Just like when you hear your wife calling you from the bathroom (asking for a towel 😀 ). You KNOW (or believe, but not suspect, but it's up to you anyway 🙂 ) it's your wife without even seeing her lips moving.
And the time WHEN this "suspicion" turns into "knowledge" is different from one to another, correct?
Do a blind test, and YOU will know how good or how bad your ability to hear differences. Then if you have good ability, naturally it is easier for you to understand. Or if you don't have the ability, you have to avoid narcissism (according to Richard. Surprising isn't it, how ordinary people can understand Psychology more than Psychologists), projecting your limitation onto others.
But again you say that something is wrong with CDs - "cantatas music" not rendered well, that is distortion, pure and simple - in simple terms, LP has "obvious" distortion, CD replay often has subtle, "invisible" distortion. When the CD is rendered properly, then you fall off your chair, the quality of it knocks you over.
Playing numbers games, with the typical ways of measuring distortion, will not shine any light on what's going on ...
What gets me is that "attitude" is reeking from every pore - or, they come across as if they're scared of their own shadow ... the least "normal" people that I've bumped in to, 😛.
It depends on which 'school' though - my trainer was Freudian, they're the most self-absorbed. I've a good friend in the Rogerian school who's relatively normal (as far as its possible for a psychological professional to be normal which isn't very far) and as charming as they come.
Frank uses his own term for "distortion". Using common terminology, you are right with your perception.
You can try to get the best of both worlds. We know what a vinyl is obviously lacking, so we can try to improve on what a CD is lacking...
Vinyl has more resolution. Complex music like Classics needs this. Redbook CD can only provide you 16-bit resolution. You can choose different CD format then... (same with sample rate).
But the problem with (up)sampling is to filter the HF output. Perfect filter is what we want...
These isolators (based on the Adum chips) are used on many interfaces where this has NEVER happened, if it did there would be major problems in some devices out in the world. Send other file types through and see if you get a difference....
The other problem is that the data is not just music data, but also the packet data, so any change would have to be very specific and work out which bit to change to get the same result every time.
If it is USB in USB out send through files and do a bit match on them.
What is the specific make of the USB isolator...
Think further about your last statement and then think of computers and all the other digital systems, when something does go wrong it is obvious, either the system crashes or you get a corrupt file... this does not happen that often, to get a regular repeatable change requires the data to be actively changed by a processor of FPGA etc.
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Technically, you believe it (with an extremely high probability of being later validated in your belief), you don't know it. Nothing wrong in that, 99% of our day to day life is based on educated beliefs and when one say that he knows something, that's this kind of belief one often means. If I may, the book "The meaning of truth" by William James is a classic and good read about beliefs and their validation.
When your belief is validated by another, less fleeting experience, yes.
My limitations have nothing to do with what I'm saying. I could have the best ears, the greatest experience, the best judgement in the world and that would change nothing. The knowledge of my abilities is great but it does not tell me with certainty if I'm right in a particular case, just how likely I am to be right. If someone tells me in that particular case "you're wrong", I need a stronger argument than the general belief in my ability.
Narcissim is a pathology which has nothing to do with the topic either, please don't fall in time wasting debating tricks. Such ad hominem arguments are childish.
The question is to know how one can share meaningly what he heard in the context of a technical (almost scientific) discussion. If we (collectively) want it to be a fruitful and meaningful discussion, we need more than just "I heard".
I agree - if we're serious about doing science we need a falsifiable qualititative description of what's heard and the detailed conditions under which it was heard too. Then others have enough details to try the experiment for themselves.
Marce, A DAC does not need the level of bit perfection when receiving data that is needed when making a file copy.
