Conclusive "Proof" that higher resolution audio sounds different

[amirm]

It is true that I worked with others who have helped me document some of the DBTs that I was involved with:

Greenhill, Laurence , "Speaker Cables: Can you Hear the Difference?" Stereo Review, ( Aug 1983)
Greenhill, L. L. and Clark, D. L., "Equipment Profile", Audio, (April 1985)
Nousaine, Thomas, "Wired Wisdom: The Great Chicago Cable Caper", Sound and Vision, Vol. 11 No. 3 (1995)
Nousaine, Thomas, "Flying Blind: The Case Against Long Term Testing", Audio, pp. 26-30, Vol. 81 No. 3 (March 1997)
Nousaine, Thomas, "Can You Trust Your Ears?", Stereo Review, pp. 53-55, Vol. 62 No. 8 (August 1997)
Masters, I. G. and Clark, D. L., "Do All Amplifiers Sound the Same?", Stereo Review, pp. 78-84 (January 1987)
Masters, Ian G. and Clark, D. L., "Do All CD Players Sound the Same?", Stereo Review, pp.50-57 (January 1986)
Masters, Ian G. and Clark, D. L., "The Audibility of Distortion", Stereo Review, pp.72-78 (January 1989)
Carlstrom, David, Greenhill, Laurence, Krueger, Arnold, "Some Amplifiers Do Sound Different", The Audio Amateur, 3/82, p. 30, 31, and Hi-Fi News & Record Review, Link House Magazines, United Kingdom, Dec 1982, p. 37.

etc. etc. etc.

Other than the last one that I already mentioned, the rest do not list you as having any role at all in their articles. So please forgive me for not putting any value in what you just listed.

At at any rate, I mentioned that you have not provided any reference of posting such blind test results *online*. In literally tens of thousands of posts, in hundreds if not thousands of threads, and dozens of forums, you have never ever documented any double blind tests Arny. All has been talk with no contributions to the community of any documentation related to testing you have performed yourself.


It is a remarkable thing really. The person most passionate and vocal about double blind testing has no track record of sharing any test results in these forums. At best you say you have "helped" document other people's work which does not exist online. That puts you at the bottom of the totem pole in these discussions Arny.

 

[arnyk]

Other than the last one that I already mentioned, the rest do not list you as having any role at all in their articles. So please forgive me for not putting any value in what you just listed.

Amir given the excruciating problems I had getting you to look at even just this one article on that list:

Carlstrom, David, Greenhill, Laurence, Krueger, Arnold, "Some Amplifiers Do Sound Different", The Audio Amateur, 3/82, p. 30, 31

and all of the complaining from you that accompanied it, and your inability to provide a full text copy of it to me, please forgive me for not putting any value in what you just said. Since you appear to have only posted tiny fragments of it, there is no evidence that you have it all.

Furthermore your logic is excruciatingly bad, as there is no rule or convention that requires that all be given public credit for the contributions that they have made to any particular magazine article.

 

[arnyk]

I have the Adele 21 CD. It does sound dreadful.

Too bad. I have it on good authority that creating dreadful sounding recordings takes no particular skill. In fact having no particular skill at all seems to facilitate making dreadful recordings. It used be the only available option.

 

[Orb]

Too bad. I have it on good authority that creating dreadful sounding recordings takes no particular skill. In fact having no particular skill at all seems to facilitate making dreadful recordings. It used be the only available option.

Do you mean the recording/sound/mastering engineers or the artist or both Arny?
Because unfortunately there are plenty of talented artists that are let down (whether they know it or not is also another but subtly different issue-debate), and I would say Adele is talented.

Cheers
Orb

 

[amirm]

Amir given the excruciating problems I had getting you to look at even just this one article on that list:

Carlstrom, David, Greenhill, Laurence, Krueger, Arnold, "Some Amplifiers Do Sound Different", The Audio Amateur, 3/82, p. 30, 31

and all of the complaining from you that accompanied it, and your inability to provide a full text copy of it to me, please forgive me for not putting any value in what you just said. Since you appear to have only posted tiny fragments of it, there is no evidence that you have it all.

On that note , do you have copies of any of the above articles yourself Arny?

