Digital Audio Myths - Listening on a PC

oliverstoned wrote: Just to say that analog can go further than digital on the performance level.

 Ever heard of 24bit/192khz? Digital can go way beyond analog as far as frequency is concerned. And they could go to 64bit resolution just as easily, if there was any need for it.

oliverstoned wrote: True that the human hear is limited to 20 khz and less as people loose auditive acuity (espially when you listen loud!). But supersonic noise is hear somehow and adds harshness! the proof is trhat when you record a CD on a tapedeck limited to 17khz, it's much smoother in the highs as the upper freq are filtered. I think we have not much acuity above 20khz, but enough to suffer from supersonic noise.

Then why did you praise the 30khz analog equipment, and bash the CD for being "inferior" with its 22.05khz?

 

goose wrote: oliverstoned wrote: >>> First, the classic 16bits CD is quite limited in freq. That bit at least just isn't true! In terms of frequency, CD represents perfectly up to 22.05kHz, certainly well above what's needed.

oliverstoned may be right in that some analog equipment can handle up to 30khz.

But:

• The human ear can't hear anything above 20khz. Indeed, most grown up persons can't even hear anything above 18khz. This is FACT, no listening test is needed.
• Some turntables or radios can handle more ... but the INPUT is limited to 16khz. Even good vinyls don't offer more than that.

BTW: oliver, 16bit doesn't have anything to do with FREQUENCY, it specifies the RESOLUTION of the signal. I agree that using 16 bits is a limitation. It means that 65.536 steps are used for each sample. Here the SACD is a real advantage, it uses 16 million steps. But in this area listening tests have shown that very few people are able to hear a difference. I would say that although it is undoubtedly better (the more resolution the better of course), it's not a difference like night and day and surely not a required feature.

Digital extraction eliminates the need for extreme synchronisation of clock and drive.

Digital extraction -> ZERO jitter. So the only kind of jitter to worry about on the computer is D/A conversion jitter, and that's as low as that of musical CD players (100 picoseconds) when you use QUALITY sound cards. I'm not talking about the Audigy 2 ZS which I'm using now, it has a higher jitter rate, but the X-Fi which will soon be released.

Edited by MikeEnRegalia

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ maybe the audiophiles call those tuners musical simply because they don't have the higher frequencies ... maybe the CD sounds "harsh" to them simply because it contains audio >16khz.

No, harshness is inherent to digital, some top analog sources go further on MESURES than top cds, and are not harsh at all. 'some top turntables are measured at 30khz!!)
Th supersonic noise of digital from 20khz to 40 khz is not in the music,it's a numeric artifact.
But when you upgrade drive/converter (you don't believe in drive, but at least converter) you loose this harsness linked to this supersonic noise which is lowered.
But anyway, the best CD player sounds flat,lakes of dynamic, compared to a high end turntable.
For example, the big audiophile i know which owns the Mark levinson cd ensemble has also a turntable 4 times less expensive his CD (the CD costs about 50000 dollars) and it explodes the CD! (even if the cd is fantastic)...
Put the tapedeck up besides the Mark Levinson: the Levinson goes further on hifi criterias (bandwith, image) but is less musical, and fatigue the ears faster than the tapedeck...

Marantz 10b (1962-1968), the more musical and the best tuner ever. It costed so much in research that it almost ruined the famous brand.

People have preconceived ideas about hifi, it's like for everything...

Here they are:

-You have to have a special room with a special acoustic treatment to enjoy a great system...False!!

-Numeric works better than analog.False!!

-Transistor works better than tubes.False!!

-Tubes amps are fragile and get worn quickly and so the performance decrease...False!!

-Expensive cables are "ripped off", placebos (False!!some are but others are not, depending on the brands mainly)

-Distorsion rate and others technical spec are a good criteria to judge a device...False!! only results matter!

-Tuners are outdated cause "limited" at 16 khz...
False!!one of the very best sources ever are:

-Tube tuner Marantz 10 b (1962-1968)the most musical tuner ever. A wonder.
-Goldmund Mimesis IV (90's tuner, the more performant, an amazing source which explodes all CD players on hifi and musical criterias)

     There are reports of Double-blind tests which fail to support audiophile claims that they can easily perceive significant differences between very similar musical components.[1]
     Listening tests are notoriously unreliable; for instance, Edison showed that entire theater audiences were unable to distinguish between the sound of an orchestra or a playback by his recording system, which today would be regarded as ludicrously poor in quality.
     
     Maybe Edison had maybe great system.And no, it’s not because it’s old that its less good.
     We have regress in sound quality with the arrival of the CD, then worst the MP3.
     
      Similarly, early CDs and CD players were accepted as having fantastically great sound quality; those exact same systems today are regarded as fatally flawed, while analog systems from that period have not similarly fallen in public assessment of quality.
>>>>
Accepted by who? People has been fooled by marketers who told them that cd was perfect and now they tell it’s not that perfect, in order to sell us their SACD which doesn’t works yet. My hifi guru, which is in hifi from 35 years, bought a CD player only a few years ago, when quality became acceptable. He already had great analog sources which smoked first cd players-and still smoke current ones-He has currently one of the best-if not the best- digital system of the planet: Mark Levinson transport+ converter. It’s amazing, but still less good than a high end turntable, which is 4 times less expensive.




