What's wrong with Redbook, really?
- Thread starter Phelonious Ponk
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You've got me intrigued now, Tim, know something I don't :b? Anyway, little bit of jiggling later, it's a HP Compaq dc7700, had a quick look up at HP's website; it says "Integrated High Definition audio with Realtek ALC262 High Definition audio codec". Does that give you any clues?
Frank
Do you use a driver allowing for automatic sample rate switching?
If not, do you adjust the sample rate/bit depth manually in the sound panel?
If not the difference between 44.1 and 192 might be explained by the Win SRC, it colors a bit.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/SQ/SampleRateConversion.htm
If not, do you adjust the sample rate/bit depth manually in the sound panel?
If not the difference between 44.1 and 192 might be explained by the Win SRC, it colors a bit.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/SQ/SampleRateConversion.htm
Very few settings for the Realtek, just hardware acceleration and sample rate quality, settings from good to best, does anyone think playing with these settings at lower levels makes a positive difference? Knowing the whole business of computer audio is a huge can of worms, one can never be quite certain exactly what's going on, unless you're prepared to do a lot of research. I feel the telling point is in the quote from Vincent's link:
Frank
That point I totally agree with: the cheap DAC in the PC sounds better when fed high bit rate material. A "great DAC" will do what it needs to do to handle the source, preventing that handling degrading the sound; the electronics are sorted out better.
Frank
As another bit o' fun, tried the resampling exercise on Jack's Monster from the Black Lagoon, Dexys Midnight Runners "Come on Eileen": turned a 4 Meg MP3 into an over 285 Meg 24/192 file. The MP3 was pretty dreadful over the PC speakers, I don't know how Jack can say they sound better that way; but, the good story is that the resampling did a miracle recovery. Went from say 2/10, pretty sludgy, to 6/10, quite reasonable: the fiddle came out nicely, started to get a bit of depth, some acoustic, separation of the mix, even the snares started to sound possible; turned up the volume and bopped along on the other side of the room. Also pointed out clear differences between Nero and foobar2000, Nero softened it up a bit; foobar added a harder edge.
But of course, it may be that I have a miracle PC here ...
Frank
But of course, it may be that I have a miracle PC here ...
Frank
Stupid question here...but can a change of DVD/CD player/burner in a PC make a difference in sound quality?
Oh yeah... along with the media you use.
You need to match the media to the burner that you are going to use.
In MY experience and in MY system, I have found that Plextor Premium burners sound the best with T-Y media and MAM-A media sounds best with Yamaha and Lite-On burners
I ask because I changed one out and I swear I can hear better resolution. I'm thinking it may just be a placebo effect.
John, the placebo "thing" only goes so far. I'd always trust my ears except in two instances: yesterday I was in a really, really lousy mood, had stayed too long to watch the tennis, and the audio system was sounding sh!t, switched it off. So, there might really be something wrong, or my general collapse of energy was getting in the way. The other situation is if you quickly switch from good to slightly less good, and back again, the classic ABX; I've found that the short term memory trips me up beautifully, the brain compensates, fills in the gaps in the version less good, and you end up thoroughly confused ...
Frank
Frank
Frank- I've been listening for few hours now and to both my PC .flac files and CD and I'm surprised how much better it sounds. Not only that, this new drive (ASUS) is super quiet...I can't even hear it spin. I never would have imagined a simple drive change could have that effect.
I'd would go with that, John. Now, if you really want to "test" what's going on: if you can, put back the previous drive and let your ears, and the electronics, settle down for a few hours again, see what what your conclusions are. All my audio experiments have told me that nothing is certain, one way or the other, unless you have hours or even days on the meter, to know whether you have a real improvement or not. All audiophiles "know" that you have to "burn in" cables, etc, etc; unfortunately, that goes for everything, absolutely everything. Rapid switching is never going to tell anything worthwhile with audio, unless there are extreme differences ...
Frank
Frank
Ron-I have to say I think it sounds very good. Adding another pair of subs and firing at them opposite angles of the main speaker subs has resulted in a very smooth, natural sounding bass. I wouldn’t want to be without them. They never call attention to themselves as a source of sound and they add to the spaciousness of the soundstage.
I would like to see the research that "proves" that rapid switching DOESN'T allow the brain to compensate, to confuse two different auditory experiences as being "identical" when in fact they're different.Let's just throw science over the cliff.
