Recent content by Empirical Audio

I'll publish that when I get all of the other results in.

I don't think it's rocket science. You compare the A reference to the A tracks and the B reference to the B tracks and report back which of the files matches the reference.

I think you must have missed my ABX post. Here are the test files again: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bi3zgsyucci2jbc/AABpEF52_62e37AHQMdJ2fL2a?dl=0

Is your diff test setup different than the listening equipment that would be used? Different software, hardware?

I believe that there is some value in ABX test, however I am actually learning more from the A/B test. The results are proving to be very interesting and with quite a lot of consistency. For instance I want to know more than there is a difference or no difference. Steve N.

Then it's really easy for you to go to another thread and stop posting on this one.

Bit perfect does not show whether the offsets are identical.

For those that have not already peeked, analyzed or have bias, here are the ABX tracks. Compare all the A files and all the B files to see what matches the respective references: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bi3zgsyucci2jbc/AABpEF52_62e37AHQMdJ2fL2a?dl=0

Prove to me that all rippers result in the same offset. Why does a rip from XLD or dbpoweramp sound better than a rip from WMP?

That USB or some types of DACs or some other thing is somehow distorting the sound when the offset is changed from the original recording. This may be an explanation as to why some rippers don't do a good job or why some CODECs are better than others etc..

These were files created by someone else many years ago, so this is all I have to work with. If someone wants to create some new files for me, I'll be happy to use these as well. I think I will create A/B/X set of these and make these available to those that want to do the "sounds the same" test.

I will post my results in a week or two. I don't want to influence anyone with my answers.

Slew rate is not enough. What signal do you feed the amp to measure slew rate? A step? An impulse? How is the other channel being driven when this happens? Not good enough.

di/dt and dv/dt is dynamics. Dynamics is how accurately does the device reproduce a reference transient waveform. Does it make the full peak voltage? Does it slow the risetime? Does it have good dynamic response when the transient is not layered on top of other low-frequency information...

This recording definitely has the dynamics and transients. The main risk of using a recording like this is that it might lead you down the garden path. You don't want to be using cables for tone controls.