     Similarly, repeatability is poor for evaluation of components between various listeners, or even the same listener under different circumstances; this contrasts with the superficially similarly esoteric oenophile world, where repeatability of blind tests is surprisingly good.


     Measured audio distortion is immensely higher in electromechanical devices such as speakers than in purely electronic components such as CD players and amplifiers, making it hard to believe that subtle differences in the latter can have an appreciable effect on music quality.

One more time, the measures tells nothing about THE PERFORMANCES and the MUSICALITY.
These theorical statements are completely uninteresting.
     Similarly, acoustic behavior of the listening room, and the interaction between speakers and the room acoustics, is immensely more variable than variation between electronic components; in an electromechanical system such as a speaker, such interaction is reflected in the interaction between speakers and the amplifiers which drive them, so that the entire difference in sound quality between amplifiers is often postulated as merely either the ability to control the behavior of "difficult" speakers well, or else just a lucky combination of speaker, amplifier, and room which works well together.
>>>>
Here it’s quite confuse, as there are two things:
-The importance of room acoustic which is often exaggerated.
Of course, you can have some work in your room and sometimes big problem if the floor is too thin, etc… you can improve your result by improving the room, etc.. but a great system will work great in an “average” room.
-The second idea evoques a kind of synergia between the differents elements… I don’t see well what the author wanted to express.


     Minute differences in loudness have been demonstrated to be perceived as differences in sound quality rather than loudness, with the slightly louder system sounding better; so that tremendous care must be taken in matching sound level, using sensitive sound pressure meters, when comparing systems if the results are to have any validity at all; this is usually not done.
     Audiophiles often totally disdain all attempts to categorize differences in sound using instrumental measurements, despite the work of such combination audiophile-engineers as Bob Carver, who have repeatedly shown that by tailoring the transfer function of any system with a relatively simple sound-shaping network, they can make it sound indistinguishable from any other system, as requested.[2][3]
     Audiophiles often prefer the use of vacuum tube rather than more modern solid state electronics, despite their substantially-higher measured total harmonic distortion. When this is pointed out, they often claim that the distortion is "warmer" or "more musical" than that of a transistor amplifier. Interestingly, the relatively soft distortion characteristics of tube amplifiers are used regularly in high-end guitar amplifiers; in this case the loss of fidelity is intentional and even characteristic of the electric guitar sound, and transistor-based amplifiers are often frowned on for guitar use due to the harsh clipping artifacts created by a distorted transistor amp.
>>>
We have already discussed the tube issue. Still the pb of pair and unpair harmonics. The ones breaks the ears (cheese rape in the highs with transistor) while the others are very musical.
     Audiophiles regularly make strong claims for the superior quality of music reproduction from (vinyl) records on a turntable, compared to modern digital alternatives (which, among other things, are free from "click and pop" problems and background noise), even though compact disc audio in particular is designed to have a wider dynamic range than vinyl.
>>>
First, the classic 16bits CD is quite limited in freq. On another hand, it adds “supersonic noise” from 20khz to 40khz which is something not in the music, which is responsible of ear’s fatigue and brightness (in the pejorative sense of the word).
A good tuner or a good tape deck goes at 18khz, which is enough in the highs, but the more important, it does it well!!! Whereas the CD superficially goes far, but gets your ears tired very far.

That’s why you have to get a very high end cd player in order to have an acceptable quality in CD playing, which is actually closer to analog sound.


     Audiophile equipment designers can obsess over seemingly irrelevant details; for instance, the almost universal requirement to reproduce frequencies higher than 20 kilohertz, even though some kinds of equipment will not reproduce anything higher than 15 or 16 kilohertz (for example, FM radio and vinyl records).
>>>I’ve got a friend which owns a Nakamichi 700zxl mofified by MR Nakamichi and it has been tested to go at 30khz!! Btw, it’s an incredible source.
High end turntables go at 30khz too.

     Some audiophile practices seem driven by fashion, such the late-Eighties vogue for marking the edges of CDs with a green felt marker, or the practice of suspending cables above the floor on small racks. Skeptics argue that the laws of physics are not subject to fashion .
>>>>
The tip of marking the edge of cd is a little ridiculous, but gives subtle (so real) results and has a serious technical reason.
     The prices of audiophile products can seem remarkably high, even if one believes in the benefit conferred. It is quite possible to spend over a hundred thousand dollars for speakers, and tens of thousands for amplifiers and CD players, or over a thousand dollars for a power cable.
>>>>
It’s like everything, and it’s like a drug, cause when you start, it’s so good that you can’t stop.
Most people spend 15000€ in their car and are shocked when I say I spend the same for my system.
I prefer music over car!

Just go back to the post that contains the image and click the edit button, then remove the link URL information from the post and update the post

Oliver- get rid of that picture of the denon cdr1000 so I can read the posts without having to h/scroll