Component audibility. Fact or fiction ?

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Barleywater, Pavel and others... I know I have said this before but I am in awe of the skills you guys have in looking and working with these type of files. .

Mooly, I've listened to the current track sorry nothing of note from me. What am I looking for, I have no Supertramp records and never listen to any of their music so I have no reference?

On the original two cuts (the music was FAR preferable) I had no preference. The bothersome passages were in both samples, to me of course.
 
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Scott if you haven't already read the rest of the thread (and therefore seen the answers) There are actually multiple tracks from different cd players spliced together in the one track. So what you are looking for is any change in the sound character as the track progresses.

This was revealed as a hint before the final details (ie what and when) were revealed.

Tony.
 
Mooly, I've listened to the current track sorry nothing of note from me. What am I looking for, I have no Supertramp records and never listen to any of their music so I have no reference?

On the original two cuts (the music was FAR preferable) I had no preference. The bothersome passages were in both samples, to me of course.

Hi Scott... where were you up to ? This was the last track in the set, post #62

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/ever...nt-audibility-fact-fiction-4.html#post3809891

The same link to the track is here,
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yn05r2tmv6h86ya/The Directors Cut_Has It Got Rythmm And Soul.wav

Opinions are still welcome if you want to give it a listen.
 
Hi Mooly, I got back from a customer trip since the 6th and read this last page now - I take the same advice you gave Scott and downloaded the song you mention above.

I am no audiophile, I do not have Foobar or any other Bars this is what I think I hear.

The first 2/3 is fine except in the beginning "s" sounds like "th" thus not very good resolution otherwise it is quite listenable, later on the muted trumpet sounds awfull like compression in other words you have recorded it too loud and tried to normalise the volume after it was recorded. This also made the singers voice sound too loud or too in your face with reference the supporting sound.

Sorry I responded only today. My take for what its worth.
 
Hi Nico and thanks for listening. I think from what I remember of the original that a touch of harshness or as you say compression might creep in as the track gets a bit more musically complex.

The real eye opener is that here we have samples from the absolute pits (supposedly) to a well respected audiophile player. It seems on casual listening via the this test method that differences don't stand out as much as you might think.
 
Okl I listened, I sort of agree with 5th Element, something was wrong with the trumpet solo, the vocals had a little of that vintage ribbon mike quality. Not hearing the original I'm not sure about anything else.

EDIT - Went back and peeked, not sure I detected distinct changes with each section.
 
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I am sure that Karl intentionally caused gain compression with the last 2/3 to create odd order harmonics of quite a high levels then using some kind of track leveling to mask the effect see if we can actually recognize the distortion.... Right?
 
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I need to remind you that you have some imperfect PC A/D soundcard recording in the chain. It wipes differences out and determines the resulting quality.

Indeed... a fact I am acutely aware of 🙂 The AD convertor is just the inbuilt soundcard in a Dell Vostro 3750. Subjectively good though in its own right. The difference between ripped and recorded wasn't so obvious in the Supertramp test track I tried out first on everyone. That was a little test in its own right to see just what any big differences audible differences might be.
 
I am sure that Karl intentionally caused gain compression with the last 2/3 to create odd order harmonics of quite a high levels then using some kind of track leveling to mask the effect see if we can actually recognize the distortion.... Right?

Not at all Nico. I used a Philips test track of -10db ripped to the PC as a reference. I played the rip back on the PC and noted the level on a scope. The same disc was then played on the various players and recorded via the A/D and again played back. Record levels were set to match the original rip.

Maybe a comparison of rip vs recorded for this track would have set minds at rest... but you all (mostly... with a few notable exceptions) use software to analyse, analyse, analyse and so would pick and base comments on that basis. That is why I had to resort to a single file... nothing to compare against 😀
 
In that case I would assume that the original recording may be gain compressed because the engineer overcompensated for the muted trumpet. If that was the case or all three pieces contained the muted trumpet equally distorted they would sound the same.
 
If you were to use the Supertramp track for this exercise all but maybe Frank might have picked it up simply because they are over driving their guitars from outset which is far more distortion than any playback audio equipment would normally generate. If you were to use a track from ZZ top I doubt if even Frank would know the difference.

If you used a track from seasick Steve that sounds distorted but is actually an un=amplified acoustic guitar this recognition process becomes even more difficult. Mooly look for Seasick Steve, he is a rather good musician despite being a total drunken bum.
 
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I have satisfied myself that there may be subtle differences in components which is far more difficult or near impossible to audibly recognise. Besides now we must ask ourselves after not being able to tell a difference - which one is better. Hmmmm....
 
Interesting that people feel there is a problem with the recording, especially the trumpet - I'm using that download right now, on repeat - at the maximum volume the PC can do cleanly, to warm things up. As I mentioned in my first comments, this is a recording that can be played at monstrous volumes, even though this version has been heavily doctored, 😀, the intrinsic capture is excellent.

As regards warmup, this also demonstrates that there is a benefit, such that even a total audio "dummy", 😛, can pick it. The volume is such that at the beginning of the track the vocals are right on the ragged edge of overloading the speakers, the sound momentarily goes slighty glitchy, scratchy - as each repeat goes through this quick stumble gets less and less, it very audibly handles this momentary stress better - after an hour or so, at the same volume, this issue will be completely absent.
 
I play the trumpet and I assure a muted trumpet even full of spit does not sound that bad. I can tell the difference between many different brands of similar instruments quite easily but not when being reproduced by different electronics simply because you are listening to a recording engineers interpretation of how he wants it to sound when he captured the event.

One must keep in mind that a recording engineers job is to make something sound as pleasant as possible and all he has between the artist and his ears are 100s of meters of wire, 100s of op-amps, bad quality slider pots, amplifiers of dubious origin and a pair of small monitor speakers on the wall.

From what he hears he must tweak it so it sounds acceptable - in this case he did not do a great job. No this has absolutely nothing to do with Mooly, he just captured what was presented by whatever reproducing electronics he had. Does the electronics sound that different - I think not. Would a recording contain most the flaws in a performance - most probably.
 
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