28 Sep
2007
28 Sep
'07
2:03 a.m.
Gordon JC Pearce <gordonjcp(a)gjcp.net> sez:
On Tue, 2007-09-25 at 19:31 +0200, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
That's pretty freaking funny. Reminds me of the Penn and Teller where
they sell the diners in a trendy restaurant water from a garden hose
on the patio. haha http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc it's
really funny stuff; worth watching if you have a couple minutes.
Incidentally, I get my water from a mountain spring up the road (can't
do much better than that, eh?), although I *have* bought a bottle of
two of Evian in my day :)
As for the double blind audio test, I reckon you guys have all seen
the new AES journal by now (if not, go to your mailbox). There is a
double-blind test where people were played DVD-A and SACD's, but some
of them were passed through an extra A/D/A stage at 16bit-44.1khz.
There was something like a 50% success rate in choosing the audio
source correctly.
Maybe it *is* all in my head...?
Although, I wonder if ear training has anything to do with it. I'm
super dorky sometimes, and I used to mix multitrack projects to
different bit-depths/sample-rates and then try to train myself to hear
the differences between them. hahaha, I figure most people don't do
that sort of thing...
~Maitland
A nice variation on this theme occured years ago
at an AES conference.
The speaker wanted to demonstrate that 'digital' sound was crap, by
using the familiar 'push down the extended arm' test. Test persons
listening to analog sound could easily resist, while they lost all
force when listening to a digital recording.
What the speaker didn't know was that the PA system used to play the
tracks was fully digital...
I once helped prepare the equipment for a double-blind test of speaker
cables. All the golden-eared audophiles picked out one cable as being
far superior to the others, with better clarity and definition in the
upper harmonics and tighter more defined bass or some such bollocks.
I did have to buy my Mum a new extension lead for her lawnmower, though.
Sixty feet of Black and Decker's finest, with Speakon plugs soldered to
it.
Gordon