Conclusive "Proof" that higher resolution audio sounds different

amirm

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OK, you deserve to bask in some glory for a while :)
Oh, that was not the intent of my post at all. I have promised Scott not to provide hints to listeners while he is collecting data.

I am actually hoping that more people hear these differences. Hate to be the only one on this as the message will only become stronger if more people are able to hear it.

Can I get more people to try Arny's 32 Khz test? That is one that should be audible to everyone and I like to make that case abundantly clear. Thanks for trying it John.
 

jkeny

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I started to redo the test using an older DAC (ES9023 based one) I have here & noticed that the Foobar ABX utility introduces (or emphasises) clicks in the playback (some in the left ear, some right & maybe some in both) that aren't as noticeable (or even evident) when I play the same file in Foobar outside of the ABX utility - hmmm??

Of course I can't ABX that difference using ABX :)

Anybody else get this? It's particularly evident around 8 secs or so but pops up intermittently through the tracks.

So I didn't go any further with the test until I figure this out

Is there a replay gain in ABX as this might explain the issue - the ES9023 is prone to digital clipping at digital 0dB? (I don't have replaygain ticked on in ABX, BTW)
I'll get another non ES9023 DAC & try
 

TBone

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Those issues are dismissed out of hand though. My tests pull that back in the realm of possibility and now, expecting a different explanation than "it can't happen."

Dismissed out of hand?

What can't happen?

tb1
 

jkeny

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Nope, I'm also getting it with another DAC - curiouser & curiouser

Edit: OK solved it. I'm using headphones directly into the back of the DACs which are not meant for driving headphones directly so at full volume they distort. I was playing the tracks in Foobar with the Foobar's volume slightly reduced = no distortion but ABX plays at full volume = distortion.

Have to go another route to ABXing these files with a decent DAC as I don't have a headphone amplifier

Sorry for the hiccup :)
 
Last edited:

jkeny

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Oh, that was not the intent of my post at all. I have promised Scott not to provide hints to listeners while he is collecting data.

I am actually hoping that more people hear these differences. Hate to be the only one on this as the message will only become stronger if more people are able to hear it.

Can I get more people to try Arny's 32 Khz test? That is one that should be audible to everyone and I like to make that case abundantly clear. Thanks for trying it John.

I know, I was pulling your leg, slightly
I need to get a decent headphone playback as I don't consider laptop headphone output to be up to the job, particularly when using Microsoft DS - sorry Amir :)
But it may be that it also needs a trained ear to notice the difference? Even if you gave the particular aspect that you can hear that is different between the tracks, it wouldn't invalidate the test because it is done blind through ABX - if you see what I'm getting at
 

Phelonious Ponk

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There's no victory here for anyone at the extremes. Those who have held the position that there cannot possibly be an audible difference between Redbook and high res have just had the bottom pulled out of that position. Those who have held that the difference is clearly audible, and especially those who have claimed that Redbook is not even hi-resolution, terrible, unlistenable...name your hyperbole...have just been shown that it takes a guy trained in hearing digital artifacts and who did so as a part of his job description, listening to the simplest of files, zeroing in on the parts of those files that reveal the artifacts the most...etc., etc., to hear what they've been claiming to be the difference between beautiful music and digital noise. This result hardly supports their position, but it does support that the odds are very high that very few of them could pass the test Amir took.

That's got to be embarrassing to any who have the humility to suffer embarrassment.

The next question, of course, is what did Amir hear? It would be interesting to re-run the test with the hi-res files brick walled above 20khz.

Tim
 

RogerD

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There's no victory here for anyone at the extremes. Those who have held the position that there cannot possibly be an audible difference between Redbook and high res have just had the bottom pulled out of that position. Those who have held that the difference is clearly audible, and especially those who have claimed that Redbook is not even hi-resolution, terrible, unlistenable...name your hyperbole...have just been shown that it takes a guy trained in hearing digital artifacts and who did so as a part of his job description, listening to the simplest of files, zeroing in on the parts of those files that reveal the artifacts the most...etc., etc., to hear what they've been claiming to be the difference between beautiful music and digital noise. This result hardly supports their position, but it does support that the odds are very high that very few of them could pass the test Amir took.

