“Good enough” sound and challenging tracks.

[GXAlan]

I recently read The Absolute Sound’s review of the Benchmark AHB2 which had a great snippet:

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/benchmark-ahb2-amplifier/

“But let me cite the toughest resolution test I know: for the a cappella introduction of “Moon River” on her Johnny Mercer album, the soprano Jacintha was placed in an isolation booth while occasional chords from a piano were played through her headphones so that she could stay in tune. Despite heroic measures to ensure isolation, the chords nevertheless bled through her headphones and can be heard during the silences. Now these are extremely far down in level; in a couple of instances they are all but inaudible. If a component can reproduce them, that’s about as much resolution as you are ever likely to need. Suffice it to say the Benchmark did.”

Since this track is just 16/44.1, you don’t need a flagship setup to achieve this feat. Once I heard it on a high end system, I was just barely make it out on an iPhone speaker out with my ear to it.

But this brings up an interesting point.

1) Does anyone know of another similar real-world challenge for resolution which is binary (you hear it or you don’t) that is more challenging?

2) Reportedly, Chesky Records said that on 3 Guitars, you can occasionally hear the hum of the heater. I haven’t had a chance to try that out, but the disc is on Amazon Music HD.

 

[Count Arthur]

I can't remember the details now, but I remember reading about a particular recording on which, if your system was revealing enough and your speakers went low enough, you could occassionally make out the low rumble of a passing tube/subway train in the background.

I've often wondered how good a system needs to be and whether that varies according to what type of music you predominantly listen to. I have plenty of albums in my collection which clearly weren't particularly well recorded/mastered especially some rock and punk stuff by lesser know artists that were probably recorded in small, low cost studios. I've often noticed that second albums sound significantly better than the first; presumably because the band or artist has more money to spend on a better studio.

I've noticed that a lot of dance and electronic music sounds pretty good, presumably because everything can be done digitally on comparatively low cost equipment without the need for expensive microphones or specialist studio space with acoustic booths and all that malarkey.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

I recently read The Absolute Sound’s review of the Benchmark AHB2 which had a great snippet:

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/benchmark-ahb2-amplifier/

“But let me cite the toughest resolution test I know: for the a cappella introduction of “Moon River” on her Johnny Mercer album, the soprano Jacintha was placed in an isolation booth while occasional chords from a piano were played through her headphones so that she could stay in tune. Despite heroic measures to ensure isolation, the chords nevertheless bled through her headphones and can be heard during the silences. Now these are extremely far down in level; in a couple of instances they are all but inaudible. If a component can reproduce them, that’s about as much resolution as you are ever likely to need. Suffice it to say the Benchmark did.”

Since this track is just 16/44.1, you don’t need a flagship setup to achieve this feat. Once I heard it on a high end system, I was just barely make it out on an iPhone speaker out with my ear to it.

But this brings up an interesting point.

1) Does anyone know of another similar real-world challenge for resolution which is binary (you hear it or you don’t) that is more challenging?

2) Reportedly, Chesky Records said that on 3 Guitars, you can occasionally hear the hum of the heater. I haven’t had a chance to try that out, but the disc is on Amazon Music HD.

If you can hear it on an iPhone speaker surely you have to question The Absolute Sound’s assertion that you need a high resolution system

 

[stereo coffee]

On this recording https://www.allmusic.com/album/muss...ibition-stravinsky-the-firerbird-mw0002145667 the subway train can be heard that passes near the venue , but that's not a particularly hard one in comparison to the first post, in the threads topic.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I recently read The Absolute Sound’s review of the Benchmark AHB2 which had a great snippet:

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/benchmark-ahb2-amplifier/

“But let me cite the toughest resolution test I know: for the a cappella introduction of “Moon River” on her Johnny Mercer album, the soprano Jacintha was placed in an isolation booth while occasional chords from a piano were played through her headphones so that she could stay in tune. Despite heroic measures to ensure isolation, the chords nevertheless bled through her headphones and can be heard during the silences. Now these are extremely far down in level; in a couple of instances they are all but inaudible. If a component can reproduce them, that’s about as much resolution as you are ever likely to need. Suffice it to say the Benchmark did.”

Since this track is just 16/44.1, you don’t need a flagship setup to achieve this feat. Once I heard it on a high end system, I was just barely make it out on an iPhone speaker out with my ear to it.

But this brings up an interesting point.

1) Does anyone know of another similar real-world challenge for resolution which is binary (you hear it or you don’t) that is more challenging?

2) Reportedly, Chesky Records said that on 3 Guitars, you can occasionally hear the hum of the heater. I haven’t had a chance to try that out, but the disc is on Amazon Music HD.

