This is a test done in 1984 that shows a consumer level AD/DA chain has no audible influence on a "reasonably high end" LP system:
Boston Audio Society - ABX Testing article
Boston Audio Society - ABX Testing article
And so? Have you read what is written in your quote? How do you QUANTIFY the MUSICAL performance with that sucking comparison? You are still chasing after electric signals....
mohammed li
please post a comment of your own, and not just an empty post with a quote
moderation
please post a comment of your own, and not just an empty post with a quote
moderation
No I am just suggesting that you cannot say anything about musical performance by means of electric signals.
Until measurements explain the differences I hear, there is a gap in what is being measured and what is heard.
Just like the perfect amplifier with vanishingly low distortion was sold in the 1970’s. Then they discovered TIM which explained why they measured well but did not sound very good.
Different speakers that measure very flat in response but sound totally different.
Digital jitter was discovered that affected the sound even though it was perfect sound forever when CD first came out.
I have done the experiment of AD then DA of phono output and then connected the phono direct into the amp. No comparison, the direct connection is clearly superior (this is within the past 12 months).
This was not a quick A/B, I was using the AD DA for many years as I needed some digital equalization for my speakers. I then modified the speakers so the equalization was no longer required which then allowed AD DA with no equalization versus direct connection (not bypass mode but directly connected to the amp). It didn’t matter what volume levels the direct connection is clearly better.
Rapid switching between alternatives is not a reliable test as you are listening for differences rather than in a normal listening mode.
Many recordings on CD are different to the same recording on LP. Slightly different equalizations are often used as the original test tones on master tapes are missing. Some CD’s sound better than the LP but quite often the LP sounds better.
An argument based on known current measurements ignores differences heard and the lack of total correlation to those measurements.
Wayne
Just like the perfect amplifier with vanishingly low distortion was sold in the 1970’s. Then they discovered TIM which explained why they measured well but did not sound very good.
Different speakers that measure very flat in response but sound totally different.
Digital jitter was discovered that affected the sound even though it was perfect sound forever when CD first came out.
I have done the experiment of AD then DA of phono output and then connected the phono direct into the amp. No comparison, the direct connection is clearly superior (this is within the past 12 months).
This was not a quick A/B, I was using the AD DA for many years as I needed some digital equalization for my speakers. I then modified the speakers so the equalization was no longer required which then allowed AD DA with no equalization versus direct connection (not bypass mode but directly connected to the amp). It didn’t matter what volume levels the direct connection is clearly better.
Rapid switching between alternatives is not a reliable test as you are listening for differences rather than in a normal listening mode.
Many recordings on CD are different to the same recording on LP. Slightly different equalizations are often used as the original test tones on master tapes are missing. Some CD’s sound better than the LP but quite often the LP sounds better.
An argument based on known current measurements ignores differences heard and the lack of total correlation to those measurements.
Wayne
Many thanks for perfectly demonstrating the claim that digital has some unmeasurable undefined unknown-to-science distortion which is missing from analogue (where the measurable well-defined explicable distortions are all too obvious). Occam's Razor demands that it is precisely the analogue distortion which is the issue: this is missing from digital and it is this lack which some people perceive as something nasty added.fas42 said:
Pure hogwash, unless you/he were using the term 'kinetic energy' with some new non-scientific meaning. In LP it is velocity which is turned into sound (assuming MM or MC cartridge) not energy.davym said:
That is the naive "it is simpler so it must be better" approach. If you needed heart surgery would you prefer a simple, old-fashioned surgeon with a set of knives and saws (and no anaesthetist) or the complications of a modern hospital?
Curiously, they are precisely the issues where LP is markedly inferior to even the cheapest CD player! The amazing thing about LP is that it can sound quite good despite its significant problems. This suggests that the people who fuss over much smaller problems with CD just need to get out more often.murphythecat8 said:
There's one slight flaw in your analysis - having become aware, quite some time ago, how these artifacts affecting digital playback can intrude, I've spent a great deal of effort tracking down the various causes. So, if apply myself to tweaking the system I end up with "non-nasty" digital - job done!
The causes are not mysterious, they are just not obvious, they don't pop up their heads for easy inspection when a white coat comes along with his big measuring tool ... 🙂. Which is not the same thing as them not being there ...
