If you want to see the forest I suggest doing some blind testing of your own, these days its not too difficult to bo automated ABX testing with a computer to compare between recordings and find out what your ears can really detect (note that once you do blind testing you start to measure what the ear is capably of, rather than the ego 🙂.
Expectation bias can only be eliminated by blind testing (double-blind if other people are present), and its an extremely powerful confounding effect in auditory perception. Even your eyes can make your ears lie to you (McGurk effect).
However it won't help with tape or vinyl as the hiss and surface noise are dead give-aways - you always know if its digital or analog, so will always be biased, irrespective of which actually is a better recording!
Consider this experiment - you place a bet that you can distinguish a real orchestra from a recording of one:
You are blindfolded. You hear an orchestra - or is it a sound-reproduction system playing a recording of the orchestra? If you can't tell in a statistically significant manner, the sound reproduction is high quality for sure and you lose the bet. You will always be able to tell a vinyl or tape recording from a real orchestra due to the hiss and surface noise, so they have no chance of passing this test (even if the sound-stage is great) and you win the bet. A digital recording might be able to fool you. I suspect a 2-channel recording won't pass, but 5.1 might have a chance.
Wrong.
Digital technology is transparant, meaning that people can’t hear a difference between input and output. With some exeptions like nos converters.
The test is simple:
Dac output into dac input and record. Then repeat this with the recording you just mad over and over.
This process adds artefact ontop of artefact. Even with the cheapest of gear, you need 20 repetitions before artefacts become audible In abx tests.
Of course I have done so already. Did rather well on one of PMA's old DBT ABX listening tests.
Something interesting, at least to me: I have two classical vinyl records that were originally recorded digitally. When I play those recordings some digital artifacts come through on the vinyl. Not too hard to hear on the big Sound Lab flat panel electrostat speakers.
OTOH, many CDs were made from music originally recorded to magnetic tape. Can't recall offhand anyone reporting hearing the tape artifacts accurately when reproduced digitally. Maybe people expect CD reproduction to be perfect, so they hear what they expect?
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Yes, you expressed that opinion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Do you actually believe you are not adding or removing anything? Do you believe set of measurements you provide actually prove that?
I am not attacking anything or anyone, just raising the questions. Do we have agreement what measurement correlate with sound quality? What is sound quality anyway? Accurate amplification, or pleasing artistic enjoyable experience? How do you correlate subjective opinion with objective measurements?
What is the actual objective here?
If i like something, i do not neccassarily expect every one else to like it.
I have embarked on something much simpler. Say i have a dozen of preamps. I do perform lots of listening tests. No need for double blind scientific stuff, goal is simple, for me to find out which of them sounds best to me. Purely subjective. No need for science yet.
Then, once i rank a dozen of preamps to at least best and worst sounding group, then perform as comprehensive set of measurements as my meager set up can offer. Then see what i get. Will there be single parameter, or multiple which will stand out.
Long post, sorry, but there is lot to discuss here.
Here are some public domain sources.
http://www.tubebooks.org/Books/Atwood/Olson 1943 Dynamical Analogies.pdfhttps://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archi...ec_51/4445_Acoustical_Engineering_3rd_Edn.pdfhttps://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/RCA/Theatre/Olson-Article-1937-Loudspeakers.pdfhttp://www.dwdrums.com/images/moonmic/olson_direct-radiator-loudspeaker-enclosures.pdf
Jan, just one more point i would like to make.
You state that your tube amp listening friend claims his amp is more realistic and hifi.
I seriously doub that. I believe he is simply likeing the sound of his el84 amp.
That would be totaly different statement.
There is lots of people listening to 300b se amps, because they like the sound.
Not because they claim its more hifi.
This is significant distinction which you seem to be missing. I have an old magnavox el84 (recapped, updated) which may have 2% distortion at 5 watts, yet sounds more pleasing than many modern amps.
I do not claim its more hifi.
When i select whiskey to sip, its based on taste, not on gass chromatography spectra.
You are right to ask to clarify the use of the terms. By how I used the term "linear behavior" in the previous post I mean, in a discursive and not rigorous way, a distortion as limited as possible of the signal that passes through a system.
In a more scientific and rigorous way, the distortions are divided, at least for analog devices, into two families: linear and non-linear. On the web there is a lot on the subject... for a quick explanation, even on the non-stationary aspects, you can refer to this my old post.
