[linux-audio-user] Re: Digital Fidelity

[Paul Davis]

On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 19:52 -0800, Maluvia wrote:
> >unless you can detect them in a double blind test, they do not exist.
> >this has been hashed to death in audiophile journals for ten years, with
> >those claiming that double blind tests are not needed resorting to all
> >kinds of completely bizarre and utterly dubious statistical theories.
> 
> Come on Paul - just admit it: you simply don't agree with the concept that
> these differences exist, and think anyone who does is nuts. 

i do not.

i said that unless you can demonstrate that you can detect them in a
double blind test, i do not believe that they exist. neither you nor
anybody else has ever (AFAIK) demonstrated that they can do this.

since double blind testing has utterly demolished several other commonly
held perceptual assumptions, it seems reasonable to dispute your claims
until they can be shown to survive this test.

> I don't know if we are even talking about the same thing here.
> I am talking about taking a .wav file on a hard-drive, and proceeding to
> burn that exact same file onto audio CDs at different burn speeds.

i'm willing to concede that there might be a difference in any
situation, but unless you can show that it is detectable in a situation
where your and my pre-existing beliefs about the truth cannot influence
your detection, then your claims are just hand waving.

even the advertising industry uses double blind testing for everything -
toothpaste, shampoo, food taste .. do you think that the sense of
hearing is somehow immune the very effects that they want to avoid as
well?

> I am describing exactly what I hear, and you are free to interpret that in

what you hear is subject to many influences beyond the variations in air
pressure arriving at your ears. i believe that apogee converters sound
better than anything else, and therefore i hear better sound from data
sent through them than the stuff sent through a fostex or behringer
unit. but i also acknowledge that this opinion has never been double
blind tested, and is merely based on a bunch of biases and suppositions.
yet i *do* hear a difference. so is that "exactly what i hear", or is
that just another instance of the very well established feature of our
perceptual processes that they can be influenced by our belief systems?

and if i used aversion therapy to convince your mind that 8 bit audio
sounded sweeter than 24 bit, and you could describe exactly what you
heard to confirm that it was indeed sweeter, would that make it any
different than the claims you are making now?

> I submit that I can, but I don't think there will be an opportunity to test
> that out.

why is that *nobody* who makes these kinds of audiophile-esque claims is
ever willing to do the leg work? when the rest of the measurement
industry switched to double blind testing 40-50 years ago for everything
else, why is it that hearing is somehow exempt? and why do they put so
much effort into avoiding this simple test (which could be done in your
home with perhaps 30 minutes of set up time) ?

> >although we have a few wizards of the DSP here, you'd better off in a more
> >general forum 
> 
> Doubtless you would prefer that I leave - perhaps I will, perhaps not.

good grief, i never suggested that you *leave*. stop being so absurdly
personal and read what i did suggest. if you want to discuss audio
fidelity and how to improve it, you would **be better off** in a forum 
focused on such matters.

> And as those beliefs largely determine what we perceive, the experience
> part is crucial to bringing in new information so that those beliefs can be
> modified and the scope of awareness and understanding expanded.

thanks for confirming my suggestions above. the claim that "maluvia's
belief system leads to an experience in which certain digital data
appears to differ from other digital data" is very different than the
more absolutist claim "certain operations on digital data result in a
different variation in air pressure arriving at maluvia's ear".


> In a healthy evolving being, when experience is found to be inconsistent
> with a belief system, it is discarded for a new, more expansive or
> inclusive set of beliefs, until it, in its own turn is also outgrown.

why not try the experience of a double blind test? you haven't suggested
any test, any experience that any of us can try that would test your
claims. several of us have suggested to you that a double blind test
would test them and would provide you with a new experience that in your
words might be inconsistent with your current belief system.