CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Soapbox => Topic started by: madaboutaudio on July 19, 2015, 03:21:15 PM
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The Distortion of Sound is a documentary about the decline of sound quality and how technology has changed the way we listen to music. It will open your ears and inspire you to reach for richer, more soul-stirring musical experiences. Hear it all at http://www.DistortionOfSound.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDZcz-V29_M
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I've seen this before. The music industry is so quick to point the finger at data compression when the excessive dynamic range compression that is so prevalent in modern recorded music is much more to blame for the decline in overall sound quality. You could make a case for lossy compression killing sound quality - 15 years ago. If you purchase a song off iTunes/Google play or stream with Spotify premium or Tidal (320k) the sound should be audibly indistinguishable from lossless. (Some people have taken high-quality lossy vs. lossless listening tests and have claimed to hear a difference, most people fail these tests or correctly guess which sample is lossless). It's quite offensive to me that the record companies are blaming the consumer for poor sound quality when the record companies are the ones putting out bullshit products, both artistically and sonically.
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^ +1
This alleged documentary does everything in its power to confuse psychoacoustic based lossy data compression with dynamic range compression.
Then it has the Jupiter sized brass balls to blame the consumer for demanding convenience over SQ when it's actually the labels themselves pushing the excessive DRC which hurts SQ more than any modern lossy codec at a decent bitrate.
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That was insane. I mean they are talking about mp3/lossy compression while showing the effects of dynamic compression WTF lol. I guess this video was made for those that don't know any better. I think the main mission is a good one though and they are trying to make people shift back to physical formats or lossless which is fine.
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Can Digital Recordings Sound as Good as Analog?
In this http://www.artistshousemusic.org video interview, Carl Beatty, a veteran engineer and Professor of Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music, discusses whether digital recordings can sound as good as analog, and what determines the quality of a good or bad digital recording. He also shares his thoughts on whether or not consumers care about sound quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiDDJ-I47rA
Full 54min interview here:
In this clip from www.artistshousemusic.org - Carl Beatty, a veteran engineer and Professor of Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music, discusses many aspects of the craft of engineering a recording session. He shares his opinions on what it takes to be a great engineer, how to set up a home studio, the digital-versus-analog debate, how to choose an engineer for a project, and how to make yourself the best studio engineer you can be. He also offers advice to students who want to study engineering, and to parents of students who are considering applying to Berklee College of Music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FpJrQERdkg
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I've seen this before. The music industry is so quick to point the finger at data compression when the excessive dynamic range compression that is so prevalent in modern recorded music is much more to blame for the decline in overall sound quality.
Exactly. Then you have Neil Young who starts the Pono thing (which is already significantly late to the party as a matter of fact) and hires Ayre to design it. Ayre then goes on to say it doesn't really matter how good the Pono sounds as it's portable anyway, and is good enuff.
facepalm
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From AXPONA presents Audio Con 2015:
If you find yourself a bit confused looking at all the squiggly lines of the headphone measurements published at Innerfidelity.com, editor Tyll Hertsens will provide an in-depth presentation of how to interpret all the plots and graphs. Understanding headphone measurements help you sort through headphones that are obviously bad, or that might be good, but not to your taste. There it stops, however, from there on it’s your ears that count.
Presented By: Tyll Herstens, Editor, InnerFidelity.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDRHFNfFCFU
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jump to 1m:43sec & 16m:13sec for some :)p13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs1aUws0Lrs
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I know this may not be to everyone's taste but I'd really recommend watching "Glenn Gould - The Alchemist" http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Alchemist/dp/B000089QEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437874775&sr=8-1&keywords=glenn+gould+alchemist
It was released in 1974 and of course features the legendary pianist Glenn Gould. As well as being an astonishingly gifted pianist and a truly radical performer and interpreter he was also one of the (maybe even just *the*?) earliest significant performers to abandon live performance and put all his energies into exploring and perfecting the possibilities of the recording studio in order to deliver (to you and me) the nearest possibility to his musical conception of the works he performed.
The film does a great job of exploring an exceptional or unique performer's dissatisfaction with live performance and his embrace of the possibilities of recording in the studio.
Glenn Gould may have been brilliant or merely perverse (you decide) but his approach, attitude and ability in bringing the conceptions of composers and performing artists to the listening public surely marks him out as a pioneer in the field of recorded music.
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I know this may not be to everyone's taste but I'd really recommend watching "Glenn Gould - The Alchemist" http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Alchemist/dp/B000089QEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437874775&sr=8-1&keywords=glenn+gould+alchemist
It was released in 1974 and of course features the legendary pianist Glenn Gould. As well as being an astonishingly gifted pianist and a truly radical performer and interpreter he was also one of the (maybe even just *the*?) earliest significant performers to abandon live performance and put all his energies into exploring and perfecting the possibilities of the recording studio in order to deliver (to you and me) the nearest possibility to his musical conception of the works he performed.