A lot is already known about the linear ones for the effects on listening; those where there is space for exploration are the non-linear ones.
For the aspects of perception and stereo illusion, if you have links on new studies on this subject, send them to me, I would be interested in reading them.
Must be some qualification, eh. "According to a couple of full time professional high end audio designer friends, they say Bybees can have some effect on sound, especially if enough current is run through them."
No matter how much money you spend on phono and or analog tape, they are inferior to digital in sound reproduction accuracy. But then again it was just him insisting (no proof) and your belief of him so there's no weight in this.
The quote above this one exemplifies the misused terms. It's hard to even debate because of it.
I agree. In my opinion, the experience of live music is fundamental for our brain: we "tare" on this and then judge the realism of a reproduction.
And people directly involved in music production can make important contributions to judge the realism of our reproduction chains. I was lucky enough to know several; I involved them both in the design of my listening room and in the tests of my study.
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Some possible items of interest:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2016.00524/fullhttps://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Siegfried-Linkwitz-2054390273
Don't know if there is much in the way of published research that ties audio gear (other than speakers) to reproduction of a stereo illusion. Do know of some unpublished observations though.
This seems a bit like those audio compressors that attempt to saturate the available power budget by hiding distortion in masked areas.
The trouble is that some of the more subtle effects need time before fatigue or some odd sensation is recognized.
Re: live orchestra vs sound system A/B.
Let's say that the venue is the same and orchestra members are nestled among various microphones and speakers. This would minimise some room issues.
One issue would still be the ability to move around and gain more infornation about the sound field. With enough movement, stereo effects tend to collapse.
The way different instruments project sound also varies. A wall of sound could go some way to reproducing both directional trumpets and ambient violins. That would require a lot of engineering and might still miss something.
Red book.
Edit: El cheapo digital equipment doesn't have a -120dBFs noise floor.
It's more like -80dBFs.
It takes a lot of repetitions before digital artefacts become audible.
With tape that is not possible.
The frequency curve and noise levels of the different formats are an indication of why that is.
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I can make a file that can demonstrate what the actual real life dynamic range of human hearing is.
Its not 120dB.
But that doesn't mean that the format itself is flawed. It just means that the recording engineer didn't know what he was doing.
That's why you need to eliminate bias when doing listening tests.
Iow You can know what different types of files are being comparred. But when listening you may not know what file you are listening to, for instance if the file has digital origins or analog origins.
Its not 120dB.
Of cause some recordings have audible digital artefacts, hard clipping being one.
But that doesn't mean that the format itself is flawed. It just means that the recording engineer didn't know what he was doing.
That's why you need to eliminate bias when doing listening tests.
Iow You can know what different types of files are being comparred. But when listening you may not know what file you are listening to, for instance if the file has digital origins or analog origins.
No, he actually states it is the best he ever heard. Because he likes it better than any other. Seems a no-brainer.
Jan
IIRC, Mr.Coltrane and I participated in another thread some time ago where some similar issues came up. Don't know if he recalls? If so, maybe he recalls from then that it is uncontroversial that some people can hear if a CD were to be manufactured without dither. The level of the resulting distortion is calculated as being at -93dBFS. OTOH, another member at some previous time reportedly hid a brass band buried under another recording at, again IIRC, -60dB, which no one found to be audible.
To me the sum of the evidence suggests that human hearing is highly non-linear, non-time-invariant, and I will even say, non-stationary. What it means is that we can't make arbitrary claims that a file can be made that proves the dynamic range of hearing is at some number suggested by a single experiment. We also can't arrive at some magic number like they try to do over at ASR showing that no human can hear distortion below -115dBSPL (or whatever number they came up with). IMHO there is a lot more research to do, and the science dudes don't know as much right now as some people might like to believe.
To me the sum of the evidence suggests that human hearing is highly non-linear, non-time-invariant, and I will even say, non-stationary. What it means is that we can't make arbitrary claims that a file can be made that proves the dynamic range of hearing is at some number suggested by a single experiment. We also can't arrive at some magic number like they try to do over at ASR showing that no human can hear distortion below -115dBSPL (or whatever number they came up with). IMHO there is a lot more research to do, and the science dudes don't know as much right now as some people might like to believe.