Apple Once Again Rumored to Be Developing High-Resolution Audio Formats

[MagnusVonMagnum]

No-one has in the eight years I've listened to, and read loads about, suggested that streaming audio could be better because some audio changing algorithm or circuit. You are really the first with that idea.

Actually, there's a very simple way streaming could be at least theoretically better than "some" live CD players and that is jitter (timing differences coming from a live feed off an unstable motor mechanism driving CD players). Streaming audio is all buffered and therefore jitter is non-existent. However, most DACs made in the past decade already have jitter reduction circuits and while some of the designs cost a small fortune when they first came out, even $20 outboard DACs now typically have Burr-brown DACs or whatever that now cost next to nothing (chips come down in price over time BIG TIME). In other words, "jitter" USED to be this giant bugaboo in the room a long time ago (It was all the rage in to blame it for bad CD sound in the 1990s). Frankly, I never heard it. I have a hard time telling my Pink Floyd The Division Bell LP from the CD played with A/B switching once it's past the quiet areas where you might hear LP surface noise (I've synced albums up plenty of times to compare). And there are HUGE differences between LPs (due to LP distortion in the format and chain) compared to DACs and streaming. Yeah, sibilant areas often give away LPs at some point, etc., but again that's due to serious issues with the LP format in general.

I do agree if an entire audience is hearing a "big" difference between a CD player and a Streaming setup, they've RIGGED the tests. Humans have a hard time hearing frequency response differences in the 1dB range, let alone the 0.05-0.1dB range that DACs tend to vary by. Jitter is even hard to pin down. It's a timing shift that might be similar to wow & flutter or something (I've really never read what it's supposed to 'sound' like because I don't think anyone's actually ever "heard" it to be totally honest. I think it's ALL a bunch of BS designed to sell overpriced garbage and put the blame on anything but the music industry itself for putting out poor quality recordings and masterings catered to the lowest common denominator systems.

One has to understand that many of these companies like Linn USED to rely on high quality turntable sales to stay in business. They had REAL differences once upon a time. As CD and digital took over the entire market, to stay alive they HAD to come up with some way to sell digital equipment at higher prices. So they've spent ages refining tiny numbers that aren't audible and then MARKET it BIG to sell to a select clientele that can afford to spend thousands on something that isn't audible. It's The Emperor Has No Clothes syndrome.

"Can't you hear how much better that sounds" the sales guy asks the rich guy?

Not wanting to look stupid/ignorant to the sales guy he responds, "Um...yeah it's awesome!"

"How many you you want? They're $5000 each."

"But my speakers were only $2000 a pair." (and they have a frequency response of +2/-3dB in an anechoic chamber, let alone a real living room, making the differences on the front-end MOOT!)

"That doesn't matter! the sales guy exclaims. "Garbage in = Garbage out. The front-end is THE most important piece of equipment you own! It has to be the BEST!"

And so goes the traditional ploys to sell ridiculous overpriced crap you couldn't possibly hear or need when your speakers and the room itself are the biggest causes of REAL distortion there is in most systems. Yes, you need a good source. Yes, you need enough power. No, those don't have to cost a freaking fortune. But speakers DO tend to become more capable as the money goes up because they are the mechanical system that has to reproduce that source! Most people's speakers are woefully inadequate and yet people spend more on amps/receivers and CD players when speakers and room treatments would make the most difference. There are even now DSP processors to eliminate room problems digitally (using a mic setup in conjunction with the speakers). Those can make a HUGE difference for your sound and even they don't cost as much as the snake oil crap some of these companies sell!

The REAL garbage "IN" is the recordings the industry is selling you. If they purposely put out a compressed POS recording, it's going to sound like a compressed POS on even the most expensive reproduction systems (in fact they were designed to sound "better" on crap car stereos and earbuds).

Everything else in your home system is part of a CHAIN. Any single component could ruin the sound. Fortunately, with digital it's not hard to get a good player (whether a CD player or a streamer). Good quality amplifiers and processors are dirt cheap these days (high-end receivers from the 1980s can't touch the receivers made today and there are plenty of separate systems out there as well and they need not cost a fortune either). But your SPEAKERS, well they haven't changed as much as other systems. There have been a lot of new designs over the years and I do believe you can get a much better speaker today than in years past for the money, but you have to know where to look. Most of the HiFi shops where you could listen are gone. Much of the mass media sales have gone into making speakers sound better SMALLER (i.e. the "Bose Movement"). Yeah, that's nice that a clock radio can sound like a speaker system 4x it's size, but it's still CRAP compared to a real speaker system you can get for the same money.