That's got to be embarrassing to any who have the humility to suffer embarrassment.

The next question, of course, is what did Amir hear? It would be interesting to re-run the test with the hi-res files brick walled above 20khz.

Tim

All digital is high resolution. Redbook is high resolution,but more micro and ambient information is discernable in so called "high resoltion". Everything boils down to system resolution.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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All digital is high resolution. Redbook is high resolution,but more micro and ambient information is discernable in so called "high resoltion". Everything boils down to system resolution.

Yes. It is.

Tim
 

Ron Party

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Those issues are dismissed out of hand though. My tests pull that back in the realm of possibility and now, expecting a different explanation than "it can't happen."

Hi Amir.

I've been lurking at that AVS thread and the related ones since their inceptions. For now, at least, the tunnel vision objectivists about whom Terry wrote seem to have gone mute.

I've been curious since you posted the results of your tests at AVS. What do you suppose is/are the technical reason/reasons why you were able to pass as you did? ADC and/or DAC? Conversion algorithms? Other?

Before reaching any hang your hat here conclusions, I'd like to see more tests run with real music, of course, but also with different microphones, ADCs and DACs.
 

Orb

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Ron,
problem with using real music is that your trying to differentiate on a complex moving target, this is important to note when doing ABX.
I mentioned in the past the only real way to really pass reliably ABX in these scenarios would be to use very short segment that will highlight-emphasise a specific trait that does not rely upon usual audiophile listening patterns-behaviour to music.
I think J. Gordon Holt said something similar in the past, to reliably pass blind test it requires very specific sound-music-note "engineered" to assist in perceiving a trait-characteristic.
This sound can be found in music but would be a very short window in a short segment, worst way is to try and analyse whole segment/music track for comparison.
Engineered meaning time taken to find right music-sound-instrument note-etc played for the system-solution-components used.

I would say longer listening segment/tracks would be useful in identifying potential preferences-tolerances-thresholds, but then the cognitive approach would be different while the aim of the test for many would be to argue whether they are audbly different.

Cheers
Orb
 
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Mike Lavigne

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......Those who have held that the difference is clearly audible, and especially those who have claimed that Redbook is not even hi-resolution, terrible, unlistenable...name your hyperbole...have just been shown that it takes a guy trained in hearing digital artifacts and who did so as a part of his job description, listening to the simplest of files, zeroing in on the parts of those files that reveal the artifacts the most...etc., etc., to hear what they've been claiming to be the difference between beautiful music and digital noise.......

Tim

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

no one i know.

plenty say there is better than redbook, but mostly also that redbook can be, and typically is, pretty good.
 

Ron Party

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Ron,
problem with using real music is that your trying to differentiate on a complex moving target, this is important to note when doing ABX.
I mentioned in the past the only real way to really pass reliably ABX in these scenarios would be to use very short segment that will highlight-emphasise a specific trait that does not rely upon usual audiophile listening patterns-behaviour to music.
I think J. Gordon Holt said something similar in the past, to reliably pass blind test it requires very specific sound-music-note "engineered" to assist in perceiving a trait-characteristic.
This sound can be found in music but would be a very short window in a short segment, worst way is to try and analyse whole segment/music track for comparison.
Engineered meaning time taken to find right music-sound-instrument note-etc played for the system-solution-components used.

I would say longer listening segment/tracks would be useful in identifying potential preferences-tolerances-thresholds, but then the cognitive approach would be different while the aim of the test for many would be to argue whether they are audbly different.

Cheers
Orb

Hi Orb.

I suspect for many the whole point of the exercise is to ascertain whether one can reliably and repeatedly differentiate with real music. I mean, isn't that what Audiophiles claim, that they can reliably and repeatedly do so? That Amir could do so with jingling/jangling keys is great but we need to know the effect of something like masking. We must not a priori conclude music is not suitable.

As to the use of small segments in music, great. Use whatever one believes will create the greatest likelihood of passing the test. Strike of a cymbal? Great. Decay of a bass note? Great.

Yes, longer listening might be useful in identifying preferences, tolerances and/or threshholds. Of course, that presumes there is an audible difference in the first place.

