Conclusive "Proof" that higher resolution audio sounds different

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,
sorry but getting a bit irritated-frustrated here now.
How many times have I explained this and yet you just focus on the last post-sentence rather whole context of all my posts in this thread?
This is why these threads never achieve much in the long run.
Please do not bother responding, I will start to become really frustrated as it seems I am wasting my time
If you understand what Amir has been saying and myself in MANY earlier posts, you will understand why some kind of formal or informal as given in posts but not the most ideal training (already explained several times in this thread and in the past in other threads and why I am starting to get raaaargh tbh ) is required for subtle differences with blind ABX; someone else managed to take this on board in this thread and then passed the current ABX test.
Leaving it at that.
Orb

We are going in circles. My apologies. I thought, in your last two posts, that you were saying that ABX is only effective with trained listeners and specific listening methods. Period. Looking again, I see that you're saying that's only true with subtle differences. Got it. Of course for any of this to be terribly meaningful we'd have to set some parameters around "subtle"...just kidding, carry on.

Tim

 

[amirm]

Amirm

There maybe ways to screw DACs up and if it's going to happen it'll be small audiophile companies without properly qualified engineers that manage it. They always have. But not proper engineers at companies like Yamaha who are world leaders.

Unfortunately the performance from mainstream producers you mention are substantially below par. Here is how a number of AVR DACs do over HDMI:

The DAC silicon in these products performs way better than these. Indeed, if you use the S/PDIF input, they are much improved. But still no match for my obsolete, 15 year old Mark Levinson DAC:

So a bunch of modern products can't remotely match the performance of my old DAC.

I've nearly run my race here, but I'd repeat that properly constructed AB, ABX or even swift comparisons are the only really way to be sure and they really are infallible. When differences are as subtle as some are suggesting here, then you need people in their early twenties to hear them.

It is not that way. It really isn't. I can outperform countless twenty somethings in such tests and I am more than double their age!

BTW, appreciate your participation here and hope you hang around despite my disagreements .

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

The question is, is it the performance from these DACs that is compromised or the HDMI implementation? I wonder what they measurements look like from the coax outputs?

Unfortunately the performance from mainstream producers you mention are substantially below par. Here is how a number of AVR DACs do over HDMI:

The DAC silicon in these products performs way better than these. Indeed, if you use the S/PDIF input, they are much improved. But still no match for my obsolete, 15 year old Mark Levinson DAC:

So a bunch of modern products can't remotely match the performance of my old DAC.


It is not that way. It really isn't. I can outperform countless twenty somethings in such tests and I am more than double their age!

BTW, appreciate your participation here and hope you hang around despite my disagreements .

 

[jkeny]

The question is, is it the performance from these DACs that is compromised or the HDMI implementation? I wonder what they measurements look like from the coax outputs?

Yes, Tim, but Amir's post goes directly to Ashley's claim that it's the small audiophile companies that screw up the perfect DAC chips that they acquire & not "proper engineers" at Yamaha, for instance. So does it really matter where in the DAC box, the Yamaha & other "proper" engineers screwed up - it's still bad engineering?

There maybe ways to screw DACs up and if it's going to happen it'll be small audiophile companies without properly qualified engineers that manage it. They always have. But not proper engineers at companies like Yamaha who are world leaders.

 

[amirm]

The question is, is it the performance from these DACs that is compromised or the HDMI implementation? I wonder what they measurements look like from the coax outputs?

Coax output is cleaner. To show some variety, here is Paul Miller Measurements of jitter on S/PDIF (left) vs HDMI (right).

My point is that looking at how good the DAC silicon itself is would be misleading. Implementations routinely degrade chip performance by huge amounts. The above HDMI jitter components are probably 30 db more than the chip spec!

The problem is not that there is something wrong with HDMI per-se. The DAC sees the same data whether the input is HDMI, S/PDIF or USB. They all get translated down to the format the DAC requires. THe reason for worse performance of HDMI is that it lights up a lot more circuits in the AVR and due to lack of electrical and physical isolation, those highly active HDMI-related circuits bleed into the DAC.

 

[jkeny]

Yes, getting clean signals into & out of these wonderful pieces of silicon while providing them & their clocks with clean, unadulterated & unwavering power is just the beginning of how not to screw them up.

