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Listen and choose the 8th generation digital copy.

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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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Congrats! :)

Btw, is there any way you can make similar files that differ only in THD but not in frequency response? In ideal case the same recording would have different levels of THD, say 0.05%, 0.1%, 0.5%, 1% etc..

Audacity has a plug in that lets you pick I think 9 harmonics and set the level for each one. It will have that distortion at all levels which isn't really how electronic gear distorts. I've messed with it in the past, but don't have it loaded into Audacity currently. You could do that and see what you think. I think it was part of the LADSPA plug in group though I may have that wrong.
 

Krunok

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It would be fair to say that we were actually listening to the ADC in this case as this seems to be the bottleneck in this case and not the DAC.

It makes me wonder how many generations it would take before differences would be audible when say an RME would be used to record the DAC's output ?

IMHO point is that processed file sounded DIFFERENT, not necessarilly WORSE, as it would if only distortion was introduced.

One other thing - I can listen 2 recordings and decide which sounds better to me but it is much harder to test which one is identical to the original.
 

Krunok

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Audacity has a plug in that lets you pick I think 9 harmonics and set the level for each one. It will have that distortion at all levels which isn't really how electronic gear distorts. I've messed with it in the past, but don't have it loaded into Audacity currently. You could do that and see what you think. I think it was part of the LADSPA plug in group though I may have that wrong.

Excellent idea!

Yes, I could do it myself, but I would rather it is done by more folks so some kind of consensus is reached about distortion threshold that can be heard. :)
 
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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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It would be fair to say that we were actually listening to the ADC in this case as this seems to be the bottleneck in this case and not the DAC.

It makes me wonder how many generations it would take before differences would be audible when say an RME would be used to record the DAC's output ?

In this case yes, its the FR ripple of the ADC. The noise levels are comparable in the two bits of gear with an edge to the DAC. The DAC is lower in 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion as well. I did this once before with other gear, and thought it was harder to tell. I got lucky in that the DAC had a tiny uptilt the last 5 khz and the ADC had a tiny droop so that even after 8 generations FR was ruler flat. They dovetailed almost perfectly.

I had considered both before and now going for more generations. It appears to me what will become obvious going further is noise floor will intrude first if you have flat FR. I think that would be the case with the RME as well. I think it would be a bother for a non-interesting result. But nothing about it is hard to do if someone has the RME and wants to give it a whirl.
 

gorg

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Bob Marley B
Ry Cooder A
Cowboy Junkies A
Phil Woods A
Jennifer Warnes A

I was rather guessing ;)
 

Veri

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Bob Marley B
Ry Cooder A
Cowboy Junkies A
Phil Woods A
Jennifer Warnes A

I was rather guessing ;)

x/5 :D now I feel better scoring (x+1)/5, haha.
 
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Blumlein 88

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Now don't divulge the answers in public. o_O
 
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stunta

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Closest to reference:

Jennifer Warnes: A
Bob Marley: A
Ry Cooder: A
Phil Woods: B
Cowboy Junkies: No diff

PC => Audioengine D3 => NAD HP50

I hope I am wrong on all counts :)
 

stunta

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Thank you @Blumlein 88 for doing this. I got 2/5 correct so I am quite happy that the DA and AD conversions (at least with the gear you used) are a non-issue for me. I wonder if the converters in active DSP speakers (like the JBL 3xx) are of similar quality and if they are, given the low price of these speakers, it would mean AD-DA chips are pretty much a commodity at this point. Very good news for hi-fi IMO.
 

Veri

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I wonder if there's a reason or simply coincidence a lot of people seem to hear a difference in the Bob Marley fragment :)
 

LTig

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I'm afraid I need a 16th generation....
Me too. Linux-PC, vlc-player, Edirol UA-25, Sennheiser HD-800, aging ears. OK, I did not invest much time, but it all just sounds very good. This is really fantastic performance, especially when I remember my horrible Philips tape deck (N4420, late 1970s), or the somewhat better Aiwa cassette deck which replaced it (1980s), or the much better Akai GX75mk2 (1990s) which is still in working condition. Event the first generation copy on any of these could easily be indentified.

BTW, the link to Phil Wood is dead.
 
OP
Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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Me too. Linux-PC, vlc-player, Edirol UA-25, Sennheiser HD-800, aging ears. OK, I did not invest much time, but it all just sounds very good. This is really fantastic performance, especially when I remember my horrible Philips tape deck (N4420, late 1970s), or the somewhat better Aiwa cassette deck which replaced it (1980s), or the much better Akai GX75mk2 (1990s) which is still in working condition. Event the first generation copy on any of these could easily be indentified.

BTW, the link to Phil Wood is dead.

Okay try it now.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b899j2ljmonlxaf/Phil Woods repost.zip?dl=0


Also I put the answer in the first post under a spoiler tag. So once you've listened and made your choices look at the spoiler.

Guys over at CA were mostly scoring 50:50. With all the multiplied distortion, jitter upon jitter, and running through non-descript cables somehow the unaltered bit perfect original didn't stand out all that much to them. Nothing, but SMPS in use too. That alone should have provided the veil dropping night and day difference even before passing thru the $2 USB cables. Heck the DAC was USB powered. All sitting on a table between a pair of laptops emitting noxious horrible RFI/EMI contaminating everything for probably 10's of meters. I was running Windows 10 with no help to lower its perturbations, and then a MacBook sat on the other side.

BTW, having become the owner of a mid-level cassette dubbing deck, I may do the 8th generation cassette tape test. Stay tuned. I expect the smooth musical analog qualities to save the day. :p
 
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Audioagnostic

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For a test that determines if people are able to discern differences it is perhaps better to give three fragments. Two identical and 1 different. People have to pick the different fragment.
This is a very reliable method to test if you are able to pick up differences, it is used in food evaluation for instance.
However, comparing three audio fragments might be difficult.
Has this type of test setup been used in audio?
 

SIY

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Yes, people have used triangle testing. And of course, the objections were made from the usual suspects that this was even more confusing to the listeners than ABX. If one is determined to peek, there is no DBT format that will be satisfying.
 
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