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An Interesting Read

Printed From: Graham Slee Hifi System Components
Category: Digital Audio
Forum Name: CD, DVD Audio, DACs, ADCs and Digitizing
Forum Description: The existing (and obsolete?) digital formats
URL: https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1645
Printed Date: 27 Mar 2026 at 3:31am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com


Topic: An Interesting Read
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Subject: An Interesting Read
Date Posted: 21 Dec 2012 at 2:56pm

Some interesting thoughts on digital and other forms of audio, hearing, perception, testing, sampling rates, recording techniques and more.

I enjoyed the read, perhaps others will too  http://www.stereophile.com/content/2011-richard-c-heyser-memorial-lecture-where-did-negative-frequencies-go - http://www.stereophile.com/content/2011-richard-c-heyser-memorial-lecture-where-did-negative-frequencies-go




Replies:
Posted By: Dave Friday
Date Posted: 21 Dec 2012 at 5:17pm
Thanks tg,i'm working my way through it,very thought provoking if a bit mind numbing!


Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 22 Dec 2012 at 2:28pm
Tony, you are a gold mine of great tips and interesting reads. Thanks for this, it's a great mix of technical exposition and the art of sound reproduction. I have a Maths degree and often enjoy the "science" with new hifi product launches. Also I have thought "how would that sound?" when reading a white paper on a product.
He's picked one of my favourite examples of recent times - why does something as technically flawed as a NOS DAC sound so good?
 
Jon
 


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Jon

Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC.


Posted By: discrete badger
Date Posted: 23 Dec 2012 at 10:50am
I found this a fascinating read- thanks for posting the link. In particular it contains several plausible suggestions as to the causes of some listening effects I have long noticed. He is clearly as fascinated as I am with the delayed light flash test and what it demonstrates about perception!



Posted By: kgilroy
Date Posted: 23 Dec 2012 at 11:40am
Just a brief note but double blind requires both the listener and the investigator to be blind. What you describe is single blind. It is possible for an investigator to give off subtle clues that they may not be aware of that can bias the study.
Keith


Posted By: discrete badger
Date Posted: 23 Dec 2012 at 5:26pm
Apologies- I have removed the error.


Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 23 Dec 2012 at 8:11pm

Pity, I found your anecdote more in keeping with the spirit of the thread than the comment that caused you to remove it.

Glad some others are finding interest in that article at any rate.




Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 24 Dec 2012 at 6:48am
Nobody read this? http://www.gspaudio.co.uk/blog/pictures-in-sound_post31.html - http://www.gspaudio.co.uk/blog/pictures-in-sound_post31.html

Just reading the "Nothing Is Real" bit...


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That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps


Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 24 Dec 2012 at 12:05pm
You are right to remind us that it is relevant to the article Tony has highlighted. We only have our interpretation of the information from our senses. The illusion of stereo positioning and surround effects from just two front speakers is a good one!
 


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Jon

Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC.


Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 24 Dec 2012 at 1:48pm

I could be way out in left field here and completely missing what you are all talking about, that would not surprise me, nor would it be a first.

My remembrance of that section of his exposition was not that he was denying the validity of that illusion, nor of its importance as a method of evaluating the relative merits of reproduction equipment.

In fact, his Harry Potter quote, to me indicated quite the opposite.

What he seemed to me to be attempting, was to make the point that this is solely our mental construct, created from the information fed to and interpreted by, our senses or more particularly, our hearing.  Further, he is making the point that this construct is our only reality (in this particular case).

This understanding, to me, makes sense of the issue known as "listening fatigue" and also of another condition that I have personally observed which is almost the opposite.

I particularly observed listening fatigue with one setup where the speakers were spaced very wide apart on the long wall of an approximately 20' x 10' room, after a period of listening I noticed myself becoming tired and realised it was from the mental effort of drawing the speakers closer together to make sense of the sound stage.  Another issue of cognitive dissonance that I commonly have is when situated too close to multidriver speakers (I have only used single drivers for some years), where I find the sound confused and confusing until I move sufficiently far away to allow the different sources to coalesce.

I suspect the more common type of listening fatigue to be caused when there are too many dissonances arriving at the ear and subliminal adjustment to filter them out and maintain the musical construct becomes exhausting.

The corollary I have experienced, being when the representation of the musical event is so encompassing as to allow complete immersion in the music, with the result of feeling emotionally drained at the end of a piece and completely satiated, not wanting to listen to anything else immediately, but just to savour the afterglow of the recent event.  Much as one might at a live performance.

In order to achieve this state, it seems to me that there must be sufficiently little  in the reproduction process/chain,  to impinge on the subconscious and damage the illusion being created, thereby allowing one to relax into the music and for the emotions to fully engage with the content of the work.

I found his discussion intellectually stimulating and felt others might too, I shared the link for that reason, certainly not to make any particular point or to make any claim to authority on any particular issue raised or discussed therein.




Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 24 Dec 2012 at 4:27pm
I meant it in agreement. Excellent last reply tg... or should I say excellent article from tg? Clap




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That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps


Posted By: discrete badger
Date Posted: 25 Dec 2012 at 9:19am
A wonderful paradox, isn't it, that considerable knowledge of and interest in the equipment is necessary to reach the ultimate goal which is to cause it to disappear so as to leave just the music and the listener and an emotional connection.

For me it's analogous to the challenge facing a musician who must make the huge technical difficulties of playing their instrument disappear in the ears of the listener. Not because putting together a good sounding hi-fi system is somehow equivalent in difficulty to learning to be a concert pianist (it isn't) but because in each case the music flows freely once the technical difficulties are completely nailed down.


Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 31 Dec 2012 at 12:32pm

True enough db and there a few interesting places that observation leads as well.

I will leave them for now though, what I wanted to comment on was the way that articles like this have so many things in them that come back when reading other articles that seem to expand or enlarge on particular issues.  

The particular example that prompted this post was from reading the series on tnt-audio on digitising records and particularly on p4 - http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/rip_it_4_e.html - http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/rip_it_4_e.html in the section discussing digital manipulation and the problems with doing so in 16 bit as opposed to using at least 32 bit float.  

I thought of the example he gave of the CD remaster job that he commissioned where there was audible difference from the master that he had not expected from the work that had supposedly been done.  

It occurred to me that this might have been a case of the issues to which Werner refers in his discussion, of increased quantisation errors and noise creation caused by mathematical inexactitude when processing in 16 bit depth.

All food for thought.



Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 31 Dec 2012 at 12:45pm
We will one day go right up to perhaps 128 bit and then 256 and probably 512...

Great investment and large scale integration will require the miniaturization of the iPhone to put it onto a 50 pin 0.6" wide DIP package, with lots of ancillary circuitry.

And we'll at last do analogue audio - audio without steps. And realise we had it all along... vinyl.

Reminds me of the ending of the Wizard of Oz. We go on a long journey only to find it was always there "in our own backyard".

Just musing.


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That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps


Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 28 Jan 2013 at 4:13pm
Looks like http://www.opensound.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4423 - Igor agrees with you Wink



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