You mean the original "Opal"and "Ruby" ? It was the Moody Blues circa 1968,
Moody Blues On The Threshold Of A Dream 11 Have You Heard Part I - YouTube
The latest two part test track was "Fossils" from Carnival of the animals by Saint Saens"
We have basically similar conclusion but mine is already many years old. And I didn't think it's the poor hardware. Believe me, I seem to have more experience in using poor hardware (you can tell that from the fact that I have hundreds of amps at home).
The direct will never win if the respondents are men from the street. Sota preamps can make sound becomes "better". The only problems are added fatigue (technically distortions) and less musicality.
"Amateurs" tend to "hear" the music, that's why they use active crossovers and such. "Experienced" ones "feel" the music. And you really have to feel it if you want to find superiority of the direct sound. But to feel is many times more difficult than to hear.
All these A - Z files have a detectable noise, best audible in the beginning and in the lowest volume parts of the files. Regarding 'A', it sounds like noise, though not white noise. In B, Y and Z there are chirps and low-level modulations audible. Very low level, but audible. This is probably a digital conversion artifact or intermodulation. One has to turn volume up and use headphones.
Thanks for the kind words Pavel. Its been a really interesting couple of weeks.
I know I preferred the non original Bach file when listening via headphones. I seemed able to extract more detail from that, perhaps a case of the mind trying to fill in gaps... I don't know... but that was the recording that gave me most pleasure. Similarly I have three Beethoven piano sonata cycles by Alfred Brendel and it is always the late 70's version I come back to with its slight tape hiss and softer sound. The super clean and dynamic digital set doesn't hold me the same way.
Over the years I have found that amps vary considerably in their ability to hold a listener and to be non fatiguing over a long period... and this is what I personally look for.
I made both my decisions based on the quality of the noise, in the case of Y and Z without actually listening to the music beyond the initial couple of seconds.
I picked the one of the A/B pair with the lower frequency noise out of principle.
I picked Y over Z any day because the noise in Y is whiteish whereas in Z it is really unpleasant.
In this case, the decisions have nothing to do with ATRACK compression, they are simply based on the quality of the noise introduced.
It's easily audible and I can point it out in the spectrums when I have time.
I picked the one of the A/B pair with the lower frequency noise out of principle.
I picked Y over Z any day because the noise in Y is whiteish whereas in Z it is really unpleasant.
In this case, the decisions have nothing to do with ATRACK compression, they are simply based on the quality of the noise introduced.
It's easily audible and I can point it out in the spectrums when I have time.
Every time being in a blind test, I always smiled to see people looked down like in meditation. I prefer to look around me, sometimes read a book. When there's a good sound I will automatically attracted to the sound. Also when I see everybody was moving their body, tapping their feet, I knew that the DUT would win 🙂
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This is why I said its a valid result for you 🙂 Because its how you determine what you like. The whole point of all these tests is to decide by listening, not looking for noise/artifacts or whatever with software.
You go to buy a new CD player or speakers or an amplifier... you listen... its how you make your choice.
In ALL the tests, I decided by listening before looking at the spectra to find out what you had done wrong with the recording.
The basic problem is that you have failed to construct properly controlled tests.
If you wanted to investigate the audible effect of ATRACK compression, you should have done a pass in software which would not have introduced such a significant noise component.
Change one variable at a time right?
Don't like the 3 months education time Schedule, but If it can get system more truth it's worth, i will try it some time. Thanks
Regards Ricky
Lets make one thing very clear: I only care about how things sound,
Objective measurements can be very misleading, I've posted very different looking sound files that sound exactly the same. And on the other hand, wave shapes that look almost identical can sound very different.
But before you even start listening, you want to make sure your subjective measurement has value. Therefore you measure objectively the DUT, so that it meats certain criteria like same RMS level, same length and same starting point.
Most people will say its a bit silly, if you solder random resistor values in your diy project and expect it to work perfectly. But this is basically what you do with these listening tests.
Speculation again.
Look, I was the only one who had provided a set of mesurements on the whole chain in my listening test.
Look, I was the only one who had provided a set of mesurements on the whole chain in my listening test.
heb1001, based on listening, what do you hear from this file? Hear, without FFT.
Comments of others appreciated as well.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rbsetjaw0s0ur7s/sigtest.wav
I would expect the highs to be wrecked by the noise. The highs are normally where the noise effect is most apparent. Increased harmonic interference=increased roughness in the highs.
I know this from my tube amp where introducing a ground loop always wrecks the clarity of the highs.
So given that I know already that the ground loop is going to have a significant impact, how can I attribute any differences I hear to between the ATRACK and the recording issues?
It's a bit pointless, frankly.
That is good because listening is what its all about, and your comments were based on that in that you preferred the MD playback. That is a perfectly valid result. You didn't like the "noise" in the original and "Z" turned your stomach.
(and you did say the files were not to bad and that I had done something right 🙂)
I admit I am no statistician and have no experience of conducting any comparative tests before these, however there is nothing stopping anyone conducting and running a poll with files/equipment and methodology of their own choosing. Even Pavels tests which are far more meticulously prepared and matched in level than mine have come in for constant criticism too.
I don't quite follow you on this one. I couldn't have made the recording any "better" as it was a direct digital (optical) feed into the recorder. Playback was direct into the PC. Laptop was on battery in all cases and so there are no odd ground loop or inductive coupling effects to worry over. Playback of the MiniDisc was what a listener would hear. Some of you preferred it.
Again you mention "software" and that isn't what any of this is about.
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