People should put the BULK of their money into speakers and room treatments. It will make the biggest difference there. There's nothing you can do about the record companies putting out bad recordings other than to write them and let them know. It probably won't do any good, but if enough people complained, they might offer a better version. SACD does sound better on many discs. Why? Beause they remaster them to sound GOOD before they release it. They could release that remaster on CD and it would sound just as good, but they want you to think there's a difference. There are SACDs that DO have the remastered CD on the SAME DISC (top layer)! But they PURPOSELY have it at a different volume level than the SACD one (CD is quieter) so that makes you think the SACD is BETTER sounding. That's a psychological FACT.

Want another psychological bit of interesting trivia? Did you know that during the famous "Coke Vs Pepsi Challenge" that Pepsi ran back in the '80s that Pepsi ALWAYS 100% of the time gave you Pepsi FIRST? That is because after you drink something sweet, a less sweet drink will taste odd and more bitter. Thus, by giving you Pepsi (which has more sugar than Coke) first, Coke will taste ODD if you drink it right afterwards. They don't give you a palette cleanser on purpose. Thus, while "some" can still recognize Coke (I could) and pick it because they know it normally tastes better than overly sweet Pepsi, MOST people would pick Pepsi as the 'better' tasting one regardless of what soda they normally preferred. This gave Pepsi marketing power to CLAIM that people preferred Pepsi 2-to-1 or whatever it was. That is FACT. It was one of the first things brought up in my Psychology 101 class back in 1993. And it should tell you something about the lengths of deceit corporations will go to in order to sell you something you don't need!

 

[milo]

Yes, I've listened the Linn systems a few times.

So the listening test you referenced was Linn? They stopped selling CD players years ago in favor of streaming boxes - so they wouldn't have any incentive to rig a "blind" listening test, would they?

If you have compared Linn systems you could have the answer to if the points are way overblown, otherwise you can't.

The points listed on that page have nothing to do with Linn specifically. And other than trying to play a CD that is extremely grimy or scratched, they are all things that are orders of magnitude smaller than the differences various digital audio players are going to have anyway.

No-one has in the eight years I've listened to, and read loads about, suggested that streaming audio could be better because some audio changing algorithm or circuit.

To be more specific, I'm suggesting that it's possible Linn rigged their listening test. No, normally streaming wouldn't be "better" because of those things.

I don't doubt that an incredibly expensive piece of gear can sound good. I just think it's more likely that it's the result of using expensive high end components as opposed to streaming inherently sounding better.

"We should no more let numbers define audio quality than we should let chemical analysis be the arbiter of fine wines."

Nelson Pass

From the vinyl guy I'd expect nothing less. Of course listening tests are crucial. I just tend not to trust ones I hear about third hand that were put on by a company selling gear, with no way of knowing if they were legit blind listening tests or not.

 

[milo]

To add a point inspired by Magnum, to rig a listening test you don't even need to change the sound between the two sources. All they'd need to do is have the streaming box a hair louder and nobody would notice that but most listeners would prefer the louder one. To be fair it's possible the test wasn't rigged but instead they just set it up improperly.

 

[richard_cooper]

Actually, there's a very simple way streaming could be at least theoretically better than "some" live CD players and that is jitter (timing differences coming from a live feed off an unstable motor mechanism driving CD players). Streaming audio is all buffered and therefore jitter is non-existent.

And that can all be solved by buffering like in portable and car cd players......

 

[milo]

And that can all be solved by buffering like in portable and car cd players......

The amount of buffering required to compensate for jitter would be tiny, most CD players probably do exactly that and probably always have. CDs have a unique encoding system anyway that has error correction and high redundancy so it's hard to imagine that could work without buffering at least a small amount of data. All digital audio data is played back via a clock, it's not like there are some CD players that just spit it out as fast as it comes from the disk.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

And that can all be solved by buffering like in portable and car cd players......

Which is why I said it USED to be a problem way back when. IT should not be a problem now. But if Linn purposely defeated the buffer or changed the output impedance or any number of things, it could have affected the sound. I'm sure it's in their best interest to convince people to buy their newest POS. Maybe they could give out some free Shakti stones to go with it? I'm not sure if Shakti stones (Magic stones you place around the room to absorb evil sounding audio frequencies!) or green magic marker pens that cost 25x what a Crayola "model" costs (to coat the edge of your CDs where no data even sits....) was my favorite SNAKE OIL product of all time.

 

[richard_cooper]

The amount of buffering required to compensate for jitter would be tiny, most CD players probably do exactly that and probably always have. CDs have a unique encoding system anyway that has error correction and high redundancy so it's hard to imagine that could work without buffering at least a small amount of data. All digital audio data is played back via a clock, it's not like there are some CD players that just spit it out as fast as it comes from the disk.

Yes, I was just being a bit tongue in cheek, that the anti-skip buffering and re-reading system found in cheap portables could provide better protection from all sorts of read errors than a lot of very high end audiophile decks.

Obviously if your player was on your ant-vibration mounts made of purest unobtanium, milled by virgins, polished by monks on the planes of Mars, and spatially aligned with the quantum spin of the disk's impurities, you'd have no problems anyway.