I have some old Decca LPs recorded in Kingsway Hall where the rumble of the Tube train is audible on full range speakers, but that is LP so way less than CD resolution.

 

[PierreV]

I recently read The Absolute Sound’s review of the Benchmark AHB2 which had a great snippet:
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/benchmark-ahb2-amplifier/

“despite heroic measures to ensure isolation, the chords nevertheless bled through her headphones and can be heard during the silences. Now these are extremely far down in level; in a couple of instances they are all but inaudible.”

First, nice music I didn't know about. Thanks for the pointer.

Now, from my gaming PC rig an Aorus Master x570 that is, at least in theory, specced as follows from an audio point of view
"Rear 125dB SNR AMP-UP Audio with ALC1220-VB & ESS SABRE 9118 DAC with WIMA Audio Capacitors", I have no trouble hearing those assist chords.

But, trawling the absolute bottom of my sound systems, optically feeding a sub $100 FX-Audio D802 DAC/AMP powering very, very cheap artsound AS150, I can also hear them... Adding insult to injury, the chord at 40 seconds is obvious even from the monitor built-in speakers.

I am somewhat relieved to read that the Benchmark AHB2 is also able to extract that hard to reach information.

I am constantly amazed at what reviewers are coming up with though. If one reads the article without actually listening, one is left with the impression that something special was achieved. If one actually listens, it always ends up in a big dud...

The template

"I have known <insert track> for years but this is the first time I noticed <insert characteristic>"

is very close to

"my wife, who was <insert some location other than listening room> doing <insert some task expected to be carried out by a wife>, suddenly asked <insert question about the stereo>

In my book...

 

[pierre]

I recently read The Absolute Sound’s review of the Benchmark AHB2 which had a great snippet:

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/benchmark-ahb2-amplifier/

“But let me cite the toughest resolution test I know: for the a cappella introduction of “Moon River” on her Johnny Mercer album, the soprano Jacintha was placed in an isolation booth while occasional chords from a piano were played through her headphones so that she could stay in tune. Despite heroic measures to ensure isolation, the chords nevertheless bled through her headphones and can be heard during the silences. Now these are extremely far down in level; in a couple of instances they are all but inaudible. If a component can reproduce them, that’s about as much resolution as you are ever likely to need. Suffice it to say the Benchmark did.”

.

I just made this test. Obvious to catch the notes on headset (audeze mx4), less obvious on genelec 8341 but you hear them a few times when you know what to listen for.
I am sure i would not have notice the piano notes if i was not looking for them.

EDIT: i also hear them when streaming mp3 320kz from qobuz so not that complicated to spot out. I don't think you need a high end amplifier. I don't know but i would be surprise if the genelec have a high end class D amp. What you need is low noise floor or kick the volume up in the quiet passage.

 

[Shadrach]

It's an incredibly stupid bit of journalism. It says virtually nothing about the amp or the system in which it is placed.
You could build a system that would reproduce near perfectly a particular frequency range but still make spoken BBC English unintelligible.

Often picking out details in sound reproduction is about listening and little to do with the system itself.

 

[Fluffy]

“But let me cite the toughest resolution test I know: for the a cappella introduction of “Moon River” on her Johnny Mercer album, the soprano Jacintha was placed in an isolation booth while occasional chords from a piano were played through her headphones so that she could stay in tune. Despite heroic measures to ensure isolation, the chords nevertheless bled through her headphones and can be heard during the silences. Now these are extremely far down in level; in a couple of instances they are all but inaudible. If a component can reproduce them, that’s about as much resolution as you are ever likely to need. Suffice it to say the Benchmark did.”

Found this track on Deezer and listened to the opening part. Piano sounds are faint but obvious. I listened through Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 and Yamaha HS8 powered speakers.

I analyzed the track (only the opening segment) with Adobe Audition. Average RMS amplitude is -34 db. The maximum RMS amplitude is -9 db (max true peak is -3.5 db). Minimum RMS amplitude is -67 db (noise floor) and it gives a dynamic range of 59 db – meaning you can fit this track perfectly in much less than 16 bits.

The audible piano notes are obvious in the spectrogram, and you can see the ones that are audible during silent sections, as well as ones that are masked by her singing. I isolated several individual notes (that are also audible), taking only the base note with one or two overtones (higher overtones are drowned by the noise floor). The max RMS is -58 db (true peak is -51 db) – less than 10 db above the noise floor of the overall track.