"Isochronous Transfers
Isochronous transfers occur continuously and periodically. They typically contain time sensitive information, such as an audio or video stream. If there were a delay or retry of data in an audio stream, then you would expect some erratic audio containing glitches. The beat may no longer be in sync. However if a packet or frame was dropped every now and again, it is less likely to be noticed by the listener."
http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb4.shtml
"Isochronous Transfers
Isochronous transfers occur continuously and periodically. They typically contain time sensitive information, such as an audio or video stream. If there were a delay or retry of data in an audio stream, then you would expect some erratic audio containing glitches. The beat may no longer be in sync. However if a packet or frame was dropped every now and again, it is less likely to be noticed by the listener."
http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb4.shtml
Yes, true. There 's nothing wrong with that. "Kind of beliefs", "types of beliefs"... such grouping is often needed for educational purposes. It doesn't change anything, just to make it simpler and easier for the less intelligent people to understand.
Thanks for the reference. Will find out about it later (hopefully something free 😀 ). It sounds interesting. To tell you the truth, I have been "there". Finding and validating beliefs and truth. I have read many bibles too. So I don't know who is this William James, someone who has walked the path or just a theorist.
I don't use debating tricks. It's nothing to do with you, but human characteristics where they project their limitation onto others are real, and this makes discussion harder.
It's like some people with average intelligence who really believe that if they cannot do something, there must be nobody who can do it. It's not in them, the ability to think like "Okay, he's a Grandmaster, and I'm only 2000 ELO, there must be something in what he says, even tho I cannot see the truth in it right now".
The ability to think like the above is important if we want to learn and improve, right?
Not everyone wants a meaningful discussion. Even if that is what we want, sometimes each of us have their own terrible agenda. We feel being attacked, and we attack back, and nobody is perfect 😀
Sure, it was a bit tongue in cheeck what I wrote, but it remains mysterious. It is not the power supply btw. I tried to redo some measurements yesterday, but the funky piece of crap died on me. All for the best. I can live with a soundcard that does .006 % THD in loop-back in direct connection with the USB port on my PC.
Pity it broke, it would have been interesting to find what was going on, but it was probably on its way out by the sounds of it.
I too prefer vinyl over cd for some music.
However that is where any similarity ends as I like vinyl for rock (Ramones come to mind) because of the added distortion and noise and its general down'n'dirtiness.
For classical of any description I very much prefer the greater resolution, better stereo separation and relative lack of distortion of cd.
Yes, this is still the tricky part - with a normal audio setup with distinct, separate speakers this would be straightforward to test, though still messy - I've already mentioned the procedure, which I just realised could be done with Harmon speaker testing facility - I was thinking that the user would need to be moved, but if the movement of the speakers was completely silent then that very type of mechanism could be used.
This follows on from the complete disappearing of the speakers as an audible source, with convincing sound: so, set up a conventional stereo playback speaker arrangement, behind curtains; play a true mono track through the speakers; do so with the stereo pair centred with respect to the listener, and then shift in step the pair of speaker sideways varying amounts, and ask the listener where the sound is coming from. With competent sound the image of the performance always remains directly in front of the listener, it does not shift with the speakers.
On the laptop it gets mighty close to this - surprisingly close ... 🙂.
Well, no? You can't experience something without already having an opinion, and you can't form an opinion without experience.
The whole point of a blind test is to minimize the amount of opinions prior to having the experience, leading to an opinion that is mostly formed from the experience itself.
I can't see that the first claim is true - like to give a worked example?
Not my understanding of blind testing. I don't see how opinions get changed by the test, it seems to me the point is to minimize perceptual cross-talk where whatever opinions a person already has about the items being listened to they're not activated. Hence hopefully don't feed into (colour) what the person hears.
If you've not looked at it, view the video(s) on YouTube dealing with the McGurk effect. Then ask yourself a question - did I hear that spoken syllable change when I was looking at the video, compared to listening to the audio alone?
Power cables made from expensive materials.
There's no way these cables can make an amplifier sound any better. It's simply not possible. But the person who bought the cable expect it to give better sound, and therefore the sound actually DOES get better, but only inside the person's head. The actual sound produced by the amplifier is exactly the same as when a cheap power cable is being used, but the power of expectation/opinion is great enough to make an improvement in sound quality "real", despite that it isn't.
Isn't that exactly what I'm describing?
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