 

[Kilmister]

So the listening test you referenced was Linn? They stopped selling CD players years ago in favor of streaming boxes - so they wouldn't have any incentive to rig a "blind" listening test, would they?

The reseller that put up the gear still sells cd players. And I know the reseller and if I had wanted, he'd have let me set up the whole system in his shop myself. I can go to his store on Saturday and do a blind test. Almost every Linn reseller also lets you try the stuff at home to compare.

To be more specific, I'm suggesting that it's possible Linn rigged their listening test. No, normally streaming wouldn't be "better" because of those things.

And I say it's a very grave accusation, which I know for a fact is not true.

Of course listening tests are crucial. I just tend not to trust ones I hear about third hand that were put on by a company selling gear, with no way of knowing if they were legit blind listening tests or not.

Please listen for yourself. I was like you until I listened. If not Linn, try something else I've suggested. If it sounds better and more musical, it is. Everything else is irrelevant.

 

[richard_cooper]

The reseller that put up the gear still sells cd players. And I know the reseller and if I had wanted, he'd have let me set up the whole system in his shop myself. I can go to his store on Saturday and do a blind test.

Please do, but make it a proper double blind test with identical source material and properly level matched. Does your reseller or the average Linn dealer have the kit do do that?

 

[milo]

And I say it's a very grave accusation, which I know for a fact is not true.

In fact, you don't know that. Even if you trust them to not intentionally rig the test (which I don't), you have no way of knowing that they set it up properly or not.

I was like you until I listened.

Frankly we have no way of knowing if the listening test you did was set up properly and particularly level matched. There's a good chance your listening test was not just worthless but misleading.

Really anyone who makes claims based on an alleged double blind test should list the conditions and all gear used including the device or software used for the ABX switching.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

If it sounds better and more musical, it is. Everything else is irrelevant.

Spoken like a true purveyor of Stereophile magazine if I ever read it!

Yeah, if you feel we faked the moon landing, then we did. Everything else is irrelevant. (like you know, the truth and what not).

 

[cycledance]

Clueless starts with this post...

oh it's your first post. cute.

 

[grahamtriggs]

It makes claims about read errors (well duh if you can't read big chunks of data of course there will be problems) but completely fails to mention that audio CDs feature an error correction system that uses, gasp, checksums. So if the disk cannot be read properly, something is broken as I said.

They talk in fluffy terms about the packet based streaming over TCP/IP vs serial SPDIF or USB due to clocking issues, whilst also claiming that having the CD mechanism in the same box as the DAC causes other problems, so where is this SPDIF or USB link?

Apparently there are no sources of electrical or magnetic noise in the streamer vs the CD player? No power supplies etc? Are they not up to designing proper shielding for the CD player?

If you've ever ripped CDs, you'll know that the error correction is not perfect. Even with error correction, audio CD players generally can't go back and re-read the same sector multiple times, because they need to keep up with feeding data to the DAC. It's additional error correction and the usually time-insensitive nature of operation that allows data CDs to supply reliably accurate data to the PC.

Audio CDs, played traditionally on most CD players, may be subject to having some flaws in the data stream. These are generally imperceptibly small issues (certainly compared to the hiss, etc. of analog formats), and you may well describe that particular disc as being "broken", but it's a practical issue nonetheless.

Once you have an audio file on HDD/SSD, you can practically guarantee 100% perfect, identical reading of that file. And providing you have the bandwidth (which on a local network at least, you really ought to), you can distribute send that round your network perfectly at a rate that will never starve the DAC.

I wouldn't claim that streaming is *much* better than a CD transport (e.g. feeding a digital signal in both cases to the same DAC, analog circuitry, etc.) - but streaming can be slightly better, more reliable and more convenient.

At the very least, if we are comparing apples to apples on the DAC / analog side, it can't be (technically) worse.

 

[Kilmister]

Please do, but make it a proper double blind test with identical source material and properly level matched. Does your reseller or the average Linn dealer have the kit do do that?

I've provided source material myself, and I can honestly say the difference is very clear, almost like telling if it's Dylan or The Byrds doing ”Mr Tambourine Man”. And every Linn dealer, as far as I know, was supposed to make the comparison; cd from cd player and the same cd ripped and played from a streamer.

I urge you to do the same. It it's Linn or other high-end equipment doesn't matter to me. You will come to the same conclusion as I have, or very near.

 

[Kilmister]

Spoken like a true purveyor of Stereophile magazine if I ever read it!

Oh, I think I have one issue of Stereophile somewhere. Or did I toss it away in the big clean-up 15 years ago? Haven't seen it since, I think.

But seriously – what is more important than the feeling you get out of music? Please enlighten me.

 

[Kilmister]

In fact, you don't know that. Even if you trust them to not intentionally rig the test (which I don't), you have no way of knowing that they set it up properly or not.

If I tell you they showed me the whole chain, like they usually do when they have new gear?

