AIX Records High Rez Test Results

[svart-hvitt]

IME there can be a difference between a system that merely allows you to notice the problems in a recording, and a system that allows those problems to sap the joy and life out of the recording. Often that difference seems to lie in the room and speaker placement IMO.

What you wrote, «room and speaker placement», is acoustics and what we often call colouration. Right?

 

[andreasmaaan]

What you wrote, «room and speaker placement», is acoustics and what we often call colouration. Right?

Acoustics - exactly. Colouration to my knowledge is a more vague term..

 

[svart-hvitt]

Acoustics - exactly. Colouration to my knowledge is a more vague term..

Yes, should have been «acoustics colouration».

 

[maverickronin]

How are you to detect a poor record when mastering, if records always sound good on speakers?

If neutrality is achieved, shouldn’t bad records sound bad, and good records sound good?

I'm talking about relative levels of quality, not inverting the entire scale. IME both good mixes and poor mixes are usually improved by better gear. Better mixes start out sounding better on poorer gear because they sound better in general but both scale with gear.

There are of course exceptions like really old recordings with noticeable tape hiss that might sound better on something with rolled off highs or a weird FR dip in just the right place but I've rarely come across them.

 

[svart-hvitt]

I'm talking about relative levels of quality, not inverting the entire scale. IME both good mixes and poor mixes are usually improved by better gear. Better mixes start out sounding better on poorer gear because they sound better in general but both scale with gear.

There are of course exceptions like really old recordings with noticeable tape hiss that might sound better on something with rolled off highs or a weird FR dip in just the right place but I've rarely come across them.

You are right. My MacBook Pro doesn’t party. If you see what I mean.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

I did not take this particular test, though I had done my own previously.

I have always believed that the principal benefits of hirez, if any and they were always audibly small at best, come potentially much more from the recording, mixing and mastering side, rather than the playback side. This totally undisciplined and unscientific test might well confirm that, if it indeed says anything at all. There may well be a net gain to hirez recording production in spite of lower rez distribution formats.

Summaring my own experience, also undisciplined and unscientific, it suggests that RBCD files downsampled from a hirez production chain can potentially and noticeably reduce the audible performance gap that had existed between recordings produced by an entirely RBCD 44k/16 production/playback chain vs. hires production and playback. I have been impressed by many of the more recent commercial CD/RBCD files that were recorded, mixed and mastered in hirez before downsampling to RBCD for distribution. And, of course, upsampling on playback does little or nothing.

However, wherever possible, I still believe in playback with the source, as-distributed format/sampling rate. Possibly, that is audibly no big deal. But, it is also no big deal (except DSD) for me to do it, so that's what I do. Everything in user-end format/sampling conversion may or may not be audibly transparent, but there is also no harm in not doing it unless absolutely necessary, as with DSD to enable DSP features.

 

[amirm]

Did King of Audio take the Waldrep test?

I took the last one he did on AVS Forum. I did not see this one.

 

[svart-hvitt]

I took the last one he did on AVS Forum. I did not see this one.

That’s a pity.

You could have officially entered the exclusive list of golden ears

It’s interesting, though, that Waldrep couldn’t hear a difference. Maybe he lacked the training (that you have)?

 

[restorer-john]

Some of my best sounding CDs are early ones, probably because they predate dynamic compression.

Many of my best sounding CDs are also from the 80s to the very early 90s. Times when no expense was spared doing the CD medium sonic justice.

There was a time in my early life as a audiophile I became quite disenchanted. It seemed that the better my system got, the worse many of my favorite recordings sounded. The highs were tizzy, cymbals sounded like air hose blasts, voices sibilant and spitty, you know the sound. I later came to understand that was just the way it was going to be, those recordings were the roadblock and no amount of money would change it, a sad truth. It tamed my insatiable upgrading and spending since quality recordings sounded incredible, but so little of what I listen to are of audiophile quality in the first place. I guess that's how I got to a place where "good enough really was good enough".

The problem for me is that 'roadblock' you describe prevents me listening to a lot of great music. Music I own and love, but languishes in the CD cabinets due to the less than stellar capture and production.

Out of my perhaps 7000 CDs, there are only a few hundred spectacular recordings in total- recordings that show just how fabulous the format and replay equipment can be. Recordings that re-inforce to me that there is no need for anything better, ever.

 

[Soniclife]

It’s interesting, though, that Waldrep couldn’t hear a difference.

I think it points to him having done the down sampling properly.

 

[andreasmaaan]

@amirm do you know how high up your hearing extends? If that’s not too personal a question

 

[amirm]

@amirm do you know how high up your hearing extends? If that’s not too personal a question

Not precisely. Audiologist test which I took unfortunately stopped at 8 kHz despite my request for full range testing. I do know that my wife and son hear high frequencies that I barely hear or not at all.

 

[Blumlein 88]

According to some "knowledgeable" people on the internet Amir doesn't have any hearing. He looks at the waveforms captured by his AP and imagines what it would sound like if he were a hearing person.

 

[Sal1950]

Mark published Part II of his report on the listening test.
Lots of good insight.

"Thus far I’ve received 83 responses to the HD-Audio challenge — a pretty good number for a casual survey. I spent a couple of hours going through them and created a spreadsheet. Please keep in mind that I’m not a statistician and am ill-equipped to do any fancy data analysis on the responses. But it is obvious to me that some questions can be tentatively answered.
Here’s a few:"

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6274

 

[Thomas savage]

According to some "knowledgeable" people on the internet Amir doesn't have any hearing. He looks at the waveforms captured by his AP and imagines what it would sound like if he were a hearing person.

As opposed to looking at the marketing and talking to your egotism in order to imagine what stuff sounds like...,

I will take amirs method

 

[amirm]

 

[SIY]

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6274

OK, so his results all in all are consistent with random chance, though it would have been nice if he broke down "How many people got 0 correct or couldn’t tell any difference?" into 0/6 and "no difference." If you want to read something significant into the 2 scores of 6/6, you have to also consider the other end- the chances of 6/6 or 0/6 are 0.5^6 = 1/64. Since there were 83 participants, having 1 or 2 people score perfectly in the absence of an audible difference is totally expected. Ditto 1 or 2 people scoring 0/6, but that figure is not given.

 

[Wombat]

OK, so his results all in all are consistent with random chance, though it would have been nice if he broke down "How many people got 0 correct or couldn’t tell any difference?" into 0/6 and "no difference." If you want to read something significant into the 2 scores of 6/6, you have to also consider the other end- the chances of 6/6 or 0/6 are 0.5^6 = 1/64. Since there were 83 participants, having 1 or 2 people score perfectly in the absence of an audible difference is totally expected. Ditto 1 or 2 people scoring 0/6, but that figure is not given.

Yes. We can't take the individual scores at face value.

 

[amirm]

A good follow up would be to take the two that did perfectly and test them again. If they get bad results then we know the initial ones were random. But otherwise, we would discover if they really heard something.

 

[svart-hvitt]

A good follow up would be to take the two that did perfectly and test them again. If they get bad results then we know the initial ones were random. But otherwise, we would discover if they really heard something.

What about those who scored zero? Maybe they have golden ears but preferred compressed to hi-res, thinking that their preference was linked to higher fidelity?