Furthermore your logic is excruciatingly bad, as there is no rule or convention that requires that all be given public credit for the contributions that they have made to any particular magazine article.

Oh there certainly is. You have to violate every ethical rule of writing such reports to not list anyone who has made substantive contributions. To the extent you are not listed at all, means either you were not a participant or that you did the equiv. of bringing lunch.

 

[amirm]

Too bad. I have it on good authority that creating dreadful sounding recordings takes no particular skill. In fact having no particular skill at all seems to facilitate making dreadful recordings. It used be the only available option.

The observation I made is from a live concert for which we have a much better sounding recording which was used the Blu-ray. So nothing was screwed up at the source. It is the final mastering to CD which did it in. Exactly the point I have been making that we should get access to upstream recordings.

 

[arnyk]

Do you mean the recording/sound/mastering engineers or the artist or both Arny?

Usually it is the tech staff who are usually guided by the administrative staff - namely the producer.

Because unfortunately there are plenty of talented artists that are let down (whether they know it or not is also another but subtly different issue-debate), and I would say Adele is talented.

Could be. In my travels I recently picked up a Diana Krall video DVD and my wife's first comment was something about her rather limited range. True. Plays piano pretty well, though.

 

[arnyk]

The observation I made is from a live concert for which we have a much better sounding recording which was used the Blu-ray. So nothing was screwed up at the source. It is the final mastering to CD which did it in. Exactly the point I have been making that we should get access to upstream recordings.

Nice job of obfuscating the fact that its other aspects of the production, and not the downsampling (which may or may not even have happened). I know that it is revealed truth among subjectivists such as yourself Amir that all modern tracking is done with ultra-high sample rates and long data words, but of course like all generalities ginned up by people who never actually get hands on, its not always true.

 

[arnyk]

On that note , do you have copies of any of the above articles yourself Arny?

My library and archives are pretty limited, as I tend to live in the present.

As usual Amir you've missed the point which is that ABX proved to be such a good idea that unlike you I didn't have to pay people to write about it for me.

All I had to do is show a few of them how to do it, and the rest happened by osmosis. Some of them even kicked off pretty good careers in audio based on it. In the end my contributions to their writing efforts were pretty minimal, and the credit I got was pretty reasonable given my level of effort for their particular papers.

I was never into Audio for wealth or fame, as my day jobs all along have been Automotive Engineering and IT related. In these later years I've made enough from Audio to call myself a professional, but to this day IT is far more involving for me.

You might find it amusing that I entertain myself in retirement by visiting Estate Sales, up to a dozen a week. It is very common to encounter some very large and impressive libraries of paper publications which are sold off for pennies on the dollar if not simply hauled away in a dumpster for a fee paid for disposal. One day I realized that the library that I will leave behind is going to be a Kindle with a full memory chip, or something like it. ;-)

 

[Joe Whip]

Usually it is the tech staff who are usually guided by the administrative staff - namely the producer.



Could be. In my travels I recently picked up a Diana Krall video DVD and my wife's first comment was something about her rather limited range. True. Plays piano pretty well, though.

Diana Krall does have a vey limited range. She freely admits to it and acknowledges she had to be coaxed into singing. As for the piano, she plays her ass off. I have seen her live numerous times and most ave been fantastic.

 

[Orb]

Diana Krall does have a vey limited range. She freely admits to it and acknowledges she had to be coaxed into singing. As for the piano, she plays her ass off. I have seen her live numerous times and most ave been fantastic.

Yeah, sort of like people wrongly thinking of Jools Holland and saying he is average (in terms of musicianship), while not realising he is incredibly talented and knowledgeable at boogie woogie and stride on the piano - and also genres that crossover into these a bit.

Cheers
Orb

 

[amirm]

My library and archives are pretty limited, as I tend to live in the present.

