if using the other HPs here, e.g. Sennheiser, etc. Good cans, recommended.
Below the same plot except shown in percentages." that was just above the graph you posted.
And also: "Do note that some of the distortion ‘spikes’ may well have been caused by sounds in the demo room from ears unlimited when it was measured there. When it would have been measured in a very quiet room the results may well have been somewhat better." That was written just under the same graph.
Anyway, no claims they are perfect. They are very good though, much easier to hear small details than if using the other HPs here, e.g. Sennheiser, etc. Good cans, recommended.
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You are missing scottjoplin's point.
Compare LCD-3 distortion figures with the cheapest DAC you have.At the price this would result in "high level distortion listening" from my wife... but dare to do it... h'mm ... are they noise cancelling?
That was the old Quad tagline. Perhaps the term hi-fi has outlived its usefulness.
Most, if not all, of what I own are hifi enough to meet my needs. Perhaps you have a candidate for the role of reference that we can all agree on.
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