The film does a great job of exploring an exceptional or unique performer's dissatisfaction with live performance and his embrace of the possibilities of recording in the studio.
Glenn Gould may have been brilliant or merely perverse (you decide) but his approach, attitude and ability in bringing the conceptions of composers and performing artists to the listening public surely marks him out as a pioneer in the field of recorded music.
Great doc/movie, all good points you bring up.
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The Distortion of Sound is a documentary about the decline of sound quality and how technology has changed the way we listen to music. It will open your ears and inspire you to reach for richer, more soul-stirring musical experiences. Hear it all at http://www.DistortionOfSound.com
The distortion of sound is a complete sham. They have artists cry crocodile tears for 20 minutes about how they put SO MUCH effort into the studio, and then those goddamn consumers RUIN it with their awful, just awful sounding MP3s. The one example of the so called damage done by MP3 compression is a clear and obvious example of DRC, they even show the smashed waveform in the clip, as if that's somehow something that MP3 compression does.
Some of those same artists in interviews have talked about how they master for clock radios, and that's how we've ended up with albums regularly being released at DR5, DR4, or even lower. "I put so much work and effort into the studio, and then I master so it sounds good on a clock radio. Don't listen to MP3s though! GROG SAY MP3 BAD!" Give me a fucking break.
The whole video is a sales pitch for Harman "Clari-fi" which is just a treble boost like every other "MP3 Sound Restorer" technology that's been around forever. And, to add insult to injury, after lying in the video about what MP3 compression does, they lie again on their Clari-fi comparison web page. The "Clari-fi enhanced" version of the track is something like 2dB louder than the regular version. Oldest audio salesman's trick in the book.
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Very informative video on Audio Dithering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWpWIQw7HWU
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Really well explained technical video on DAC and Dac Linearity and etc. Watch from 7 minutes onwards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRtnIAZhBYw
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All about Sigma Delta Converters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9u-QTDAeaM
Published on Aug 3, 2014
In this episode Shahriar explores the world of Delta-Sigma modulators with emphasis on a Delta-Sigma Analog to Digital Converter (ADC). The basic concepts of analog to digital conversion is presented, particularly with respect to quantization noise spectral shape and power density. Next, oversampling ADCs are presented to demonstrate the possibility of increasing SQNR (ENOB) through manipulation of quantization noise spectrum.
Due to the practical limitations of high oversampling ratios, delta-sigma modulations is explored. The principle operation behind delta-sigma ADCs is presented with detailed explanation on noise shaping, filtering and decimation. The signal and noise transfer functions for a 1st order and 2nd order delta-sigma ADC are derived. Finally, as a practical example, a 2nd order delta-sigma ADC based on a 1-bit quantizer is presented. The ADC uses two Miller integrator op-amps, one comparator and a D-Type flip-flop. The complete measurement of this delta-sigma ADC is presented. The impact of over sampling ration, op-amp linearity and input signal bandwidth is presented. The slides for this video can be downloaded from The Signal Path website.
R2R Ladder Dacs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDiCqgWWqDU
this episode, Shahriar presents the theory, design and characterization of Nyquist Digital to Analog Converters (DACs). After a brief overview of DAC operation and theory, the schematic of an 8-Bit R-2R DAC is presented. The R-2R DAC, which is driven by a dsPIC30F6014A Microchip microcontroller is capable of producing ramps and arbitrary waveforms uploaded through an RS232 interface. The static integral non-linearity (INL) and differential non-linearity (DNL) is measured by using a Rigol DM3068 Multimeter through a Matlab interface program. The dynamic performance of the DAC is characterized using an Analog Devices AD6645 105MSps 14-Bit ADC evaluation board coupled with a USB FIFO interface board. By using the 'Visual Analog' software, the spectrum of the DAC output as well as the signal to quantization and distortion ratio (SQNDR) is calculated. Finally, the impact of component mismatches, operational amplifier non-linearity and timing uncertainty on the INL/DNL and SQNDR (ENOB) of the DAC is examined.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrpUDuUtxPM
It's an audiophile related video.
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found some seriously highly technical whitepaper on audio. Maybe interesting to engineering folks like Mike and Jason.
http://www.nanophon.com/audio/index.htm
to note the author Julian Dunn (1963-2003)
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/jaes.obit/JAES_V51_4_PG290.pdf
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Sean Olive: "The Perception and Measurement of Headphone Sound Quality: Do Listeners Agree on What Makes a Headphone Sound Good?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfTSHjGlNak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY7Am233rkw