It's always hilarious when people use the phrase "competently designed" & then proceed to pontificate "DACs are simple and self contained so there is no longer the scope for incompetents to get them wrong."

Guess, Ashley must now "believe" Yamaha's engineers are incompetents based on Amir's measurements.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi


I think this has to be one of those times where the planets line-up perfectly and I agree with John. Oh the horror !!

I would be one of the first to call out the tendency of we, audiophiles to hyperbole. It must however be said that an IC be it a DAC,a Voltage regulator is just a part of a whole. There are a lot of ways to end up with a f#$6k-up end results.

Music is made of seven notes after all and they are there for all to use... Great music use the same material as the bad.

 

[jkeny]

Hi
I think this has to be one of those times where the planets line-up perfectly and I agree with John. Oh the horror !!

We can't have this - there must be something wrong with what I said?

 

[JackD201]

I think I'm going to pass out! LOL!!!!!!

 

[jkeny]

I'm already comatosed. First Maxflinn agreed with me after following me here after a severe falling out on another forum. Then Tim & Frantz agree with me & now Frantz again.

Anybody got a defibrillator?

 

[microstrip]

I'm afraid I just don't get all this microscopic dissection of minutae, to me it's like scraping the paint off a Ferrari to save weight and go faster. If people are genuinely interested in improving the sound quality they hear, they need to stop wasting time on forums arguing, work out the differences that are audible and start with the huge ones first. But that's just me.

Why should people waste their time working out the differences that are audible, if the experts on blind tests and audibility have already determined the so called small differences are not audible?

 

[jkeny]

Yes, listen to the experts
Don't we know they're always right
Ah that feels better

Why should people waste their time working out the differences that are audible, if the experts on blind tests and audibility have already determined the so called small differences are not audible?

 

[sasully]

Is anyone taking note of the Y axis here?

One sideband peaking at -95dB; the rest at < -100dB

Oh , such FAILS.

Coax output is cleaner. To show some variety, here is Paul Miller Measurements of jitter on S/PDIF (left) vs HDMI (right).

My point is that looking at how good the DAC silicon itself is would be misleading. Implementations routinely degrade chip performance by huge amounts. The above HDMI jitter components are probably 30 db more than the chip spec!

The problem is not that there is something wrong with HDMI per-se. The DAC sees the same data whether the input is HDMI, S/PDIF or USB. They all get translated down to the format the DAC requires. THe reason for worse performance of HDMI is that it lights up a lot more circuits in the AVR and due to lack of electrical and physical isolation, those highly active HDMI-related circuits bleed into the DAC.

 

[sasully]

who is saying that Redbook is not even hi-resolution, terrible, unlistenable...name your hyperbole?

I have seen audiophiles claim that 48kHz/24bit is not high rez.

I'm sure numerous listeners with that opinion, could be found very easily upon visiting either the SA-CD.net forum, or AudioAsylum or computeraudiophile.com. Or the pages of Stereophile or TAS, for that matter.

 

[sasully]

Did you AB/X?

This thread needs to rise from the dead. It is probably one of the most significant threads on this board since Sean Olive stopped posting here. It reveals misconceptions on both sides, carries profound implications for the hobby. And yet it got the participation of a handful of people and died a quick death. Are we not interested in what is real? Would we rather hold on to what we've decided to believe and look the other way in the face of real evidence?

Tim

Excuse me for joining the dance here late, but: it is only going to carry 'profound' implications if we can all be sure that the various test files were properly made, and properly played back, and there was no cheating . (Of course, the latter stipulation can only really happen if the test is proctored.) All that, so that if a significant ABX score is reported, we can discern what actually caused it.


A few days ago, I counted *four sets* of files on offer -- two in Wilkinson/Waldrep's 's thread on AVSF, and two more from Arny Kruger in the 'debate' thread that Your Host started at AVSF*, plus one more that could be used to test for IM distortion in playback rigs. That is , in each case an initial set was found to be flawed, then replaced with a set purported to be less flawed. Various listening results were reported for all four sets. How some can glean conclusiveness and profundity from such a muddle is, to me, another muddle.