I would like to see properly designed tests -- plural intentionally used -- using long term listening to music, not just slices thereof.
 

amirm

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Is there a replay gain in ABX as this might explain the issue - the ES9023 is prone to digital clipping at digital 0dB? (I don't have replaygain ticked on in ABX, BTW)
I'll get another non ES9023 DAC & try
Replaygain is optional in ABX. You get a pop up when you start the test and it has two check boxes and one is for this. But even if you check it, you get an error saying there is no replaygain metadata in there.
 

amirm

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There's no victory here for anyone at the extremes. Those who have held the position that there cannot possibly be an audible difference between Redbook and high res have just had the bottom pulled out of that position. Those who have held that the difference is clearly audible, and especially those who have claimed that Redbook is not even hi-resolution, terrible, unlistenable...name your hyperbole...have just been shown that it takes a guy trained in hearing digital artifacts and who did so as a part of his job description, listening to the simplest of files, zeroing in on the parts of those files that reveal the artifacts the most...etc., etc., to hear what they've been claiming to be the difference between beautiful music and digital noise. This result hardly supports their position, but it does support that the odds are very high that very few of them could pass the test Amir took.

That's got to be embarrassing to any who have the humility to suffer embarrassment.
Good points :).

The next question, of course, is what did Amir hear? It would be interesting to re-run the test with the hi-res files brick walled above 20khz.
OK, I will provide more detail :).

On Arny's 32k vs 96 Khz, I hear gross distortion in high frequency transients. I don't know how to describe it in words other than it sounds kind of like compression artifacts.

On Arny's 44K and all of Scott's files #1 and #3, the difference is what I would call "high-res" versus not. The 44 Khz versions sound flat and lack that depth that high-res has. I listen to the notes between the transients and see how it transitions down before the next peak. The quality and fidelity is different. These differences are much smaller than the 32 Khz example above. And in track #2 in Scott's tests, essentially not there.

I would say the 32Khz sample then is the proverbial "night and day" to my ears and the other ones difference is in very low level detail.
 

amirm

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Hi Orb.

I suspect for many the whole point of the exercise is to ascertain whether one can reliably and repeatedly differentiate with real music. I mean, isn't that what Audiophiles claim, that they can reliably and repeatedly do so? That Amir could do so with jingling/jangling keys is great but we need to know the effect of something like masking. We must not a priori conclude music is not suitable.
Hi Ron. All three of Scott's clips are real music from AIX records. They are not artificial sounds.

I would like to see properly designed tests -- plural intentionally used -- using long term listening to music, not just slices thereof.
These tests are proper Ron. They are level matched and carefully created. Per above, they are also real music. And I used a common ABX comparator.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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

no one i know.

plenty say there is better than redbook, but mostly also that redbook can be, and typically is, pretty good.

Honestly, Mike, if you don't think any audiophiles are accusing Redbook of being unlistenable digital trash, you're not paying attention to audiophile forums, including this one.

Tim
 

microstrip

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

no one i know.

plenty say there is better than redbook, but mostly also that redbook can be, and typically is, pretty good.

+1!
 

rockitman

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Honestly, Mike, if you don't think any audiophiles are accusing Redbook of being unlistenable digital trash, you're not paying attention to audiophile forums, including this one.

Tim

It's not the format, rather what some engineers do to the source music that is the problem...mainly compression/normalization limiting dynamic range amongst other unpleasant digital artifacts.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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It's not the format, rather what some engineers do to the source music that is the problem...mainly compression/normalization limiting dynamic range amongst other unpleasant digital artifacts.

Agreed. There is some really bad digital mastering out there.

Tim
 

Mike Lavigne

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Honestly, Mike, if you don't think any audiophiles are accusing Redbook of being unlistenable digital trash, you're not paying attention to audiophile forums, including this one.

Tim

these days i see expressions of preference, but very little, if any, actual condemnation of redbook you are describing. on WBF i cannot think of one person who pushes an opinion of redbook as unlistenable digital trash. i think there are folks who have not gone to the trouble to listen to a current good digital source so don't know about current digital performance.....but typically you won't find them within 10 miles of a forum thread about digital. they simply ignore it.
 

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