High Resolution Audio: Does It Matter?

[ahofer]

But they have years of experience arguing with strangers on the internet. That's got to count for something, right? Argument from argument-authority?

Yeah, that was a good one. Reminded me a little of one of my favorite parody twitter accounts: “Three-Year Letterman”

 

[theREALdotnet]

For all the assembled brain power, this thread is mostly filled with strutting and posturing, and very low on information and education.

 

[Trell]

For all the assembled brain power, this thread is mostly filled with strutting and posturing, and very low on information and education.

And here you are increasing SNR with your post.

 

[theREALdotnet]

And here you are increasing SNR with your post.

Likewise, on top of missing my point.

 

[ahofer]

The question of whether high resolution audio matters was answered before the thread started, and many times within the thread. So there isn't much more on topic to say.

 

[Trell]

The question of whether high resolution audio matters was answered before the thread started, and many times within the thread. So there isn't much more on topic to say.

It’s just like any other speaker wire or interconnect thread.

 

[ahofer]

It’s just like any other speaker wire or interconnect thread.

The DIY potato thread was new to me, so that was a gain.

....and it indirectly revealed this: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42338067

 

[Trell]

The DIY potato thread was new to me, so that was a gain.

....and it indirectly revealed this: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42338067

Yeah, that was an interesting twist for sure.

 

[Gregm]

Yeah, that was an interesting twist for sure.

Indeed!
More importantly, however, this experiment has opened up hitherto unexplored paths for creating new, ultra hi-end digital interconnect cables for exclusive audio systems.
Among other qualities, we expect these creations to offer a very easy-flowing "liquid" sound.
Stay tuned!

 

[ahofer]

we expect these creations to offer a very easy-flowing "liquid" sound.

Whatever nonsense we come up with, tongue-in-cheek, has been done. It's like Poe's Corollary of Snake Oil Completion:

Liquid Audio Cables – Teo Audio

 

[krabapple]

So, let me ask you a question similar to what you demand of others:

HAVE YOU SOLVED THE HALTING PROBLEM YET? Well? HAVE YOU? HUH? HUH? HAVE YOU?

Seriously, fella, you're insulting some serious talent here, and relevant talent to auditory evaluations. The fact you cited the meta-analysis really clued me in there, I have to say. Have you figured that out yet?

Same here. I knew where he was going and I believe can predict pretty well where he will end up.

To paraphrase noted savant rickmurphy: I am a veteran of many, many discussion groups on a wide range of topics, but especially audio and science. So I had a pretty good read on him at that point.

 

[krabapple]

Perhaps he never saw comments from "reviewer number 2" as well. I've been on both sides of that.

I could have added an even more pertinent complaint published in a scientific journal: Stanley Lipshitz et al's letter to JAES decades ago, taking issue with its publication of Bob Stuart's 'high resolution audio' flimflammery (which years later gifted us with 'MQA').

 

[krabapple]

OK, so we agree so far.

Now, suppose the question to be answered is, "Can Audiophile Cletus hear the difference between copper and silver wire that he claims he can?" Now, putting aside the issue of positive controls, that's an easy experiment (conceptually) to run- Cletus says he hears in on his Diana Krall LPs in his home system, "...clear as day. You'd have to be deaf to miss it!" We swap copper and silver randomly and see if he can identify or sort or however you structure a DB
What's the valid positive control? Materials? No-one has demonstrated that they can hear the difference between copper interconnects and a potato (an actual test someone ran!). Level? You're not testing for level so sensitivity to one variable is no indication of sensitivity to another variable. EQ? Ditto. Whatever positive control you choose is going to be a different phenomenon.

So I would argue that this is an example of a valid test to answer a specific question where a positive control is both unneeded and impossible.

You're debating the need for positive controls , but this is much the same argument I use to dismiss a requirement for listener training to be part of all DBTs. Listener training can be seen as presentation of an ever diminishing set of 'positive control' stimuli.

In the case where the user already says he hears a difference between A and B, you test that proposition, and only that. No need to 'train' Cletus, you're simply testing his claimed ability.

