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Don't usually hang around CA, so late to the party: "Linear powered rips sound better".

208.47.202.254
Posted on December 11, 2014 at 12:36:17
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 Actually, it's "Linear Powered Rips & flash drives sound better".

And, for full measure, another link referenced in that thread, on pretty much similar subject, from recording perspective:

http://www.johnvestman.com/digital_myth.htm

Would be really interesting to investigate.

 

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RE: Don't usually hang around CA, so late to the party: "Linear powered rips sound better"., posted on December 11, 2014 at 13:31:18
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 Yes actually a very good thread...

 

With the exception, of course, ....., posted on December 11, 2014 at 13:35:18
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 ... for naysayers who try to derail the discussion.

Incidentally, it's many of the same people who make pile-ons on JRiver/JPlay threads, with the "JPlay piggy-backing on JRiver..." idiocies.

 

RE: With the exception, of course, ....., posted on December 11, 2014 at 13:47:02
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 Yes it is usually the same flat earth crowd.

 

RE: Don't usually hang around CA, so late to the party: "Linear powered rips sound better"., posted on December 11, 2014 at 13:59:53
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 Hey, at least there is no TOS #8 on CA. :-)

I read this recent thread. The posters are probably hearing something real. However, they haven't conducted a controlled experiment so they don't have any way of reliably allocating their "cause" to the sonic differences. There could easily be other factors affecting what they heard.

A similar case involves converting a WAV file to FLAC and then back to WAV. People have said that the second WAV file sounded different. No doubt it did, but the two files had different names and were stored in different locations. And when listened to, the listener wasn't in the same mood the second time, ... This is one case that I did investigate and I did find a plausible cause, because it turns out that quite often the second WAV file had different bits in it than the first one. The audio samples were always the same, but the file headers differed. This could easily have caused the player software to behave differently.


Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 11, 2014 at 14:16:10
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 1. Rip 10 different tracks using standard drive
2. Rip the same tracks, using drive powered by quality PS
3. Ask an assistant (wife) to rename the tracks to X1.wav and X2.wav etc., without me being aware which is which, taking note at the same time
4. Copy all to music PC
5. Listen to all, trying to determine preference, and taking notes

If 8 or more out of 10 sound better one way than another - I'll consider the case closed.

 

RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 11, 2014 at 19:20:08
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 You are on the right track. But you are not quite there. The problem is that one set of rips would be done earlier than the latter and this might be reflected in the way they got written onto the PC. (For example, the drive might have become fragmented during the course of operations.) I suggest you have your wife randomize the file names first on the original drive. Then you can copy the files in order of file name on to a second drive. Then have her randomize the file names a second time. And then copy them onto a third drive. And then you can do the listening. If you get 8 out of 10 then you will have some traction with me. But then there will be more experiments that can be done to weed out alternative scenarios.

Note: you had best reformat all the drives involved prior to this experiment. And no solid state drives, or spinning rust drives that have any revectored sectors, either. The SSDs are hopeless, because of the revectoring that goes on under the name of "wear leveling". If you were to copy the files into a RAM disk that would be best. Make sure that each file resides on the RAM disk for a minute or two, so that it will be refreshed many times before you listen. You can color me paranoid if you like, but I retain the memory of a high school physics experiment that was supposed to measure acceleration of gravity that ended up measuring the power line frequency.

I could not use my wife for my audio experiments. She explained that she could hear the differences between the amplifiers I was listening to, but she thought it was irrelevant. She told me she could care less about the sounds, rather she was concerned with what the musicians were thinking during the performance. She was a musician, not an audiophile.




Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 11, 2014 at 19:48:53
Sprezza Tura
Audiophile

Posts: 4585
Location: New York City
Joined: August 24, 2012
 God bless your wife Tony. She was a wonderful pianist. But god has forsaken (computer) audiophiles. :)

 

RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 11, 2014 at 20:24:19
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 Thank you.

I am a music lover, and a musician lover where one particular musician was concerned. :-) I do not believe that God has forsaken anyone, not even computer audiophiles or the denizens at Hydrogen Audio.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 12, 2014 at 07:57:53
Sprezza Tura
Audiophile

Posts: 4585
Location: New York City
Joined: August 24, 2012
 Well, maybe it is true god has not forsaken anyone..:)...but he sure has provided a living hell for many computer 'philes.

 

A traction with you would be nice... but my main concern is traction with ME., posted on December 12, 2014 at 08:43:17
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 Thus, rules can be greatly simplified :-)

 

RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 12, 2014 at 10:11:34
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 Karma is a bitch.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 17, 2014 at 12:55:46
Abstraction
Audiophile

Posts: 78
Location: Upstate New York
Joined: October 15, 2007
 Tony, what you say about mood from one listening to another is, I think, overlooked. Music will not sound the same if you listen to it twice. On the second listening, you might might find the music boring, or, on the second listening, you might hear something that you didn't hear first time through. I do not mean that you hear a flute or something that was otherwise obscured; I mean you might suddenly understand the musical idea in a more interesting way. Or you might start thinking that such an experiment is a nerve-wracking and unpleasant idea, and you can't hear the music at all.

Some days my system sounds great; some days it doesn't. It has to do with me and my mood. It's wildly subjective, and the double-blind testing doesn't control for the subjectivity. I think the way to get around the problem is to talk about the music and not the sound.

Living in NYC and listening mostly on recordings to musicians whom I frequently hear live, I find that the thing that recordings cannot reproduce is the sense, when you listen to live music, that you will never hear it again.

 

RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 17, 2014 at 12:59:03
Abstraction
Audiophile

Posts: 78
Location: Upstate New York
Joined: October 15, 2007
 And my previous posting is, I think, one possible interpretation of the meaning that Karma is a bitch.

 

RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it:, posted on December 17, 2014 at 16:55:44
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 I couldn't agree with you more. (I've posted about this before.) We are not the same person the second time we hear a recording or the second time see a beautiful woman. However, if you are concerned about how your system creates airwaves in your room there are ways that you can conduct experiments that control for memory. If you are not well trained and practiced and have excellent concentration and personal discipline, the necessary procedures will not be very efficient, especially if you are tempted to give up and conclude, "Everything sounds the same."

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

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