Frankly we have no way of knowing if the listening test you did was set up properly and particularly level matched. There's a good chance your listening test was not just worthless but misleading.

Really anyone who makes claims based on an alleged double blind test should list the conditions and all gear used including the device or software used for the ABX switching.

Or you could listen for yourself. Ask the retailer (Linn retailer or other specialist in streaming) for the full details and a guided tour of all the cables. Bring your own source material if you want.

I realise absolutely nothing I tell you will convince you of what I've heard. You will always stick to "it's impossible" like people saying "the bumblebee cannot fly". So do have a listen. Take your time. A Linn retailer will let you listen for a while, compare different equipment and they will answer any question you might have. But don't forget to look for snake oil bottles in the whole store when you hear the same difference as I did. And it's when, not if.

And do return here with your impressions of what you actually heard. Not what you were supposed to hear in theory.

 

[cycledance]

If I tell you they showed me the whole chain, like they usually do when they have new gear?



Or you could listen for yourself. Ask the retailer (Linn retailer or other specialist in streaming) for the full details and a guided tour of all the cables. Bring your own source material if you want.

I realise absolutely nothing I tell you will convince you of what I've heard. You will always stick to "it's impossible" like people saying "the bumblebee cannot fly". So do have a listen. Take your time. A Linn retailer will let you listen for a while, compare different equipment and they will answer any question you might have. But don't forget to look for snake oil bottles in the whole store when you hear the same difference as I did. And it's when, not if.

And do return here with your impressions of what you actually heard. Not what you were supposed to hear in theory.

listening doesn't work. neither do double blind listening tests.

you don't know what you hear. you can't compare.
it's also never done accurately. your head would need to be fixated. it still wouldn't matter.

i sincerely believe that some audiophiles are sick. it's a neurotic compulsion.
and those sick audiophiles (that we got here plenty on this forum) don´t actually care about music.

 

[Kilmister]

listening doesn't work. neither do double blind listening tests.

you don't know what you hear. you can't compare.
it's also never done accurately. your head would need to be fixated. it still wouldn't matter.

i sincerely believe that some audiophiles are sick. it's a neurotic compulsion.
and those sick audiophiles (that we got here plenty on this forum) don´t actually care about music.

Interesting tin foil hat view of the world with a touch of condescending aggression.

Of course you can make sure you know what you hear.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Wall of Text WARNING. This is a LONG one, but maybe you'll learning something about audio if you read it....

Oh, I think I have one issue of Stereophile somewhere. Or did I toss it away in the big clean-up 15 years ago? Haven't seen it since, I think.

But seriously – what is more important than the feeling you get out of music? Please enlighten me.

The TRUTH is more important than anything. Lots of people said Shakti stones and green marker pens painted around the edges of their CDs made a difference too. None could prove a damn thing when it came to ABX double blind testing. People said CD mats made a big difference "stabilizing" CD transports when all the scientific tests showed it just loaded down the motor making many units UNSTABLE and more jittery and likely to cause errors (and shorten the life of the transport). Were these people LIARS? No, most of them genuinely believed they heard differences. Many people CLAIM to hear night and day differences in high-end audio all the time that others can't reproduce and almost without exception, when 3rd party unbiased double-blind testing IS done (usually with ABX switches), all these claims just seem to magically disappear.

I'm an Electronic Engineer. I may believe in a God somewhere out there, but I don't believe in "Magic" Markers (not to be confused with the trademarked variety). The simple fact is the so-called "high-end" is full of black magic bullcrap to the point where I want to call Stereophile magazine, Stereophool magazine (honestly, back in the day Stereo Review was known for blanket positive reviews that were just like advertising, but it was and is Stereophile that pushes psudeo-scientific testing and then proceeds to opine every black magic opinion in the book and uses their graphs to pretend that it backs up what they're saying, all the while they are using it to rake in the dough from advertisers. Honestly, when was the last time anyone saw a "bad" review from Stereophile. The GRADE you get seems directly corrleated to how much you spend on advertising (Shakti stones included!). In case, anyone doesn't know what a Shakti stone is, it's a magical man-crafted stone that absorbs "bad audio" in the room like some kind of Voodoo Talisman.

I've been following all kinds of threads on Gizmodo about record players. They have an amusing article there that says in rather salty language to let cassette tapes stay DEAD and YET they praise vinyl in the same breath. To me, it's just a dirtier coin of the same making. Vinyl is a seriously flawed format. It has to use massive EQ (something audiophiles CLAIM TO HATE yet with LPs it's OK I guess) in order to not overload the the amplifiers driving the master cutter for higher frequencies and to keep bass from taking up all the groove width of the record. Then the reverse EQ has to be applied to "put it back" on the playback end. This is not a trivial thing. That EQ alone could be off by amounts that the most expensive DAC on earth is not off relative to the cheapest DACs sold today and yet THAT IS OK and yet it's somehow worth $5000 for a high-end DAC from some big name Audiophile brand. For WHAT? Typically these same people put up with all kinds of bad specs (sibilance is a DISASTER on the LP, for example and for all the talk about "infinite analog highs" the TRUTH is it rolls off BIG TIME above 12kHz into the surface noise (thus claims of "usable" information above 20kHz are often greatly exaggerated (you know those frequencies no one can even hear anyway).

