Distortion Listening Test

[MediumRare]

Your personal distortion listening test results:

Test taken Wednesday, April 21, 2021 at 10:27 pm

 

[Lilith]

not bad I think:

 

[Peluvius]

I found it easier on the tones than the music. I did this particular test three times with my first one being a bit better than this (-48) and my second one being the worst.

 

[anmpr1]

My results. After two practice runs. I'll tell you for sure that I thought I was guessing at about 30dB, although I went a little deeper. I probably would have done better if I'd have taken the time to align my head with a WallyTractor, and put Sorbothane Tip Toes on my chair feet, before the test. Maybe a cork mat to sit on. I think that's the way Fremer does the test, when he knocks it out of the park. All 'subjective' reviewers should have to post their scores.

FWIW the setting was full range/twin tones using a Cambridge Audio DacMagical Plus headphone amp and closed back B&W P7 wired headphones. Nothing fancy.

Funny thing: from a 'qualitative' standpoint, at my lowest perceptual levels I thought the distorted tones sounded better than the clean tones. A little 'richer' and 'fuller'. Go figure.

 

[YSC]

Ran into this interesting listening test by Klippel with regards to how much distortion you can hear.

This is the link: http://www.klippel.de/listeningtest/lt/

Just casually wanting to see the test, I went with the defaults and for some reason, the levels were exceptionally low. I had to set my headphone level to max and only test with a sealed headphone to even hear it.

On second try, clicking on the volume check provided much, much louder signal but I did not run this test.

I also forgot to select a speaker model, going with "--". Not sure what that represents. There is interesting set of choices in the drop down.

Anyway, was taking the test and recording a snapshot from time to time and it all of a sudden quit on me saying I had run enough. This is my snapshot:

View attachment 29815

The thing is ruthless when you miss, sending you back good number of steps. Once I got a sense of it, I was making good progress until it terminated me at -30 dB. Strangely it says this was my results:

View attachment 29816

-6 dB??? I went to -27 and possibly -30.

Also strange to see a larger number of people (313) detecting -45 dB but not higher distortions above that???

Fascinating that 1921 people could not get past the highest level of 18 dB!!! We have a lot of deaf audiophiles and seemingly, speaker engineers.

I am not very clear what the Real Speaker anchor is doing in there. Is that typical distortion simulated for a speaker? If so, I am able to hear distortion of -30 dB below that?

Here is the only bit on it in the Klippel paper:

View attachment 29817

Anyway, take the test and take a snapshot as you go along as the summary results seems wrong. Don't be shy about the outcome. You won't be judged unless your first name is Thomas, or Sal....

just came across this post after all these years lurking ASR, my first run with family watching TV faintly in the background room with the 2.1 system, seems not bad?

 

[MacClintock]

I managed to get a perfect score using STAX SR-001 Mk2 IEMs and an RME ADI-2 DAC as a source.
I found that some of the "lower" distortion tests were easier to decipher than some "higher" distortion tests. Very strange.
I think this is a great ear trainer nonetheless!

View attachment 44895

Amazing test result. Does the test stop at -69dB? Also, did you really achieve this with pure listening? And not using any other cues people have mentioned here, like hissing and noise floor? Or did you have a look at the spectrum analyzer of your RME ADI-2?

 

[DanTheMan]

 

[DanTheMan]

For the second attempt I let the HVAC relax after the first miss and tried again. This is all done with a generic dongle and $6 KZ IEMs from AE.

 

[Phineas Newborn Jr.]

Interesting stuff, thank you. At first I didn't know what to listen for, once I reached a certain level.

 

[olds1959special]

 

[olds1959special]

On my Grados with Apogee Duet 2 I got -69 but didn't save a screenshot.

 

[Smaestro]

Audibility Thresholds for the DUT "full range speaker" with stimulus "two-tone 70Hz 800Hz"​

Thoughts:

• My first impression was that I found the distortion very weird sounding. Nothing I'd expect from saturation or overloaded hardware. Turns out it's speaker distortion... I thought that was funny as I'm a headphones-only mixer.
• Spoiler: A tell

  I assumed in the pure two tone test, that any take with distortion would have to sound 'fuller', and that I'd use that as my point of attention. But actually in some of these samples, the one with less bass was the distorted one. I did figure this out halfway through, and that allowed me to go a bit deeper again.
  [*]I think AB is a bad test for this. The best to 'ace' this test, is to imagine what a pure sine wave should sound like, and see which one deviates from your expectation. ABX would be better, as it shows your ability to discern a change in sound, rather than being good at memorising a good Sine-wave.
• I don't think there's any point to this test other than fun, and Consumers / Enthusiasts (ie. no reviewer or engineer) shouldn't strive to do it. The only possible outcome is gaining the ability to hear distortion (real or imagined), and in turn make you appreciate your current gear less.

 

[maynardewm]

Too easy! Just listen for the extra harmonics.