You can clearly see the piano notes in this snapshot from the spectrogram, marked in blue circles (notice the frequency scale on the right):

My conclusion is first of all, you definitely don't need any special dac to hear this tracks entire dynamic range. Second, while the notes are much quieter than the singing, it's only about 50 db of difference from max RMS of the piano to max RMS of the singing, and only about 24 db difference from the average RMS of the singing. That's well inside the dynamic range of most speakers, let alone amplifiers and DACs.

 

[pavuol]

I analyzed the track (only the opening segment) with Adobe Audition. Average RMS amplitude is -34 db. That's well inside the dynamic range of most speakers, let alone amplifiers and DACs.

Nice work, this technique may be called.. "visual-aided analytical listening"

 

[BeepPeep_61]

An interesting link in Italian (use google translate of course).
http://www.hifitimereview.com/dynamic-music-sounds-better/

 

[GXAlan]

If you can hear it on an iPhone speaker surely you have to question The Absolute Sound’s assertion that you need a high resolution system

Yes, exactly my thoughts! Although it may be bias since I know where I am “supposed” to hear the notes now.

 

[majingotan]

Yes, exactly my thoughts! Although it may be bias since I know where I am “supposed” to hear the notes now.

Why don't you try something more challenging such as the orchestra track at the end of Pink floyd's Eclipse song https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(Pink_Floyd_song)

A section of orchestral version of the Beatles song "Ticket to Ride" which was covered by Hollyridge Strings can be heard faintly at the very end of the recording. That was unintended: the music was playing in the background at Abbey Road when Gerry O'Driscoll was being recorded.

Maybe you can still hear that on iPhone at full volume and the speakers are directly placed on your ear canal

 

[Fluffy]

Why don't you try something more challenging such as the orchestra track at the end of Pink floyd's Eclipse song https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(Pink_Floyd_song)



Maybe you can still hear that on iPhone at full volume and the speakers are directly placed on your ear canal

I looked into that. this is a whole different beast. The Beatles track (that exist only on the right channel BTW) is buried deep within the noise floor of the PF track. Its true peak is something like 20 DB below the minimum RMS of the track. Even after isolating the Betales song and massive noise reduction, I still needed to crank up the volume of my speakers to an extremely high level to hear it.

I could hear it in the raw music if I turned up the volume massively. I don't think this is a question of resolving power, but a question of how quiet is your listening room. It would first drown in the noise of the room before the noise of the system. And even if you listen in an anechoic chamber to the most resolving system in the world, it could just be too quiet for you to hear it together with the recording's own hiss.

 

[SIY]

For A Thousand Mothers on Stand Up by Jethro Tull. When the song goes into a reprise at the end with a key change, the reprise starts with a little drum figure. If you listen really, really carefully, you can hear something that sounds like a Champagne cork pop just before the other instruments join in. Very tough test.

 

[Fluffy]

For A Thousand Mothers on Stand Up by Jethro Tull. When the song goes into a reprise at the end with a key change, the reprise starts with a little drum figure. If you listen really, really carefully, you can hear something that sounds like a Champagne cork pop just before the other instruments join in. Very tough test.

Again only right channel, and hitting a peak of -36 db. That's actually the easiest to spot so far, because that channel is almost quiet when this happens. The left channel can mask it a bit, but only hits peaks of -9 db (didn't look at the RMS value but trust that it's much less), so not a very big difference. Also, the cork pop takes up the frequency range between 60 hz and 1khz, while in the same moment the left channel plays a ride that takes up ranges of 3khz and upwards. So there is no real spectral masking, also.

 

[dwkdnvr]

I can't remember the details now, but I remember reading about a particular recording on which, if your system was revealing enough and your speakers went low enough, you could occassionally make out the low rumble of a passing tube/subway train in the background.

Possibly Cowboy Junkies Trinity Sessions. It was recorded live at a church right above a subway station - I've heard the 'you can hear the trains' repeated many times, although I haven't personally actually listened for them.

 

[Count Arthur]

I think it was a classical album, but it was a long time ago, and it's likely there are quite a few recordings with odd noises in the background that aren't apparent when your listening on a budget system, or on speakers that don't go all the way down to to the lowest notes, which is pretty much all of them except the bigger floor standers.

 

[Hugo9000]

There is always a bird or something in the old NY Philharmonic/Bernstein recordings from the 1960s hahaha! I was going to say "something non-musical" except in at least one instance, the bird is more in tune than some of the members of the orchestra.

 

[Deleted member 20304]

This thread might be dead, but I just Googled "rumble" and "chesky records" because I'm listening to an album on which there are numerous background noises, namely the same rumble mentioned above. Absolutely sounds like the rumble of a subway. The vinyl I'm listening to is Meiko - Playing Favorites. I joined this forum just so I could post that response... Cheers!