gabdx,
I understand your thinking on what music to use for critical listening but the reality is even if it is a three piece choral group once recorded that changes everything from listening live. As far as guitar there are some great rock guitar players who play acoustic guitar, as good as any other players in any other genre of music. I've seen George Benson play in his prime on stage with acoustic guitar and that was amplified, sounded excellent and I know and have been around many famous Jazz musicians. I can tell you for a fact that most musicians could care less how great a sound systems sounds, they don't give a Sh^t about that when playing in a club as long as on stage they think it sounds good! Sy and I actually have some mutual musical acquaintances and I think if he was around he would agree with me about that. Some of the best Jazz I've every heard was sitting in my friends house while the group rehearsed, little added amplification needed except for vocals.
I understand your thinking on what music to use for critical listening but the reality is even if it is a three piece choral group once recorded that changes everything from listening live. As far as guitar there are some great rock guitar players who play acoustic guitar, as good as any other players in any other genre of music. I've seen George Benson play in his prime on stage with acoustic guitar and that was amplified, sounded excellent and I know and have been around many famous Jazz musicians. I can tell you for a fact that most musicians could care less how great a sound systems sounds, they don't give a Sh^t about that when playing in a club as long as on stage they think it sounds good! Sy and I actually have some mutual musical acquaintances and I think if he was around he would agree with me about that. Some of the best Jazz I've every heard was sitting in my friends house while the group rehearsed, little added amplification needed except for vocals.
It could be the cold temperature at present affecting the stylus. Try placing a small lamp next to
the turntable and run it for a while before playing a record. Usually 72F - 76F at the stylus is best.
Low humidity can be a problem too, especially with static charge on records.
Sure, point taken.
My point about consensus on tracks was to be able to point out things like 'snare hit' at 0:09 or bass line starting at 0:19 or cymbals at 0:15 etc etc, I know you understand.
Intrinsic/characteristic/signature signal dependent dynamic excess noise behavior is the discriminator between opamp types.
Measurements static behavior does not necessarily correlate with anecdotal subjective experience dynamic behaviors.
Dynamic behaviors of opamp surrounding passive components can be strongly part of the equation, but do not explain all.
In my experiments I can repeatably and beneficially change behavior of analog and digital systems on the fly at will, go figure.
Dan.
Last edited:
Max, if you want to do that, fine - but I don't think this is the thread for that.
Personally, I'd not use a cymbal for a "reference" except to the extent that there is no characteristic sound that is the same from cut to cut. In other words, the cymbals sound like they were recorded differently, using different cymbals, in difference circumstances, etc... it may be surprising to some that an awful lot of gear can or may impart a sonic character on "top" of the recorded "intent" (aka sound).
IF I personally had recorded a great many cymbals using the same gear, same mic, same recorder/playback chain THEN I might have a good idea what the "function" that the original sound had applied to it, so be able to discern more about what I am hearing.
I'll settle for the "sibilance" test, and the way that the soundfield unfolds, and also how the bass ends up sounding (but the bass, last of these). So, I'd want voices and at least in some cases source that I know is recorded minimalist style with very good mic placement...
So in short I'm interested in the question of IF opamps "sound different" and IF any for some (presently unclear/unknown) reason also yield a more "natural" and "effortless" resulting sound.
_-_-
PS. your speculation on the dynamic behavior of opamps is fine, but I'd like to be able to measure that in some way.
Personally, I'd not use a cymbal for a "reference" except to the extent that there is no characteristic sound that is the same from cut to cut. In other words, the cymbals sound like they were recorded differently, using different cymbals, in difference circumstances, etc... it may be surprising to some that an awful lot of gear can or may impart a sonic character on "top" of the recorded "intent" (aka sound).
IF I personally had recorded a great many cymbals using the same gear, same mic, same recorder/playback chain THEN I might have a good idea what the "function" that the original sound had applied to it, so be able to discern more about what I am hearing.
I'll settle for the "sibilance" test, and the way that the soundfield unfolds, and also how the bass ends up sounding (but the bass, last of these). So, I'd want voices and at least in some cases source that I know is recorded minimalist style with very good mic placement...
So in short I'm interested in the question of IF opamps "sound different" and IF any for some (presently unclear/unknown) reason also yield a more "natural" and "effortless" resulting sound.
_-_-
PS. your speculation on the dynamic behavior of opamps is fine, but I'd like to be able to measure that in some way.
Cymbals are the reason I now have stacks of idle equipment.
"The Red Bar Jazz Band" recorded live in Grayton Beach, Florida 1977.
One of my favorites, very familiar with it. The entire CD is excellent test.
Track #2 'Bye Bye Blackbird' has cymbals pretty much unnoticed UNTIL that magic moment when I played it on a diy CFP valve/fet preamp driving a $6 TPA3118 amp.