Good morning Arny. That is a wonderful philosophy. Alas I think it is misplaced in this context. You objected to a test that I had run a year or two ago with this set of work that you said reflected your contributions to blind testing:

It is true that I worked with others who have helped me document some of the DBTs that I was involved with:

Greenhill, Laurence , "Speaker Cables: Can you Hear the Difference?" Stereo Review, ( Aug 1983)
Greenhill, L. L. and Clark, D. L., "Equipment Profile", Audio, (April 1985)
Nousaine, Thomas, "Wired Wisdom: The Great Chicago Cable Caper", Sound and Vision, Vol. 11 No. 3 (1995)
Nousaine, Thomas, "Flying Blind: The Case Against Long Term Testing", Audio, pp. 26-30, Vol. 81 No. 3 (March 1997)
Nousaine, Thomas, "Can You Trust Your Ears?", Stereo Review, pp. 53-55, Vol. 62 No. 8 (August 1997)
Masters, I. G. and Clark, D. L., "Do All Amplifiers Sound the Same?", Stereo Review, pp. 78-84 (January 1987)
Masters, Ian G. and Clark, D. L., "Do All CD Players Sound the Same?", Stereo Review, pp.50-57 (January 1986)
Masters, Ian G. and Clark, D. L., "The Audibility of Distortion", Stereo Review, pp.72-78 (January 1989)
Carlstrom, David, Greenhill, Laurence, Krueger, Arnold, "Some Amplifiers Do Sound Different", The Audio Amateur, 3/82, p. 30, 31, and Hi-Fi News & Record Review, Link House Magazines, United Kingdom, Dec 1982, p. 37.

etc. etc. etc.

The "newest" test there is 17 years old! Clearly you are living in the past in this discussion as to rely on nothing newer than that.

I searched for a few of the above references and I found post after post by you using them as part of your arguments. Didn't see you quote anything from them but my test was not exhaustive so I thought I ask to see if you had read them and had them in your possession. I got a life philosophy in return which is fine . But you don't seem to be practicing it in our audio discussions.

 

[arnyk]

G. But you don't seem to be practicing it in our audio discussions.

Amir talking to you makes philosophical discussions with a brick wall seem productive. At least if one stands far enough back from that wall, one hears an echo.

At this point I've lost count of the times I've told you in public that my hearing is poor enough to not be much of a source for any reasonable discussion of sound quality. Thing is, compared to the potentially audible faults in most audio gear, everybody's ears are no better than mine! ;-)

I guess having me admit in public forums that my hearing is pretty well shot must make you feel good, given all of the times you've forced me to point it out.

However, the test equipment still works, and as I keep learning about how to use it more effectively, it works even better than it once did.

 

[jkeny]

.....
However, the test equipment still works, and as I keep learning about how to use it more effectively, it works even better than it once did.

And this again reminds me of an L Cohen lyric "I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons" as with all his lyrics it says so much in s few words

 

[arnyk]

And this again reminds me of an L Cohen lyric "I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons" as with all his lyrics it says so much in s few words

Thanks for admitting that you see test equipment as a dangerous threat to you - like a weapon.

Do you even own any?

I've heard that most placebophiles think that they will get their Subjectivist Card pulled if it gets out that they own test equipment.

 

[amirm]

Amir talking to you makes philosophical discussions with a brick wall seem productive. At least if one stands far enough back from that wall, one hears an echo.

At this point I've lost count of the times I've told you in public that my hearing is poor enough to not be much of a source for any reasonable discussion of sound quality. Thing is, compared to the potentially audible faults in most audio gear, everybody's ears are no better than mine! ;-)

??? I was not talking about you yourself being one of the listeners Arny but rather, conducting such tests. You reference Tom's articles. In those he accounts tests where he recruited others to take the listening tests. He himself was not in them.

I guess having me admit in public forums that my hearing is pretty well shot must make you feel good, given all of the times you've forced me to point it out.

However, the test equipment still works, and as I keep learning about how to use it more effectively, it works even better than it once did.

??? My measurements are always dismissed with the demand of listening tests instead. Now you are saying that measurements are a good thing? When did that happen in your camp?

 

[arnyk]

??? I was not talking about you yourself being one of the listeners Arny but rather, conducting such tests. You reference Tom's articles. In those he accounts tests where he recruited others to take the listening tests. He himself was not in them.

Tom had some opportunities to recruit listeners that are not available to me.

??? My measurements are always dismissed with the demand of listening tests instead.

Not exactly. What has happened is that your measurements are compared to what is known about the audibility of say, jitter and it is pointed out that they indicate that no jitter will be audible.

Now you are saying that measurements are a good thing? When did that happen in your camp?