No government or standard funding agency should or will fund this test. James Randi might have, back in the day, and that's appropriate...it's a *debunking* (or a *bunking*!), not 'research'.

 

[SIY]

You're debating the need for positive controls , but this is much the same argument I use to dismiss a requirement for listener training to be part of all DBTs. Listener training can be seen as presentation of an ever diminishing set of 'positive control' stimuli.

In the case where the user already says he hears a difference between A and B, you test that proposition, and only that. No need to 'train' Cletus, you're simply testing his claimed ability.

No government or standard funding agency should or will fund this test. James Randi might have, back in the day, and that's appropriate...it's a *debunking* (or a *bunking*!), not 'research'.

If you’re answering a specific question as a falsifiable proposition with appropriate controls, it’s scientific. Maybe not science that will ultimately be useful, but scientific still.

 

[krabapple]

Good luck getting 'Can Cletus Hear The Cable Difference He Claims To Hear?' funded. Much less published.

(I can practically see the reviewer comments)

 

[Ken Tajalli]

OK, so we agree so far.

Now, suppose the question to be answered is, "Can Audiophile Cletus hear the difference between copper and silver wire that he claims he can?" Now, putting aside the issue of positive controls, that's an easy experiment (conceptually) to run- Cletus says he hears in on his Diana Krall LPs in his home system, "...clear as day. You'd have to be deaf to miss it!" We swap copper and silver randomly and see if he can identify or sort or however you structure a DBT.

Funnily enough, I did just that!
To see if I could tell the difference between Silver and any other metal. So I purchased pure silver wire from Jeweller's supply, and made headphone cables with it. And then another cable, but this time I used individual wires from a CAT5 cable, the cheapest wire I had at my disposal. I also had some good quality cable that came with a pair of Focal headphones, plus a £20 Amazon cable.
This is what I found:
- The pure silver cable (terminated) was on a par with the Focal cable, in terms of capacitance, inductance and resistance.
- The Amazon cable was crap! it shared the ground cable up to the Y split.
- The CAT5 cable had the highest terminated resistance because it doesn't solder very well.
- The silver cable and the Focal cable sounded superior to the rest.
- The CAT5 cable was a close second.

I ended up using the silver one, after all. Not because of its magical sound quality, but for the fact that fully annealed pure silver wire, is the softest metal I could find, that soldered well, and was cheap enough.
Just fun facts.

 

[SIY]

Good luck getting 'Can Cletus Hear The Cable Difference He Claims To Hear?' funded. Much less published.

(I can practically see the reviewer comments)

To tell the truth, very little of the science I’ve done was published, but it was scientific enough to generate significant revenue in technical markets.

Now that I’m back in the academic world, I’ve gotten much more cynical about publishing and grant harvesting.

 

[j_j]

To tell the truth, very little of the science I’ve done was published, but it was scientific enough to generate significant revenue in technical markets.

Now that I’m back in the academic world, I’ve gotten much more cynical about publishing and grant harvesting.

Look! Look! It's refinement to the refinement to the refinement of the alteration to the ADPCM feedback loop from 1979! It's GENIUS. Oh, don't get me started.

I share your cynicism.

 

[j_j]

If you’re answering a specific question as a falsifiable proposition with appropriate controls, it’s scientific. Maybe not science that will ultimately be useful, but scientific still.

This is true of much science.

It's when you get a result you don't expect that suddenly something new comes out of it. On the other hand, the theory of conduction is pretty well established, I prefer to put my effort elsewhere. (You may know this feeling, too.)

 

[j_j]

I could have added an even more pertinent complaint published in a scientific journal: Stanley Lipshitz et al's letter to JAES decades ago, taking issue with its publication of Bob Stuart's 'high resolution audio' flimflammery (which years later gifted us with 'MQA').

We were going there, slowly.

I will say, though, his argument tactics and his way of ambiguous phrasing of everything to give himself multiple outs did not speak well with me in terms of sincere debate.