And the THING is I already have 24/96 and 24/192 playback capability. My Macbook Pro is connected to my primary "high-end" stereo system through a PreSonus Firewire box. So is my vinyl rig. I can record at 24/192 all I want and play it right back the same in Logic Pro. I know since I used this system to record my own freaking rock and roll album. I've got a 16-bit version here and a 24-bit version here of my album. I have CDs and I have streaming. I know how the album was made and mastered (since I did it myself) and what microphones I used and how I kept everything 100% straight wire into the DAC interface save the miked acoustic guitar and vocals (well they went straight in too, but they recorded the room acoustics whereas electric guitar went electrically straight to the pre-amp and DAC in the PreSonus. Midi drums and keyboard parts were even more pure (internally generated from simulated "analog" style synths and samples). My playback system cost around $6000. I use speakers that were used in $50000/pair Genesis IIs. I have a custom active crossover network and bi-amped sound. I even have "Monster" 10 gauge cable from a LONG time ago when I didn't know any better (and it wasn't quite as expensive). I've tried odd Interconnects over the years (e.g. Esoteric Audio USA interconnects). I can play back any media as it is via the Macbook Pro at 16/44, 16/48, 24/44, 24/48/ 24/96 and 24/192. I used to get my ears checked every year for any signs of hearing damage and up until about 8 years ago I could still hear almost to 20kHz in both ears (still 15/17). I've owned 8-tracks, cassettes, VHS, CDs, Laserdisc, AppleTV, Vinyl records, DVD-Audio and Blu-Ray. I've got about $600 invested into my vinyl rig and I've aligned it myself (aligning industrial equipment systems is part of my real world job so I'd like to think I know something about alignments of precision equipment). I also studied audio and particularly digital audio as part of my education in college.

And WHAT have I learned from all of that? I learned that MOST people on this planet have NO IDEA how digital audio works. I see the same nonsense "stair step" LIES repeated over and over and over again. There are no stair-steps in digital audio! The reconstruction filter's job is to create perfect sine waves from the relevant data samples. ALL complex signals are merely combined waveforms creating a mathematical FUNCTION at any given moment that can be written as an equation and that equation can be represented (like ALL math) in a binary format. Your own brain is closer to digital audio than analog in how it works! "Analog" does NOT mean INFINITE bandwidth! Real world measurable variables like dynamic range, frequency response, signal-to-noise ratio (the common ones you hear about) all exist in analog and digital audio. There is NO fundamental difference between the output of an analog system and a digital one except that digital systems don't have to decay because the data is stored in a distinct numerical format that can be perfectly reproduced and stored. Analog storage methods have always depended on the material in which they are inscribed. This makes it a flawed format. Whereas digital can very nearly reach its theoretical limits, analog is always a HAZE. If you could store and measure it on the atomic level accurately and prevent all entropy, you could probably use it a proper storage medium.

What's my point? The POINT is that most people on here aren't even qualified to DISCUSS digital audio, let alone JUDGE it based on half-truths and BS nonsense. I don't care what you PREFER and I don't care if there's something you like in that distortion or whether it's psychological or some combination of both. I don't argue with opinions and PREFERENCES. I don't care if people are gay, straight or grey aliens so long as they don't try to force their preferences and beliefs on me. BUT WHEN PEOPLE TRY TO ARGUE ABOUT ACCURACY OR SOME "MUSICALITY" ABSTRACT TERM, THEY ARE TAKING A GIANT DUMP ON THEMSELVES. I've seen a lot of smart people look like arses by trying to talk about things they only have a basic knowledge (if that; worse yet no real understanding of) and try to pass themselves off as experts and then fall back on anecdotal evidence or personal opinions as the real argument.

It's not hard to TEST claims of being able to tell a record player from a recording of a record player on the same system in a double blind test. The problem is NO ONE that makes these ridiculous claims EVER proves a damn thing. They'll state they don't have to or I should go listen to what they're listening to (trying to put the burden of proof one the person they're trying to convince rather than the other way around as you would have in court), etc. I've seen NO evidence that ANY of the stark claims about the superiority of "HD" Audio formats or vinyl is even remotely true. NONE. EVER. What I do see is a bunch of hear-say and opinions from people (when we know that humans are easily fooled by the power of belief and suggestion as any religious group in a church can demonstrate at any hour. FAITH IS NOT PROOF.