Scott's test, at least, always purported to be just a 'fun exercise', not science. Arny's isn't science either. 'Conclusive proof' of a proposition comes from the sort of Sherlockian exercise where all other possible propositions to explain the data have been ruled out. (One rarely sees the phrase 'conclusive proof' in scientific papers, btw). This applies ESPECIALLY when results fly in the face of previously done science, as these results do. Even Oohashi et al. in their several papers on the 'hypersonic effect', typically held up as the best 'proof' of proposition, did not see plain difference results like this. Subjects in their 'ABX' tests failed to hear difference at a significant level. The Japanese group's evidence consists of results of *preference* scale tests, and measurement of brain activity while listening.

What we have here, is preliminary evidence that some difference could be heard between these test signals under some conditions. Nothing less, nothing more.


(*with a rather less presumptuous title than he gave this thread)

 

[sasully]

Tim,

Please read my previous post - the specifics you refer and I quoted in bold are one of the reasons why Hgh End exists!

BTW, you should read about trained listeners in the Harman literature - often they are more reliable and can arrive at conclusions faster than general listeners, but in the end they reach the same conclusions than the whole crowd. It is why training is a very serious and debated subject and must be validated using appropriate methods.

..conclusions which are sometimes at odds with 'high end' received wisdom

 

[sasully]

Right, but then the difference between music played using some MP3 & 16/44 is also insignificant so let's standardise on that??

Lossy encoding will never be acceptable as an archiving format. But as a consumer format, it is *effectively* 'transparent to most listeners, if done right. The industry, of course, monetizes this by offering 'tiers' of audio quality. If that was more widespread and quality was standardized it really would be the best of all worlds. Apple/iTunes at least made a leap towards this when they upped the bitrate of their lossy files, using their (generally excellent ) codec.

The real ding to audio quality of music for sale, unfortunately has nothing to do with lossy/lossless or 'resolution'. It's the production and mastering.

(And then the quality of the home listening environment...but that, at least, is under listener control)

 

[Stereoeditor]

I have seen audiophiles claim that 48kHz/24bit is not high rez.

I'm sure numerous listeners with that opinion, could be found very easily upon visiting . . . the pages of Stereophile.

No, that's not correct.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Why should people waste their time working out the differences that are audible, if the experts on blind tests and audibility have already determined the so called small differences are not audible?

We've just done 38 pages on small differences that are audible. I guess you missed it.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Excuse me for joining the dance here late, but: it is only going to carry 'profound' implications if we can all be sure that the various test files were properly made, and properly played back, and there was no cheating . (Of course, the latter stipulation can only really happen if the test is proctored.) All that, so that if a significant ABX score is reported, we can discern what actually caused it.


A few days ago, I counted *four sets* of files on offer -- two in Wilkinson/Waldrep's 's thread on AVSF, and two more from Arny Kruger in the 'debate' thread that Your Host started at AVSF*, plus one more that could be used to test for IM distortion in playback rigs. That is , in each case an initial set was found to be flawed, then replaced with a set purported to be less flawed. Various listening results were reported for all four sets. How some can glean conclusiveness and profundity from such a muddle is, to me, another muddle.

Scott's test, at least, always purported to be just a 'fun exercise', not science. Arny's isn't science either. 'Conclusive proof' of a proposition comes from the sort of Sherlockian exercise where all other possible propositions to explain the data have been ruled out. (One rarely sees the phrase 'conclusive proof' in scientific papers, btw). This applies ESPECIALLY when results fly in the face of previously done science, as these results do. Even Oohashi et al. in their several papers on the 'hypersonic effect', typically held up as the best 'proof' of proposition, did not see plain difference results like this. Subjects in their 'ABX' tests failed to hear difference at a significant level. The Japanese group's evidence consists of results of *preference* scale tests, and measurement of brain activity while listening.

What we have here, is preliminary evidence that some difference could be heard between these test signals under some conditions. Nothing less, nothing more.


(*with a rather less presumptuous title than he gave this thread)

Look up "implication." Profound may have been a bit over the top. No, there's nothing proven here. Evidence is even scant. But the evidence we have implies that a) There is an audible difference between RB and hi-res, and b) That difference is so difficult to discern that it's highly unlikely that, if you don't train yourself to know where it occurs and recognize it, (I won't even listen to the files; don't want to know) you'll never be able to hear it while you're...you know...listening to the music?

Profound? Perhaps not. But it shoots a hole through both sides of a debate that has been raging in this hobby for quite awhile. Good fun, at least.

Tim