Is the dynamic range of CD sufficient?

[microstrip]

I disagree. Audiophiles do like to think that they are pioneers in unfathomed territory, pushing boundaries, but the fact is that most of what we discuss is well researched, understood and documented basic engineering knowledge.

I am not going to spend my Saturday afternoon going through all 300 messages in this thread (unless you really want me to), but there have been good references to research into dynamic range etc.

Julf,

Do not you find strange that your answer does not include any new published "peer-reviewed research" (using your own words)? Anyway, nice that you now refer to documented basic engineering knowledge - I have often referred to it. But the big challenge is connecting the psychoacoustics and the engineering - the IEC 60559 / IEEE 754 is the easy part.

And no audiophiles do not pretend to be pioneers, they just want better sound reproduction. And would love that those we know it all could explain the why' s.

And, yes, IMHO the more credible references were against the opinion of the OP.

 

[microstrip]

Yes, sometimes it feels like discussing evolution with creationists. The scientifically well-established workings of evolution are also quite counterintuitive and "common sense" leads us astray on that subject as well if we don't understand the theory.

And no, I am not pretending to be an expert in digital (as a biochemist I know much more about evolution), yet I have kept an open mind for the facts, and these are quite convincing. But as Tim says, in high-end audio you can't even fight an opinion with the facts...well, I guess that holds for many things in life.

Al M.,

IMHO, if you feel so it means you are on the creationist side. I have an instrumentalist background (from picoseconds to seconds, from pA to A, from nV to kV) , and I know the limitations of my technical interpretations of high-end audio imposed by psychoacoustics, something I am not proficient in. BTW, I have read with nostalgia and great interest your texts on tube equipment - I have owned Audio Innovations perhaps around two decades ago - and I have to say they have the creationist flavor.

IMHO, we, high-end consumers or just appreciators, have all a little of creationist and evolutionist ...

 

[Al M.]

Al M.,

IMHO, if you feel so it means you are on the creationist side. I have an instrumentalist background (from picoseconds to seconds, from pA to A, from nV to kV) , and I know the limitations of my technical interpretations of high-end audio imposed by psychoacoustics, something I am not proficient in. BTW, I have read with nostalgia and great interest your texts on tube equipment - I have owned Audio Innovations perhaps around two decades ago - and I have to say they have the creationist flavor.

IMHO, we, high-end consumers or just appreciators, have all a little of creationist and evolutionist ...

Oh well, if you feel that way...

I won't disagree with you when you mean the evidence is in the listening and not in the measurements alone. That is why I am willing to defend my tube amps even though 'classical' measurements would favor solid state. On matching speakers they simply sound better than most solid state amps, which must mean we don't, or currently can't, always measure what matters. However, I am open to evidence, and I will re-post here what I said above about my encounter with the Spectral DMA-260:

Yes, but technology marches on, and the old rules don't necessarily apply anymore. I was struck with awe when recently I auditioned the Spectral DMA-260. This was the first high-powered solid state amp that I had heard, or even the first solid state amp in general, that displayed great micro-dynamics, an area where good tube designs always had been king. In addition, it had excellent rhythm & timing, another key factor for vividness. And that it got macro-dynamics right as well is almost self-explanatory.

Upon hearing that amp, quite a few dogmas were shattered in my head. I didn't mind too much

And guess what, the Spectral amps pass all the 'classical' measurements with flying colors as well. By the way, in overall tonal balance they were almost identical to my tube amps -- my amps don't have a 'tubey' timbre.

I do however think that CD theory is sound (I have changed my mind on that recently too, after studying the evidence) and that the problems that we hear must lie in the technical implementation, which apparently is more thorny than that of so-called hi-res formats, simply because there is less wiggle room.

I cannot stress enough that we have to analytically distinguish between the two, theory and practical technical implementation. And again I will repeat myself when I say that, when in 1988 an audiophile, who was complaining about the 'woefully inadequate' theory of CD based on his perceived shortcomings of CD sound back then, had had the chance to listen to a SOTA CD system of 2014 he would have fallen out of his chair in amazement.

Complaints about the theory of CD have been there from the beginning, but guess what, in the meantime the medium has gone from one technical and sonic breakthrough to another, against all the naysayers along the way.

 

[microstrip]

(...) And again I will repeat myself when I say that, when in 1988 an audiophile, who was complaining about the 'woefully inadequate' theory of CD based on his perceived shortcomings of CD sound back then, had had the chance to listen to a SOTA CD system of 2014 he would have fallen out of his chair in amazement.
Complaints about the theory of CD have been there from the beginning, but guess what, in the meantime the medium has gone from one technical and sonic breakthrough to another, against all the naysayers along the way.

Al M.,

Your point seems to ignore the fact that most of the people who tell that the CD is perfect will also tell that there is no difference between a 2000 and a 2014 SOTA CD player. And they will surely disagree with us on why recent CD players really sound much better.

 

[esldude]

Yes, but technology marches on, and the old rules don't necessarily apply anymore. I was struck with awe when recently I auditioned the Spectral DMA-260. This was the first high-powered solid state amp that I had heard, or even the first solid state amp in general, that displayed great micro-dynamics, an area where good tube designs always had been king. In addition, it had excellent rhythm & timing, another key factor for vividness. And that it got macro-dynamics right as well is almost self-explanatory.

Upon hearing that amp, quite a few dogmas were shattered in my head. I didn't mind too much

Sounds similar to my hearing the early Spectral DMA50 when I owned tubed amps myself.

 

[microstrip]

(...) And guess what, the Spectral amps pass all the 'classical' measurements with flying colors as well. By the way, in overall tonal balance they were almost identical to my tube amps -- my amps don't have a 'tubey' timbre. (...)