Now, as I've said I have vinyl playback equipment and digital equipment and plenty of power on my main system. So what do I hear? Oddly, it depends on the source recording to a good extent. A badly mastered CD will sound like crap. A badly mastered and stamped LP will sound like crap. A good LP on a crap turntable will sound like crap and likely damage the record. A good LP on a really good turntable setup will sound very very good (approaching CD quality for the same master in many cases to the human ear), but I've NEVER heard a record sound BETTER than the master recording itself. If I did, logically alone I'd have to question what i was hearing since a HiFi system's goal is to REPRODUCE recorded sound, not to "add" to it something that makes it sound warm (e.g. even-order distortion will do this). But certainly, what I know if my own album sounds IDENTICAL at 24/96 the the same album down-sampled to 16/44. That's because there is not greater than 96dBs of dynamic range and there is no audible musical information to the human ear above 22kHz. I hear NO DIFFERENCE. I know technically speaking there should be no difference if the transfer was done correctly (oversampling). I see NO CONFLICT between what I know (science) and what I hear.

I've recorded my LP collection to digital. I've recorded it at 24/96 (so I don't have to worry about overloading anything and then normalize it. I've kept ALAC 24/96 copies. I've made 16/44 copies. I've compared them as well. No difference (save file size). That's because LPs don't have even close to 16-bit dynamic range and you can't hear above 22kHz even with perfect hearing).

But there's missing audio! It's just ones and zeroes! Analog is infinite! There's stair-steps between those points! There's only 44,100 sampled points per second and that's not a curved line! Even 96,000 samples per second can't be a very straight line! We need AT LEAST 192,000 points to approximate that curved line and yet analog does it perfectly every time! <==== THIS is an example of IGNORANT NONSENSE you typically read about digital audio by people that "believe" in Vinyl. NONE of it's true. NONE OF IT.

The sample rate determines the FREQUENCY you can capture accurately (the WHOLE point of the Nyquist Theorem is that it states you can ACCURATELY capture a given frequency if you have sample at double its rate. The sample rate has NOTHING to do with 'stair steps' and missing information. The reconstruction filter will recreate a perfect sine wave for a given sampled frequency. ALL complex waveforms (i.e. music) are just complex combinations of sine waves. Thus, there is no "missing information". The so-called "missing information" are the frequencies you are NOT capturing (e.g. above 22kHz). But since we cannot hear above 20kHz, they don't freaking matter!!! I'll say it again. There is NO MISSING INFORMATION in a digital system within its bandwidth settings that are determined by the bit-rate and sample rate!

It's a common misconception that there are these stair-steps and that reproduced audio in a digital system is some sad-looking approximation of the original waveform. That's PURE BS NONSENSE. That's NOT how digital audio works and it's a SAD SAD fact that so many magazines and web sites and people keep propagating something that was NEVER TRUE.

CD Audio IS "perfect sound forever" just as they claimed. The format is not the problem with CD sound. It's the CDs being made for it! The format was designed around the (safe) limitations of human hearing and it does its job perfectly within those limits. It's vastly superior to the LP in every possible way relative to human hearing. Thus, the ONLY reason a CD will sound "bad" is if the master is "bad" too (bad meaning unpleasant to the listener in either case). If an LP sounds "better" to someone it's EITHER because a better master was used than the CD (this happens ALL the time since the industry has been compressing the living hell out of CDs for the past 20+ years'; "remastering" started in the late '80s and only got more and more compressed as time went on. Obviously, some remasters WERE better. A lot of early CDs used LP profiles and masters that were not appropriate for the CD format's greater bandwidth and thus lacked bass, etc. or had inaccurate highs (that would roll off and cover it up on the LP). Garbage In = Garbage out. The CD can only do what the mastering engineer tells it to do!

Thus, I come full circle back to what I said originally and that is if you/we want BETTER sounding music, we need to remaster albums for sound quality, not compressed loudness and crazy inflated bass! To a large extent with modern recordings, that is true for LPs as well (i.e. a compressed recording will sound bad on LP and CDs alike. The only reason an LP might do better than the CD mix is if they don't compress it as much (go too high of levels and it could jump the needle, but it's more likely they'd just reduce the signal and it would still have little difference between quiet and loud passages). LPs and CDs can BOTH sound better with better masters! THAT is what people should be asking for, not arguing over their favorite playback medium.

I've seen a lot of people on Gizmodo admit they like the tactile feel of records, the big artwork and being able to get their friends to listen to an entire side or entire album because it just keeps playing whereas if they have a digital playlist, their friends want to screw with it and put their favorite songs in there instead, etc. These are valid reasons for liking the LP. I believe many others like the "warm" sound. Well, why is it "warm" and not ACCURATE? It's because even-order distortion (that LPs tend to generate as do tube amps) sound "pleasant" to the human ear while odd order (e.g. solid state amp overloading) sounds like square wave clipping and sounds awful! The trick with an accurate system? Don't clip! But some LIKE the even-order distortion and somehow mistake that pleasant tube-amp sound for ACCURACY when it's DISTORTION! Pleasant distortion = "euphonic distortion". People just need to realize what it is they are hearing and admit they like a warm fuzzy distorted sound over accurate sound! People don't want to admit that because it's like saying they're WRONG or something or they like something that's "wrong". Well who said it's WRONG to begin with? Geeze, the sheer ego and peer pressure and everything else involved in today's society is very off-putting (yeah I'm sure I'll get the ego comment back at my wall of test post. Oh well. I'll live).