Have listened with Alessandro Grados phones, SAE, Marantz (4 models), Dynaco st70 , Sansui (3 models) and others can't remember all. Dragonfly - 1.0 1.2, iHP140, Apple motherboard codecs.
The preamp has only local feedback and no op-amps. I uploaded the test plots, schematic and pic somewhere here on diy.
There were no other environment changes. Same room, speakers Q10 KEFs and digital source. I re-verifed the files too. I can now tell the difference from mp3-320 vs m4a so re-ripping it all! Big chore but worth it.
So thats it.
Have a wonderful Christmas and don't sweat the small stuff.
Bruce
-
"The Red Bar Jazz Band" recorded live in Grayton Beach, Florida 1977.
One of my favorites, very familiar with it. The entire CD is excellent test.
Track #2 'Bye Bye Blackbird' has cymbals pretty much unnoticed UNTIL that magic moment when I played it on a diy CFP valve/fet preamp driving a $6 TPA3118 amp.
Have listened with Alessandro Grados phones, SAE, Marantz (4 models), Dynaco st70 , Sansui (3 models) and others can't remember all. Dragonfly - 1.0 1.2, iHP140, Apple motherboard codecs.
The preamp has only local feedback and no op-amps. I uploaded the test plots, schematic and pic somewhere here on diy.
There were no other environment changes. Same room, speakers Q10 KEFs and digital source. I re-verifed the files too. I can now tell the difference from mp3-320 vs m4a so re-ripping it all! Big chore but worth it.
So thats it.
Have a wonderful Christmas and don't sweat the small stuff.
Bruce
-
I hope we can differentiate between op-amps and IC op-amps. Many, many solutions out there are just discrete op-amps. This goes for power amps too.
Would it be an idea to have variable noise gain by connecting + and - of the opamps through a rheostat? The black box could then have a scaled knob on it and for each listener the threshold of detectability could be established for a range of distortion = gain levels. Or different opamps at identical settings could be compared. The possibilities are endless.
This would do the same as increasing the gain and than bleed it off, but would be more flex and might give results that can be applied in a wider range of applications.
This would do the same as increasing the gain and than bleed it off, but would be more flex and might give results that can be applied in a wider range of applications.
The difference is always evident on my system. If there were no difference on a system, personally I would be motivated to find out why. Same for CD verses Hi-Rez formats.
That said, I have listened to samples of commercial Hi-Rez releases that sound worse to me than the CD. Buyer beware, I guess.
Yes, of course. But if it's the discrete ones that inspire most perception of what is wrong with op-amps (if anything) then might it be reasonable not to exclude them?
Discussing the two types separately might seem a sensible alternative.
And hopefully we will have more opportunity to do that specifically with IC op-amps when Ed's test box results start coming in. But, you know, it is a long time to wait...
No logic behind that conclusion other than more must be better. In a similar vein, since other than classic films my TV watching is just occasional entertainment, the 4K TV's with increased color gamut, etc. have made my experience worse (well not really I won't buy one). Ryko's restoration of Jimi Hendrix at Winterland was not an improvement.
https://www.wired.com/2014/08/wtf-just-happened-soap-opera-effect/
Last edited:
They did get rid of that awful amplifier squeal... pretty sure that was the show.
And with Jimi, you just really want the playing, the energy and the performance.
Fwiw, Jimi @ the Albert Hall is really quite easy on the ears...
...no opamps back then in his gear...
_-_-
And with Jimi, you just really want the playing, the energy and the performance.
Fwiw, Jimi @ the Albert Hall is really quite easy on the ears...
...no opamps back then in his gear...
_-_-
Last edited:
Regarding CD verses Hi-Rez, when I have made recordings at 24/96, there is a certain amount of detail to the recordings, especially if made with sensitive condenser mics (sometimes a bit too much in fact, hi-rez guitar finger squeaks don't necessarily sound all that musical). When I make that recording into a CD, or simply mix down to 16/44.1 in preparation for burning a CD, some of that detail is always lost, according to my ears anyway. Maybe some of it has gone below the noise floor, I don't know. I use the highest quality SRC avaiable, so it seems unlikely there is a problem in that respect. Also, if I want to make an mp3 of the recording, it seems to lose less detail if I send it to Lame directly at 24/96, rather than using the 16/44.1 mixdown. I have tried this quite a few times with different recordings. The results seem very robust. Also, if I record directly to 16/44.1, the extra detail is never there in the first place. And lots of people have heard this difference easily on a good enough playback system. It's really, really easy to hear compared to Mooly's test. If you could hear only one file as different on Mooly's, it would be shock if you couldn't hear what I am talking about here, given some opportunity to listen.
Regarding restorations and re-releases of old recordings, I did say buyer beware on some stuff of that type earlier. New recordings of acoustic instruments seem to benefit the most from Hi-Rez according to my experience so far.