Please see my former comments about discussing philosophy with a wall. Like so many things I have explained this to you over and over again, and yet up comes the same old false claims.

I see that Mr. Keny makes the same mistake:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?16388-Objectivists-what-might-be-wrong-with-this-label-viewpoint!!&p=297622&viewfull=1#post297622

"if the measurements show there is no audible difference then there can be no audible difference."

A measurement all by itself sheds no light on audibility no matter what some subjectivists and other seekingly poorly informed people may simplistically say. The correct procedure is to compare the measured results to the known thresholds of audibility for the kind of defect that is measured, and if the measured results exceed the threshold of detection for that kind of flaw, then the measurement strongly suggests an audible flaw.

 

[amirm]

Tom had some opportunities to recruit listeners that are not available to me.

How is that Arny? In one of the tests he simply offered $25 to each listener. In my case when I need some quick candidates I use my children and wife. How can you be without such viable options?

Arny, your whole reasons for existence on these forms is double blind testing. How can you make excuses like this? It boggles the mind that you say you can't find a few people to run a test with.

 

[arnyk]

How is that Arny? In one of the tests he simply offered $25 to each listener.

Nobody I know will be induced to put forth the necessary effort by a mere $25. The $25 was not an inducement it was a courtesy payment.

In my case when I need some quick candidates I use my children and wife. How can you be without such viable options?

Again as I have pointed out several times my children are adults with spouses and families and most live in other states namely CT and Mass. Sure, I snap my fingers and they pack up their families and drive here for 11+ hours each way. Or they fly which cost my wife and I about $400 each the last time we did so. In what dream world does that happen? ;-)

My wife is the same age as I am but has a different set of hearing difficulties.

Arny, your whole reasons for existence on these forms is double blind testing.

Again Amir, your memory seems flawed. One of the valuable services to the world of audio that I have provided has been correcting numerous technical errors that a certain party has made on the AVS forum. Most of those errors had nothing to do with DBTs.

 

[amirm]

Nobody I know will be induced to put forth the necessary effort by a mere $25. The $25 was not an inducement it was a courtesy payment.

And you lack those enticements why?

Again as I have pointed out several times my children are adults with spouses and families and most live in other states namely CT and Mass. Sure, I snap my fingers and they pack up their families and drive here for 11+ hours each way. Or they fly which cost my wife and I about $400 each the last time we did so. In what dream world does that happen? ;-)

I am pretty sure they were not adults 17 years ago Arny. Heck, we are talking about only one test in which you had a documented role: the 1982 amplifier test. You are telling us for the next 32 years, you were without any means to recruit and conduct listening tests???

Again Amir, your memory seems flawed. One of the valuable services to the world of audio that I have provided has been correcting numerous technical errors that a certain party has made on the AVS forum. Most of those errors had nothing to do with DBTs.

As a hobbyist, with no professional or educational experience in this field, what you think you know needs verification Arny. Just because you think you are right, does not remotely mean that you are. Here is one of many examples of technical statements you make which I am sure you think is right, but clearly is technical voodoo:

========

Arny Krüger wrote:

> "Tushar" wrote in message
> news:803qsp$2uj$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > Could someone explain in laymans terms how the dsd technology used
> in
> > the SACD format is different from the PCM used in the CD and if it
> is
> > superior what are the reasons.
>
> I would like to do that, but the technical literature that I've
> been able to pull together from various sources so far lacks the
> detail I feel I need to reliably do so.
>
> Reading between the lines and speculating wildly, SACD seems to me
> to be a bit stream-oriented digital data coding technique, one that
> effectively uses data words of various lengths for different parts
> of the audio spectrum and/or sound levels. There seem to be claims
> that such data that is transmitted is not subject to lossy
> compression, but if, as I may erroneously or correctly infer,
> different parts of the frequency and/or amplitude domains are coded
> with different length data words, then it SACD is in fact a form of
> perceptual (lossy) coding. FWIW, HDCD seems to have implemented a
> subset of these benefits.

You clearly didn't know what SACD or HDCD were. Yet went on to pontificate on how they work, etc. With track record like this, and only one double blind test in which you participated, I say you are standing on very thin ground with these strong proclamations.