This makes no sense. You can listen to a recording of a piece of music, and you can tell what the piece is, what instruments are being used, recognise the voice of a famous singer, and so on. If you are a music critic type, you can even judge the quality of the performance. I hear that non-audiophiles are even capable of enjoying music played back on cheap systems. 🙂
It is true that we don't fully understand the correlation between objective measurements made on electric signals, and subjective impressions of sound quality. But I think we do understand it slightly, and the understanding is deepening all the time.
All the evidence IMO points to "worse is better". LP is perceived as more involving and exciting than digital because it has more distortion.
Somebody above mentioned that an A/D and D/A conversion is audible, but this contradicts the findings of other, larger, blind trials. Maybe there was something slightly wrong with the digital equipment used in this particular trial.
How can we be sure that your tweaks have not simply introduced analogue-like distortions into your digital system?fas42 said:
Something I noticed a few years ago is that some highly-rated audio items have schoolboy errors in their circuits, and sometimes schoolboy errors in the accompanying story. These may even show up in a review if it has decent measurements - but then usually explained away in the subjective comment. Then there are the people who add a poorly-designed 'tube buffer' to their digital system to add 'tube warmth'. This all builds up the same picture: euphonic distortion. A decent hi-fi system lacks this so some people find it "boring".
Those aren't schoolboy errors! They're the truth that us white coats are too blinkered by science to see! 😉
Or at least that's what the designer and the mugs who bought the thing will argue.
Or at least that's what the designer and the mugs who bought the thing will argue.
Ohhh! You must listen. That's the only way.
You will never understand the correlation simply because the MATHEMATICAL basis for physical sound and musical sound is different. Physical sound lives in the INVARIANT world. You can apply Fourier and all the other tools. Musical sound only lives in a non-invariant world because you have to put a listener in the chain and thus physics cannot describe it. Never. Invariance is a basic requirement for physics. In other words for a given problem with boundary conditions you will NEVER get a unique response it you try to explain music by means of physics and mathematics. The solution will never be unique. So it is useless to push in this direction (i.e. find correlations at any rate). One will just find empirically technical sulutions which point is the right direction but listening is the one and only instrument to judge the musical sound.
On the other side invariance is a fundamental hypothesis for the Fourier analysis. If this hypothesis doesn't stand you cannot use it. It is just simple as that. In between the two worlds one might put the physiological sound but again this can even cause more confusion than clarification and still will not give any definitive response.
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"Musical sound only lives in a non-invariant world because you have to put a listener in the chain and thus physics cannot describe it"
So the music does not exist without a listener?
So falling distant trees make no sound, etc?
Very Zen. I take it you have never designed anything, but maybe built something?
So the music does not exist without a listener?
So falling distant trees make no sound, etc?
Very Zen. I take it you have never designed anything, but maybe built something?
Yes, that's why we have to use double blind testing.
Hi-fi equipment doesn't understand the psychoacoustic content of the music. If Yo-Yo Ma is playing a sad cello piece, no hi-fi in the world will make him sound happy.
It is simple electrical equipment, so all it can do to the signal is some pretty gross transformations, such as modifying the frequency response and adding distortion.
The equipment, the transformations it makes to the signal, and the sound waves coming out of it, live in what you call the invariant world. So us scientists argue that the tools of the invariant world are the appropriate ones to study it.
Mapping between sound waves in the invariant world, and sense impressions in the psychoacoustic world, is a separate task. That is where blind testing comes in, to find the sense impressions that do actually correlate with the sound waves, as opposed to the ones that are figments of the listener's imagination.
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Unless another person can directly listen to the system, probably it would be difficult to be "sure". I go by various markers, which in essence revolve around the ability to be able to hear more detail, to have the various elements in the recordings more clearly stand apart, without there being an unpleasant edge to the sound. A very telling playback guide is listening to a typical, energetic, very cluttered rock recording: I specifically listen to the quality of the cymbals - a poor system will usually project a hissy, white noise like mush for these; as the tweaking progresses that sound steadily evolves into sounding like the real thing - I find it hard to imagine triggering a distortion mechanism capable of that sort of 'magic' ...
Exactly what goes into cutting head, and into ADC; and exactly what comes out of phono cartridge and DAC: electrical signals. Electrical signal that know nothing about what they are, be it music or test signals.
Music signals going into ADC are identical to music signals coming out of DAC to much higher level than musical signals going into cutting head and coming out of phono cartridge.
It's all just information and the accuracy with which it is stored and retrieved.
Vinyl chain is simply inferior to digital chain.
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