Regarding restorations and re-releases of old recordings, I did say buyer beware on some stuff of that type earlier. New recordings of acoustic instruments seem to benefit the most from Hi-Rez according to my experience so far.
Last edited:
I think Jimi predates op-amps. Back around 1984 they closed down the music section at the Harvard Coop so I bought piles of stuff like Sheffield Labs boxed originals for $1. One thing I did buy was buy a copy of every old EMI Hendrix CD (pre-Hendrix family trust LLC) including the naked lady Electric Ladyland. These sounded like unprocessed dumps of the master tapes onto CD with all the warts like hum, dropouts, mis-tunes, etc. Prized possessions just the way I like 'em.
Does anyone do that? I record LP's at 24/96 and normalize them at full resolution. When down sampled to CD I can't hear a difference on the auxiliary equipment that I am happy with, can it sound different of course, my headphones and desktop speakers don't sound even remotely the same but it doesn't change the enjoyment of what I am listening to at all.
BTW there are well regarded audio professionals that would argue the extra detail does not exist, I will not discount their input with nothing but uncontrolled anecdotal evidence.
I have done 16/44.1 for test purposes. If recording a lot of tracks and using a lot of plugins, recording at 16/44.1 uses less CPU and disk resources. Not so much a problem today as a few years ago, although dual quad-core CPUs can still be very useful sometimes.
Regarding expert opinion, I understand the theory and I if my ears didn't tell me there was some unexplained problem, I would be satisfied with theory. I take it the experts in question don't hear a problem, so they don't suffer dealing with any cognitive dissonance on the issue. I would be happy to agree with them that according to the theory, the extra detail shouldn't exist.
I suppose that since much modern music is made to playback at high average volume levels, intersample overs in oversampling DACs remains an audible problem (says Benchmark). Maybe there are fewer or less severe intersample overs at 24/96? At least the samples are closer together.
Whatever the cause, some of the experts seem to be missing something, because there always turns out to be some plausible physical cause for these things once they are finally well understood. No new physics or metaphysics needed.
And, of course, I am leaving out some of the claims coming out of audiophile circles, which may never be explained at a physical level. Maybe neurological at best.
is this the one:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/290026-simple-discrete-sziklai-pre.html
mlloyd1
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/290026-simple-discrete-sziklai-pre.html
mlloyd1
Ran out of time to edit the last post, so additional comments here:
Something else perhaps relevant is that for my equipment there is a difference between the Lynx2 A/D behavior and the Crane Song Hedd A/D, as a function of sample rate. The Lynx2 sounds more detailed at higher sample rates, and it sounds like less like there is any data conversion at all in the signal path at all the more the sample rate is increased. Not so for the Hedd, it sounds about the same at 44.1 as at 96, more in line with theory. So, again, some problems may be in data conversion, and since most people are not in a position to sort that out with whatever equipment they have, all they really know is when they change the sample rate, it sounds different. Some experts don't seem much interested in looking into such things as possible causes of reports that different sample rates sound different. Its much easier to sit in a chair and say what people report hearing is impossible.
Something else perhaps relevant is that for my equipment there is a difference between the Lynx2 A/D behavior and the Crane Song Hedd A/D, as a function of sample rate. The Lynx2 sounds more detailed at higher sample rates, and it sounds like less like there is any data conversion at all in the signal path at all the more the sample rate is increased. Not so for the Hedd, it sounds about the same at 44.1 as at 96, more in line with theory. So, again, some problems may be in data conversion, and since most people are not in a position to sort that out with whatever equipment they have, all they really know is when they change the sample rate, it sounds different. Some experts don't seem much interested in looking into such things as possible causes of reports that different sample rates sound different. Its much easier to sit in a chair and say what people report hearing is impossible.
Here is 'as built' link to zip file. Hybrids are homeless so it was moved and then I lost track of where is.
It is in this thread.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/inst...ment-speakers-almost-extinct.html#post4854659
-
Maybe experts say that hi-rez shouldn't sound better and if it ever appears to, then something much be broken. I have suggested if something is broken, possibly it could be in data conversion. However, nothing has been proven. People who report that hi-rez sounds better are usually not in a position to investigate why. And its not clear that if there is a problem with some data conversion hardware, whether or not it is easily demonstrated using typical distortion measurements.
Mark, you might find this an interesting read. It's a meta-analysis of all the red book vs high res listening tests they could find. AES E-Library A Meta-Analysis of High Resolution Audio Perceptual Evaluation .
Ref the downsampling, you haven't mentioned how you do the dithering in that case. All evidence suggests that getting the dithering wrong would lead to the audible outcomes you mention.
Ref the downsampling, you haven't mentioned how you do the dithering in that case. All evidence suggests that getting the dithering wrong would lead to the audible outcomes you mention.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.