 

[cycledance]

Interesting tin foil hat view of the world with a touch of condescending aggression.

Of course you can make sure you know what you hear.

a pointless insult and 0 arguments.

yeah, yeah...i am the idiot.

 

[Kilmister]

Wall of Text WARNING. This is a LONG one, but maybe you'll learning something about audio if you read it....

Ok, I read it. Some accurate facts, although you added both bold text and uppercase to make your record breaking lengthy post even tougher to read.

The TRUTH is more important than anything.

I still don't believe a supposed truth is more important than the experience you get. If I feel it's better, then it is better for me. That is my truth. I know what I hear, and I've gone to extensive lengths to make sure I know what I heard. And I also claim to know how digital music works.

Find whatever reasons you need about me being scientifically wrong. Whatever makes you happy. But I still see the bumblebee flying. Ta-ta!

 

[Kilmister]

you don't know what you hear. you can't compare.
it's also never done accurately. your head would need to be fixated. it still wouldn't matter.

i sincerely believe that some audiophiles are sick. it's a neurotic compulsion.
and those sick audiophiles (that we got here plenty on this forum) don´t actually care about music.

a pointless insult and 0 arguments.

yeah, yeah...i am the idiot.

By calling audiophiles sick and not interested in music, among other things? I wouldn't dare to insult you with the correct answer.

 

[cycledance]

By calling audiophiles sick and not interested in music, among other things? I wouldn't dare to insult you with the correct answer.

i said some. and i stand by it.

maybe you like this one better?

audiophile
One who enjoys sex acts involving the ear.
After they stopped kissing, Jenny felt something touch her ear. She sighed. Why did she always end up with the audiophiles?


and here are some excerpts from http://www.kenrockwell.com/audio/audiophile.htm

What is an Audiophile?

I thank God I'm not an audiophile; those weirdos hate music and only love playing with their stereo equipment.

Audiophiles are non-technical, non-musical kooks who imagine the darnedestly stupid things about audio equipment. Audiophiles are fun to watch; they're just as confused at how audio equipment or music really works as primitive men like cargo cults are about airplanes. An audiophile will waste days comparing the sound of power cords or different kinds of solder, but won't even notice that his speakers are out-of-phase. An audiophile never enjoys music; he only listens to the sound of audio equipment.

Since sound and music perception is entirely imaginary (you can't touch or photograph a musical image), what and how we hear is formed only in our brains and is not measurable. Our hearing therefore is highly susceptible to the powers of suggestion. If an audiophile pays $5,000 for a new power cord, he will hear a very real difference, even though the sound is unchanged. Audiophiles do hear real differences in power cords when they swap among them (the placebo effect), but just don't ask them to hear the difference in a double-blind test.

Thank God I'm not an audiophile. Just like a pedophile, the word audiophile is defined as someone with an unhealthy attraction or interest in something; in this case, it's audio equipment, but not music. An audiophile and a music lover are two entirely different people.

Audiophiles adore audio equipment, which is completely unrelated to enjoying music. In the good old days, music lovers only played with audio equipment because they had to, while audiophiles today would rather listen to their equipment than to enjoy music.

A music lover will stop what he's doing and stay glued to a favorite piece of music even if it's coming over a 3" speaker or a public-address system, while an audiophile almost never enjoys music, even if played on a $100,000 hi-fi.

Because audiophiles don't have the experience or education to understand what matters (the skill of the original recording engineer, the choice of loudspeakers, their placement in a room and the acoustics of that room), audiophiles spend fortunes on the wrong things, which are the high-profit-margin and well advertised items like cables, power conditioners, amplifiers, power cables, connectors, resistors, and just about everything that has almost nothing to do with the quality of reproduced music — but makes loads of money for the people selling these fetishes.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Cycledance, I have to say I find your post both amusing and extremely offensive depending on how much stock I take in the word "audiophile". I did used to run a web site called the Audiophile Asylum, after all and I sure as hell did listen to music. In fact, that was the entire theme of the site. I rated music on a 2-prong rating, one for sound quality of the recording and one for the musical content and the combinations could be all over the place. The idea was to pass on recording recommendations ideals that features both great music AND great sound quality so you could not only immerse yourself in the "orgasm" of life-like illusions of audio fidelity on your high-end system, but listen to something more than just "demo" crap that was as musical as a toothbrush (sad to say there are people who do that as you say just to hear high quality sound even if it's of a dog taking dump on a rubber tree).