Or maybe science is so sure that the brain is just an assembly of flesh and blood that always works in straightforward, predictable ways that we don't have to worry about such subtleties ...
Back to Redbook: I decided to go for broke -- let's do it! -- and resampled my "terrible" new wave "Come in Eileen" crap MP3 to 24/384. Talk about expansion: that miserable less than 4 Meg file is now well over half a gigabyte!! 571 Megs, to be precise. But worst is yet to come: yes, there was an improvement! Original MP3: 2/10, 192 WAV: 6/10, 384 WAV: 7.5/10. Purely subjective, but gives an indication of what happens on Nero.
Changes from 192 to 384 rate? Reduces "metallic" edge to sounds prone to that, silibants less spitty, more natural, fatigue level down, more "realistic". Gosh, even Jack may tolerate hearing a tiny bit of it! I could wind it right up, put it on repeat and not run screaming from the room ...
So, an interesting experiment: you CAN turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Sort of ...
Who would have thunk it ...??
Frank
Science doesn't prove anything to the degree of absolute certitude you're describing, nor is it logically possible to prove a negative. So please kindly refrain from presenting straw man arguments in support of your laughable position. And rapid switching only is of value with extreme differences? Oh my. Complete and utter disrespect and ignorance of the scientific method, that which already has been ascertained and accepted within the scientific community, and those who've spent their entire adult lives and careers in the pursuit of meaningful and valuable information for the betterment of human kind.
Complete and utter disrespect and ignorance of the scientific method, that which already has been ascertained and accepted within the scientific community, and those who've spent their entire adult lives and careers in the pursuit of meaningful and valuable information for the betterment of human kind.In fact there would be a simple, "scientific" way of assessing such a factor. Let's say we consider an experiment in auditory matters, such as Geddes carries out: the ability to detect harmonic distortion.
A pure signal is mixed with a harmonic at various levels until the subject can reliably detect its presence, or absence, tested the "normal way". Then we vary the way the switching takes place between the signal with, and the signal without, for that subject: switching back and forth at various rates controlled by the experimenter, then do the same but also insert variable gaps of silence between the two versions switched, and finally allow the subject to control the rate of switching. All this can be very carefully controlled, monitored precisely, very "scientific".
We're using good research techniques here to get real answers, not "prove" a negative ...
Frank
A pure signal is mixed with a harmonic at various levels until the subject can reliably detect its presence, or absence, tested the "normal way". Then we vary the way the switching takes place between the signal with, and the signal without, for that subject: switching back and forth at various rates controlled by the experimenter, then do the same but also insert variable gaps of silence between the two versions switched, and finally allow the subject to control the rate of switching. All this can be very carefully controlled, monitored precisely, very "scientific".
We're using good research techniques here to get real answers, not "prove" a negative ...
Frank
The use of the scientific method and audio science as a sword in our debates is tiresome and useless. I do not share many of Frank ideas, but appreciate his arguments and his passion for audio - it is why many of us read WBF. As we are grown up adults, we do not risk of being corrupted by his sayings. His language is not scientific, and he writes in a free way what he feels. We decode and interpret it!
Some weeks ago I was assisting to a seminar on quasiperiodic crystals or quasicrystals, as they are called in short. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Dan Shechtman for work carried on this subject in 1982. His findings were a revolution in crystallography and even the long standing definition of crystal had to be changed because of them - crystals become ordered structures but did not need to be periodic, and a crystal needed to be defined by the patterns it generates by diffraction, not by its atoms arrangements structure as before.
For long years, Shechtman was received with hostility and his work was rejected using arguments such as he was misapplying the scientific method. Linus Pauling, another famous Nobel Prize, even said "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists." But his work is now confirmed. and as I read the Nobel Committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that "his discovery was extremely controversial," but that his work "eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter."
Some weeks ago I was assisting to a seminar on quasiperiodic crystals or quasicrystals, as they are called in short. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Dan Shechtman for work carried on this subject in 1982. His findings were a revolution in crystallography and even the long standing definition of crystal had to be changed because of them - crystals become ordered structures but did not need to be periodic, and a crystal needed to be defined by the patterns it generates by diffraction, not by its atoms arrangements structure as before.
For long years, Shechtman was received with hostility and his work was rejected using arguments such as he was misapplying the scientific method. Linus Pauling, another famous Nobel Prize, even said "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists." But his work is now confirmed. and as I read the Nobel Committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that "his discovery was extremely controversial," but that his work "eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter."
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