Al M.,

Supreme heresy of a tube owner in WBF - pretending that a push pull triode based tube amplifier with tube rectifiers having around 1 ohm output impedance and suspicious measurements has the same tonal balance as the solid state Spectral with almost zero output impedance!

As Steve is not participating in this thread, I will use is typical words: Welcome to the lunatic fringe!

 

[esldude]

Al M.,

Your point seems to ignore the fact that most of the people who tell that the CD is perfect will also tell that there is no difference between a 2000 and a 2014 SOTA CD player. And they will surely disagree with us on why recent CD players really sound much better.

Probably in most cases disagree with you that they do sound different.

One would think as things improve they would tend to a more similar sound. The better mid-range DAC's seem to be doing just that. Are the SOTA implementations getting better or just getting different. For the record best DAC I have had ears on is a BADA. Kind of low end compared to these $20-250K DACs. So I wonder what would I hear if I heard a $20K DAC, and didn't know that is what I was listening to?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,

Sorry , I do not have the time or will to discuss such general question, I have gone through tens of articles and essays on internet technical and scientific credibility.
Just from one of those:


1. Is there any evidence that the author of the Web information has some authority in the field about which she or he is providing information? What are the author's qualifications, credentials and connections to the subject? , followed by a long list of guidelines.

http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

I can not understand how the lack of credibility of the author is not relevant to a debate.

If an author I quoted or referred readers to lacked credibility, that would be relevant to the debate. I wasn't the one who sited that author as an authority, so I felt no need to justify him. I did refer folks to an article by Monty Montgomery on xiph.org. How did I determine that it is credible? I read it.

Tim

 

[rbbert]

I think almost all of us here (there do still appear to be some naysayers) agree that the biggest problem today in digital audio of any resolution is the implementation, not the theory.

 

[esldude]

I think almost all of us here (there do still appear to be some naysayers) agree that the biggest problem today in digital audio of any resolution is the implementation, not the theory.

I might be a naysayer. Not so sure there is a problem in implementation. It all seems to work exactly as it is said to at a level of exceptional accuracy.

 

[Julf]

Do not you find strange that your answer does not include any new published "peer-reviewed research" (using your own words)? Anyway, nice that you now refer to documented basic engineering knowledge - I have often referred to it. But the big challenge is connecting the psychoacoustics and the engineering - the IEC 60559 / IEEE 754 is the easy part.

Ummh, yes. IEEE 754 has absolutely nothing to do with psychoacoustics, so connecting those two is definitely a challenge.

 

[rbbert]

I might be a naysayer. Not so sure there is a problem in implementation. It all seems to work exactly as it is said to at a level of exceptional accuracy.

If this were true I think we would be seeing (at least) better measured performance from DAC's, whatever one's opinion about the audible performance.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I might be a naysayer. Not so sure there is a problem in implementation. It all seems to work exactly as it is said to at a level of exceptional accuracy.

Another naysayer, unless you consider recording quality a part of digital media implementation. Then I'd agree wholeheartedly.

Tim

 

[Al M.]

Al M.,

Your point seems to ignore the fact that most of the people who tell that the CD is perfect will also tell that there is no difference between a 2000 and a 2014 SOTA CD player. And they will surely disagree with us on why recent CD players really sound much better.

Well, that seems to be somewhat beside the point of my argumentation, don't you think? By the way, I find it fascinating that you owned both Audio Innovations amps and Ensemble Reference speakers -- in some ways we must have similar tastes

 

[esldude]

If this were true I think we would be seeing (at least) better measured performance from DAC's, whatever one's opinion about the audible performance.

Well measurements are pretty darn good. Near perfect flat response to 19 khz usually (some minor differences the last kilohertz or so). Noise levels of good equipment is down near the thermal noise floor. Those do vary a little bit depending on analog design. Power supplies vary a bit too though plenty have what could only be called superlative performance. Distortion isn't quite to the level of theory mostly due to analog concerns, but plenty are vanishingly low in audible terms. So how much better can those measurements get?

 

[Al M.]

Al M.,
Supreme heresy of a tube owner in WBF - pretending that a push pull triode based tube amplifier with tube rectifiers having around 1 ohm output impedance and suspicious measurements has the same tonal balance as the solid state Spectral with almost zero output impedance!

As Steve is not participating in this thread, I will use is typical words: Welcome to the lunatic fringe!

Oh, I love to be a heretic! I also seem to be a freethinker in other ways, since I am not only a die-hard evolutionist but also argue with an in-depth review on a leading evolution website, Talkorigins.org, based on the current scientific evidence, for an origin of life by natural causes,

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html

while at the same time I am a practicing Catholic. Not that this would be against Catholic teaching, on the contrary, but it might raise some eyebrows amongst the uninformed.

But I digress (we can discuss this elsewhere if you want).

 

[Al M.]

For the record best DAC I have had ears on is a BADA.

Ha, BADA sounds kinda familiar to me

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

If this were true I think we would be seeing (at least) better measured performance from DAC's, whatever one's opinion about the audible performance.

What are the measured performance problems you're referring to?

Tim

 

[esldude]

Saw a presentation awhile back that had an interesting couple slides. It said the ideal AD to DA would have the exact same resulting output signal as just the filters (the anti-alias filtering). It then showed some basic graphs of how current Sigma-Delta units differ from that ideal. The differences were nearly non-existent except a tiny bit at the very extremes.

 

[mep]

the thing about better measured performance is if it is better measured performance then "electrically" it is, preference shoots it all down though...ie SET amps are atrocious in terms of measurements and IMD but add dynamics...something sadly missing in especially the last three decades atleast.

That's the first time I have read a statement that declares SE amps add dynamics. How does an amplifier add dynamic range to recorded music?