An example of an A++/A++ album for me was Tori Amos' Boys For Pele. Recorded straight to DAT by an obsessive sound engineer (who also happened to become her husband a year or two later) that went to extremes such as building a box around her Bosendorfer Grand Piano at a church in Delgany, Ireland to separate the miking of the piano and her vocals while allowing her to sing and play at the same time (as she wants to do) while doing crazy ambient things like putting a Leslie cabinet out in the graveyard. The sound quality was unbelievable. The music was out of this world different and yet progressive from her previous albums and her single Caught A Lite Sneeze caught my attention because it was almost Pink Floyd like in its creation and had a totally mind blowingly strange and wonderful video to go with it. it was one of the first albums I bought after getting my Carver AL-III speakers. I really wanted to hear that harpsichord on the album played back on my speakers. It was mind-blowing, not only in "she's in my room" realism, but I had found my favorite artist of all time (even more so than Pink Floyd). I found new friends on the fledgling Internet (e.g. a guy who nicknamed himself "The Bass Pig"; you can find his site if you try even today) and he got me into Japanese Anime soundtracks. He insisted they were among the most beautiful music I'd ever hear (modern day orchestrations, often with synthesizer or guitar twists thrown in among other things depending on the soundtrack) AND the ones he'd recommend were of insane sound quality to boot. He was right. I was obsessed with them for awhile. I spent $28 a CD back in the late '90s to import albums from Japan and about half of them were worth every penny and then some (If you can find them, check out the Heroic Legend of Arslan Soundtracks Volume 1-4; they were on 3 CDs, Vol1, Vol2 and Vole3-4). Unfreaking-believable sound with hauntingly beautiful music all over the place from medieval sounding to post-modern fantasy!

Now with a One-Two Combo like THAT of mind-blowing sound AND mind-blowing music, how the hell could I NOT be obsessed with HiFi back in the late 90s? I've still got the setup (moved to active crossovers and bi-amped, but otherwise I still use a Carver C4 Sonic Holography pre-amp with it and the sound from those AL-III speakers is UNREAL, especially considering they are $2000 speakers whose drivers were used in $50,000 speakers (Genesis licensed them) and I got them on close-out sale from HiFi Buys in Oregon for $1175 shipped across the country! The bargain of the century as far as I'm concerned. I've listened to $8000 speakers. They don't really do any better than these. Stereophile HATED Bob Carver precisely because he was trying to make "great" sound affordable. The guy was kind of a mad genius, really. Those "Amazing" ribbons were absolutely the best. I'm getting to the point where I'm going to need to have the ribbons repaired or replaced as they are starting to loosen up (blow-driver trick only goes so far) and extreme music will now cause some distortion. I'm looking at $2000 to fix them, but you can't get them anymore and they're worth it, easily. I've gotten 20 years of enjoyment out of these speakers with no desire to 'upgrade'. I built a home theater system since then, but I've not felt any need to get other speakers and it's a lot harder to test them out these days anyway with that kind of investment.

But to go to the opposite extreme and say speakers and sound quality don't matter AT ALL and music on an AM radio is good enough, well sorry, but I LIKE quality reproduction. I play acoustic and electric guitar and piano/synthesizer and I know what REAL sound is like and AM radio isn't it. It's not good to be overly obsessed with JUST the sound quality, but wanting great sound quality to go with great music isn't that crazy a concept, IMO.

 

[richard_cooper]

I've provided source material myself, and I can honestly say the difference is very clear, almost like telling if it's Dylan or The Byrds doing ”Mr Tambourine Man”. And every Linn dealer, as far as I know, was supposed to make the comparison; cd from cd player and the same cd ripped and played from a streamer.

I urge you to do the same. It it's Linn or other high-end equipment doesn't matter to me. You will come to the same conclusion as I have, or very near.

And as has been pointed out, you also need to match levels (IIRC to within 0.1dB being the preferred standard) to which you'll need proper test equipment. Without it, the natural preference is to the louder of the two.

Well said MagnusVonMagnum, I'd extend it to say that in addition to many people not understanding digital audio, they also do not understand analogue audio, or the basic physics of sound in the air, or even a basic understanding of the human ear and brain.

"We should no more let numbers define audio quality than we should let chemical analysis be the arbiter of fine wines."

The numbers can define, or describe, audio quality, or better accuracy, just as chemical analysis can describe the content of a fine wine. Your preference for music and wine is your business, but the arrogance to say your preference invalidates the science is breathtaking. If you prefer vinyl, stupid rate digital, or streaming over cd then fine but the science stays the same, and that science includes the fact that your brain can easily trick you in so many ways.

Audiophile quote of the week:

...the Ikemi conceded to the 47 Lab’s most passive and reactive D/A conversion mannerism, and yet impressed with a superb integration of sound....